This week may have been our final week of classes here at CP and my freshman year may be one week away from being over, but today I wanted to celebrate something very special with you:

Last Sunday, Kwilliamsbooks turned 1.

A year ago, I graduated high school and decided to get a head start on my future and my upcoming (now almost a year old) book— so I started a blog. Who knew that my most viewed post (231 views) would be my fourth post ever, back in July of last year, or that this would become something so big in my life that I dedicate at least an entire 24 hours total to it every week? Yet here we are, one year and 57 blog posts later, right where I started: writing.

So today, I wanted to say “happy birthday” to my site by sharing more of what got me started in the first place— poetry. It’s been a few weeks since the last Poetry Place, but this is a special week after all. Here are five of my favorites:

 

Number one

Collateral Damage

She held within her heart a love she could could not tame,

monsters in her mind of which she could not name.

And when the two came together, into the same budding rose,

the dark collided with the beauty and she became the collateral damage.

From the thorns in her side and the voices she could no longer hide

screaming out in agony from the wreckage her heart had just left behind

with the broken pieces amongst the thorns that rose grew up to contain;

every bit of love and light it held countered with a little bit of pain.

Yet she kept going anyway, knowing there was light up ahead.

The light she created with everything she had when she finally let herself

Get Lost.

Number two

Out of Place

Does tired even compare to that feeling anymore,

that hopeless, empty, insignificant feeling—

that she’s trapped in a place where she does not belong;

in her life surrounded by all the things she is not?

Her beautiful friends and their beautiful minds

of which she cannot compare to.

Her too smart classes with her too smart classmates

of whom she does not fit in with…

Somehow she’s here, existing between the lines

where people do not look, do not care.

Do not see her here, past the beauty and the brains,

back to where she is stripped down to nothing but a face.

That nobody remembers and nobody needs to,

as she is just another person in this world.

One without the beauty and one without the brains,

one that nobody seems to want to claim.

And that is okay too; she knows that it happens

when she looks in the mirror and sees who she is.

Because in the end it’s her life, something of her own making,

and she is just simply out of place.

Number three

Pretty People

It’s a shame to see such pretty people so sad.

All the beauty in the world cannot fix these broken souls.

And as the time runs out and the days wear thin,

the night comes on back, leaving only darkness to hold

the beauty of light fading to the sadness of the soul.

As we walk, your hands and mine on this lonely dark road,

together we are here and our thoughts echo off the walls.

While I can feel that you are broken, I can hear it in your heart.

And it’s a shame to see such pretty people fall apart.

 

Number four

Restless

As I lay my head to rest

Instead I rest with

Thoughts of you.

 

Running course through my body

in everything

you do.

 

Like the way I watch you care for others;

you’re the only

one who

 

showed me how to fall in love…

Some days I wish

I never knew.

 

And number five

Skeletons to Burn

There are skeletons in my closet, far too many to count.

For there is another one in a darker corner, the back shelf of my mind.

And honesty has never been enough to truly bring me back, to give me

the oxygen I need to breathe, as it chokes me with charred hands.

Quietly, I am extinguished, the flame of my soul slowly burning out,

as the pain never felt so real, engulfing everything I am and

everything I could be until there was truly nothing left.

Nothing but those skeletons in my closet, taking up space

the way the secrets of our past always do, complicating this life

much like that skeleton left in the back of my mind, silent and holding,

sharp and true, waiting for the moment to come out to play.

They say that bones may dance and sometimes, secrets may catch fire,

but truly there is nothing left of me, not even the burning outline

of everything I used to be and the secrets I used to hold,

for it all went to hell right where I will see it tomorrow as I find my way

downtown through the noose. It is over now, the burning has become a quiet calm,

and for the first time in my life it seems

there are no more skeletons left in my closet.

There is nothing left of me.

Happy Birthday to my site— I wanted to take a moment to say thank you to everyone who has supported me or looked at my blog in the past year. A writer is nothing without their readers but empty words, and I thank you for giving me some place to fill. Here’s to the end of my first year of classes here at CP, my final exams next week, and another beautiful year of embracing my future.