speak now or forever hold your peace

if you don't say it now, they wont hear you

they've got things to do and places to be and they've never needed your hand in theirs

you're just a person

a person who doesn't have a place to be or a thing to do

you spend so much damn time following other people that you don't even know why you carry around maps

but somewhere near the end of may you'll be alone without a footstep to follow and you'll be thankful for the maps in your hand

you drew them for 12 years because they told you to and the early ones are covered in crayon and the more recent ones are done in black ink

you'll need all of them combined to get you anywhere

and at some point you'll look up from the maps you drew and realize the world isn't as flat as it looks on paper and people aren't as mean as they seem in movies and someone's gonna love you in a way that Nicholas Sparks could never tell in 300 pages

but you won't see it unless you look up

and they won't hear what you have to say unless you speak up

fire insurance not included

I could write a novel about the reason that goodbye was the wrong choice

But I get it

I knew that sparks weren't enough to keep the fire lit

We needed lighter fluid or flint and steel or just a better stack of firewood

BUT I WASN'T PAYING ATTENTION WHEN WE BUILT FIRES AT GIRLS CAMP

I think I was in my cabin screaming because there was a mouse

But shouldn't boys have an innate ability to build fires?

I guess if my plan was to leave it to you then I have no chance at staying warm through the night

Because you weren't prepared, boyscout, and you let me down

But I get it

I knew that learning how to be happy on my own would be good for me and I've proved myself right this time

I'll go back to life without you and I'll forget about the fire you started in my fingertips

It singed my hair and the smell made me sick but I forgot because your eyes were a perfect shade of blue 

The kind of blue that reminds me of Mondays in June

The kind that meant sunburns and open windows in the nighttime and dropped snowcones left to melt

Your smell worked it's way through the fibers of my clothes and it's gonna take more than a rinse cycle to get rid of it

And you smell like campfire and disappointment and every shooting star that just turned out to be a cruel piece of burning rock for little girls to waste their breath on at night

And this time I was a little girl with the naive notion that wishes on stars actually make it past the panes of my window

I just don't remember wishing for blue eyes to break my heart

It's time

I guess it's time.

I've hidden behind a dark silhouette for long enough.
A silhouette of a girl with a much better nose than me and I realize it's stupid, but I resent it.

And I hate goodbyes.
but this won't be one
because I'm not interested in doing things I don't like if I don't have to.

I'll be honest and say that before this year, writing wasn't my escape, but rather my prison.
And my only inspiration came from old, dusty books from the history section of the library because I was never inspired to write, I just needed an A.

So thank you, Nelson.
You showed me a Paris filled with laughter ending in tears, late nights filled with words that only ever made it to the drafts file, and a place that I never want to leave.

So I'm not leaving.

I'll stay here with my trust issues that stemmed from daddy issues, random music taste that ranges from hard core rap that swears every other word to country (why do people hate on country?), obnoxious laugh that seems to present itself in the most inappropriate of times, and my strange personality that usually sends boys running for the hills. (And I've never been much of a runner so I never chase after them.)

Here's to the first semester of my last year of high school.

Actually, here's to creative writing for showing me more of myself than a close-up mirror ever could.

Thanks for coming on this ride of self-discovery.

A ride that ended in Paris.

xoxo

Emma Fruehan

tear-stained memories

I remember the address of my last house

the phone number

the neighbors

the way I loved the smell of the new carpet in the basement

the day my dad moved out

crying when my mom took the paintings off the walls

not getting to say goodbye to a ten year chapter of my life

I remember breaking into tears as I walked to his car

how I was all ready to go

how I told him I just couldn't do it

not being ready to face it

I remember how embarrassed I was of that car

looking away as I passed people I knew while driving it

the way the driver side window wouldn't roll back up

the musty smell of the twenty two year old carpet

the chipped paint

the rust

the dents

how I called it Phyllis

crying when I had to say goodbye to it

I remember October 8th

hugging you tighter than I ever have

wishing we had more time

resenting Salt Lake City airport for every goodbye

I remember to count the tears

because I'll give them to someone one day

in the form of my heart

Time bomb

It's never too late to experience who we are

But we're running out of time

Even never has its limits

This is for you

this is for the poets who speak more truth than pastors 

and the kids who go home for lunch because no one sees them

for the girls basing their self worth on instagram comments

and the boys that don't feel

this is for the mothers who sit up worrying all night

and the fathers who sleep soundly right beside them

the sons who will never live up to their parents expectations

and the daughters who don't even love themselves

this is for the lovers who wait until 2 am 

and the dreamers that sleep all day and paint pictures every night that no one will ever see

the stoners that hit rock bottom months ago but were too high to feel it

and the loners that don't know what it's like to have warm hands

this is for you

this is for every time you've felt useless

hopeless

worthless

this is to tell you've i've been there

i've sat on that same spot on the bathroom floor and thank goodness it was tile or else my tears would have stained it

i've looked in mirrors covered in hate

and stared at the ceiling trying to remember how to smile

i've been there

so this is to remind you that every bad day is just as long as the rest of them

that scar tissue is stronger than what was there before

and you'll be okay

you'll be okay

Dull knives

You don't have to lie and say you like it to save my feelings because all I ever asked for was the kind of brutal honesty that changes the filter on my pupils and makes the whites of my eyes sting the way they did when I got pink eye in the third grade.

But you're afraid to write down how you feel because maybe then I'll hold you accountable for the words shaped like dull kitchen knives that were aimed at my murmuring heart.

Your tongue is tattooed with the lies you tell yourself and I've never liked the taste of ink.

Ink is meant for paper and lies are meant to be whispered into pierced ears that don't know any better.

So here I am, sitting in an empty hall begging the swelling in my eyes to go down and the saltwater on my favorite t-shirt to dry before the bell rings and releases 2000 faces I've never cared about.

Because you were always the one I looked for in the crowd.

But you weren't like them. 

You had color in your cheeks and a reason. 

You didn't care that no one cared as long as I did and I told you I'd never stop.

But your cheeks are just as cold as the rest of them and that fire behind your words went out with that chilly November wind.

So here's to painting with the grain and moving with the masses because originality died with you.

And it didn't leave a legacy.