Some people
will always
be burning.

Girl, your lungs
are not ashetrays.
Neither is your heart.

That doesn’t make you weak,
it makes you human.

Nicole Deardorff is a 20-year-old queer actor, dancer, and writer. She began writing poetry as a way to stay sane. She isn’t sure how well that has worked, but she is at least still alive. Her writing has won multiple awards from Scholastic Art and Writing Competition, the most notable of which is a National Silver Metal in 2014. In 2013 she won the First Annual Mudsock Poetry Slam, and her poetry has been featured on Twenty-One Pearls, Words(on)Pages,and Degenerates: Voices for Peace. Check out more of her work at thewingedones.tumblr.com.