letters to the person i was (Edited Font)
Page 2
and you wanted to play doctor anyway.
you wanted an awakening
but for who?
you wanted an awakening
but i don't know which one of you
needed it most.
05/12/2009
sometimes i think
i'm running out of things to tell you
but this book isn't finished yet
and i know that because
something in me still aches
and i don't know if it's you
screaming
“why didn't you warn me”
over and over
until my heart tries to wrap arteries
around itself
until it can't beat anymore
so i feel you
somewhere
and when i do
my tongue swells up with words
and i sit down
ready to write you these letters
but sometimes
they get caught in all my worry
because i don't know
what hearing these words will do to you.
i just hope they find you
safely
peacefully
and at a time
when you're searching for them
in everyone but yourself.
05/22/2009
i don't know what love is
but i keep talking
like i do.
writing poems
and metaphors
like love's been ingrained in me.
but it hasn't
and i really have no clue.
funny
isn't it?
i'm here and still unsure
and you're there
acting like you know
but you don't.
we don't.
at least not yet.
06/02/2009
your life's starting to look like
a black and white rubik's cube.
like no matter the algorithm
no matter how sure you are
that you've made the right moves
and calculated every consequence
you still won't know
how far you've come.
you still won't know
if you've made any progress
or if you've taken any steps back.
so now you're left
trying to figure out how to
solve a puzzle
when all the pieces blur into one another.
09/18/2009
when it's so loud
that you can't even hear
anything
because every thought
comes with so much noise
that your ears can't handle
can't process
can't even begin to understand
and you don't want them to anyway
because
no good can come from understanding
because
these thoughts
they're no good
in the first place
but it's loud
it's loud
and nothing makes it quiet
but her
and him
but they're loud
too
and you don't know what to do.
11/05/2009
and with a mind
that looks a little bit like
a forest fire
that leaves a little more damage
than a tsunami
that ruins a few more lives
than an earthquake
he'll still look at you
and see
the abandoned building
you used to drive to
in the middle of the night
just so you could see the stars
a little more clearly.
he'll look at you
and somehow
see an entire orchestra
loud
but so damn quiet.
and he'll smile
almost as if to say
“after every rainstorm
will always come relief.”
and you'll look back at him
and think
“but you are my relief.
so what does that make me?”
12/12/2009
write
read
delete
words are safe
or at least they used to be
now they're wood
strong enough to build
soft enough to burn
kind of like you
but a little more soft
and a little less strong
kind of like the home
you keep tearing down
because it never feels right
never feels like it should
never feel like you should.
write
read
delete
let your eyes talk this time
at least they can't start wildfires
at least a home only you can see
can't come apart
write
read
delete
delete
delete
always delete.
02/19/2010
you walk into an empty room
and the walls whisper and stare
because they think your loneliness is contagious.
it probably is.
cut.
next.
you walk into your childhood home
and the floor shakes in fear
because it thinks you're back for blood.
you are.
cut.
next.
you open your old journals
and the words hide behind your doodles
because they think you've finally grown a backbone.
you haven't.
cut.
next.
you're getting older
and the years are stalling
because they know you're afraid
of the future.
someone cut.
someone call next.
02/21/2010
they'll turn you into sacred
like the empty cathedrals you'll visit
when you turn 17
on the road trip you take to nowhere.
like the locket you wear around your neck
that they call holy.
but they only want to watch you burn.
they'll turn your divine
into a garden of flames
listen to you choke on the smoke
as it fills your lungs.
they'll call you sacrificial
they'll ask you to thank them
for your burns
to thank them
because they'll say you needed
to feel the fire
because the world is an inferno.
they'll say they prepared you
for what's yet to come.
and they might have
but don't thank them for it.
03/30/2010
this is the letter you'll write
but never send.
my advice?
send it.
“mom
i'm tired
of wanting things in life
that can never be mine
of leaving chaos behind me
&nb
sp; because i can't
ever seem to stay
long enough
to clean it all up.
mom
i wish
i'd listened to you
i wish
i hadn't seen this much
of the world
i wish
i'd let you protect me
because you tried
my god did you try.
what do i do?
how do i get over this?
mom
why didn't you make me listen?
i know you said these words
but why the hell didn't i listen?”
05/25/2010
remember the feeling of
“i've got too much happiness and
my pockets are too small
to hold it all”?
the days where you came home to
your superhero mom in the kitchen
stepping over sprawled legos
from the night before.
remember the feeling of
“i've got too much love and
my small hands can't carry it all”?
the days where you sat on your father's lap
when he came home from work
just to get a better look
at his smile
because it's always brighter up close.
but i bet you won't remember
how
in some way
somewhere
over the years
these feelings got mixed up with
“i have bags and bags of emptiness and
i can't find what i'm looking for.”
06/12/2010
your heart keeps landing
in the hands of people
who have a bad habit of
taking it
whether you offer or not
chewing it up
until it's something
you no longer recognize
spitting it out
and telling you
it just wasn't quite what they were
looking for.
06/14/2010
you've been trying to find
a dictionary definition
for the word
toxic
because it seems to be stamped
all over your life
and everyone in it
and i thought you knew what it meant
i thought you memorized it
studied its meaning
and wrote journals and reviews
on the way it's come to life
and you did
you did
but you haven't learned a thing
because you still seem to be a magnet
for everything toxic
and i'm starting to think
it's because
you've been studying this word
like it's a window
when it's been a mirror
all along.
08/01/2010
and it's funny because
i don't know
if i want to write this one anymore
not the poem
or the chapter
but the whole damn book
and every time i feel this way
i tell myself
“this is what you've become
someone who can never finish anything
who jumps so deep into everything
only to realize you can't even swim
so to save yourself
you drown everyone who jumped with you
and this is why love
and everything else
always feels like dying.”
03/27/2011
you can't find a way
to make love sit comfortably
in your mouth
kind of like when
you've been chewing gum for too long
and your tongue
doesn't know where to put it anymore.
you've been chewing love for too long
and it tastes a little different
every day
but never quite right.
you can never seem to figure out
what to do with it
when you have it
and when you don't
it's the only thing you crave.
03/29/2011
love runs out.
but in ways you wouldn't expect.
kind of like when you finally get to bed
after a day of giving
too much time
too much energy
too much you
and your body falls into itself
trying to recall where it all went
how you spent it
and why you weren't more responsible.
love runs out.
i wish i could tell you it didn't
but you can only give so much
before you're walking around town
with too many i-owe-yous to count.
trust me.
i'm still paying off my debts.
04/23/2011
you always wonder why everyone
speaks louder than you
why they're more full of calendars
and hope.
and you wonder
whether or not they know about
how the world will ruin them
how some mountains can never be moved
and how some people can never be changed.
and you worry because
you know someone needs to break it to them
but you don't want to see their faces
when they hear about the venom
that sometimes lives where happiness should
and you worry because
you don't want to hear their quietness
when they learn about all the people
who pretend to have warm hearts
just to lure you in
and watch you play with fire.
you don't want to be the one
to break it to them
and i never wanted to be the one
to break it to you either.
but if i didn't
who would?
and if you don't
who will?
05/03/2011
you collect words
like someone's got your tongue
as if you don't have any of your own
and can't speak for yourself.
but you can and you know it.
you keep collecting words
like poetry isn't your first language
as if you don't think in metaphors
and can't use your pen
to make them feel.
but you can and you know it.
you collect words
but i wish you would stop
because if your emptiness
is filled with these things
then where are you going to go
with the pieces of yourself that you leave
in everything you write?
what are you going to do
when you flip through old journals
to take back what they stole?
05/14/2011
what if i told you that life isn't
two roads diverged in a yellow wood
that instead it's one big casino
where you either lose
everything you have
or everything you are
; like a poker game
with a rigged deck of cards
and a face that tells more
than your mouth ever could.
what if i told you that
you could speak
until your words
slur into one another
until your lungs
beg you for a break
and they still won't hear you
won't listen
to a thing you have to say
but somehow
still criticize your silence.
what if i told you that life isn't
two roads diverged in a yellow wood
that there is no path less travelled
and that instead
life's a cheat
a player with cards up its sleeves
and you are new to this
and you don't stand a chance.
06/17/2011
i think i'm dying again
but you don't have to worry
i still need to write you these letters
so you don't think it's the end
when you wake up to a tug-of-war match
between your lungs and the air around you.
you don't have to worry
because it isn't really dying
if they say it's in your head right?
like if you kill a character
in those stories
you never let anyone read
is it really murder?
is this really dying?
or is this more like the sound a tree makes
when it falls in an empty forest
but does this still count as a riddle
if you're the one who cut the tree down
or if your screams drown out the sound?
i think i'm dying again
but you don't have to worry.
the forest is nowhere near empty
every version of who i am
since you
is here
there are hundreds of me
but i still can't tell you my last name
or where i came from
or where i'm going.
i think i'm dying again.
after caitlyn siehl's “noah”
08/08/2011
sometimes you catch glimpses of broken
kind of like the way the light
shines through closed blinds
forceful and persistent.
you're forceful and persistent
or at least you're trying to be
but this broken
keeps getting in the way.
sometimes you feel a type of tiredness
that makes its way into your mind.
i imagine it comes in a glass-bottom boat
through your veins
taking breaks every now and then
getting lost in parts of you
that aren't really part of you