[x]

Caitlincaitlin musgrove is the definition
and prime example of the fact that
the very worst of things happen to the very best of people.

(warning: this is a cancer story.
this is a mother and daughter story.)

fact:
when caitlin grades quizzes, she writes a smiley face
on the top of the paper if you did well, or a
an even bigger smiley face if you didn't.
i didn't know caitlin's mom had cancer until
a couple of months ago
because caitlin's not only strong, but her damnation
might be the fact that she hides everything until she can't anymore.

but maybe that's also because she didn't want to tell me.
and that's understandable.
we're not

catch the stars to remember her wishesi.
she rememberes the little things first.
her favorite color is purple
she likes blueberry pancakes,
and leaves pennies face-up on random street corners.
even with these pieces, it feels like
a huge chunk has been torn away that she could never retrieve

ii.
there are scars on her person
she does not remember getting.
her body is a map of memories
she does not know how to read.

iii.
they say she used to be calm and collected,
but now she is hot and fiery,
and they don't know her anymore.
but that's okay, because she doesn't know herself.

iv.
she misses the sun,
and the bad school coffee and English projects
and her own b

stop me if you've heard this one beforei.
there is a man on the corner of my street
who gave me a bottle of bleach
and told me if i drank it, i'd finally feel clean.

but i gave it back to him, and went home to take a shower.

because i am almost happy,
and i do not want to mess that up by
chugging bleach or fingering knives or thinking too much
about that man who turned my insides cold
from inside of his car.

because this has to be happy.
this has to be what happy feels like.
it feels like god gave me a vodka bottle
filled with nature and people and oceans and deserts and seas,
cause see, it feels like i'm drunk on life.

ii.
i have this nervous habit of scratching

Matthew M.Matthew Minor married Tim McGraw's daughter
When he was in preschool,
And only in Music City.

He's all sharp angles, curly hair,
And geography bowls he won in fourth grade.
He's holding onto things and letting her go,
Brought up on family politics and Southern beliefs.

Our second grade Spanish teacher
Filmed Matthew's laugh and put it on Youtube.

He's seventeen missed calls and
Gary, Indiana, Gary Indiana, Gary Indiana
My home sweet home.

Matthew got all the solos in elementary school
And loves songs and musicals no one else
Has ever heard.

He didn't really want Mrs. Fortner to video his laugh,
So for ten minutes of trying, al

criss-crossed veins for the trigger girliii.
"you're not okay."
"I'm fine."
"no, you're lying. i can tell. everyone has a trigger."
"What's mine?"
"you smile."

ix.
she's walking around in circles
and trying to pick up her broken pieces, but they're
not fitting like they used to,
something's damaged beyond repair.

v.
"Why are you doing this to yourself?"
"because i've forgotten what it feels like to heal."

viii.
she regrets not cutting deeper, when she sees the life
still running through her veins, and her parents asleep
on the hospital chairs.

ii.
she comes to school the next day with a bandaged hand
and blue eyes that seem a bit dimmer.
"i broke a mirror."
an

half-priced whoremaybe in fifty years,
she thinks,
she will stop feeling his finger-shaped bruises
on her hips and arms.
stop hearing his words—you think you can stop me, little girl?—
in every passing "are you okay?".
stop feeling the wind like a ghost of his acid breath
on the back of her neck
beautiful, beautiful, beautiful little girl.

maybe fifty thousand dove soap bars later
and too many scalding showers
and dusty baby blankets and days spent lying in bed,
looking up at the water stained ceiling,
will be enough to leave the man
on the corner of anderson street and rosa parks avenue
right where she never wanted to find him.

just ask her,

JeffreyJeffrey Williams is homophobic.
But I cannot hate him for his beliefs, like
He cannot hate me for mine,
Though I know there are some days we both want to.

But there's other reasons to hate the boy-
Hate him because once a long, long time ago
I thought I loved him.
But then we both grew up into
Real-world terms and opinions that were
Never made to fit.

So, some days I think I'm just making up for lost time.

There's this part of me that thinks he deserves
A 'Bad Poem'
Because he called me ugly all through sixth grade,
Insults my friends ("I'd like him, really Grace, I would,
But he's just so... gay.")
And expects himself to be a

Allieat the age of one, allie martin
was diagnosed with leukemia.
by three, her parents were carrying around a hairless baby,
and dreading each x they marked the calendar with.

but this is not a cancer story,
because by the age of four, she was cured
and she doesn't know why,
but she doesn't concern herself with the why.

allie martin is the best cheerleader i know,
just because she seems so happy to be up there
trying to make everyone else happy.
see, when she was in the hospital, her parents said,
she was the happiest patient there.

"alison martin?"
"it's allie, and i am here."
if there is one thing i cannot say about allie,
it is

Sydney MerrellThe first thing I ever noticed about Sydney
Was that her last name was branded on my no-laces shoe.

The second was that she was the first person my age to smile at me.

That was when we were five
And played pirate on the run down playground
Where a splinter was a death wound.
I can't make it. You'll have to go on without me.

When we were in first grade, she held a Barbie
Up to my nose, and told me,
"When I grow up, I'm going to be just like this."
Maybe I shouldn't have laughed.

I can't make it. You'll have to go on without me.
It was easier to go on without her than I originally thought.
Just ignore a few house calls, then a few

ChaseFor the third grade talent show,
Chase Tidwell dressed up as a cowboy
And preformed "YMCA" with an Indian,
Construction worker, cop, and a soldier.

In first grade, his biggest accomplishment
Was that his initials spelt out the word, "CAT",
And for the first couple of years I cannot remember a time
When I didn't have to tell my friends,
"Yes, our names rhyme. No, we're not soul mates."
He was also the first person in my grade
Who learned how to say, "Hello, my name is Chase," in Spanish.

Hola, me llamo Chase. Hola, me llamo Chase. Hola, me llamo Chase

Nine years have passed,
And not much has changed.
Chase became taller, his brai

you break it, you buy it.1. someone came up to me the other day, and told me
that if i didn't start using capital letters in my poems,
she wouldn't read any more of them.
i just told her in a quiet voice that i was tired of screaming
at people who would never listen.

the thing with me is that i always
read too much into things-
people, newspapers, fucks, metaphors.
and usually i fall in love with things that
could never love me back.

2. i destroy the things that mean
the most to me, and i've never gotten the hang
of writing in stanzas.

most days i walk around reciting numbers
and other people's poetry, but usually
i just count the seconds i spend falli

Androphobiai was stitched lips and a flightless raven heart-
all sex and a contorting spine;
his own lips engraving 'kiss me's' on empty stars.

& between you and me: i feared his teeth,
& tongue, & honest organs-
with skin that begged, 'please, don't touch me.'

don't touch me.
don't fucking touch me.

i am not soft.

there is a war raging in my lungs,
screaming through the uncharted galaxies
of my wanderlust heartstrings.

i am not soft.

i am lust, & war, & envy—

i am sin,

crooked, misshapen,
& the kind of prosetry yet to be proofrea

sometimes i feel like a superherothe house across from my bus stop
is a temporary funeral home, but back when the Yankees controlled the town,
it was owned by a family whose daughter rode bareback
twenty-seven miles in the middle of the night to warn her
rebel leader of a lover that the Yankees were coming for him,
the Yankees were coming, the Yankees were coming,
the Yankees are coming, John, get out, quick!

and maybe she tripped and fell,
or her red cape got tangled up in her stirrups and ideals,
because by the time she rode into the neighborhood,
the houses were already on fire, children were already
crying for their mothers, and her John
was already hung up

Ady{sen}Seven year old Adysen Reader
Took her mother's most fancy wine glass
And filled it with apple juice,
All the while telling me that one day,
She'd really be able to taste the stars.

"You know," she tells me, "You could jump from the
Empire State building and survive."
I tell her she's wrong, and that you'll die.
"No, no," she insists, "it's not the jump that kills you- it's the ground-
The sky just hugs you and wishes he didn't have to let go."

Ady's been able to draw since she was four,
But she hasn't been an artist till she was nine, and
Manned up enough to tell me that she really didn't
Believe in dragons, but she hopes we can

cinderella died yesterday"burn your tiaras,
bury your fairy godmother.
it's time for you to grow up now, you're
no peter pan.
forget never never land.

stars are just burning balls of gas that are
slowly running out of time- they can't
hear your wishes.

cast aside your dr. seuss books like you will
later cast aside your bibles.
after all, a fairy tale is a fairytale is a fairytale.
life will teach you that.

grace, you were born into a role
only a very strong girl can play.
see, society will hate you for being
what they don't want to believe.

surrender your throne, your castle is under siege.

stop being fascinated with the sky,
you'll never go there.

Browse More Like This

Download File
HTML, 1.7 KB more ▶

More from ~MisfitableGrae

not all humans go to heavencock it
april 23 2008
“bye mom. i love you so much, i swear
i’ll be home soon.”
“please, you’re only eighteen, you have your
whole life ahead of you, please
don’t throw it away.”
“i’m going, mom. i’m going overseas
but i swear i’ll be back before you
miss me. love you!”

aim it.
now
most nights he shakes himself awake
with the vision of bombs and fire and bullets
still imprinted on his eyelids.
he doesn’t know what to call them.
the dreams, i mean.
what do you call bad dreams when
you’ve already lived the nightmare?

his therapist says his problem
is he think

fast-forward through the goodbyesthis is the beginning of the end
“i know you,” he says.
and he looks defeated, he looks sad, he looks like
he's a boy who may one day realize how much
he cares for you, so you cut him off and say,
“minus all the secrets i don’t tell anyone.”
“well, yeah, minus those.”
“then you don’t know me at all.”

and then you tell him,
i love you. but you don’t use those words
because those are taboo. are jinxed.
are knock on wood three times fast.
instead you press him in a hug and say,
i’m sorry, knowing he won’t understand
that this is the first time you ever cared for some

count to infinity before you sleep.cause i know
there are days when
it's painful to even breathe,
your throat closing up on the knowledge
that you don't know
how much longer you'll be waiting on this
band-aided, superglued planet.

every cell in your body vying to be the next to die,
and all you have to tell them is
maybe. maybe next time.

those are the days you spend
cutting rose thorns into your palms
and clenching your fists tight around
jagged reflections and prismed rainbows.
the days you realize
we're losing so much faster than we're learning.
we're maturing faster than we're growing.
adults stuck in the bodies of kids,
moving around, making the mistake

Laurynlauryn is the best example of the reason
i like writing about people.
because i have waited too long
and now i have forgotten—
because now i do not even remember
if i spelled her name right.

lauren? laurin? lauryn?

here's the three things i remember
about the girl in the back of my spanish class
who showed up late for video rehearsals,
but pronounced español like she'd been speaking it all her life

one-
lauryn is the only person i can
remember asking me to write a poem for her.
the rest of them just sat back and thought
that eventually i would write a poem about them
that they could steal and read.
she is the only one who ha

Jacobso today, i decided i would sit down
and write a poem that wasn't about
me or you or what humans are made of (stars)
or where the birds go (north). so instead i'm going to write
a poem about a kid named jacob ragsdale.

jacob's the kind of kid who laughs
with his whole body, like his amusement
cannot be contained to just his eyes and mouth.
he's the kind of boy who threatens to push people in pools,
but never does,
and the kind who threatens to leave
but never can.

jacob has ruined so many things for me,
but i also think he's made them better,
because jacob is one of those people
who can do both at the same time.

see, i sometim

View Gallery

Featured in Groups:

#poetry-book

#Live-Love-Write
Literature Lovers

#PoetsandWriters
Authors of all things Lit.

#TheWritingObsession
You know you want to join!

#Teenage-Writers
Young Writers Unite!

#Creative-Writers

#Literary-Visions
Transforming words into worlds

#FreePoetSociety
We Are Poetry.

Show all (18)

Details

Submitted: November 25, 2012
File Size: 1.7 KB

Link

Thumb

Statistics

Comments: 39
Favourites: 185 [who?]
Views: 1,581 (0 today)
Downloads: 7 (0 today)

[x]

Audrey

by ~MisfitableGrae, Nov 25, 2012, 1:28:05 PM
Literature / Poetry / Human Nature / Free Verse

^{dear girl i sit by in english

this is for you.
this is for you because you are
the dreamer of impossible dreams, and the
doer of improbable things.

this is for you, because
you balance on two legs when your life
is spinning out of control
and poetry will always confuse you.

you love fudge brownies like you love
every single guy you like.
for so long, the only thing i knew about you
was the fact that you liked reptiles in second grade.

this is for you, because
you walk around swim meets without pants
and brush your hair in the bathroom before lunch.
you're a mess of contradictions and the most
securest insecure person i have ever met.

this is for you because
i still feel guilty about the reptile thing and
you once begged me to use the line,
"you played fruit ninja with my heart" in a love poem.

this is for you because
you told me in third grade that
grace, everyone has the thing they're best at—
ady's the artist, you're the writer, mili's the smartest.
what am i? what's my niche?

you're too observant for your own good,
and you get hurt too often for that pain to be deserved
you sing taylor swift and imagine dragons on repeat
and hate tennis.
you need contacts in only one eye and have
a scar on your arm from
an almost-cancerous end before a beginning

you played fruit ninja with my heart.

dear girl i laugh with at lunch,
this is for you.}

Audreyby ~MisfitableGrae

Literature / Poetry / Human Nature / Free Verse

_{People on Paper

dear friend,
i hope you find your niche soon, because the world needs someone like you.

i've been trying my hand at a new style, but i don't think it's as good. i was trying to describe her without using her name. but just incase she needs to know this, audrey means noble and strong. and i used to not like the name audrey but the name means what the person means and i can't dislike either one of them.}

love 3 3

joy 2 2

wow 1 1

~~mad 0 0~~

~~sad 0 0~~

~~fear 0 0~~

~~neutral 0 0~~

~rainbowdogg Dec 3, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

This is one of the sweetest adolescent love poems I've ever read. Don't stop writing.

~rainbowdogg Dec 3, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

whether it's the love of a friend or romantic love.. ; ) they aren't so different, really. either way, it's lovely.

~jplgaara Nov 30, 2012 Hobbyist Traditional Artist

Aww. you're such an amazing writer! Please keep it up!

`tiganusi Nov 27, 2012 Professional

i'd cut the last two lines, but apart from that i kind of love this.

~ichigonekogirl Nov 26, 2012

This is such a cute poem, it's very sweet

~Saphin Nov 26, 2012

I don't often favorite written work, but this was beautiful

!artgeek99 Nov 26, 2012 Hobbyist Traditional Artist

I love this! This is so beautiful and amazing. Wonderful poem. Never stop writing.

~SamuelFuery Nov 26, 2012 Student General Artist

This is sweet and unique and very well written! I like it!
(I also like it a little extra because my name is Audrey ^^)

~MaskedSunshine Nov 25, 2012 Hobbyist Photographer

This is amazing <3

=Khirate Nov 25, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

At first I wasn't so interested, but this just drew me in surprisingly....poetry's usually not my thing. It's very sweet, and I love it. Good work ^.^

More from ~MisfitableGrae

Featured in Groups:

Details

Statistics

Audrey

Audreyby ~MisfitableGrae

The Journal Portal

Polls

What is your preferred drawing software?

deviantART [dee·vee·un'nt·ART]

Keep in Touch!

Deviousness

Add Media

Style