Just for you.

I wrote this for you.

I wrote this for the kids who are covering up their bruises because of so-called "love."

I wrote this for the kids who sneak painkillers because they think numbness is better than pain and the kids covered in scars because they think pain is better than numbness.

I wrote this for the kids who count calories for control because the media's favorite words are "skinny" and "pretty."

I wrote this for you, the kid who wears a mask.

The kid whose heart is more broken than my ideas.

The kid who's tired of hiding behind a smile and a laugh because life is never perfect, no matter how much you pretend.

The kid who was castaway on an island and has been waving at passing ships only to be ignored.

We're the same, you and I. 

Tell me who you are, because I want to know.

Maybe I know your name, but that doesn't mean I know your story.

Let me inside your head, because thoughts become desires and desires become actions and actions become identities.

Give me your thoughts so that we can share our humanity.

They've told me that beauty is pain, but I'm not so sure it isn't the other way around.

So, show me your pain, because I'll tell you it's beauty.

Share your thoughts and fears, because we're all afraid of ending up that poet found in the hotel room with the gun still between their teeth.

Spill your emotions like blood, because the world wants to see the suffering it's caused and I want to see how you're doing resisting the darkness,

because pain is beauty and I have the scars on my soul to prove it.

--Alis

You and her

You're dead.

You're dead and she cried.

You died.

You were her first kiss.

Then you died.

You were the only man in her life.

Her dad,

He died.

You used to hold her.

Then you died.

I went over there,

the day you died.

She couldn't even tell me

"He died."

You died

And she tried to follow you.

I know it was an accident,

And I know you couldn't have,

But I think she still wishes you left a note.

I guess I didn't know you very well.

I wonder how many people went to your funeral who never talked to you.

"You were an inspiration."

"You were so strong."

"I want to be a person like you, someday."

I also wonder how many people will lie at my funeral.

--Alis

A dose of reality

Honestly, 

I'm terrified.

You scare me.

You scare the hell out of me.

You read my words and they mean something to you.

THEY'RE JUST WORDS

I want to scream.

I weave my words like a spider weaves a web.

I'm the spider, you're the fly, and my poetry is the web.

You're caught.

What if I told you I lied?

Solstice Everston was right.

Art is professional lying,

And I lied to you.

I lied

I lied

I lied

I lied

I lied.

I don't know why,

But this blog is an escape from reality.

I've never been in love.

I've never had a boyfriend.

I've never even been kissed.

I die a little bit inside every time someone acts surprised at that.

You all believed me, though.

Why wouldn't you?

My words were so pretty

And you related so much to them.

I know heartbreak.

I know what it's like to look in the mirror only to find a knife in your back.

I know that because of some crap friendships.

I don't know what it's like to have a boy break my heart.

The closest I've been to a relationship was a week long and as awkward as an accidental butt grab.

It was terminated when he and my friend made out while I was out of town.

That was what "For the we that was" was based off of.

I turned my life into a Hollywood screenplay, 

but based off of a true story is never really the true story.

I turned my emotions into a story,

Several times,

And you believed them. 

You believed every. Single. Word.

If I talked about love, assume it's a lie.

I'm done, though.

I don't know love.

I'm not even sure love exists.

Disregard me.

Stop reading what I say.

This is for me,

And I have to write what I know.

I'll tell you what I know about love:

I've never been in love, but I love her. I have to. She's my best friend. If I don't care, then what she tells herself is true. I woke up sobbing in the middle of the night because I had a dream she killed herself. I have to answer the phone, because if she's alone she'll come to school with two more parallel lines on her arm. She breaks me every time she cries because she ignores what I say. I never like them. I've never liked one of them, and I tell her that, but she just sees someone to save. I keep my mouth shut while she cries a couple months later because no one ever wants to hear "I told you so," but that's all I have to say. I'm terrified that she knows that.

This blog has to be my reality now,

Because creativity is real.

I need to be real.

But, Nelson,

I'm scared.

You asked me to tell you about myself.

I'm scared because I'm not sure who that is anymore.

You asked me to prove I'm not a robot.

I'm scared because I don't think I can.

You asked me to write about my childhood. 

I'm scared because I don't remember much of it.

You asked me to write about love.

I'm scared because I'm not even sure what that is.

You asked me to be different.

I'm scared that I never will be.

You asked me to write about the concrete.

I'm scared because even bricks can be broken.

Nelson, you asked me to write about my fears.

I'm scared because I can't count them and they feed off of my fear and they're getting bigger and bigger and bigger like rolling a snowball down a mountain and my fear becomes an avalanche and I'm suffocating underneath it all.

I'm scared you hate me.

I'm scared of you not reading my blog.

I'm scared of my words becoming meaningless

Because I'm the girl who cried love.

You deserve to know the truth more than I deserve to live an idealized version of myself, though.

Now I just have to be real.

Real is all I can be.

Real is what I can't be.

I'm terrified that you know that.

I'm terrified that you don't.

I'm terrified that you don't understand.

I'm terrified that you do.

I'm afraid.

I'm afraid.

I'm so, so afraid.

--Alis 

Wonderings

Maybe I just don't want to let you down.

Maybe I just don't want you to let me down.

Maybe I'm trying to free the bird in my chest pecking at me to get out.

Maybe its beak just punctured my lung.

Maybe my heart is getting itchy and uncomfortable.

Maybe I can't scratch because it's beneath the skin.

Maybe I scratch the skin anyway.

Maybe sometimes I think I'm one of the people who froze in the Atlantic when the Titanic sank.

Maybe I'm the one who designed the ship.

Maybe I'm the iceberg.

Maybe I'm bad at trusting.

Maybe you don't know that because I can't trust you with that information.

Maybe I'm just a cliché.

Maybe these words have been written.

Maybe there isn't a clear point to this conversation.

Maybe this isn't a conversation.

Maybe this is a lecture.

Maybe these are answers in the form of questions.

Maybe these are questions in the form of statements.

Maybe I'm the person that would have attended public executions.

Maybe I stormed the Bastille.

Maybe I dropped the blade on Marie Antoinette's neck.
Maybe I'm Marie Antoinette.

Maybe I'm a history geek and no one else knows anything about her except "let them eat cake."

Maybe that bothers me.

Maybe I'm going to die.

Maybe I'm going to live.

Maybe I abandoned any semblance of logical thought around the third line.

Maybe all I am is a set of those foot long matches you light the grill with.

Maybe I'm just not that useful.

Maybe I'm that dandelion fluff your parents tell you to stop blowing away because you'll just have to pick the weeds I spawn.

Maybe curiosity killed the cat, but at least it figured out what it was missing.

Maybe I'm missing something.

Maybe I'm just tired.

Maybe I just don't know who I am anymore.

Maybe I do, I just don't want to admit it.

I just don't really know.

Maybe I'll figure it out at some point.

Maybe not.

Maybe "maybe" is just a placeholder for when we don't want to tell ourselves the truth.

Maybe not.


--Alis

Fear and Blood (not the fear of blood.)

I think I have a preoccupation with blood.

I'm sorry.

That's creepy.

Really, though.

I love pilot g-2s (the pens). I love the way they write. Ask me to describe it, though, and the first thing I think is that it's like you're writing in your own blood.

I don't know what it is that intrigues me.

It might be the link between life and death.

The human connection.

We give blood to others to save lives, donating a portion of the cells we need for ourselves.

I associate blood with death even as it pumps through the veins in my fingers as I type this.

I look at the scene of a car accident to see if any blood stains the pavement underneath scraps of metal and swarming policemen.

I'm looking for signs of life, and seeing blood there makes it more bleak than it already was.

I used to be afraid of losing blood. When I was a kid, I would pick scabs out of habit, then suck on the wound, taking back that little ruby teardrop into my body, thinking it would replenish my bloodstream.

Red is vital.

It is life and anger and fire and pain.

Red is the color of the muscle that keeps me alive, pushing life into me.

It is the color I see in my peripheral vision when I'm trying not to scream from frustration.

Red is the color staining the knees of that one pair of jeans I keep along with my scars to remind me that life doesn't have to be comfortable to be worth it.

The lines I can see in the crook of my elbow are blue, but I think of blood as red. 

Inside my veins, the blood is me. When it runs down my drain after I nick the back of my knee with the razor, it belongs to nature. I lay no claim to the red, even if it was keeping me alive just a moment ago. It's not mine if it's diluted by the water that sluices down my body and back toward the earth.

Today I accidentally sliced my thumb on the scissors I confiscated from my best friend, but I was too busy watching that crimson bead well up between the layers of skin to worry about the pulse that throbbed beneath it.

I don't think I would cut to feel.

I'm just scared I would cut to watch myself bleed.


--Alis