Right Here, Right Now

Right Here, Right Now

TW: mentions of suicide, self harm

What if, right here, right now, 

I just jumped from off this roof? 

What if, right here, right now, 

I took this gun?—for no one’s bulletproof. 

What if, right here, right now, 

I took this rope and let me swing? 

What if, right here, right now, 

I took those pills? These tiny things? 

Coward, you screamed—coward, coward

Never did anything right

Always failed, always disappointed

So what if I gave into the night? 

What if, right here, right now, 

I took this knife, right at that vein 

Slashed ‘til I found blood and bone

And let thick crimson liquid rain? 

So slit my throat. Slit my arms. 

Slice this traitorous heart of mine. 

Carve these words into my chest. 

Smile and say that everything’s fine. 

Cut these thoughts. Cut these hands. 

Cut the voices inside my head. 

Ignorance is bliss—and so’s oblivion

‘Cause nothing can hurt me if I’m dead. 

little white lies

Sometimes I wonder if I’m an awful person

No—I am an awful person; I

Tell myself I’m an awful person—my

Parents tell me I’m an awful person 

My friends tell me to get therapy, but

Everybody around away from me—I

Draw in those around me, then

Burn bridges—I need therapy

Lie, lie, lie; just a white lie 

I’m digging myself deeper and deeper 

Lie, lie, lie; oops, another lie

Why does everybody think the best about me? 

Play dumb, sweet smile, sugared compliments

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it

So bad everybody thinks I’m good

A masquerade, this charade just keeps going

Let’s play a game, just you and me

Let’s see which fake personality

I’ve chosen to paint myself

Which one is it gonna be?

Lie, lie, lie; just a white lie

I’m trapped in this web I can’t defeat

Lie, lie, lie; oops, another lie

I keep spinning these threads of deceit

Caught in this carousel of illusion—I’m 

Suffocating in delusion—I

Crave the taste of authenticity—but

Truth’s a double edged sword, you see

My world’s unraveling, catastrophe 

Unraveling just like my sanity

Looked into a mirror that fed my vanity

But guess that now that’s gone to insanity

incomplete

Last night, I ate a grapefruit and it 

Tasted like you—bittersweet; 

Cut it in half, let one decay 

Let the other half be incomplete. 

“keep going,” they say, “time will heal,” 

put emotions away to the highest shelf 

and I guess it’s worked for me 

if the point was to lose myself. 

and now it feels like nothing is complete 

not the grapefruit I can no longer find

not your last wish, uttered in final sighs

and certainly not the living you left behind. 

Oh, darling—

You have been hurting 

For a very long time. 

I am sorry that you have spent your life

Saying “I’m sorry” for others

I’m sorry you’ve spent your life 

Feeling like you need to be more palatable

To be perfect for others 

Because you can’t be perfect for yourself.

Because you don’t want to be a waste of space

Because to be unproductive is to be useless

Oh, darling—

You have been hurting 

For a very long time

Haven’t you? 

You want to hold the world because it is beautiful

But you are too loud, too demanding, too much. 

they try to drown you because you are beautiful

For living unapologetically. 

Oh, darling—

You do not need to be less loud 

Less hopeful

Less perfect. 

You have been grieving the loss 

of the beautiful world

Because they have tried to drown you. 

Oh, darling—

You are not too much

But just enough.

Because you’re beautiful for living as you are

And perfect for loving the world as you do.

You have been hurting 

for a very long time

You have so much love to give—

So let others love you too. 

You have always

Been good enough. 

coffee and roses

It’s the way your name tastes like

coffee beans and rose petals. 

How your golden hoops, 

Glittering like precious metals, 

Swing with their embedded rhinestones. 

It’s the way you run your tongue 

over your teeth and bite your lip. 

How you prove my arguments wrong, 

But with a playful quip 

As if you don’t know the warm glow in my chest.

It’s the way you invited me to 

That coffee date and we took 

Pictures like a real couple. 

How we folded stars with their colorful look

With those strips of colored paper. 

It’s the way you gifted me 

That jar with our paper stars.  

How the jar’s glass refracts the sun 

And scatters the light across my room 

In dappled spots like komorebi. 

It’s the way I felt when you

Told me I tasted of the 

Lip gloss you wear

How I felt when you said that 

I tasted of your lips. 

It’s the way you hold my heart 

Cradle it oh so gently 

In your hands as if you don’t 

Have the power to crush it 

Into a million tiny pieces. 

It’s the way I know that 

Even if my name on your lips 

Tastes of ecstasy 

You will be

The death of me

fragments

I see you in fragments first, 

like the broken shards of an 

ancient mirror; the crinkle of

your eyes when you smile at me 

In its delicate elegance of 

hesitant joy. 

Then I see you, the whole of you; 

Like the pieces have been 

Rearranged, not a mirror but 

A painting that reveals your

beauty in your actions and

your words. 

How rarely we perceive our true 

worth in others' eyes--the light we 

carry without ever trying. You 

Look at your reflection and do 

Not see the beautiful being 

Whom I love. 

You’ve cut yourself on the shards

Of those you’ve tried to heal, 

Because they did not want 

Your quiet kindness. Yet 

You still dare to love with your

Entire being. 

Perhaps that is what I see in you—

A heart that longs to heal

The broken parts of the world

Faltering, cautious, yet despite 

Its stumbling, perfect in

Every way. 

So every day I choose this

To love you, to cradle every 

Delicate piece, to love you

Not despite your “brokenness” 

But because of every part that

Makes you.