I woke to the new year with a sense of peace. Waving white flags to the battlefields of months left behind. Finding paths back to myself and turning inward to heal and nurture. Drowning my heart in words of appreciation until everything started feeling right. The warmth of the sun has returned to my soul. I have stopped feeling guilty for putting myself first; for choosing my own happiness.  I don’t love the world less, I’m just finding more love for myself. As soon as I returned to calmer waters, the game changed. Not because things are now perfect, far from it. But I find myself smiling, more and more, every day, for the smallest perfect moments. Isn’t that what it’s all about, being present in your own life.

You boast about your life
With empty words that are not your own
As if each line memorised
from a well written script
A beautiful facade

Your arrogant demeanor and harsh words
A disguise you portray to the world
to make them believe you are in control
What a beautiful lie

I want you to know that I see you
Past the fakes smiles
and the sadness in your eyes
Through the cracks of your facetious wall
Amid the imperfections of your soul

I see the warmth in your heart
Gentle gestures of appreciation
I listen when you look at me
eyes filled with warmth

I allow you in my life
as I hope one day
everyone else will see you
The way I do

You consume my thoughts and shadow my dreams. Each morning I wake with the memory of you. The longing is unbearable, but I choose the pain than the pretension of content. I hold onto the days before you left. Reminiscing about the moments that were as effortless as breathing. To love that weren’t forced, as we were drowning in it from the start. Each passing day the darkness of my loneliness tries to consume me. Its attempts are futile as your light runs wild within me. I will never fall away from the gift of us. Even though you are a thousand miles away, you are always beside me.
I miss you.
Always.

My soul felt you immediately
and my heart quickly responded
All I want is to open my eyes
and see you next to me
To feel your warm embrace
I realize now no distance is too far
and closeness is not about proximity
Our connection knows no boundaries
I will wait for you through seasons
and love you across countries
Even if you were planets away
You are still my sun

I held on so tight to the string that was attached to the storm cloud of our relationship. Afraid that if I let go I will not see the sunshine that was once us.

I held on to the smiles of happier times and the looks of love. I held onto the effortlessness of our beginning and the passion in our kiss.

The cloud became heavier and heavier and some helped me to hold on, others begged me to forget.

I found my strength in remembering.

Every red flag that I painted white. All the dreams that died when you left. I remember the wasted time spent on forlorn hope of empty promises.

It took me awhile to realize that I was holding on to a mistake because I took so long to make it, blinded by the fantasy of what we could be. I cannot continue watering a dead plant.

I’m ready to let go of every ‘what if’.
I’m ready to let go for me, for a heart that doesn’t lie and a love I can believe in.

Sometimes you meet people
You recognise your soul’s counterpart in them
Somehow you’re just in sync
Same way of thinking, rationalising, dreaming
You can’t explain it
Something so familiar in them
Sometimes you meet them at the wrong time
The connection you both recognise is forbidden
Even though you crave them in the most innocent form
Where lust and love isn’t involved
Friendship in ways that only they will understand
Where the walls you have built doesn’t exist
Sometimes you just want to get to know them better
Yet this too is a sin
This simple request has too many complications attached

I find solace in writing but at present
the tide is too strong, waves too rough
to construe the ocean of despair
I find myself in from saying goodbye to you
this storm drifts me further out to sea
Once the wind has calmed, hopefully soon,
I will find my way to the shore and back to you

we discovered each other's depth
through mutual love of poetry

I lost so many pieces of myself through loving others. Now that I need some for myself, I have nothing left to give. Poetry is my solace and I try to write what I feel. A blank page stares back at me and I could not have described it any better. I crumble the page, holding onto it tightly. Sincerely hoping someone can translate all the empty spaces.

Our friendship caught fire
and soon our roots intertwined
We wrapped our arms around each other
Filling the empty spaces once there

We held each other’s hands for years
and from today, for a lifetime more
Ever since your heart laid onto my soul
I knew that you are beautiful
I take you as you are
and will love who you are yet to become

I will choose you again and again
at the start and finish of each day,
each season, each year
I will choose you through our struggles and successes
and all the mountains left to climb
I will love you into oblivion
and we will tremble as we feel it

You are everything I never knew I needed
You are the question
I never knew I wanted answered
The question was love
and your answer was  “I Do!”

I try to find something familiar in the stranger staring back at me. I don’t recognize him. I don’t think he ever cared. Event though he made me believe he did. I don’t think he ever loved me. He loved the reflection of the man he saw in my eyes. Loving only the way I loved him. I made him my sun, I made him the stars in my darkness. I gave him my heart. Looking back now. I don’t think I loved him either. I loved having a man on my side, to please, to cater to. He was so broken and I had someone to fix. I can finally move on knowing there is nothing left worth pursuing, because we never really loved.

I will keep you afloat when the tears of your pain threatens to drown you. I will shelter you from the storms of your memories. I am not afraid of your dark. I will wait in the shadows of your heart. I will be the hand you reach for from the depths of despair, banishing the monsters lurking beneath. Let me calm the tornadoes of your doubts and gouge the eyes of those that don’t value you. Don’t fear the future of your dreams. The wounds of life may have cracked you. But I still see you, not the broken and flawed, but the beauty that shines through your imperfections. I am not leaving your side, I am here, for you, always.

When I look up at my ancestors and the struggles of my family tree
I realised I was made from bleeding hands and shattered hope
Pouring their lives from cup to cup, generation to generation
All the things they couldn’t be
I was made by them but also for them
Passing down onto me their tears and  hardships, and all their untold stories
You see, they chose me
To uphold their legacy, unravel their truth
Breath the air and smell the soil of places they could never see
I was made to be everything they weren’t allowed to dream
My path will sooth their pain
I am meant to live loud and carry their sacrifices as my war cry