Heavy chains pressed unwanted thoughts to the corners of her dark mind while massive thorn bushes grew towering over her head, sharp trendils reaching out to snap at her feet. The ground was thick with black tar that sucked of her legs, hoping to drag her down into the self-deprecation assuredly waiting below. Beyond are selves that line the dark walls, adored with glasss jars and fluttering colors trapped within. White, green, and gold. Red, black, and blue. Emotions she didn’t want to feel.

A massive vault stood at the far end leaking golden liquid, like blood in the water. Secret feelings that she couldn’t allow herself to feel nor show. It was easier this way, ensuring that her emotions took physical shapes rather than having to deal with inner demons.

Right atrium

Energy depleted

Empty blue

Seeking inspiration

Right ventricle

Closer to freedom

A forceful gust of green

Nearing the breath of life

Left atrium

An acrylic masterpiece

A burst of color

Endless possibilities

Left ventricle

Dreams become actions

Rebirth and creation

Illuminating the body

An endless cycle

Hope and fear

Birth and death

Purpose and uncertainty

A beautiful journey

The heart

here we walk

through veins of blue and organs of pink,

all of it painted black to hide its beauty.

here we have

shreds of paper, lines of poetry,

embedded in the flesh of my heart.

in some places we might see cuts

where i came in and dug out some words

coated in blood,

i dripped them onto paper.

and over here we have

regret, painted on the black-and-white canvas of memory.

faces and words that can't be undone.

here we have love,

it's a small room,

but i would die again and again

for each and every one of them.

here we have pride,

the smallest room of all,

and every shred of pride i feel,

i lock in here and never talk about,

because i don't want to be seen as arrogant.

here we have lust,

the things no one wants to talk about

locked in here and hidden

because i'm told my feelings are wrong.

here we have greed,

the things i can't help but want,

the things i lie and say i need,

then hide away, never used.

here goes gluttony,

eating and eating when all she wants to do is starve

starve away the weight

starve away until she's skin and bone,

but she can't stop eating

and

eating

and eating.

down here in the basement is wrath.

he watches the tv with scorn,

throwing empty bottles of shame

into brick walls

and watching them shatter.

wrath never stops.

his anger never ceases,

he just bottles it up

and then he throws the bottles at walls

and watches them explode.

he loves the destruction

because it makes him feel better

about his own emptiness.

down the hall is sloth,

he never moves much anymore.

sometimes he is so still that you almost move right past him,

forgetting.

but he always surprises you

when you're alone

creeping up and feeding you

spoonfuls of laziness.

sucking away at your motivation through a straw

because he's too lazy to go get his own.

these are the freeloaders in my heart;

sin that lingers around corners and on couches,

eating my food, sitting at my table.

parasites living off of my happiness.

this is my heart

where sin has a face

and that face has a body

and that body needs to eat

i feed my sin,

like throwing bread to ducks,

and i paint the blue veins and beating walls black

so no one can see in

or out.

I am walking down the Charles River, a Quentin who has now perfected her Prozac routine. I am Princess Diana with her headphones in, listening to Wham on her Walkman while she rollarblades down the halls of Buckingham Palace. I am Sylvia Plath, a former Smith College student who burst open in the form of poetry for lack of love.

I say everyday words over and over in my head until they are worn down like lake stones.

A tea bag once told me to use my head to lead with heart. I hover over text messages left on read, I like battered fries; Bach makes me sad. When he said, your body is the bow and your mind is the arrow, I promised myself not to regurgitate it in a poem. Here we go.

My anxiety is the worst flavor of Laffy Taffy.

My heart is a globe I am forced to call home. It is black and blue and reeks of rotten fish.

I once loved too much and I am worn down, a tempest with baggage flying around.

In a crowded space covered in mishmash frames, there's a bench, the kind your feet are always grateful for when walking through the twisting halls of a museum. While the borders of what's on the wall are scuffed and splattered with mysterious colors of paint, the bench is somehow pristine, a plush green velvet that's not mussed at all. When sitting, and looking around, there's a breeze blowing from a window that provides some light, a breeze that stirs up the musty air looking for a place to settle and dwell on stress. A breeze that feels like the one that blows on my bad days, the breeze I feel while overlooking my city from a hillside.

The clickity-clack of a sainted keyboard comes from somewhere, cutting through the silence. On the cream-colored walls (the same shade of the birthday cake frosting made by my mother) is a range of scraps and pictures that have been squirreled away, tucked into safekeeping. In a gilded frame sits a scribbly mess of marker from when I first grabbed a Crayola product, a monument actually stored in a tub of kid drawings saved from the recycling by sentimentality. A memory, flickering in the starlight of that evening with stove-made s'mores, tasting of inside rather than woodsmoke. Bundled away from the chill, face lifted to the sky, taking the snapshot that hangs now. A melding of the Milky Way and fireflies, blurring the horizon in the dark.

Pawprints of pets dead and alive, cloth of baby blankets made by great-grandmothers, a shadowboxed pair of tiny Sketchers TwinkleToes, ones that I was so proud of. Jelly sandals, flowers pressed in a dusty phonebook one humid summer by my grandmother, a stick of the gum I always stole from my grandfather. Scars earned from childhood escapades, mental maps of my elementary school, the sound a new book makes when the spine cracks from a first opening. On a central wall, in a frame more meant for a Renaissance piece sits the feeling of a summer evening, driving in the pinkish sun while the radio statics in and out. Next to it, the smell of fall leaf piles. The chocolate-covered faces of my cousins at Easter, smearing their picture-ready clothes in Hershey kisses and Rolos. Then, the crisp winter air inhaled by a rosy nose as a sled starts to take flight. 50's music after dark, a strange echoing of jive that just feels different than it does in the day time. Scars earned from childhood escapades, mental maps of my elementary school,

In a storage closet overflowing with a bulk of geometry papers that have consumed many a tree lurks the child-like enjoyment of learning, buried. It's the kind of thing you don't open, for fear of a tsunami of responsibility tumbling out on top of you. Like a sloppy closet filled to the brim with toys that were supposed to be put away; don't ask, don't tell.

But nobody goes to a gallery for the storage closet, and certainly not for the smaller stuff, the stuff deemed only special enough to be tucked by a door. The stuff of creeping worry, the trapped negativity slamming against the picture glass, seething and storming, trying to bust the lightbulbs of the glaring overhead lights. The feeling of being yelled at by a community pool's lifeguard, of failing, of making the mistakes I torment myself for. Worries, ignored, a headache of a piece whose message is too strenuous to figure out, streaks of angry red crossing an anxious onyx like a Polluck.

Through gritting my teeth enough to make my jaw sore, I work through it, ignoring the storage space of doom, the stuff I tuck away behind doors. Working through a trudging winter, a dry cold, a heap of requirements. Wrapped in blankets, frantically texting for human contact, tearing up at the occasional hug. And so, in that gallery that smells of morning coffee and fabric softener, I fall back on good memories. The kind of recallings that take precedent over the lurking bad, the kind preserved, curated, as if they were a piece worth millions.

It's

Dinning at the molin rouge.

Sitting on an island full of Monkeys.

Skating on frozen lakes.

Dog sledging, arcoss the planes of Canda.

Exploring abonded ship wrecks.

It's

Old pub, with songs to be sung.

Dancing in the rain.

Playing in the storms.

Hiking up the tallest mountains.

Climbing up the tallest towers.

It's

The sound of waterfalls,

running down the stone.

The colour of trees,

on a bright autums day.

The feel of dew,

right between your toes.

It's

Dancing in the gravyards,

Chuches full of skulls,

Calling out their names,

So their stoies can be told.

My heart is a cavern

Empty space filled with the thick darkness

Where earth smells make the blackness

Warm and deep

My heart is a vast openness, enclosed

By walls of curving stone and earth

That hold me still, that

Keep me safe here

And it's only when I shove the

Vibrant coloured dust and smoke

Of my emotions out of the cave that

They use as a stage, as a gallery

It's only when I push them to the

Edges of the frames

That they build and burst

And break and hurt

So I'm learning to slip into my

Cave of a heart and watch

The plays of colour and light

Swirling in the darkness

And now, sometimes, I can join their dance

And feel empty

And full

I wonder about all the thoughts people have ever had about me. If anyone ever thought of sending me something just like the messages on the unsent project, if anyone had ever typed a paragraph that deep and profound and unsent it. I wonder if I could have been pulled out of a dark place by a potential message but they decided to let their words slip away. Love is a very particular emotion weird but so comfortable. It can both bring you onto cloud nine or dump you into the depth of your despair. I often catch myself losing track of my thoughts but it always finds its way to the topic of love. Being a hopeless romantic in the 21st century has its perks. The opportunities that arise from dating apps, mutual friends online, having everyones information at your fingertips and etcetera. Being a hopeless romantic in the 21st century is also one of the most tragic of love stories. Speaking of tragic love, Shakespeare once said "‘Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind’ such beautiful words were the inspiring truth but now, they represent nothing but a mere dream.

In a generation that romanticizes hook up culture, one who hopes to meet the love of her life has to go through dozens of heartbreaks. Boys who want her for her hourglass figure but not the incredible passion she has for sports. Boys who love her long silky hair but will lose all his so called 'feelings' with one chop. Boys who compliment her enchanting smile yet could not put aside five minutes to listen to her hopes and dreams. Boys say "be here at nine" instead of "I'll pick you up at nine." No more opening car doors no more spontaneously showing up at her house. Even in 1823 Lord Byron could foresee this, chivalry is dead. Boys submit messages to the unsent project. Boys recognize their mistakes only after losing a woman but it's okay, they move on in a week. You may have noticed I have a lot to say about boys but men - men are different. A typical personal may define boy and men as roughly the same. "Boys are just a younger less developed version of men right?" Very true but so very wrong. Men find their woman and hold onto them tight. To men, the right woman makes everything else a blur. Men see the woman of their dreams for her beauty, yes, but men will transform that perception of beauty. Her hopes and dreams are reflected in her smile, her careful diet in the shiny hair. Her figure comes from a lifelong hobby and most of all, he knows they make each other happy for every single reason there could possibly be.

I wonder about all the thoughts people have ever had about me. If anyone ever thought of sending me something just like the messages on the unsent project, if anyone had ever typed a paragraph that deep and profound and unsent it. In a generation that romanticizes hook up culture one who hopes to meet the love of her life has to go through dozens of heartbreaks. For a hopeless romantic, boys everywhere are put on a pedestal but it is when she finally loves herself that her one 'man' reveals himself amongst the boys. He will send that paragraph expressing his love instead of putting it on some anonymous website, she will finally know what it feels like to not have to work for his affection. Maybe he will enter her life right when she finds her own confidence or on a rainy day holding an umbrella over her head. When the day comes, "love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind."