the sun in your mouth
rose and fell
with each utter
of sleepy breath

all of a sudden I am extremely tired again. it is sunny and I am still tired. how do you prove to someone that it has been enough. I have learned so much over the past year and at the same time it hurts so much to remember. nights on the floor. they were the prettiest color. bright translucent aqua in the palm of my hands. I do not want to remember how close. again and again. sun that could not be felt. dancing on my back to feel. streaming in from the windows, daring my legs to move. we double dare you. we triple dare you. it does not matter anymore. it is true but hard to believe. does that still make it true. I think there are many things deeply rooted in us from long ago that we forget are there. I just want to pull my weeds out.

it is difficult to convince yourself to feel something
that you are still trying to fully believe in
erratic is my middle name
and I am trying to make it beautiful
trying to convince myself
it is okay
to still
still 
not be able
to be still
to feel too much
and too little
dejection
does not want to be seen
does not want to be recognized
and becomes more appparent
I feel it in the way that I speak
the way I stretch the o’s at the end of every hello
the way I play with my fingers
the mannerisms
I’m scared to let out too much
and too little make words build up in my throat
remember it is always polite to swallow
things just got pretty complicated
say it with a smile every time and they will nod
as though these five words are sufficient enough
I am happy
I am happy
other feelings like to mix their way in too when they get lonely
everyone gets lonely
but there is no vacancy for feelings
that turn all the lights off
illumination
I promise I am bright inside

I cannot help but think that I have lost the ability to write. that I have lost a part of myself that I search for every night through blank white pages of word document. not today, maybe tomorrow, again and again. it is not hiding in the margins. it is not hiding in the spaces between uncertain words. these words do not dance and these fingers are shy. sometimes it is hard not to be sorry for the ways that we feel, especially when they are things we wish we couldn’t feel. my body is the sea and there are sinking ships everywhere.

it will pass. most things do.

as a child I always thought that sickness would last forever. my forehead burned until it burst into flames and my back would ache. I did not like the way the tylenol dissolved and took control of my mouth. I did not like the way I prayed to a god I did not know.

you cannot build a skyscraper from an apartment complex of broken dreams. not immediately.  you cannot build it in a few days or weeks. maybe not a few months. it will fall over in the 4AM silence. you cannot build a house. fill it with people and it will still be empty. this is how it is. we cannot force ourselves to feel things that we do not feel.

there is nothing to fix of ourselves.  

I trust this world
from the bottom of my
squeaky wooden heart
to break me
as much as it has to
until there is only dust
heaving in and out
of tired lungs
break me
break me
break me
and remember
to put everything
back together
as you found it

I like piles
of dried leaves
especially the ones
that don’t crunch
they are even more special
too afraid to make a sound
in a world so large
yet still willing
to strip their skin
and bear the cold
in silence

9:40PM

this is what it does sometimes. I am sitting in the car under the brightest streetlight. I didn’t mean to. it is this mad hope that maybe you’ll find yourself one of these nights. that it is something that can be searched for. something to be found. x will mark the spot and your dirty hands will dig. if you drive far enough you’ll get enough pieces to cover up the old ones. I wish I had myself every day I guess. this is not misery. this is far from it. misery is the moment you stop looking for the next day. these words do not sound right. this mad mad hope. ripping me apart is impossible. this is not the worst. I should be grateful. 

there are windows that look like file cabinets. security cameras that look like soap dispensers. these are the things you notice when you skip your six thirty pm lab because it happened again. maybe you are not good enough. twenty minutes later. you are not good enough. fifteen minutes later. I want to sit here and stare out the window. it is dark and light outside at the same time and I would like to swallow some illumination until I glow inside and believe it

there are parts of ourselves that have been through more cycles of laundry than our favorite pair of socks that always goes missing. there are stains that lessen with time and can later only be seen with squinted eyes

in these therapy waiting rooms they always have plates of sand with tiny rocks on them, probably inspired by the japanese zen rock gardens. when I was little I would play around with the miniature ones and I liked to see how straight I could rake the sand. last year they had a box of toys in the middle of the table and there was a sliding puzzle of the moon that I couldn’t solve. I couldn’t figure it out and I felt like a little kid that wanted a sticker from the doctor before the appointment even started

we get mad at ourselves for a lot of little nothings sometimes. the oatmeal is too watery. your backpack is too heavy. why did you pack books that you will not read. why do you feel so much from so little. you split into a thousand cranes that never remember how to fly. so back into the jar they go, the parts of you that used to be. these words are careful so they will not break you. these moments are gentle but you are not the grace of sunday mornings

I went to the rooftop last night

there are certain things that cannot be spoken of

I was not born to be an anchor. no one is. anchors stay in place and the ship takes them everywhere, but not to see the world. sink into the ocean floor and latch on. let go and everyone goes overboard 

if you listen to the waves long enough you cannot hear it anymore. they race to shore like fingertips traveling down your back in the middle of the night

that is what it feels like. footsteps walking out the door. you’re zipped up inside of yourself and it is the stars in the sky the unexpected drops of rain after sunlight it is the paused breaths in between not knowing what to say but knowing how it feels it is the um’s and uh’s and crooked smiles filling all the blank spaces. it is the six year old that didn’t know any better. it is the eleven year old that had to out of fear. the ghost of all the people you have ever been always finds a way back

but you are not an anchor. you are the magic inside of kaleidoscopes as a child you are the ball thrown over the fence that never came back you are the last candy bar left on the supermarket shelf at 2AM

sink but you will never make it to the bottom. that is all that matters

it is okay to feel lost in a crowded room
or find silence in the loudest of conversation
or solace in absence
bare feet on freshly vacuumed carpet
makes me happy
as though I can walk a bit further
warm bed sheets
on saturday morning wrap me up
in conviction
that it will be okay
have you noticed
the light stays yellow
just long enough
for you to make it through

the stars didn’t say anything
the night you reached over
grabbing chunks of the sky
and rubbing it onto yourself
as if you would glow
like wildfire
luminescence
cannot be seen
but heard
and I wonder
I wonder
what the stars
sound like

I slept with chills running up and down my back the night she didn’t make it. I think it’s hard to be the doctor that walks out in the white coat. people expect you to be professional and put together, even when delivering the most somber of news. and then they wish that you could have been a little more emotional because maybe then it wouldn’t have hurt as much. but it’s all the same. their insides break all the same. like grandmothers porcelain you were never supposed to touch. like the deepest parts of us that suddenly shoot out through our mouths and decompose like flowers to spell out how it feels. there are a lot of things that go on that never reach the surface. for everything. but more so than that, for everyone. walking home, you wonder which families are tearing themselves apart that very moment. which passerby tore himself apart the night before. who is torn apart and trying to hide and tell you at the same time. little hints that don’t mean much yet could mean everything. I couldn’t sleep last night. I haven’t been able to sleep at all lately.

you never know what goes on behind closed doors. so you are always considerate. just in case. that’s the least anyone deserves. 

I am not the nights long ago crying in bed
I am all the mornings after

it is not possible to explain without sounding crazy. I think we’re all a little crazy in our own ways, and that makes us special. but a lot of the time we are ashamed of the things that make us different. these parts of us are the stars in the sky. shoot them down and they will turn to dust, swallowed by the sea. we spend our entire lives searching for the shine again. we are the sea. changing through the weather. swallowing the things that mean the most to us, wondering when we let go of the stars in our eyes.