insomniac

sometimes it hurts a lot, and sometimes it hurts a little. sometimes you’re sitting in the middle of a library and you got enough sleep last night and all that really matters is the work you haven’t gotten done that’s due in an hour, and this feels pretty normal. like you made it, somehow. sometimes you’re riding a train home and something clicks inside of you and you’re set off like wildfires, you become alight with memories you’re too choked up to swallow. sometimes nothing happens inside of your brain because it’s filled with thoughts that are deadly gas leaks. those are not the good nights. it’s scary because we’re all these little harmless bubbles, i guess. like we are full of stories and rhymes and there’s no reason to us. and sometimes one of us just kind of pops, and they’re gone for good. like you start having to say “yeah, i knew him,” instead of “yeah, i know him.” it’s scary. we’re so vulnerable. and there’s no real way to know if someone’s alright like if they’re having one of those moments where stuff just feels human and good or if they’re having one of those bad days where the sky tastes like whiskey and they just want to drown themselves in anything willing to swallow them up. like you can look someone in the eyes and say “i’m doing fine” and really mean that if you had a shotgun and a bullet, you’d go through with it. like you can literally lie to someone about wanting to die - and someone can do the same to you. i wonder about that a lot, you know? like how many people i haven’t noticed are ready to click themselves out of the picture. like how many people i didn’t help because i totally bought it when they sold the idea they were whole and doing well. i wonder if they go home and think nobody really cares enough to look deeply. i care about you, i just trust too easily and i want to believe that you’re not dying. i guess that’s just some coping mechanism, you know? humans can’t believe the ones we love want to go. we can’t live with the idea that they’ll slip under if we leave them alone, so we paint them with good swimming skills and not a drop of sorrow in their bones. or maybe i’m just self-centered and awful. i don’t know.

the stars had gone out in her eyes, she said, “if the sun was ever warm, i don’t remember it,” she kissed boys and girls and chalked up mistakes until her whole being became one and when he found her she was drunk and crying and shouting at him “WHERE THE FUCK IS THE FIRE i’m so fucking cold i don’t care if i die” and he held her and put his hand over her heart and said “let go of the winter inside of your soul” and she said “I CAN’T i just can’t i’m lost in the snow” he buried his face in her hair and begged her low, “there is still heat deep in your bones, follow that song, my love. Follow it home.”

fall in love with a poet at least once in your life feel his fingers running through your hair have your heart pierced when he isn’t even there

i. The first time you meet love, he is all clenched fists. He is all push, all force. All grab and tug but never pull closer. Never hold. Never touch. He is three years older and drives his father’s car and calls you “Baby”. He is lips that will never kiss you, but you will touch your waist at the end of the night and feel him there. His eyes are all dark waters and you are afraid to swim. You are afraid to swim and he loves to dip you into the ocean to see how much you’ll try for him. You’ll try for him and he leaves you standing neck deep in cold water. You walk yourself home and flood your bedsheets with saltwater, and you wake up the next morning and decide that you don’t want to drown anymore. ii. She is soft and silent and she loves you this way. She loves you quietly. She loves you like roses with all her thorns cut off for you. She looks at you like she does not ache to touch you, like she aches to learn you. You have never met rawness until you see it in her eyes. You never love her but you want to. You want to but she is oceans apart, and you are hurricanes that are too strong and she cannot stand tall beside you. She is broken frames and cannot put herself together. You want to mend her heart, but you are not good at fixing broken things. iii. He is the boy who doesn’t introduce you to his mother. The boy who kisses you at a party and forgets your name. You are his six o’ clock cigarette break and he is secondhand smoke that loves to make it’s way into your lungs. He is winter in his coldest form and and loves to keep his hands warm by touching. You are never sure if you love him or love the way he wants you; with pleading eyes but lips that never dare to give that away. You are never sure if you love him, even after he leaves and forgets what you tastes like. iv. Love is uncharted territory and you want to get lost in her. She is lost doe eyes and hands that want to hold onto anything to find home. You are her muse, but never anything more. Your mother tells you to be careful with your heart, but you spill it all over her palms and she paints you into art. She touches you and paints you all red, paints you all wanting for more. She has a mouth that wants to swallow you whole and you are willing. You are willing because you love her the way a poet loves his words. You love her in the most innocent sense of the word, but she wants someone whose kisses cut into her lips and leave her with the aftertaste of blood. She wants someone who breaks her because that’s all she’s ever known. She is wandering ghosts making homes out of human beings and she leaves you haunted. She falls in love with your words more than she will ever fall in love with you and you learn that months after she’s already gone.

there is no one in me to turn on my lighthouse heart. i open myself to the storm. i am too many ripped bedsheets and untied sails, too many red flare lines on dark nights from sharp silver canisters that were seen but never answered, too many s.o.s messages that have gone unheard. the ravenous untamed call of the sea has become static in my chest: i want ships to crash against me, i want to be death in a beautiful white and red dress - for once in my life, i want someone to worry that there is nobody here to guide me home, that there is really nothing left.

when he tastes like bourbon and burns twice as bad, turn around, go home, don’t ask him if he believes in love. when she is the forest and sounds like birdsong, do not kiss her hard when they smell like the last days of summer and smile twice as bright, do yourself a favor, do not stay the night listen, windstorm, listen, rain, you are too wild and you have too little faith and chances are, when you fall in love your little fragile heart will one day break.

i have forgotten how to be myself, as if once when i was walking in a dream i forgot to wake my soul up. maybe it’s curled up sleeping in some far spiral of my fingerprints, maybe that’s why my hands are always trembling. my sister tells me she can’t figure me out. she says the attic light is still flickering but the rest of the house looks dark. she says if you stare too hard at my eyes, you can see a noose up on the roof beam. she says i am standing on a stool, trying to decide if my life is worth taking. i don’t know how to control myself. i lie awake at night wondering why i did things that make me cringe as soon as they happen. i lie awake asking myself how hard it would be to be normal. i tell myself that tomorrow, i will be perfect. i won’t laugh too loud, i won’t be a burden, i won’t speak unless i have to. i spend so much time worrying about being perfect that i never get it right. please - i just want to be liked.

i am made up of nights just like these where my chest gets so tight even my blood wants to breathe who am i to deny the ecstasy of air to the only proof of my heart that’s always been there?

IN DEFENSE OF TAYLOR SWIFT: in freshman year, you try to be cool by cutting back your vocabulary and using the word “gay” with a strange heavy weight. you think about girls when you go to sleep: how their lips would taste, their laughter, how you fall in love with everyone you meet. you are so used to hearing “gay” as an insult that you use it absently, even though it defines who you are, almost like you know you are harboring a demon. in two years, the world will change and everyone who has said awful things about you and your friends will suddenly strut around school with rainbow ally pins. in junior year you wear a skirt that falls above your knees. halfway through lunch you call your mom crying. you feel like a monster. the word “slut” has tattooed itself across the inside of your thigh. your math teacher had pulled you aside, had expressed concern for “this kind of behavior”. you wear baggy clothes for the rest of the year, never try to step out dressed in risky, never try to be pretty. later when you see girls who wear the clothes you wish you could, you hiss the same word that you heard. in four years, the world will change and you will learn what it means to slut-shame. we are not immobile icebergs, my loves. we make mistakes. we say the things that we hear the adults around us say. we were young, once, we didn’t know about so much. we were spat on and we said “this is how it is,” we didn’t know that it could be different. my father still tells me that gay people are trying to overthrow everything even though i came out years ago. it took me forever to unlearn everything i had been taught. we are not icebergs, we’re just little flowers and we’re growing. we are little flowers, and we hear that young women write songs about the people they let into their hearts. i sat back and watched them rake her across the coals as if being honest was some kind of weakness. i saw her live and watched her cry when she heard our voices. i saw her live later and heard her say, “yeah, i write songs about love, what about it?” cut your hair, let it grow out. sing along to taylor swift no matter how often people say you’re too old for it. learn to forgive yourself the mistakes being young made. write songs about love, write poems about real people. be honest, be genuine, don’t worry about how many boys you kiss. none of us were perfect. be a better person today than you were in freshman year. be a better person than you were a month ago. be a better person than you were five seconds ago. we are not icebergs. we are just little flowers, my love. you might mess up: but oh goodness, you’ll grow.