The Evolution: In Poetry

December 2013

Can you remember
When your pale, white wrists were so innocent
So alive
Like a blank slate
Without the drawings that only your blade can create
Can you remember
What it was like
Before your sleeves were constantly long
Before
Your happiness went away?

January 2014

Tuesday Afternoons

“Damn”
I said as I trudged by your hidden presence, in what felt like the coldest and darkest hallway
On a Tuesday afternoon
You looked down at your toes, and pretended I was a speck of dust
And you held your wall up so high, not even Rapunzel’s hair could reach
You are like the moon, always hidden away
Pretending that you swim in fields of pastel flowers and precious butterflies
But in reality, your mind is like hell
And you may ask how I know what hell is like
But maybe I’m already there
WIthout you by my side

February 2014

Movies

Goddamn we were like a movie
Your secrets escaped from your tongue, like they were hidden for a lifetime
You told me your secrets
And I told you some of mine
A year rolled down your cheek as you whispered “thank you”
I said please don’t thank me, I’m not worth your words
And you reached across the music room and touched my heartbeat with your hands
You knew how I was, how bad it could get
You said “Promise?”
I whispered, “Promise.”
But now five months later, my secrets begin to unravel from your cold and stabbing heart
Like your promises meant as much as me
Goddamn f***ing nothing
So don’t you dare roll your heartless words off your tongue once more,
Leaving me breathless, my heart racing, tears rolling down my cheeks
But your secrets kept hidden forever,
Because you mean something,
Even though I mean nothing.

March 2014

When I was a little girl,
Mother would play piggy with me in the bathtub
“This little piggy went to the market
This little piggy had roast beef
This little piggy had none
And this little piggy stayed home”
Mother used to say I was like the little piggies
And now I realize,
I am the piggy that stayed home and had none,
That wants to now drown herself in the bathtub
Because this little piggy’s happiness
Is now undone.

April 2014

You told me I deserved the world
You said that my f***ed up mind makes me special
And you also said that you would show me how amazing I am
I told you my heart was broken
You said maybe I can fix it, with forehead kisses and precious hand rubs
But I think my definitions were a little off back then
Because I’ve never felt so out of this earth
Like I’m on a different planet with scars instead of oceans
And tears instead of countries
So don’t lie and say you can fix me
When your only intention was to break me.

May 2014

He held her hands like they were novocain
And he needed to be numbed
I watched him look at her
As if she were a black hole
And he was a viable reason of destruction
That he needed to fix
And I felt him looking at me
Like I was nothing at all.

June 2014

Someone who cares
Today told me
That if I "hug the railing"
I will find where I want to be
So maybe if I hug the railing
For hours and hours
And days and days
I will find happiness
I will find the one I love
And I will find who I want to be.

July 2014

A mix of solutions on a chalkboard lab table
Or the final piece to the puzzle
Whose mystery of seeking the great unknown was engraved into your skull
Does this mix of mysterious solutions
Make me ache with lust for days on end?
Or could it be
That the natural stroke of your hands
With my head blooming inside with flowers
Nuzzled into your muscular shoulder
Like I finally completed the mysterious picture
Of the great unknown
We never questioned the great unknown before this
Because the flaw of chemistry in my mind and yours
Always seemed to be setting on fire
In all the wrong ways

August 2014

Lost and Found

Charcoal filled grills and coffee stained mugs
with distinctly patterned couch cushions
and ash trays with limited timelines written all over
the ceramic pattern that hugged your forgotten nicotine
while cuddling up with a glass of scotch
that seemed to drop all of your worries
in such a mesmerizing way
maybe it was the parting of my lips
that made you question your decision
to drown yourself in the painted picture
of a future of a failed liver and charcoal lungs
I always wondered how you could carefully tie a tie
in such an intricate way
with a bottle of scotch engrossed in your veins
and a cigarette with your time of death written in fine print
so when i start to feel my veins and mind aching
for the color of death
I begin to lose myself in a photograph of you
with a carefully tied tie and well combed hair
and as I pull myself back into the reality
of your absence
I start to wonder
how could a person so lost
be so found
in all the wrong ways

September 2014

Ecstasy tongues
Pen stained skin
Chipped polish we wish would stay forever
Neon colors clashing
with adulthood
Embraced with ecstasy at the age of 15
And the simple, seductive shake of hips
With lion eyed boys
Grazing the room of broken hearted adolescents
Searching for a tongue to kiss with fake ecstasy
Sold by cunning college kids
Looking for a laugh
I kissed you
With the thought of him
And dealt you every drug
He ever gave me

October 2014

If it’s Tuesday night
and Calculus homework is shining red flashes on your skin
But the tear ducts in your eyes
cannot seem to comprehend
Anything but tissues and coursed breathing
Do not stop.
Put down those goddamn tissues, and rub those salted tears
on skin that smells of lavender
Rub off that orange mask and waterproof eyeliner
Drown yourself in salted skin and rooftop fetishes, not in him.
Chilled air will dry you out.
But remember, it can help you breathe again.
So for however long you need, on suburban rooftops with only streetlights to guide and remind you,
the deepness in your lungs and the loss of feeling due to bare skin
Will strip you of suburban legends, and a human will be reborn.

November 2014

Corners

Color coded m&m’s
That you dumped onto the wooden coffee table
Telling countless anecdotes
So nobody would notice
Peripheral visions of mine are 20/20
My lips parted silently
But friction was against all odds of human nature
Your symmetrical absence of fingernails
Screamed winter air
Through your geometrical patterned lock screen and repetitive basketball tees
I imagine a closet filled with dusty sweaters and unironed slacks
Each basketball tee folded to your standard of perfection
For each day of the week
My mouth whispered OCD;
Your presence screamed:
You can’t fix me.

December 2014

Separation

Soulmates
Mates of the soul
Placed on this Earth to find each other
Too many people that aren’t in love are together
While too little people that are infatuated with one another
Are simply and complexly...separated
According to Buddha,
Soulmates don’t weaken at the knees and shake at the thought and presence of one another
Their knees lock, their hands pour a cup of tea and create a world that cannot be understood
by outsiders
Too many people love without being loved,
I spilled my coffee too many times.
You were not love; you were pain
Romanticized by me too many goddamn times.

January 2015

Petals

As you peel back each petal
And realize that not all deceased are dead inside
I hope your fingers graze softness
Like innovation was knocking on your front door
And that chemical changes
Often reveal the strongest
So push back those black and white damask curtains
All the way until out of your sight
And remember that direct sunlight often heals you, it just kills materialistic dreams
Leave those broken petals on the hardwood floor
And let it swallow your old poetry
Like SAT prep books and teenagers
Let those petals see a new world
Just when theirs is ending
And try to tell me how the ending of something
Can’t be so goddamn beautiful.

February 2015

Attachments, Detachments

I’ve met walking sobriety pins and skiers
That tell me winter burns their skin with windburn and frostbite
In the most radiant light
Winter.
You haunt me around every corner
Trees turn white
And I miss yellow in shades
That don’t appear only on snow banks and traffic lights
At 4 am
Cold as ice chimneys grow
Bouquets overflowing
And never seem to die or give out
I’d kill for golden hair and frozen mangoes
Filled with summer flings that I continuously must define to him
I’m not trying to wait for things
I don’t need him to tell me I’m as beautiful as the Louvre
But I’d be lying if I said frostbite didn’t burn
I wear my own sweatshirt nowadays
I love the mix of perfume and fire.
Maybe
I always have.

March 2015

Creations

You were not created to hate yourself
And everything around you
Maybe your parents gazed at the beautiful sunset
And said “let’s create something beautiful just while something is ending”
You were created with fire and passion
Your voice was not produced to quiet down and sound more approachable
Mountains are present to support your screams, to yell right back
Trees are grown for climbing and oxygen
Snow falls, waiting for your angelic movements
Suburban houses block your view of the sunset, just waiting for your stance.
Stand up, look at the sunset, snowboard down mountaintops,
Surf endless waves, go skydiving,
And change the world.
Create something.
Do it with passion.
Be something.

April 2015

Have you ever gone off on a tangent
And lost your point of tangency
Our society has adapted to a culture of planning, knowing the end game
I am engrossed with college packets and emails; telling me I'm amazing through a robotic system
Being generalized by colleges I've never even heard of takes away the meaning of compliments
I'm swimming in a pond of overfed fish caught on bait of GPA standards and AP courses just to seem well rounded
Weekends end before they start
One day I'm released from academic grips, the next I'm already planning for another week of it
We weren't created to constantly plan with ghostly smiles in hallways of overcaffeinated, sleep deprived adolescents
Breaking stereotypes, watching cars pass by timelessly, witnessing trees and flowers being born again -- we were created to live, to create.
So for one minute, let's stop planning and stop reflecting on the past
Because you are only this version of yourself right now at this exact moment, you are building and deteriorating -- colliding with anatomy.
Do things with some goddamn passion, and I swear to the stars - you'll live forever.

May 2015

My mother has always been a runner
Half marathons at mid 50s, she never fails to surprise me
I can pull 3 miles out of me, on a random Tuesday morning
When my legs move faster than my mind
Although I don’t own personalized sneakers and have special playlists,
I am still a runner.
There are two boys.
One, would die for me and wants nothing more than me
The other, is hard.
He is complicated, but he is real; he has the power to break my heart, even though I’ve already tried taping the pieces of myself back together.
I have given him the power, ever since I first locked lips with him
He says he doesn’t want relations, just to move along together
Continuously repeating moments of the past, being borne back ceaselessly
I’ve sat at too many parties on their fine leather couches, waiting for father time to be on my side
And move the clock a thousand times faster
Hoping my sadness will subside, because keystone light and lighters don’t seem to be doing the trick
But I sat there on that Friday night, in my push up bra and poser Lululemon leggings, hoping that you wouldn’t run.
I hoped you would take me out to the garage, steal his lawnmower with me, and do something we remember to tell our grandkids about
Or maybe even my mother, years after when I have a job and an apartment
She would gasp out of awe at my recklessness, laughing out of shock and saying she’s not surprised
She’d say, goddamn, you were really in love, and I’d say,
I sure as hell was.

June 2015

Rock Candy

Cotton candy coloring
With training wheels that kept me grounded
My wings always told me to let go, but even at the age of six
I wouldn’t watch you drown alone
Hands made of nicotine, your eyes were a lighter
I was held in a hand of an unforeseeable future; your last sunrise ticking closely
Self destruction were your mysterious colored water bottles,
but I always helped you cap them.
Pedaling away from your slowed walk and shaky hands,
Spring smacked me in the face, yelling
You can’t fix him.
I looked at the sky --
Screw you,
My best friend said I’m capable of anything and the stars
Abruptly halting right in front of your coursed breathing,
I said I’m no angel
But I sure would have been
If it meant saving you.

July 2015

Sunsets During Mosquito Season

It’s raining outside and I’m scared
Because I just might be falling in love with you
My heart has pleats on its circumference,
Not the kind on pretty dresses and skirts,
The type that makes you wonder why it was left out in the rain,
Why nobody decided to return it to its owner
My baggage is a TjMaxx suitcase I don’t want you carrying
I’d rather tear my rotator cuff than see you see me
hold me
feel me
My mother asked me what being yours is like and all I could think of were sunsets during mosquito season
Not knowing what to do next
but not going inside because yes, I’d save my blood but
would I save myself?
It’s raining outside and I’m scared
Because I took you to my favorite bookshop,
and now you know exactly where to find me.

August 2015

BP Oil Rigs

I am not a generic air conditioner
You picked up on your way home from your 9-5 shift
I don’t automatically fit inside your window
With the view you’ve always wanted of the American Dream
I believe Kurt Cobain has depth that cannot be reached
No matter how many oil rigs BP attempts to tap into
I’m telling you a lot of things that I’m not
Because saying I am
Feels too cliché
For the past three days I’ve debated calling the Suicide Hotline
But I just don’t know what to say besides
I’m sad right now and secret self destruction sounds better than dragging him through my thoughts
I never answer your calls when I’m sad anymore
Because your voicemails tell me to call you whenever, wherever
But I tried calling you in the midst of Algebra class,
and I just didn’t seem to fit the equation.

September 2015

Twin Sized Mattress

September has sprung
And I fear all my leaves are already falling
Courtyards and windows painted paper white
Your reflection is bubble gum kisses and color coded starbursts
I step outside and feel as though all the dead souls are exhaustedly heaving, screaming
“Jesus Christ I’m alone again”
Tomorrow is a start of realness
But I’m scared of throwing up an English paper inside the Library bathroom again
Starin at toilet bowls because I wanted to kill my soul
A little girl lives inside my head
She doesn’t drink wine or dream of post pubescent escapes
If she had the world
She’d wear books but they could never weigh her down
Taking her through coasts $13.95 a piece
Stop and smell the roses - of coffee and old books
And the only discharge you’ll have -
Is light.

October 2015 - Current Time

We wanted to be the sky
With chilled wine on rooftops dancing to Frank Sinatra
We were picnics at the park, so goddamn intimate
While you kissed me senselessly, on a flannel blanket I used to hold with the most precious people
You held my hand, stared intently at the gash and scars and asked me where chemistry decided to betray my trust, what you would do to turn self hatred into lullabies
Jesus I’ve been in love before
But never with the right person
Who looks at me like I’m a product of nature you can’t quite catch on film
I looked at you
With purples and blues and my eyes
And squeezed your hand
Until it turned purple
We may not be the sky,
But we sure as hell have it inside us.

By the end of this, I hope you believe in change. I pray to whatever God there is out there that you’ll picture what was once a depressed, suicidal girl who kissed all the wrong boys and drank all the wrong kinds of beverages, sitting on rooftop edges at 3 am trying to jump but being saved….I hope throughout all of this, you believe in people. Stop apologizing for taking up space, for collapsing into yourself every night, for burning too brightly. That is how galaxies are made: and you, you are a constellation worth witnessing. “Rome is built on ruins and is quite breathtaking; what makes you think you can’t be too?” Love yourself. Care for yourself. And just while you’re at it, find something to live for; the world is a beautiful place, and it’d sure be f***ing different if you were gone.

“Killing yourself is not beautiful. But you, you are beautiful, and it’s about damn time you start believing it.” -anonymous