Okay, look. Guys. Boys. Men. Males.

I've tried to change myself
I've tried just being myself

I've tried to be perfect.
I've tried to be specifically IMperfect.

I don't know what guys want in a girl's personality.
I know most guys would prefer someone who is pretty
And I'm working on that.
But how do I ACT
I know people will say: Just be yourself!
But I have MANY different sides.
Do you like them to be secretive and mysterious?
Open and friendly, not hiding anything totally honest?
How do I ACT?
If you are a GUY it would be great if you wrote a poem
About how you would want your dream GIRL to act or to be
Or if you have already found your dream girl
What are the ways she acts that you like?
It might be fun for you to write poem about
And I'd love to read it
because I want to know
how to act
how to be
for someone to actually like me.
What do guys look for in girls?
I've read thousands of poems girls have written
About their dream guy
but what about girls?
Please let me know.
I want to learn how to be.
Also, I'm bored. :P

Step 1: Take a breather. Don't start going insane and terrorizing the city with chainsaws. That is in a later step. Go have a cup of tea. Calm. If you're cold go get a blanket. Think warm thoughts. Imagine you are on fire. Okay, actually never mind, don't do that.

Step 2: Go back to your computer and hold down the off button until it completely shuts off.

Step 3: Scream obscenities at your laptop, kick it and drop it off the roof.

Step 4: Wonder why it isn't turning on.

Step 5: Call your second cousin twice removed's best friend's dogsitter's guitar teacher's Polish-speaking doctor who lives in Germany. Ask him for help. Apologize for thinking she was a man and explain the ****** hair in the pictures and her extremely deep voice were misleading. Say hello a couple times into the receiver before accepting she has hung up on you.

Step 6: Send your second cousin twice removed's best friend's dogsitter's guitar teacher's Polish-speaking doctor who lives in Germany a basket of muffins with a heartfelt apology note written in Korean, to prove you are multi-cultural.

Step 7: Hug your computer and stroke it creepily whispering: Awwww who’s a good laptop?

Step 8: Dump a bucket of water on your computer when it STILL doesn’t turn on. That’ll teach it.

Step 9: Cry about your hair not being shiny enough. Get distracted by a butterfly. Wonder why there is a butterfly in the middle of the arctic. Wonder why you are in the arctic and how you got there.

Step 10: Feed your stupid meany-pants laptop to a polar bear.

Step 11: RUN in terror from the hungry polar bear with indigestion that you have just *******.

Step 12: Get your chainsaw and go terrorize the nearest village.

Step 13: Send that village a basket of muffins and a heart-felt apology note written in gibberish so they are impressed by the fact that you are fluent in Gibberish.

(OPTIONAL STEP 14: Send that polar bear a basket of muffins. Just to be nice.)

And now...

I have come to realize how truly strong a person you are. Stronger than anyone I have ever met. To keep a secret like that, and never tell without crumbling.

And now...

I have come to realize what a selfish, self-centered ***** I really am to be so caught up in my own dumb mind with my own worthless problems that are NOTHING compared to what you withheld. I won't dwell too long on what an awful unsupportive friend and person I have been because that would once again be drawing attention back to me the selfish way I have been doing, but I feel like I have to say it at least once: I am so. so. incredibly. sorry. I never noticed or asked how you were or saw that something was wrong. I'm so so sorry I wallowed in that pathetic self-pity for so long just over my stupid issues that are so miniscule compared to yours, I basically want to whack myself in the head with my guitar I'm so ****** at myself. I am SO SORRY I wasn't there and I'm SO SO SO SORRY I surrounded you with my own dumb unnecessary negativity when you had enough of your own. I'm so sorry. I cried for nearly an hour last night out of anger with myself for not being a good friend and out of sorrow for your troubles and the pain you must be going through. You can almost always tell when I am upset somehow but that is like your odd supernatural inexplicable talent and I don’t have it. I wish I did, but I can tell when someone likes another person somehow almost always accurately but what use is that? I’m just so sorry from the bottom of my heart and I promise that beginning NOW and today I swear I am going to be here for you. I am so sorry for not being there. Okay, I’m going to stop going on about it now.
And now…
I can see everything I didn’t pick up on when I needed to so clearly.
And now…
I just want you to be okay. I JUST want you not to be in pain. I don’t know how to fix you but I’ll do anything I can to try.
And now…
I want you to know how brave you are, to go at it alone.
And now…
I want you to know, two years ago, we agreed “No Secrets”. Well, since then we have kept multiple secrets from one another. All of us. Since then that agreement has become less and less realistic. There will always be secrets and that is just a part of life.  I understand why you didn’t tell me sooner and I just want you to know that I am always prepared to drop literally everything of mine, physical, mental, and emotional to listen to you and care more about your problems than mine because yours are always and have always been far greater than any of my pitiful woes. I will always understand why you keep things from me, but when you choose to share it, in your own time, then I will always be there to listen and understand.
And now…*
I will never abandon you in this.


-Love Ember

Your eyes are empty.
Your soul is pained.
Your smile is forced.
Tell me your pain.

I want to see your smile.
I want to see you laugh.  
I want to see you sing.

I know you aren’t happy.
It’s killing me inside.
All the pain in your heart.

Please, tell me why.
Tell me why.
Tell me why a beautiful boy is so pained.

Let it all out.
Every little thing.
Everything, tell me it all.

Just let all your tears fall.
You bottled them up for too long.
Open up, and let the pain escape.

Let the pain, leave you.
I promise I would stay.
Stay, I will.

I love you too much.
I want to see you smile again.
I want to see you love life again.

Just let your tears fall.
Let your pain escape.

My wrists still hurt from
the day you grabbed my arm
and my cuts opened up
underneath my sleeve.
I pulled away
but I didn't mention the pain
because how do you tell someone
who has never shed a drop of blood in
their life,
that every part of you is bleeding.

Part of me
                                    Feels empty
A hollow shell
                                    Non-existent
The other part
                                    Bubbles with anxiety
A tightness
                                    I can't lose

They are not mixed together

But they are also not pushing each other away

They are just coexisting

Something that shouldn't happen

That couldn't happen

So why is it happening now

?

I guess I don't exactly know what I want to be
I don't know what I think the definition of physical beauty is
Because there are people I see with very flouncy curly and glistening golden blonde hair
Then I see Asian girls with their glossy raven black locks
I see girls with STUNNING blue eyes
And girls with magnificent hazel eyes
I see two of my friends who have brown eyes like me, only they have these BEAUTIFUL maple eyes
I see girls with heart-shaped jawline
I see girls with rounder jawlines
I see girls with tiny waists
And curvy girls
I see girls with cute little smiles
And bright, wide grinning smiles
ALL OF THEM ARE SO BEAUTIFUL
I don't even know WHAT I want to be
I just know that I wish there were a celebrity
Who existed
Who was WILDY adored and loved by everyone
Who was successful and never criticized
Who was not necessarily UGLY
But was undeniably not particularly traditionally physically pretty
But her soul was LOVELY
Her personality was imperfect
And she ******* up
But she was still a GOOD PERSON
and her values and what was inside her was what made her so globally popular
Because maybe if I stopped seeing everybody as so unbelievably BEAUTIFUL
then I would stop CARING that I was so hideous
I just really wish
"Pretty" didn't have a definition
But varied
You could look at someone
And what each person found pretty
Was COMPLETELY different
because I care way too much
because I hate hearing that I am "pretty" when I so clearly am not
but it's even worse when I hear that I'm not
Or if someone edges around it by saying: But you are a beautiful person INSIDE
avoiding admitting that I'm ugly
I hate hearing about how ugly I am
because it reminds me
but I also hate hearing about how supposedly "pretty" I am
because immediately in my head
that little voice that sounds exactly like my own
except very cruel and sadistic
The mean-streak part of me
It whispers in my mind
THEY ARE LYING TO YOU
YOU ARE UGLY AND HIDEOUS
AND NO ONE IS EVER GOING TO CARE ABOUT WORTHLESS YOU.
BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT WHAT SOCIETY DEFINES AS PRETTY
YOU ARE WORTHLESS AND UGLY.
DON'T LISTEN TO THEIR PROMISES THAT YOU ARE PRETTY
BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT.
that is all I hear in my head.
or if I hear OH BUT YOU ARE A BEAUTIFUL PERSON INSIDE THAT IS MORE IMPORTANT
the voice whispers: did you recognize that? Hear it? See it?
They specifically avoided saying you were physically pretty
So whether they are right or not about what is more important, inner or outer beauty
They have still admitted to you
In an underhanded way
That you ARE ugly
they have confirmed what I have always told you
YOU ARE NOT PRETTY
YOU NEVER WILL BE
and do you know what?
I don't care anymore about what is important
I want to be physically beautiful
It's like when you just really want cake
it might be unhealthy
It might not matter
It isn't good to obsess over
but you JUST WANT IT
you want it so badly
and you can't function properly without it
until you have that desire given in to
but I can't tell them that anymore
so they don't have to lie to me to spare my feelings which makes me feel awful
or so they don't have to be honest and either tell me I'm ugly or edge around it by bringing up inner beauty and using a BUT before it
because that makes me feel even WORSE
I will not talk about it anymore
I will just let it dominate my poetry
because I must write
I must WRITE to keep it from consuming me
that is all I have
If I can't speak of the pain anymore
I must write.
that is my escape.

I know what you'd all like to say
      To make me feel better
"Beauty is on the inside"
            Or
       "You are beautiful"
But my soul is so tattered
       And my heart
Has been repeatedly
             shattered
All the scattered
      bits and pieces
   You might find in there
          Between the scars and creases
     Would make you all run and hide
               If beauty shines from the inside,       Then I'm the **ugliest beast alive

I'll smile,
     pretend
  I'm okay...
Better than the
          truth
   Anyways.

Darkness seeps between my fingertips
Even when my hands are clutched to my face as tightly as I can when I am crying alone
Fingernails digging into my skin
To remind myself that it is real
Sleeves pulled over my fingertips
So no one is forced to see the hideous things
Especially me
The way a murderer's mother shuts her son's old bedroom door at night when he has been jailed
To shut out the memories
Concealing what is unpleasant
At night I don't wear makeup
So when I wake up at 2AM to use the washroom
I keep the lights off
And fumble blindly through the black air to find the door handle
So I don't have to look at myself
It's getting worse everyday
A new kind of pain
And I don't understand
Why it hurts so much
But I think I'm going to stop telling people about it
I'm going to stop mentioning it no matter how much it hurts
I'm going to stop being self-deprecating in public
Because it just comes across vain, self-pitying, annoying, attention-seeking and fake
I want people to stop telling me I'm pretty
I want them to stop lying to me
Even if it just to spare my feelings
So I will stop putting them in situations
Where they must lie to me to be polite
I'm just going to be silent now
They already have to know how ugly I am on the outside
No one needs to know
What an ugly mind I have