Status Updates From [redacted]

Stupid

will not disclose what book im actually reading sorry

ALL OF MY FAV POEMS FROM THIS COLLECTION ARE SAVED ON MY PROGRESS NOTES.

From RECLAIMING THE PEACH:

All that wanting,
all that aching,
all that capacity for love:

it never belonged to you in the first place.

What did you do today?
Existed quietly within myself.
What will you do tomorrow?
Exist with some degree of force.

From ON MASTURBATING WHILE THINKING ABOUT PEOPLE WHO DON’T LOVE YOU ANYMORE:

/ talk about wanting death from a soft thing /

From AN ADMISSION, LATE AND VIA TEXT MESSAGE pt. 2:

I’m so sick of reducing lovers to lessons.

How to let go. How to stay. How to ask for what the heart wants.

From THE YEAR OF SMOOTH DISHONESTY:

The year you lived off of love but didn’t live in it,
the year loneliness permeated everything and you didn’t open your mouth to tell anyone, because how could they

not know?

From THE YEAR OF SMOOTH DISHONESTY:

The year you wrote about flowers and meant blood,
the year you were quiet about everything that hurt.

The string of apartments with bad roommates, the suitcase always packed on the bedroom floor, all that love you kept talking about but didn’t want to fight for

From 24 & 25 HAVE A CONVERSATION:

loving people without needing to reduce them to metaphors.

From A BRIEF INTERLUDE:

Still, I spread my heart thin like butter on toast, hoping someone else will come along and snatch it off my plate. Still, I stumble half-dressed out of other people’s apartments and treat myself to coffee on the way home.

So the boy you saved for later like an after dinner mint goes and gets himself married and you’re left with nothing but spare change in your pocket it’s not even enough for a bus ride home

From A FEW OF MY GLARING CHARACTER FLAWS LAID OUT IN THIRD PERSON JUST FOR KICKS:

The poet worries about the rent just like everyone else does, but she tries to make it poetic because she wants people to listen. The poet has no idea what she’ll do when people stop listening.

From A FEW OF MY GLARING CHARACTER FLAWS LAID OUT IN THIRD PERSON JUST FOR KICKS:

The poet lusts after emotionally unavailable people because she doesn’t have to worry about commitment. The poet desperately wants commitment. The poet is desperate for acknowledgement and intimacy.

From A FEW OF MY GLARING CHARACTER FLAWS LAID OUT IN THIRD PERSON JUST FOR KICKS:

The poet is afraid to make any place feel too much like home because then she might have to stop running.

—

The poet emotionally tortures herself for art. The poet emotionally tortures other people for art.

he is more dream than boy, so
I’m not sleeping very well.

From IMPERFECT POEM IN WHICH I BERATE MY BODY:

who gave you
all this permission
to want?

From THE LAST PERSON WHO BROKE MY HEART CONSOLES ME WITH A POEM pt. 1:

You don’t have to pretend anymore. It’s okay. You put on a very brave face but we both know that wanting me scared the shit out of you. It’s okay to feel relieved that we didn’t work out. It’s okay to cry because we didn’t work out and still feel relieved.

From ON WRITING LOVE POEMS ABOUT MULTIPLE PEOPLE AND SHARING THEM ON THE INTERNET, WHERE THEY ARE INEVITABLY FOUND BY EVERYONE I DATE:

the quantity of poetry doesn’t measure the love, just the hurt.

From WHEN THE BOY WHO SEXUALLY ASSAULTED ME TEXTS ME POLITELY TO LET ME KNOW HE’S BEEN READING MY POETRY:

I want to know if he sees himself reflected back in every poem about someone touching me with violence. If he can pick his hands out of the lineup. If he recognizes his own scent on the words.

—

I want to know if he’ll keep reading when the poems get less ambiguous.

From WHEN THE BOY WHO SEXUALLY ASSAULTED ME TEXTS ME POLITELY TO LET ME KNOW HE’S BEEN READING MY POETRY:

I want to know which pieces he’s read. If he tries to sort through the love poems looking for his. If he skips the ones about men who have hurt me.