sad lesbians in movies

lonely mornings that are sunny and golden

sitting in the middle of a group of laughing teenagers

a local cat's disappearance

death of a beloved character

certain poems read out loud

thinking about my best friend crying

my best friend getting on a plane

being ghosted

emily dickinson's letters to susan gilbert

the library of alexandria

taylor swift's new album

college applications

carrying too many bags at once

my little brother

someone asking if i'm okay

getting catcalled

reading about women's rights

a slow moving cloud that's impossibly fluffy and gigantic

math tests

happy lesbians in movies

books that are just too damn good (too many to list here)

thinking too hard about what makes me me

watching clouds move over the moon at night

frida kahlo's paintings

the great british baking show (from laughter)

sappho poetry and what it could've been

stories about AIDS

world history

a friend trusting me

walks around the neighborhood at sunset

no matter how cold it is (just put on another layer)

i'll sit with my hot chocolate and watch things that make me happy

while the rain pours nonstop just a few feet away.

the pipe gurgling outside is just another memory-

listening to it at night means i can forget about growing up;

i can pretend that i'm still exploring the backyard swamp

or leaving trails in the parking lot puddle with a scooter.

and i look up at the clouds only when it's so dark i barely see them

and sigh a long sigh, but a happy one because the air is fresh.

so when i wake up in the morning and everything is bright

but slightly dampened, i can walk without purpose and breathe again.

I.

Time, gathers in my words.

Seconds - sentences take.

Minutes - by marks -

Years - why parentheses!

Months, by questions foretold -

An envelope.

II.

“Love” is that thing without words -

That’s written on a page -

And travels on acoustic waves -

Lives inside - your ribcage -

You may have heard it - in the rain -

That falls atop your head -

In the rhythm of the storm drain

Or in the flowerbed -

I’ve seen it in a thunderstorm -

And in a cup of tea -

Sometimes, it grows within a tree

And always within me.

III.

I like nine candles to be lit,

Near the oil painting -

One each night, plus another,

Yet songs I cannot sing -

The house is warm - there is a tree -

Ghosts hover over me

A great miracle happened here -

Winter holiday cheer.

i thought i saw you walk past me,

you didn't though.

in my defense, i have none

but it would've been fun

seeing you again.

you know the greatest loves of all time are over now

you always talked about the great ones

but it's another day waking up alone-

who knows if you never showed up, what could've been

i wouldn't know how butterflies are supposed to feel-

you had a marvelous time ruinin' everything

10 days is a long time

to wait for your letter

i had a marvelous time

on the first of october

so i want you to know

when no one is around, my dear

i pretend i'm shining just for you.

i'm still a daydreamer but i don't know why

i've never been a natural

all i do is sigh

i'm still trying everything

to keep you looking at me.

i never thought i needed anything more

than that one day at the bookstore

'cause you were never mine

will we talk when we're back at school?

i though just wanting was enough

'cause you weren't mine to lose.

what did you think i'd say to that text?

what do you sing on your drive home?

when I thought of you it's like I couldn't breathe.

but if I just showed up at your locker

would you say hi? would you smile?

i'm only 17, i don't know anything

except what you showed me.

your favorite song was playing

but i changed it to mine.

i dreamt of you all afternoon

but i can't know about what happens when

you see my face again.

if you kiss me, will it be just like i dreamed it?

only i just dreamed it.

take me to the city where all the poets

went to fall in love

tell me what are my words worth

when i write to you again.

i want to watch you grow a garden over me

'cause i haven't moved in years-

those hills look like a perfect place to cry

when the haze you left clears-

so i'm setting off, but will you drive me there?

and so the leaves have turned to gold today

yet their beauty cannot match your two eyes

so i'll stand here, asking you to please, stay-

and we'll gaze together at the cold skies

under the passing clouds and the sun's sway

i am on my way to you yet again

imagining you on the seat across

from me, smiling at strangers on the train

the one that goes to the upper west side

the one i know you will never see

this room is too warm for the two of us

the walls are closing in on me and you

you pull me closer, closer, and closer

it's too much and not enough- our hands touch

we swing together like no one's watching

this is me trying to make you fall in love

it doesn't matter if you are or not-

you'll never say it- at least not to me

so we'll keep dancing, but only for now

it's not fair, but i'm sorry anyway

for what? for falling half in love with you

he is like a god, who sits next to you

and makes you laugh, while i can only stare

wearing tights gets me in the mood for the holidays.

all-black clothing; soft skirts and long sleeves,

making hot chocolate with a friend on facetime

and pretending like she's still here, putting my

hair back and walking outside in a coat, because

it's finally, finally cold enough in california.

i'm waiting patiently: for a letter to come in the

mail, for inspiration to strike, for the milk to

heat up, for halloween night, for my friends to

come over, for the weather to chill, for a text back,

for christmas music and hanukkah parties, for

the BART train to arrive, for the lights in the theater

to dim, for my first kiss, for math test results, for

the winter months to come.

but it's a nice waiting, the kind that you can curl

up under the blanket and read a book, the kind

that comes an hour before the party starts when

everything is clean and you're setting out the food.

it's a calm kind of thrumming that runs through

my body in anticipation, a few butterflies in my

stomach that i know will dissolve when something

happens, the feeling i get when i know it will be soon-

so i just have to wait.

you told me not to go to colorado

you said it was boring

the endless nothings, the whiplash weather.

you told me how you used to watch the storms

from the roof- in the rain, in the dark

you watched the sky rip open, alone.

i said you were lucky

(i'm afraid of lightning- i'll take earthquakes any day)

but you just grinned at me.

suddenly i've never wanted to be anywhere as bad

as on top of a roof in colorado during a thunderstorm

next to you.

it's happening again!

my mind is running away with itself

i can't make it stop!

i don't know what my reality is anymore-

i'm calling it the daisy effect

nice to meet you, i'm jay gatsby

except i don't have an excuse-

i never went off to war

i never got my heart broken, not really.

she's floating away again, quick tie her down

i reach for her ankle but she doesn't notice

her head's already in the clouds

she's become an impossibility,

a future core memory

that i lose as soon as i imagine it.

my anguish doesn't gather in my bones and weigh me down

like mary shelley said, but i will defend it.

instead it layers on my face like dead skin

no matter how many times i wash with warm water

and apply moisturizer in the sunlight by my window

or if i take one of those facial blades and try to scrape

my grievances off, they won't budge.

but i've decided that's what is beautiful about my face-

the accumulation of anguishes, but also joys.

i can see where the lines will be when i'm older

and i note that they look like my great grandmother's

laugh lines. i can see the outline of my nose at a

certain angle where it looks like my mother's.

the circles under my eyes acquire a certain scaly effect

and it reminds me of the time i said my mother had

the eyes of a wise old dragon- and i couldn't understand

why she was upset when i thought it was the coolest

thing ever to have purple under your eyes.

all the places i've ever been, all the air i've ever breathed

layered on my skin. i can see it clearly in the sunlight, the

reds of my impurities, the freckles where the fairies kissed me,

a stray eyelash, a crooked scar that's invisible to everyone but me.

it's not perfect (i have to remind myself that no one's is) but

it's mine, it contains everything that makes me tangible and

visible. i'll never know what i truly look like in another's eyes

but maybe it's better that way.

her dreams had been so vivid lately, full of mystery

so she walked in her best heels across the floor of her room,

up the opposite wall, across the ceiling, and down again

and again and again, until she felt like herself.

she smoked cigarettes for the first time and then felt

unbelievably sad because she became addicted and her

best friend was going to kill her for it. the very same best

friend whose dad smoked every sleepover out on the porch

in the early hours of the morning, the porch we weren't

allowed to be on while he was there.

she was stalked slowly by a giant black panther, whom

no one else in the store seemed to notice until it was

too late and she came face to face with it's hardened eyes.

the dreams weighed her down, and when she woke up

she felt them leaving her body slowly like a leeching

poison that could never fully disappear, the dregs

weighing her down in her shoulders, the arches of her

feet, the edges of her ears, and in her skull just behind

the middle of her forehead where her eyebrows meet.