Thursday, December 27, 2012

they were lies what she said

"they are just words" she said,
"they mean nothing" she said
 
she lied.
 
because there is no such thing as just words my dear
these are words and i am speaking them, writing them
onto paper and they have meaning and they are not
just anything, they are not
meaningless.
 
i can take these words and i can make things
that are ugly seem beautiful and i can make things that seem
boring a little bit more exciting, i can
use these "meaningless" words to make you feel
worthless just as easily as i can use them to make you feel
wonderfully meaningful.
 
so my dear, my dear little young one, don't listen
to her when she says that words are nothing
because they are something and they are not meaningless,
without them there would be nothing, they make things
and break things, they are
the very core of our beings - writer or not - because
we would all be nothing without these words, the words
that lift us up and pull us down.
 
and i ask you this;
if words really do mean nothing than how can i say
"I love you"
and actually mean
something.

baby, i've burned myself away

baby i've got myself a new addiction and you would kill me if you knew
that i quit cutting through your carefully sewn stitches because it was too easy
to get new ones and too easy for you to notice that i was breaking again
because i have a bit of an obsession with the idea of shattering into 
a million pieces and your careful attempts at sewing me together
made me want to scream, made me want to cut through the strands
of your love that was holding me together and so now, now i've got myself
a new addiction baby
and this time there is no way to fix me.
this time you can't sew me back together because i'm becoming too hard
for your needle and your thread can't get through my skin because it is burning,
burning away your attempts at fixing me baby
with a little bic lighter and little yellow flame i've got you out of the way
and now you can't fix me because i'm too charred and if you touch me
with your needle i will just break because i am so burned out, i have
burned myself away into a pile of ash and dust
that you can't sew back together
and you will never know this because i will never tell you because i secretly
want you to make me a pile of nothing, then i would have an excuse
to die.
 
and baby, it would be all your fault.

its too soon for you

they say that age doesn't matter in death and they were right
because you are only two years old and yet death is sneaking up on you,
slipping into your room late at night when the monsters plague your dreams
and make you wake up suddenly, fear making your little two year old limbs
tremble as you cry out for your mother and your father;
"mommy, daddy!"
but those monsters are not the ones you should be fearing,
the one you should fear is hiding in your blood and your bones
and you can't see it as it rips you apart from the inside out,
making your parents want to cry out to God and plead for Him to save
their little baby girl with only two years of experience who is so close
to slipping away because of the cancer that plagues you and eats at your
two year old body, two years of no experience yet
so close to being taken away.
 
and i pray that someone can come and take away all of the monsters,
hiding in your dreams and hiding in your little body that is already
so very frail and fragile
because, you, more than anyone in this world
deserve to grow big and strong and fight those monsters and live a life
with many more cakes because two is not enough to know
which one is your favorite.

it was too early for them. (dedicated to the children in the Connecticut shooting 12/14/2012 RIP)

i.
his big brother came home from college last night
and promised him that they would play soccer together
when he got home from school that day,
so when he hugged him goodbye and told him
"I love you",
he had something to look forward to.
 
he hid underneath the table when the big scary man
with his scary gun turned towards him and the sound
was so very loud and so very scary and he just wanted
his big brother to come and save him, to come and get him
so they could play soccer together when he got home from school.
 
he never got to go home, he never got to play soccer
with his big brother who was at home waiting for him.
 
ii.
she told her mother that she wanted to be a nurse someday
as they sat down for breakfast that morning,
she said it was because she wanted to help people
like her grammy did and it made her mother smile.
 
she didn't even have time to react,
the gun was pointed at her before she could even scream
and when the shot rung out through the room
she could only hear the others around her as she fell to the ground.
 
she would never be a nurse someday, she never would get to
save people like her grammy did.
 
iii.
her mommy promised her that they would go out for dinner that night
because it was her birthday and she was going to be
six years old, a big girl, and she was so excited 
for cake and ice cream and presents when she got home.
 
her eyes were closed and she pressed herself against the wall
as he fired away at random,
hoping that if she couldn't see him then he wouldn't be able to see her
because she was scared and everyone was screaming.
 
she never got to eat that cake, never got to eat the ice cream
because she never got to finish her birthday.
 
iv.
he was excited because he was going to play with his
new baby sister when he got home,
his mommy promised when she dropped him off at
school in the morning and he was so excited he even bragged
to all of his friends and his teacher that day.
 
when the man started towards him and the chaos around him
made him turn to run,
he didn't know that behind him the gun was being raised
and the trigger was being pressed and the shot was being fired.
 
he never got to play with his little sister, never would be her big brother
and would never be able to teach her everything he knew.
 
v.
at breakfast she had gotten to eat a chocolate candy,
the 14th one of the month,
as she counted the days until Christmas morning
with her family everyday because she was so very excited
to give her mom and dad the gifts she had picked out for them.
 
when the bullet hit her it caused a pain she could have never imagined
and she screamed out as she fell to the ground,
her teacher ran to her side and knelt down to try to stop the bleeding
but she couldn't get it to stop in time and she began to fade a little bit,
becoming oblivious to the sounds around her.
 
she never got to eat the candy for the 15th day, never got to see Christmas morning
or give her parents the gifts she had picked out just for them.
 
_____________________________________________________
 
and that was only five of the twenty children who had their lives
ripped away from them too many years too early,
torn from the world and their families only days before Christmas
by a man whose rage became so uncontrollable that he couldn't
keep it in check and so he brought those guns to that elementary school
where he shot so many children and the teachers who just wanted to protect them
from this monster, killing so many people,
including his own mother.
 
what has this world become?
 
[author's note: the children described in this piece are generic, semi-fictional children who represent the ones killed today in the Connecticut shooting]

Saturday, October 6, 2012

beat-up-old guitar

her fingernails were chipped and her fingers were hardened
from hours of struming on her beat-up-old guitar
sitting on street corners with her case wide open
and empty.
 
her clothes rested on bones with skin stretched tight
and her shoulders were slumped
but her eyes were alive with the music she was making,
she couldn't express herself in any other way than
her homemade songs and beat-up-old guitar.

the old abandoned ferris wheel

[inspired by this video - http://youtu.be/Z8tH_i47E-U  by John Green]
 
they were screaming out to be heard,
voices pushing against the old abandoned ferris wheel
screaming, but only sounding in the soft wind
that moved them from silence into sound, pressing them
against the old metal carriages that once held
their laughing children.
 
they were screaming for redemption, for revenge
on the old rotting wooden steps
and the man who left it all behind,
confined to a prison cell,
letting their children's joy rot away
with the old wooden platforms.
 
the only way they could make it run
was by screaming into the wind
and hoping that it would push them with
enough force to make the old abandoned
ferris wheel
move again.

the words are singing

these words are singing through my mind
like your voice used to create beautiful melodies
out of almost nothing,
guitar in hand you were
invincible.
 
so now that you are off in the world
discovering yourself,
i just let my mind sing for you to fill up
that empty space where your music used to be
and i write lyrics for you, for songs that only i
will ever hear.
 
now i've got my own guitar in hand, i've got
words in my head that are singing and
i've got the voice to sing them
so the songs that i've written that you will never hear
can be heard by the ones who have words singing
in their heads too.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

salty sea green eyes

her eyelashes were sprinkled with dew-drop tears
that sparkled in the morning sun like diamonds
as her evergreen eyes gazed up into a far away place
where her dreams and long ago aspirations hid themselves
from her shattered heart and empty sea eyes.
 
once she was as full as the ocean and her eyes sparkled
in the middle of the night like stars
and her face was the moon,
but then the valve on her heart broke and she accidentally poured out
all of her salty sea green love
onto an empty beach and the stars in her eyes died,
her beautiful moon face no longer saw the beautiful light
in quiet darkness.
 
_______________________________________________
 
WHOOT!! somehow I found the time to write something while being loaded down with homework and a job! :) 
 
I'm kinda worried about how I will be able to do everything during the winter when I have nordic skiing, but I'll deal with that when it comes. 
 
also, I've lost 4 more pounds! 14 total since I started trying to lose weight! 

Friday, July 27, 2012

soldier's wife

she could feel the leaf brush against her face and she thought of
his breathe whispering against her ear;
telling her all of his secrets and his lies and the
truths that he had hidden for so long, but relenquished to her
ever-waiting ears with her head on his shoulder and his arms around her
and their bodies pressed together, fitting together like
two puzzle pieces that were a perfect match.
 
but now the only thing that her body was pressed against
was the cold tree, bark digging into her back through her light jacket
that let the wind cut right through to her bones making her shiver, making her
feel cold all the way through her body
like her bones had been frozen once again, brought back to the
brittle fragileness that they had been before him, before he
came along and began to thaw her out,
make her warm again.
 
her eyes were hard, the sparkle they had when she
was held in his arms next to the tree that was now the only thing
keeping her standing
was gone
and she refused to shed a tear, refused to look down at the letter
crumpled in her hand that told her that the man she loved, the only person
in the world who had been her perfect match,
was gone.
forever.
killed in battle, fighting bravely for his country and
her,
killed far away from home, far away from her arms
and now she was alone next to the tree that once was
their place;
where they had their first kiss, where he proposed, where she told him she was
pregnant with his child just two days before he was deployed, where they said
goodbye and he promised to come home soon to her and their child.
 
but now he wasn't ever coming home, he would never meet his
newborn son and she would never feel his arms around her again.
 
so she leaned against the tree that had their initials carved on a
low-hanging branch, encased in a heart that was supposed to mean
that their love would last
forever,
and she looked up at the cloudy sky and promised him
that she would tell their son about his brave daddy who was
an amazing man and loved them both more than anything, loved them
so much that he was willing to give his life to ensure their safety and freedom.
 
because she would never forget him and she would always love him, always
be waiting for the day when they would be reunited again
in heaven.

Friday, July 13, 2012

the magical place with a piece of my heart

i miss the palm trees and the sound of ocean waves late at night
when the stars were shining in the cloudless sky
and i miss the balcony that i would slip out onto in the middle of the night
so that i could see the stars and the ocean waves and the moonlight
because everything felt so much more real there, felt so much more
alive than back in my home nestled between the mountains.

i fell in love with the ocean breeze and the sun and the moonlight,
but most of all;
i fell in love with the palm trees and the warmth that seeped into my
cold, pale skin and how the sun made me a little less pale and made my hair
a little less red, lightened by the small blonde streaks that showed themselves
after whole days laying out on the beach with the people that i never seem to get
enough time to bond with, the people who are part of my life forever and in those
days on the beach i felt like we were finally all together,
falling in love with everything around us;
as a family.

it was in that place that i first fell in love with something other than
the willow tree behind my house or the way the sun sets behind the mountains, it was
the place where my heart felt full and happy and content, the place where
i left a little of me behind so that some day i would go back to the
palm trees and the ocean breeze and the moonlight and the sunshine
so when i got home i made a promise to myself that i would go back, i would travel
all the way across the US to the magical place that holds a piece of my heart,
and i would bring my family with me.

note: this is about a family trip i took last summer to san diego, california [we were technically just outside of san diego in carlsbad] and i immediately fell in love with it. sometimes i feel a little weird loving a place so much, but i do and i want more than anything to go back with my family sometime. i'm actually planning on going somewhere in southern california for college.

Saturday, June 30, 2012

deaf songbird sing

she only sings when nobody else can hear her,
like the lone tree that falls in a forest with no one
around to notice the sound,
and sometimes she wonders if she is really making
something worthwhile emerge from her lips, something
that maybe someone will call beautiful.

her whole world is a sound-proof box
that keeps the sound out and silence in as she
motions with her hands to speak and watches with
her eyes to listen, but sometimes she will
open her mouth like a songbird and sing without
knowing what her song sounds like, without knowing
if it is beautiful.

sound has never been heard by her ears
and sometimes she wonders if it exists, wonders
if the words she thinks she is humming
are even leaving her lips because she is too afraid
of disappointment to ask with her hands
if she can make a beautiful sound with her lips.

Friday, June 29, 2012

lasts

there are so many lasts;
last songs
last kisses
last steps
last smiles
last gifts
last words
last breaths
last heartbeats
 
and i don't think i really noticed until you and i had our lasts;
last gift
last hug
last kiss
last words
in the last moments of the last time that i saw you until you took your
last breath and your heart beat one last time and you died with your last smile
still shining on your face.
 
you see, i miss you more everyday and i thought that it might
not hurt so much a year later, but it does
and i can't help but cry at night as i hold the last gift you gave me;
a bright yellow stuffed animal duck named ducky because i thought that
your pool cleaner was a duck when really it was a turtle
and that was the last time we laughed together.
 
when we had our last laugh together and our last words
i didn't know they were going to be our last
and when i said goodbye to you that night i meant it as
"goodbye i'll see you next summer when i turn 16"
not
"goodbye forever i'll see you in heaven"
and when you said goodbye to me it was the same, but i think
that you might have known that our hugs and kisses would be
our last and that those words would be the last we spoke together
and that stuffed animal duck named ducky would be the last gift you gave me.
 
its a little over a year later and i keep thinking about our lasts
and think about how everyone has their lasts and wonder
what my lasts are going to be.
_____________________________________________
 
this is dedicated to my aunt who passed away a little over a year ago. i miss her so much.

paper-thin

she has this obsession, this unwavering desire
to become so paper-thin that her skin is just a thin layer stretched
across her brittle bones
because she wants to be as breakable on the outside
as she is on the inside
and she wants to be beautifully paper-thin like the girls that
seem to have everything tucked into the small back pocket
on their size 00 jean shorts.

she wants to be like the girls in their bikinis
that stretch out their beautifully thin bodies across
warm sand on california beaches with eyes closed, pretending
that they don't notice the gaze of the teenaged boys walking by
because she isn't noticed by anyone but her best friend who isn't even real,
just a figment of her imagination that never faded away
when she reached high school and realized that nobody wanted
to be friends with the fat girl.

and look at her now, look at her brittle bones and skin stretched
paper-thin across them as she starves herself for that perfect image
in her mind that, to her, is
perfection.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

love drunk

i'm so lovesick i'm wasted,
with a pounding headache and an uneasy stomach
and i think that i might have just drank a little too much
last night when i was with you, you are my
alcohol.
[and i know that isn't really a compliment, but i can't help it
because that is what you are and always will be you see, you and me
are something that doesn't fit together like teenagers
and alcohol, you make me sick like beer on a friday night at a frat party
without even trying and i think that i just might be addicted.]
 
and i'm hungover from all of the love
that i was drinking last night when i was with you and you
didn't even look at me once, didn't even bother to say a simple "hello"
and i went home and cried myself to sleep because it hurt so much,
my eyes were bloodshot and empty and when i woke up i thought that maybe
you really are my alcohol because, damn, i looked
drunk.
[i acted drunk too, my speach was slurred and my legs unsteady
and everyone thought that maybe i did drink, maybe the good little christian girl
actually did go to a party and get drunk,
i wouldn't tell them that they were wrong.]
 
its funny because when i got home that night, smelling like beer
and pot smoke my mother didn't even notice and i think it might have been
because i didn't smell like beer or pot smoke,
i smelt like you,
my drink of choice and i spent another night with a headache and a stomach
that decided it didn't want anything in it anymore
while my mother joined my father in front of the tv and they cuddled,
nestled their bodies together and i knew that one time
she got drunk off him too and i wonder if he knows and i think he just might
because, damn, their marriage is like a wall of unbreakable diamond.
[i'm afraid that i am always going to be stuck in a life where i go out
to friday night frat parties and get drunk on you,
feel so lovesick that i'm wasted and make everyone think that maybe, just maybe
i am actually drunk.]
 
and its funny how i think about us in metaphors because
they are unreal and we are unreal and this world keeps telling me
to go get drunk, but i don't know how much real alcohol my body can handle
if it can barely handle
you.

first love [late summer nights, or was it early morning?]

it's late at night
[or is it early morning?]
and i can't sleep and i don't know why and i think that
maybe it is because it is summer and during the summer i always think of
you
and how we used to talk to each other
until two and then my dad caught me and we couldn't
talk anymore except for during the day, but we still
stayed up until the morning thinking about each other and dreaming
about each other if we did slip into a short nap that turned into
a three hour nap that made us late for swim practice at six and we would
laugh if we missed it and call each other and bike to that old playground
and sit next to each other on the swings and hold hands and you tried to
kiss me and i turned away that one time because i was scared, but then
my parents put their foot down and forbade me from dating you
and i broke up with you and then i couldn't kiss you but i did anyway
when we both were taken, but we didn't care because i know i never
really got over you and i think you might have never really gotten over me
and now i'm still awake in the early morning in the summer;
subconsciously waiting for you to text me or chat me on facebook
[but i know you won't]
and thinking about how i don't think i ever really got over you.

level 9 earthquake on the richter scale

i hate the idea of forever
 
and i may be the only person who trembles when someone mentions
eternity or infinity or forever and when those christian ministers
mention heaven,
but i do tremble, well actually
i quake;
like my body is the earth
and has just been struck by a level 9 earthquake on the richter scale
with houses collapsing in and mountains imploding while oceans are
exploading and people are screaming, screaming so loud that i can
hear it in my ears, ringing
like a million church bells on sunday morning while my heart
skips like a little girl and her friends playing double dutch on a saturday
afternoon and her mom is watching with a smile, but i'm not smiling
because my body is quaking like it has just been struck
by a level 9 earthquake on the richter scale.
 
i don't know why my body trembles
[quakes]
so much at the mention of forever, but i much prefer
to be stuck here in today and not give a damn
about what will happen tomorrow.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

slipping through her fingers

her hair used to fall around her shoulders in little waves like
fiery water and now it is slipping through her fingers
like air as it falls to the ground, she can't
stop it, she can only watch as her once precious hair
becomes a pile of nothing on the carpet
and she can't help but
cry.

Sunday, June 10, 2012

half-open window [original song]

so i've been dabbling in song writing recently after a friend of mine asked me to write lyrics for his band because a song i wrote about a year ago they ended up using and really liked. this is what came of about 2 days of writing, crossing out, re-wording, and humming the melody in my head. hope you like it! ~Tya
 
verse one:
just a boy, living in a high flying world
with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
introduce a girl,
the girl he always wanted
with a simple cross necklace and an addiction to
slipping away through half-open windows
on late nights,
the moon as her only witness.
 
chorus:
and she is slipping, slipping away
his eyes are filled with stars,
he can't see her fading in his arms
because the lies they hide between them
outshine the truth that is
in the half-open window with a lingering scent of
her.
 
verse two:
he spent his time imagining a happy ending,
she spent hers planning how to slip off into the night
through the half-open window in his oddly caring heart
that didn't seem to fit with his ripped jeans and faded tees
and scratchy cigarette smoke coated voice.
 
chorus.
 
verse three:
the only thing she left behind was a wisp
of pine trees and early morning coffee
and a broken heart.
he couldn't sleep, couldn't eat, couldn't speak
and he ceased smelling of cigarettes because he threw
them away with his ripped jeans and faded tees,
she had taken his spirit with her when she
slipped out of his heart in the middle of the night,
the moon as her only witness.
 
she was slipping, slipping away
and his eyes were filled with stars,
he couldn't see her fading in his arms
until she had completely
disappeared.

sunburns and rainy days

somedays sunburns are my release and sunshine is my peace
when i curl up under an old oak tree
and read the words on the pages that hold me here
on this earth while my thoughts stray elsewhere, to places
where death is just a nightmare and pain doesn't exist.
 
and lately i've been trying to sit in the sun more but the rain
has made it impossible to do anything but cry when i just
want to smile and laugh and live this life that for some reason
that i do not understand was given to me to make something of it
and when i die i want to be able to offer up a life that is like a polished gem,
priceless in everyway.
 
today i got a sunburn as i searched for peace in sunshine and oak trees
and words on pages that tie me to this world while
my mind is off in a distant land where you are still here and the scars
do not exist anymore because i've been healed by the grace
of the sunshine and the rainy days that made me cry
when i just wanted to hold it inside.

anxiety

there is this thing, you see, this thing
that makes your heart stop and your words get stuck and your stomach
drops into the depths of a black hole and your lungs forget to breathe and you
can't seem to stand upright and everything feels like it has been dropped on your
shoulders and you feel like you may just puke up your tiny little lunch
and it's called
 
anxiety.
 
and it sucks.
because you can't give award winning speaches and the thought of
being with large groups of people makes you hyperventilate and you
can't tell anyone, you can't admit that you can't seem to function
in social situations or when you have to go
stand in a bathroom stall and somehow remember how to breathe for
ten minutes too long.
 
you see, i've got this little thing that makes it impossible to eat
at a friend's house or go to parties or stand in front of a crowd or travel
in any car other than one with my family
and it's called
 
anxiety.
 
and i pretend that everything is fine when my stomach is
dropping and i think i might puke and i don't know if i can handle it.
sometimes i even try to pretend that i am normal and maybe that is why
i don't tell anyone that i can't seem to function like a normal human being
because i don't like admitting weakness and i feel so weak.
so when i go travel with my friend and her family tomorrow
i'm going to pretend that my stomach isn't dropping and i have momentarily
fogotten how to breathe and hope and pray that it isn't so bad
that i actually DO puke and admit my weakness, my secret disease
 
anxiety.

solid ground [a love song]

she carried him away on the wings of her voice,
wrapped the words around him and made them
weightless
so they could lift him up and bring him to her cloud,
floating ever so far away in the ever so dark night;
 
except for the stars.
 
she didn't want to be alone anymore, she couldn't
keep humming the sad tune to the song that broke
her heart and built a wall,
and a cloud,
that kept her away from the rest of the world.
 
she sang him up to her cloud
where they could be alone with only the stars
and he gave her a ring, asked her to come down with him,
but the sad song she sang wouldn't let her go
so he stayed on her cloud and taught her
to hum happy songs, sang her down from her cloud
where his deep song and her high melody
kept them together on solid ground.
 
the writer's note that sometimes appears before or after these things:
i know, there isn't really a chorus or separate verses, it is more like a poem, but i wrote it as a song for a friend of mine. the tune [if you were wondering] is soft and slow, played on a piano [i was listening to my friend play a classical piano piece when i wrote this] and is mostly higher notes. in my head there is a piano solo in the beginning and middle[ish]. this can also technically be played on an acoustic guitar.

leaving this town

hurry up my dear, i'm packing my bags and leaving this
god forsaken town
filled with a past i don't want to remember and people i want
more than anything to forget.
 
you see, i can't stay here anymore, i can't
live in this place where i made so many mistakes
and had to pay for them all, i want to get away from 
all of the secrets and the stories and the lies
that have created a person i don't want to be, a person
i hate to be.
 
i'm packing my bags and ditching this town, i'm leaving
you behind with everyone else
and don't be offended when you never hear from me again
because you are part of a past that i'm eager to forget.
 
i want to be someone else, someone i'm proud of being
and i don't want the lies and secrets anymore, i can't stand the
pretending like everything will be fine if i just stay a little longe,
it won't, i know that and you know that, but you can't
seemt to admit it.
 
everyone here knows the me i hate and hates the me i love;
the me that is head over heels in love with a boy and doesn't like girls,
the me that is actually pretty goddamn smart and wants to sing her own songs.
 
i'm sorry i've lied to you for so long, but i don't like girls like that
[i never have, even a little bit]
and i'm sorry i led you on and made you think that maybe we had a chance
because we don't, i'm in love with the man of my dreams but he doesn't know
i exist and that is okay, when i leave this town i'm leaving him too.
 
so this is goodbye, i'm packing my bags and cutting my hair,
i'm going blonde because red is too noticable and i don't want to be noticed
or found when i slip away to another place
where i am nothing more than just a name and a face, nothing more.
 
i don't want to be known as me anymore,
i want to recreate myself.

how she fell

part one: elementary school
"sticks and stones may break my bones
but words can never hurt me"
she sang, sang while they
called her ugly and fat and weird-looking, she sang it
when they called her retarded and stupid and dumb
to convince herself that they were just words, they have
no meaning.
 
part two: middle school
"sticks and stones may break my bones
but words can never hurt me"
she chanted to herself while walking
alone through crowded hallways, chanted as they
called her worthless and fake and self-centered
because she didn't want it to hurt as much as it did.
 
part three: high school
she changed her look and lost some weight,
and she whispered to herself, tried to convince herself that
"sticks and stones may break my bones
but words can never hurt me"
while they called her a slut and a whore and a bitch,
when she walked alone among her peers.
 
part four: when she fell
she stopped her singing and chanting and whispering
because she stopped her life with a bottle of pills
when the words became too much,
 
she could heal her broken bones but not
her broken heart.

love drunk

i'm so lovesick i'm wasted,
with a pounding headache and an uneasy stomach
and i think that i might have just drank a little too much
last night when i was with you, you are my
alcohol.
[and i know that isn't really a compliment, but i can't help it
because that is what you are and always will be you see, you and me
are something that doesn't fit together like teenagers
and alcohol, you make me sick like beer on a friday night at a frat party
without even trying and i think that i just might be addicted.]
 
and i'm hungover from all of the love
that i was drinking last night when i was with you and you
didn't even look at me once, didn't even bother to say a simple "hello"
and i went home and cried myself to sleep because it hurt so much,
my eyes were bloodshot and empty and when i woke up i thought that maybe
you really are my alcohol because, damn, i looked
drunk.
[i acted drunk too, my speach was slurred and my legs unsteady
and everyone thought that maybe i did drink, maybe the good little christian girl
actually did go to a party and get drunk,
i wouldn't tell them that they were wrong.]
 
its funny because when i got home that night, smelling like beer
and pot smoke my mother didn't even notice and i think it might have been
because i didn't smell like beer or pot smoke,
i smelt like you,
my drink of choice and i spent another night with a headache and a stomach
that decided it didn't want anything in it anymore
while my mother joined my father in front of the tv and they cuddled,
nestled their bodies together and i knew that one time
she got drunk off him too and i wonder if he knows and i think he just might
because, damn, their marriage is like a wall of unbreakable diamond.
[i'm afraid that i am always going to be stuck in a life where i go out
to friday night frat parties and get drunk on you,
feel so lovesick that i'm wasted and make everyone think that maybe, just maybe
i am actually drunk.]
 
and its funny how i think about us in metaphors because
they are unreal and we are unreal and this world keeps telling me
to go get drunk, but i don't know how much real alcohol my body can handle
if it can barely handle
you.

Friday, April 27, 2012

to live.

i am dying.
 
and it's not in the metaphorical way that leads to
suicide
or depression or withdrawl from the world,
 
i really am dying.
 
my hearbeat is faint, feeble, and my lungs
refuse to give me oxygen and my muscles
are slowly ceasing to respond to my frantic requests and my eyes
won't let me see and my ears
don't let me hear and my body
is done fighting, it is letting itself slowly
die
and there is nothing i can do.
 
dead at only sixteen, seventeen,
if i'm lucky
and a whole life to live taken away before i could
take the time to live it and i wonder
how my little sisters are going to react when
my parents finally decide to tell them that their
older sister is dying and that she is past saving and that
she can't live much longer.
 
i wonder if anyone at school will miss my presence, will they
notice that i'm gone when my legs will no longer carry me
to school and my lungs will no longer work on their own
and i am stuck in a hospital bed instead of the one at home
with the window and the sunshine and the partially transparent purple curtains,
or will they all be shocked when my obituary is in the paper and my funeral
is planned for a bright spring day and my coffin is slowly lowered into the ground?
 
there are so many things i will not get to do, so many
places i will not get to see, so many
people i will not get to meet, so many
books i will not get to read, so many
words i will not get to say.
 
i am dying and it hurts and i'm scared and i just want to
 
live.

Friday, April 20, 2012

swinging and burning

i profusely apologize for how dark and semi-disturbing this is, i just finished reading 'Night' by Eli Weisel and was inspired.

i hate them for what they've done to you, for the
dark look in your once bright blue eyes, sparkling with
innocence and joy and youth
now dark and old and empty from seeing them
swing and burn
before your oh so young eyes, persecuted for
a belief that they held so innocently and so strongly, a belief
that you believed too.

and i don't understand what made them do it, or why
they chose you even though you were so very young, why
you were stolen from your innocent
runningthroughgreenfeildsbarefoot stage
and thrown into a world that was all too cruel to you, making you
watch their bodies become flames and spew black smoke, watch
them swing from the gallows for crimes they did not commit
while trying to hold onto something, anything, that would
explain why your young eyes were forced to see what are my
worst nightmares,
the dreams that made me scream were your piercing reality
that seemed to endure forever and never seemed to stop.

so when you come to me with tears in your old blue eyes
i don't know what to do or what to say
because nothing, nothing that i could ever say would ever
make what they did to you make sense,
you didn't deserve to watch them die anymore than they deserved

to die.

Friday, April 13, 2012

they heard her scream

i.
it was a boy and a girl in an alley with cigarette smoke
late at night on a friday
and they heard her scream.
 
it was her mother, her cries of mourning, her screams
for her youngest daughter that echoed
into the rainy morning and pierced through the
people clad all in black and made the priest momentarily
lose his words, caught in his throat, as he heard
[and saw]
the mother in the front row with her husband and children, yelling out
to God for her daughter.
 
ii.
it was his left hand that griped her throat and held her
against the cement wall, covered in graffiti, as she
pleaded and cried
as he pushed closer against her and reached down.
 
it was the barman in the back corner of the reception who felt
like he shouldn't be there, but had been asked by the parents
of the girl whose body he had found
in the dirty back alley behind his bar, late at night
when he heard her scream.
 
iii.
it was the force of him going into her that made her go limp, hoping
and praying that it would all end soon, that the pain
would just stop as he looked at her with an evil grin,
cigarette held between his lips.
 
it was her older sister that stopped eating, stopped
talking, stopped attending college, gave up on life
when she heard the news via a late night phone call and came home
to find the boy, who became obsessed with the idea of revenge
because the police weren't doing enough to find him in her mind.
 
iv.
it was the scream that echoed through the night
when he pulled out the knife, glinting silver in the moonlight
and she became afraid as he held it against her throat
that they heard and sent them running to the abandoned alley, empty
except for the body of a young girl,
throat slit.
 
it was the ones who heard her scream and found her
that never forgot.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

finger fountains

she can't think straight and the words refuse
to flow through her fingertips that she once thought
were never-ending fountains of thoughts, but now
she can't seem to get even a trickle to even moisten
the blank paper in front of her and her brain feels like it is
screaming to let things out, but she just doesn't have the words
for some strange reason and she doesn't like it, doesn't like
not being able to write and she longs to unblock the fountains
in her fingers and pour words from her mind into the world via
a white, blank piece of paper.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

her invisible footprints

she was looking up at the sun that was just slipping away
behind the mountains and she wanted to follow it, she wanted
to chase it and see where it hid so she could hide there too
where nobody could find her,
not that anyone would care, but she was
bound by her mistakes to the earth so she couldn't go
run away with the sun and dance with the moon, she couldn't
hide behind the mountains where nobody would find her.
 
and the worst part wasn't that she was stuck in the middle
of somewhere that she wanted to leave, the worst part was that
nobody seemed to notice her straining against everything she had ever
done, said, written, read
and nobody seemed to care that she just wanted to run away and hide
behind the mountains she would look at late into the night, wondering
if she could only slip behind them how her life would be different, if she
could only tip top out of her room and down the dirt road and disappear
late one summer night and join the stars and the moon up in the sky
because that is all she has wanted to do these last few weeks;
disappear.
 
sometimes it even feels like she has, feels like nobody
even notices that she is struggling to make ends meet and that she
is trying to run away, that she is trying to make herself disappear
because she knows that they look at her without seeing her, they look right
through her like she is invisible and it breaks her heart everytime
and the people she used to call her friends
now act like she is nothing to them and she ends up in the front
of the classroom listening to them talk while she works all alone
on the lab that they just completed together because she can't change
lab partners this late in the year and its not like anyone would take her anyway.
 
so she lays in the long grass and cuddles with her old teddy bear
as she thinks of how she could just slip away in the night, leaving nothing
behind that would tell where she went because she is only a shadow
anyway and stopped leaving footprints a long time ago.

Monday, April 9, 2012

a shy boy with his ukulele

there are so many things i haven't done, so many
things that i haven't said, so many
secrets that i haven't shouted from mountains
like a love-sick fool.
 
i used to want to travel the world, i
wanted to see lovers kissing in France and a shy boy playing
his ukulele in England and girls dancing in Italy and, most of all,
i wanted to see you.
 
i wanted to tell you that i loved you, i wanted
to kiss you under the stars and smoke on an abandoned
street corner next to that shy boy playing his ukulele, i wanted
to hold you in my arms and be held in yours, i wanted
to make you smile through your tears, but now
i can't because i am slowly slipping away and you are too blind to
see, too caught up in your own world to see that mine is falling
apart.
 
there were so many things i wanted to do, so many things
i wanted to say, but now time is running out and i don't have enough left
to let you know everything that goes through my mind when i see you
and i know that you have her, i just hope that she can keep you sane
when i'm gone, i hope that
she can hold you and make you smile through your tears, i hope
she will kiss you in France, she will smoke on street corners in England, she will
make you smile through your tears.
 
i hope that she can make everything okay when i'm gone,
because you don't know this; but i'm dying darling
and i will never be able to get better, there is this monster
inside of me that is slowly, quickly, tearing me apart
and i can't fight it much longer so i'm using the last of my strength
to write you this poem and i hope that you can read
this illegible handwriting because my hand is shaking
and i'm tired and i'm dying.
 
so when i'm gone, please go to France and kiss someone under the stars
and smoke with that same someone on street corners in England by that
shy boy with his ukulele and learn how to smile through your tears, please
live the life that i never had because i know you want to travel
the world, like i once did, and please don't stay behind for me.
 
leave me some yellow roses,
for friendship,
on my gravestone and then go and travel the world and bring me back
some postcards.

Sunday, April 8, 2012

tremble

i used to be able to fly, soar
up into the sky and be free,
 
but then i fell.
 
hard.
 
now i'm to afraid to take that jump that's really more of a
small, little step over a semi large crack in the pavement
filled with a pool of water from the tears i rained down
on it as i shivered, trembled with fear
because once i fell i became afraid of falling again.
 
and it's cold and i'm shaking, but i can't tell
if it's from fear or from the cold that's piercing my bones, shattering
them like they did when i fell and i wonder if maybe
i'm just remembering what it was like on that day
when i was soaring high and i hit a small, barely noticeable
bump in the air drafts and i plummeted
down
down
down,
screaming all of the way but nobody could hear me
as i fell, nobody was there to catch me and so i
shattered.
 
i broke into a million tiny pieces and it took
a whole year of sterile hospital rooms and expensive bills
to fix me again, but then i found out that it was useless, it was all nothing,
when i stood looking down at that small crack in the pavement
and i found myself unable to make that jump that was more like
a semi large step, but was so close to flying
that i trembled.

Saturday, April 7, 2012

finally together

wearing a faded, well worn hat, that i stole from you this morning
and a flannel shirt that i bought last year and for some reason
i feel strangly beautiful for the first time in forever.
 
and when i walked downstairs you smiled, you saw
your hat still on my head and my smile and it was like i was 6
again and we were close again and there was no pain, no tension
between us, like the past was the present
and you loved me again
[not like you don't now, but sometimes it feels as though...
well you know.]
 
for the first time in a long time i felt connected to you again, i felt
like falling into your arms and giving you a great bear hug
while we make cheese burgers together out on the deck, shivering
because it is cold and the wind is whipping around us, but the grill
is keeping us at least semi warm
and i want it to be summer and i want it to be forever
because this moment in time is one i have long for, have wished for
late at night after we would fight and i would cry myself to sleep.
 
for the first time in a long time i was close to my daddy again
and i don't ever want it to end.

Friday, April 6, 2012

what makes a writer

i was told that writers are all brave, and the ones
that aren't face their fear with an awe inspiring
courage that i don't have, so i guess
that means that i'm not a real writer because
i'm not brave, i don't have awe inspiring courage.
 
yet, i can make words bend around me in ways
that some people just can't and i can
weave a story using only a pen and paper, i use
my thoughts as a many colored thread and my pen
is the needle, the paper is my canvase.
 
i paint mind pictures and i like to think that sometimes
i make questions, that i
create a thought in someone's mind that grows
into something that they can't ignore, something that
becomes more than just a thought.
 
i make dreams come alive, i make the chaos
of the inside of my mind real and i
tell the truth as i see it, not as
people have told me to see it because i don't conform
to that kind of thinking.
 
i'm not brave, i don't have awe inspiring courage
and you tell me that means i'm not really a writer, but
i think that there might just be more to it than that
because i may be afraid, i may not be confident
but i can sit down and twist words around me like thread,
weaving them into poems and stories.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

to become something

he told her that she was nothing
because she said that she didn't want to be what
society called a 'something'.

he gripped her arm and turned her face towards him
and he said that if she wasn't something, then she
would always be nothing and that next morning
she woke up with bruises where his fingers
had been and a determination to become
something,
for him.

so she began to starve and cut and repeat until
she was skinny and beautiful and he could
look at her with pride in his eyes, look at
his eldest daughter and stop hiding the fact that she does
[in fact] exist.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

i am not american

i am not american.
 
i refuse to be held down by a name that refers
to the country that i was born in, the country
that, yes, i live in, but i do not
associate myself with.
 
[i do not associate myself with anything]
 
i refuse to be told that i should be, that i am,
something because of where i was born
or what color my skin, hair, eyes are
or what religion i was raised in
because i do not want to associate myself with
the history behind those names that have been pinned
down on me, a 16 year old girl, who hasn't gotten to yet
see the world and make judgments, make my own history.
 
[i do not agree with society]
 
i am not white. i am not a red head. i am not christian.
 
i am a girl with pale skin and hair like fire, i believe
in a God that doesn't care what you look like or where you were
born or what you believe in and i believe
that there is more to my hair than just the fact that it is "red"
because there is a history to my hair, it was
the hair of my ancestors who survived famines and wars and
passed it down a line of strong-willed people to me and i am
proud to have this hair and i am proud of its history, but i am told
that it is just "red" and that i am just a "red head".
 
[there is more to it than that]
 
and my skin is not white, it is pale, it is not as dark as some
because my ancestors came from places where the sun would give them
little kisses that they called freckles and evolution
didn't give them the ability to become dark, so they became red
as they worked hard in the fields and in the factories and made
a life for themselves.
 
i am proud of who i am and where i come from, of the people
who lead up to me, the ones who make up the history i don't yet have
and i do not think that the words that are so forcefully pinned on me
are right because they can't ever begin to portray
the past, the present, and the future that lays
behind me, next to me, and in front of me.
 
i am not american.
 
i am just a 16 year old girl with fiery hair and pale skin who believes in God.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

her father killed her, society destroyed her

only 16.
so young and yet so old,
scarred by razor blades and words and the fists of a father
who was supposed to love her, but only wanted a son.
 
she should be living her life, smiling and laughing
with her friends that don't exist, wearing
shirts that drop a little too low and short shorts
instead of long sleeves and jeans in mid-summer.
she should be happy, should be
so much more excited to wake up in the morning
to a whole new day, but instead
she just groans 
because everynight she secretly hopes
that she won't wake up in the morning.
 
it was a sad day, the day that
her father killed her and society destroyed her
and she stopped fighting for the life that she should
treasure and look forward to, but all she looks forward to is
death.
_____________________________
sooooo sorry that everything has been depressing recently, i've been going through a lot of stuff and i can only get it out when i write!

Monday, April 2, 2012

undefinable (dedicated to a close friend)

in 35 minutes i'm going to be standing in front of a crowd,
talking about you,
and i don't know what to say.
 
you are the one who comforted me when i wanted to die,
you are the one who stood by me no matter what,
you are the one who defended me and cared about me,
you are the one person i've looked up these past 3 years
and i don't want you to graduate in a few months and leave me
behind when you go off to college.
 
[i'm going to miss you too much.]
 
and i don't know how i'm going to get my feelings into words, i don't
know how i can possibly sum up who you are in only a few minutes
because you are so much more than words can say, you are
undefinable.

Sunday, April 1, 2012

what was left

she thought that she was alone in the world, like
the rain was pouring on just her, just her and
nobody else, like the
whole world had come down and was laying
on her frail shoulders that were weathered with
age and misfortune, but she was only
16.

her family had left her alone, alone and afraid
when she had reached out for them, when she
had needed them more than anything
and they just sat there and laughed at her bleeding wrists,
her tear-stained pillows, her broken heart
because they didn't care that she had gotten hurt, only that
she had hurt them in the process and they couldn't handle
the pain that she was holding on her shoulders.

they were surprised then, surprised when
the daughter they thought was perfect, perfectly
destroyed herself and finally succeeded in something
that made all of the pain of the world lift from her shoulders.

because when you are dead, there is no more pain
and she was dead, she was gone, they said
that they had missed the signs and that they hadn't expected
their perfect daughter to perfectly destroy herself, leaving
the pain of the world behind to sit on her mother's shoulders, her
father's lap, her younger sisters' hearts.

she left the guilt to rest on them and weigh them down, the guilt
of a dead daughter who was killed by suicide, swallowed too many
pills for them to save her from.

and she didn't even leave a note.

Saturday, March 24, 2012

i loved you once and i loved you twice and i love you still

i've got you underneath my fingernails and i don't know how,
you've stained yourself on my skin in cross-crossing lines
that make no sense
and i don't know what to say, i don't know
what to do when i'm around you.

baby, baby i loved you once and i loved you twice and i love you still,
but you've got your hair falling in your eyes
and i don't think that you can see me because i've got
my heart open and my eyes are shining and i can't seem to speak
when you laugh and sit down next to me.

you've got that smile that makes my heart stop everytime, that
look that you make when you look my way never fails
to leave me breathless and i think
that i just might be falling more in love with you than last time
because i loved you for so many innocent years,
but i gave up on you because how could someone beautiful
love back someone ugly like me?

baby, baby i loved you once and i loved you twice and i love you still,
i used to watch you run like the wind around dirt tracks
and when your hair was flipped to the side and your eyes were shining
i thought that maybe, just maybe
you could see me, but you couldn't because back then i was invisible.

perfection does not exist in this world, but baby
you come pretty damn close
with those young eyes and wide smiles and the way you
play that guitar makes me wonder if maybe
you could hold me like that someday, if maybe
you could look at me with such utter concentration and love
so i could tell you that all this time i've been falling in love with you.

baby, baby i loved you once and i loved you twice and i love you still,
but i'm too afraid of cliches to brush the hair out of your eyes
and to look you in the face and ask you if maybe, just maybe
you can finally see me.
______________________________

i wrote this about this guy that i used to like in middle school and then decided freshmen year that i didn't have a chance and moved on and now [as a junior] have begun to like again, the only difference this time is that now we are friends and i might actually have a chance.

okay, so i'm going to see 'The Importance of Being Earnest' with my friend Sarah in like 10 minutes so i have to go. hope you guys have all been having a wonderful week!!

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

faded nightmares

i'm seeing in shattered pieces, distortions of the truth and the lies,
when i look in a mirror i only see the flaws, i only see
the fat on my thighs and the shadows under my eyes and the
scars that cover my arms and my hands,
memories of heartbreak and loss and punching through glass windows.

i've got old woman eyes, eyes that have gazed upon
funerals and sunsets and heart wrenching pain that seems to
slice right through your very being and leave you almost powerless to resist, the kind
that you just want to run away from, to escape from, but no matter
how hard you try you can't escape and it just follows you, striking you
down again and again and again and you just can't
take it anymore, but still you endure it because there is someone out there
waiting for you, so they can hold you in their arms and make everything
oh so much better.

my heart is still beating and so i still have hope that someday
i will be able to look up into the clouds on a sunny sunday morning and
smile, because everything will be okay and
i won't have anything to hide anymore and these
scars will be faded and nothing more than just a memory, nothing more
than just a nightmare that i have finally woken from.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

a song to sing you to sleep someday

there is play-doh on my fingertips and underneath my fingernails,
memories of wishes and dreams that i once had playing out in front of my eyes.
there is mud in my hair and my clothes,
my eyes are sparkling with something close to innocence.

i've got that childhood feeling of happiness coursing through my veins
and the wind whipping through my hair brings me back to that day,
the day that i stood on that boat and looked out across the endless sea
with you standing beside me and seaweed in my hair.

lines are broken with their usual chaos,
the words are flowing from my heart and my soul
like a never ending river,
i want to dedicate this song to you, the song of my life,
and yours,
but not a love song because you aren't someone i am in love with, you are
oh so much more than that honey, you are
the wind in my hair and the play-doh in my finger nails and the mud on my face, you are
the childhood innocence that i once had and then lost a little bit too soon, you are
my everything and so much more.

26 letters can make so many words, so many sentences,
and yet i can't seem to string them together in the right ways to describe
exactly what you are to me
because it is so complicated, but yet so simple, and i just want
to write you a song that you will let me sing to you late at night
when the nightmares are too much and you can't seem to fall asleep.

this is your lullaby and it doesn't have a chorus, it doesn't have
a melody because there is no melody that could fit you, no matter
how hard i try to get it to work
and a chorus is so much more repetative than your
late night surprise visits in holey jeans and plain faded t-shirts, there is no way
that i could ever get you into a song, but, god damn it,
i sure am trying.

this is your Valentines Day song, a song for you to read when you feel unloved
and when you can't seem to understand love
because i don't understand love baby, it is the only thing i can't seem to write about,
the one thing i can't seem to nail down with the limits of 26 letters.

so honey here is a song for you, the one i have yet to meet
and when i do finally get to meet you i hope that you will let me sing you your song,
let me shout it from the rooftops, the song without a melody or a chorus,
but a song all the same.