untitled

she's guarded,
her walls are up with sirens blaring
as he pokes at the solid brick,
trying to find even the smallest crack,
just enough to slip inside.

he keeps pushing, searching
as she throws things over the walls
hoping the right secrets will get him to leave,
but he doesn't.

she pushes back at him,
tries to find his cracks first
and he opens the door instead,
continuing to push
while she walks through the open door to his soul
and little by little,
sorts through the story of his life,
starts to figure him out
at the same time that he finds her cracks
and begins to slowly open the door
sealed shut years before
untouched so long it creaks
and as the dust settles,
she stands in front of him
welcoming him inside.

The Series

when she was younger 

and she felt like she couldn't speak,

she wrote.

when she was older 

and she felt overwhelmed by the world,

just wanted to escape,

she traveled.

but now,

when the world feels like too much,

she laces up old running shoes

and she runs.

G.A.J.

She is slipping away through my grasping fingers
and there is nothing I can do but stand behind her,
watching as her shadow trails behind and leaves
nothing to hold on to.

I remember the pain of high school,
I remember the pain of never feeling loved,
I remember how the depression
creeps up behind you and grabs you in the night,
while the anxiety plagues your dreams
and turns the daylight into new demons;
I remember and I understand
because this was once my world too.

Family is pushed to the side as she sees no end in sight,
choosing new friends instead of sisters
and leaving a trail of tears and pain behind her
because she does not see how much love
the sisters she has always been sandwiched in between
want to surround her with.

We are trying to reach for her,
we are trying to pull her back,
my tears fall nightly as I fear that one day
she will walk out of the front door,
and never look back.

Two-Way Street

I spent all of my time trying to carry your weight on my shoulders,
that there wasn't enough room for my own.

It wasn't anything but my own folly that broke me;
I was too trusting,
too willing to do anything for you,
too stubborn to listen to those telling me to focus on me first,
too loyal to turn my back on you, even when your problems started crushing me
and I started to feel like Atlas with the world resting on my back -
slowly bringing me down to one knee that was sinking deep into the sand
shifting beneath me.

I should have known it didn't go both ways.

When the weight was too much and I could hardly take another problem;
you came to me with one more
and I was to naive to realize that our friendship wasn't a two way street,
our friendship was you using me to balance the weight you didn't want to carry
because you were too lazy to handle your own crushing pain,
let alone my own.

So as my knee sinks into the sand that I've discovered was placed underneath me
by none other than
you,
the one who I was balancing the world for,
I'm gathering up my strength to push myself back onto my feet -
to throw off the extra weight I can no longer handle,
to feel the wind in my hair and stand straight with pride
because I can't let myself be crushed by the weight I've carried for someone
who refuses to split the weight of life and pain
with the only person who has taken the time to try and help them handle the weight,
because friendship is a two way street.
I won't help carry yours if you won't help carry mine
and I've learned that it isn't selfish to ask that,
it is too hard to carry more than the amount of pain you were built to handle
and love doesn't mean that you have to take all of someone else's pain,
it means that you share all of it.

I'm done. 
So watch me stand straight again and throw off the extra weight you gave me,
because I'm done breaking myself to carry all of the pain on my 
already weakened shoulders. 

Untitled (the pain is the worst at night)

He waited.

He waited for the day that he wouldn't get into trouble -
not realizing that it didn't matter if he waited
a few days longer so that if he happened to get caught,
he wouldn't be placed on a sex offender registry -
I would always be too afraid to say anything
and you can't get into trouble if nobody rats you out.

I didn't rat him out.
It didn't matter that my life became twisted,
dark and secret and filled with shame
because he had waited for my 18th birthday
to bestow upon me the so called gift that he
should have known was wrong because he felt the need
to wait.

Waiting is a sign of guilt.
He was unsure.
It was the others that pushed him to do that thing
which they joked about for weeks leading up to that moment -
that moment at that party that was supposed to be for me,
but I wasn't drinking.

He was.

They say that alcohol will knock down the walls
that keep guilt and shame in place -
I learned that to be true all too quickly,
as he had just enough to get a small buzz and we were talking
alone -
my biggest mistake.

Never be alone,
never let yourself be found screaming on the floor
with a barely buzzed hot dude on top of you,
fumbling at the clasp on your belt and slipping his hand
into places where it should not be -
laughing.

The door opened.

I ran.

Are these desires to demanding?

I want to fall asleep in your arms and wake up,
accidentally rolling over onto you and laughing as my hand
in your face wakes you up with a sleepy smile
because you want to be asleep and awake next to me too.

I want to talk until its too late to talk,
but to keep talking anyway because coffee
is the reason we stay awake in our early morning classes
after we can't help but spend past midnight
discussing anything and everything -
it isn't a fairytale so there are no time limits,
but I want it to feel like it is one.

I want you to be gentle, understanding
of my past with its darknesses
because I will do my best to understand yours
and respect them,
hoping you respect mine too.

But, more than anything, I just want you to love me
and not lie to me about anything
as we spend our nights together and wake up
in the mornings with sleepy smiles
because we both feel so lucky that the other is
waking up next to us.

He has ruined me

He has ruined me.

there was once a time when I did not know

what the difference between being 

"in like" with someone and "in love" with someone was,

but now I do 

and I wish I didn't because being in love

hurts so much more than being in like. 

everything is so much more different now,

since the day that we first met and 

I thought him attractive -

at first - 

not knowing what I was getting myself into

as I slowly began to know him

and slowly began to learn what love means

at the same time that I began to experience 

what it is really like to feel so overwhelmed by a person

who is merely whelmed by you.

when his best friend told me that I was sure

to experience heart break someday 

I did not believe him

because I did not know that it was possible 

for a heart to fall for another without the other knowing

and that mistranslation is what ended up ruining me -

I did not know that it was going to be between us

or with him 

because I was misguided by a heart speaking the wrong language:

the language of being in like instead of the language of being in love. 

and now I know what it is like to be ruined 

by someone who does not know,

his best friend was right all along

without either of us truly knowing 

and now I deserve an "I told you so" 

because I accidentally got my heart broken

by not knowing what love truly was. 

He has ruined me.

I cannot hear his name without thinking about him,

even when it is someone else who happens to share

the same arrangement of letters 

because just the sound of that name 

makes my heart jump and my lungs pause,

I will never be able to hear that name without

thinking of him.

I cannot sleep without remembering the time

we slept curled up next to each other on a floor

because we were snowed in at someone else's house - 

my bed feels empty without him in it 

and I can't fully feel warm at night 

without him beside me.

I cannot wake up in the morning without remembering

pushing my face into his chest 

as my nose filled with the smell of his morning breath

and I still can faintly remember the sound of his beating heart

underneath his t-shirt. 

I cannot go on Facebook or Twitter without 

subliminally hoping to get a notification from him

and in the off chance that I do,

my smile doesn't fade away for hours 

because I cannot experience life without him in it

and I cannot imagine life without him in it

and I cannot stand the idea of him not being in it,

but we fought and I got angry and now I cannot talk to him 

in the way that we used to because everything is tense.

I cannot eat or sleep without my thoughts being filled with him

and I cannot help but regret messing everything up

because I cannot convince my heart to stop beating 

in the rhythm that it matched that day 

I snuggled my head into his chest when we woke up that morning

and his morning breath filled my nostrils. 

He has ruined me, 

and I now know the true meaning of being in love 

as he walks away and my heart

shatters.