MY HONEST POEM

I write poems about flowers but can’t manage to keep any alive. I spent a whole summer when I was fifteen not going to bed until the sun was up because I thought the dark was trying to eat me. Even now, when I bleed, I expect demons to seep out. My days are arranged by color; my brightest moments are always shimmering in pink. I’ve cried at too many sunsets and not enough sunrises. I don’t live anywhere near the water and can’t swim so I’m always falling in love with boys on the west coast. I collect song lyrics instead of stamps. I won’t be content with my body until it’s covered in ink and I don’t mind looking at it in a mirror. Home still feels like just another empty word I don’t fit into. I’ve never broken a bone and I guess that’s my consolation price for a jumbled mind. At twenty-one I’m still too small for most roller coasters, but can still fit on most swing sets. These days I sleep with lavender and blueberry incense on my pillow to try and keep the nightmares away. My heart is always straining against my rib cage, and I think one of these days it might liquefy and spill right through the cracks.