Cartoon Hearts

With my head rested on your chest I hear your steady pulse.
It's not like any I've heard, and for a moment I think about how it sounds almost like a caricature of a heartbeat. Something we know is meant to be a heart but isn't quite the same.

I look up to you wondering if you're aware that you have a 90's style cartoon heart and you look down at me saying, "I hope you always keep that look in your eyes when you stare at me." I don't know how I'm looking at you but I have the same hope.


People wear me down and exhaust me. You seem to exhaust me a little less.


I dread finding moments of comfort outside of solitude. I separate myself from my feeling of bodily inadequacy, losing myself in thought. In those moments I get to live blissfully unaware of how I could be perceived by others. Always when I'm with a partner, though, the moment comes when they turn to me and I can feel myself stiffen as the words pour out of their mouth, "You look beautiful, do you know that?"

It doesn't feel like a compliment. It feels like a rock in my chest. A reminder that no matter how I conquer my mind, I'll always be subject to how others view me. To them my body and brain are and always will be intertwined. I never feel comfortable and safe.

But laying next to you, lost in a conversation and laughing, you give me that same look. Internally I recoil, waiting for the blow. "I love how dorky you are" is what comes out. I can't remember the last time someone complimented me for something other than how they find me aesthetically pleasing.


I'm can't explain what this means to me, but I'm so relieved when you take my hand. Whether we're sitting across from each other at the restaurant or laying side by side in bed, fingers intertwined softly,  I know its not the same.

Cemetery Girl

Two years ago I came upon a little girl. 

The stone slanted marker was small and old, but despite this she was clearly loved. A small concrete garden fence traced around the where she was laid. It's impossible to know if the boarder was there to protect her from being walked over or just as a way to express love for a lost child, but the sight of it stands out despite being surrounded by larger and more intricate grave markers of the era.  

I remember her being near the side of one of the roads that wound through the cemetery, in the old section towards the front. Wether by carelessness of others or the sinking and changing of the earth, her little fence had become disoriented, one side fallen over completely and another on at a harsh angle. I almost walked past it but for some reason it pulled at my heart strings and I felt compelled to stop. 

I spent a moment with her, getting to know what I could about her, and debating if I should disturb her at all. Ultimately I felt that repairing her resting place would be an act of love, since her parents and siblings were long gone and their children were probably gone too. I lifted the stones and shifted to earth and grass beneath them, pressing their fitted edges back together the best that could be done. 

I vowed to myself to come back to make sure she was still okay, but with every visit to the cemetery I search and search for her but she's nowhere to be found. 

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I'm nervous.

We sit on the couch with our legs intertwined
and you catch me studying your features
because you were nothing more than a stranger last week

But you're still a stranger now
and I want to do anything to change that
so I can justify how comforting I find you
or how easily you opened me up

Anxiety fills me up instead
when I see the the little cracks
tracing along our edges

We want the future
but we've never had a proper foundation to stand on

comforts

lean into me
softly
tell me you care

intertwined fingers
and bodies

warmth on a cold night
a calm to my storm
all with a swift brush of hair from my face.

Hand to heart
to throat
mouth to neck

I've found comfort in your arms
and hope in your smile

trapped

I feel nothing as intensely
as the wholeness I've found
without you here to fight me
hand on my head,
face to the ground.

You told me I was broken
but you made me this way
my pieces didn't fit you
but you still demanded that I stay

To you love meant screaming
tribulations and trials
standing there to take it all,
faking my smile.

Open

Show me you love me
without touching me.
Show me you care
without gifts or money.
give me your time.
give me your heart.
give me your pain.
Let me experience you
and give you all I have left.

Jewels

I wear jeweled tears around my neck
They're heavy.

Crafted carelessly
from blistered silver
and broken stones
a calloused heart
and broken promises.

There's beauty
Romanticized like a painting of war
"oh, look how it catches the light
despite the way its been tarnished by time.
How lovely this weight must be to carry."

You can't imagine
A burden so large
you can't find the strength
to press your fingers together
and open a clasp.