Dearest sol,

Not a blackout

this is a poem Lauren Wright (Mabel Q)  and I wrote together, the bold is what we say together. If you have any feedback, ideas for a title or really anything that would add to this poem, please feel free to comment. 

(M)I had to bite the inside of my cheeks to keep from smiling, because I didn’t want you to ask why. you see, it was you and the car and the music and the way it felt like nothing ever changed. 

It scared me 

(L) Things changed when the weather did. You and the sky seemed to have too much in common, and i was the sun 92 million miles away. 

(M) we sat in your car and looked through your sunroof and you said you felt like home looking at the sky because it reminded you of my eyes 

I respected you

(L) when you told me it just wasnt the right time and you were sorry and I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from crying. 

My cheeks are bleeding 

(M) We layed in the back seat of your car and that was the first time i made it to the back seat without giving away my breathe to someone else. 

(L) you left and you took my breath with you and I can't breathe 

because I couldn't seem to catch myself before I fell 

(M) but you caught me when i stumbled over the way you said 

"I love you"

(L) burned in the back of my throat because it left the same day you did 

(M) but the clouds started to cover the stars and you 

didn't look at me the way you used too 

(L) when the weather got colder you came back for warmth because you saw your breath and you remember the time you took mine away 

it's getting colder 

(M) The days are getting shorter and the clouds seem to stick around long enough for you to forget where home is 

(L) you used to give me your hands to hold but they were too cold and I couldn't hold on so this time you gave me your heart 

(M) I fell every time you told me you loved me but the last time

It was different 

(L) in the way you said "I love you" I couldn't hear the regret rolling off your tongue 

(M)I see the way you look at her and I heard you say that you saw galaxies in her eyes 

you looked at me 

(L) and you told me I reminded you of the sun because I never left 

you looked at me 

(M) and I couldn't look you in the eyes so I knew 

this time it was different 

(L) it was real

(M) it was over 

I love you

Thank you

I get nervous to introduce myself to people. 

Not because I'm scared of them, but because most people don't understand what I'm saying. 

To those who know me, thank you.

Ive never been good at pronouncing my name, but I never hesitate to say it.  

To those who know my name, thank you. 

Ive never been creative but I've always had a lot to say.

  To those who listened, thank you. 

I get scared to share my poems in front of the class, but sometimes I do it anyways.

To those who enjoyed my poems, thank you.

I'm always late to class, there is just something about crowded hallways that makes me uneasy. 

To Nelson, thanks for never marking me absent.

Ive never been to paris, but Ive seen bravery in its citizens.

To those who wrote from their heart, thank you. 

I always get more confidence on my writing when someone comments.

To those who commented, thank you.

To those who even glanced at my blog, thank you.

I hope you will return. 

xoxo, 

Malia Helbling

It tore us apart

Music brought us together.
"Look at this new song I found," became this the way I feel about you.
Ever day I searched for a song that strung together my feelings for you, but nothing ever seemed to have the right idea.
 It was either too fast or too slow, or didn't have enough feeling.
You know when you listen to a song and you get that feeling in your fingertips, that is what you did to me, that is what you do to me.
Im confused because you haven't shown me any new songs recently, and you seem to avoid the ones about love.
I get it though you always told me that love songs made your fingertips go numb.
I went to a concert and all I could think about was what you would think of these songs.
You stopped listening to the songs I told you I liked.
Music brought us together, and it is what tore us apart.

My heart beats for us

The human heart pumps blood 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
It pumps to every finger, every toe,  & even to my nose, but when I met you it stopped.
It stopped beating for me.
2,000 gallons of blood dumped onto your front door that day, and I'm sorry I just couldn't keep it in any longer.
my heart beats for us
42 million times my heart  beat for us that year.
Im pretty sure that number isn't accurate because every time your gaze met mine, my heart stopped.
my heart beats for us
I would gladly walk 60,000 miles of your blood stained veins if it meant it would bring me to your heart.
I know what my heart feels like, I know how you make my heart feel.
But your heart and my heart are seperated by rib cages so hardened and closed off by other peoples decisions.
my heart beats for us.
& it will continue to beat for you & for me.

surprise

He told me he missed me & I was surprised.
Every I can't, I'm busy,  plastered the walls of my mind with the picture of her in the back round.
You told me you missed me & with everything I could muster I said, " You're just too late."
But every first touch, first kiss, first I'm sorry clogged my brain, and by my surprise my  lips muttered, "I miss you too."
It wasn't I miss you, I love you, come back.
It was I miss you, I love you, maybe another lifetime.
I thought of every what if possibility, but no amount of thinking could sort out our heartstrings tethered & knotted together by so many different tragedies it makes my head spin.
You still look at me & the knots gets tighter, cause I'm lost in our lifetime.

How to be human

• Mess up. 

• Change your mind, just to change is back. 

• Miss the boy you shouldn't. 

• Fall in love. 

• Get mad at the people you love. 

• Apologize. always. 

• Be pissed at the world for at least a day, for no particular reason. 

• Hate your parents, or one of them. 

• Feel useless. 

• Feel alive. 

• Make friends. 

• Let go of some people in your life. 

• Learn to stand up for yourself. 

• Learn to pay taxes. 

• Get married. 

• Get into an argument with your friends about "politics."

• Don't dress up for Halloween. 

• Be insecure.

• Be confident. 

• Have a fascination with the sky. 

• Don't let people label you. 

• Don't label people. 

• Know when to leave. 

• Admit to being human. 

• Be heartbroken. 

• Fall in love again. 

• Still miss him. 

High school fears

 NO CREDIT is our biggest nightmare when the end of term roles around, because we miss way too much class.  Afraid of 50% on a test that means nothing but everything, cause for some reason a letter grade tells you more about someone than they can. 

A conversation with a boy who makes your palms sweat over the weather. 

Don't even get me started on someone catching you without that smile on your face. 

Irrational fears that won't matter at the end of the year, but hey it was all just high school. 

But for some high school was their whole life, and I think that's my biggest fear. 

Not hearing from your friend for a while and finding out through social media it's going to be a little longer until we see them again. 

I fear of a another grim day of walking down these hallways plastered with a reminder of how people feel about you. 

I don't fear death, I fear death that comes a little too soon. 

ps. I personally think we aren't ready to fear these things. 

Let us live

I have a headache & thats how I know I am alive. 

It didn't come from lack of caffeine or food, or even  lack of sleep. 

The headache came from heartache to loud for words. 

I know i'm alive because I yearn for a place to call home.

Because "home" has a different definition now that i am older & I am alive. 

Sometimes I am afraid home just isn't for me. 

I am alive & I have the heartbeat to prove it. 

I have the stories & the battle scars, I wish would go away.

I am alive, we are alive, so please

let us live.  

To the bricks in my backpack

I'm not sure when you got here, but I remember the day I realized it wasn't just textbooks & notebooks in there. 

It was the day he wanted to die, and none of us would let him. 

Everyday I bear your burden, and I don't mind, but please leave.

That day my best friend left & never came back quite the same, you got heavier. 

The textbooks & notebooks are mad at you because I haven't talked about them the same since you came around. 

To the one who makes my shoulders sore, I know exactly where you came from. I still can't seem to say it out loud. 

I know this has been your home for a while, but people are starting to notice, I think it's time you go. 

To the bricks in my backpack, goodbye. 

It's not worth it

It's not worth it to change because someone said you should.

       Who you are is so important, and someone who tells you other wise, isn't.

It's not worth it to cry over a boy you "could have loved."

       The boy you will love, will make you feel silly about being sad of a "could have"

It's not worth it to be sad over someone who walks out of your life.

       If they leave, chances are they come back. If they don't, you didn't want them there anyway. Anyone who is willing to walk out on you is not someone who deserves your sadness or regret.

It's not worth it to be mean to someone who was mean to you.

      Getting even doesn't make you feel any better, only worse. You can't control peoples actions, but you can always control yours. 

It's not worth it to keep your feelings inside, because it might ruin a friendship.

      Take it from someone who told their best friend she loved him.

It's not worth it to give up.

You have survived this long, high school will not end you. 

Love

One day Sophomore year my best friend told me that her heart was broken. I didn't really know what that meant because every "I love you" I've ever said was never to a boy I was in love with. & our other best friend told me it wasn't real, that heart break was nothing we could feel. Maybe that was because her father broke her mother & she didn't know what "love" meant. I think we both knew that she gave away "I love you" too easily, but never to the right people.

One day Junior year I met a boy. He was different and he told me that he loved me. I think I loved him, but I was his first girlfriend & his favorite thing to do was run.  Bitch was the 5 letter word that he used to describe me, because I broke his heart. But he broke mine too & we talked it out & now were cool. 

I learned from him that my best friend was not a liar & that my other friend really didn't know anything about love. If she did, she would know that heartbreak isn't literal. It is some sort of realization that you may never feel the way that they made you feel, ever again. It's knowingly putting yourself into the palm of another human, and letting them crush you. I think the worst part is even though they squeezed the love out of you, your heart still finds a way to wonder "what if."  

17 things I learned by 17

1. Pay attention when someone is telling you something, it's important to make people feel important. 

2. Talking about people only makes you look bad. 

3. Friends won't always be there for you, and sometimes they suck. 

4. The best thing you can do is be the best friend you can be, even if they do suck. 

5. Your mom knows what she is talking about, she has been hurt too. 

6. Your dad won't tell you that the world has hurt him, but if he does listen to him. 

7. Things happen to you that will change who you are, but always be happy. 

8. Never be nervous to meet someone. 

9. Bad things happen to good people, but that doesn't mean life is worthless. 

10. The church is true. 

11. Always be nice first. 

12.  Being in nature is always a good idea. 

13. High school is suppose to be fun, that doesn't mean it's easy. 

14. Someone always has something they need to talk about, listen. 

15. Don't tell someone else's secret. 

16. Don't do something you don't want people to find out about. 

17. Be a good human. 

You are human

You are human. 

You are lungs, & a heart that beats for someone else. 

You are the time you learned how to ride a bike & the time you fell off. 

You are the time your mom told you everything would be okay, & time that it wasn't. 

You are your favorite color & favorite tree. 

You are the smiles, the tears, & the I don't know if I can do it. 

but you are human, & you are so much more. 

Different

I think we all started out as a blank canvas.
But as we grew and stretched, and crashed and burned,
things got a little different.
Because I have a scar on my elbow from when i was 5, and him a scar on his heart from when he was 15.
& my eyes are blue & his are brown but when the sun hits them, they're gold.
My favorite color is pink, but when I was little I asked my mom what her favorite color was, & she said purple.
I tried to change mine to purple too but I don't think it works that way.
I think we have all been through something that has changed us, some more than others.
But that is what makes us different.

falling

In the dark, I found you.

Torn apart by your friends decision & a girl who just couldn't make one.

I found you just in time before the dark took me too. 

& it was innocent at first, until the day you ran out of gas & me out of excuses. 

Everyone saw it coming except for us,

& that was the beauty of it.

One day the darkness faded,

Because you, you were light.

I don't know if it was in the way you made me  smile, or how you told me everything would be okay.

It might have been the way you would tell me I was cute every chance you got.

But maybe, just maybe, it was the way you made me feel, make me feel every day.

Light in my heart so bright it shined through my eyes, and into yours. 

Slowly & then all at once we  f

                                                   e

                                                      l

                                                         l. 

Not back into darkness,

But into love. 

240 days

It happened when I was just 13 years old.
The I will always love you's came and so did the pain.
& my dad left, and my mom never cried,
I'm still deciding when to stop.
Maybe it was because I was stuck.
Because the oldest, well he was four states away, & he saw it coming.
The next brother had his own internal battle, that he is still fighting.
& the next boy screamed the f word and walked out the door,
he came back, but he was never the same.
& me stuck.

Things got better, the pain dulled.
My mom met someone a couple years later.
I personally thought his biceps were a little too big & his heart, a little too small.
But the backyard wedding still happened, and then eventually she left too.

& here I am 8 months from 18 and still stuck.
A custody battle over a 17 year old girl, who just wants to be left alone.
But its all about the money, I mean me.

Maybe I'm just bitter, or maybe I'm just waiting to be unstuck.

I have a problem with crayons.

I've always had a problem with crayons because of the skin color options they gave you. Tan & desert sand were really your only options. Never realistic & that made me upset. But maybe my first mistake was trying to be realistic. Or maybe my mistake was that I had more than one problem with crayons. 

I have a problem with the way the crayons break so easily. Your concentration can really be broken, when the crayon breaks in half. 

I have problem with when you lift your crayon up after a while there is an extra dot of wax on the page, making your perfectly blended flower, a little blotchy. 

I have a problem with the kid next to me who had a 120 pack of crayons & a sharpener, when mine was only 64.

I have problem with the way my crayons were taken away a little too soon, because I never learned that if you mixed tan and desert sand you got the perfect skin tone. 
Because I never learned that crayons can be melted back together.
Because I never learned that a blotchy flower shows how much that flower has endured. 
Because I never learned that sharing is caring. 
Because I never learned the potential crayons had, and the potential I had. 
Because I'm still a little bitter my mom took my crayons away. 

Maybe my problem came from wanting to be the piece of paper, rather than the one

crayon.

I remember, do you?

I remember the day you told me you loved me in November & then i remember you walking away.  I remember that scaring me because of the rain that fell from my eyes & from the sky, because that was the first time they hit the floor over a boy.
I remember writing about you in December, & about how I missed you in the afternoon when I was busy. I remember that scaring me because of the storm in my chest that never seems to go away.
Sometimes I still get the chills.
I remember you telling me you missed me in January & that the numbers on the calendars were our biggest enemy.
Because you were just a little too late.
& I remember the absence of you in February because it was all just a little too much.
& I remember the absence of you in everything I did, until the day in September when you said "here"
& I hugged you and told you that i loved you.
But my thigh still twitched from the absence of your hand.
Because I know that November will still come, and the rain will still hit the floor.
& December will come around
But i'm still a little bitter about the last storm.
& maybe sometime soon, I won't miss you in the afternoon.

I take my hat off to you

I met this boy who saw my hat and threw it out the window.

He showed me that all hats can be taken off, even though I had worn mine my whole life, and it was on just a little too tight. 

To be quite honest I didn't even know I was wearing that hat, until I saw the hat on other girls who just couldn't seem to look in the mirror.

I realized that all hats are beautiful.

That all hats fit someone just right.

& the hat I was wearing had years of "you can't wear that" & "put some makeup on" 

& that boy showed me the beauty in nature.

& the definition of natural beauty. 

But that boy left and I found my old hat.

It didn't fit like it used too.

So i'm not bitter that boy left, because he showed me the beauty in any hat I put on. 

He showed me the beauty inside me. 

This is it

I remember my sophomore year of English with Nelson. I remember him talking about creative writing and showing us some blogs. I couldn't wait to be a senior, just so that I could take this class. Here I am taking creative writing, as a senior, and I just spent an hour picking out what my background picture should be. This is it guys. 

Bitter gold came from me asking my friends what my pen name should be. My friend entered my name,ethnicity, and age into an app. Bitter  is apparently all those things summed up into one word. I decided to add gold because having a blog named bitter might make me out to be a sad teen. That isn't what I'm going for here. I like the pen name because to me it represents the bad with the good.

like summer ending, but school beginning.

like having a full schedule but all of your classes are easy. 

like 278 days until graduation but the 25,000 days after. 

like the packed hallways but that means 2,500 teenagers are trying. 

& I'm trying so enjoy my blog.