Light Filters in: Poems

It's okay if some things are always out of reach. If you could carry all the stars in the palm of your hand, they wouldn't be half as breathtaking

Be grateful that Time will heal the wounds but Leave the scars. How else will you Remember all that You've survived?

You can't root yourself In the ground, hoping the world Will grow around you. You were made to do More than hide in the shadows Of another's leaves

I am not pretty. I have never been pure or soft or sweet. I am beautiful. Dirt still on my shoulder as I rise from the ground. Scars forming and healing like galaxies over my skin. I am beautiful in the way I fought back when I was buried. I turned the dirt and mud into soil, and grew.

Don't ask for respect; Demand it. Don't look for opportunity; Grab it. Don't add to the world; Change it.

This year, I fell in love with myself. I told myself thank you. I'm sorry. It's okay. Thank you for fighting to survive even when I don't want to. I'm sorry I blame you for things you can't control. It's okay that you're not perfect. I will love you anyway. Now, I look at my face in the mirror instead of my body. You are the most important person in my life.

I am still learning to let myself grow. I am still learning that it is not selfish to let myself become the person I am meant to be.

The wounds have healed and the scars are fading. My skin is pale and smooth. I've started to confide in my closest friends. They embrace me. Support me. Surround me. For the first time, it is scarier to think about going back than to think about moving forward.

I am done being delicate. As a girl, I was taught to be sweet, to be dainty, to fold into myself until I was nothing more than crumpled paper. This is my unfolding. I will use gunpowder to set my makeup and gasoline as my perfume. Next time you try to burn me at the stake, I will burn back. I will start a fire you cannot control.

right now, I am a rough draft; I am here to be revisited and revised. hard as I try, I am not the girl poets speak of. I am not made up of ocean tides and my heart is not a crystal drum; it will always be a weapon more than anything. I am an incomplete masterpiece, full of crossed-out words and changes. no one ever calls the first draft beautiful, and I will never be the final piece.

you held my wrists, propped me up, and moved me on your stage; all my life has been a script and you wrote every page. you set a backdrop, painted smiles, hid what was within; come one, come all, and see her now: the doll in human skin!

if you think you are drowning, just remember: you float in water.

The problem was not asking him to complete me. The problem was believing I was incomplete to begin with.

last night, I felt it. happiness. I didn't recognize the spark at first. I had forgotten what it was like. but then, there it was. a flash of light. a second of warmth. a glimmer of hope when all I had for years was darkness. and just the idea that this might not last forever is motivation enough to keep going.

He tells me, you are a complicated person to love. I know, I reply. I struggle with it every day.

I’ve spent so much time trying to become who I should be that I lost myself along the way.

writing was not a stage or a museum exhibit— it was an echo chamber, a way to talk to someone, even if that someone was my own voice bouncing back at me.

The happiness will come slowly, the way light filters in through the window in the early morning hours. So slowly you don't even notice the night is ending, until you wake up and see the sunlight.

Find yourself in a page. Look at where you are. Find your past in the pages before. Look at all that you have survived. Find your future in the pages after. Look at all that you have ahead. This is not the end of your book. You are right at the heart of it. Keep reading.

I'm sure you've been offered the world, you're deserving of each land. I bet you could sew up the valleys and mountains with just the touch of your hand. I'm sure you've been offered the world, but my pockets have all been worn through. So I'll write you an ocean, I'll write you a sky, and hope that's enough for you.

There are times that I am doing so well, I stop taking my meds. And suddenly I feel like the light switch has flipped off. And suddenly I feel like I am not better because of my hard work. And suddenly I feel like a fraud. I try to remind myself that the brain is an organ, that this is a disease, that diabetics need insulin and no one thinks of that as cheating. I try to remind myself that this is not a boost, this is a treatment. So I swallow my pride along with my pills and let myself get better.

I know you want to drown yourself in the sadness. It’s comforting to let it surround you, heart pulsing, lungs aching as you feel it overwhelm every inch of your skin and diffuse into your cells. But I hope you know sadness is a revolving door. once you’re in it, letting the sadness take you around and around and around, it won’t stop on its own. You’ll just keep going around and around and around. That’s why you need to fight to stop it, fight to stop spinning, fight to get out. Get out of that infinite sadness.

So I’ll write you an ocean, I’ll write you a sky, and hope that’s enough for you.

How will my mental illness affect my romantic relationships? What will happen when I become emotionally vulnerable? Will they stay?

for all of our wounds will be healed with time.

last night I felt it. happiness. I didn’t recognize the spark at first. I had forgotten what it was like.

sometimes I think we will always come back to each other. not by chance, but by choice. there is no magnetic pull, no right time or right place. the stars are not aligned for us. so we reach our hands up to the night sky and rearrange the ourselves.

don't tell me my brokenness is beautiful this is not beautiful this nearly killed me