You are more than meets
The eye, hence why I regret
Being so **** blind.

You must know that if I were not 20 and relatively broke,
I'd be on the next plane to you.

You need to know that I am a miserable texter and I always miss calls,
And missing you is the only thing I do better.

You should know that it is so true- distance makes the heart grow fonder,
Though I find myself only fond of the days that you were 10 minutes down the road and not 10 hours.

I ache for the long drives down silent roads at 12 am and the long coffee dates at 2 in the afternoon.

I ache for the time we had time at our leisure and it was not down to counting the days until I see you next.

You need to know that in my darkest moments, yes, a call will do. But I'm kidding myself if I think that's what I really need.

I miss having you by my side rather than on the other side of the country,
Where we are split by time zones and state lines.

I feel torn in two when I get the call about how broken you feel and there isn't a **** thing I can do other than hope the phone line somehow relays how much I really do care.

Trust me, I ache to be with you more than your actual heart aches. I have not met many people like you, people who get me and see me through.

I have not found the people I want to tell all to, people that I fit with.

I fit with you, and I need you to know that it's only fitting when we are together.

Sweater sleeves balled around my fists to keep warm on nights under stars where the sky gives the plastic glow-in-the-dark ones a run for their money.

I sometimes wish I lived a life under the sky.

I randomly feel pangs for evergreens because they are as old as the notion that there will always be more to explore.

I probably do not seem like the type to want this, to believe that I could survive on Mother Nature's beautiful yet cruel paths,

Where the sunsets are magnificent and then the cold sets in.

Where the rain pelts for hours only for the clouds to part and shed some light.

Where the waves crash all while washing away the shore to show more.

Maybe I do not seem like the type because I sit behind a screen and type about it instead.

But I feel it. I feel the breeze in my hair and in my heart. I eye at the world the way girls want boys to eye them. I lose sleep to daydreams of nights alone in woods. I seek thrill and want to feel alive because I'm chancing my own on a force that cannot be reckoned with yet is so utterly vivid and encompassing.

It all scares me shitless to think I could pack up and go alone yet I think that is all I really do want-

To prove myself wrong and go alone, venture out of the box I put myself into and look at the stars and follow them instead of the paths paved before me.

The stars on my ceilings allude to the possibilities of the real ones outside

And all I've ever wanted is to fall asleep from watching them shine.

I've felt vulnerable fully clothed and confident when confidence is all I have on-
Vulnerability is more than being bare for someone to see it all.

It is shedding the coat of bitterness because it ignited fires in my heart that sought to burn me down with it.

It is unbraiding the strands of hair coiled into a tight braid of rigidity, of being so tense and stern.

It is peeling off the shirt of past hurt, one that threatens to shrink tighter every time I wash it with my tears.

It is untying the shoelaces that bound me to a path I didn't foresee, a path I cannot forge and a path that does not lead me anywhere but where I have already been.

It is sliding out of a sheath of selfishness, one that clothes me in want and doesn't serve anything I need.

It is ******* all of my preconceived notions of how to live, why people hurt and why I still do regardless of the joys I have seen. It is stripping myself bare of façades and painted faces, the kind that insist I am fine when I am so far from it and closer to the dark than ever before. It is opening my mouth to cry and to ask for help even when I am blind to the hands reaching for me. It is admitting that I struggle to get a grip and some days I can only grip myself into a hug and hope for more.

Vulnerability is more than being skin and bone exposed- it is seeing past that with the naked eye.

In these fleeting moments we become what we shall be-
It is in the books we read, the shows we watch, the shops we frequent, the food we eat, the people we associate with, the place we call home.
Ensure you are only surrounded by what you constitute to being the best,
For then you shall be nothing short of precisely that- the best.

I can wait for someday-
I do not ache for companionship and everlasting love,
Nor am I prospectively naming my future children.
I am not picking the linens for my home that could be beachside or suburban, city dwelling or atop a mountain.
I do not know precisely how I will sustain myself,
Or when I will retire.
I do not lose my days to planning too far ahead
So much so that I lose sight of today.
I can wait for someday
Because some days all I need is the day I have before me.
Someday will come, and I will look back
And be sure that waiting around for someday was not the way to live out the moments until then.

It's like age and the shorts from two summers ago,
The missed calls that are weeks old.
It's the pens I dropped behind my desk and all of the socks that never found their match.
It's the photos that I accidentally deleted and the fleeting moments I didn't make time to write about.
It's all transitory and fleeing,
Rushing by just like a breeze.
My life and the people are blurring together so quickly now that not even with glasses am I able to see
Who is there, what is staying and what will go.
I'm phasing through without stopping to hold a hand or smell the roses before
They're old and overgrown.