a list of things that make me cry
sad lesbians in movies
lonely mornings that are sunny and golden
sitting in the middle of a group of laughing teenagers
a local cat's disappearance
death of a beloved character
certain poems read out loud
thinking about my best friend crying
my best friend getting on a plane
being ghosted
emily dickinson's letters to susan gilbert
the library of alexandria
taylor swift's new album
college applications
carrying too many bags at once
my little brother
someone asking if i'm okay
getting catcalled
reading about women's rights
a slow moving cloud that's impossibly fluffy and gigantic
math tests
happy lesbians in movies
books that are just too damn good (too many to list here)
thinking too hard about what makes me me
watching clouds move over the moon at night
frida kahlo's paintings
the great british baking show (from laughter)
sappho poetry and what it could've been
stories about AIDS
world history
a friend trusting me
walks around the neighborhood at sunset
my window stays open when it rains
no matter how cold it is (just put on another layer)
i'll sit with my hot chocolate and watch things that make me happy
while the rain pours nonstop just a few feet away.
the pipe gurgling outside is just another memory-
listening to it at night means i can forget about growing up;
i can pretend that i'm still exploring the backyard swamp
or leaving trails in the parking lot puddle with a scooter.
and i look up at the clouds only when it's so dark i barely see them
and sigh a long sigh, but a happy one because the air is fresh.
so when i wake up in the morning and everything is bright
but slightly dampened, i can walk without purpose and breathe again.
emily dickinson’s poems rewritten: water is taught by thirst, hope is the thing with feathers, and i like a look of agony
I.
Time, gathers in my words.
Seconds - sentences take.
Minutes - by marks -
Years - why parentheses!
Months, by questions foretold -
An envelope.
II.
“Love” is that thing without words -
That’s written on a page -
And travels on acoustic waves -
Lives inside - your ribcage -
You may have heard it - in the rain -
That falls atop your head -
In the rhythm of the storm drain
Or in the flowerbed -
I’ve seen it in a thunderstorm -
And in a cup of tea -
Sometimes, it grows within a tree
And always within me.
III.
I like nine candles to be lit,
Near the oil painting -
One each night, plus another,
Yet songs I cannot sing -
The house is warm - there is a tree -
Ghosts hover over me
A great miracle happened here -
Winter holiday cheer.
cut and paste folklore
i thought i saw you walk past me,
you didn't though.
in my defense, i have none
but it would've been fun
seeing you again.
you know the greatest loves of all time are over now
you always talked about the great ones
but it's another day waking up alone-
who knows if you never showed up, what could've been
i wouldn't know how butterflies are supposed to feel-
you had a marvelous time ruinin' everything
10 days is a long time
to wait for your letter
i had a marvelous time
on the first of october
so i want you to know
when no one is around, my dear
i pretend i'm shining just for you.
i'm still a daydreamer but i don't know why
i've never been a natural
all i do is sigh
i'm still trying everything
to keep you looking at me.
i never thought i needed anything more
than that one day at the bookstore
'cause you were never mine
will we talk when we're back at school?
i though just wanting was enough
'cause you weren't mine to lose.
what did you think i'd say to that text?
what do you sing on your drive home?
when I thought of you it's like I couldn't breathe.
but if I just showed up at your locker
would you say hi? would you smile?
i'm only 17, i don't know anything
except what you showed me.
your favorite song was playing
but i changed it to mine.
i dreamt of you all afternoon
but i can't know about what happens when
you see my face again.
if you kiss me, will it be just like i dreamed it?
only i just dreamed it.
take me to the city where all the poets
went to fall in love
tell me what are my words worth
when i write to you again.
i want to watch you grow a garden over me
'cause i haven't moved in years-
those hills look like a perfect place to cry
when the haze you left clears-
so i'm setting off, but will you drive me there?
ap lit assignment but make it sapphic
and so the leaves have turned to gold today
yet their beauty cannot match your two eyes
so i'll stand here, asking you to please, stay-
and we'll gaze together at the cold skies
under the passing clouds and the sun's sway
i am on my way to you yet again
imagining you on the seat across
from me, smiling at strangers on the train
the one that goes to the upper west side
the one i know you will never see
this room is too warm for the two of us
the walls are closing in on me and you
you pull me closer, closer, and closer
it's too much and not enough- our hands touch
we swing together like no one's watching
this is me trying to make you fall in love
it doesn't matter if you are or not-
you'll never say it- at least not to me
so we'll keep dancing, but only for now
it's not fair, but i'm sorry anyway
for what? for falling half in love with you
he is like a god, who sits next to you
and makes you laugh, while i can only stare
october is about waiting
wearing tights gets me in the mood for the holidays.
all-black clothing; soft skirts and long sleeves,
making hot chocolate with a friend on facetime
and pretending like she's still here, putting my
hair back and walking outside in a coat, because
it's finally, finally cold enough in california.
i'm waiting patiently: for a letter to come in the
mail, for inspiration to strike, for the milk to
heat up, for halloween night, for my friends to
come over, for the weather to chill, for a text back,
for christmas music and hanukkah parties, for
the BART train to arrive, for the lights in the theater
to dim, for my first kiss, for math test results, for
the winter months to come.
but it's a nice waiting, the kind that you can curl
up under the blanket and read a book, the kind
that comes an hour before the party starts when
everything is clean and you're setting out the food.
it's a calm kind of thrumming that runs through
my body in anticipation, a few butterflies in my
stomach that i know will dissolve when something
happens, the feeling i get when i know it will be soon-
so i just have to wait.
call that a colorado thunderstorm
you told me not to go to colorado
you said it was boring
the endless nothings, the whiplash weather.
you told me how you used to watch the storms
from the roof- in the rain, in the dark
you watched the sky rip open, alone.
i said you were lucky
(i'm afraid of lightning- i'll take earthquakes any day)
but you just grinned at me.
suddenly i've never wanted to be anywhere as bad
as on top of a roof in colorado during a thunderstorm
next to you.
green light
it's happening again!
my mind is running away with itself
i can't make it stop!
i don't know what my reality is anymore-
i'm calling it the daisy effect
nice to meet you, i'm jay gatsby
except i don't have an excuse-
i never went off to war
i never got my heart broken, not really.
she's floating away again, quick tie her down
i reach for her ankle but she doesn't notice
her head's already in the clouds
she's become an impossibility,
a future core memory
that i lose as soon as i imagine it.
an accumulation
my anguish doesn't gather in my bones and weigh me down
like mary shelley said, but i will defend it.
instead it layers on my face like dead skin
no matter how many times i wash with warm water
and apply moisturizer in the sunlight by my window
or if i take one of those facial blades and try to scrape
my grievances off, they won't budge.
but i've decided that's what is beautiful about my face-
the accumulation of anguishes, but also joys.
i can see where the lines will be when i'm older
and i note that they look like my great grandmother's
laugh lines. i can see the outline of my nose at a
certain angle where it looks like my mother's.
the circles under my eyes acquire a certain scaly effect
and it reminds me of the time i said my mother had
the eyes of a wise old dragon- and i couldn't understand
why she was upset when i thought it was the coolest
thing ever to have purple under your eyes.
all the places i've ever been, all the air i've ever breathed
layered on my skin. i can see it clearly in the sunlight, the
reds of my impurities, the freckles where the fairies kissed me,
a stray eyelash, a crooked scar that's invisible to everyone but me.
it's not perfect (i have to remind myself that no one's is) but
it's mine, it contains everything that makes me tangible and
visible. i'll never know what i truly look like in another's eyes
but maybe it's better that way.
lucid
her dreams had been so vivid lately, full of mystery
so she walked in her best heels across the floor of her room,
up the opposite wall, across the ceiling, and down again
and again and again, until she felt like herself.
she smoked cigarettes for the first time and then felt
unbelievably sad because she became addicted and her
best friend was going to kill her for it. the very same best
friend whose dad smoked every sleepover out on the porch
in the early hours of the morning, the porch we weren't
allowed to be on while he was there.
she was stalked slowly by a giant black panther, whom
no one else in the store seemed to notice until it was
too late and she came face to face with it's hardened eyes.
the dreams weighed her down, and when she woke up
she felt them leaving her body slowly like a leeching
poison that could never fully disappear, the dregs
weighing her down in her shoulders, the arches of her
feet, the edges of her ears, and in her skull just behind
the middle of her forehead where her eyebrows meet.