I wake up wanting to write poems to my teenage self,
elegies about being sorry for wearing hospital gowns
more often than my own skin. I’d tell myself not to worry
about all the messages written in the bathroom stall
in high school that said things like No eating today
if you want to be beautiful, and if I could go back there,
back to that tiny space that smelled like antiseptic and perfume
mixed with vomit and the cloying scent of breath mints,
I’d add and dead at the bottom.
I’d rip that price tag off my self-worth
and stop trying to auction myself off to the highest bidder.
Back in those days I felt like a poltergeist looking for someone
to haunt, breaking into all the pretty girls’ houses
just to find some magical potion that would make me like them.
When I got home I built myself up
like one of those towers made out of playing cards,
just to tear myself back down.
If I could write to my teenage self I’d say no more. I’d say,
You’re you and you’re not perfect, but damn honey, no one is,
and at least you exist, because there’s a whole lotta people
who wish they could be in your position.
Then instead of burning all my bridges, I’d learn how to swim.
The moon is so shy. Some days she only shows a sliver of herself.
Gasping for air and sanity. Moon and stars and clouds and night. Out of breath and breathless. Pillows and sheets and blankets and you. I will drown in this bed.
— I Wrote This For You
She was small and light and delicate. Her words mumbled beneath her breath - a high, sweet voice. I took her hand in mine as she asked where her mother was. I gulped and said she would return later, wishing to myself that my own words were true.
ASKED BY congratsonbeinglovely
People are just as wonderful as sunsets if I can let them be. When I look at a sunset, I don’t find myself saying, “Soften the orange a bit on the right hand corner.” I don’t try to control a sunset. I watch with awe as it unfolds.
— Carl Rogers
