letters to the person i was (Edited Font)
Page 4
i think you mean
there's something inside your chest
clawing its way out
and in the process
it scratches at the organs under your skin
the ones you need to breathe
and be
and this lump in your throat gathers
ties a knot
and sends an anchor to the bottom
of an ocean inside you that
you're too afraid to swim in
and when you say you feel anxious
i hope you teach yourself how to talk to
this thing inside your chest
how to care for it
instead of yell
and how to pat it on the shoulder
and forgive it for being so restless.
i hope you learn how to
love this part of yourself.
02/07/2013
on days you feel like a tornado
you ask god to give you pain.
you ask god to weaken your spirit a little
so you're no longer this force to be reckoned with
so you're no longer destructive and coldhearted.
you then try to muster up the courage
to ask god why he made you a poet.
why you don't breathe like everyone else
why you don't need air to keep you going
why words are all
that have ever kept you alive.
and you imagine he replies with clouds
sending them all to hover around you
and daring you to make them pour
using nothing but your tongue.
you imagine you can.
on days you feel like a tornado
you ask god to help you settle
to hurt you if it means not hurting them
to make you ruin nothing but yourself
because you know you can get back up
but you worry they can't
if you knock them over too hard.
today you feel like a tornado
and you keep telling yourself that
the pain you've been handed
without even asking this time
is a blessing.
it's a blessing.
it's a blessing.
it has to be a blessing.
02/29/2013
the next time you love
don't drown in him.
don't let him be the saltwater ocean
that makes its way into your lungs
until air doesn't taste good anymore.
don't be gentle either.
don't turn your fingers into hooks
for him to hang up his tired
and don't turn your words into band aids.
don't be the pillow he comes home to
when he needs to empty his head
of all his broken.
the next time you love
don't be giving.
be giving
but not in the ways you have been.
don't give him late night stories
or impromptu poems
unless there's an open road
in front of you
and his hand is holding yours
simply out of habit.
don't be giving.
don't sacrifice parts of you
he doesn't want to keep
because that's not how things work.
it's all or nothing.
the next time you love
don't turn him into a metaphor.
don't play connect the dots
with everything he is
and everything
you want him to be.
he should've already drawn those lines
before he met you
and if he didn't
then just don't fall in love.
the next time you love
don't let him get away with much
because this isn't a game of cops and robbers
that you're trying to drag out until sunset
so you don't have to go home.
you can go home if you want to
whether or not this game ends early.
the loneliness doesn't scare you anymore.
so he either wins or he doesn't.
there's no bending the rules
this time around.
the next time you love
don't
unless you're sure it's really love.
03/05/2013
if love is everything he taught you it was
then i hope you never feel it again.
if love is sacrificing parts of yourself
you never thought you'd live without
or yelling words
you never thought you'd pronounce
at 4:00 in the morning on a weekday
then love just isn't for us.
i don't want to be in love.
i don't want you to be either.
instead
i hope we stay stuck in a state
of worry-less confusion
where all the things we feel
when he's around
get cluttered together
and sadness no longer looks like sadness
and happiness rubs off
on every anxious part of us
like cheap jeans on new leather.
i hope i never fall in love
and i hope you don't either
at least not now.
at least not until
we understand
what love is.
03/31/2013
in this story
you're not a jasmine flower
and he doesn't pretend to know
how to hold you without ripping your petals.
he doesn't dial your number
at 6:00 am
and even if he did
you wouldn't pick up
because you know better.
except this story isn't real
and you do pick up
you always pick up
and he has pretty words
and you are easy to fool
and naive
and you fall
and you keep falling
and you never stick the landing
and it hurts
my god it hurts
but if this story was real
if we pretended
for just a minute
that this story was real
he'd be a trampoline
and you'd be sky high
and the fall wouldn't break you apart
like it always does.
04/23/2013
you touch him
like a highway exists between you
like he's on the other side
maybe in a small blue volkswagen
and you're on foot
walking against traffic
no
scratch that
on rollerblades
skating your way toward him
but for once
this busy city isn't so busy
the roads are clear
and he doesn't check his mirrors.
you touch him
like he's a green light
away from disappearing
like he is the green light
the one that shines across the pier.
05/05/2013
you'll try to write a poem about him
but the only ones you know how to write
are either unrealisticall
y optimistic
or terribly heartbreaking.
but he isn't any of those things.
he isn't a love poem either though.
he's not an evening of journaling
or an early morning banter
between your hands and your tongue.
he's not the strength of your voice
when you perform pieces
you don't even remember writing
and he isn't the silence of your pages
when you try to run away from all the noise.
but he isn't the noise either.
you're going to try to write a poem about him
but he's everything unfamiliar
and you are only just learning
how to stop your knees from buckling
and your hands from shaking
every time you hold something
as breathtakingly unordinary
because you're a klutz
and you always seem to fumble the things
you only ever wanted to hold on to.
so you'll try to learn
how to stop your everything from panicking
every time you hold something
you don't want to fumble.
i know you're a klutz but please
just this time
don't fumble.
05/16/2013
i hope he understands
that sometimes your tongue
turns into a thousand pieces of glass
and you bleed every time you try to speak.
on days like this
you will still try to tell him every story
you can think of
because you like the taste of pain
reminding you that you can break
and you can heal
and you can be
all at once.
there are days where your hands
turn into the twisted cords on old telephones
knotted and tangled in the parts of you
you've been meaning to get rid of
the parts of you
you've been meaning to pack tightly
in boxes labelled donate
but you haven't
and they're still sprawled
on the bedroom floor
mountains of a you
you don't want anymore
mountains of a you
someone else might need
and i hope he understands
it will take time to find the tape
to close up the boxes
to untangle your limbs
to bandage your tongue.
it will take time
and i hope he understands.
06/11/2013
every time you say “forever”
you want to pour bleach
down your throat
because he's not forever
and you're not broken anymore.
08/17/2013
i know you want to be
unmoved by this
unwavering
you want to be the kid
who sticks her tongue to the metal pole
the one who doesn't wear the snow pants
the careless one
i know you want to
place it all between your jaws
let your incisors bite down
spit it out
blood teeth and all
and still
you want to be indifferent.
you want it all to not matter.
you want them to not matter.
but it does
and they do
but you do too.
you matter too.
11/01/2013
your wear happiness
like you wear hand-me-downs:
clearly not yours
and clearly uncomfortable.
you wear it
like you're shopping for something better
like you're just holding on to it
until you don't have to anymore
and you do this because it's unfamiliar
because it's nothing you're used to
because it never fits right
never hugs your shoulders the way it should
or grips your waist the way it should.
the happiness is always one size too big
one size too small
not the right colour
ripped at the seams
and you never learned to sew
or how to tailor these things
into something better
how to dip it all in tie dye
wring it out
and wait for it to dry.
you never learned how to turn happiness
into something that looks good on you.
but you will.
give it some time
and you will.
11/04/2013
you heard her voice once
and remembered a different time.
you remembered water gun fights
and bright red popsicles
lemonade stands that never made a dollar
but somehow always ran out of stock
and night lights
you remembered night lights
and the huge curtain-less window
that was pushed up against your bed
moonlight always sneaking in
to listen to your late-night conversations
laughs concealed in pillows
doors opening too loudly
and then the morning coffee
the morning coffee
that always made you wonder
what it'd feel like
to scrape off taste buds
rearrange them like lego pieces
make them feel like something new.
you heard her name once
and you remembered what it felt like
to be holy
to be pure
to be untouched by sadness
untouched by misery.
you heard her name once
and your wounds started to chant
like a church choir on sunday morning
and they only sang of her.
you heard her name once
and learned
for the first time ever
what it meant to love
what it meant to be so intertwined
in something other than your heartache.
but now
now you hear her name
and shut your eyes
press your palms to your ears
and drown her out.
there's no one left to remember.
there's nothing left to love.
12/26/2013
you hold love in your mouth
like it's contraband
like you've been wrongfully imprisoned
and are forced to carry
razor blades beneath your tongue.
you skip over the word
like mud after a rainstorm
like white shoes and deep puddles
like storm clouds
when the weatherman said otherwise.
you skip over the word like
“where's my raincoat?
have you seen my umbrella?”
like scrambling before work
because you didn't realize
it was going to pour
until you got out there
had to run 2 blocks back
elevator's broken
40 som
ething flights of stairs.
you arrive out of breath
but it doesn't matter anyway
because you're always out of breath
when it comes to him
so your lungs are used to the feeling already
but your heart isn't.
it isn't used to the pounding
the different kind
the one that worsens
every time he smiles
and you're scared
so the first thing you do
is run your tongue
over the weaponry you keep hidden
to remind yourself that you're safe
to reassure your organs
that there's an army in place
that you can fight back if need be
and i'm sure you can
but who taught you that you need to?
who taught you that love is war?
and why do you still believe them?
12/28/2013
not every poem i write is about her.
this one isn't
it's about you
and how there's something wrong
with the way your heart's been beating
because lately
it's been beating in morse code
spells out her name
first and last
and the doctors
haven't figured out why yet.
so i guess this poem is about her
after all
but it's also about you
and how you're
trying to change this rhythm
trying to break free of her song
trying to break free of her hold
trying to forget how gullible you were
telling yourself that you aren't to blame
that you were never the reason
she hurt herself
that she only wanted
to point a finger at you
because she was too afraid
to point it at herself
so now you're trying to heal
by turning into something
that doesn't need someone
into someone that doesn't need her.
and for the first time in a long time
i think it's working.
i think it doesn't faze you anymore.
the lies she told
the blame she gave
the feeling too much
the feeling more than her
the giving
the giving
the giving
and of course
the hurting
goddamn it
the hurting.
but i think it doesn't faze you anymore.
02/22/2016
every poem ive written is missing words
missing meaning.
there's something i'm trying to say