There are so many potentially great poems,

but the problem is they try to formalize their
pain,

as though a cancer patient upon receiving radiation,
or some car
crash victim
having a hose stuffed up his ***
and having his left foot ampuated is going to
to be formal.

sure there is dignity and composure,
but not formality,
and certainly not nicety.


you're vulnerable,
you're hurt-

let yourself scream,

let yourself out.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because the last time I opened up to someone artistically they told me it was pretty dark and I should keep it to myself.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because I was raised in a culture that was anti love and pro meaningless ***. I saw endless commercials about movies that glamorize a lifestyle in which your body is fulfilled but your heart is ignored and at that impressionable age I learned my heart came second but my allure came first and the less I cared that happier I would be and I carried that belief around with me the way I used to carry around a Bible as a child.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because of the time that I opened my father’s phone to reveal a family secret I would hold to this day against my own moral instincts unraveling miles of insecurities wondering if I’m not a good enough daughter or if he stopped loving my mother or if true love was never real and although I had been taught marriage was my purpose, it was what I believed would make me happy, maybe rings aren’t enough to stay in love and maybe people’s feelings change and maybe no one actually has a “one true love” and that this purpose I had been taught was really an endless wild goose chase that only lead to broken families and lost souls.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because sometimes I still wonder why I fell into an abyss of toxicity at such a young age. And when I say wonder I don’t mean a trivial ponder, I mean I contemplate every possible reason why the person who I once believed held the universe in her eyes would lie to my face, why she never kissed me in public and our love was always a secret, why she valued girls with blue hair but my blonde hair was not good enough, why I had to hide bruises from my family when I was still in high school or more importantly, why at the time, I thought I deserved them. These thoughts, this lingering paranoia that I am undeserving of healthy love, they muddy my interpretations of real life and distort reality and effect my relationships. My doctor would call these intrusive thoughts, my best friend would tell me they’re symptoms of PTSD, but I have come to realize that I’ve been burned and I am damaged and I hope to god I can recover.

But you,
Oh god, you
You can write this poem. You can be my safety net while I’m free falling in love. You can be the one to listen to my mental tilt-a-whirls, you can be the one that introduces my body and my heart, you can be the one that calms the storms in my mind when I’m questioning the love I’m deserving of. You are the one who makes sure I fall asleep in my bed after drunk nights, you are the one that still sees my value after acknowledging my flaws.
You can write this poem.

if people knew how much they meant to someone, would they have stayed?

tell me you've been thinking of me
how you always preferred roses but you saw sunflowers in my room
and love never seemed less about romance
tell me how your mind aches for me as much as your body
but your knuckles grew white at the thought of his fingers on my skin
tell me what it's like to miss me in the chaos and not just at midnight
all of the words you don't know how to say and maybe that's why you fell in love with mine

She stopped eating until she was nothing but right angles and sharp edges. It was if she couldn’t understand the math of the world she lived in, so she sought the neat geometry of the curve of her hollowed hips, the bend of her wishbone elbow, and the measurements of her rag doll ankles.

She left traces of herself
in the air.
The oil she dabbed on her wrists
smelt of wind through trees.

And sometimes when I inhale,
I can breathe her back in
until I can’t hold it anymore
and let her go.

Some kids lit fireworks on the beach
the noise crackled against the houses
sitting quietly on the dune.

The white flashes looked like stars
that burnt out too early,
sorta like you and me

You can't give love
only to take it back
but I swallow words
like pills these days

and the side affects
have no warning label
and overdosing is
too often fatal

I dream of you at dawn
Still dressed in lacy chiffon
Making coffee while I yawn

I dream of you in the sky
When I climb up high
& re-learn how to fly

I dream of you at noon
Of lemon sun in June
Kissing atop a sand dune

I dream of you at sunset
Of everything I regret
Your fading silhouette

I dream of you at night
In black and white
And everything comes to light
A past I can never rewrite