To Make Monsters Out of Girls

love does not need to be tragic in order for it to be good.

that girl is mine,' the monster-boy growled. 'that's where you're wrong. that girl belongs to the coffee shops & the bookstores & the treetops- but mostly she just belongs to herself,' he said, unafraid.- thank you.

didn't anyone ever warn you not to try to trick a girl who reads? she's already seen everything.- don't try to waste your time again.

sometimes no closure tells us more than the closure ever could.- some people were never worth your words.

you remind me of the way flowers bloom so furiously in the spring, like the loudest fucking declaration of survival you'll ever witness. as if to say, 'i'm back. i'm here. i'm alive. i won't waste a single second dwelling on what it's like to be anywhere else.

falling in love with you was like that knowing, heart-stopping, airless, upside-down moment right before a fatal collision. -brace for impact.

don't trust anyone with a cross hanging from their neck & hate buried inside their chest.- take it from me.

there was no comfort to be found in the pages that once pulled me through it all. -you took things i didn't know you could take.

he told me he never learned how to swim; i told him it was okay because i did. - i will carry him across treacherous seas.

there’s no such thing as deserving abuse.

You see, it's not exactly in this girl's nature to be torn in two.

moons after it ended, you still snuck up to my mailbox to deliver bundles of letters- half love notes, half hate notes. when you found someone new, all your letters came back to you marked [returned to sender].- find a new partner in crime.

if all else fails, i'll chew up the remaining shards. (i've swallowed much sharper words than this.)

the only way I can remember what happened is if i sit down & pray to the paper & hope the pen is a believer.- to make up for the fact that i'm not.

my new love— he’s got a green thumb. where you neglected me & let the weeds overtake, he’s always so very nurturing. & you’ll never guess what— he made for damn sure he repotted me where i could stretch towards the light and finally outgrow you.

if my poetry classes taught me anything about this life, it's that you were the ted hughes to my sylvia plath & now he's the robert browning to my elizabeth barrett.- he dropkicked my heart back to life.

there is no slow blast of fireworks. there are no heartstrings finally coming to relax underneath the table between us. there is no magical moment of lost love found. inside this, we are not allie & noah. no, in this moment i am allie & you are lon. or maybe you are noah & i'm martha. i can't be certain.

that girl is mine,” the monster-boy growled. “that’s where you’re wrong. that girl belongs to the coffee shops & the bookstores & the treetops—but mostly she just belongs to herself,” he said, unafraid. - thank you.

yet here i am. i stand before you the woman who managed to become everything you said she could never one day be.

darling, you are worthy.