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.

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.

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.

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.