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I can't even walk out into the kitchen without thinking about you. I was standing there, filling up my water bottle, and then it started to overflow; cold water running over my hands holding the bottle because my mind was trapped in a river of rushing thoughts, each one passing by contained a scene of us. I began thinking about the time when I was watching your hair extensions while you were out driving a drunk person home to score us alcohol. When you got back and saw me leaning up against the wall, sitting on the floor, you said, "You could go to bed, you look tired." And I was tired-- I was so fucking tired, and I had an 8 AM test, but I was willing to stay up there, waiting up for you. I wanted to see you one last time, just one last time. Nowadays, I'm lucky if I even catch a glimpse of you, and whenever that happens, your gaze isn't warm like it used to be. It's colder than the winter wind outside, it's icier than the chilliest depths of that h...

I liked doing a writing challenge for the month of January, so I've created my own for the month of February - 28 prompts for 28 days. Follow along if you'd like. 1. What do you need right now? 2. What color do you feel like today? 3. What was the last thing you read, heard, or saw that inspired you? 4. What do you think is the most important thing for today's kids to learn in school? 5. What is the best road trip or vacation you have ever taken? Who was there? Where did you go? What did you see along the way? 6. What have you been able to accomplish this year that you are really proud of? 7. Write a quick love story. The story must end badly. 8. Write about a memory you have related to a campfire. 9. What is a memory you would like to erase? 10. What traffic sign reflects your life right now? 11. What do you think is the most important question in life? 12. In what way are you selfish? 13. When have you experienced "heaven on earth?" 14. Write abo...

I pawed at the door like a stray dog left in the cold, but perhaps I should've known there was no place in the wolf pack for a dog like myself.

30/30, National Poetry Month,  30/30 Challenge It's not National Poetry Month, nor does January have 30 days, but it's worth a shot. Thank you to my inspiration for this. Thanks for hanging in there with me. - lies you've been told "I'm not going to hurt you." "I won't leave you." "I love you." 

29/30, National Poetry Month,  30/30 Challenge It's not National Poetry Month, nor does January have 30 days, but it's worth a shot. Thank you to my inspiration for this. - lies you've told "I'm over you." "It's fine." "I'm okay." "I don't love you anymore." "I love you."

a conversation underneath the cherry glow of Christmas lights I'd prefer to leave up year-round. they set the mood nicely, I think. especially for this conversation, this one in which she asks me- "Do you like her?" I smile and say, "Of course I like her, why wouldn't I?" but the initial question wasn't as simple as the four words presented it. she delves in deeper and I smile, I smile, I smile, and I confess. I confess there is something there; something there standing on the precipice of my heart, something in which I beg not to jump and fall and drown in the murderous waters of feelings. there's something there, but she's not her . she's not her , and as much as I wish that wasn't a problem-- it is. it's a problem because I'm too afraid to be hurt by anyone else, to the point where the possibility of love is a tired concept and my heart feels too old to be damaged any more. "It's just... the way you look at h...

28/30, National Poetry Month,  30/30 Challenge It's not National Poetry Month, nor does January have 30 days, but it's worth a shot. Thank you to my inspiration for this. - what you have to offer I have the biggest heart and an overflowing fountain of love to give, if only I could allow someone to please come in.

27/30, National Poetry Month,  30/30 Challenge It's not National Poetry Month, nor does January have 30 days, but it's worth a shot. Thank you to my inspiration for this. - your escape route my escape route used to be thirty-five miles away, a straight shot of highway through sharp mountains, a lonely route travelled by myself and myself only. now, I search for an escape route from this place. some other mountains far away are calling me, a distant echo itching inside of me longs to be somewhere else. I'll go anywhere else, away from this lonely escape route.

26/30, National Poetry Month,  30/30 Challenge It's not National Poetry Month, nor does January have 30 days, but it's worth a shot. Thank you to my inspiration for this. - punishment showing up at my door, the heaviest of persistent knocks, like an angry woodpecker eager to peck me to my core. who the fuck do you think you are? who do you think I am? I'm curious because clearly, you never knew me at all. you want to peck me to my core and trust me, bitch, you're almost there. karma will come back around soon enough. until then, I can't tell who's punishing who.

25/30, National Poetry Month,  30/30 Challenge It's not National Poetry Month, nor does January have 30 days, but it's worth a shot. Thank you to my inspiration for this. - a conspiracy theory I'm convinced this entire friendship was just a conspiracy theory against me. How long could the lonely girl last amongst a wolf pack? How long until one of them would finally snap? I thought I was running with the wolves, but instead, I was just thrown right into them.

24/30, National Poetry Month,  30/30 Challenge It's not National Poetry Month, nor does January have 30 days, but it's worth a shot. Thank you to my inspiration for this. - soundtrack of your youth the whistle of the wind slipping through the sunroof as I sped off into a brisk summer night, thinking nothing but the worst of thoughts, the soundtrack of my mind. there was nothing harmonic about the way my brain whispered to me, but the melody of moans escaping my lips was a symphony even worse. you made my name sound so mesmerizing, but now I can't even dare to say yours.

23/30, National Poetry Month,  30/30 Challenge It's not National Poetry Month, nor does January have 30 days, but it's worth a shot. Thank you to my inspiration for this. - what someone took from you My voice was robbed from me on that damp April night. While the moon illuminated, Lucent and majestic, shining from the skylight in the wood-paneled ceiling, all the light inside of me was stolen. The beaming heart I had always taken pride in was now a cave so disastrously strip-mined. I learned to love a little bit less on that night because love didn't justify the pain I felt and the voice I never knew how to use was suddenly missing. It became just another night cloaked with her narration, ignorance of my position in all of it; just another night where "no" and "stop" and "this hurts" were disabled from my vocabulary. I laid there in pain; the pain in which I still describe as the worst physical pain of my life, and maybe a quarter ...

22/30, National Poetry Month,  30/30 Challenge It's not National Poetry Month, nor does January have 30 days, but it's worth a shot. Thank you to my inspiration for this. - what you carry internal damage burning through plush, pink organs and external white ink laced down birch tree arms. duffel bags filled with words left unsaid, left to be continuously carried around and never unpacked. I hold onto a lot of things, just as tightly as lost loves once held onto me. I flinch at the thought of another person touching me sometimes. I want love, but I don't know how to ask for it, I don't want to beg for it anymore. But if I don't ask, I'll never receive. The fear of going on so loveless paralyzes me into another dimension where love does not exist. Can I break my heart any more than those who have already broken it? I don't have a clear space in my life to put everything down, there is a constant mess surrounding m...

I guess she's in my dreams now. I'm not safe anywhere. One room away, a wall separating us. Is she dreaming about me, too?

I miss her more than I ever thought I would, but isn’t that how it usually goes? I want to be taken back to October nights and November sunsets, when the sky’s glow reflected right into my heart and the artificial lights peeked through semi-sheer curtains. I want this past October, and last October, and most importantly, the October before that.

21/30, National Poetry Month,  30/30 Challenge It's not National Poetry Month, nor does January have 30 days, but it's worth a shot. Thank you to my inspiration for this. - a rumor Don't turn my secrets into more lies spread, snakes spewing out of your smile. My name doesn't deserve to be in your mouth at all, not when I'm the one who knows where it's been.

I made the mistake of trying to pet wolves with their fangs bared and was surprised once I was finally bitten.

20/30, National Poetry Month,  30/30 Challenge It's not National Poetry Month, nor does January have 30 days, but it's worth a shot. Thank you to my inspiration for this. - if you had done what your mother asked if I had done what my mother asked, maybe things would be different. maybe I would be different. maybe she would still be here today.

19/30, National Poetry Month,  30/30 Challenge It's not National Poetry Month, nor does January have 30 days, but it's worth a shot. Thank you to my inspiration for this. - deleted texts ... please just be with me. 

18/30, National Poetry Month,  30/30 Challenge It's not National Poetry Month, nor does January have 30 days, but it's worth a shot. Thank you to my inspiration for this. - the sound of breaking the sound of breaking wasn't as simple as the melody of sobs echoing from a cave. the sound of breaking was as insignificant as the rattle of placing a makeup brush on my desk with a little too much force done out of complete and utter frustration; or the melancholy silence that fills up the stillness of my room when I am alone and no one else's voice can occupy my ears. the sound of breaking was cultivated in my eager knocks on their door, only to be met with hushes of silence, their voices quieting, until I knocked once more and found myself in the presence of my own disappointment. the sound of breaking was there as a reminder, with every piece of writing that carries my name in invisible ink or a second or third-person pronoun. the sound of breakin...

why is nothing I do ever good enough for the people I love? how do I manage to fuck everything up with absolutely everyone?

17/30, National Poetry Month,  30/30 Challenge It's not National Poetry Month, nor does January have 30 days, but it's worth a shot. Thank you to my inspiration for this. - a mantra you're fine. shut up, relax, you're fine, you're fine, you're fine, please get it together. stop feeling like this, stop feeling for her.

16/30, National Poetry Month,  30/30 Challenge It's not National Poetry Month, nor does January have 30 days, but it's worth a shot. Thank you to my inspiration for this. - when you drew the curtains a winter wonderland was peeking out, an icy loneliness that captures what I feel so perfectly.

15/30, National Poetry Month,  30/30 Challenge It's not National Poetry Month, nor does January have 30 days, but it's worth a shot. Thank you to my inspiration for this. - what you want to find let me find a girl who looks like an adventure and looks at me like I am home; someone who allows my body to melt like honey into her own, whose love is radiant enough to light an entire city. let me find someone who loves me back just as much as I love them.

14/30, National Poetry Month,  30/30 Challenge It's not National Poetry Month, nor does January have 30 days, but it's worth a shot. Thank you to my inspiration for this. - forgiveness forgiveness is the antidote I have been forever unable to swallow. choking on my own bitterness isn't easy, neither is carrying around a rough heart with too many sharp edges, but forgiving those who aren't even sorry is the hardest of all.

13/30, National Poetry Month,  30/30 Challenge It's not National Poetry Month, nor does January have 30 days, but it's worth a shot. Thank you to my inspiration for this. - a loved curse They say, "You're just so sensitive." I used to blush and beat myself up. Now, I say, "It is a beautiful privilege to feel things so deeply. Don't let anyone take that away from you."

"Do you want a glass of wine?" for once, I didn't. I had two glasses of expensive wine I didn't ask for. it tastes cheap on my tongue, every now and then a trail of it lingers in my mouth and I gag a little bit. two hours later the feeling has subsided, the scary territory of drunkness is a land I've escaped from. two hours later I open the bottle of clear magic, sniff it, wince, and close it. I do this repeatedly. fuck, it's getting bad again. it's too late to talk to anyone, everyone is now asleep. I laugh as I type this because it's not like I had anyone to talk to even while everyone was awake. today I left my phone on "do not disturb" and felt that heart-breaking feeling whenever I checked it to find no notifications, no messages, no indications that there's actually a soul out there thinking about me. I'm on isolation island and I don't remember planning to come here, I don't know how I got here, I can't rec...

when will my bitter heart stop beating?

12/30, National Poetry Month,  30/30 Challenge It's not National Poetry Month, nor does January have 30 days, but it's worth a shot. Thank you to my inspiration for this. - a hated blessing my loyalty will be the death of me. I will be here forever, standing on the doorstep of someone I love, through torrential downpours and heatwaves, simultaneously a guarddog and a stray begging to be let in. or I will be a shadow at someone's heel, eager to follow them through the light of day and blend into the inevitable darkness. or I will find myself keeping my phone at full volume, just in case you happen to call, or text, whenever, wherever, I'll be there if you need me. I will be there for those who do not love me anymore, or care about me anymore, or need me anymore. they say loyalty is a good quality, it's man's best friend, but not when it makes yourself you own enemy.

I wish I could tell my younger self that everything will be okay, but it's hard because my adult self is still trying to believe that.

11/30, National Poetry Month,  30/30 Challenge It's not National Poetry Month, nor does January have 30 days, but it's worth a shot. Thank you to my inspiration for this. - someone you envy I could go ahead and say, I envy everyone who is not me. To be specific, though, I envy anyone and everyone who ever has you.

I’ll tell them to scatter my ashes on the windiest day of the year— I’m tired of belonging to one place. I couldn’t belong to one person while alive, so why would anyone want me when I’m nothing but dust? I want to belong but I just don’t know how.

10/30, National Poetry Month,  30/30 Challenge It's not National Poetry Month, nor does January have 30 days, but it's worth a shot. Thank you to my inspiration for this. - someone you pity pity and love and admire and envy and hate and like and loathe and god, I wish one of these words wasn't here.

you ran the red light. but you didn't run it in a rush, you weren't racing down the boulevard in a hurry, eager to make it. you cruised through it, slowly, almost deliberately, but you simply just forgot that red means stop. I saw it happening in slow motion, but I didn't open my mouth, I didn't dare say anything. it's amazing how quickly my mind jumps to the possibilities, all of the scenarios containing the same ending. running a red light, a car crashing into us, either your side or mine, airbags deploy, screams escape our mouths not knowing they had been hiding inside of us. the thought of death seemed so easy just then, so much better, even if it wasn't at my own hand, within my own control. I wasn't the one holding the knife, or the gun, or the bundle of pills, but in that moment, I was okay with death happening simply by happenstance. I didn't know I could feel like that, so calmly accepting it. I was ready in that moment, and I hadn't felt th...

2018. nine days in and I do not regret a single thing. no regrets from this year, just the regrets and lessons of the past to guide me toward a road greater and more picturesque than the dimmed ones I previously traveled. I want those tattoos, that piercing, real love for myself, and that dream to come true. basically, I've been thinking a lot, and this year is the one where things change. and I've never been more prepared.

9/30, National Poetry Month,  30/30 Challenge It's not National Poetry Month, nor does January have 30 days, but it's worth a shot. Thank you to my inspiration for this. - the beauty you have caused thirty pages of edited, raw, emotional content, hours upon hours, days and days, nights filled with nothing but an endless herd of words racing through my mind, eager to make it onto digital documents. "never stop writing, no matter where life takes you. I really hope you continue to write, no matter what." this was possibly the best advice I ever received from someone whose approval and opinion of me meant more than I could ever articulate, more than I ever expected it to. I will never stop writing, regardless of the ugliness it sometimes causes me and the scars being constantly dissected. because the beauty of words filtered through layers of feelings will always win the war inside my mind.

8/30, National Poetry Month,  30/30 Challenge It's not National Poetry Month, nor does January have 30 days, but it's worth a shot. Thank you to my inspiration for this. - the ugly you have caused just look down at my left arm and its ladder rings to see the ugly I have created. blood-soaked toilet paper bandages and medical tape littering my drawer, an emergency kit for emergencies occurring too often; too often to even be considered emergencies. call it routine instead.

I'm too afraid to sleep. Yesterday, I woke up with salty sweat sinking down my back, my mouth as dry as the cold wind howling outside. Your voice was howling in my dream, I swear I could still fucking hear it despite having not spoken to you in over a month. I chugged water as if my life depended on it in that moment, although there was no immediate danger. I had just come out of my own personal hell, or one of the various versions my mind enjoys creating. Sleep is supposed to soothe the soul, but it has become my best enemy. I could still feel your hand on me. In me. Just like real life, in this dream, I couldn't say "no." I've never wanted to cut off the lower half of my body until then. Until now.

7/30, National Poetry Month,  30/30 Challenge It's not National Poetry Month, nor does January have 30 days, but it's worth a shot. Thank you to my inspiration for this. - mending you left me with wounds, but no bandages. months later I stand with needle and thread, not knowing how to stitch. I tell myself I am mending, that it is all over, it is all okay, it will be okay, but the needle hasn't even been threaded, and my wounds can't heal on their own. I'd ask for help, but I flinch at anyone's touch. I am mending and unraveling at the same time.

I want a cigarette but I don't have an ashtray. I don't want to just be someone's quick cigarette break. I want to set a fire in an organ other than your lungs. I want us to kindle it, huddle in close for warmth, watch the embers dance into the night sky, where stars are jealous of us. What I'm trying to say is, I don't want to be a forest fire anymore. I don't want to destroy everything in my reach; everything too good and pure and worthy of growth without the hindrance of my scarlet flames. I don't want everything my fingertips touch to be reduced to a pile of rubbled ash. I don't want to ruin what is actually good for me. I don't want to be the cause of a catastrophe. I don't want to be someone's cigarette break, I don't want to be a forest fire anymore, I want to set a fire in someone's heart, but I don't want to get burned. I love you, but if you don't love me, please tap out my ashes on the brink of...

Racing thoughts and thorough disappointment. I'm sorry I disappoint everyone. The hourglass is ticking, I'll soon be out of sand. The grains are slipping through the narrowed waist. I'm slipping, too. Alien tattoos, new piercings, moon phases etched down my arm over each and every scar. I'm grasping at the stars, desperately clinging to hope that's nowhere in my cosmos.

6/30, National Poetry Month,  30/30 Challenge It's not National Poetry Month, nor does January have 30 days, but it's worth a shot. Thank you to my inspiration for this. - a routine loving you. you don't love me back. moving on. you don't love me. loving you. you don't love me back. loving you. loving you. loving you. but you don't love me back.

1.4.18 "I thought that I wouldn't be able to make you happy. I thought you deserved better." I'm over it, I swear I'm over it, but this really got me. Why does everyone think they aren't enough for me? Am I too much for them? Am I too little for them? 1.5.18 "You don't realize what you're worth." Is this the actual answer?

5/30, National Poetry Month,  30/30 Challenge It's not National Poetry Month, nor does January have 30 days, but it's worth a shot. Thank you to my inspiration for this. - boiling point/room temperature I'm at my room temperature. Please don't let me get to my boiling point.

7 1/2 hours, three hair colors later. New hair, same person. Or so I thought. "You're a completely different person." I guess that's what happened. I was tired of being myself, so I did the only thing I could. I changed.

I tried screaming with my hand shoved down my throat, it didn't work. I just want a new start, a completely, new start. With everyone and everything.

ten more days. I wish I could apologize for my entire existence because I have never felt more apologetic for anything else. I'm sorry I'm here-- I wish I wasn't, either. It's slowly getting bad. 

4/30 - National Poetry Month,  30/30 Challenge It's not National Poetry Month, nor does January have 30 days, but it's worth a shot. Thank you to my inspiration for this. - you needed this when you were younger I don't know how to write this without simply writing a list: 1. validation 2. unconditional love 3. support 4. the ability to rely on my parents 5. the ability to trust my parents 6. clear communication 7. an open relationship 8. a close relationship 9. no secrets 10. doors that were not used to be slammed 11. voices that were not frequently raised 12. family dinners that didn't end with plates rattling 13. the love I could not show myself

What do you do when everyone has a person except for you? When she has him now, and she has her, and she tries to have me but I just can't let her. I just can't fucking let her. She texts me every day, things like, "Just checking in, are you okay?" Like I really am the ticking time bomb that I imagine myself as. Or things like, "Make sure you eat something!" Little reminders, too many reminders, too much doting and cooing and too much of an effort to take care of me. I don't need to be taken care of, not like this. I want someone I could go to, someone who could come to me first. I want to be someone's first choice, just for once, for fucking once, I want someone to choose me first before anyone else. I wish I could be someone's first choice, but I'm not even my own first choice. I'm the last option on the list, whether the list is long or short. I just want to have a person, because right now my list is non-ex...

3/30 - National Poetry Month,  30/30 Challenge It's not National Poetry Month, nor does January have 30 days, but it's worth a shot. Thank you to my inspiration for this. - things the neighbor saw They saw an average house, in an average neighborhood. A backyard lined with trees to keep the secrets inside. But push past the branches, hop the fence, hell, if you're feeling brave just peek through the window. What hid inside was anything but average. The beasts that hid inside were in a power struggle, tossing children back and forth, spilling out pills from a cheap purse, flushing candy-colored medications down a toilet on a regular basis. On the outside there were trees that bloomed so prettily in the spring, and a pool in the backyard you could only catch glimpses from at a particular angle. During the holidays a tree always stood in the third window visible, on display for the rest of the suburb to see. They didn't see her passed out o...

2/30 - National Poetry Month, 30/30 Challenge It's not National Poetry Month, nor does January have 30 days, but it's worth a shot. Thank you to my inspiration for this. - what you make room for My heart is a mansion with endless rooms, filled with the left-behinds of previous residents and my own personal knick-knacks. There are boxes upon boxes of belongings on finished hardwood floors, there are bookshelves containing every string of sentence ever to inspire me. There are too many guest rooms being partially occupied. I should start charging rent. There are tea kettles filled to the brim with lukewarm love, and too many cold hearts with the inability of being warmed up. I hang up a new calendar, new year, new year, new year. The years keep coming and they never stop, until one day you hang up a calendar not knowing that it will be the last year you live to see... that is if you're really living at all. So I spring clean in the depth of winter, out ...

1/30 - National Poetry Month, 30/30 Challenge It's not National Poetry Month, nor does January have 30 days, but it's worth a shot. Maybe I'll participate in multiple challenges throughout the month or something. Thank you to my inspiration for this. - After a storm They warned me about the winds and the rains, but still, I braved a storm for you. I walked through rains of fire and swam fields of flooded land, but still, I braved a storm for the chance to be with you. I thought I was prepared to enter a storm that put me at high risk, but for the longest time, I stayed in the eye. I finally thought I had survived it, that I had escaped unscathed, but that wasn't even the bulk of it, and I braved a storm for you when I wasn't sure if you would do the same. But then the storm passed, and I thought I was in the clear, until another storm came to take place and I realized the harshest truth -- the storm is never truly over when it comes to you. ...

It's been over twenty-four hours and my mind hasn't shut up about this. Considering this, and the lack of everyone else around me willing to listen to my complaints, writing is probably my best chance at expressing these thoughts and feelings in a way that won't leave my body visibly scarred. I don't want to just numb this out-- I want to feel it. To sit there and listen to him being excused, being blindly defended, being given the benefit of the doubt was not okay. I didn't realize how much I would be affected by such a conversation until I was sitting in it, looking down at an outdated Christmas catalog, silently wanting everything to be over. I prayed she would drop it, that she would take my unwillingness to communicate as a sign; that my discomfort would be deemed legitimate to her and the conversation would be dropped. But of course, that didn't happen. Why would what I want to happen, ever actually happen after all? "You blocked him? Why? That...

when you figure out if you want me or not, come talk to me.

it’s been 2018 for an hour and thirty-three minutes and I’m already crying.

"How did this year suck? You went to college, you did good." Yes, because my life clearly revolves around these two things-- as if they cancel out my poor mental health, your cancer, the challenge of juggling grenade-like friendships, and two very toxic, extremely poisonous relationships that sucked everything out of me. College was just about the only good thing that happened to me this past year, and even that only took place over the course of three months, only 1/4th of the entirety of 2017. I listen to the fireworks detonating and release tears as I retreat back to my room, silently fucking hoping this next year is nothing close to what this year was. Page 1 of 365 begins now. Time to start writing.