i am the love letter. lillian grace

      because you gave us the right to marry who we love

      and we need to stop asking for more, like basic human rights

      right?

      because electrocuting me

      is going to rid me of the abomination that is me

      right?

      because wanting to kiss my girlfriend in a coffeehouse

      on a Thursday night is too much to ask

      because our love is a monster

      right?

      our love is a monster

      right

      we’re a monster

      right?

      i’m a monster

      right?

      see, i know my girlfriend

      and if you told her she was a monster

      she’d take it

      she’d take it and use it as electricity in her veins

      isn’t it funny how i used this poem

      to ask her to be my girlfriend?

      isn’t it funny how our love is love

      and it’s as real as any other?

      dear closeted queer young girls,

      i’m always yours

      because i was you

      look at how far i’ve come

      you’ll go so much further

      love,

      the older and way gayer me

      leftovers

      In no particular order, selfish things I miss about you:

      + Knowing I would always have someone in the audience

      + Having an excuse to buy you things

      + Always having someone’s hair to play with

      + Constant poetic inspiration

      + Having someone who never gets tired of my positivity

      + Cold-bitten faces

      + Hands that are always warm

      + Butterflies and zoos

      + Sore lips from kissing someone too many times

      + Cheesy pickup lines

      + Eternal love in every moment

      In no particular order, selfish things I don’t miss about you:

      + Recklessness

      + Crying

      + Me

      honest once more

      Loving me is

      Loving the theatrical mess

      Loving the afraid

      Loving the broken

      Loving the eyebags

      Loving the cardigans

      Loving the flyaways

      Loving the rolling on the floor laughing at memes

      Loving the poet

      Loving the girl who doesn’t want to write sometimes

      Loving the girl who’s tired of loving

      I am often tired of loving

      Fearlessness and

      Patience and

      Beauty and

      Confidence and

      Loving is fucking exhausting

      But the artist inside me

      Wants to keep loving

      So somehow I must find the energy

      To let myself fall

      Just a few more times

      +trying

      The first time I saw that you’d made me a playlist

      Based off of my twitter handle,

      I felt the tears come.

      When you changed the name from +trying to +loving

      When we started dating,

      I felt the tears come.

      The last time I opened up my spotify

      You’d hit the backspace on that piece of your life.

      “When in love” was the new name.

      “When in love” was the gift you gave me.

      I felt the tears come.

      In complete honesty,

      Rancho at night does not seem to match up to the halls I walk during the day.

      For then, I can pretend the starry sky

      And the cold air and the warm hands and the blanket I brought for you do not exist.

      During the day, I can pretend that the pyramid is as ancient as it’s sisters.

      I can pretend that I read you my poetry on the other side of the world.

      I can pretend that maybe that poetry wasn’t mine.

      It wasn’t mine.

      I want to erase it,

      But erasers never really clear the words off of the paper completely.

      I wish they could,

      Maybe I could write a new poem in its place,

      But, you see, I only write in black pen.

      I stood up in front of a crowd of strangers to declare my love for you.

      I felt the eyes boring into me as I walked up to the mic and acted,

      As I read a poem that took weeks.

      I am an actress.

      I did it all for you.

      That was the most wretched way I have ever used both of my art forms at once,

      And when you told me the man next to you said my piece was too much,

      I brushed it off as you did.

      I didn’t write for a month.

      Because the confidence to walk up to that mic in the first place

      Had already put me in debt with myself,

      The confidence to sit back down as two people out of thirty applauded for me took even more.

      It took two and a half weeks across the country

      And performing the revised poem in New York City to a crowd who gave a standing ovation

      To pay that back.

      We stopped writing poetry to eachother after a while.

      In complete honesty, I was glad.

      It always felt like you wanted more from me,

      And I gave it.

      I gave until I was heaving words,

      Pouring them out of lips I didn’t love anymore.

      My poems to you were forced and unpolished,

      A window into my clouded mind.

      No revisions.

      No rewrites.

      Raw,

      Every single one of them.

      Speaking them to you felt like I was handing you something not