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Malia Jan 2014
You’re a thorn in my side, but at the same time that
You’re stabbed into my skin,
You’re also making my sides split in laughter:
You’re so funny when you remind me that
I’m the one who forced you  into my side,
That I could very well pluck you out and throw you down but
I’d always go back to that spot on the ground where I dumped you,
Picking you up and pricking you back in
As we laugh together at my pain.
Malia Nov 2013
Loving you is like waking up on dull mornings,
Lying in bed trying to keep my dreams from fading,
Like trying to grasp handfuls of fog in my fists
And feeling you slip through my fingers,
Not knowing how to hold you,
Or if you’re even made to be held.
Malia Nov 2013
While you **** him,
I keep ******* other girls,
Waiting for the one day
I can finally *******.
Malia Oct 2013
Mom,
I keep wondering how long you’ll keep loving me.
Sure, you’ll always keep loving me with words
But I wonder, will you love me in action when I’m
No longer your pretty girl?
Will you still love me when the lover I bring home
Has smooth curves and red lips and soft skin like mine?
Will you still love me when I’m the groom, she’s the bride,
When she wears the dress and I'm in the tie?
Will you still love me when your family starts to stare?
When I’m with her will you still dare to take me out and
Pin me up like I’m your trophy to share?
I know, Mom, I know you will always love me with words,
But when your love is inactive, "I love you" starts to hurt.

I keep wondering how long you’ll keep loving this “pretty girl,”
Instead of the girl that is blatantly standing, and staring,
Right in front of you.
Malia Oct 2013
So I’m cleaning out my closet, and I find this box. It reminds me of when I was a child.
I remember this box: it’s full of photographs,
Of these beautiful landscapes and the world that surrounded them.
I can remember a time when I used to live in this closet,
When I used to take these photos out and look at them,
Wondering where these beautiful places could
Possibly be, I’d thought that they were just paintings.
When I was a child, I thought like a child; I’d been born in my closet and didn’t know
There could be anything else.
I was happy, and I had everything I thought I needed: The pictures were nice to look at, there were other boxes full of trinkets and toys, there were four closed walls, and there was even a nice-smelling carpet for me to sleep on–
The closet was my home.

I’m cleaning out my closet, and I can’t believe I actually used to live in here.
I used to think that those were clouds stuck to the ceiling, but really
They’re just spiderwebs.
The carpet didn’t smell nice or home-y, it smelled musty and *****,
And god, there was so much ***** **** in here.
Back then, as I grew, the closet didn’t. I can’t believe that I used to think I fit in here,
That I used to sleep curled up in a knot on this hard, grainy excuse for a carpet.
Back then, as I grew, my trinkets and toys started to lose their virginity,
And that box of beautiful pictures that I used to stare at, and dream of, and imagine about
Started to irritate me.
Those places weren’t real. Staring at them made me feel sick,
As if there could be beautiful places somewhere in the world that I couldn’t already see,
I’d studied every inch of my closet, my closet was the world.
The closet was alone.

I didn’t even know that there was a door to the closet until one day, it opened.

I don’t know who did it; maybe it was God, maybe it was the wind, but all I know is that
Light flooded in.
I remember standing up for the first time in years,
Slinking towards the light and out of the door to find
A bedroom, and a window, and doors that lead to new places,
And the beautiful landscapes from the photographs?
I could see them from the window of my bedroom.
They were were in my backyard, and so was the rest of the world,
It was mine for the taking.
But I became so overwhelmed by the visuals, by the brightness and realness and colors
That I shivered, closed myself back in, locked the closet door,
And then I was angry.
Why didn’t anybody come tell me?
Why didn’t anybody ever knock on my door?
Why was no one ever there to tell me there was a world? Who put me in this closet? Can anybody  hear me?
It was too much too soon and I punished myself for not knowing,
Figured being in the dark forever was better than knowing what it was like outside,
I made it twenty years without daylight,
Might as well do twenty more.

The closet was worse than ever before,
And I hated it there, I wanted out, but what could be out there?
It was safer here, dark, cold, clammy, cornered, instead of
Open, airy, vast, promising, no!—promises can be broken,
And what if there were people out there? I’d have to explain where I’d been all this time,
And then, all of a sudden,
I was tired.

With the door still closed, I sat on the floor and faced the wall.
I lost track of time. Twenty years, or until I fell asleep for good, whichever came first,
That is, until I felt the door open up behind me.
I felt the Light against my back and cowered from it,
“I just want to be alone, it’s not real, it’s not real,” I said.
I was scared, but the Light began to
Warm my skin.
I turned around to face the open doorway,
I stood upon a higher ground, and I realized that the old box of pictures
Still sat by my feet.

When I stood up, I realized: these portraits and landscapes of beauty and nature and peace,
I’ve always had these.
I’ve always known what it was like outside,
I didn’t need anybody to set me free.
All I needed was me.

I’m cleaning out my closet, and I’m glad I’m outside.
I’m glad I found my home,
And my backyard, full of wonderful places.
I no longer have to wonder where such beautiful places could be,
And I’m never going back in there.
I’m finally free.
Malia Oct 2013
Pointlessness, emptiness, nothingness—
All are still words.
Malia Oct 2013
“Just comply with a smile,” he says.
It’s as if he owns you.
To comply means “to act in accordance with a command.”
Commands are what you give to a dog.
That isn’t what you are—for one second, don’t believe that that’s what you are, my friend,
But what he implies is that you are.
Comply.
Submit.
Lie down.
Don’t move.
Shut your eyes.
Stop breathing.
“But smile while you die,” he says.
And you say “yes” because you love him,
But love is not mean to take life,
It’s meant to give.

Say no.
SAY NO.
And make him believe it when you say it.
Breathe again,
Open your eyes,
Move,
Stand,
Shout
REFUSE.
And make him believe it when you say it.

He needs you. He needs you and he hates it about himself.
He needs you and you are woman and woman is the opposite of masculine so
He hates you.
Or at least he acts like he hates you, but really
He loves you.
And maybe he feels unworthy of your love, sweet, unconditional love, so he pushes, fights, quarrels, hits
It all out of you.
Reflects his unworthiness on you.
Doesn’t want to melt, to sink, to unravel, to be loved
To be taken into your arms and held and told, “it’s okay

to be weak.”

so he tells You, “just comply with a smile.”
he tells You to be weak so that he is strong,
or at least he thinks that he is.
really his strength is a projection of the anger that he is
human,     mortal,     weary,     going to fade,
and he’s angry that he’s not the hero of some fictional story—
FICTIONAL story—
where the man who destroys life is the one who lives forever.

what the world needs is not heroes and their damsels in distress.
what the world just needs is Humans.

You are a Human, my friend,
Of the softest and sweetest variety.
And humans deserve to feel loved but it is not Your responsibility to
Love him.
He will go out looking for love when he realizes he’s worthy of it,
When he stops hating himself so much that he
Kills others.
And you cannot wait for that to happen.

Smile, my friend, but smile because You want to,
Not because he wants You to comply like the kicked down & scared little dog that he feels like.
He wants You to feel trapped because he is trapped,
But You are not.
Your capability to love, and love endlessly, is what makes You free.

Smile, my friend, and say no.
Breathe again,
Open your eyes,
Stand,
Shout,
Live,
And be free.
Please, be free.
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