Original Poet - Blog Posts

scissors

shaking hands

fallen hair

three inches, five, seven

i look in the mirror

a person looks back

not her

me

time wasnt right

there is dust

in my childhood bedroom

cobwebs span the corners

reaching out

to touch

the abandoned walls

everything is covered in dust

my books

my floor

my collections, long since abandoned

touch anything and you'll

come away

with gray residue

reminiscent of a life once lived

only

i am still here

living

right?

or am i, too

covered in dust

a relic

of a former girl

this isnt how life is supposed to be

leaving

what if when i leave

i hate it

or they hate me

and im homesick every day

and all i want is to be back

but

what if

i love it there

and i dont want to come home

and its the time of my life

it is so much harder to go

when i am searching for

every

reason

to

stay

tsunami

what is a crush?

it is searching for your initial on those

"interact to claim" posts

it is thinking of your name

every time someone mentions a crush

it is looking at you

just to look

i cant help it that you're pretty

it is making you laugh and then

saying more things to make you laugh more

amid the ache in my stomach knowing

you dont feel the same way

it is promising myself

that i wouldnt write poetry about you

but here i am

with a poem

it is the ocean going out

so slowly that you dont realize

until you are standing

and a wave looms large

and you cannot help

but be swallowed

by the sea

umbrella

my dad pops his trunk

"do you want my umbrella"

it rains the whole day

cold

i am shivering

but i do not think that there is anywhere else

i would rather be

than right here right now

playing cards with my best friend

disappointment

when my phone buzzes

and it is his name

and not hers

strike-slip

we were a transform fault

i see that now

strike-slip

i ignored the first earthquake

and the second

and the third

but this one was too big

and now its over

maybe it was never meant to last

or maybe i shouldnt have ignored the signs

butterflies

there is something so nice

about having a new crush

someone new to look for

in the hallways on the way to class

someone i can tell my friends about

someone to text and to giggle over

i wish that the butterflies

could always be so uncomplicated

girlhood

glitter on my face

and tinsel in my hair

bubblegum pink nails

"you look so beautiful" they say

screaming the words to my favorite songs with 70,000 other people

this is my girlhood

baggy t-shirts and short shorts

waking up at noon to texts that say "good morning ☀️

it's time for bed and she says she loves me

the glitter has been washed off

but i still feel sparkly

this is my girlhood

wendy by maisie peters

and castles crumbling by taylor swift

an intense longing to feel something

im not sure what it is

i have stopped caring about everything else,

i think,

but i could never stop caring about you

365, or: how things can change

i hit my one year duolingo streak today

one year ago, he would have been the first person i told

one year ago, i was mostly stable

one year ago i thought that i was at my peak, that things could not possibly get any better

well they certainly got a lot worse

one year ago i barely knew her

one year ago i barely knew myself

365 on duolingo

what will happen when i hit 730

lovable

i always thought i was the luckiest person in the world

to have found the friends that i did

i never stopped to consider

that maybe i was capable of being loved

there are flowers on my bedside table

that she got me when i didnt get the job

a text telling me to drink water

and another asking how i'm feeling

after a nonverbal episode

walking laps around the school

to talk about whatever we want

and she hugs me at the end

a million i miss yous

and i love yous

good nights

good mornings

164 games of 8 ball on gamepigeon

and a lifetime of memories

maybe i am just lucky

but maybe they love me

because i love them

linear

i wish healing was linear

so i could point to a date on the calendar and say,

"this is when i will be over you"

so that every time i see you does not feel

like a dagger twisting under my ribs

before i quickly walk away

if healing was linear then i wouldnt still have dreams

dreams where you apologize and come back

we can't be friends again for so many reasons

but my inner subconscious doesn't seem to know that

you turned a month into a wound

how am i supposed to make it through september

past your birthday

when for four years i texted you at midnight

now i cry when you open your mouth

one hour i am fine i tell myself that i am okay

that things are getting better

later i am crying to her because i miss you,

even after everything

i hate you more for that

easy

its nice to love someone

but not be in love with them

it was hard when i liked her

every text, every emoji

carefully plotted to mean something

but now it's easy

we text for fun

i tell her she's pretty

she calls me babe

but there's no deeper yearning

no longing for a connection that isnt purely platonic

i used to like her

but now i like loving her

no strings attached

ocean

i told her she was the ocean

but she didnt understand what i meant

and i couldnt explain it without telling her

that i like her

she is beautiful and steady and consistant

waves crashing on the shore

i almost told her she was the moon

shining in the sky

i dont think she would've gotten that one either

the moon and the ocean and the night sky

and everything gorgeous and powerful

and always, always there

mothers & daughters

i wish my mother liked me more

i know she loves me

she has to

i just wish she likes me sometimes

i wish i was all the things she wanted in a daughter

instead of all the things she didn't

i wish she liked me more

than she likes her religion

i wish i liked my mother more

i try, i really do

i just can't help but roll my eyes, sometimes

or sigh when she asks a question

i wish i could see past her flaws

or even love her in spite of them

i wish i could break the cycle

and yet around and around it goes

there is beauty

in the mundane

in the simplest things that life has to offer

in remembering to laugh

and smile

and maybe even to cry

it is beautiful all the same

do you feel your breathing

in and out and in and out

you can breathe

there is beauty in every breath you take

Talk on the phone w your friends and play in the sun and have picnics in the grass and bury your feet in the sand and be open to the world and learn from your mistakes and laugh often and go on drives to nowhere and protect what nourishes you and remember to have a good time

things you don't do for a girl you're "just friends" with:

walk her anywhere she wants to go, even when it's cold and wet outside and all you want is to be inside

be jealous when she brings up a boy you know she used to have a crush on (especially since you're pretty sure she's over him)

get butterflies whenever she moves her chair closer to yours

smile when you see her name on your phone (and refuse to remove the hearts you put on her contact when you had a crush on her, even though you're totally over it)

stay up way later than you meant to just to text her because as soon as you go to bed it's over

and you definitely, definitely dont want to kiss her. not the girl you're just friends with. not the girl you say you're over

feminine rage

i was 11

crying over the loss of a friend

"boys and girls are just different" my mom told me

was it helpful or trivializing

i'm still not sure

i was 12

they told us something like 1 in 4 girls are assaulted

we looked around the room

wondering who it might be

terrified of the answer

they told us what the men are looking for

our eyes turned on ourselves

we didn't want to make ourselves more of a target

i was 13

during a self-defense class at church

we learned how to hit, how to kick

how to pop a man's eyes out of his head

barely a teenager

and they told me to hit the dummy like i really meant it

i was 13

ruth bader ginsburg died, and i cried

i rarely cried over anything then

but i cried over her

trump was already trying to replace her that night

i was 14

sitting in the front of the car

while my brothers in the back

made a joke about sexual assault

i wanted to scream at them

but i didn't

i was 14

we were working on a story about the dress code

one of the girls mentioned

that it hadn't mattered what she was wearing

my heart broke

i was 15

i watched as they stripped my right to my body

as people around me celebrated

what happened to my choice

a boy asked me to stop talking about it

for the girls in our class to stop using dark humor

as our only coping mechanism

said it made him uncomfortable

he still has all his rights

i am 16

a friend calls while she is running

just to feel safer

i have to explain to the boys in the room

that she didnt want to talk

she wanted to not be a target

i am 16

my brother says that sometimes

women are so annoying

he just wants to shoot them

i'm not sure he doesn't mean it

i am 16

"it must be his time of the month"

one boy jokes about another acting irrationally

it isn't funny

but i sit in silence anyways

i don't want to be accused of being emotional, too

i am 16

"men's lives are more challenging" he argues

he ignores every point we make

he was never going to listen

but we still try, desperately

finally our teacher shuts us down

i want to yell or cry or do anything to release the rage bottling up inside

the rage that runs through my veins

all of our veins

when they belittle us and take away our rights and make us feel weak

and we let them

because it's all they ever taught us to do

oh

still not friends

still haven't talked

but he celebrated my 250 day duolingo streak

its the little things

that hurt the most

unexpected, expected

what happens when you lose a friend?

when he drops you without warning

stops talking to you, but tells everyone else how much he hates you

how annoying you are

and you didn't expect it

but maybe you did

you felt it coming in his exasperation

in the way he stopped texting back

in the way he laughed at everybody's jokes but yours

unexpected, but expected all the same

he did it to others, so why shouldn't it be your turn?

you tell yourself you're better off

and everybody else agrees

but you can't help but be a little sad, still

unexpected

like an anvil dropped onto my head

expected

i felt it in the way he sighed

therapy

it was so easy to blame my parents

for not getting me help

for not noticing that i needed it

i blamed them so i did not have to blame myself

for not advocating

for being scared

for disregarding all the advice i give to other people

but now they noticed

and im still scared

and what i've thought i needed for so long

maybe won't work after all

personality

who would i be

if you took me apart

stripped me down to my bones

and then polished them until they gleamed

what would be running through my veins?

a hint of humor, a glimpse of girlhood

who would i be if you took out my brain

who am i if i'm not smart

an overachiever

always looking for some way to get ahead

if you dissected my heart, what would exist there?

am i anything at all?

i used to have a personality

i think

but now i am just a hollow shell of a person

it's what tiredness does to a person

stripped out my essence like the machine in fahrenheit 451 replaced mildred's bloods

see

see how i can't even write without hints of my schooling sneaking in

what have i ever been if not smart

and who will i be

when even that

is taken away

mental health day

i took a mental health day today

it took me 20 minutes to convince myself

but i did it

and i read a book

and colored

and it was so easy

i wish everything could be that easy

but its back to school tomorrow

energy

sometimes i let myself believe i could be an extrovert

i woke up this morning with so many spoons

i replied to texts on time

i replied to texts

instead of just reading or liking or hearting or saying i would get to them later

and then my best friend

(don't get me wrong

i love him

i do)

threw me a surprise party

and when i got home

all i could do was scroll

and now im going to bed

because i have no more energy

introvert, after all