someday
you and me
we'll sit together
and i'll draw
galaxies
in the constellations
of your freckles

someday
you and me
we'll sit together
exhanging whispered words
and hushed laughs and earbuds
and history notes

i hate history class
but i love you

i see you every morning.
you always sit in the same spot.
i always sit in the same spot -
next to you.

when you smile at me,
i don't feel something
sour with nervousness
grip my heart
like i did
before i had met you
and i loved others.

when you smile at me,
it's something familiar.
no one smiles like you do.
no one smiles at me like you do.

one time,
we were swapping songs,
sharing earbuds.
at the time,
i was in love with this one song;
i played it over three times
before you laughed,
and asked me if i knew
a certain song.
i said no, too focused
on my science homework
to see your face.
(i wish i had seen it,
just to know what you were thinking
and just because i love
the way you smile at me.)
you played me three songs-
three songs i hadn't heard before.
each one
was
a love song

and i couldn't help
but wonder
if that was
your love song for me.

i've walked around
with an open wound in my chest
for years.

i've been ever so careful
to wipe up the puddles
of blood i
leave in my wake.
i have to.

this wound,
this open wound,
has been festering
for years.

it was wrought first
by a wooden stake,
dripping with grass-green poison,
when i was still too young
to know that
this open wound
shouldn't have been there
at all.
i don't quite remember
the first time i looked
down at my own chest
and saw my own heart,
beating and dripping blood
peeking through an open wound.

it hurt.
it hurt IT HURT it hurt.
it hurt so, so badly.

as the years passed,
and this wound
was inflicted
again and
again and
again and
again and
again and
again and
again and
again and
again and
again.
it was torn open day after day
rotted and infected
it exposed my ribs
it exposed my lungs
it exposed my heart
it exposed my soul.

but. now.
today's the first day
that instead of letting it be torn deeper
i put on a band-aid.

this open wound,
i've never felt it heal.
and now that i am starting to,
it seems more painful
and sore
than ever.

in the stillest moments of the night,
when the only company i have
are broken pencils and broken thoughts
and the only light in my vision
is my laptop, the blankness
taunting me,
i have an indescribable urge
to prove myself.

my soul, that space in my chest,
tells me to fight.
fight what? where? i ask,
wisps of my hair twining
between my tired fingers.

(my fingers are tired; of writing, of
those moments when
you can't envision your future
so you assume it's dead.)

that space in my chest replies,
quiet and determined:
fight the voices
in your ear,
telling you each and every way
you'll amount to nothing.
fight them, and win
simply because
you can.
fight expectations
prove those who
told you each and every way
you'll amount to nothing
wrong.
come out on top.
laugh in their faces.
prove you can fight. prove you can last.

prove you can win.

we both like hugs and cats
we're pretty much the same person!
she makes my mornings so much easier,
this friend of mine.

last year,
i didn't know her very well.
(i didn't know anyone very well;
a new school district, if you will.)
but she's the loud to my quiet
the pretty to my clumsy
and the fight to my meekness,
this friend of mine.

this year,
we hold hands,
and hug,
and laugh,
and i'm very glad to have her,
this friend of mine.