I’m still running on
Yesterday’s priorities;
Seeking prizes that,
If I only I took the time
To think things through,
Revaluate my situation Properly,
Don’t really matter to me anymore.

I’m still caught up in the
Want of yesterday,
Driven by desires
Well past their sell by Date.

The insignificance of Bygone yearnings
Haunt my todays
Until I exorcize them
Screaming
Into faded memory,
File them away
Marked ‘Insignificant’,
‘No longer useful’.

Who would have thought
Freedom tastes so sweet?
I clung so hard to a future
We'd never live to see

And as time moves on without us
I know it's for the best
For with every mile between us,
My heart beats more at rest

Our love was the eye of a storm
Swirling in the midst of chaos
But our minds fooled us both
With memories of what was

But what was lives in the past
And even there, it's twisted
Morphed from desperate prayers
And our wasted wishes

The past rots in our lingering thoughts,
Subtle yet present forevermore;
Yet still, I'll keep the lock on tight;
Never again will I reopen this door.

I remember the first time I met you.
It wasn’t actually too long ago,
Four hundred and ninety-two days.
It may seem like I’ve known you forever, but I haven’t,
It hasn’t even been a year and a half yet.

January, a year and five months ago, the last Friday of winter break.
I was early to our lunch meetup, you lived nearby
The bus had dark pink seats and green handles
You said you would meet me on the corner.
I didn’t even really know what you looked like
Brown hair? Um, semi-tall?
All I had to go off of was your instagram.
You walked up outside,
Black tank top, a ponytail, looking at your phone
Thank god, let’s get out of here.
I don’t remember the first hello, but I remember meeting your parents.
A little awkward, your dad was on the treadmill, your mom doing yoga,
But they were both nice, they’d both been to my hometown.
Well,
Not my home anymore.
You lived on the eighteenth floor,
I found it weird that it said 18th “storey”
Adjust, adjust, adjust.
Get used to it,
This is where you live now.

Then, I remember
Next thing I know,
We’re on the third floor, at the benches.
I’m laughing, and shoving you a bit.
I’d only known you for five days then,
But it was something special, unexpected.
You were something special.
I’d never guessed this would happen
When you first emailed me, I was just confused.
I didn’t know what I would get out of moving here,
Jumping into something unknown,
Taking a risk,
It turns out,
I may not love the city
I may not love the school
But the people-
Oh, god,
The people.
I would give almost anything to move back home
Anything
Except-
The people.

I wanted so badly to go home,
This was too new, too hard,
I just wanted it to be over.
It didn’t even feel real,
It felt like some hazy dream that I could forget about in the morning
I mean,
For god’s sake, I found a ***** in my pasta at lunch
Students here were taking five, six advanced classes
So many people here looked unfamiliar, black hair, olive skin
I felt like a fish out of water,
Gasping for breath-
How could I get back in my fish bowl?

What kind of place was this?

I wanted to go home, to my reasonable sized house,
To the prospect of driver’s ed,
To skiing and the cold air,
To lunches spent laughing with my friends,
To my family,
To my pets,
To my home.

If we left though,
I think I might lose more than I thought
There was you-
Literal sunshine in human form,
Something like a goldendoodle
Just about the only thing making me think I could do this.
You were always there to lean on, supportive and kind, so very bright.
You made me laugh when I wasn’t even sure I could smile.

So I stayed.
And I cried.
A lot.
The first week
The second week
Three months in
Four months in
Four months and two weeks
The day before the AP exams.
But I stayed.
And it was worth it.

Was it, though?
Was it worth it?

A year and five months later,
Four hundred and ninety-two days,
I’m sitting in my room,
Laptop in front of me
Watercolors to my right
My cat somewhere in my parents’ room
My brother downstairs
We’ve been in quarantine for 48 days now
I’m an introvert, but this isolation is starting to wear on even me.

Was it worth it?

There’s you-
There from the start, before I even knew it.
There’s another girl, I met her at the start of all of this, but we weren’t close until later
She has two sisters and two small dogs, and understands what it feels like to not be able to breathe sometimes
So
There’s her.
Two more-
Both art students,
Different grades, from different continents, different personalities.
I met them both through art though.
One in Indonesia,
Where I met one of the funniest people, dry humor, full of jokes, not named Jessica
Swedish, always there for me to spill my secrets to, trustworthy to the end.
The other I met in class,
A die hard harry potter fan, a little crazy, but similar to me, there to commiserate with, to feed my caffeine addiction, to make me feel less alone.

I have these people now, I have a house, I have you.

But, is it a home?

My walls are still semi-bare
I still wanted to go home for Christmas
The end of quarantine is so close I might scream
School is going to be online for the rest of the year
I’m buried in assignments,
Trying to float, but I’m sinking under all the paper.
At my oldest brother’s job, multiple people got sick
I haven’t left the house in two weeks.

Is it a home?

I have a video of my parents dancing to the stereo
One friend visited me in august, genuinely excited to see me and my new country
We plan trips for the future
I’m looking for a job here
I’ve started to look at colleges
I can’t wait to see the friends I’ve made here after quarantine, to give you a hug

Is it a home?

We had virtual prom on a Saturday night
Makeup done, hair curled, dressed to the nines
Scribble.io instead of dancing
Thank you for that, by the way-
I almost didn’t come, but I’m glad you convinced me.
We FaceTime almost every day now,
Before and after our history exam too
You ordered me Starbucks afterwards as a thank-you for helping
The coffee might have been iced, but it still warmed my heart.

Is it
a home?

I want to leave- but do I?
I miss them
My friends and family at home.
I worry for them,
I can’t do anything to help them.
I see my mom ache,
I see my friends struggle.
I wish every day that I could be back under the sky there,
Blanketed in gray, comforting in its familiarity,
Where it rains every season, and snow caps the mountains,
Where it’s cold out, but always warm inside,
Friends and family and warmth and memory-
But there’s no You.

Would it be any better there instead of here?

I would only be missing different people.
Something inside of me might break again if we moved
More adjusting, more crying, more frustration
Is it better here?
The sun always shines and it’s never cold
You and I have a standing tradition of brunch every saturday we can manage
I’ve had my cat for a month now, and she’s barely older than a kitten, still playful
I’ve traveled from here more than I ever have before, Australia, Bali, more to come

I don’t know what to do
Am I supposed to stay here?
And keep missing the people I left behind?
Or do I go, and just miss people all over again

Tell me what to do,
You understand what it’s like, you’ve gone through this before.
What should I do?
Do I let go of my home? Embrace the now?
Place it safely away in a picture frame on my wall,
Put it inside a box on the shelf,
Slip the necklace from around my neck, hang it on its stand.

Or should I face backwards?
Beg my parents to move back,
Back to security, to the known, to the ease of a long-standing routine,
My friends will welcome me back
I’ll be glad to see my grandmother again
I won’t ever have to deal with this humidity again.

So tell me,
You probably know me best of anyone here,
You know what I like, you know who I am
What am I supposed to do?
Please, tell me what to do.

Is there a third option?
Is there a way, any possible way
That I can have both?

I can spend my years here,
My Summers there,
Where the sun is bright, but mild
I will get to see the seals and the beaches,
I will see my friends again
I won’t have to hold onto pieces of them,
The bits I receive in text messages and pictures and phone calls
I can split my world, have the two halves, but interwoven.
I’ll still get to have what I get here
You
I’d get to keep you,
Our brunches, our FaceTimes, every little thing in between

The warmth.

It’s the best of both worlds,
A dream come true.
I can do that,

I’ll keep the warmth,
I’ll stick with you.

my dad is kicking me out, he's been verbally abusive and i guess this was his next move to make my life miserable.

i have 83 cents to my name and he's kicking me out in a few days.

i hate to ask but if, whoever is reading this, has even a dollar to spare, it would help immensely. even a prayer would be appreciated, thank you so much.

thank you, thank you, thank you.

my cashapp is $blipofjoy

Forgetting how you used to look at me,
Forgetting how close we used to be,
Forgetting how you used to smile towards me,
Because I know we won’t meet now like the waves of the sea.

I am forgetting you day by day,
I am forgetting how like kids we used to play,
I am forgetting the promises you made of forever to stay,
Because I know no long now you want to continue this way,
And it’s even getting easier for me day to day.

Forgetting how your perfume used to smell,
Forgetting all your secrets you used to tell,
Forgetting how unexpectedly you used to
hug me at times,
Because I know all this is over and you need to move on sometimes.

I am forgetting you day by day,
Memories occur in my mind each and every night,
It’s filled with so much of happiness and is so bright,
But it’s moving in the direction of darkness and  that’s alright.
                      -Darsh Parekh

you took me to the natural history museum
the one next to the flower garden
you didn't hold my hand
or you might have
my hair locked in an abrasive ponytail pulling at my ears everytime
the ceilings were like giants
making me feel meek and important
in a forgetful way
the way you don't think about the leaves coming back
in early March
one day they're just there and you're opening the windows again
the way you're meant to
you walked the spotless corridors and I trailed behind
always fearing the immense T-Rex at the front of the room
that followed you with its' eyes
one blink and the head could swivel
the knees would buckle and the colossus
could devour you in a dignified gulp
ending at the bottom of a salacious belly
full of tender body parts and terrifying things
like men pretending to be gods
trapped at the bottom of a well
no invention of fire could extinguish that darkness
reaching into my pocket for binoculars
when I finally look up you're gone past the ancient artifacts
there's a grin and a woman attached to it
and I can see that you're nervous because your feet are dancing back and forth
from their heels to their toes
and the laughter echoes through all the rooms
poignant and full
each room has a theme and I swim from
one diorama to the next alone
I can feel myself melting
with history sticking to my clothes like gum
cotton candy falling into a puddle
gone before you can even taste it

My eyes were fixed on the wall in front of me,
“The clock is broken, it stopped”
“No, it’s working just fine” he said to me,
“It’s not moving, slow down, you’re going too fast”
“Catch up with me, then”
I can’t
“I ran once” “I ran once, and my clock worked”
“Work harder, catch up”
I can’t
“I think I’ll stand here a little bit longer”, I smiled.