heart like a canvas

You helped save, at the very least, my sanity tonight.

Reading your writing literally makes life bearable when I'm at my worst, so uh, thanks, you may have saved a life.

There will be days when you wish you had a vault for a mouth. The words you want to say would be safe there, locked, silent, unspoken. You will wish that you knew how to be hard. How to melt down emotion, wear it as armor. Let love bounce off you like an arrow. But you are molten, aren’t you? Every lover you’ve ever had has asked why your skin is so hot. Warmth radiates from every pore of your body. Warmth spills over your lips. This will make some people uncomfortable. You will wish you could stop overflowing, splashing your feelings like red wine across a white shirt. But do not be ashamed of the way your emotions stain people. Watch who washes their shirt of your love. Watch who cherish the addition. Did you know the sounds that are considered the most indicative of love in the English language are the “s” the “l” and the “a”? Your parents named you Alyssa. Say it. Feel how it slides over your tongue. They tell you the day you were born you wouldn’t stop crying. Insatiable emotion even then spewing from your tiny mouth. Your parents decided to list all the names they had considered for you and whatever name stopped your wild cry would be yours. You stopped only for “Alyssa”. You felt it’s softness pour from your mother’s tongue to your own like a promise. A promise that your presence would be so soft it melts people. A promise that your presence would mean love. People will scoff and say this makes you weak. But the secret is this - you have felt a thousand times more in your 19 years than they will fit into their 50, and you, you are indestructible. You have felt so much already and you will feel it all. So stay soft. Stay spilling. You were born for this.

maybe one day someone will ask you who I am and maybe you’ll just say “we have history” because the way our clumsy hearts collided was something for the booksso I wish you all the best and hope ours is a page you won’t ever get tired of opening to.

Your writing is indescribably wonderful! The way it flows, it's so beautiful I can't even find words that compare to how amazing it truly is, just perfect

I love your blog. Your poetry is amazing and inspiring!

It’s Too Easy Being Green

There are days when I feel warm and melted like a puddle of ice cream that has pooled at the bottom of the bowl on a hot day in July. Dip your finger into me and taste this slipping sweetness, won’t you? I keep the thought of you somewhere floating between my ribs I put you there because I thought you might stop running if you saw how hard my heart beats when you get too close, all flushed and sweat-stained. Get too close. You know that feeling when you wake up in the middle of the night skin hot skin sticking with sweat tangled between sheets? The weight of your heavy memory is always on top of me bare and biting but I always forget to ask you to stay.

3,000 followers.

when your friends ask how you are doing say that you have moved on tell yourself this so many times a day that you forget how the letters fit together moved on moved on moved on moved on. m o ved, on? trip over the syllables but repeat it until you get it right moved on. (do not think of him when you are running do not think of him before you fall asleep do not stare at photos of him and her and search for the things that she has that you do not think of him do not think of him do not think of him) move on.

Wanting is a different kind of demon. Wanting will drain you, drive you mad, leave you breathless; an empty husk clamoring for the object of your affection. You will reach into your pockets, offer up the contents until you have nothing left to give. Even then, you would offer up your flesh sighing "take it, I don't need this, it's yours anyways."

Hi. Sorry to bother you, but in my literature class we're writing about feminist poetry and I would really like to write about your poem "Not of Porcelain, but of Steel" and I just wanted to ask if that would be okay with you before I go ahead with it. It's a beautiful poem and I would love to be able to write about it. Sorry. Thank you.

your poem "you're in my veins, you fuck" is honestly one of the most beautiful poems i have ever read. i have read it so many times and each time i read it, it blows me away even more than the last time i read it.

they want hips and thighs curves like rolling hills graceful, reticent, something to marvel at but I am less mountain and more stream a body carved out into narrow valleys like brooks - a tendency to babble fluid like rushing water strength not always visible underestimated and transparent remember: being caught up in the current is not for everyone rolling hills and mountains are made for standing on and I will ask you to swim.

if you smile in a room with no one there to see it does it still light up the room? see, my smile has always been kind of like looking at a lit up lightbulb with no lampshade and by that I mean it’s a little too much teeth crammed in side by side you know, my mom always told me to smile less in pictures? she didn’t like the way I bared my uncomfortably large wattage she wanted the soft 120 glow but I was more like a fluorescent 200,000 but maybe I didn’t want to dim myself for anyone not even my own mother and maybe it doesn’t matter so much if it’s not always perfect to look at because at least it says something loud I’m all bared teeth now at the cashier paying for coffee because I’m too tired to say “good morning” but he got the message, trust me while I run legs heavy heart trying to beat through my ribs and escape my own chest no one to see but the pavement and dim sleepy sky I could swear they smiled back if you smile in a room with no one there to see it does it still light up the room? baby, 200,000 watts would light up a goddamn stadium.

poetry says to love like raw skin like peeled peach like bare flesh like goosebumps from someone’s touch poetry says love is like safety like space between fingers never vacant like another body’s warmth in January like the opposite of “goodbye” poetry says loving will be a storm like rocky seas like one orange life vest like “give it to them - I’ll go down with the ship”

Help, I've been reading your work for the past 3 hours over and over again. It's inspiring me to try writing myself, you are truly amazing