I used to write poetry when I was a teen. Didn't everyone? I had so much angst and anger at silly little things as well as major heartbreak over all my deeply felt love for boys who didn't love me back. I am actually quite stoked to return to my parents house and go through my old poems and see how terrible (or possible great) they are. My teenage heart was full of fire and dreams. As you can imagine, I was a very dramatic adolescent who wrote poems to express her darkest desires and toughest hardships. And by hardships, I mean not being asked to prom by my crush. You know, the usual end of the world stuff.I haven't written poetry in quite some time. A few weeks ago, a poem came to me as I lay in bed as most of my ideas do. I jotted down a few ideas and let it rest, planning to write it out. Every few nights, more ideas floating into my brain and I marked them as I did the others and still didn't write it full out. Then it gained weight inside me. I could feel it forming a pit in my stomach and I knew I had to write it down.So I did.I've shared a lot on this blog and don't plan to stop any time soon. This poem is a little dark and sad. But I don't want anyone to read it and think I am drowning in sadness. Quite the contrary. I love this poem because it is filled with pain and anguish but also curiosity and hope.I have always been fascinating with the concept of 'what if'. Think of the plot of Sliding Doors and any other story that focuses on "What if I didn't get home in time/say yes/quit my job/etc?" I absolutely devour stories like this. I think it is such a fascinating concept to imagine for a moment what my life would be like if I had made a different choice. I catch myself occasionally dwelling too much in them and have to snap myself back. It can be a mindfuck to imagine what life would be like if I hadn't done this and had done that. It can be entertaining. I'm a curious kitten. I like to imagine other stories I may have had. Why not? Our choices make our lives what they are. Why not chew on why we made certain ones and not others and what if we had swapped them? I think it has helped me learn about myself and, for the most part, I have really lucked out with my choices. But then again, how would I ever know since I didn't make the other?See, total mindfuck.There are times in this poem I thought my world was ending in one way or another. A total heartbreak, being bullied out of loving myself, moving away from everything I ever dreamed of for myself. But from all these experiences and choices, I have come to live the life I have now and I am pretty happy with it. No complaints about the doors I chose.Sometimes, in the dark of the night, I think about the what ifs and past pain and how it haunts me. My little ghosts. Trauma I planted seeds in and watched flowers bloom. This poem, though not very good, is moments hidden and buried. It is a mix of the sliding doors and the heartache that skips around my head when I'm just trying to go to sleep.I never know how much to share as a writer. I do know that the songs, books, stories, quotes, films, plays, any piece of writing that has meant the most to me, that has really sunk deep inside me and seeped into my veins, is a very personal piece of writing. It is the most relatable, raw, and real. It has reached for me out of the shadows and pulled me into the light saying "Oh hey, I think about that, too."I'm not a sad person. This poem does not make me sad. It makes me happy. I let it out of me and now it is here, on a page, in the open air breathing. It was something I had to do for myself and I have made the choice to share it. I don't think I have a future as a poet but I do encourage anyone who found poetry to be a great comfort when they were younger to revisit it. Just write it down. It makes the ghosts less scary.Don't overanalyze this if you know me and maybe know some of the details of these moments. Just let it be what it is. <3

I think about the lake.A shade of blue that I can picture in a momentThe sounds of it kissing the shoreThe sun rising and setting and drowning it in light.

I think about the boy who gave me a kiss I can not forget.The heat, the electricity, the feeling of my body as it hit hisThe force of the pull and how I fell into himClutching, breathing, the taste of his lips then tongueA moment dreamed up that came to fruitionI think about how it was too soon but I ignored the dread calling from the pit of my stomachHow I wasted my time with him because I was broken and the pieces don't fit back together rightI ruined itI ruined something that could have been.I think about that when I see him and we share a glanceIt’s fading now but it was thereMoments caught across the room like fireflies on a summer nightCaptured for a moment and glowing in my palm before being releasedI think about what could have been and hope it is another timeline that is lived.

I think about the girls who never liked me.I feel sick when I remember how hard I triedI was exhausted, starved, on the edge of being shatteredThey never saw the cracks nor would they have caredI could feel the plastic conversations against my skin like a child’s raincoat on a humid daySticking to me, rubbing my flesh hardMy stomach clenches at the thought of how important I made itThe pedestal I put them on and made their tiny opinions matterGirls who never went through this rejectionA rejection of who I wasI was always liked, popular, cared for, invited outSuddenly it was torn from me without my permissionI had no time to react or adjust or realize I had myself locked away somewhere else.This new place was not welcoming to me.I triedGod, I triedIt was all I thought about for yearsJust like me. Please just see me and like me.

I think about how it had happened so many times before.I was teleported back to middle school when the whispers were about meBack to college when I cried myself to sleep at night as a choice was made and I abandonedAll the friends I had made were stolen in a breathThe moments where I believed their words and hated myselfWhen I wanted to be someone else; anyone elseThat tingling one gets when one knows they are being talked aboutThat heavy feeling in the air when you leave a roomIt followed me everywhere and suffocated me.

I think about how much I loved him.How long I convinced myself he loved me and didn’t know itIt feels like I am being punched in the gut still even after some timeAs if he is standing in front of me laughingLaughing at how foolish I was to believe he wanted meTo believe he cared about meI imagined it all I supposeI imagined we were forever friends at the very leastThat’s what he called me once: a forever friendIt meant the universe to me for yearsForever ended when he broke a part of me that won’t healedA part that lay safe and cozy inside meThe forever friend part of meIt’s gone now and I mourn itI worry I will mourn it until the final sunset.

I think about my dreams.I worry one will make me happier over the otherI am terrified I will never see any of them realI am terrified that I will see them realHow can I be so scared of something I don’t yet have and also fear having it?Should I continue on this well paved path of stability?I can’t; the dreams are my sanctuaryMy home.My heart.It will always scare me, won’t it? This is a question I know the answer to.

I think about the one who didn’t love me when I loved him.And then he suddenly did and I was too far goneA rush of regret washing over me like warm airPassing through me and disappearing behind my backWhat took him so long?Another timeline I imagine to be full of joy and sex and argumentsA timeline that I wished for on so many starsA timeline and a life I know would have stopped suiting us bothBut when I wanted it, it filled me with such fire I collapsed under all of itBurning until I was nothing but ashWaiting for him to love me.

I think about if I am disappointingIt can be hard to tell when no one tells you anythingI place weights on my shoulders long ago and carry them heavilySometimes I end up dragging them they push me down so muchApproval is not easy to come by when you are exploring the possibilitiesA creative heart is never satisfiedIts hunger is always growlingI let the tears come when I don’t hear itIt’s like waiting for thunder after the lightningIt never comes / It never cracks the sky open / My ears ring in the silence.

I think about how big the world is.And how much I want to see and have already seenHow fleeting those memories can beThe scents, the sights, the soundsI remember fragments that have formed a sort of mosaic in my mindColorful and brightMoments I cling to when the world grows darkI want more of them. I want all of them.

I think about choices to be made before age ruins it.Age is a number but can also be a countdownI think about how I can’t think about it anymoreI will drive myself to an edge and hover, waiting for someone else to answer for meIs it something I jump off of to know?

I think about how I can feel very alone when I am surrounded by loveI think about my shadow self, the one that no one seesThe one I need to keep trying to stick on with soap but I need a needle and thread to make it stayIt follows me around, whispering the deeds I’ve doneThe dark desires that linger like smoke in the woodsIt hides well in the light I’m surrounded byBut I know its always there.

I think about a massive change I made that I thought was right.I defended it / I convinced myself it had to happenIt brought me nothing but painI suppose I did realize what home meant, where home wasIt was not the home I imagined it would beWith the green leaves and the slow paceWith the lake in my backyard.

I think about the lake.How my heart would skip every time I saw itI wanted nothing more than to be by the lake when I convinced myself to say yesIt still leapt when I turned the corner / When it spilled out at the end of the roadWhen I’d drive home and the sun would be licking the surfaceWhen the wind would blow and the white caps surged towards meWhen it froze and I could stand on it and feel the ice in my feet through my bootsThe lake is what I came for and the lake is what I missI think about the lake and how for a while, it was all I had to tether me to who I wasI hope the lake kept all my wishes thrown in times of desperation and despairI hope they are safe in the sandy bottom waiting to be fulfilled.