a dreamer's poetry notebook

I carry it around, but you’ll never see it. It’s not really something I’m feeling but something I’m missing, I let it hide in my peripherals and over time forget I hear its begging, so my teeth won’t have to fight through the chewiness of a Clif Bar.

I guess I carry it around for later, kind of like that friend you build rapport with just in case you need a favor, but if I’m not rewarding myself, there always someone else making me forget a Clif Bar’s flavor.

this skin a color I’ve known, one that changes with the seasons and  my emotions it’s shown me how to move, to see the contrast of peachiness across rows of black and white or how bright and warm my cheeks get when the wind blows my hair or when I insisted on being snuggled in so many layers it’s shown me how to love when all I’ve done is hate it instead how to hide, to never take a second glance to remain alienated and separate from where in the mirror, reflected back to me, my body, it gave me life when all I could think is how to take it away how to pull at where I wish it didn’t exist it haunts my subconscious I know how to trace each curve I hate that I still do this I can’t forgive the hate and I cycle to punish for  punishing what has been I just want to breath life into my bones I want to caress my skin  without searching and feeling for mistakes, the curves I know how to trace and pinch exactly and wish it wasn’t what it was remembering every ache each beauty mark of the moments when all I want is just to forget how deep  it runs

I want to escape it  but this is me and the skin  that I still live in

1. Labyrinthine 2. Petrichor 3. Diety 4. Enough

This time I did want to try.  I think, I won’t let myself stop,  because it’ll just be a little farther, just a little longer.  But my vision started blurring,  the opening of the door wasn’t silent  it scraped my insides out.  How am I supposed to tell you the truth when everything I see is here, in front of you?  How long did it take you to follow me?  My world became so labyrinthine,  silence was barley enough,  when you would constantly pray,  to myself, a cold stone-faced deity,  I offered you no blessings.  But a true lover tries, piercing through,  in every season, to softly pry off the mask,  to follow in each footstep.  Perhaps the only truth I’ve ever known,  is the image of you,  up-holding like Atlas,  protesting, upon genuflecting knee,  and the sharp pang of the dewy petrichor  as I turned away once more.

1. Piano  2. Music  3. Sexy  4. Apple Tree

I wonder if people thought that Sir Isaac Newton was cooler before he was hit on the head sitting underneath that apple tree. Or if Franz List was sexier before he appeared on stage, at the piano, entrancing audiences with his rhapsodic Hungarian music. 

I wonder if I’ll get the chance to forget who I am too, when the world learns my name.

Goodbye kisses are my first and only memory of what love is supposed to look like  How it seems only when you’re leaving, can a kiss quench the burning and make it feel all better  It’s a simple childhood wish, maybe I thought finding it could make it all clear  I mean, the weather. 

I never made myself out to be my first pick,  Teams weren’t my style, if I ran for miles I could just drop off the thoughts at marker 4 and wonder what it would feel like to follow them into the river,  See, I’ve always been a dreamer, but only if I was a bit thinner did I feel that’s what it meant to be achieving, pulling down the clouds for candy, eating them alive instead of just settling for the sweetness  But they left the taste of feeling empty, that you learn the hard way you can’t fill with self-pity  Hind-sight is 2020 but it felt so fleeting until I noted it was  November again and it snowed in my head, leaving sun reflections in my iris, Do you ever feel so tired like this? 

I think for the first time I’ve tasted and swallowed purpose, it likes to stay awake at night, made me a new canvas of fresh white acrylic paint and never once, did it try to force it’s way out of my skin. 

I think maybe we’ve become friends.

punctuation, a guise that says it marks an ending, when really it is a beginning. “please mind the gap,” please take mind when you read to heed the space and prevent your verbiage from drowning out the point. periods just tell you what you’re supposed to think, when it could be meaningless and aimless. it confines you to a track, one position to sit in presented by some other impending force. Perhaps it’s not meant to feel this tragic, but what it tricks us into thinking is that it’s all there is, that deep down we really only care about the path of less resistance, free of periods, maybe that’s why I feel I’d be terrible at argumentative rhetoric. this way I won’t have to argue back but just be lectured at. thankfully periods only come once a month.

I love the light of the world when the sun is hidden behind the soft glow it can only emit through snow clouds

I wonder why I was always so sad about missing the orange glow they see in the west, when this clear array purifies the mind and the soul with its gentle charm

to be an observer preserves the  assurance of little harm by the breathless flakes drifting by as opposed to the passing of cars that brake at the stop sign below the window

I look out instead of the task at hand mazurkas, drift gently in the background, their lilting rhythms I find myself alone amidst the soft noises and melodious passions of Chopin

How I wish to always have this view, that of a bird’s eye enjoying the skyline and dreaming of what lies beyond a horizon a flowing river a scrawl of ink upon this page

if I day-dream for long enough,  will you catch me? lulled to sleep again, the rocking of the river of polish dances Chopin

Stealing memories back, from the places we used to know. left here, maybe we’re just crazy to be dancing with our ghosts but it’s not lost reminiscing, they’d just find us singing all the old songs we used to know, held close together through these years, and we’re not supposed to be here. this is one of these, those places of before but it was the impermanence of not knowing what time we had left that made it feel we had it all, yet, time can’t make a fool of us if we’re still standing in its wake. this space has never left us but we end up leaving it all. in these moments it’s our world, we’re teaching these rooms our new names, yet everything still ends up feeling, sweetly, like it’s the same.   

More flowers keep blooming in my chest 

So how is it that I can look so beautiful 

But feel so sad

12:00 am  Time for bed  Wash off  Today’s skin  Lie awake  Feel okay  Cry  Try to breath  Close your eyes  Cry again  2:00 am  Fall asleep    Tomorrow night?  Rinse, repeat

Advertisements just show you how a product should make you feel 

It’s not real 

Poems are just words that help you know how you feel 

But they’re real

and I think I start to realize for the first time that this isn’t all some sort of game, there’s not a time that it starts and stops and I found I still forgot what love really feels like, even after all this time, it hurts to realize you’re not going anywhere, not now, not later, you’re holding me tight and looking for me when I realize I’ve been drifting along, and it used to scare me but I think I’m ready. I want to let you love me, hold me, and I’m just origami paper, I have creases but I’d let you unfold and refold them because I know you’ll make me into something even more beautiful than I was before

I have never felt such bliss, how is it I’m floating without even feeling your kiss, you fill my heart to the brim and it’s overflowing, but I’m not drowning. mauve clouds, dance in my head, they lift me up, baby, maybe I’m just high on your love. your adoration, all these affections, I’m aching to shower you with every rain drop to fill the holes other’s have made, lovers mistaken for fools, I just want to see you shine and take shelter in that light. gentle ways and in small waves, you’re clearly everything to me, bluer ever than the sea. this love is indescribable, 

but it feels like bliss.

2020 is simply loving

loving simply because i can

and holding nothing back

it’s being me and nothing less

it’s time not to censor my words

but i know it will be the most beautiful year for kindness

being kind simply because i can

and i know people out there wanting to feel it too

it’s stopping myself from saying all the things i can’t do

because i’m scared of what others will think

it’s time for feeling whole

for feeling full

full inside and light without the weight of ‘before’

it’s about clarity and seeing in

2020

vision

To love

To be honest

To appreciate

and be appreciated

To be able to communicate

To talk to the people we love

To be reconciling at the beginning of a new year

To feel

To cry

To grow

Did I mention to love?

Yesterday was my birthday But I just prayed that it was any other day It’s just another day It’s just another day How many times did I have to say it I don’t want to tell myself that again

My mom slut shamed me on my birthday Because of a dress I wanted to buy “You’re not on her level. You can’t afford to wear something like that.” I’m sick I can’t afford to be myself? Oh that’s right I forgot I always have to lose myself in your sight

I dissociated in the back seat of that black car It’s hypnotic, watching moving scenery  And memorizing lyrics I don’t want to know, but it’s how I cope

How breathless can my chest feel How many cavities have lightened themselves Just to tighten their grip on my veins I’m losing my breath, this sensation Hypnotic, breathless waves

If I just say the words that everyone wants to hear I won’t be the victim of overpowering egos It was my birthday But it wasn’t Hiding in a clean white room I’ve learned all the ways to do it silently This time I taught myself to breath So I could save some of my tears for later

I was happy I received so many birthday wishes From those I wanted to hear it from Beautiful, tiny, perfect stars of memory Crystalize forever into my heart

But it wasn’t my birthday “Hope your day is great!” This time I didn’t cry silently

Bury me, please help me burn this body “All this negativity is blinding” Take out my eyes Bind these hands Break my goddamn spine In these hours I am crippled and destroyed

I will make me, again I will be with full honesty I will hold tightly onto love I will follow it to each of my friends

I will love and appreciate fiercely 

Here’s to me Here’s to you

Tides ebb and flow  Love me like the tide  Don’t let me go  Like how the moon  Tells the waves  To hug the shore  Whisper what I need to hear  Forevermore