They tell me love is something
I have to claw my way out of
Breaking through bone, tearing through skin
Stripping myself of everything
in this final show of my devotion to you
my everything—the only thing left I can give you
I can give you—give you up
April Fool
We came together in July, clung to one another like leaves to a tree, everything golden before the fall. My love was a bird feathering her nest, spring in my heart, perched on a branch, singing. Your love was a question that never found an answer—still hasn’t. I held on for as long as I could until I was stripped bare of everything you thought you wanted, and you couldn’t look at me the way you used to. Do you think what sparked between us was love—or just another beautiful trick of the light? I was your April fool—just three months shy of a year with you. Arms open and waiting, waiting for the seaside promise of summer, never once doubting it would come.
A Poem Comes
This was a poem that came to me
the way anything good comes
Like a comet that swings back around
or a recipe you reconstruct
from a childhood memory
The lens with which you peer through
all blurred and sentimental
It came to me through the
lifelong wonder I’ve held
of the way words will unravel
if you let them, as though they
are creating these sentient worlds
entirely on their own
The Gift
It was a crisp, bright day as I walked to my apartment, wanting nothing more than I had. By the threshold, a man twelve paces in front suddenly stopped—bent down to pick something up. With his back to me, he inspected it carefully, then slipped it into his pocket. I wondered what it was that lay twelve steps down the pavement, some small luminous gift from the sky. I thought about this strange and mysterious offering, what it could be, and how it had almost been mine.
If You Didn’t
If you didn’t know me
you would see me as they do
believe the lies they tell
about me were true
If you didn’t know me
you wouldn’t want to know me—
I would never be
the one for you
And you wouldn’t be sorry
for missing what you never knew
If you didn’t know me—
only, my love, you do
Endless Thirst
You are at once a sea full of saltwater, and the endless thirst scratching the back of my throat.
Diorama
Tell me about your life, they say
Do you really want to know about me?
Not the meticulous shopfront of my life
the grinning dolls in the window
forever youthful propped up with pills
The surgeon’s scalpel making me more
what I’m supposed to be, less who I am
Where I’m from there is a name
for women like me
Women who slip into the lives of others
transient, even if they never leave
Who give all they have to a man
and thank him for the privilege
Do you really want to hear about the raised eyebrows
the humiliation of being seen as less than I am
the desperation of proving myself at every party
where someone needs to say in colorful tones
oh, she is someone because if I wasn’t
then I’d just be another eye roll
the absent shake of the head
women grasping the hands of their husbands
a little tighter when I’m in close proximity
I tell them about my life by the sea
the idyllic writer’s life, the bohemian glitz
of never having to sing for my supper
lying around in bed all day in my pajamas
petting cats, eating out of cereal boxes
and the thing I want to say is the very thing I can’t
Because this is not my life
and I know it looks beautiful to you
through the rose-tinted lens of poetry
it looks beautiful to you when every light is on
and the shades are up.
It looks beautiful to you with my head thrown back
easy laughter spilling from my mouth
my arms wrapped around a man
solely devoted to my happiness
his fingers through my hair, watching me
and you think, look at her
so much love, so much life
But only from the outside
Only when someone’s looking in
Fallen Idols
I wish I could go back to a time when I only believed good things about you
To past generations,
You grew up in a time of tall trees and flowers. Stumbled through the dark, blameless and carefree. When you were at fault, you answered only to yourself. The pain you’ve caused others—now inconsequential—because no one was watching. You belong to a world of forgotten transgressions.
Our generation blooms in the era of eyes and judgment. Where our mistakes are timestamped; our broken hearts livestreamed. But does this give you a right to throw stones at us? Self-growth is a long and winding road, and the ground we are treading is unlike any other. Please be patient with us. Be kind. Understand that we must lose our way, over and over, before we can find the best version of ourselves.
Self-Blame
I can’t deny this is all my fault. I have no one else to blame for my life falling to pieces. But let me ask you this: is pain any less valid when it is self-inflicted?
Doesn’t it hurt just as much?
Want
What do you long for
in your heart of hearts
in this eruption of light
between eons of dark
What do you wish for
at the cut of the cake
A knife in your hand
for a love you still ache
You’ll get what you want
if you’re willing to wait
If not when you want it
then when it’s too late
Either Or
There is so much anxiety in the beginning. So much hope and faith. But it’s all unnecessary. Once you give your heart away, it’s out of your hands. And there’s nothing you can do to change the fact that love is, or it isn’t. It will either work or it won’t.
The Golden Rule
Something I wish I had known from the beginning. If you are criticized for your writing, it means you are creating work of note. When you find yourself in a place where strangers are talking about you, keep creating the work that got you noticed. Do not alter your writing to appease your critics. It is natural to crave validation, especially from those who will never give it. To be a successful writer, you must ignore this instinct. This is the most critical lesson I have learned. You can’t please everyone, so don’t even try. This rule applies in life, in love, and especially in writing.
Only Yours
In this poem
there is only one voice
My voice and none other
In every other poem
there is only one other
One voice other than mine
There is only your voice and mine
Hidden Love
Just like you would hide a tree in a forest, I hide my love in a poem.
Being an Artist
I
recall those lonely nights
pushing pixels on my screen
craving pencil and paper
the smear of paint
beneath my fingertips
the sound of paper sighing
as I drew a line
I dreamt of being an artist
just enough to eat and live
Just enough for the little things
A cup of coffee with a friend
on a park bench one sunny day
A vase full of flowers
I put on my shelf to admire
or a book I can devour slowly
over two weekends
It was a lifetime ago
when I thought of all the things
I could do if only I didn’t
have to chase the things I need
And now here I am with more time
than I had ever dreamt
I pick up my pencil
Of Years
One day, love came to me. And love has remained with me since. How long was it, before I noticed the ebbing of years? Like a thief in the night, taking so little at a time—it seemed like hardly anything at all.
To the Guy Who Claims My Poetry Was the Cause of His Break-up,
It is astonishing to think that my words have the power to make someone fall out of love with you. That I have somehow been conspiring against you, even though up until this moment, I was blissfully unaware of your existence. Maybe you should ask yourself why she has found her self-worth in the words of others and not yours. Could it be, perhaps, that I’m not some grand puppet master like you believe, that my words are not a cold hard slap, but merely, a soft tap on the shoulder and the truth is—you’re just a shitty boyfriend?
The World Is Mine
Something imperceptible has shifted
like a stone lodged between two worlds
Shook loose with barely a sigh
I lost my way for awhile
but I am back where I belong
Every sound and syllable trembles with meaning
Words rearranging themselves for me
In an ever-changing dance
This is the end of an endless drought
The rain streams down my cheeks
I weep with joy
Throw my hands in the air
Everything is righting itself
and the world is mine again
Taking Time
I need a day of nothing, a reprieve from the spinning merry-go-round of my life. Shrug it off like an old winter coat and hang it by the door. I need a day where I am not asked, wanted, or noticed. To know there is a wall of silence between me and everything else.
Self-Control
I am rewriting this
to sound less
like a complaint
Lowering my voice
so I won’t be dismissed
I’ve long since learned
what I say is second
to how I say it
Learned to level
my voice, when I
am screaming
on the inside
This is what it is
to be a woman
To learn how to
swallow your pain
To know how
to bide your time
Tongue-Tied
I am a sentence strung together out of sequence, written for your tongue to untangle.
No Poet
There is no poet before me who is exactly as I am. No one will ever write the words I’ve written, think the thoughts I’ve thought. My poetry is a candle burning gently, an everlasting flame coaxing something tender, turning all toward love. So much of our world is drenched in anger. But love is our natural state of being. We may lose our way for awhile, but from love we have come and to love we will return.
In a World Like That
I don’t want to be in a relationship where I feel the constant need to explain myself. I don’t want to live in a world like that either.
War
Are you a man of peace? I ask you.
You will see one day there is no such thing. In the end, your noble ideals will fall victim to circumstance. Something in your life will reveal with all certainty the ugly truth of men.
And how it is only a question of time until, like every other man before you,
(you will see)
you will come face-to-face with that thing for which you will go to war.
The Path of a Writer
The path of a writer starts with an electric pulse, like a heartbeat. Barely perceptible and fragile as a newborn. Someone once told me writing is like panning for gold. But I think it is like stumbling on the ruins of a lost city, talking to its ghosts. Wandering its deserted streets with long-forgotten names.
One day you will find your city and you will build it with one painstaking word after another. Only then will you know the path of a writer. Know what it is truly like to inhabit a world you have created, and how this world that began as a heartbeat, becomes a living, breathing thing.
Only Once
Love comes easy when you’re young
and you can be forgiven for thinking
love is like rain, and rain is relentless
But at the end of your life—if ever
you find yourself thinking about love
then you never did see its return
Because you can’t really comprehend
not at first—that anything in this world
that comes that easy, only comes once
Before Love
The night my world crashed into his, I belonged to no one. By the time I collapsed into bed, the sun was already on her way. My body throbbed to the phantom music ringing in my ears. My feet ached from dancing the whole night long. And I couldn’t stop smiling.
That was the moment before everything.
When I thought I was in love—when I had yet to feel the full force of it.
Before You Leave
remember what you’ve left
The girl you swore your heart to
the dream you held as you slept
Before the evening carries you
to the dawn of another day
think of how you’d miss her
as you go on your way
Before the sun goes down again
and you resign yourself to fate
know that it is in your hands
before it gets too late
Not You
I don’t want the best thing to come too early in my life
I hope with all my heart it wasn’t you
Too Close
I live my life between being loved
or being known
wishing the two were one
To be loved is a wave rushing past
the shoreline; filling every void
To be known is an ache
that never goes away
Now that you love me, are you afraid
to know me? Will distance tell you
what your heart refuses to see?
You’re too close to me, my love
You’re missing everything
A Woman
The day you become a woman, they hand you a grenade. And you must choose between hurling or holding. Between want and expectation. Excise your desire, while you are hungry for everything. Give up your life for a version of you that isn’t you at all.
Do not think twice about the imposition when they tell you, there is nothing worse than a fallen woman. Nothing worse than a woman who doesn’t know her place. You wil
l learn otherwise when you trade your truth for an ideal that no amount of good you do will ever be enough anyway.
So, make up your own rules. Don’t be afraid to hurl, to fall, to get dirt on your face. Sweetheart, let this be your one glorious mess because in the end the only person you should answer to is yourself.
After all, you are a woman,
And long before they punish you for what you’ve done, they will punish you for what you are.
Breaking
I feel a crack inside—
the sound of something breaking
I know this feeling well
I want to self-destruct
Burn my whole life to the ground
I’ve been here before
I know how it goes
This is the only way
I know how to be
There are no words left
and nothing is growing
Legacy
You must believe it is your destiny to create beauty in this world. To shape your life with love and purpose, touch it ever so briefly with your weary hands and leave it a little more cherished than it was.
Losing
You are losing control
You are losing yourself
That man is your downfall
your ticket to hell
But his hands are like black magic
This isn’t love but God
it’s almost as good
Like some hell-bent force
that has kept you away
from everything you want
Swinging like a lead ball
all the way back
and it’s too much
The secret is
no one gets what they want
without losing who they are
The One After
You’ve lived your whole life with me, haven’t you, my love? Yet I don’t think you’ve truly seen me once. I am a projection of the girl who hurt you, a conduit of the pain she caused. After all this time, I am still being punished simply for being the one who came after.
Like It Was
You’ve waited so long