I'm a lover, obsessed 
A vengeful wife, scorned 
And if I were a Victorian muse,
I'd be more than just mourned.
Because I'm obsessed with the power that courses through these veins 
I'm obsessed with the high I get off your pain 
I'm obsessed, I'm obsessed, I'm so so obsessed 
I take a flame and burn it into my chest 

This power is like a whisper that’s injected into my veins
I think I love you, but I don’t know if I can say
I think you surround me, every second of the day
I think the specks of blood can be wished away

And maybe it all ends, but I’ll never say it
Maybe we’re meant to wither into perfect oblivion
Maybe this obsession is merely a phase
Or maybe I’m just too high off seeing your face

Because I'm running and running and I hit a wall 
Because I'm falling and falling and there's no bottom at all 
And I'm so lost in place because I don't recognize this space 
And I’m tripping and dying and you pretend to look away 

But isn’t the sky such a beautiful shade of blue 
Sometimes I think the world is using you as a tool
Maybe you were meant to wreck me to pieces
Maybe the universe decided I needed a reason
To be so obsessed 
Over nothing at all
To be so high
So I can fall twice as hard
To feel this power
And waste every second of it all
Because if not you 
Then who else would I call
To make me obsessed
To run me in circles
To take my being 
And crush it between your fingers

This high and this power
Look so small from this tower
But I’ll keep them for life so I never forget
I’m obsessed, so obsessed
I burn your name into my chest
I can feel you in my flesh
I’m so so obsessed. 

And I'm marked so beautifully 
From a life that was never mine 
And we are taught so religiously 
To choose what makes us blind

And we go on and on about how to make things right
But I am the biggest roadblock in my own life 
I have the world in the palm of my hands and I crush it to dust 
I can fix all of these problems but they don’t feel like a must
And they tell you to loathe solitude 
But then why is it my only solace 
I want possession of you
But I can't grieve something when I don’t own it

And I think I'm obsessed with it, this insane pain
I think I want you to think I’m insane
These cuts that define me, these words that mark me 
These thoughts I string into sentences, I think they own me

And god, is it not enough that I have the ability to read 
Now they’re telling me I also have to breathe
There is a broken heart among us and it is not mine
There is venom in my pen, there is fire in my mind

The words coming out of my mouth don’t speak for me
These palaces we’ve built offer no tranquility
I’ve been here before, caged and incompetent
It used to be gold, but now it’s aged and irrelevant 

And there is writing on the inside of my eyelids that tell me to run 
There are whispers in the wind that tell me I'll die young
And I believe them incessantly, I believe them to a fault
Because if they are lying, why is my mind so marked? 

And they could watch us from this distance

Do you think they would question

What we are to each other

If the winds were their whispers

And they could see us embrace

Do you think they would know

That I know how you taste

Do you think that it’s obvious that I have your eyes tattooed

Or that every thought I have is filled with you

Do you think they talk about this tension

That it’s as palpable as the sky is blue

Or maybe they can’t tell because it’s so new

But with this rain as my witness

And the sky as my medium

I want you to know every word I’ve said is true

And maybe the rain cannot talk

And the sky isn’t so blue

But please do know

That I love you.

I miss the person I’m supposed to be
I miss the faith she had in me

Because my fear of drowning slowly
Became a fear of never dying

And this lack of beauty is so strange
And all these words may sound deranged

But I started finding myself on wet ledges
On the border of the deepest water

And I swear every day
That I know I just have to find my place

But what if my place is on the outside
Always only ever looking in

Are my days in the center of the past
Why are good times the only ones to not last

I keep thinking there's a limit
To how much I need to suffer
That someone will one day pop up
And say the quotas been fulfilled

I've done my time
I can live my life
I can forget about drowning

But then I look up
And the surface is gone
And I’m in too deep to notice
That it’s been dark for a while 
That I've been exiled
And maybe drowning is just the way to live. 

I'm not weak as long as I keep it to myself
what you don't know about me you can never tell
because then I control the perception the outlets the media
and if no one knows the extent then you'll never know my paranoia 
and one by one I count the people I can't offend
and I make checklists of what I can send 

your perception of me is never the truth 
but as long as the truth is hidden 
what are you to ever do 
with only a facade to sink in

because I control the narrative, your version of me 
maybe she never existed but that's for you to see
and I hide and I hide
silence wraps me in its embrace 
because if I lie and lie 
I'll never look at truth in its face
and I’ll grow and I’ll grow 
far away from this place
and you'll never know 
why I disappear without a trace

My eyes on the sea

A picturesque view

Looking at me

The sun dips down for its nightly swim

And the sky’s farewell party’s slowly ending

And maybe this is me going out on a whim

But those hues of orange could’ve used some blending

The sand on my hands

The waves on my feet

And the darkness taking over

For a view less neat

The tide picks up

Telling me to leave

But my mind’s so quiet

Finally at ease

And I know I should go in probably a second

But my eyes look up and see that beautiful crescent

And the sand is so comfortable

The air is so calm

Just a minute more

I won’t stay long

And from where I’m sitting it almost seems

Like the sky and the water finally meet

And if the horizon really exists

Then why not everything else I’ve ever wished.

There's so many thoughts in my little head
So many things I wish I would've said
So many promises I've made to myself
And so many nights I should’ve just wept

So many people I need to meet
So many places I need to see
So many times I want to leave
I don't recognize those eyes staring at me

My thoughts are weaponized
Love is incentivized
Hope is satirized
This life is glamorized

And sleep is overrated
My sadness exaggerated
My weaknesses accentuated
But it's not that complicated

Because maybe I hate it here
But maybe it's not so clear
I keep fighting all these fears
But these thoughts are so sincere

And I'm not suicidal 
But emotions are unbridled
I'm not alone in my spiral 
But life's but a cycle

And I'm technically a teen
My whole life ahead of me
I should be free
But I just want to be

My thoughts are too massive
These actions too passive
Teenage angst is classic
So I wait till this too passes

Because one day these thoughts will subside
I’ll cross these imaginary lines
And those eyes I couldn't recognize
Will finally see me be alive. 

Through the lens of lives once lived, this current one is the most unfulfilling. Both of us left to our solitude, both of us trapped in the cages of our own heads. And we age and we grey and we forget what we used to be. And sometimes a thought of you crosses my mind, but the colors are all faded. Your eyes, like a caramel dipped toffee, now reduced to shades of grey.

And sometimes I think you’ve returned to me. I can hear your footsteps, lighter at first but heavy at the end. And I turn to meet your eyes and I’m met with nothing but these disgusting walls. These shades of grey. This excuse for a place.

And sometimes someone visits. He’s older, greyer, not nearly as beautiful. And he says he misses me. Misses us. And I look at him the way I look at everyone else in this place, with confusion. Because he says words I don’t understand. He tells me of places I’ve never been. He reminds me of memories I’ve never lived. The only part of him that’s familiar to me is that sadness in his caramel eyes. I see it in the mirror. And I do not know what causes it, but I know it hurts immensely. I’m grieving a pain I was never put through.

But I have these photographs. And these deteriorating memories. And if I’m lucky, sometimes I can hold on to one for longer than a second. And I close my eyes tight. I lean against the uncolored walls. And I see your eyes. And I hear your laugh. And maybe this is enough. I hold this love for someone I can’t remember, I hold this pain for something that escapes me. But maybe this memory, this memory that never lasts, maybe this can be enough.

self loathing is a pain 
so bored of the same refrain 
and I stare her down in the mirror 
wanting nothing more than to scream at her 
Why are you doing this
What's the need for the mess
You're ruining me 
You're killing me 
But you couldn't care less
You're erasing me slowly 
Are you starting to get lonely 
and she stares back at me with tears in her eyes 
and whispers quietly, her eyes meeting mine

“some of them they have wings
but not you and I 
no we're not meant to change 
not meant for the skies
if you want change then push for it 
but until then it'll stay still
for we are not fighters 
We have different skills
We wallow and we wait
We suffer in silence
We wish to be seen 
but refuse in defiance

you think you're the only one with pain
the only one to suffer 
that there's no way to explain
why you chose this buffer
you think you're alone in your little cushy prison
but you’re so deluded by yourself 
it's obstructing your vision
you have the keys
you have the means
but you stay locked up
choose not to be free
but it's not your fault
you’re not to breathe
but you made the choice to sit here and bleed”

and the echoes of her words continue to linger
as I turn and walk away, choosing to ignore her. 

words that I say over and over again
words that get replayed in my head
words I don't ever seem to forget
they haunt me
they haunt me
till the day that I'm dead.

a plague I don't mind dying from
a disease with no cure
because for you I die 
for you I cry
for you I lay down my life
but to me you lie
from me you hide
you hate me and I don't know why

you watch as I scream 
you laugh as I bleed
as my senses are left without me 
I’m reduced to ashes
to dust to madness
to nothing more than a pile of sadness

but am I complicit 
my pain explicit
the world less timid
for we are livid

we are birds who can't fly
mere specks in the sky
you see, you and I
we were meant to die 
but I cannot go 
without saying I've tried

Because performance is exhausting
No lines we aren’t crossing
My anger defrosting
The world seems less daunting

And we're here now partner, you and me 
and I'd rather die than be left to bleed
So these words I have left I repeat
These murderers will not succeed. 

I noticed your worried expression
Your tired eyes so over it 
I noticed you hunched over your desk
Annoyed with the extra work
I noticed your breath was shaky, 
You haven’t been well lately
I notice this all yet say nothing
Because who am I to notice you

But she points out that you’ve been sick
Oh, how observant she is 
She observes the world so easily
Oh, how couldn’t she
But when tasked with observing me
Everyone falls silent

I notice every detail,
On her and on you
I look around and soak it in 
I let the details rot in my head
But I never say them out loud
And so she does instead
Taking all the fame
For half of my sweat
But I can’t blame her for the words I kept

Meanwhile, I try to socialize
To create a version of me you’ll like
Hoping that maybe someone will recognize
My plight to also be observed.
I hope that someone sees through my white lies
Notices my interests, notices my pride 
Maybe someone has poems like mine
Or maybe this thinking is all out of line
So I stay in my head and out of your sight
Because who am I to be noticed

But maybe one day there’ll be someone
Who takes note of me, for once
And maybe then I’ll have the courage not to run
And to say the words on the tip of my tongue
And they’ll say to me “how observant you are”
And I’ll light up inside like a star
Because after thinking I was maybe just too absurd
I will finally be the one being observed. 

Sometimes it’s about how beautiful life is and sometimes how beautiful I wish my life was. Sometimes it’s about how I wish I could run and sometimes about how glad I am to stay. Sometimes it’s about me drowning in my head and sometimes about how I long for a thought. Sometimes it’s about nothing at all.

Each little scene is a memory– an excerpt of my life, on the verge of being forgotten, now immortalized. Because if I forget, I erase a piece of history, and when history is erased, it’s inevitably repeated. These lessons I’ve learned about myself and about the world around me, I don’t want to keep learning them.

This is a compilation of all the little things I’ve learned. The stupid mistakes. The unexpected triumphs. The earned victories. Their quiet losses. Things life seems to teach me over and over again and the things that I can’t seem to get out of my head.

So come along. Watch as I learn. Watch as I break. Watch as I long to escape. Maybe you’ll learn something too. About me, and also, maybe about you.

I’m so happy you’re here :)