bittersweet recollections of your adolescence // 2019 poetry collection

truth

write your truth

write the words you bury

(have kept buried

since youth).

write about how when someone says they love you

your heart clenches up and you don't know what to do

or what to say or what to think

you just know you don't love them back and

you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink.

they're like insistent opportunity

the chance that lingers at your doorstep

they like to say that they won't leave

and tell you to just forget all the bad things

(they said and did

made you feel responsible for).

write about how when someone mentions children

you sit there shut your mouth quietly feel guilt ridden

because you know you don't want them

these "bundles of joy"

you leached the happiness from your mother

the term "happy family" sounds like a ploy

to market off reproduction

keep the world spinning

and maybe you don't want to

maybe it'd be better off ending.

write about how you see the world through black glasses

everyone is an assassin out to get you and put you in a casket

waiting for a slip up a mistake a mishap

be careful don't trust them you're sure it's just a trap

your friends are real sweet

but they can change

like

that.

write about how you're tired of living like this

you don't want everything to always feel like a contest

but truth be told you don't know any other way

and learning gently takes too long

you'd rather do this the hard way.

it's why you chase every boy with pretty eyes

and why you tell your friends your pretty lies

and why you paint a rainbow over the cloudy sky

that looms over every memory you've tried to hide.

write your truth,

you're too scared to speak it.

write your truth,

you silly girl,

or else you'll die with it.