I am hidden in the lines of my poems

Read them deeply, frequently, and you will learn more about me than you ever will want to

It is through writing these words I learn the most about myself

You watch me share my metaphors, describe the colors and the light of the fireworks exploding in the sky

If you read closely, I’m the firework, and the metaphor is teaching me how to explode gracefully

Since I can’t bottle up my emotions in glass jars and set them on the shelf to ferment or disappear

I make them physical by spilling ink on paper

Set me in a glass jar and I become a myriad of fireflies bouncing too and fro, light radiating everywhere, about to burst in all directions

Perhaps the world is too used to darkness to handle all that intense light

No one will want to hold me if I blind them

Making feelings physical doesn’t make them disappear completely

You may think I’m getting better through writing about him and the world and my self-destruction

But writing it all down just makes it more real

Sharing my world on paper gives me a sense of being and belonging

Someone else, maybe even him, will see that

I’m bent and I’m broken

But oh am I trying to heal

There is a world to see of me if you just skim the surface

Even more if you peel back all the layers

Brace yourself through the pain of reading the words of sufferings and desires and lost loves

And find yourself a young girl just trying to make sense of the world

Writing poetry has taught me to package words to ship out to the world

But also to uncover the little girl dwelling deep beneath the surface of my skin

Trying so hard to breath behind all the layers of self hate

If you put some of the layers on paper

She might be free

If you read my words

You might free me