make yourself happy -

12:14

date: 2013-09-12

time: 12:14:53

And today I realized

that I am the biggest hypocrite

of them all.

I tell everyone to keep holding on

that there is light at the end.

That everything gets better as long

as you continue to wait.

I always tell people to have hope.

That they need to keep trying because

it is too early to give up,

that they have so much to live for.

Then there is me,

and I am barely holding on.

A.K.

poems /

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11:16

date: 2013-09-01

time: 11:16:32

listen to me

you are not selfish for wanting to die

i miss when you would squint your eyes

to catch flakes of light caught in your lashes

but i still feel you

everywhere i go

you're living in my fingertips and i'm leaving traces of you

for everyone to see

that you are still here

i want you to take your medication

when you're supposed to take it

take the proper amount

cry if you need to,

but realize it is okay to need help sometimes

i want you to put your shoes on today

and step outside

skip school if you need to

just talk to the flowers and trees and bugs

don't try for your mother or your sister or me,

do it for yourself

because you will always be worth trying

you will always be worth life

whether it trembles on through three am phone calls

or brushes itself through your hair when you dance in your underwear

you are not selfish for wanting to die

you are human and you are here and i feel it

poems /

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11:10

date: 2013-09-01

time: 11:10:42

bring me to another world

preferably somewhere filled

with your lovely thoughts

poems /

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11:08

date: 2013-09-01

time: 11:08:05

Go ahead, numb the pain
with niceties and your sad attempt
at an apologetic expression
that didn’t fool anyone for a second.
It doesn’t change the fact
that there are needles
puncturing all of my
vital organs. (I haven’t forgotten that
you put them there.)
So let’s play your favourite game:
how many spoonfuls of sugar
can you feed me
before I realize
it’s poison?

poems /

/ 0 comments

11:05

date: 2013-09-01

time: 11:05:36

It's been more than a

year and my anger is still

too much for my words sometimes.

I apologise for never learning to

forgive, but you never learned to

be sorry.

We're always running the same circles

into the ground, aren't we?

(ak)

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11:01

date: 2013-09-01

time: 11:01:43

Self-pity uses a surprisingly large amount of energy;
I wish I could explain how it hurts to get out of bed
but it’s one of those things you can’t understand
unless you’ve felt it.

We are not lazy. We are not bored.
We do not lack passion;
We lack life
but not want of life -
there’s a difference.

Now, I’ll leave you to imagine all the ways in which I could be your version of better:
there’s a letter lying on the floor that
I should have sent a week ago.

Maybe one day I’ll stitch myself up to create something
mildly resembling something useful
and get everything done well, and - more importantly - in time.

But for now? Well, time flies when you’re miserable as hell.

poems /

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11:00

date: 2013-09-01

time: 11:00:47

You tried to play my bones
like a piano.

You kept hitting the keys
harder -
so carelessly -
when they didn’t give you
the melody you wanted.

I’ll give it to you,
you never were very
‘musical’
but you should have known:
the real music in a piano
comes from strings within, hidden

from view.
You’ve never cared enough
to look deeper into anything
or anyone but yourself.
You never played my strings,
because you never learned to read
the rises and falls of the scales
and arpeggios of my thoughts,
nor could you understand the sharp pain or the flat numbness.

You never treated me like a musician
would; a musician
has respect for the instrument.
A musician makes sure
the instrument is working -
leaves nothing broken, damaged.
A musician fixes these things,
gentle with the delicate keys.

No, you were never much of a musician.
You fractured my skeleton
but my body will
never
sing for you.

poems /

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10:59

date: 2013-09-01

time: 10:59:19

It’s like we were walking along a cliff
and somewhere along the way I just
dropped off.

You see, I’m no good at explaining the ‘why’s of situations,
just the ‘what’s,
like when I wrote down I love you (I could never
say it out loud)
and I realised that some things are not
warranted by explanations -
they just happen.

One moment we walked together
and the next I was gone
and I’m sorry I couldn’t give you more to hold onto.
Just know that before I fell, I held out my hand.
You didn’t take it.

poems /

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02:38

date: 2013-09-01

time: 02:38:56

When you get sick your body has white blood cells to protect itself.

The phagocytes will engulf the pathogen, the thing that’s plaguing your body
and digest it, obliterate it completely.

And then the lymphocytes will produce antigens and some of them will stick
to the disease, screaming,
‘It’s here! The danger is here!’

And then the phagocytes will engulf it.
It’s just that easy

(most of the time).

But the best part
is that your body can make
memory cells
and they remember perfectly
how to fight the disease,
how to kill it off before
it has the chance to affect you
the next time you come near it.

I’m learning these methods of self-preservation in emotional terms very slowly.
I’m building up my mind’s own immune system.
I’m reminding myself of the pain of last time every time I find myself falling in love with
a stranger’s walk or the sloping shoulders of the boy on the bus that remind me of sledging in the winter
and I’m sending the warning signals to my heart and I’m telling it to stop -
stop wanting, stop needing,
stop beating.

If only there were a way
to protect your heart
without shutting it down completely.

poems /

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02:31

date: 2013-09-01

time: 02:31:12

I still get anxious about

leaving the house and

the seams of my clothes are

coming undone

because I can't stop tugging

at my sleeves

and when I'm certain shades

of blue

I can't eat a thing

and sometimes when

the blue is like the ocean

I'm the opposite - it's

the only way

to fill this void.

I still get shaky when

I have to go to school

or work,

I bite my lips when I see you

and most of the time

I have to hold my own hand.

(ak)

poems /

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02:27

date: 2013-09-01

time: 02:27:59

I wanted to build a bonfire
for everything I hate about the world

And because I couldn’t find any logs
I burned my bones instead

Then realized there was nothing left
to throw into the flames

Because I don’t hate my mind, not really. This why
I find most of my bull’s-eyes on my body;

The only arrows on my thoughts are the ones
aimed at my internalized hatred that stems

From the acidic soil of a society that says
it’s better to be thin than to write poetry.

poems /

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02:17

date: 2013-09-01

time: 02:17:16

It still hurts to think;

your name still feels like grit on my tongue.

I folded my bedsheets this morning

and something about the soft linen

sounded like your voice.

I need to stop finding you in places you've never

even been.

Right now I'm struggling to find a way to love you

let alone to love myself.

You see, the difference between us

is that your fire is still burning - my flames

were doused years ago.

I hate you for carrying on living

and I hate myself for not being able to.

(ak)

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02:05

date: 2013-09-01

time: 02:05:47

every cell inside me is there for a reason,
but for what reason are they keeping me alive?
the blood races around my body,
the air rushes in and out of me.

oh how i wish that they could see,
what they were fighting for;
maybe then,
my heart would fail suddenly.
my lungs would collapse unexpectedly.
and there would be no more brain cells living,
to wonder all these things.

poems /

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02:04

date: 2013-09-01

time: 02:04:09

Perhaps if we stooped so low,
as to stop for a moment
a fleeting second
we might take the time to realise
the beauty of the budding flower,
and the delicate delight of a smile,
and the intricacy of the veins on our wrists
and the carefulness with which blood is pumped through them.
we might also notice
the boy getting bullied at the back of the bus,
and the girl crying because her father died,
and the little child who doesn’t want to go home
because they don’t know what horror awaits them there.
Perhaps if we stopped for a moment
we might realise
that too much of beauty is natural,
and too much of devastation is man-made.

poems /

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02:01

date: 2013-09-01

time: 02:01:01

They line us up in perfect rows and

judge us based on

How we answer a few questions about

a few different things and then

Sum us up in one small letter.

Let me tell you something: I am not an

A or a B or a C;

I am a person and most questions, I assure

you, have more than one right answer.

'What does the human heart do?'

Apparently 'it breaks' was not correct

But I am human and it seems that

That's all mine ever does.

And to the question 'How do people breathe?'

I answered that some people breathe more easily

than others

And personally I forget to breathe sometimes and

Other times it feels more like I'm suffocating

And I'm afraid that one day my lungs will step

altogether

And no one will care.

All they gave me was a cross in red pen and

zero marks

Because no one accepts the truths they don't

want to hear.

(ak)

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00:17

date: 2013-09-01

time: 00:17:38

a poem for each of the guys i've ever loved

you were my favorite 3am

i still think the eyebags

are worth it

ii.

my new sheets can never

compare to how your bare skin

makes me feel safe

iii.

my mom still asks about you

how you are and what you do

i wish i still knew the answers

iv.

my hands never seem to fit

right with anyone else's

other than yours

i had the poems you wrote me framed

and hung in the darkest

spaces of my mind

vi.

i wish my feelings would just

wilt away like the flowers you gave me

which i still water every day

vii.

i think i need you

more than i needed to pass that lit class

i just realized too late

viii.

when you asked what i thought about your haircut, i

only laughed because you seemed to think i would

love you less if there were less of you

(ak)

(p.s.

these are all for you

there has been no one since you

and even before you)

poems /

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21:49

date: 2013-08-31

time: 21:49:20

here are the things that i know:

the himalayas are still growing up,

and sharks don't actually kill

that many people per year.

i know that vodka tastes

better than disappointment

and you look like heartbreak

when you're walking away.

i also know that

we're killing off the rainforests

and running out of money;

and that this one time a roman emperor

loved a man so much

he raised him up into a god.

what i don't know

could make a million more poems

but here is the shortlist:

i do not know if stars

get lonely, or if angels have

to take their shoes off inside heaven,

or how perfume is made.

i do not know if antinous

even wanted to be a god.

(i do not know if your bones ache

the way mine do when i do not

have you near.

i don't know if i want to know, either.)

(a.k.)

poems /

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21:49

date: 2013-08-31

time: 21:49:20

here are the things that i know:

the himalayas are still growing up,

and sharks don't actually kill

that many people per year.

i know that vodka tastes

better than disappointment

and you look like heartbreak

when you're walking away.

i also know that

we're killing off the rainforests

and running out of money;

and that this one time a roman emperor

loved a man so much

he raised him up into a god.

what i don't know

could make a million more poems

but here is the shortlist:

i do not know if stars

get lonely, or if angels have

to take their shoes off inside heaven,

or how perfume is made.

i do not know if antinous

even wanted to be a god.

(i do not know if your bones ache

the way mine do when i do not

have you near.

i don't know if i want to know, either.)

(a.k.)

poems /

/ 0 comments

21:43

date: 2013-08-31

time: 21:43:47

Old friends.

I want to say that I don't care

that we aren't friends anymore

but I really, really do.

I'm sorry

I pushed you away

and I'm sorry I never got around to apologizing

because I don't think it's my fault

and neither was it yours.

We grew apart

and

you stopped trying

and so I did too.

And all those times

I said I was just tired

it was not a lack of sleep

but rather a lack of hope

that you took with you

when you left.

I want to say I don't miss you anymore

but I think part of me always will.

And I keep telling myself it's okay that I lost you

and that I will meet a million different people in my life time

its just deep down I know that

I won't ever meet anyone like you.

(ak)

poems /

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21:16

date: 2013-08-31

time: 21:16:22

I think it's quite funny

No one ever sees themselves

As perfect,

Yet we look around us

And we claim we know so many

Perfect people

You're afraid, you say,

That someone will see you

The way you see yourself

Well darling, I think you should

Change

The way you see

Yourself

Because to me, you are

Unparalleled

You are everything anyone could ever want,

Or want to be.

(a.i.b.k)

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