day 197

"In love, the one who runs away is the winner." Henri Matisse

manic pixie girl/5
One time I ran by the river alone with my eyes closed. It was early winter and the tree trunks were starting to slump with frozen roots. The wind howled. I forgot to wear a hat. I still ran. I remember the wind seeping into my lungs and numbing my insides. It is a feeling I've yet to forget. I compare it to every time I've had my heart broken. Or every time I wake up not loving what I do. The mornings I hate where I am and the nights I run scenarios through my mind with my eyes closed. I like to think of my past lovers as ghosts. They all haunt me. I am reminded of anyone through limp limbs and half smiles. They all call me beautiful or exciting and I hate that. So I run. I've grown to hate being such an object. You can hold me in the palm of your hands and kiss the side of my face with a choir of singing angels. I've always been fascinated with Sirens. There must be a reason behind it.

day 196

manic pixie girl/4

When your boss finds out that you're a part time heartbreaker, you laugh. You spend an hour trying to convince him that you have no idea what he's talking about. That the ache in your chest and the sickness in your stomach is just your body's way of getting rid of the evidence. I've learned how to play the game and I've been playing it well. My excuse is that it happened to me. It will happen to everyone eventually. Some days I think I am just here to show people there is danger lurking to hurt your insides. Those days when you feel so high and wake up the next day as a stranger. I come quickly and leave quietly.

day 195

"Crying to crawl"

I fear that I'm getting nowhere. On the days I am able to lay in bed in my underwear and listen to silence, I stare at the ceiling as my silhouette watches me wander. Wondering if the other part of me is judging me. Watching and waiting for me to move over, start over, get up and make it. It is becoming so difficult to wholeheartedly believe in myself. I convince myself that I do. It is still one of those days today.

day 194

It still feels like late Autumn and early Winter every time I see you. There is no other way to describe how cold we've grown. I haven't learned yet to forget about you. Or forgive you. Or even bother talking to you about how numb you've made me. It is a bone chilling regret whenever your arms wrap around me. Or even when you lay your eyes on me. I hate having to pretend everything is okay. It never was, it hasn't gotten any better, and I don't know how to change that. I always find ways to erase you and try to forget about you, but  you find your way back in. It makes me question if I really want you gone. I just know that we never loved because you didn't want to. I've learned to be stronger than to let someone love me halfheartedly. But sometimes I don't know why you have this kind of spell on me. I still fear speaking to you. It still hurts.

day 193

You are not God.

day 192

Today in English Comp, we talked about how 60% of the surveyed 138 female Yale undergrads intended to stop working completely after having children.

My professor asked me why I thought this was an insane concept. Growing up with a full time working single mother has so much to do with the way I carry myself. I've surrounded myself with empowering working women and artists my whole entire life and it's definitely instilled a certain drive in me. I definitely will be a working woman for the rest of my life. I mean, someone has to change the world.

day 191

I was so convinced that I've been an introvert for the majority of my teenage life, but really, I've just been with the wrong people. When holding hands with good friends, my heart is at home. It stretches and places arms on shoulders like father daughter dances. In a good friend's eyes, I see growth and what I can become. I have spent so much time trying to fit in with people I don't even like. I don't know why part of me used to feel like it was so important. Maybe I'm finally growing up. Maybe I am trying to replace bad with good and old with home.

day 190

"Princess,
where do you get your bravery?"

I respond, without thought,
"with practice."

How many times have I gotten in front of strangers with my soul in one hand and a heart gently screaming in the other? I don't keep count anymore. On the days when I am most vulnerable, the number scares me. It is like giving your body to a lover who doesn't know  your name. They end up knowing your story. Parts of it at least. They figure out why you stand a certain way. Or why you talk like this. Or why you are so distant. Most days I've grown accustomed to giving myself away. There are the benefits. I am becoming best friends with strength. Practice.

day 189

The journey to become the best I can be has begun within a spiral of unwritten notebooks and lunches with old friends. I've learned the key to enjoying what I do is to continue to strive. My bones are thick with blood and passion and I prick my fingers every once in awhile with the help of stars. Some nights I sleep easy. Some nights I don't sleep at all, afraid of missing an opportunity. I am falling in love. With myself. With what I do and what I stand for and the effect I can have on other people. This is what I've been waiting for.

day 188

these are the thoughts that keep me up at night:

My phase of wanting to break hearts and being crazy young was short lived. I just want a genuine friend. That may happen to be a guy. It gets exhausting after awhile of waking up next to the wrong person. I don't want you to think about the curves of my legs and especially the bruises on my rib cages. I wear armor to keep you all away and it's the peace of mind I need.

The neighbors come home from a night of drinking. Their car pulls up to the curb. You hear them giggle as the snow crunches under their feet. It's always winter somewhere. It must feel amazing to feel so warm in the freezing cold. I want to find this one day. But not with anyone. I yawn. I exhaust myself with thoughts of wanting to grow with other people. I need to be alone quite often and for long periods of time. I don't want to force myself out of it and I don't understand why boys feel the need to save me.

My mother wakes up at five in the morning. She gets up light and willingly and she sings good morning to my dog. I think about it as I'm laying in bed. I've given enough people the time of day to fuel a broadway show. No one ever sings me to sleep. Or to wake me up. Or to keep me dreaming.

I wonder how it feels to use someone for sex.

day 187

You were never an almost lover. I would not allow you to be. I hear you toss around the word "care" and I watch you stumble over your words. You hold rib cages close and pretend to call it home. You touch the small grooves on my skin and close your eyes. Never dreaming. You were never an almost lover because you never wanted to be. Please refrain from thinking of me. You only see me as skin and leg and a lack of commitment. Please stop blaming me. Please just stop stooping so low. There is only so much a person can take and my skin has become a ghost tracing its finger across your face. You don't feel the cold. There is no change in temperature.

day 186

reevaluating my goals and purposes
I.

I am making things easier for myself for the first time in my life. One day, I'll run away. For now I have to dream. It's becoming unbearable. Everything is so cold and mean. I am becoming slightly indifferent and a whole lot numb. I am done with being anxious. It makes my bones brittle and my toes frozen. I hear what you think is funny and it puts my stomach into knots. You're not different. Your bones can break just as easily.

day 185

I don't think I have reached the top of my potential yet. There are way too many stories I'd like to tell and far too many hearts I'd like to learn. I think about you in the daytime and I call it home. This is the difference between me being naive and me wanting better for myself. I am not too quick to talk about love anymore. Slowly teaching myself to love thyself first and foremost and learning what makes my heart happy. Learning where the lines on my palms are going. I am not playing fortune teller, more like dream chaser. I am dream catcher of my own soul.

day 184

I've given up a lot to get where I am today. I don't hate myself for it, I don't hate him for it, I am just slowly letting go. It's hard to wake up everyday hating where you see the sun. I get exhausted of hearing, "you could be on this side of the sunrise." Keyword could, bring in the should have and would have and maybe this can be you, but you lack the passion. You lack the strength. I open my eyes and I see. I actually make time to see.

day 183

(half birthday) / open letter to Sheila

I got a letter from my team mate, Jubilee. She's back home in Toronto and lately I've been wondering where I'm going with my life. What am I doing? Why? How is all of this going to get me where I want to be? Most importantly, WHERE do I want to be? Am I happy?

This may sound silly, but today is my half birthday. I started this poetry project on my nineteenth birthday. It is my second project and it has become much more successful than my first one, marsspeaks365.blogspot.com. I was 17, lost, found, in love, broken, happy, and adventurous. I lived in the moment. Today I am nineteen and a half and half way through this new journey. It's safe to say that I am still lost, found, in love, broken, happy, and adventurous. I still live in the moment.

So hi. I'm Princess Chan, also known by my stage names "P" or "Little Mars", and I am a youth poet based in Lowell, Massachusetts. I live my life through my poetry and I live it very shyly and secretly. Most people don't understand what I do or that I even write. I am a graphic design student at a local community college and I work a part time barista job just to get by. I have short hair and often times I get charcoal on my face after art class and no one ever tells me. I used to think I live with my heart on my sleeve, but my heart is hovering over the subway stations and cold park benches in Toronto. I'm not sure if I like the cold, but it is definitely something I've taught my body to remember. I dropped out of my first semester of college because the boys in my sociology class think rape is by choice. I was molested by a family friend when I was eleven. I didn't tell my older sister about it until she told me she was attacked when I was 17. I talk about sex openly and freely because I've gotten used to the idea of it. I haven't really loved anyone or been in love for a really long time. The boy who I thought was the love of my life kept me around because I was strong enough to save the both of us. I left because I was empty and hollow and I needed saving, too. I still need saving. I don't pray but I believe in signs and talking to God intentionally when I don't want to talk to anyone else. I talk humorously and sweetly and I like to play the manic pixie girl character. I am growing cold hearted and it makes me a bit afraid. Maybe I just don't want to accept reality and how cold most people are. Maybe I am just so annoyed and exhausted of trying to find the good in people. Maybe this is what makes me different from other people, but we all just want to be different in some way and some excuse. I have a bad habit of finding excuses for everything, but I am very responsible. I've learned that I break down walls to fix hearts and I end up breaking hearts and building up walls. I am not sure who I am today, but I am not who I was half a year ago. I do believe that I am happy, though. It's a bittersweet, taking the scenic route today because I don't want to pray, kind of happy. It leaves me empty at night sometimes, not too often, so I don't worry. I am slowly accepting that I am human. I just want to be where my body aches to be and where my legs and heart have taught themselves to skip.

day 182

manic pixie girl /3

i wish that you would realize how fast and hard we all fall. I toss around the word "love" like ticking time bombs and i wait for you to explode. i know we will hold hands, maybe kiss, and maybe even talk about children. at the end of the night, i am my own warmth. i have grown in love with the idea of being in love and i don't think i will ever fall as deep and as fast as i have before. i don't even think that i want to. these are the thoughts that haunt the walls and rooftops. i lay around and wait for something to happen. it is boring, like hearing "i love you, too" or opening Christmas gifts at midnight. i don't lose sleep over it. i used to cry over lovers like spilled milk and rotten tv dinners. all of which remind me of a home and a husband and a couple of arms intertwined into one rope. i will try to hold on until i want to drown. this is often. i convince myself that i do not need saving or breaking or fixing or piecing back together after imploding. i hold you and all of your thoughts along your veins and they pop. one by one. i have no intentions of putting you back together.
i've tried to save someone once. he didn't realize it until i needed saving. and i left. broken. both of us. i try to find his arms in other people with different brains and laughs. the giggle of a future and the breath of an effort. i wish that you would realize how fast and hard we all fall. I toss around the word "love" like ticking time bombs and i wait for you to explode. i know i will leave you to drown. i wonder if you will leave, too.

day 181

I write poems for you because I know you will never read them. At times, I have completely convinced myself that you are just a thought. I do not know how heavy your breath is while you are asleep anymore nor do I know what you dream of. These things separate us from being in love and in hate. I wonder if you've ever learned to sleep in the dirt. I have been dragged around and the dirt under my fingernails have become second nature. There are scars along the lines on my palms that keep telling me it will get better. And that I will forget. And that I will someday forgive. As long as I keep writing, the dirt soaks into my skin and it poisons my blood. I do not know who I write these poems for anymore. I have let myself become one with the dirt for so long that all the dirt is the same.

day 180

I used to have such big dreams and I dreamed of growing hands until my fingertips learned to kiss them all. I kept them all far away and out of reach so I would never have to stop thinking. I will call this lazy, or I will wish I just didn't want to say goodbye. There is a reason behind all the madness. There are clouds ready to be shaped into mirrors, beds, and futures. I keep you distant. I keep you all distant. I don't know what I want, where I want to be, or any of that. I just have an idea that I prolong and stretch. If the bond is meant to last, it will not shatter. This has become my peace of mind for the past year.

day 179

My mother invited me to my molester's wedding.

(I just replied,
"No, it's okay. I don't really like him.")

There are so many things I'd like to say,
but I can't bring myself to write poems about it yet.
Maybe never.
I am losing strength with brittle bones
and a shotgun wedding.
Why do people do things like this?

Why do I live in a world where I've grown to be afraid of telling the truth?

day 178

(Tuesday)

I had a dream that you wrote me a letter and I instantly missed your hands. Some days I wish you could just hold me. Just physically. All muscle and stretch, I miss the way you curve your arms around my body. I miss you.

day 177

We woke up together and I still remember his name. We watch the same sun set and the same moon pull our tides together. I have learned how to swim on my own. I have learned how to drown countless times and I still haven't grown accustomed to the salt in my eyes. Maybe there is still a lot for me to learn. Like how to not break hearts that aren't whole or even how to not piece back together hearts that I didn't need to break. I learn by pricking my fingers along your neck. There is a sweet warmth oozing from you when you are broken and I do not want to swim in it. I can't swim in it. I drown. The tides still don't know how to perfect their timing. We watch the same sun set. Sometimes we can't see the moon.

day 176

(Sunday)

Manic pixie girl /2

I watch you grow and then I leave. I will always be the girl you want and the girl you don't. I am old wine vineyards and broken brick paths. The difference between falling in love and enjoying the scenery. You are right for me, but I carry chains around my ankles like prisoners of war and I fight this love until I don't remember names. Until I don't remember how your arms feel, how kissing feels, what you like to smile at, what makes your blood boil. I am here to show you how angry you may get. How lost you have been. I love you when you are broken and I will save you. After this is all done, I wonder if you realize how lost I really am. We are both arms length away from together. This is still too far for me.

day 175

post break up: the first month

I don't want to write about you anymore. But you show up at the end of my fingertips and ruin everything like broken circuits during your favorite tv show. I am drunk after being sober for months. I have tried to wash the bad taste out of my mouth with new friends, a new city, and laughter. I have a problem where I run away from lost loves into the arms of a new surrounding. I don't think I will ever forgive myself for this. At times I am often disappointed in myself. They tell me I am a good girl. I love with passion, it shines through my skin. They tell me one day I will find the one for me. I don't think there is anyone out there for me. I don't think I deserve it.

day 174

manic pixie girl/ 1


If you give me too much time to think, I start to question my intentions. I swear I am in love too often and too hard. I have loved like vacation, honeymoon, like soft sea breeze on sea shores and the quiet rustling of dancing trees. I love like Cupid, vicariously through love movies and two strangers I believe should be together. I lay awake at night and question where I will be in five years. Married? Single? Children? The dreamer in me lays awake when I don't have anyone to say I love you to. But the dreamer in me just wants to dream. I want to love like vacation, alone sometimes. The most unfamiliar places to me have been traveled alone. I don't think I will ever be able to share such a bond with anyone else.

day 173

(Thursday)

Part one:

We seem to find the peace we all are looking for by accident. I had grown accustomed to settling and forgetting about the true definition of peace. Peace is loving your self, soul and body, figuring out what makes your legs sore and who helps the stars and the sky in your being grow. You are glowing some days. Some days you are still lost. This is okay. I've learned we spend more time soul searching instead of being comfortable in our own souls. I rest my head on too many shoulders and secretly whisper I love you. This is something I am deciding to either grow to love, or grow out of.

day 172

I am realizing that I wanted to stay in love for the wrong reasons. I wanted to hold a hand in grocery stores, walk patiently, and talk effortlessly. What I realized I had been doing for a year was holding a hand for dear life. Hoping I would be found. Rushing in aisles I wasn't ready to walk in, walking quick and hoping to not be noticed. My words were meaningful but I spoke with the intent to stay in love. To keep everything broken together without cutting myself. How often had I found myself lost while looking into his soul? He is not my iron wine or the drunken escape I need. He is drunk, I am wine and I was waiting for him to sober up. Why I write about him still fascinates me. I sneak around social networks and erase text messages like high school parties, drunk. I block and unblock, but I am found... I am not sure why I want to be lost so I can be found in his eyes anymore.

day 171

At times I am not sure if my palms are ready to tell a crowd the truth. I don't share to sway them and make the puppets dance. The lines in our palms tell a story or two and I show them without hesitation. I am saying that I fear the same things as you and everyone else. Why I share will be beyond me. Maybe it is the difference between a soul being broken and me being saved.

day 170

A response to those who lack compassion
---

When I was 6
they told me I could be anything my heart desires
Maybe a doctor, or a lawyer,
or even a dancer if I really wanted
they told me if I worked hard enough
I could change the world
If I believed in my dreams
I could help others fall asleep soundly
in homes with white picket fences
two small dogs
a lover
and beautiful babies

When I turned 19
they asked me why I want to write
and why I want to write so often
and how much money I would make

When I was 11
I never asked why I was molested
Why I knew what rape was at age 13
Why the sound of a scream being muffled is always overlooked
So when I turned 16
the ignorant boys always asked me why I never wanted to hear rape jokes
They asked me when I would get a sense of humor
Joked around, "maybe it would grow into me like puberty"

When I turned 18
they asked me why my poetry turned so sad
They never asked me how 7 years of hating your body affects your soul
How less womanly I felt growing up
They asked me why I write so deep
like I hold all my secrets in the palm of my hands
and bite my tongue like it was muscle memory
I do not want to remember the first time I felt dirty
They never ask me why I wash my hands twice
or lock both doors once I get home
I still fear walking alone in the daytime but I do it anyway
and I refuse to take self defense classes because I still refuse to accept my defeat

We all grow up knowing we could be anything our little hearts desire
Maybe a doctor, or a lawyer,
or even a dancer if you really wanted
When I was 10
I grew up wanting to be a veterinarian
When I was 15
an engineer
When I turned 19
I decided to be a writer
I will never find a cure for rape, disrespect, or the cold hearted
There will never be enough humor in me to make my body feel more womanly
I will never stop being afraid of holding such big secrets

I still wish my body would forget how to bite my tongue
I dropped out of my first semester of college because the boys in my sociology class think rape is by choice

We do not grow up knowing we could be rape victims
or failed suicide attempts
When I was 12
my art teacher told me I had the hands of Michelangelo
She told me to sculpt the world however my heart desires
I asked her how to mold an angel
untouched and young
without the wings
When I was 14
No one asked me why I wanted to fly so bad
When I was 17
I realized I had asked my art teacher to save me

I am 19
I decided to be a writer to sculpt the minds of women with dreams to help them fall asleep soundly in homes with white picket fences
two small dogs
a lover
and beautiful babies
You see,
when I was 5
this was the dream for every child stuck in a grown up body
After trapping a woman into my 11 year old body for so long,
it is the only safety I've trained my muscle memory to keep

day 169

Learning military time to spend time with your boyfriend

1
I've learned phrases that make me happy
like liberty
or civilian
or I get to use my phone
I have wifi there
I will call you at 2000
at 1700

2 I've learned phrases that make my heart sink
like fire watch
guard duty
No I cannot use my phone
I miss you
You are the most beautiful

3 going to the mall is torturous
and so is eating lunch alone
At times I will share the elevator with other military men
I pretend they are you
I forget how little I am in your hands
I melt

4
Feeling small has become empowering
I am no longer overwhelmed by the truth of my size
I like to be tiny
He is the bigger person for the both of us
I've learned phrases that make me numb
like I can't wait to see you
I hope your day is wonderful
Good night to the most beautiful girl I know
One day I will marry you

(5 one day I just may marry you.)

day 168

the transition
***

Today I had a two hour conversation with my mother. We spoke about open hearts, forgiveness, and letting go. I am still shocked that my mother speaks of open hearts so close to home. I've never felt the poetry in my blood until today. This strengthens the days my bones become brittle with a soft void.

**
I've been fortunate to talk to my boyfriend everyday. The calls are getting shorter and the days will feel longer. Daylight savings is in a week. I am excited to watch the sun wake up. His heart is warm and his love is Spring. I am afraid of summer romance and we don't love like that. It's what I need. I am growing out of spending my passion on making a love work and Jim loves me like a sea breeze and the soft breathing on your lover's neck.

day 167

The invariable mark of a dream is to see it come true.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

***
there are so many words I've put into homes

searching for beds to rest their minds

dreams still dream a few dreams

***
I dream much more vividly now