significance
acknowledging
message to you
love never lived here
matter over mind
everything BLACK
save yourself
acknowledging
you
were the definition of
what a man
father
and a friend
should be.
you
always making something out of nothing possible
you taught me to be in tune with my feelings
but not to be overwhelmed.
you
taught me to be selfless
and to refrain
from treating people
the way they treated me.
you
made sure my eyes were wide open
and ensured my heart was always pure.
There is no amount of thank-yous
worthy enough
to explain the honor i feel
not only to have known you
but to be a portion of everything you were.
you
are the reason i know happiness is not only possible
but achievable.
- i dedicate this to you
Grandfather
thank you.
for believing in me.
ode to the hearts
in need of healing
message to you
dear beautiful soul
i know this thing called life is really hard
it’s
interesting
to say the least
I want you to know that
i believe in you
i want you to know that
you are amazing
i know that you are beautiful
i know a lot of times
family
friends
and all of the relationships in between
want you to stay strong
i want you to know
that it’s ok if you can’t be
however
i pray
we
can find a way to
t o g e t h e r.
from here on out.
i knew that i could fly
well
at least i thought i could.
that was until someone from the distance
yelled for me to get down
you’ll hurt yourself
they said but i knew
if i let go
i would be alright
i knew that if
i took the first step
i’d be soaring through the sky . . .
did you hear me? i said get down!
it’s as if i could feel them coming.
i knew they were upset
who was i to tell them to let go?
be brave
strong
and confident
who was i to tell them to believe?
after all they’ve been here much longer than i have.
they’ve experienced things
that i’m still imagining.
so i decided maybe they were right
and got down.
- dear adolescent
you are wrong
believing that you can fly
is only the beginning.
love never lived here
some say
if it doesn’t hurt
it can’t be love
but
if it does
you
shouldn’t want it anyway
you
looked like everything
i ever wanted
beautiful brown eyes
nice smile
body soft
like sheepskin
i
was mistaken
when nighttime struck
your eyes lit up under the moon
and you
howled through the night
only then did i realize
you
had been pretending
- wolf in sheep’s clothing
it’s funny
how easily the monster in my head
can cuddle me
so softly
while lying in my bed.
i realized
i am nothing with you
even though
i
still
want to stay
i am
waiting
at the end of the promise
you
forgot you made.
do you know what it feels like?
to constantly get pushed out
while
being asked to stay?
only you
telling me that i’m beautiful
as if i’ve never heard it before
only you
giving me everything
i’m looking for
again.
- new bae
being with someone else
doesn’t always feel like
a new start.
i prayed
you
would be my one and only
and you were.
however
for her
you were the same
- the other woman
the problem wasn’t
me belonging to you
it was that
you
never belonged to me.
i stayed longer
longer than i should have
trying to teach you how to love me
when i
didn’t even know
what that meant.
i cried myself to sleep while
you
lay next to me
unbothered
unaware
and
uninterested.
i tucked myself in again that night
and told myself
i didn’t need a goodnight kiss
or empty i love yous
because dreams will be had
regardless of this nightmare.
the more i listen to myself
the closer
i am
to the truth.
trust the voice your gut is pulling from
- instinct
you
are the prettiest bouquet
of dying flowers
i
have ever seen.
i
like a fool
stayed
waiting for the day
you
would do something different
i
was exhausted
slowly beginning to realize
we couldn’t be
because
i couldn’t find the balance
of loving you
while holding on
to me.
i
loved myself first
and even then
they
didn’t love me back
we
have been back at square one
at least
one hundred
times a
lready.
- starting over
don’t stay feeling sorry for me
i’ve been in so many pieces
enough times
to know how to put myself together again.
- pity
attempting to make something a whole
of two halves
isn’t impossible
it just isn’t common
with what we are doing
- broken hearts
i tried to forgive the lies you told
but
your smile
makes me remember
- trust issues
i expected you to fix me
failing to realize soon after
you left
i
would still be broken.
and
the main reason i left
was because you
expected me to stay
here i am
loving something so deeply
and desperately wanting it back
although
if i had it
i wouldn’t have known what to do with it anyway
you
missing me more than you have ever loved me.
- irony
go ahead
talk about me in the worst way imaginable.
just try to forgive yourself
afterwards.
i’m sorry
sounds a lot like
forgive me
but
it’s really meant to mean
i’ll do it again.
not only is it harder
it’s almost
impossible to forgive someone
who expects to be forgiven
again.
i decided
i didn’t want to be a pawn anymore
but
how else would i win
if i didn’t sacrifice
pieces of myself.
- love in the name of chess
because what did love feel like
if it wasn’t abuse anyway
when you left
i didn’t cry because i was broken
i cried
because i survived
you
tried to leave pieces of me
scattered in places i’d never think to check
but i
discovered them anyway
beneath the tear-stained pillowcases
we slept on
the morning mugs
you often placed your lips on
in the shower
as suds replaced your kisses
and
in my heart
where most of them remained
because scattered or not
they didn’t belong to you
and
they would have found their way back to me
anyway.
believe me
i will go on living
just as i was
before we met
i
will not allow this
to make me feel
as though i
can’t
there are
pieces of me
living within people who once held my heart
pieces of me that i never want back
not because i’d need them
to feel whole
but because i gave them away
so someone else could.
and when it was over
i came up gasping for air
as if i’d forgotten how to breathe
- the breakup
love
changed me
it made me feel like
i should be second
it made me forget
i had needs
it made me compromise myself
and ultimately
it broke my heart
you told me to swallow my tongue
not literally of course
but you made it impossible
to speak
without being interrupted
without sounding like i was not smart enough
without ever feeling like
you
were listening
and so
i ate it.
you let the perception of love
abuse you
after raising
nurturing
and most times
stepping completely outside of your being
simply handing yourself over
all because
you
believed
you
found it
so busy being
everything
to no one
that mattered enough
to tell me that
i am
everything.
and just like that
e v e r y t h i n g
about you suddenly changed
the way you looked
the way you talked
and even your actions
because i
no longer cared.
me
attracting people who need me
but don’t know how to treat me
simply because
i
haven’t stayed consistent
and faithful
to myself long enough
to be found
by someone who does.
treating someone the way they treated you
doesn’t prove how badly you were hurt
instead, it’ll prove
how long it takes for you to heal.
you do not feel this bad on your own.
learn to hold people accountable
for how they make you feel.
matter over mind
everyone loves to talk about a sad woman
as if she
doesn’t have a journey
a message
as if she
isn’t a walking testimony
as if she
will never be happy again.
and
if your heart says feel everything,
that’s EXACTLY what you do.
being broken is a matter of opinion
you
attracting people who need you
but
don’t know how to treat you
simply because
you
haven’t stayed consistent and faithful
to yourself
long enough to be found
by someone who does.
i don’t want to remember the pain
h o w e v e r
i also can’t seem to forget
never stop talking about your journey
there will be people who don’t understand that
it isn’t about wanting to stay hurt
it’s always about trying to figure out
how not to be.
it was hard
understanding that eventually
it would stop
eventually it wouldn’t be
so cold
i knew it would be beautiful
but somehow it seemed like it would never end.
- the coldest winter
i am not allowed
to call myself different
when there’s a word
for what i h
ave.
- depression
i kept going
not because i wanted to
trust me, all of me wanted to stop.
i kept going
because i deserved to know
what not giving up on myself felt like.
your love
cut so deep
pain sharp
like a stencil against my body to trace over
- infliction
i felt like i died
at least a million times over
- modern-day feline
i do the best i can
helping everyone i know become better
while they stick around
watching me become worse
it’s rarely a discussion
we aren’t talking about it as much as we should
however, when someone who suffers
within
mental illness dies
you show up for their funeral
and you can’t believe it actually happened
now they’re floating around
on the internet
in pictures
in videos
in all of these memories
. . .
you care.
right?
and
i’ve convinced myself
that no one would want to be with
someone so sad like me anyway
- idle mind
don’t try to get into my head
becoming. Page 1
