when i go

Will time stand still without me
When I bow
will they close the curtains  
Because I'm lying
on a bed that isn't mine
And thinking
Will I ever not be here
Because home hasn't been constant
In a long time
But home has always meant family

And even though this bed isn't mine
I know they too
are sleeping on a bed
That is only half theirs
And they are less than 20ft away
And what happens
When home
isn't even a quarter home
When home is replaced with
the "apartment"
What happens
when the place i sleep
is next to a stranger
And the meals I make
Are mine
What happens
when I'm not living for them
When I'm not fighting for them

And maybe I'm just worried
How much could happen
In a year and a half
How much the beds and rooms
that aren't fully mine
Become someone else's
How much they learn to live
without me

And maybe I just want to be remembered
Maybe I don't want to be
the kid they email a few times a year
Maybe I'd rather
they left an empty room
or an empty bed
Just so I know
they are still waiting for me

heart beat

My heart is beating out of my chest

Pounding like a hundred stomping

Parading elephants

Like the beating of a hummingbird's wings

Like it was never really broken

The pounding all too familiar

Like the night before every first day of school

Like elementary school field trip excitement

Like Christmas Eve night

Like the boy you love wanted to kiss you

Beating

My head is buzzing bubbling

Like its full of bees

But also bubbling hot lava

And possibly a rabid raccoon

like that was a great movie

Like I just kissed the boy I love

Like family problems unresolved

And I haven't gotten

a full nights sleep all week.

But I still have two months to go

And I'm kind of worried it won't go away

But mostly I'm worried

Worried because

my heart has been rebuilt so many times

and I'm not sure if it can take the pressure

The layers of duct tape and superglue

Will only hold for so long

But I think my heart has forgotten it's broken

It's been treated fairly well

for the last two years

And I don't think it knows what it is doing yet

Because each pump feels a little more like

Waiting to break

But I'll buy some more duct tape

in the morning

And while I'm at it

I'll pick up more superglue

God I'd like to hear a poem

God I want to hear a poem 

I want to hear a poem 

about Roads and streets 

and how people never liked spiders

 but somehow 

they're still building their own webs

God I want to hear a poem 

about snow 

about how each flake is different 

about the way you manage that

God I want to hear a poem

 about rain and how it graces all of us 

just not at the same time 

or in the same way

God I want to hear a poem 

about Rivers 

I want to hear a poem 

about how Rivers 

caress the mountains 

as they make their way down them

God I want to hear a poem 

about the way the sunlight 

goes through the clouds 

and what you'd call that

God I want to hear a poem 

about the way trees grow 

and how they die 

and how each one of them was made

God I want to hear a poem 

about this earth you made 

And The things you love about it 

I want to hear a poem 

about how the rivers run 

and how the sky is constantly

 in motion

God I want to hear a poem 

about us about these little things 

and how week we are 

but how we can do great things

God I want to hear a poem

about the boy I love 

and where he is 

and how he's doing 

because God I want to hear a poem 

about him and how you made him 

because God I don't know 

how you managed 

to make someone so perfect 

because God 

I want to hear about him

God I want to hear a poem about whether or not he thinks about me 

as much as I think about him 

because I'm always thinking 

about him 

God i'd like to hear a poem 

about how you see our love story 

partly because 

it might be a great love story 

from your point of view

 but mostly because 

I just love to hear how it's going

God I'd really just love to hear a poem

 It doesn't have to be about him 

and it doesn't have to be about us 

I'd just like to hear a poem

God I'd like to think 

that you could write me a poem

 I'd like to think 

that you have a way with words 

but God I really don't care 

I'd just like to see some effort

 I'd really like to hear a poem 

I'd like to hear a poem about hope 

about something to hope for 

because God 

I don't think I have a lot of that 

but God I think 

you've given me so many opportunities 

I think I need to have hope 

And God

 if you could write a poem about hope what would it sound like

Being open

We talked the other day 

and you said we have to be 

open with each other

But I couldn't help but think 

About how I've never 

been open with anyone

The closest I've been to being open

Was writing in a notebook 

It wasn't like I didn't want to talk

But it was like 

every time I found the words

They got caught in my throat 

And never found their way to my tung

Like there was a dream catcher 

in my throat 

Like there was a filter on my voice

Like my brain 

stopped my heart and mouth

From communicating 

Because we dated for a year

And I know 

I did not say I love you enough

Because I told you I loved my dad

But not that every girl he dated weighed on my heart

That every one was a migraine 

That every kiss was another tear

That would make its way down my cheek the next night

Because I told you 

My mom can be frustrating 

But I never told you

That she never thought anything I did 

was adequate 

That I was never good enough

Never pretty enough

My skin was never clear enough

My hair never strait enough

My appearance never tidy enough

An my sense of style

Never pretty enough.

But I was her perfect daughter 

And each time she said it

I felt the wall around my heart grow

A string added 

to the dream catcher in my throat

The memory of what it sounds like

To lie to yourself reinforced 

Because the look in her eyes 

Was always so genuine 

Because I told you

I lost my dog

But I never told you

That it was my fault

That I said it was ok

That she was old

That she was in pain

That she was blind 

That it was for the best

And I never told you

How her final breaths sounded

How they sounded like freedom

Like they were merely her soul

Leaving that broken body

That her body was warm

And how I knew so firmly 

it was still her

But that I knew she was not inside it

That her satin soft ears 

still felt the same

As the day my dad and I 

picked her out.

I never told you I named her

I never told you 

She was the one I talked to

Because the dream catcher 

in my throat 

never caught her on the radar 

I never told you for two months 

I pretended I was ok

But didn't eat or sleep

Never left my room 

for anything more

Than school

I didn't tell you

The smiles hurt my cheek muscles 

And my heart was constantly aching 

And every word 

tasted like a lie on my tung

And I viciously caught you with

Jinks you owe me a soda

Because it distracted me 

From real feelings

In fact I did it twice 

But you must have seen something 

Because 

The next day 

you showed up at my door

With two sodas 

With two of my favorite sodas 

You didn't stick around 

for the aftermath 

And I'm glad

Because I cried 

I cried for the first time in weeks 

Not about my dog

Not about my own despair 

Not from the gaping hole in my chest

And stomach 

And numbness in my limbs

Because I sobbed twenty four seven

I slept with a dog collar clutched to the holes by long lost limbs

My body curled around itself 

like a cinnamon roll

Flipping over the pillow ever few hours in hopes it wouldn't stay soggy

Tissues were of no help

But they seemed to litter my room anyways

Most nights I just wandered 

down to the kitchen 

So I could sit at the table 

And look out the window and door 

Where I would have seen her

I would cry some more

And then move myself to the couch just in time to pass out 

at 5 in the morning 

7:30 alarm goes off

Quick throw away the tissues

Wash your face 

Put on make up

Make sure no one can tell

Practice smiling in the mirror 

Cry a little more

I told you

That my life was not all 

sunshine and rainbows 

I told you divorce was hard

But I don't tell you

They way my dad looked 

The way his hands trembled

the way His lip curled 

The way the tears 

found their way to his cheeks 

Like water rising from the ground

Like gravity lost its hold on rain

Like everything had been flipped upside down 

As he said

I'm leaving 

I told you the divorce was harder 

on my older brother

But I never told you

The way he cried at night 

Like his head was about to burst

With the sound

of his world shattering around him

When he thought 

no one could hear him

I never told you

The way I constantly 

worried about him

The way I still worry about him

The way

His heart broke

And the sound it made 

And the way it never truly healed

Because 

if anyone deserves happiness 

He does

Because divorce was his disease 

And now it's his shadow

I told you mark was a good guy

But I never told you

He was also hypocritical

And condescending 

And how his motivational speeches 

Felt more like sandpaper 

wearing me down 

Than a river forming me 

How I don't think he respects anyone 

Or at least not as much as he should

And he never trusted me

And how that was the worst feeling

And it took everything 

To keep myself from crying 

Because 

That shouldn't be a big deal

I told you I love my step brothers

But I never told you 

I would do anything for them

That I know they will always be family

And that I would help them 

bury a body

If I needed to

I told you family is everything 

And I meant it

But I never told you

I wanted you to be family too

I wanted you to be more than family 

I wanted you to be the one 

I told you I wasn't that good at talking 

And you found my blog

So thank you. 

The boy who buys me roses

The boy who buys me roses

To the boy who buys me roses

I will ask for nothing 

and you gave me it all

I asked for weeds 

and you gave me roses

You sing me songs 

And I wrote poetry

Because boys who gives roses instead of weeds 

are boys to deserve 

to be written about

I asked for friendship 

and you gave me romance

I asked for humor

And you delivered

But you gave me some 

genuine caring to go with it

 I asked for a chat 

and you gave me soul-searching

I asked for a leaf and you gave me a necklace

Dear Rose buying boy

I know I didn't ask for much

But I still have to thank you for delivering

My brand of poetry

I used to write cute poetry

About growing up

And good friends

And loneliness 

Now I write about my 

introverted tendencies 

And death

And divorce

And I'm left to wonder

Is it really poetry

Two years ago

My poetry still rhymed 

Last year 

Poetry was home

Now 

poetry is life

I am nothing without my words

But they seem so inconsistent 

A list of interesting facts

A list of interesting facts about turtles

Turtles are reptiles

According to the internet and apparently science 

turtles have been on the earth from more than 

200 million years

It is also said that the earliest turtles had teeth 

Like one day the world stopped fighting them

So in turn they forgot what it felt like to fight back

Turtles spend most of their lives in water

They are adapted for aquatic life with webbed feet or flippers

Fresh water turtles leave the water every once in a while 

to sunbathe

sea turtles only leave to lay eggs

turtles lay eggs

A turtle’s shell develops from its ribs

And is an adaptation to protect against predators

It’s shell is made up of 60 bones 

that are covered by plates

which ironically enough are made of 

the same thing as our fingernails

like instead of learning how to fight 

they just built up the layers around their heart instead

but still all these adaptations earned it a spot 

to live on almost every continent

humans are not turtles

according to science we may have adapted to have less hair

and therefore have a harder time staying warm

we may have adapted to be smarter

but according to scriptures we don’t live for as long as we used to

still against all odds 

here we are

nothing but a few bones between our hearts 

and our predators

nothing but a few hairs

between our skin

and the cold winter air

nothing but love 

between our souls

 and heartbreak

and call me crazy but I’ve never heard 

of a turtle that died from heartbreak

But I obviously don’t know much about turtles

What I do know 

Is how fragile the human existence has become

Instead of fighting wars

We tend to be fighting trends

Or stereotypes

Or statistics

Instead of protecting

We tend to be fighting just to stay alive

Because we are the only species to develop suicide

And I’ve started to notice not a lot of our adaptations 

Are real adaptations

According to the internet an adaptation is 

a change or the process of change by which 

an organism or species becomes

 better suited to its environment.

Its almost as if we were adapted to have weaker ribs 

And an inclination toward heartbreak

So maybe we aren’t adapting

Maybe this is us circling the drain

I mean I know we are no turtles

But don’t you think we could try a little more defense 

And a little less offence

By offence I mean 

offensive

I mean Gkys jokes

I mean a lack of common decency

I mean a lack of caring

What happened to the generation that cared

And couldn’t we be that

Couldn’t we stop for one minute

And think 

Before we act

I guess i'm just trying to say

Sometimes I get pretty tired of being human

Aug 3rd

I'm sorry this isn't a poem

I just got my mission call to serve in the Nagoya Japan mission on August 3rd
I'm so excited to return to Japan but that means we have less than two months of me blogging.
I really love you guys and have loved reading your posts and receiving comments. I will probably post all the excess poems I didn't have time to type so you may get a lot from me. Or I may be super busy preparing and have totally lied to you. But either way I love you guys! And I will have plenty to post after my 18 month hiatus

Quilting and other forms of heartbreak

Let me tell you something about my parents

Let me tell you something about divorced parents

Let me tell you                    

About how no house is really home anymore

And when you hear yourself say

I’m going home

You have to ask yourself

If you will ever stop driving

Let me tell you

About how loving your parents doesn’t always mean

Together or at the same time

Or even in the same way

Let me tell you

About how going home doesn’t always mean the same place

And sometimes you say it

As you are both headed to different buildings

And how your heart aches

How you wish it wasn’t that way

How it feels like you are currently tied together

And with each step the tugging feeling gets worse

And how that

Makes you cherish your relationship that much more

Let me tell you the difference

Between having loving parents

And having loving parents

Because my parents are so solely devoted to me

So devoted to the time I spend with them

So devoted to the patch work quilt family

They are still trying to hold together

And on some days it may feel like my heart is being ripped in half

But on other days

It feels more like there is more than one heart

Beating in my chest

And those are the good days

I have never been so loved by total strangers

I believe you call them

Step parents

And step siblings

But let me tell you

With all the pain of a divorce

All the disagreements

All the terrible days

All the off days

All the bad days

I still cannot look all of you in the eyes and say

I have it worse off than you

Because I wasn’t in foster care

Torn from one place to the next

I wasn’t unloved

I wasn’t abused

I wasn’t forgotten

I have so many siblings now I don’t even dare

To try and count them

But I know them all by name

I know them all by heart

I know them all

And they know me

Let me tell you something about being a child of divorced parents

I will always be better at resolving issues

I will never be greedy

In fact I will never ask for anything

Because who would I ask

You ask your mom

She says to ask your dad

So You do

And He says to ask your mom

But you don’t know how to tell them

That you don’t really need it

You never really needed it

You just need to feel loved

So can we all just forget I asked

Slowly your forget how to ask

You forget that anything other than

Oxygen and love is needed

Let me tell you something about growing up around divorce

Your life is about learning to love

About how to make the perfect quilt

About how to thread a needle with red thread

And how to make sure you stitch all the pieces of fabric together just right

when people ask...

When people ask what I am

I like to say I am a writer

Not because I understand plot

Or because I make the most realistic characters

Because I don’t

When people ask

I like to say I am a writer

Because poets breathe air back and forth

between earth and the heavens

inspiration filling their lungs

and making its way through their veins

and sometimes it feels like my breath

doesn’t even reach the stratosphere

like its left somewhere in the clouds

wondering where it all went wrong

when people ask

I say I am a writer

Because poets break spines with words

And I

I tug at heart strings

When people ask

I say I am a ghost

Because popularity never looked my way

Because I was never talented enough

to draw a crowd

Because I was never more

Because I was never a poet

When people ask

I like to say

That writing was etched into my every cell

That writing flows through my veins

like ink mixing with blood

When people ask

I say

That maybe it’s not poetry

Because maybe

it’s just my heart

When people ask

I say it’s ok

I always liked the view from the clouds anyways

When people ask what I am

I like to say I am a writer

Because I can’t imagine anything nobler

Because even if

 the angels and I never shared oxygen

I was born to be a writer

Born to be irrational

Born to be a spectator

But sometimes I swear

My voice makes it to the stratosphere

And that is something worth mention

sand, bricks and funerals

We spend our whole lives building up for one moment

The moment we die

From the moment we are born

Every giggle
Every almost word

Every cheeky childhood action

Every date

Every chemistry partner

Every group project

Every yearbook photo

Every kiss

Every stupid joke

Every moment we have builds up and then disappears

Because people remember what they want to remember

And most of them will be nothing but dust

They will fall through the cracks

Or be swept aside

To make way

for memories that mean something

the memories that stick

become the bricks
bricks that build up the wall

That hides who you really were

Because people don’t talk about

 how she slept with her dog

At funerals

They talk about how

she was so sweet and perfect and friendly

People don’t talk about how antisocial she was

They talk about how she was so kind to everyone she met

They don’t talk about how

she believed the wind would take her away

They talk about how often she climbed trees

I’m not fond of funerals

Because funerals are for the living

But poems are sometimes for the dead

And although I fear my funeral

will be full of crying people who said I was perfect

I hope there will be someone who knows the true story

They would say I was a fighter

That I always hoped to be something more

that I love the feeling of acceleration

and in another life

I would love to be a race car driver

but in this life I lived to be a writer

because I wrote letters to the moon

and cried into the wind

when it didn’t take me with it

that I had so much to loose

but nothing to gain

because poets aren’t worth much

and I
I always wanted to be something spectacular

I hope when they turn the last page of my life

They don’t forget that

That every day I feared all I would ever be was

Mediocre

me·di·o·cre

ˌmēdēˈōkər/

adjective

1.    of only moderate quality; not very good.

"a mediocre actor"

synonyms:

ordinary, average, middling, middle-of-the-road, uninspired,undistinguished, indifferent, unexceptional, unexciting, unremarkable, run-of-the-mill, pedestrian, prosaic, lackluster, forgettable, amateur,amateurish;

Because I don’t want to be forgotten in all the lies

I don’t want to be forgotten in my perfect baby girl

I don’t want to be forgotten

Because I was always a sucker for imperfections

And I would rather that you remember

I slept for way too long

Or that I may or may not

have sucked at cooking in the past

Or that I looked really cute when I woke up

Not a pretty cute

But an adorable bead head sleepy eyes cute

That I was obsessive

That I may or may not

have stopped playing an instrument

And stopped drawing

Because someone told me I was no good.

That I read so often people wondered if I was ok

That I ate chocolate so often

My mother thought

I was giving myself health issues

That my dreams were terrifying

And messed up

and I have always wanted to forget them

But I never could.

And I’m no good at impressions

So likely no one will re member me at my funeral

My first kiss will not be there

None of my project partners will be there

No x boyfriends

Not a lot of friends either

I hope a certain one or two will show up

My family will be there

And most of them will pretend they know me