There are so many other girls with perfect hair and skin and eyes and compared to them, I am a walking joke. I am an unfixable calamity of dark grey circles under my eyes from staying up all night because the thoughts in my brain always seem to bloom at the worst times. I am the weight of a thousand words that sit at the tip of my tongue but refuse to come out. So please don't ever tell me that I am flawless because that word is so far away from what I aim to be. At the end of the day, I want to be so incredibly flawed and real and incurably human but still beautiful because of what is inside my heart instead of what sits on my skin. I have slowly become a whirlwind disaster of running away from your toxicity. I am a hurricane of good intentions gone wrong but I can promise you that you'll never find a perfect person that could love you as imperfectly as I ever did.

i am not a metaphor
for the cracked sidewalk
that sprawls outside my door
growing unwanted weeds,
littered with faults and things
people don't want anymore

i am nothing like the sidewalk
my heart is not made of cement
and it is not used to being walked on
yes, i have faults, but i was not made
to be stepped on repeatedly
because i am human, not asphalt
and my heart is often stuck in my throat,
not steady enough for your heavy words-
not built for your harsh footsteps

i am not a metaphor
for the card games that are played
in rundown casinos
filled with bustling people
with foreheads gleaming sweat,
the sole ambition to conquer the first prize-
people just like you

i am nothing like the card games
and i can't keep pretending that
nothing bothers me, with
a permanent poker face
and always settling to be the sore loser
because i've spent too many forevers
hidden under your shadow,
and it's about time that i pulled a joker
because i am tired of always letting you win

i used to write about him
endlessly
in tattered journal pages
and in cheesy poems
but i didn't want to admit it

i didn't want to admit
the fact that he was gone
and writing him into paper
wasn't going to bring back
the person i once knew

i didn't want to admit
that i wasn't in love-
that instead, i was cold and lonely
for endless summer nights
in the pitch black vacuum of my room
when everyone else was sound asleep
and i should've been, too
i guess at that time
i just didn't want to admit
the fact that i was too busy writing
to realize i was just lying to myself

so this is me finally admitting it-
this is my apology letter
for blindly lying to myself,
for believing the miserable lie
that writing about him
would bring us back to life

because so far it hasn't worked
and i'm undeniably sick
of lying to myself
and ignorantly believing it will

i was in the seventh grade
when i met a boy in a red shirt
whose voice sounded a lot like home,
and i remember hearing them say

"silly girl,
you're only thirteen years old,
you don't even know what love is!"

but who are they to judge
when their ancient bodies
have already forgotten
what it felt like to be yound
and electrified?

who cares if it isn't their
dictionary definition of true love,
i'd still rather be young and clueless and trembling
with my veins pumping his name
over and over again
than having to spend the rest of my life
away from the only thing
i'll ever love enough to call
home

one of my favorite things in the world is the way i catch you smiling after we talk. there's something so captivating about the way you smile to yourself when you think i'm not looking (but i am, i always am.) i have memorized the way your hair catches the rays of sunlight and how you hold your head up in class when you are too busy falling asleep to pay attention. i think that your eyes are windows that hold thousands of different galaxies within them and lately it has been killing me that one day i will no longer be one of them. you always saw things the way i did and i could have sworn our souls were tied together in another life. i find myself getting tired of love stories but i don't think it's possible that i could ever get tired of ours. we were never about red roses or cheesy valentine's day cards or sloppy makeout sessions in the back of the movie theatre like the other kids, but that's okay. shy "good mornings" and deep midnight conversations mean more to me than anything left in the world. you can write anything on a blank sheet of paper and call it poetry, but our story is not just a puddle of words and fractured sentences. it is not a menagerie of fancy words dressed up to look like they mean something, because our story is the epitome of beautiful. i understand that time is just the sad ticking sound of the lonely clock on the wall, but if a genie granted me three wishes, i would wish for more of it with you. forevers are always infinite and i know it's hard for a girl like me to wrap her mind around a concept like that, but all i know is that i'll never be ready to spend an infinity without you by my side.

my stomach sinks to my feet
whenever i think about you leaving me
and my mind is occupied
with the same haunting thoughts
of needing you to stay

i think of you as a thunderstorm
but i'd rather drown in your rage
than be forced to live without it

our fragile hearts are tied together
with a string of pinky promises
and when you finally leave me,
the best part of me will leave too

maybe one day
i won't have to wait for a call
glancing at the clock
as empty seconds pass by
because you'll be calling me
from the kitchen instead

maybe one day
i won't have to wonder
what our hands would feel like
intertwined
because we'd be too busy
not letting go

i'm still waiting for the day
that i won't have to write
poems about missing you,
wondering if you still love me
because you'll be lying next to me
whispering the hundreds of reasons
why you do