Nearly two decades on this earth and the only time I felt love,
it brought pain so intolerable that I bid to myself that I would find love in anything other than human connection.
Yet, age and time has aided in my healing and now I'm filled to the brim with an inconceivable amount of love.
Part of me wants to experience love in the ways that I once felt it, even if the pain will leave injury too deep to heal.
Yet, now that I am older, I know that love isn't supposed to hurt more than it is suppose to heal.
And my mind no longer consists of spiral steps and puzzles.
Two decades on this earth and I have finally begun to understand my emotions..
I have molded myself into someone who is able to give and receive love. I have become someone who is able to become vulnerable without opening airways for toxicity to seep in.
Two decades and I am ready to immerse myself in someone. To uplift someone in the ways that I wish people would have for me, to love in the way that I have never been, and to groom and harvest roots that grow for years.
Now that I am older, now that I have healed from the first, I bid to myself that I will unapologetically love. I will do it with everything in me. I will do it right, I will love raw and whole.

if I could meet the younger version of myself
I would spend the day doing nothing more than talking to her.

I would ask her what her view on life is.
I would read her: is she naive? strong-willed?

if I could meet the younger version of myself I would ask her if she believes in love.
I would ask her if there is any underlying pain that eats away at her when no one is around.

If I could meet the younger version of myself I would want to know if she's different.
and if so? how different.
I would do nothing more than learn about her and try to remember what it was like to be her.

I am not one to romanticize pain and sadness but the minute sorrow arrives at my doorstep,
I welcome him in with open arms.

I am not one to continuously arise in the morning with a heavy heart
nor do I enjoy walking around with a weight on my shoulders,
but I still find myself becoming less motivated to discover the green grass on the other side.

I desire joy far more than one would expect,
but I still live day to day merely surviving.

I do not romanticize pain and sadness,
but the minute sorrow seeps into the crevices of my life,
I make no efforts to extinguish it.

imagine,
someone could look at you and for a split second imagine an entire life with you.
imagine,
someone you know could love you in a way that is so pure, selfless, and youthful that it is almost too good to be true.
imagine,
you might be the last thought in someone's mind at night.
how honorable it would be to be someone's thought.
to be someone's own version of perfection.
most of us have someone who looks at us in these ways and most of us
don't even know.

I've had trouble lately, confronting reality.
I have no idea how things are meant to work out.

I guess that is the beauty of life, sometimes you aren't meant to know or understand how everything will work out in the end-
it just does.

so I'm hoping this is one of those situations.
one where I may be in an unbelievable amount of stress, but
everything will work out.

I hope that before I know it,
I'll be wondering why I even stressed at all.
I'll wonder why I worry.
And I'll understand why everything panned out the way it did, and I'll appreciate how things turn out.

I hope that through this,
I will learn how to confront reality.

I am so intrigued by you.

every few months, I try proving myself wrong.
I lay my eyes on someone and make them my center thought.
this time, you are the lucky one.
you are the one who I look for, for lasting conversation.
you are the laugh that I am so deeply wanting to hear for the rest of my days.
your touch is the one that I still feel lingering on my skin even after you have gone.
deep down, I hope that in the process of trying to prove myself wrong, that you would prove that what we have is real... that it is right.
I don't believe in love but I am undeniably in love with the thought of being in love.
so for a few months,
you'll be my lucky one.
you'll be the one I spend my mornings thinking of and my nights wishing to be by your side.
and maybe, I will prove myself wrong.
maybe I won't have to continue finding a new person every few months, to find chemistry with.
maybe the only person I lay eyes on for the rest of time, is you.
perhaps we can prove me wrong.