i walk around and i feel like a caricature of myself
playing at someone i’m supposed to be

ask a stranger on the street “who do you see me as”
and i’ll perform magnificently

you ask how i am
and the first thought through my head is how should i feel in this moment

not how do i feel
how should i feel

this is the lens through which my life is screened
acting as the world wants me to be
trying to make everyone happy
and somehow never for myself

I pick out all the pretty colors just for you. Wear them on my sleeve, bright and shining.
I grew a heart just for you. Just for them.
I grew a heart with their help. Watered it, nurtured it, watched it blossom.

I held on to what I could when the storm came through. In the moving, in the chaos, lost what was planted.
I felt nothing but loose strings and empty bottles, rolling through the house. Built up around the wreckage, pulling in the walls, stapling the floorboards.

From afar it still looks like a house. But it’s built on corks and bottle caps that I hide the   number of. In its center sits the space that remind of which I cannot mend.

And this is it
Do you want to know
the way the world turns?
The way the universe spins
past galaxies and stars,
shattering and reforming.
Endlessly.

How should we count
the falling of the stars
in a glass that does not break.

Do you feel the breath
of the imposter
burning down your neck?
Holding over you
like fire and flame.

All this and more
yet you still do not find it’s meaning.

fragile and out of place

taking a breath and your chest is too big
the air doesn’t reach your lungs

and the world feels infinitely large
but contained within you swelling

it’s quiet inside, underneath
the clamoring shouting voices silent, still

you feel weightless
you feel solid
you feel peaceful

you mourn for the things others have.

a young love, reciprocated.
the feeling of being wanted and wanting.

dinner dates and laying out under the stars.
being able to hold hands.

knowing that you have someone waiting to see you.

romanticized ideals of love, undoubtedly,
yet things you never came close to having.

you mourn for the things you watched others have,
because you know you will not have them.

Seen from a far off field
like a dream fading into distance,
beneath the surface of waking thought.

You do not find this thing
you are looking for,
you must find the place it is built.

For there is where you will make your peace with it,
learn to hold its hand
through the lonely night
when all else has gone to sleep.