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.

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!

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.

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.

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!!

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.

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.