I'm Turning 20 Years Old

I'm turning twenty years old.
No more teens, tweens, or in-betweens.
No more feelings or themes of inadequacy
Finally a gleam of my dreams and things
I think that I deserve becoming a reality.

19 is fine, 21 is cool, but two decades?
Holy shit, am I right?

I can't cry, or lie, or fight, or light a bag
Of shit on fire and chalk it up to "hormones"
As a result. I am now an adult.

I've been able to go to prison for two years,
But at least now it'll make sense.
And now I represent a whole new demographic
Of people who are presented with obstacles
And I'm pretty sure we can't eat popsicles
In public anymore because we're twenty years old.

Popsicles are cold. So is the world.

Now I have to be bold.
I have to probably get a job that turns me into someone I'm not
Because someone told me to fold instead of going all-in.
And people tell me "Don't withhold who you are."
When before I was told to behold the very opposite.

I practiced it. Being someone else.
Now it's hard to be myself.

I put myself on the shelf
I was made selfish instead of selfless
Nobody could care less if I was made less
I've been conditioned to impress instead of express
It's been impressed in my mind.
I've been told to respect authority as opposed to self-defense,
Respect others, expect nothing in return
Only return into what the world had made you.

Defenseless.

Is this an exaggeration? Maybe.
But maybe not.

There's nothing else to be taught, and someday
My body will just rot away.
Another product of what we are today.

I'm turning twenty years old.

"Be bolder. You're older.
Become a mold of what we told you.
Control yourself. Don't boil over."

I am twenty years older.

Roses and Violets

"Distance makes the heart grow fonder."
Hell yeah it does.
But distance also makes the heart grow    more      distant.
And unfortunately that has only recently become a part
Of my reality.

Love is tricky.
It puts you in situations
Where miscommunications
And temptations
And complicated relations
Become a part of your every day life.

And that's okay.

Because love gives back ten times
What it takes away.

Love is on my mind.
Every time. Every. Line.
Of every poem.
It's kind of like reminding myself
I have a reason to write.
Or do anything at all.
Because all I do is fall.

There's this void
That we all actively avoid
We act as though heartbreak
Is a choice
As though we have an actual
Voice in the matter.
The pitter patter of my beating heart
Is just the start to potentially
Falling apart.

Any mention of your name
Instantly provides some pain
And it makes me want to place blame
As though placing blame
Will replace this profane feeling
I feel in the most bottom part of myself.

You absolutely deserve to be happy.
So please do.
And I still love you.
That much is true.

Roses are red
And Violets are blue
Not a single moment was a mistake
Because I spent it with you.

And every moment I spend with you
From now on will only help me feel strong
And perhaps prolong this inherent feeling
That everything I did was wrong
As though I was the only problem
And although you will always have me in the palm
Of your hand
Not one second of it I would want to recall
Because if you weren't worth every single moment
I wouldn't have loved you at all.

You are worth all my moments.
And maybe I should have spent more time showing it.
Instead of making it seem like the opposite.
God, I feel like shit.

Some flowers are purple
Some flowers are green
And I've never met a person
Who could ever mean
This much to me.
A woman who occupied my dreams
And made me feel things
Emotionally, mentally, and physically.
It was all presented beautifully.
Truly.

Roses are red
Violets are blue
I feel like shit
But I still love you

Three Little Words

"I love you."

Quite a loaded phrase.
And every single day since
The day that you've raised my heartstrings
My heart has been laced with the ways

That you convey to me
The portrayal of the most insane
And amazing doorways
To a man who thought he could never remain

In a state of sanity and clarity
Because when it comes down to you and me
We both seem to say
"No, I'm the one who's lucky."

I think we all know that
The leaves on the trees change with the seasons
But what's been put into my life
Has given me plentiful reasons

To dream within my dreams
And have a gleam within the twinkle of my eye
Because with every hello we exchange
We make it harder to say goodbye

I take time to formulate rhymes
But on the inside you reside
And in my life within my mind
I know that nothing feels right
With you on the outside

I AM IN LOVE

And I think I have been
When I first saw the blue dress
And my mind was a mess
But it was all in the best way possible

From the first time we held hands
To when all we could do was stand
Right in front of the front door
And when you said "I promise there will be more."

"I've never felt like this before"
Because I thought I adored
In my own recorded romantic history
But I realized I was just always alone

I always have been.
But every day with you
Is a new chapter that begins
And I listen to my thoughts that
Stay within my heart
And something starts
And it feels like an old part of me
Has become state of the art

My vision is blurred and you have stirred
Something that I never want returned
And they say "I love you" is just three little words
But the idea of "little" is absurd

This whole thing is unheard of.
But I've deferred to following my heart.

Three little words.
I like you.

Three little words.
I adore you.

Three little words.
I love you.

Three little words.

This Is A Rollercoaster

Well phrased thoughts.

And although I know where I'm going I feel like I'm lost.

Lost because paths that are crossed stand in my thoughts

Because two roads diverged in a yellow wood is just the beginning.

The beginning of the rest of my life has started with college 

Yet for some reason college has some value on it

Because D's and C's get degrees

But a degree only frees the speed in which 

you think you succeed in your own mind.

I watch my words fly over everyone's heads

Because most of the time they'd rather listen to someone else instead

And although I understand I have to pay my dues

How many more dues do I have to go through

Before people get a clue that I wouldn't have paid 

Thousands of dollars to review something I didn't want to pursue

I just want to happy. Don't we all.
Because oceans rise and empires fall
And Hamilton references are uncalled for
But every wall that tries to stall me only exists
in a mental hall I have created for myself

None of this poem, NONE of it will make sense
Because I try to present my mental capacity of the present
But instead I only resent myself for expressing myself
Because we all strive to be purebred. In our heads.

Just give up.

Give up trying to be perfect. Because you will never be that.
Because why the fuck would you waste time trying to be anybody but you?

That didn't rhyme.

Every time you spare a thought for trying to climb
Towards something that can never be reached
All you do is retreat to self degradation
Instead of self preservation so allow this to be a donation.

From me to you.

College hasn't taught me too much yet.
But it has taught me this.
You will spend the rest of your life
Trying to reset someone that you've never really met.

You.

Beautiful, messed up, unique, fucked-up you.
A person who makes someone else's sun rise.
Someone who has been the source of demise
And someone who makes someone else feel alive

And someone who resides in the innermost thoughts
Of someone else's heart.
Someone who has the power to revive because
Only you can make that person see the purpose of their life.

You are the only reason someone can survive
And if you go away then their heart just dies
So tell me my friend, why are you alive?

If you read this, and you find some reason in it
Wake up tomorrow and find some reason in yourself.
Because nothing you have ever dealt with can hinder
The relentlessness of what you know you can do.

Be you.
Because that's all you can do.
And love it.
This is your life.

So you run it.

The Last Ten Minutes

I don't know why people run
I don't know why things fall through
I don't know I survived in my life
Without someone like you.

But now I guess I have to.
And whenever I do something or feel something
I want to run to you, but I can't anymore
Because you said "I can't do this anymore."

We were two kids who didn't know what love was
Until we were in it.
And we had to conceive and believe and retrieve
Every part of us so that we could make sense of it.

And you gave me life like our breath gives the trees
And every time I thought of you I'd say
"Please don't fuck this one up"
Because a lifetime of you wouldn't be enough.

Even though this is the third time you shattered my heart,
I would let you do it again because
Maybe this plan the universe has
Is too much for me to understand.

I apologize for every time I apologized.
And I have come to realize that deep down inside
I wanted to make every wrong I did right.

But by trying to do it right, I did it wrong.
I made us weak when we used to be strong.
I clutched to my crutch and when it finally had enough, it snapped.
Leaving me falling face first into the dust.

And it hurts to see you leave 

Because love is a disease and in those 

Last ten minutes I had to accept we were finished. 

In those last ten minutes 

I told you I wanted you to be happy

In those last ten minutes

I told you trying would be hard for me

In the last ten minutes

I said I would try harder

In the last ten minutes

You said you still wanted to be a part of me

In the last ten minutes

I said "I love you" for the last time

In the last ten minutes I said

"Don't worry about me, I'll be fine."

You were my girl in the blue dress

The one who relieved my stress

And allowed me to express all the

Things I wanted to say

The one who I impressed

And the one who I depressed

And the one who left 

So I could face being alone all by myself

You told me thank you.

You said "Thank you for listening."

But there are pieces of my heart

I still feel missing

Because you took them with you

After all was said and done,

You finished it

I still loved you though.

In the last ten minutes.