number 1: i use humor as a defense mechanism so don't be surprised when you try to show me the galaxies inside your lungs and i laugh like you only have one constellation per breath.

number 2: my OCD will drive you absolutely mad because i can never seem to wash the world off my hands and i'll obsess wondering if i locked the door on my way out.

number 3: these days my smiles are so forced i fear they may resemble that of a serial killer.

number 4: i say "i'm sorry" a lot as if i'm dowsing you in holy water while dropping to my knees praying for forgiveness, that will get old and eventually you'll stop believing in me.

number 5: i have trust issues that run so deep i don't even believe the voices in my own head.

number 6: self medicating has become my only form of survival, you can't help me and i can't help myself.

number 7: i lost faith in myself when i realized faith had no interest in me.

number 8: it won't matter how many times you hurt me i will always come back.

number 9: when you get too close i will leave you with fractured bones from trying to grip you too tightly.

number 10: someone once said "never fall for someone whose palms cause earthquakes on your skin, they'll look you dead in the eye and tell you they don't give a **** and will go back to trying to kiss your pieces back together" i'll let you break me.

i’ve written poems about other people, and i’ve compared them to galaxies. i’ve held them up in my sky, and i’ve kept myself down on earth,
just looking.
which, to be honest, is okay,
because if i were to read a poem about myself, i wouldn’t want to be called a star.
i’d want to be old buildings,
or the ocean.
or the feel of a hand.
i want to be the folds of a flower,
or a stupid scribble that you never throw away.

1. i love architecture and old buildings. i want to be compared to the high ceilings in european churches. i want to make people feel a different presence when they walk into my life. i want a poem about how someone said they looked into my eyes and felt peace and grace flood their insides.

2. i love rainy cities at night. i love how the street lights glow and glide across the wet cobblestone. i want someone to see me as those lights in the city. i want them to love those specks of gold, despite the grey and the ugly storm around them.  i want someone to love the storm for showing them how beautiful it all can be.

3. i love pure undulation, and movement. i want to make someone sigh out butterflies when they think of me walking over to them. like my walk is the tinkling of fairy bells, or the movement of the wind through the trees. i want them to see me moving like the colors in Degas’ ballerinas. floating, patchy and pink; how every hesitant brush is a masterpiece itself.

4. i love pictures of sunrises on the sea. i want a poem about how waking up next to me is as gratifying as the moment the sunrise explodes unto the ocean. i want a poem about how you play with my hair as carefully as you would when trying to catch seafoam before it slips away.

5. i love pictures of people in the car with the rear view mirror in sight. i want a poem about the feeling you get in silence riding with someone you have a crush on. how the silence smacks a smile across your face, no matter what. i want a poem that raves about the beauty in how i reached for your hand on a snowy day. i want a poem that trips over words trying to articulate how monumental you felt. i want a poem that doesn't come close.

6. i like pictures of the metro because of how there are a million different worlds occurring at once, but they are moving together towards something new for a small piece of time. i want a world with someone inside of that moment. i want only a moment of forever; a moment of how you felt like we were a world in a bubble.

i thought that because i knew what i wanted, things could fall into place.

[someone i look up to once said that her house and style is like the inside of her brain turned inside out. and that is the inspiration behind this piece. and i will read it as many times as i need to, to remind me how i deserve to feel.]

Before i met you i felt like my world was going to fall apart and i was going to drown in my own self destruction but then you came and made everything alright and the first time you held my hand i felt a heat wave swarm through my body and the first time i walked into that room and spotted your beautiful face my lungs started shaking and my hands were sweating and you were the most perfect thing i've ever seen in my life and when we first kissed i was oblivious to everything around me because the only thing i wanted to focus on was you and i wish i could hold your hand every second of every day and the fact that i have you is the only thing making me feel sane.
-EG

Happiness flickers, a match in the wind,
A moment of warmth, then it’s gone again. Laughter surrounds me,
Yet I stand in the center, unseen by the light.

Smiles like masks, hands that touch air,
They talk, they reach, but somehow I’m not there. A ghost in the crowd, a voice out of tune, drowning in noise, yet alone in the room.

Love feels fleeting, it slips like sand
I try to grasp too tight, causing it to fade into my hand.
I’m everything—then nothing at all
I pull you close then push then fall.

My mind’s a storm, a shifting tide,
I crave an anchor but cast it too wide every time.
I wear a thousand faces, and none of them feel like me, I’m trapped inside this mental maze with no way to break free.

And so I chase what never stays,
Sunlight swallowed by endless gray.
Happiness whispers, then turns away
Just long enough to make me stay.

Ive always had an eye for beauty.
An energy that makes a difference in things,
and sometimes people.
Its something I cannot fully explain.
Like the idea of paradise,
beauty is something you find in all sorts of places,
is what they say lives in the eye of the beholder.
So believe me when I say at best radiance;
silver and gold and all the diamonds in the world,
have nothing on your smile.
If the greatest of paintings and the most magical evening sunsets were placed by your side,
you will catch me staring at you.
Like iron to magnet
you will find my eyes fastened on your essence.
With deep questions like
how creative must God be?
With you he made the galaxies look like childs play.
I need to know how he fit the seven seas in your eyes.
I need to know how you can be winter and summer
and still bloom gracefully like flowers in spring
while your skin holds the rich colors of autumn.
Your beauty runs deeper than your skin.
You're kind and you're genuine.
Your mind is elegant and your soul is pure.
You're the most beautiful human Ive ever known.
I forgive the world for saying beauty isn't everything.
I know they only say that because they haven't gotten
the privilege of experiencing you.

-EG

She left on a Friday,
when the world remembered a Savior’s sacrifice
and Heaven welcomed home one of its own.
A woman of quiet strength and unwavering faith,
whose prayers were soft armor
and whose love echoed like hymns through generations.

To pass on Good Friday
feels like a whisper from above,
a holy timing for a soul so rooted in God’s grace.
As if even her goodbye was a testimony.
Not an ending, but a homecoming.

She believed in eternal life,
and now she lives it.

its the kind of hell
that brings you to your knees
in a prayer of fear and forgiveness
but get nothing in return besides
a hole the size of texas
with aches rusting your bones
and flooding your eyes,
but you are still alive.
a shriveled smile of fake happiness,
temporarily bliss,
tastes of heaven through poison-infested lips,
but you are alive.
your heart still beats, opening and closing valves
locking doors and hallways of vessels
lacing through your silk-skin veins.
the words you don't want to hear
in bits of syllables that ends with
a bit of an "i'm sorry" but more of a
"no i'm not."
the highest part of the lowest point
where your heart sinks
through your body
below the ground you walk on
in hopes of protecting itself;
but really,
the grave has been dug
and your heart
is already in hell

i wanna write her a love song
but i am useless in her gaze
her eyes light up my very soul
and i get lost within the haze

i wanna make her immortal
though i am putty in her hands
i cannot sculpt a single curve
and i am melting where she stands

i wanna be her forever
but time is on her side
and if i managed to wait her out
i'm not the first who tried

i wanna put her in paintings
with colors bright and real
but i am not a painter
and can't make the canvas feel

i wanna taste from her soul
and drink her essence down
but there are finer wines on earth
and i'm not the best around

I told myself I would never fall in love again.
I hadn’t gotten over the times love had shown me shaky hands so going back into the “playing field” didn’t make sense.
The first day we met I warned myself about you.
The last thing I wanted was another human making 100 promises and not keeping any of them.
And since I could never trust words I shut my ears to the arrows you shot.
But while I guarded for words your smile and touch did the ***** work.
It was the seed that fell on the soil of my soul.
Your smile snuck in while I wasn’t watching and rendered me defenseless and stuck itself so firmly to my existence.
I haven’t let myself get to this point in a while but I must confess one glimpse of your smile and I find myself ready to risk it all again.
Ive doubted almost everything in my life.
But you; and us.. this has gone past the point I can convince myself otherwise.
Even if I wanted to.
Even if I tried.
I catch myself constantly smiling sheepishly at the videos of newly weds on my instagram feed.
In my minds eye Ive seen you in one of those tuxedos,
the ones with cufflinks,
a few inches away 10 minutes after the guests have gone home and we get to begin life with each other.
See,
I knew I was completely finished when I started thinking about my vows.
Thinking of all the many reasons I have to love you.
And even with out you being there,
with out the timing being right or the music playing,
the joy that erupted in my soul was something I’ve never experienced before.
So if this gets through to you,
I need you to know;
there is no one on Gods green earth id rather do life with,
go through hell and back with.
It will always be you.
Each morning I wake up with a pull on my heart and a prayer on my lips.
I ask God to teach me how to love you fiercely enough that you know I would die for you.
While it seems like an audacious thing to say I realized,
how could I love you any less than that?
How can I look you in the eyes and call it love if it doesn’t stir your soul and grant peace to your heart.
How can you trust my loves authenticity if you do not know its willing to give all for you?
How is it love if it doesn’t drive away all the fears you’ve harbored all these years?
It's my prayer and greatest desire to give you such pure and complete love.
The kind only God can give.
I was made for loving you.
I may have a bit to learn and put into practice but God help me,  
Im going to love you so genuinely that the angels will be delighted in taking turns to witness our story.
I will love you so fervently that the Lord will be tempted to hang out love story on the shining walls of heavens gallery.
So put on your seatbelt.
Matter of fact don’t…
Im going to love you just right.

When I think of a love story
I can not help but to think about you
and us.
I think about those moments of uncaptured life and beauty.
Moments the world will never know.
When I think of a love story,
I think about the way our eyes communicate in ways our mouths sometimes can’t.
I think of how our hands fit together so nicely,
like the missing pieces to a puzzle.
I think about how bold this love is.
It isn’t something we have to look for in the fine print,
and this is not just about the chapters that speak of the butterflies that sit in the mystical garden you have planted inside me.
It’s every line that reminds me of the peace your presence brings.
In a world of noise and distortion,
I find peace and clarity with you.
When I think of a love story,
I can not fail to think of this love.
A love so beautiful even hollywoods finest cannot picture.
A story so good that as the pages flip I can not help but pinch myself to make sure I’m not dreaming.

May I be the one to see you. I mean. Truly see you. May I be the one to explore parts of you that you have silenced in fear of being judged. May I know the thoughts that swirl through your mind in your most silent moments. May I learn the lines to your favorite songs so that we can sing them together as we drive with no destination in mind. May I memorize your favorite snacks so that when you are feeling too much or not enough we can eat and talk. Or eat and silence. Whichever you prefer. May I become your pillow. May my chest feel like home and a safe place for you to rest your head to relieve yourself of the weight that life has placed on your shoulders. May I help untie the knots of experiences that feel too difficult to carry because you have had to do it alone. May I love you in ways you didn't think possible because you haven't been shown true love. May I enter your life and show you that you can be vulnerable and it will be okay. May I paint your black and white into color.

God
or whatever is out there,
if you are

can you hear me?

I don’t need heaven.
I don’t even need hope right now.
I just need a moment
where the pain isn’t gnawing through me.

Please.

I’m so tired.
Not the kind of tired that sleep fixes
the kind that sinks into your bones
and tells you this is all you’ll ever know.
The kind that makes your chest ache
just from waking up again.

I’ve done the work.
The years of therapy,
the holding back the storm so I don’t lose people.
The pretending I’m fine
when I’m unraveling in silence.

And still,
no one sees how loud it is in here.

I feel like I’m drowning in plain sight,
and everyone just walks by
like I’m supposed to be able to breathe underwater.

If there is a God
if you’ve ever watched me cry on the bathroom floor,
if you’ve heard the prayers I never said out loud
then please.
Please.
I am begging you.

Just let it stop for a second.
Just one second without the ache.
Just one moment where I’m not
fighting myself to stay.

I don’t need answers.
I don’t need signs.
I just want to be held
by something kinder than this pain.

Let me put it down.
Let me rest.
Let me exist without bleeding.

She was a dreamer who lived in
an insomniac world. Nothing came easy....
every time she tried to begin,
she would stumble and fall, but that
didn’t stop her. Although she thought
differently...her will could withstand anything thrown in her way, just another challenge fought.
The past haunted her days, shadowing almost every move…every single breath. Time always promised to make things better, but she knew better than to find
truth in those words. Truth lay somewhere
far from where she had ever let herself dream, too heavy from all the weight she carried.
There was only one time she let herself lean…letting her weight get the best of her, thinking she could find a way to dream peacefully forever, but even then she failed to succeed.
She lost the ability to hold her world together.
Indifferent to the world, numb to all
emotion, she lost hope in being set free.
The darkness surrounding so great; faith too small.
So she poured her pent up pain,
into artful master pieces.
She sketched abstract obscurities that depicted her darkest of secrets.
She painted intangible thoughts and feelings she longed to be fulfilled with majestic words that put anyone who dared to read, in the footsteps of her soul. Broken and blue she crafted old warn memories into the picturesque landscapes of her wildest dreams. She elegantly danced with the monsters under her bed and gracefully with the skeletons in her closet… breaking free.

my heart accepted defeat long before the light had left my home and to know of satans sorrow was a truth that made the smallest smile i could summon a monumental victory.
alone with the ever slowing beats of my heart now completely unable to keep track of days and nights and against the dark sky, time began to lose all intuitive wisdom.

and with the ******* of space and time came distortion.

ghouls and ghost became party guests
the foul sorts of scaly serpents and winged apparitions had gathered in rows of perfect stillness like marble chess pieces standing guard. they seemed now like great guardians of my fragile spirit. losing hope in the home of horror. the scarlet sky now began to sound its final hurah before the life was to forsake this place. and so it stretched out its smoky hands like raven wings draping darkness over the horizon destroying the last light of what i once knew
and within was me,
accustomed to the demons devilish dance, a prisoner with no will to leave, nor any power to see beyond the tomb that felt like the only thrown i was to belong too

years had passed this way, littered with tragic happenenings, broken relationships, addictions, and loss

now as if by some sort of devine intervention i could feel the dry dead air come alive.the blood drenched sky had stopped shrieking and as i raised my head in relief the horizon burst into brilliant trails of flame emitting hypnotic hues of purple and blue. crackling against the dead air like gun powder a blaze

and in the swell of confusion a sort of panic gave birth to momentum giving way now to a frequency with holy resonance, that filled my flask with potent tonic, upon drinking it began driving fire back into the abandoned forges of my humanity. from the depths of self denial i had emerged without the shackles of self deception to bind me, and from the grace of gods design i knew there was hope.. until there wasn’t.

I will let you slowly ruin me until there's nothing left but a pile of dust that faintly smells like me
You won't recognize me in the streets because I will become something so broken that I blend in with the sidewalks
I suppose you will lock me up like the good liquor and take me out when you please and I will be grateful when you reach for another cup of me because you will have craved my taste
You are not a fair fight
You can hurt me without even being arms length away
I never looked good in black and blue but it seems those are my hearts new favorite colors
I was taught to fight at a young age
Taught to always keep myself protected but when you come around I forget everything about the past everything that I have suffered to learn
Like run before you hide and do not drink your feelings and never give someone all of you- they will always leave you unrecognizable

Loving her is like standing in the sun
warm, all-consuming, and impossible to ignore. From the moment I met her, something in me shifted, like the universe had finally placed a missing piece into my soul. It’s not just the way she looks at me, though her eyes alone send shivers down my spine. It’s the way she exists, effortlessly, unapologetically, as if she was meant to be mine all along.
Every touch ignites something deep within me. The brush of her fingers against my skin, the way she tucks my hair behind my ear, the way she holds me like she never wants to let go.. it’s intoxicating. I crave her, not just in a physical way, but in the way that makes me want to memorize every detail of her, to know every thought that flickers through her mind.
There’s an undeniable force pulling me toward her, something beyond reason or explanation.
She is my gravity, my magnetic north, the steady rhythm in the chaos of my world. And when I look at her, I see everything; my past, my present, my future.. all wrapped up in the form of the woman I love beyond words.

She is my greatest love story, and I want to spend forever writing it.

What are the odds of finding someone
who can finish your sentences
who will let you cut in line
who knows not to just lend a hand,
or an ear when you need them to give you their spine  
who will keep every secret, save every letter,
tell you how you really look
who will remember every single one of your birthdays
without checking Facebook?
What are the odds of finding someone who knows your poetry by heart ?
I will always save you a seat.
I will always pick you to be my partner even though I'm terrible at basketball.
When the fire takes all you have,
my home will be your home.
When you are old and can no longer remember my face,
I will meet you for the first time again and again.
When they make fun of your accent,
I will take you swimming because we all sound the same underwater.
When Ellis Island tries to erase your past,
I will call you by your real name.
When they call your number for the draft,
I will enlist to fight beside you.
And I will march with you from Selma to Montgomery and back as many times as it takes.
We will stand together against the horses and the dogs
They could tell you how rare this is.
But they could tell you how rare this always is.
The chances are slim.
The cards are always stacked against us,
the odds are always low.
But I have seen the best of you, and the worst of you,
and I choose both.
I want to share every single one of your sunshines
and save some for later.
I will tuck them into my pockets so I can give them back to you when the rains fall hard.
Love,
I want to be the mirror that reminds you to love yourself.
I want to be air in your lungs that reminds you to breathe easy.
When the walls come down
when the thunder rumbles
when nobody else is home, hold my hand
and I promise I won't ever let go.

There are days my heart is a raw thing,
a surface of open wounds stitched together by hope,
by every whispered promise that you love me enough to stay.

There are days I carry my feelings like glass,
stacked too high in trembling arms,
praying you won't reach too quickly,
or speak too sharply.

You always knew I bled easier than most.
You kissed the fragile parts,
said you loved their softness,
said you understood.

But sometimes your voice sharpens without warning,
a blade born of anger, or carelessness, or exhaustion,
and slices clean through the carefulness I built.
No armor can catch the words in time.

It happens fast
one sentence, thrown hard,
splintering the places that were already holding on by threads.

I know you don’t always mean it.
I know you think I’m too sensitive,
that my trembling arms should be stronger by now.

But inside me, there’s a battlefield you cannot see.
Every harsh word is a grenade.
Every sharp tone, an echo I cannot quiet.
My mind doesn’t heal with apologies;
it loops the moment over and over,
building walls where bridges used to be.

When your voice becomes a blade,
I’m not just hurt
I’m torn between defending myself and begging for mercy,
between running and staying,
between remembering your love and believing your anger.

I don’t want you to be the one who hurts me.
I want to be the one you speak gently to,
even when the world is heavy,
even when you're tired.
Especially then.

Because love should not sound like a weapon.
And I have already survived too many wars inside myself
to survive another one inside the walls of your voice.