Young Writers Society

​​You Still Kiss Me

I am holding your shirt right now.
You know, the one you gave me for Christmas.

It smells too much like you,
For me to ever wash it.
And it feels too much like you,
Because I know you were the last one to touch this,
Before me.
Before I took it and I left,
Everything you gave me,
Everything that made me safe.

I am surprised how I can still smell you in this shirt,
Though my tears have soaked it through and through.

I see you in the sunrise,
Feel you in the breeze,
And hear you in the ocean.

You still kiss me,
With the cool air, I breathe in,
As I leave a trail of footprints in the sand,
On the beach we used to play on.

I will never not see your smile.
You only hide.

​​The Difference Between You and a Poem

I have become the girl who you wanted me to be.
I have twisted myself,
contorted my mind and the way I think,
to transform into a person whom I pray,
you see as worthy of a smile.
A simple smile.

The truth is,
you will never make me happy again.
I don't think that I can ever look forward to you,
or speak to you in a tone anything more than
the too-quiet voice you say I have.
I wake up earlier than you now,
after you teased me for getting the sleep I needed.

The difference between you and a poem
is that poetry breaks me,
in ways I need to be broken.
You broke me.

I guess, what I want to say,
is that you remind me of my mother.
You remind me of how felt,
when I was too small to fight,
too small to hide,
too small to escape,
so all I could do was endure.
The enduring made me strong,
but it also broke every part of who I could have been.

You broke every part of me that loved to laugh,
and I have become a victim of my abuse too.
Trapped in a chamber, somewhere in the depths of my mind,
I cower, in the dark, huddled with my past and present,
praying that the future makes better choices.

You broke every part of me that was proud of myself for trying,
even as I watch you now,
all I have learned to feel is hatred for the spell you put me under.
How easily you make others think you are someone else,
but on the inside, I am not confident that you are even human.

They say we all look the same on the inside,
but I have lost faith in a God who I know loves you too.

Until tomorrow comes, again.

​When I remember,
that you would still love me tomorrow,
even if I wasn't here,

it makes me wait.

Living a day with you,
is closer than I would ever be,
six feet in the ground.
I cannot hold you, while I lie in my grave.
I cannot imagine the day
you plant my body like a seed,
and water the earth above me,
praying for any ounce of feeling.

I know that you would still love me
tomorrow.
And that you will love me
everyday.
I know that you would love me,
as a sunrise
and as the frost on the field
and as the smiles you see on other's faces.

It makes me think of the infinite days
I will have,
being loved by you.
And how much better they would be,
if I lay in your arms.

I would rather hold you,
than be the sunset you cry to.
I would rather guide you,
than be your star in the sky.
I would rather chase you in the snow,
than be the snowflake that lands on your cheek.
And I would rather be the last one you kissed,
than your last kiss.

So, I will wait another day.
Stay another day.
Live another day.
Breathe another day,
And feel every feeling.

Until tomorrow comes, again.

others call her depression,
but i call her the best friend I have ever had.

and she treated me better than anyone else.
she held me close every night.
she was the only one who wiped the tears off my face.
her hunger for them grew stronger every day,
and she licked them violently.

she held my eyes shut, allowing me to get the rest i needed.
every morning, i awoke by her side and she begged me,
just a couple more minutes. I dont want to leave you.
I was blinded by the fact that I was not alone.
that was the only reason I stayed with her.

she had the softest voice, as she spoke to me,
her words flowed like a stream of blood mixed with a song.
she kissed me softly
so softly.
and made me feel safe where i was,
even though where i was,
was not a safe place to be.

the truth is,
i never wanted to lose her.
but losing her is what allowed me to save myself.
and she didnt want me to go either.

The Scraps of your Efforts

growing up
i begged you to help me
and you gave me nothing
besides the scraps of your efforts
to help yourself.

now you try to give me everything
and i accept nothing
because i cannot take anything from you
because i dont feel okay
and because i have learned to survive without you.

all you gave me was a constant feeling
of not being able to have the words
or effort
to describe how i feel.
or what is living inside of me.

The Clay of my Body

the truth is, i dont want you now,
i have raised myself as a girl without a mother.
i am a kite in the wind,
and no one is holding my handle.
i am a cactus with no spikes,
and a rose with too many thorns.
i am a lion without a mane,
and i am every tear that never go to fall,
and every scream that never happened.
the absence of your parenting is my middle name.
i can see your fingerprints all over the clay of my body,
all of the glasses you have made me scared to knock over,
and all of the books i have written,
to make up a world where another girl understands my pain.
mom i love you for who you are now,
but i hate you for every moment of who you used to be.
and for every moment that you made me grow up
when i didnt need to grow up.

what happened has happened,
and you wanted to be safe,
you wanted to be protected,
you wanted to be loved.
you did not need be be stronger.

maybe you can do things that you were not
capable of before.
but that does not mean that you needed to
go through hell
to come out stronger on the other side.

it is okay to miss who you could have been
it is okay to grieve everything you lost,
every piece of who you wanted to be,
and every fraction of your childhood that you will never get to have.

i am so grateful that you are strong now,
but i hope that you never forget how hard that process was.
i hope you never forget how much you wanted to escape,
and every night you spent clawwing at the door,
trying to escape.

give yourself the credit you deserve.
you are so much braver than you think.

i got my dad's hair
and my mother's hatred.
i can cut my hair
and dye it
but i am always left with
the piece of me
that is a piece of her.

i got my dad's eyes
and the pain my uncle felt
when he took his own life.
i can squint and blur everything
in front of me,
but i can never escape what my uncle took from me
and everything he left behind
embedded in who i have become.

i got my dad's smile
and grandmas's perfectionsim.
i can grin at any stranger
and spead kindness like wildfire,
but i can never feel like
i have done enough
been enough
or helped enough
to love myself.

i guess i think the way my mother does,
but that is everything i try to hide about myself
everything i am powerless to change.

monkeys, bears, and tears.
the monkeys
and bears
and tears
blur together.

just like
the spoons
and suitcases
and clay vases.

what i remember most
is your little voice.
your giggles.
you tears.

the plastic superhero figures
floating in the bathtub,
making witch potions with bubbles.
trying to build a snowman.
and failing.

i remember the monkey,
doing gymnastics on the piano bench.
and the dog,
wearing the clothes we cut out of socks.
i remember folding laundry
and always being the one
who did all of the work.
you were always the last one at the table.

i remember when we were smaller
it was just us.
and the monkeys
and the bears
and all of the tears.

and now
its just me
and everything i want to say to you
everything i need you to feel
every hug you deserve.
i deserve.
and every moment
that i miss those moments
but there is nothing i can do to bring back those feelings again.

Good and Evil

I have realized that life isn't meant to be
a story of good and evil.

Some people teach me to love.

And others teach me
how not to love.
They teach me how to not
bury myself,
lock myself away,
or limit who I am,
ever again.

Yes, sometimes people
who we thought were here to love us,
leave us.
But that is okay.
What they taught us
will always stay.

I Can Love You.

I have hear people ask,
"If you were in a room with
everyone
you ever met,
who would you look for first?"

But all I think about is,
who would look for me first.

The truth is,
I could find you without looking.
I could hear you without my ears.
And I would still call you with my last breath.
I can love you without you loving me.

when my mother stabbed me

You stabbed me.
and all I did
was apologize for getting blood
on your carpet.

The pain didn't hurt as much
as seeing your face
when I turned around.

You were supposed to
protect me.

This is how you made me feel,
my entire life.
And you know that.

I hurt you too,
but at least I didn't leave you out to die.

All I want
is to scream,
I am still bleeding.

But instead, I bandage my bruised body
and conceal the secrets that your nails
etched into my little body.

When tears are only tears

I'm so tired,

but I feel this way every day
and I never want to wake up.

I'll do it tomorrow,

but I say that every night.
I can't remember the last time
I wanted tomorrow to come.

I love you,

but there is no way I can be sure
you won't leave me
once you have seen me suffer.
Once you have seen my weakness.

I know things can get better,

but that doesn't give me a reason to smile
right now.
And it doesn't make changing my life
feel any more possible.

I'm trying my best,

and I am learning to accept that best
doesn't always equal completion.
It's hard to love myself.
But I still try.

I still try to say everything I feel,

but sometimes
tears are only tears.
Sunsets are only sunsets.
And my freckles are not a map of constellations
that will help me find you again.

Or find me again.

Mirror, Mirror
Mirror, Mirror, on the wall,
who's the fairest of them all?
It wasn't me,
it was only you,
and an overwhelming amount of trust issues.

Mother, Mother, dearest to me,
did you not understand that I wanted to be free?
I wished upon stars,
and flowers,
and birds in the sky,
but your cruel grasp still made me cry.

Father, Father, the only one that I loved,
why then, did you fly far away like a dove?
I was trapped on my ship,
with only
me,
myself,
and I.
Longing for death,
but too afraid and too weak to die.

Brother, Brother, you were nothing more than small,
how many more steps can you tumble, before you finally fall?
The wall you have built
looks strong and mighty,
but your tears fall faster than rain.
Oh, Brother, I see where you are hiding.

Someday, Someday, I will fly far away from this place,
with beauty on my wings, captured by grace.
I will shatter the glass of your despicable mirror,
free at last, abandoning my fears.

I will steal all the shining stars up above,
and find every flower,
perhaps my father's dove.
At last, there is laughter at every hour.
I have let my guard down,
and escaped from my tower.

As I befriend the birds in the sky,
finally,
it's just me,
myself,
and I.

you are the reason i can't publish my poetry.

I love you for who you are now,
but that doesn't make it easier to forgive
who you were to me.
I can't remember all of the words,
but I do remember
what it felt like.
Wanting to fall apart,
but knowing that you would not glue me back together.

The hard part is,
you were supposed to love me.
I was your child
but not your daughter.
I wanted you to always be
the mom you were,
when others were there.

Now, as an adult,
I feel like I wear a mask.
Just like you did.
you taught me how to change,
hide,
and impress.

What hurts the most,
is hearing you say I love you.
And the fact that those words make me feel lonely.
I have written hundreds of poems for you.
For your hurt
and mine
and everything I want us both to feel.

And I will write a thousand more,
because I still feel hollow inside.
But you carved me in a way
that makes me stuck, forever.
I am a piece of wood that I cannot recognize.

This is why,
you are the reason I can't publish my poetry.