• 'She wears

his touch like a ring bright around her finger

close enough to keep the bone to keep the distance from getting in'

• One day she says her heart is probably smashed into three-thousand little pieces, and that the only way to fix it would be to get a brand new heart. Instead she just wears a heart-shaped sticker on the left side of her shirt, and smiles because stickers are replaceable.-Autumn is her favorite. She tells him one day about how pretty all the leaves are, and he says how there aren’t pretty trees where he lives. She wants to send him red and orange and yellow leaves in an envelope, but then she remembers that they would be dead and brown by the time they’d arrive in his mailbox.-She names her three goldfish after body parts in Latin –Auris, Vena, and Pollex – and she collects acorns in a transparent blue vase.Perhaps she is a little strange, but strange and beautiful often go together,or at least that’s what her mother would say.(She doesn’t exactly see her frecklesand too-skinny legsas ‘beautiful’, though.)-He calls her ‘Indigo’ because her lips are always tinted an odd purple.Little does he know that ‘indigo’ is the color of the rainbow that people usually don’t know, because it was thrown in as an afterthought for the people who can’t decide between blue and purple. Maybe that’s what she is. An afterthought.-At three in the morning, she climbs through her window to sit by the creek. This time, there’s a paper-winged moth stuck to the glassy surface of the water, beautiful and dead. And it’s then that she decides to go home and send the leaves, even though they will be dried when they get to him, because if a creature can be beautiful when dead, so can the warm autumn leaves.It makes her wonder if she’ll look pretty when she dies.
• When Great Trees Fall 

When great trees fall,  rocks on distant hills shudder,  lions hunker down  in tall grasses,  and even elephants  lumber after safety. 

When great trees fall  in forests,  small things recoil into silence,  their senses  eroded beyond fear. 

When great souls die,  the air around us becomes  light, rare, sterile.  We breathe, briefly.  Our eyes, briefly,  see with  a hurtful clarity.  Our memory, suddenly sharpened,  examines,  gnaws on kind words  unsaid,  promised walks  never taken. 

Great souls die and  our reality, bound to  them, takes leave of us.  Our souls,  dependent upon their  nurture,  now shrink, wizened.  Our minds, formed  and informed by their  radiance,  fall away.  We are not so much maddened  as reduced to the unutterable ignorance  of dark, cold  caves. 

And when great souls die,  after a period peace blooms,  slowly and always  irregularly. Spaces fill  with a kind of  soothing electric vibration.  Our senses, restored, never  to be the same, whisper to us.  They existed. They existed.  We can be. Be and be  better. For they existed."  — Maya Angelou

• "I keep a book of poems

Stashed away under my bed,

Hoarding the secret words until

Dawn breaks, so I can

Build a nest for myself out of

Twigs and strings and faded letters.

And then, then I'll call for you,

Telling you to greet me at the door,

But when you arrive I will fly

Far away on paper wings

And never look back

(Not even once)"

• i. sometimes i write your name

in rainbow crayons on the walls. sometimes my room smells like you and sometimes i can't stand this silence you've left me with, because it's a cold silence, the kind that sneaks into my blood and leaves me

empty.

[fact: i still miss you.]

ii. dreams like this are made to make me lose my mind; the vibrancy and the details are so realistic, but what happens, isn't. because you're still here, and your arms are around me (and they feel so real, oh my God, they feel so real), but i know that you're

gone.

[fact: i wish i could forget you, but what would i think about then?]

iii. sometimes i wonder if there is a secret button you have to press to get happiness. sometimes i wonder where yours went, and i wonder if that's why you left; to go find yours.

[fact: i never could make you happy.]

iv. i never learned how to do a lot of things: i can't tie my shoes; i don't know how to swim; i've never learned to sew. maybe if i learned to let go, this wouldn't matter; but instead i chased after you and i tripped over my shoelaces and drowned in my loneliness and couldn't stitch my heart back together.

[fact: i need someone to teach me these things.]

v. you used to say i love you. and sometimes, i almost believed you. sometimes, i thought you meant it. but usually, i knew better. usually, i could see that you were lying through your teeth.

[fact: you never were a good liar.]

• Dear self:

stop hiding your personality from some of those you love the most. just tune in, tune out, dive in and let loose. maybe they'll love you even more.

Dear self:

let your screams turn into acid-covered dreams. nothing shows emotion more than a scream.

we all know you've got a lot of it.

Dear self:

You cause yourself more pain looking in the mirror than anything else you do. I think it's because you're not sure what you're seeing. sometimes I think you're scared of what you don't understand.

actually, I know you are.

Dear self:

your love and acceptance for all the types of people there are is rare. but don't let it blind you - some of them do live up to the stereotypes. be careful. this isn't a game .

but if it is, you might just be winning ; maybe the rest of the world is blind, not you.

Dear self:

he's scaring you. he makes you sick. the thought of him makes you want to lash out. he's making you stronger stronger stronger.

he's making you that much better.

Dear self:

you seem like you're finally happy. for real this time. not those posterboard smiles you used to wear. those smiles were picked up with a light breeze.

maybe some other kid picked it up and wore it instead.

Dear self:

don't worry. they're here ; and they love you.

Dear self:

I know how you feel when you look at your eyes in the morning. you look at them and hope to see something. maybe the mix of gold and ocean blue means something. maybe that gold has a purpose.

or maybe it's just there because you look at the stars so much ; and the glow just stayed in your eyes f o r e v e r .

Dear self:

when you look back, you realize the way you used to see yourself is ridiculous. maybe you are as beautiful as people say you are. but just remember : if somebody tells you you aren't good enough... neither are they.

you'll outshine all of them in the end.

Dear self:

I don't think you deserved everything that happened. none of the screaming or violence. it only made you stronger and keeps you charging ahead :: you're better than him. he's done, and he's got nothing left. you've got the world. you've got the light in your eyes.

you've got hope, and nobody can take that a w a y from you.

-- love, Nicole.

• I am not yet born; O hear me.
Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the
club-footed ghoul come near me.

I am not yet born, console me.
I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me,
with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me,
on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me.

I am not yet born; provide me
With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk
to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light
in the back of my mind to guide me.

I am not yet born; forgive me
For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words
when they speak me, my thoughts when they think me,
my treason engendered by traitors beyond me,
my life when they murder by means of my
hands, my death when they live me.

I am not yet born; rehearse me
In the parts I must play and the cues I must take when
old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains
frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white
waves call me to folly and the desert calls
me to doom and the beggar refuses
my gift and my children curse me.

I am not yet born; O hear me,
Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God
come near me.

I am not yet born; O fill me
With strength against those who would freeze my
humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton,
would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with
one face, a thing, and against all those
who would dissipate my entirety, would
blow me like thistledown hither and
thither or hither and thither
like water held in the
hands would spill me.

Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.
Otherwise kill me.

Louis Macneice