flaws

Everything You Want

Folder: 
2017

I will never be everything you want,

the blend of lost and found.

 

I am soft edges

not a broad shoulder to collapse into.

I wish too much

and do too little.

 

I am half a meal and you will always leave empty.

I don’t have the world

or even a place for you to break down like I have.

 

You tell me I am beautiful.

I want to believe you

but I can’t when you keep looking the other way.

I know this does not mean you are dropping me,

the slippery fingers of a question mark girl,

just holding me the same way you hold your dreams

and I am the last person to hold that against you.

 

I would hold out for you

if I knew you didn’t want to hold someone else’s hand

so I bleed what I lack and I can’t stop bleeding.

I paint you in red and you still can’t find the colors we are.

 

You will make someone happier

than I have ever made you

and I hope it is easier than this.

 

I don’t give you a forever…

if I did it would be rocky

and I don’t want to be the reason you trip.

 

I hold you like a girl.

This is not everything you need.

 

My thoughts say

you had to try falling

for this whirlwind head,

for the halfhearted space I take up.

And I can’t help but think if things were different

 

you would be more in love.

Author's Notes/Comments: 

Written 7/18/17

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Regret

Folder: 
2017

I have a lot of regrets.

Some things I wish I had done

And others I wish I hadn’t.

 

My life is filled with what ifs

What if I didn’t say that?

What if I would have done this differently?

 

I constantly wonder what could be

If I had changed just one thing

Who would I be today?

 

Can one decision really alter a life?

If I had done things differently

Would I still be the girl you love?

 

I wish I could look back

On all the decisions that I’ve made

And say that I did what was right.

 

I have too many regrets.

I’ve made a lot of mistakes.

But you’re not one of them.

 

Everything I do with you is right.

And that scares me

Because what if it becomes wrong?

 

I’m afraid that I’ll make mistakes

That will hurt you.

Please don’t be another regret.

Author's Notes/Comments: 

Written 6/3/17

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Undone

Folder: 
2017

I’m not through trying to love you.

Don’t make me look too hard to find you.

I slice the horizon and I don’t need a miracle.

 

I hold myself closer when you’re around,

skin shaped like my own sanity

I’ve only started to notice in your eyes.

 

I watch the lights bleed out to these edges and

the sweet starts to taste like truth

as soon as it melts on my tongue.

 

I count silence the same way as the best words,

sometimes I forget about the swords in our pockets.

We might look like hell but we taste like heaven.

 

You undo me, I don’t want to be undone

I want to be stitched, I want to be here.

I want to be so here I fall through the ceiling.

Author's Notes/Comments: 

Written 5/17/17

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Knives

Folder: 
2017

I am trying not to hurt you with these knives I hold.

I have such horrible aim.

 

I am trying not to pull you off the track you laid.

I keep hallucinating the train coming.

 

I am trying not to take over your brain like a tumor.

I keep thinking about you until I’m stuck in your head.

 

I am trying not to cry as hard as I know you need to.

I am a river and I keep needing your skin like a drought.

 

I think the tears of this hunter

are as wet as the tears of the hunted,

and just as bitter.

 

I can sell sweet

but I have never been honey with this fast-paced flood,

words that can cut like tripping,

love that I can laugh with you

but it might just mean the blades are sharpening.

 

When I’m drowning in trusting you I am still holding knives.

This is the only thing that makes me a truth teller.

 

But when I look at you I turn pink with promises,

I only want to stay here four seasons of the year,

maybe more.

 

When I look at you I can only see

the countless hands that must have built this beautiful,

not the hammers I bring with me to cave it in,

please close my eyes for me

so I can know it again,

that my tools are not the kind that build.

 

Mouth open so I can spill my cracks into yours,

maybe here two wrongs make a right,

I hope you love to choke

because when I am living on the way you taste

that is all I can give you.

 

Breathe the scorch and all I can feel

is just how sharp these hands are.

 

I am trying not to hurt you with these knives I hold.

I have such horrible aim.

Author's Notes/Comments: 

Written 4/23/17

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Hurt With You

Folder: 
2017

I will always be breaking, combusting,

breaking down and breaking through,

you know so well I would rather hurt with you.

 

You need to stop using those words,

always the sorry and the need,

I can’t take either when I can barely breathe.

 

I need to stay, I need to leave,

I need a list of things I shouldn’t do,

cut off oxygen and crashing cars,

losing and finding and hurting you.

 

Tomorrow I might not be able to reach,

carving history, scribble skin on skin,

stomach drop with what you choose, begin.

 

I will always be sighing, stumbling,

sighing lies and sighing truth,

when I’m cold and so unable to shake you.

 

But I will always be breaking, combusting,

breaking down and breaking through,

you know so well I would rather hurt with you.

Author's Notes/Comments: 

Written 4/11/17

 

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Outlet

Folder: 
2017

There is not enough space in here for you.

 

I spill my sins into flames and floods instead of

into your hands where they belong,

on your lips like I want to.

 

I bury my sins on paper

so they can disintegrate,

but sometimes I would rather just

let all my thoughts turn to ashes

and start over over over

I don’t want them anymore.

 

I don’t let myself know you like you want me to

because I know I can’t ever know you like I want.

 

I want you to see

all the ways I can move when you’re not looking,

how this outlet does not have a ceiling

and it fills me with furious,

how this alone shovels out all the black in my head

and helps me be what I am with you,

how this overfeel keeps overflowing

and I’ve run out of space to build any more walls.

 

You say you are

broken

but I know, I am forever splintering,

I will not worry

as long as you know how to love.

Author's Notes/Comments: 

Written 3/20/17

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Negative Space

Folder: 
2017

Can you forgive

all these sad songs,

all the words tagged with your name?

Don’t waste your flowers on me

Can you forgive

all my worn-out secrets,

the things I threw like a hurricane?

Don’t waste your minutes like me

 

I worship a world

with no other fortunes,

stuck in the dark holding the same flint

I can’t let go of the perfect I see

I lie with you

or for you again,

all the not-enough nights that I’ve spent

Tangling your fate again with me

 

Please walk on water

like in all my dreams,

white lies that blind me till disaster

Soak up all the space I can’t see

Where do I touch

when I feel your lonely,

movements you forget hours after

Take up all the air I can’t breathe

 

Too high to come

down where you need me,

can you forgive when I’m in the wrong place?

Don’t waste your flowers on me

Too close to press

my shivers to yours,

can you forgive my negative space?

Don’t waste your minutes like me

Author's Notes/Comments: 

Written 3/22/17

Glances

Folder: 
2017

Stealing glances, picking little fights

when you’re the only one I would never push down-

you are already too sunk with your ship,

rooted in lonely chaos.

 

We are tangled because they told us to

and when I reach past you

I could swear you almost take my hand,

there is no shame in this

unless I want there to be.

 

Scribbling secrets, spring midnights

when we paint the sky open with laughter…

we will regret breaking dawn

but we can never regret as much as we will miss.

And when you’re across the table

I could wake the whole world

with these deafening glances.

 

I want to tell you how you talk,

how it builds this sun around us and

I see it like a comfort that could break any moment

but somehow you still manage to hold it up.

 

I want to tell you how you sound,

tired and happier than you’ve ever been in daylight,

like no matter how late it gets you’d rather be here,

like you’ll never hold it over me if I trip.

I want to tell you how you sound,

hands that can’t hold you up at this hour,

a voice stumbling over itself,

a voice tired and messy but I love it that way.

 

I want to tell you how you look,

not even trying to stay awake,

you don’t need to when these bonds are unspoken and

so I keep glancing over at you,

seconds then minutes at a time,

hoping you might catch me,

wishing you won’t.

 

I want to tell you how you love,

tired and you’re still better at human than me,

if we are marbles or minutes or just what someone needs

you give so so so much more than you take.

Author's Notes/Comments: 

Written 3/16/17

Let Me

Folder: 
2017

I am only here for your eyes.

I can only feel in your head.

 

I am not comfortable enough in this skin yet,

let me try on yours.

 

Let me love you like I should love myself after this many years,

pull me back when I can’t stop wanting,

hold me in a death grip when I can’t choose

so I don’t have to walk either way.

 

Give me a lens to see arrows like armor,

they can’t pin me to walls just with glances anymore.

 

Let me see fireworks here, a home,

stop me from

holding myself in hellfire

and dropping heaven at your feet.

Author's Notes/Comments: 

Written 3/3/17