I want to waste Thursday nights with you
and nine-thirties
and Saturday mornings.
I want to scavenge through tiny bookstores with you
and read melancholy poems with you
and watch the rain fall like I did for you.
I want to watch scary films with you
and cover your eyes with my hands
and hide from the ghosts under blankets.
I want to spend winter days with you
and frolic in autumn leaves
and indulge in the springtime air.
I wanted to be with you forever
and call myself yours
and call you mine.
But we’re only granted the things we need, not want.
and I want you to love me
and I want you to miss me
But I need you to need me the way I need you.

one word
two syllables
a messy jumble of
seven sad letters
five consonants
two lonely vowels.

Perfect
was the girl
with long raven hair
and shimmering green eyes
who wiped away
mascara stains
and hid her wrists
under bulky sweaters
because she felt hate
towards the reflection
in the bathroom mirror.

Perfect
was the girl
who last smiled in May
starving herself from
her distant dreams,
her unreachable goals,
the air she breathed
too caught up in hopes
of someday becoming this

one word,
two syllables,
seven letters
five consonants
two vowels


and all because she believed she was not.

it is one thing to have
a pretty face, and another
to be beautiful

i don't want to seem
like i belong somewhere else,
the cover of a magazine,
or on some prestigious runway
i don't want to be
loved for the way
my hair shines under stage lights,
the length of my eyelashes

instead, i'd like to be beautiful
for the way that i love,
the sound of my laughter,
the way i spin words
into feelings
i want to feel utterly
and completely beautiful
for the way that i am,
for the way that i will be

i don't want to be just another
flawless face,
perfect to the core
i want to be drowning in imperfections
so that people can look around them
and despite all my scars, faults,
and flaws,
still find me to be
beautiful

i want to know you
at five in the morning
the sky still dim,
the world untouched
with your eyes shut tight
engrossed in a dream
i want to know you then

i want to know you
at eleven thirty AM
as you sip a cup of tea
(sweet, your favorite)
with your nose in a novel
(the kind you can't put down)
i want to know you then

i want to know you
at six in the evening
flipping through channels
your feet on the coffee table
with your tousled hair
(still incredibly flawless)
i want to know you then

i want to know you
at ten thirty at night
the sky lined with stars
like the freckles on your face
with a smile of exhaustion
and toothpaste kisses
i want to know you then

lurking impatiently in the crevices of your mind,
i nudge you and beg your soul to reminisce.
you are afraid of the ache i bring you,
but yet you crave the twinge.
i am but a burst of pure nostalgia,
an irreplaceable, bittersweet remembrance.
like a relentless ghost, i haunt you,
reminding you of your expired bygone days.
you desire only the blissful pieces of me,
too remorseful to revisit the hurt you once felt.
and i am both agonizing and delightful,
a menagerie of melancholy pain and
immense commotion.

i used to battle sadness like a war in my head,
but now i have learned to cherish my misery.
i always thought being sad meant infinite hours of despair,
but i never really believed that unhappiness could spark iridescent creativity.
i once loathed my incessant loneliness,
but now i indulge in the inspiration it holds within it.
if i could alter the ache of my past, i still would not, because
i would have never experienced how truly captivating sadness is.
i never realized that sorrow can be joyous, in its own twisted way,
but i might begin scavenging for the silver lining in every desolate rain cloud.
i can’t fully erase the toil accumulated from tragic times,
but i can use this hysteria to craft something quite lovely.
i won’t ever feel complete ecstasy, perhaps not.
but i might begin to heal my brittle heart.
i used to only think of sadness as an indestructible burden,
but now i possess a growing admiration towards it.