Let me go or pull me in
The dunce cap has blinded your eyes
Tied like an anchor beneath your floating existence
I thought I had rusted loose long ago
But you and your pale blue eyes
Your swishy hair and your stupid smile
Your stupid, stupid smile and light laugh and
Eyebrows skeptical like birds on the horizon line
Impervious, I think
Rusted loose, comfortably settled, I think
And then the tug of the boat reminds me I am linked again
Unwillingly a boat tugs at the tape
Packaging my heart
You and your stupid, stupid smile just
Let me loose or pull me in 

Sometimes I just want to lie down and forget that I exist. Whether it’s in a field of grass in the warm sun, or the chilly snow in winter, even in my bed surrounded with blankets, it’s one of the feelings that I treasure and yearn for the most. To forget, to completely erase any problems or worries from your mind. To lose the concept of thoughts, to think or absolutely nothing, to simply be. I do think that “being” is one of the most difficult things we face as humans. Particularly with teenagers, and likely even with people in general, but I couldn’t make a perfect claim to that because I’ve only been a person for sixteen years now. For 192 months. It’s easy to forget how young you are, really. I mean, I’m a few weeks away from being half way through junior year. I have thirteen months left of high school. Thirteen. That is nothing compared to 192.

Teenagers. That’s what we are. Continually characterized as difficult, moody, and stressed. Expected to make many mistakes, and to be forced to learn from them. Furiously undermined and patronized at every turn. It’s hard to have a voice as a teenager. But we just want to be free. These years when we’re old enough to see the world and realize its beauty and horror, these are the years when we are most vulnerable. The most lost. We have not yet been thrown into the expected constrictions of society, we can still be children, and we can still make mistakes.

But we’re more than what we seem, we’re deeper than what the stereotypes paint us. We want to stand at the edge of the world and hear the water on the shore, we want to stretch our fingers to the sky and close our eyes and sing, we want to be unafraid. But we are so deeply afraid. We are terrified to accept that life is running towards us in strides, that we’ll soon be unconsciously bound to the expectations and constrictions of society. So much so that even if you rebel against them, you are still acting in reaction to these constrictions, they are still the cause, the root of you and your problems. But we’re teenagers.

We’re soft and light, gentle and smooth as a brush of the cheek. We’re two finger peace signs, and the sunrise over snowy mountains. We’re words on a page, and titles of books. We are scattered confetti, and we are the raindrops on your windshield. Our hearts pull towards freshly baked cookies, and the glow of a Christmas tree in winter. We are messy bedrooms, and tiny butterflies. We’re imitations and galaxies, typewriters and spiral staircases. We are teenagers, we’re fresh and we’re ancient, timeless and limited, repetitive and expected, soft and fragile.

We are the strings that pull on the puppet, your heart. So deeply insecure, we are delicately swinging from a broken web.  So deeply terrified of being thought of, of thinking, ourselves. Judgment and eyes. Watching and terrified by the thoughts which swim in the eyes of those you imagine. Will we ever reach the end of the bucket? Or are we perpetually trapped in a glass door complex. 

Dear you, 

I love you, everything there is to love. Your lopsided smile, your always-tossled hair, the way you run (like a drunk dinosaur). I love your minty breath, and how you can’t whistle a tune. I love your black and white dog, and your strange obsession with cats. I love how you are fearless, you make me better. You follow your impulses, your every thought. You’re opinion and radical and completely hilarious. You write too much, and your doodles are always the same. Your right hand is always stained with ink because of your love for fountain pens and your incapability to hold a pen correctly. I love the fact that autumn’s your favorite season, and that you sing whenever you feel like it. I love that you can only sleep with one pillow. I love that you still have your stuffed iguana from your second grade field-trip to the science museum. I love  that  we met in a coffee shop, and I love that you had the nerve to come up to me. I love than you didn’t say “hello,” you sat down and grinned before quoting The Great Gatsby. I love that of all the beautifully poetic lines in that book, to choose from, you chose to tell me “my voice sounds like money.” In fact, you didn’t even get the line right. I love that you wear hiking boots, because you always find yourself on adventures. I like how you have to wear glasses when you drive. I love how you know how to scuba dive, and how you’ve been to Italy. I love that you have a blog, and that I am your only follower. I love that you don’t care about numbers, and I love that you use semi-colons for everything. I love how you have the weirdest tastes in music. I love how you play the harmonica. I love…

I love your forehead. 

I see the sun come up but barely see it down
munching endlessly on carrots
where did the time slip in between
buzzing eyelids
heavy head
my ear doesnt reach my shoulder
not while im here
pain pain 
wish the time away
wish the time would stay 
s’only trust this me
in the moment
present self
right now self
self self self
carrot
smile? 

Back to focusing. 
I can do this. 
I will do this. 
I will smile and grin and cover my eyes
Hello :) 

Swimming 
drowning
swimming
drowning
swimming
swimming
swimming 
head
spinning
messed up crayons
melted in the box
pushed on pastel paper
macaroni and cheese
please
swimming again 
two days
no
a day and a half
a day and a half
drowning 
drowning
SWIM, DAMNIT. 

the stone is cold and hard
guess it can’t be soft
until the etherspeheres

flex & fluctuate

and my notes tumble down
soggy in the puddles
torn rainboots two sizes too small
twist to comfort
knot & tie
sail & sin-


k.  

I’m lying facedown on the cement
The pacified waters curling their
fairy dance in the lavinial 
limited cell
a cup of tea with 
too much milk 
beige
my void mind
i am flat. 

is it really worth the pain
the caref-ly colored guidelines
lead our sinking skins
to the very bridge of existance
the fringe of death and 
hamburgers
? 

The rain knocks on my window,
And the ceiling creaks hello.
My walls curve to the blankets
As I lie asleep, below

morning?