You can find me skipping through the streets of Paris. I'll be the girl with the long brown hair in a black summer dress. I'll have sunglasses on and as I make my way around this foreign town I'll wonder why I ever need to go home.

You can find me arm wrestling in Germany. I'll be the girl in the shorts and the lips t shirt surrounded by angry, sweaty German men who just want to take a chance on beating me. And as I laugh my way through the match I'll wonder why I ever need to go home.

You can find me in Italy drinking wine and dancing under the moon along the cobblestone alleyways.  I'll be hand in hand with some beautiful Italian man as we kiss just because we are young and free. And as I kiss my way across the canals I'll wonder why I ever need to come home.

And if by chance I make it home to America, where the lights aren't nearly as bright and the memories aren't nearly as fun. You'll find me in a boring office working as I dream of my foreign adventures again.

Lying awake with my head on the opposite end of my bed trying to figure out what's up and what's down.
I've lost control again and I'm starting to think maybe I'm the guard and the prisoner.

They keep telling me you cannot hit lower than rock bottom and yet here I stand a little to close to the core of the earth.
Sweat dripping down my face and my eyes heavy with stress as I head straight into the magma and lava that awaits below me.

No one told me growing up would be this hard. That you would find yourself in sticky situations with money and love.
No one told me that sometimes you have to discipline yourself enough that you're stable and yet find the balance between work and play.

Tossing and turning my stomach is queasy and my head is throbbing from lack of sleep as I stare at the black ceiling above me.
Is there a way out of the darkness or should I hope that someday the answers will flicker on like a broken light bulb needing to be replaced?

No one told me growing up would be this hard.

I like the curves of your shoulders and the strength in your spine.
I like the softness in your lips but the roughness in your hands.
I like the sparkle in your eyes and the sarcasm in your smile.

I like the pieces of you that you hide away under layers of thick skin.
The sadness you try to hide when you bite your lip and look left.
The laughter you feel when you shake your head and glance down.
The irritations you know when you roll your eyes up and to the right.

I like those things more than you'll ever know. But the things I love about you could never be explained in poetry.

He told me once he would name our daughter after the places we had been or flowers he picked for me.

He said he would name her Carolina, not Caroline, and he would remember those humid summer nights we spent watching the sunset.

He said he'd name her Daisy, because he knew my favorite was flowers and he would buy her anything she desired to make her as happy as me.

He told me this once, a long time ago, back when we were young and before we really thought about life. Back before I knew what I wanted and *** to react when he said he wanted kids.

I told him I hoped our son has his green eyes and his sandy blonde, but turning darker each year, hair.

I told him I hoped our son had his spark and his sarcastic smile so I could always remember he had the good pieces of his father, the parts I laughed about.

I told him that before things changed, before we both spun out of control and closer to the flames.

Now we sit on opposite sides of the country and we talk to different people about kids and love. And we wonder, where things could have been if we hadn't become so lost in ourselves  for once.