& e

i’m just an emotional melodramatic teenager who writes things that i guess could be described as a poem but they are kinda like tiny, vague diary entry’s

[dontforgetacomma]

a note to love

i’m putting you, love, in charge of this. don’t let me become who i promised i would never be. don’t let me ruin things as soon as life gets bumpy. you once told me that it has to be rocky, that it has to feel human. “because,” you said, “if it’s not scary and exhilarating and humid, it’s not real”. and the thing is, i didn’t believe you at first. and so when love came in the form of a tall boy with glasses who laughed at his own jokes, i figured it couldn’t hurt that bad. but that’s the thing about love, it teaches you more about yourself than about the other. and, my god, when the one thing you want is out of your reach, that’s when love hurts the most. and so i’ve been asking myself, why. why did i risk it all for you when you warned me it would hurt, when you told me you could break me into a million pieces. and i’ve come to realize that i needed to know how it felt to shatter in order to be put back together. and that is the secret: let yourself crumble but never be afraid of a little glue. so that when the tall boy with glasses tells you he loves you, you can say it back. and you can mean it, you can mean it through all the tears and every heartbreak. you can mean it even if you had met love before. and you can mean it even when you really don’t want to. and i still think that there is beauty in the tangled lines that are left unexplained. so i guess i just wanted to thank you, love, for everything. for the nauseating butterflies and the pounding deep in my chest. and of course for the love i feel for myself. for all of it.

[dontforgetacomma]

every once in a while, i pull my head under my bedsheets, and squeeze my eyes shut. i block out the world. and my god, sometimes it feels so good to feel nothing at all.

[dontforgetacomma]

i never thought i could love this much. i guess you proved me wrong.

[dontforgetacomma]

how did you find a way to make me stumble over my words. i used to plan out my sentences, rehearse every word before speaking. i never went speechless, i always raised my hand. and now, it’s like i see your face and my mind goes blank. i trip over every letter and i mispronounce my adjectives, i swallow my tongue and forget to answer the question. i pause in between every thought, i make it up as i go. how did you find a way to make my words feel brand new. i thought they would always be jagged lines, reused over years, sharp and straight to the point. but they’re not anymore, no, now they are liquid and open to the different interpretations. they have multiple meanings and my metaphors are fluid, they take up space. i whisper some and i scream the others without reason. how did you find a way?

[dontforgetacomma]

i’m young and my words blur together when i get excited, and crowds can hear my heartbeat. i’ve never been good at the subtle things, i’ve been obvious chaos since the day i decided to wreck the world instead of hiding from it. i’ve been thrown off the ship more times than i care to remember, and i didn’t always hop back in. sometimes i let my head fall under the waves, let my hair twist into a hurricane below the crumbling surface, i almost let myself drown until i couldn’t feel the water sitting in my lungs anymore. but then a breath of fresh air, a glimpse of your eyes and i was hooked on feeling alive again. i was addicted and i knew i couldn’t let myself forget how to breathe, because i didn’t want to ever stop connecting our lips. and i’ve never been good at the subtle things, but neither have you. we are both painfully expressive, with feelings larger than our bodies, complicated tangles of lines that we probably overstepped. and my shoes are always untied, but you remind me not to trip, and my heart used to be in pieces but you must have found some tape. because you made me whole again.

[dontforgetacomma]

i am the girl who sits at her kitchen table at 4am, writing poetry with her fingernails, scratching her own skin to feel the words dig deep. i’m the girl who thought she was a mosaic, thought she was a thousand pieces put together to make something almost beautiful, but always broken. i’m the girl who forces her eyes into the sky to see the bright side of a situation, who searches for the silver lining when it is almost invisible. you are the boy who talks to the girl at 4am, who stays awake to whisper distant melodies through the phone. you are the boy who put her shattered pieces together, who called it a work of art to begin with. you are the boy who squeezed her hand so tight, she forgot what falling apart felt like. you are the boy with secrets in his smile, an entire body filled with the morning sunrise. you are the silver lining that she found, hidden within plain sight among the clouds. you are the boy, and i am the girl, and we are everything in between.

[dontforgetacomma]

you’re the only reason i’m no longer scared of growing up. change used to bug me, i liked the security of the comfortable. risks were foolish and i was too definitive to waver for a second more between the options of staying inside, and wandering the wonderous world. then your hand fell into mine like the moon falls backwards into the sky, and i let myself dream past the walls of my familiarity, slice through each boundary i used to keep myself contained in. and now i live in slow motion, in blurry montages of moments i know i’m going to forget and the days i can’t erase. the scars in my mind will whisper stories into your ear, and i will hope that you stay through the good and through the bad. growing up doesn’t mean giving up the deep laughter and the quiet conversations held in the dark. it can be all of that, with our hands tied together, with more knowledge, with more love. it can be all of the above.

[dontforgetacomma]

he’s ethereal, iridescent and still shining through the blanket of clouds lining a stormy sky. he reminds me of the scent of morning dew and of making an orange peel into the curve of a smile. something about his smirk resonates with the jingle of wind chimes in a soft breeze. it’s slow and unscripted and when the wind starts howling it tangles into a mess of silver. but no matter the tornado outside, it’s still beautifully singing. that one look he gives me when we stare from a distance, the softness in his eyes is stirring sugar into tea. his hand enveloping mine is a sun-kissed daffodil, still warm from before the moon fell into its place. his breath is the rain dotting my face as i admire the colors in the sky, every piece of him is star dust. my boy is the underlined metaphors scribbled in the margins of my poetry books. he’s second grade, he’s first kisses, he’s confessing your love for someone on the back of a cafe napkin. he is an entire novel of comparisons because, to me, he is everything good in the world. i can’t pretend like he isn’t the only thing on my mind, like he isn’t the sting of concrete in the summer or the snowflake resting on my eyelashes. he is every soft and electrifying moment that resides into the corners of my brain.

[dontforgetacomma]

i want to see the color of your eyes against the stormy clouds outside of my window, us both wrapped in the hundreds of blankets draped along my bed. i want to lay my head on your lap while you explain your most embarrassing childhood moments, covering my face with my hands as i try my hardest not to laugh. i want to sit against the pink walls of our local ice cream shop, memorize your favorite flavor of milkshake and ask for two straws. i want to translate the scibbles that live in my notebook, whispering the lyrics until they aren’t just words but they are a physical feeling, shared between the two of us. i want to hear your raspy voice early in the morning and hear you quietly yawn so your mom doesn’t know we are still talking this late. i want to hold your hand so tight that my rings make indentations in your palm. i want everything and i want more and more and more. but mostly i just want you, and everything that comes with that.

[dontforgetacomma]

the thoughts fill my head and swarm around my ears. they are warm and bubbly criss crosses of swirls in every color. and they splatter on the inside of my hands when we touch. they trace down the perimeter of my jawline when we kiss. they haunt me through dreams during class. and they are perfect fantasies of us, alone, forever. singing symphonies with our breath, a godamn orchestra of emotions rushing in on me. and i can no longer see straight when your voice surrounds my body, and i know i have fallen too deep into the sea of you. but i never learned to swim and i don’t think i have to

[dontforgetacomma]

that night when my hair kept getting in the way of our lips, sticking to my chapstick like gum on the bottom of highschool desks. that night when we stopped to giggle after every footstep, held hands tightly walking down the street. that night when i forgot how to talk because looking into your eyes, i wasn’t a writer. i was just a silly, speechless girl who had so much hope that her best friend would love her in the way she had invisioned for months, carbon mascara stains inking her pillow. i wasn’t a poet and i didn’t trace stanzas into your skin with my fingernails, i didn’t kiss you with my metaphors. i didn’t make similes with your smile or hyperboles with your heart. i couldn’t even think in complete sentences, remember where to place the comma, it wasn’t the little girl who daydreamed in lyrics. it was just me with my silence and a trace of peppermint locking my lips with yours.

[dontforgetacomma]

i never thought i would be able to wrap my head around the concept of love. i thought it would be an incomprehensible corner, a turn that was too sharp. it was hard for me to grasp how i could love someone more than every word i’ve ever written. how i could love someone not despite their flaws but because of their quirks and knots in the thread. i always wanted the love story i grew up watching, Cinderella gets the prince and the frog turns into a gentleman. never could i imagine that what i got is something farther than a fairytale. it’s unconventional and obvious. it’s the small mumbles that i fall for and the taste of sugar lining his breath. it feels simple and sweet and i know it’s complex and i don’t think i will ever wrap my head around the concept of love. but i don’t have to, because my heart has its own intuition.

[dontforgetacomma]

mostly, i’m afraid of oversharing. of him asking one too many questions, opening the latch to years of self torture and pity. i don’t want to scare him off with my insanity, and i don’t hide away very often. with every word i own the risk of breaking open, spilling every secret and misery and moment into his lap. i love him, but how could anyone love all the broken pieces within me? i could make a mosaic with my emotions, my stain glass window of cracked thoughts that shatter through my scull as i lie in bed each night. how could he live with the knowledge that i can barely survive knowing myself?

[dontforgetacomma]

i wear my favorite color as frequently as possible, reminds me of the sunshine on my shoulders and van gogh. but recently, i’ve been drawn to the color of your eyes, so crisp and individual, so remarkable and breathtaking. so i’ll wear olive green sweaters and cardigans and socks, and every time i catch myself in the mirror, i’ll think about the sunshine that is you, my lamp in the dark.

[dontforgetacomma]

can we sit on my roof and avoid the chaos of our lives, slowly drifting into colors that have never been seen before. can we dance on the moon though i have two left feet, trying to not slip past the edge of the illuminated floor. can we exist simultaneously, drinking bottles of alice and wonderland poisons, growing up and shrinking down when our hands feel numb. can we not only write poetry but live in between the blurry lines, between every metaphor and stanza lives a hopeless girl with the same face as me. and the title is your name.

[dontforgetacomma]

everyday, he takes my mood and twists it into something extraordinary. just meeting eyes across the room or a soft chuckle comes with a night of me laying awake thinking about how i managed to fall so far, how i jumped into this love without looking down. how i’ve never been a reckless person, but with him i don’t have to try anymore, i can love and be loved.

[dontforgetacomma]

it’s like i met him, and it wasn’t love at first sight. he was just a boy, and i was just here, anxious and scared. but slowly, he blossomed from just a boy, to someone who is always there. and i could let my guard fall, trust him, trust someone, even just for a second. and i could laugh while i laid in my bed, his voice blaring through my earbuds. i could relax. i could flirt absentmindedly, through dad jokes and childhood secrets. and i could let myself fall head-first into the fantasy, that maybe he could like me. maybe.