This dream isn't feeling sweet
I remember 7 and I thought 17 would be freeing,
I remember dreaming at 13 and thinking love and age would be so sweet,
Though back then I didn't know
That youth can't be beat.

We're reeling through the midnight streets
I used to lie to my mom
So I could stay out late and roam around
Someday no one will ask where I am going,
If I'm coming home or staying out on the town.

And I've never felt more alone
I outgrew people and times in life
Like coats and pants and shoes.
I outgrew my home and myself,
And I never knew I was something I could lose.

Feels so scary getting old*
Every day is an inch closer to
A world in which I have only seen for so long.
School taught me to divide and write,
But it didn't tell me how to stay strong

When I'm 20 and lonely,
When I'm in love and aching,
When I'm trying to replace the youth
That I so easily found myself mistaking

For a span of life to run through
As if it were a field.
I miss 7 like I used to dream of 17.
I ache for the youth that was real.

White out won't get rid of the boys you once loved or the girls that broke your heart.

Tearing out the pages where you wrote to that one person won't make the words disappear; your veins translated into ink to make the words so. You have these people in your blood.

People come and go but you can't pretend they did not stay for some time. You can't erase their shadows in your photographs. You can't erase their impact on you.

Out of sight out of mind- really? You want to kid yourself into that?

Remembering hurts but someday you may want the old letters and photographs because someday you will move on and be thankful that whiteout couldn't cover where you felt a part of yourself let go.

Retrospect reminds you why specks remain but not the whole person, and why that is okay.

I won't erase you if you don't erase me. I'm sorry for the times I tried, for the times I really did believe

That if we didn't have forever, then we had nothing at all. I read the letters with heart, and I'm so thankful I left them whole.

Life is a lot like kissing in the rain-
Planning won't ensure all you hope for,
And sometimes you have to wait for
Opportunity to meet up with luck.
Then you can seize the moment,
Take it for what it is worth,
Lean in and pucker up.

Even though I talk endlessly,

Much too long concerning unrelated topics,

I know you will

Listen and let me speak.

You don't know how much that means to me.

Turbulant winds have found their way

Along my shores and have made my sea

Yearn for a calmer crash-

Learning that I can crash and find peace again

Only occurred to me once I

Recognized your love.

Thinking back on all the people I

Have met in my life,

And all the ones I have let go,

Never mistake yourself for one that I would lose sight of because your

Kindness has inspired my own,

Your hearts giving mine a shot at being a better person, all while

Our paths overlapped into one that I'm so thankful for treading alongside with you.

Understand that you are genuinely one in a million in this vast world and you could

Lead by example in the way you love,

Or lead in the way you see beyond the surface level.

Venturing into my sea wasn't something you may have noticed, but

Eventually you dove right in and I don't feel the sea sting at my eyes anymore.

My life won't stop crashing because you're here, but I will surely be able to stay afloat now that you're by my side.

Even when you aren't with me, the things you have taught and shown me will stay.

God only knows I needed someone like you,

A person to light the way.

Night or day, you're like a lighthouse beaming through the fog when my world isn't clear-

Thank you for enhancing my joy, for keeping my fears at bay. I love you as vastly as the sea, as long the days continue on. Thank you thank you thank you for teaching me how to be strong.

Look at me like you look at the moon-
With wide eyes and awe
That erase woes and gloom.

Look up and find me in the sky,
Look at me despite all others
Shining up on the black canvas, up so high.

I don't need you to only see
The moon on the star-shining nights
When the stars be all they can be.

I just need you to feel for me
The way you feel when you look at the moon-

Feel wonder and ease,
Feel me as you please.

Feel a sense of home and safety,
Feel vast and even maybe

Feel small but feel humbled,
Feel like you have stumbled

Upon a beauty that has been seen before,
But one that you'll choose to forever adore.

I am not a North Star
To guide you home,

Though I can be your moon,
And I'll be wherever you choose to roam.

I'll waver between waning and full,
Between fully there and shadowed away.

Though even when it seems I am gone,
I promise to never stray

Too far from sight,
Nor too far from mind.

Look at me like you look at the moon-
Like your search is over, and you've found what you wanted to find.

If anyone has the audacity
To solely look at the way I curve in a dress and cat-call out
That I am their "cup of tea",

I hope I burn their throat
And spill out of their saucer
When they realize that I've been brewing over this for awhile,

And I'm a bit too strong to swallow.

Even if my memory is romanticized by time,
And the exact details fade like old photographs,
Know I hold the time we had close to heart and never far from mind
Because there was a time I lived within your proximity,
Alongside your being.
And even if you left scars instead of stars in my sky
I still look back in awe like I do upon a moonless night;
A billion of stars for the memories I maintain,
A sky as vast as what is to come.
The times I feel lost are the times I look up
To the stars of my past
In hopes that they might be able to guide me home.
I won't always be a light in life
And I won't always be a time well spent,
But I hope you look back and see me in a constellation
Connecting the pieces together into the bigger picture.
Life is not meant to be lived in the past,
Nor is it solely meant for looking at the stars.
Imagine all the times you have taken the time to do so though,
And how alive and thankful you probably felt.
Looking back at the past is the same in that
I'll always look back and remember you for who you were, no matter where you now are.