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.

Alcoholic in Reverse

I'm like an alcoholic but my addiction is in the reverse

because instead of emptying bottles

I spill them down my pale white arms 

and the liquid isn't made by anyone but me,

instead of being clear alcohol it is thick and muddy red. 

My purple veins that twine themselves underneath 

skin stretched across bone

are the bottles for the liquid I crave 

and my addiction is to shattering those bottles

so that I can see their contents 

spill out on the floor 

as my vision fades to black. 

Black outs bring mornings filled with regrets,

not from forgotten memories -

because there is nothing that can be forgot - 

but from not shattering enough bottles

and keeping too much liquid inside me 

so that my eyelids slowly open 

instead of staying closed.  

Like an alcoholic I crave that liquid,

wanting to drown myself in that muddy red 

by releasing it from fragile bottles 

stacked on top of brittle bones. 

They say that they don't understand my addiction

because they don't know how someone can reverse alcoholism

on their own bodies - 

they don't realize how it is the same -

I want to forget everything and fade away:

my liquid of choice is merely spilt across pale white skin

instead of emptied from bottles into empty stomachs.

how many times do I need to say sorry for you to forgive me?

your words make it seem like we are ok,
but your actions tell me a different story
and i don't know what it is i need to do for you
to forgive me,
i can only say "i'm sorry" so many times
before my brain takes over and i give up.
the jokes have faded and conversations seem
filled to the brim with anger and hurt
because i fucked up again and this time
the one person who i felt might care
was the one to get hurt.

and now it hurts me to no end.

i'm doing all i can to mend this friendship
we once had,
but sometimes things become too broken
for fixing and i fear that is what i've done
because i lashed out when i should have held it
inside.
there are some days when my brain refuses to work
and when the darkness becomes so consuming
that i can't help but curl up into a ball,
i look for that little light that i thought
you might be.

i fucked up.
again

of course i would lash out at the one i care deeply for
because isn't that the way things always go?
and i don't know how to fix this and make it better,
i don't know how to apologize and start over,
i don't know how many times i have to say sorry
for us to be what we were before

Music

I listen to music that is real,
pounding itself into my soul with each word
that flows through my veins and makes me
feel alive.
Words are so full of meaning sometimes -
I can't keep myself held down
unless I have something to tie me
and these songs are the ones that chain the
perfect meanings together in letters
that are just heavy enough to keep me from
flying off into darkness.

These are the songs that kept me back
from falling out of high trees
where branches grew in just the right way
to hold me in place with a notebook
filled with words twined together,
messy attempts at making songs to hold down
the other lost souls in this world.

The "Stupidity" of Villains

You know, I was pondering things a little while ago about heroes and villains and something struck me; the reason the villain ends up being defeated because they talk about their "evil" plan is not because they are dumb or stupid, its because they just want recognition.  I mean, look at the villains, most people can relate to them more than they can relate to the hero.  The hero saves the day, the hero is who people want to be, but the villain is who people can see themselves in.  Villains don't start that way, they are not born evil, they are born as innocents who are then mistreated by the world.  It is just like us as average humans, we are born and we live in a life where we are constantly being misunderstood and disregarded for our efforts and used by those around us.  The natural desire of human kind is to be loved and cared for and noticed, but that doesn't happen.  Villains are representatives of this notion and this flaw in humanity, they become "evil" because they have this overwhelming desire to be noticed by someone and to do something that gets noticed, that they can take the credit for.  Really, they are just trying to be loved and understood and recognized - just like we are every single day.  So when a villain stops in that moment when he has the hero cornered and the end is surely in sight, he isn't being stupid or dumb in describing his "evil" plan - he is only trying to get recognition and praise, he wants to take credit for this thing that he has done.  In this situation the hero is the parent or the teacher or the coach or the captain or the friend who takes that moment to listen to what we've done and then turns around and steals it all away.  The villain isn't defeated because he is stupid, he is defeated because of his overwhelming need to be able to tell someone what he has done and be proud of it, something that we desire to do everyday.  This common scene is a direct representation of the, arguably, biggest flaw in humanity: the desire for recognition that will never come except for in fleeting circumstances where it is then ignored.

So, I don't think villains are all that bad or unintelligent - they are just like us, a fact that I think many people ignore.  Think about it, who do you have more in common with? The hero or the villain?  My bet would be the villain.

things that were ruined: fire

once upon a time there was innocence
and now there is only a broken record of memories,
the tortured screams that echo in the darkest corners of a mind
that was once filled with light.

everything has changed

fire crackling, worming its way through the wood,
popping and snapping inside
as it warms a house used to mean comfort
and safety,
now it is only a memory of fear.
the fire was crackling that night as
innocence fled the scene of its own murder
and hiding under blankets with the sound
of a fire crackling nearby was the only way
to keep a little bit of sanity.
now that sanity is driven away by that sound
as the comfort needed at that time,
became attached to the memory of why
comfort was needed in the first place.

To Be An Adult

it is 4:06 am and I can't sleep.
contrary to popular belief
I am not in love or lonely -
I don't need to be constrained into
a category where lack of sleep means
that I am pining after some guy
because, apparently, that is the only thing
that could keep a girl like me awake.

why don't you men get your
heads out of your asses -
I'm awake because I'm afraid.
afraid of him,
the one who stole the night from me
when he molested me at that party
and everyone just laughed
as I left with tears welling in my eyes.

I heard him gloating,
saying he finally cracked "the prude"
and I haven't spoken a word of truth since
- or slept a whole night through.

this smile is how I hide
the immense pain that won't fade -
the pain keeping me up until 4:14 am,
not because I am pining,
but because the comfort of the night
was stolen from me -

the same night I turned 18.
___________________________________________
I wrote this one a few weeks ago when I was seriously up all night because I was having horrible flashbacks to the night of my 18th birthday (also the night after my first day of college classes) - the night that I was sexually molested.  I don't really talk about it much and I'm trying to move on, it's been over a year and I've since transferred to a different university and stopped all contact with the guy who attacked me.  The worst part of all of it was that it was one of my swim teammates and another guy filmed him, laughing the entire time while I tried not to cry and then they made a joke about it with the rest of the team which led to me being molested by a different team member later that week.  I don't know why I never reported the three guys involved (the two who molested me and the one who filmed the first time), but I never did.  I just quit the swim team and transferred schools so fast that I don't really think anyone knew what happened.  I'm so much happier at my new university, but there are a lot of things that I need to work through.  I still have nights where I can't sleep and I don't know what to do with myself, sometimes I wonder if I should tell someone and get help - but a part of me is afraid they would make me get the authorities involved with the guys.  I want them to serve their time, don't get me wrong, but I also know that nothing would happen.  There were witnesses who later told me I had exaggerated things and that I had been "asking for it" - just as they always say - I know that it would just be a lot of pain for me and they would see nothing.  I don't want to go through that pain again just because someone out there thinks justice should be served (mainly my best friend who knows some details, but not all, and kept trying to get me to report them last year).  I'm living my life and trying my best to forget, letting it out little by little with my poetry and maybe opening up to a few people here.  I know people have noticed that I have issues with things regarding sex and that I get really quiet when I'm alone with guys (at least, I think they might have).

In other news, that isn't so dark and depressing, I'm in the process of becoming an RA at the university I'm currently attending which I'm super excited about.  I'm also at 100 posts (this is my 100th!!) who knew I could keep a blog up for this long? I sure didn't.  I know I've kinda sucked at being regular and I keep promising to fix it, but let's be honest here and admit that life happens and I'm just proud that I don't delete this blog or stop posting all together.  At least I give a poem here or there, even if it is after a few months.  I've been having a bit of writer's block though recently so I've been lacking on the poetry and I'm not turning out nearly as many poems as I want to.  Hopefully that will change soon.  This is also a regular blog too, so hopefully I will be able to pop on and update on my life and the goings on in Utah (which is where I am right now).  (I am not a Mormon - just in case you where wondering).

Life is beautiful. Even with the bad things.

Have a great day, week, month, year!

stuck on repeat

they expect her to be beautiful
they expect her to be perfect
they expect her to be happy
they expect her to fine.
but she isn’t.

she screams and they can’t hear her
because they are blinded by the fake smiles that she
plasters on every morning when she wakes
from the nightmares that cripple her, the nightmares that
are her life.

she sees every bad thing;
every mistake and every bad decision,
every situation and every bad thing that she has ever seen,
in every dream.

some nights she dreams of the blood, blood
flowing from her wrists without stopping and the darkness
that held her in its grasp until her father’s hands found hers
and pulled her back,
gasping with the pain and feeling the tears from her mother’s eyes
falling on her cheeks.

and other nights she dreams of him falling, falling
down to the ground in front of her
because he had sat in his walker and they had been joking
and he told her to push him, but the brakes were on and she didn’t
know and she couldn’t do anything as he fell back
with eyes wide to the ground and didn’t move,
wouldn’t respond to her and when the EMTs finally got there
and lifted him from the ground she could see the pool of blood
staining the sidewalk where his head had been.

once in awhile she gets nights that are empty, empty
and dark and she is nothing because in those nights
she doesn’t exist anymore and the mornings after
are the most terrifying because she has to wake up
into a world where she does exist.

yet, sometimes it happens during class
when she will zone out and all of the sudden everything he has
ever yelled at her, every single time he has thrown her against a wall
and every strong grip or thrown book or bloody nose
starts to repeat in her head.

over and over and over
again.

they are the nightmares that are her life,
nightmares that are her past.

nightmares that don’t ever stop.

stuck on repeat.

darling, give me your heart

darling, come here and let me write you into the story
that is my life,
let me write you into the painful bits and the laughter, give me
your love so that i can spill out my heart
and love you back so much that i can’t sleep anymore, give me
all of your dreams so that i can whisper in your ear all of
mine and tell you that yours will all come true, give me
the chances that you missed and the ones you took
so that i can add myself to the list of chances taken
and so i can wake you up, late at night, so we can go
take some chances you thought you missed.

baby, let me give you my heart and let me take yours,
trust me with everything you have ever desired
and let me stay up all night by your side so that we can
wake up in the morning and think about how much
we love each other and how glad we are that we are
so very alive
and so very much in love with
each other.

and i love you, but you don't know

i wonder if you would be mad if i shot you with

cupid's arrow because i just love you so fucking much and i know that 

you would never ever in a million years love me that much

back and you would never ever hold my hand or kiss my lips, you would

never ever look me in the eyes and bring me close with your arms

wrapped around my waist to show me that you care when i want to cry

because you will never know what i'm like when i'm sad and you will never

be close enough to me to care about me and to pick up on the signs.

 

we spend our time together laughing and making jokes, we talk

about practice and the team and spanish class,

but we never talk about the things i want to talk about, we never

speak about the fact that i fucking love you because you don't know

that i am laying on the floor with my heart cut wide open,

waiting for you to pour your love right back into it and fill in the empty spaces

i have reserved just for you.

 

so i wonder if you can see that i am waiting for you

or, maybe, you can see and you don't want to love me back or don't know how.

baby, if you don't know how then i would be more than happy to teach you

and if you don't love me back that is okay too because i am used to loving

too much and not being loved back, i am used to people not caring about me

in the ways that i wish they would, and so i would not be mad at you for not

loving me back - i would just have to teach myself how to not love you either

and if you just can't see that i love you then tell me how i can tell you without

scaring you away from this girl who is waiting for you to fill her heart and kiss her

scars (and lips and face and neck and everywhere else) and draw her close with

your strong arms to show her that you care.

 

but i'm also afraid that if you find out that i love you that maybe you wil hate me for it

because who can love me?

 

i have yet to meet someone who can.

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]