ordered an extra container of my favorite lip gloss for herit came in the mail a few days before the day I broke up with her while standing in the security line of the JFK airport
it’s still sitting on my desk
I think once I finish the container I’ve been using, I’ll use that one
I’m tired of giving her things that weren’t yet hers
I want to say this will be the last poem
I mean it’s been months
but when I’m scattered, somehow my mind latches onto her
so maybe she’ll live in my head just for a bit longer
we’ll wait and see
wait until someone else hands me their laundry list and says
“here. this is yours now. don’t worry. you’ll never have to return it to me” and I’ll smile and nod because I won’t have to return it to them but I’m sure I will anyway I lose my laundry lists far too often
“it was a war between people we didn’t even know”
one of the problems with not talking to someone for a long time is that you forget how to talk to them and then once you start again it becomes so time-consuming that you lose a little bit of your sanity every time you send something.
conversations are strained with people i love and people i think i love so i can never quite tell the difference. it’s honestly very confusing.
i’m easily overwhelmed and talking to you for even a few hours overwhelmed me, but i know that tomorrow i’ll wake up and want to do it over.
i want to do it over.
i’m actually quite confused about the way you’re treating me, and I don’t believe walking on broken glass is the way to figure things out. avoiding things isn’t romantic, it just hurts.
I don’t even fucking know if you know me. I know you. Down to the deepest parts and you have no idea who I am. I hate the me I was when I knew you. Let me do it over. Let me meet you again. I’ll give up everything I know about you just for you to know me a little better.
i am afraid of disappointing someone who doesn’t even care, that’s how bad my self control is just so you’re aware.
i have never once written poems to the reader. that’s why i write to people like you. because you’re never going to read it. my poetry can stay hidden in a world that you don’t know. you might as well just keep it unknowing.
please learn to know. it hurts when you don’t.
i’m afraid to publish things because i’m afraid someone will ask me about you. and how i feel. i don’t have a goddamn idea.
the other day my best friend asked me “what are you going to do about feelings”and i said nothing. i said i’d wait. because i will. wait until i either forget or figure this out. you have no responsibility here. i listen to love songs and imagine dancing with you. for i know that is what this is. nothing more than a fantasy. you are a storybook and i am a child. It’s alright. It’s alright. I don’t know you and that’s alright. We’re in a silent war and that’s alright. There’s no peace treaty in sight. That’s alright it’s going to be over soon. this will be over soon. hold on.
weaponry
a boy in my first two periods made little origami lotus flowers out of bright yellow post-it notes. he left them on everyone’s desks before they started their final. it’s alarming how many people left them behind. having two made me feel like a queen.
people who find time to endlessly care about people they don’t even know are the most beautiful and intriguing kind of people to me. it’s impossible and they do it every day. they’re magicians of light and life that we see every day. it’s funny how we still wish for some higher power to save us when they are right in front of us
one of my closest friends sends me daily pictures of her cat. sometimes I just cry when I see it because she doesn’t know how much I feel like there is no good in the world. she just sees the cat-loving side of me and brings it to the forefront instead
I know so many people who beautifully embody certain specific traits. if I imagined determination, I would see the girl who sits next to me in AP Euro. I have never felt this admiration so severely
sometimes I buy chai tea from the library for cat girl. she always seems so touched. and I think it’s insane that people like her don’t truly see how much they deserve more than simple gestures.
listen, I do understand the quote “you don’t know your own weaponry” because some people don’t. the only self defense I know is that of the 26 symbols I control. I have no cat to send pictures of. no origami to create. no people who need to see me as something more than a human. for I know that I am nothing more. words are my weaponry. and they’re enough. my weaponry is more than enough for the task at hand. so is theirs.
falling in reverse
When I become too close to someone I begin to ignore the first impression I had of them for I feel I know them deeper.
But sometimes the first impression will whisper things to you that will save you from being drawn in.
For that impression is still a part of them. You just choose to look past it now.
I believe love is the purest form of ignorance. For if silence is death and love is also death, that means love is silence. Silence about what you know. What you choose to pretend that you don’t care about.
When people tell me they hate love, I tell them “that isn’t love.”It isn’t. It’s someone disguising themselves and doing a shitty job. For how can you hate something that is the only reason you exist. I love my work. Nothing more. Not now. I love the city. Nothing more. Not now. I am a hypocrite. For I often times also say that I hate love. And maybe I believe I do. But that’s useless. It’s useless to hate the inevitable. It’s useless to hate what consumes me. It’s better to just let it. Sometimes if you relax, it’s a little bit easier to fall. I love you and you are in my city. I love you and you are my city. You are a skyscraper of everything I’ve ever known to be true about the goodness of humanity. You are bustling yet quiet in just the right places. You are colorful. You stare at me like you know I have something to prove. I wear a reminder of the city around my neck every day. Sometimes I stare at it and wish one day we’ll be in that city at the same time and I can take you out to breakfast and look at you until sunset. I miss you. And I tell you nearly every day. You always say it back. I wonder if it’s just out of pity. For I really do miss you. The last time I talked to you, you held me like I was the only thing keeping you from floating away into the sky. I’ve never felt my heart beat louder than in that moment. Do it again. Do it a million times. I want to break the record. Sometimes I consider walking back into my church choir one day and sitting next to you. I’d be in the wrong vocal section. I don’t even go to church anymore because I don’t believe in the same god that you do. But I’d give it all up to get to talk to you for even a moment. It’s been too long. It’s been way too fucking long. I have so much to tell you. One day, when we meet again, I’ll say it all. Hopefully I
