Heaven is farther away when your feet hurt.

Happy birthday.

The taxi is more expensive when you blast the AC.
Your letters mean more when they're typed up on that vintage typewriter.
Your tears mean more when they're for me.

You always look happier in old photographs.
The cupcake is more fattening when you're counting the calories.
Goodbyes are always sadder in person.
And you swallow them slowly like the painful truths they are.

You mod podged the scrapbook paper like you wanted all the religions of the world to come together. Like you wanted world peace. Like a Miss America contestant. Like you didn't understand differences and you wanted everyone to be treated the same instead of equally. But here is what you don't understand.

I circled I would prefer to leave my ethnicity unknown. Not because I'm a minority but because I'm white.

And when I painted my face to cover all the shame, you still couldn't see me for who I was.

You spoke French like a native even with that accent of yours. And I couldn't fit in with the locals even though I wanted Paris more than you did. I wanted it all. The transvestites, the dweebies, the dickheads. I wanted the memory of my face to ebb and flow with the tide.

I'm tired of hoping, of dreaming, of trying. of capitalizan.

Your lungs fill with water and death is getting off the bus to greet you and it's the last time you saw your girlfriend walk away staring you in the face.

It's the cold love of your Austrian prince. Tasted like frostbite. The pills forgotten on the counter. You shudder against his touch. He's as dead to you as the fish you fried for dinner. He wouldn't scream if you cooked his heart.

It's the unlucky love of the skater boy.
The fear of the breakup.
And the taste of

                           calories.

You said words stayed forever, but I tore up my journal like it was nothing to me.
You can take classes on how to die, but it never gets easier.
And when you told me mermaids weren't real, I told you it was all about your perspective.