I. THE WILD YOUTH - Ella's

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: ffffff; border: 0; padding: 10 10 10 10 px; width: 250px;]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: ffffff; border: 0; padding: 10 10 10 10 px; width: 250px;] escape artist you are elise esmérald we'll chase away tomorrow with the sound of our laughter ; sky-high stilettos to match her intentions ; silver-spoon generation ; self-deception of the finest kind ; the pattern of strobe lights imprinted in the backs of her eyelids ; restless minds to the point of chemical dependence ; contributor to the devastation of humanity and herself ; to learn the language of the flowers is to pull them up by the roots

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: ffffff; border: 0; padding: 10 10 10 10 px; width: 250px;] I. have yourself a merry little christmas II. have i told you, lately, that i love you?

1. spit it into her voicemail, a little slurred and sounding like the shot whiskey you downed for courage. feel as ashamed as you do walking into work in last night's clothes. wake up cringing for days, waiting for her to mention it.

2. sigh it into her mouth, wedged in between teeth and tongues. don't even let your lips move when you say it, ever so lightly, into the air. maybe it was just an exhalation of ecstasy.

— r. mckinley

to describe, know, memorize the human body is a feat brilliant minds have surpassed and shared from centuries ago, where you know the vertebrae from the textbook print, felt angular jaws on the palm of your hand next to a lover in bed. but to understand ourselves is another, far from to press your lips against another's skin and feel the clavicle, and rather hold ourselves in comparison: we are bodies with souls, a soul with a body, a firefly stuck humming inside a glass jar, from dawn to dusk; glowing.

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: ffffff; border: 0; padding: 10 10 10 10 px; width: 250px;]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: ffffff; border: 0; padding: 10 10 10 10 px; width: 250px;] queen of hearts you are savannah de avila self-crafted hurricane set stone in one path only ; vulnerability hidden behind shards she crushed and plucked herself ; indestructible armor made only of the blood of men ; destructive by circumstance ; mangled wings streaked with dirt ; a suicide quest for heat in a desert ; the devils have discovered white paint and discarded halos, everyday will be halloween and all you're getting is a trick

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: ffffff; border: 0; padding: 10 10 10 10 px; width: 250px;] I. i'd lie II. fall head first

IV. there is a certain kind of girl who reads lolita at fourteen and finds religion. i painted my eyes black and sucked barroom cherries to red my tongue. there was a boy who promised judas really did love jesus. i learned early every kiss and betrayal are up for interpretation.

V. i think he must have conferenced with my nightmares on exactly how to hurt me.

VI. he never broke my heart. he only turned it into a compass that always points me back to him.

— clementine von radics, in defense of loving him

i never learned how to simmer contentedly
i boil over continuously
you can touch me
i touch back.

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: ffffff; border: 0; padding: 10 10 10 10 px; width: 250px;]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: ffffff; border: 0; padding: 10 10 10 10 px; width: 250px;] wanderer you are asteria winston-lightwood the lionheart in a box ; a walking contradiction: timid yet brave, resilient but fading ; daughter of fairytales ; intelligence believed lost among stone paths and forests ; simultaneously swimming and drowning inside her own mind ; pieces of history flashing from time to time, hazy and muddled with the uncertainty it may be make-believe after all

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: ffffff; border: 0; padding: 10 10 10 10 px; width: 250px;] I. so we started again

the taste of spring lingers underneath her tongue while the year-long dust settled right under her nails. no matter how hard the orphanage keeper would scrub they wouldn't come out, and she believes it to be one of the things that will stay with her forever, the little marks that would remind her who she is no matter how many more hyphens they add to her name. the damp soil sticking at the soles of her feet and leaving themselves on the cold white marble floor of yet another home, the jars she keep things in because she didn't like how you couldn't see through boxes, the boxes she fingerpainted with her own colorful hand stamps - they had no name, she believed she'd know the outlines of her hands. that was asteria, daydreamer of the highest rank. that was aurora, fluttering eyelids and forlorn smiles, dragged from the wreckage that spared her from death.

sleep is a feathered angel
whose hands are soft and light
who kisses your forehead gently
and dissolves into the night

— d.s.

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: ffffff; border: 0; padding: 10 10 10 10 px; width: 250px;]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: ffffff; border: 0; padding: 10 10 10 10 px; width: 250px;] ophelia you are cassandra larker when night comes ; threw herself to the wind and caution around her ; hiding behind a mask of wonderous indifference l haunted ; tree-climber ; especially skilled in the art of stuffing her ache with fairytales and nature dances until it overflows and the never-ending cycle of superficial happiness and suffocating sadness consumes her ; a coward once the rain pours

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: ffffff; border: 0; padding: 10 10 10 10 px; width: 250px;] I. first snowflake II. a sun came

there’s a boy in my class, says my drawings look real-life and nice, tells me i’m pretty. he tells me to try and smile, but i tell him i’ve forgotten. he said to push away the bad things, the ones that make you cry, and throw them in the back of your mind. think of the good stuff, the things you love, he said, and so i did. i thought of how the sky looked like when the stars are coming out, running as fast as the wind, chasing butterflies through the fields, the grass tickling my feet, and the sun on my skin. it worked, and i thanked him, and i wrote them down on my palms so i’ll remember them better; sad and cruel things tend to get heavy that my back hunches over and my face can’t stop looking down on the ground to look for the footprints of my mother, but at least this way it takes only a swivel of my hand to try and pull up the corners of my lips. he told me that’s better, and that i’m pretty and he loves me. do i love him back? i told him i’m sorry, love’s not made for me. i’ve seen what love looks like and it walks hand in hand with death.

there’s a curiosity in you that will move mountains some day
as effortlessly as you’ve moved me for years.

— mlcli, don't fall in love with a curious one