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.

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.

The Earth smiles in flowers.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson*

A year ago
I ceased to grow
Because I was stuck in your shade

And now I have roots,
And the length of me shoots
Deep into the soil.

I found stability in me
And strived to be
More than a girl someone could love.

The Earth smiles
In flowers for miles,
And my love grew a field.

I grew far and wide,
For I have nothing to hide-
I bloomed with patience and time.

A year ago,
I ceased to grow,
And now I'm here to state

That growing is slow,
But so long you know
That for good things to cultivate

You have to take an age-old
Tired and true approach,
And simply let the time pass.

Dear, you just have to *wait.

The problem is that I can see you in my rear view mirror waving good bye every time I try to steer towards something better,
And I reverse back into your arms
In a way that sends my heart crashing back into your atmosphere.

The problem is that I can see me in your bed for hours on end
Researching your skin with my keen eye
So I can kiss at what you would call imperfections.

The problem is that the rose colored glasses I put on
The day I laid on the couch with you and told you I loved you
Haven't lose their hue, haven't lost their tint on my world.

The problem is that I'd drunkenly fall into your arms
The same way I did over a year ago
And I know you wouldn't catch me.

The problem is that you were the one that got away
And you ran fast and far
Because you needed to get away;
That was what I became to you.

The problem was that I taught you more about breaking than heart
And you taught me more about patience than tolerance
And at the end of it all I learned how to live a life without you in it because that was my only option.

The problem is that I am still in love with you
And you're in love with the life
That doesn't have a remnant of me.

The problem is that I am in love with you
And your life
Had no room for me

Petals fall, hues fade-
Dig a little deeper when looking for companionship
Because roots are where our truths lay.

I never really wanted to die-

I dabbled in suicidal thoughts, though not the perse usual rummaging through the brain of, "If I died, what would happen?"

I thought that too. For nearly 5 years.

Suicide is a common thought. Planning, excessive thinking, executing is statistically common too, though not as pedestrian as contemplating,
"If I died, what would happen?"

Yes, I contemplated. I planned. I excessively thought. I thought I wanted to die and I really didn't. I never really wanted to die, hence why I am still here.

I did not attempt. I made half assed attempts, if even. I literally and metaphorically scraped the surface, specifically the insides of wrists. Bandages and "the dog scratched me" sufficed as cover up.

Do not mistake these "attempts" as false sense of despair and hurt though. I hurt like hell. Cutting myself hurt less, and I think that's why we do it. The despair tore holes in my vision that somehow blurred the light into darkness and convinced me I might have been blind.

I was blind as a bat and at the time, that is why I thought I wanted to die at my own hands, on my own terms. 5 years of contemplating and planning and cutting and bandaging and wondering how many **** times the dog can scratch in the same place. 5 years of bouncing back and forth between seeing the light and having it blurred every time I felt myself wanting to die.

I promise I never really wanted to die though. I would have done it if I had.

I didn't want to die; I wanted a reason to live. Cliché? Maybe. But for 5 years that was my reality and my immature brain couldn't make sense of it. My little brain had no way of knowing that my reasons to live were immense and vast, like the horizon and sea meeting at that thin line across the way when you watch a sunset.

I wanted a reason to live. Living through my personal hell of trying to drag myself out without too many scars from my own hands and the world around me gave me a reason. I fought. I didn't even know what I was fighting but I fought. I threw punches and elbows until I found a way out of the pit where I fell and lost sight of the lights that gleamed like stars and took my breath away.

Fighting was a reason, and that was the start. Fighting to stay at a better place was a reason. Progress. The next day hopefully being better, another reason to put down the little jagged edge of a broken statue I used to cut myself when I felt I needed physical pain to bear truth to the waves I was drowning in within my rib cage.

I never really wanted to die and I wanted a reason to live. Every day I made it, I found that a reason would not suffice because rather there are so many reasons.

First, others empathize. They have seen their own hells. Hell looks different to us all, but feels just the same; like it is going to burn us to the ground if we don't start running the other direction. And it will. It could burn you like liquor down the throat, like overdosing or cheating or killing yourself or a multitude of other things that would signify hell burning you to the ground.

Second, others sometimes ponder dying too. We all do. Look at that, another commonality. Third, we are all human and if you give people a chance, you find they are similar to you in ways you cannot imagine, in ways you could not comprehend until you find out that your coworker also struggled with depression and your neighbor also has parents with a shaky marriage and your grandmother just wants someone to want her the same way you want someone to want you.

Fourth, others will look into your hell and if they run scared, they haven't seen many hells. If they stay and watch the glow, they will stay and hopefully help guide you out. So long you're willing to keep stepping forward, they may be on the opposite side waiting with a pitcher of water and a pat on the back for doing your best.

Fifth, people care. They do. They care and I promise the most random people will care if you died. Death is the only thing promised to us, as the pessimists say. I beg to differ; the notion that people will care is also confirmed in my mental book of, "Things I Know To Be True." Will it be 1 or 100 or millions, I cannot say. I can tell you someone will care though, and that someone is me.

I never wanted to die and that's a reason enough not to do it, right? To write about it and tell others? To tell strangers that I care if they die or not? That there is a reason to life even if I can't tell you exactly what?

Entirely. Strangers read my words every day and the most beautiful thing is the commonalities I have with these strangers, with people I can't put names or faces to because we may never meet.

I never wanted to die because I knew in my fickle, unsure yet unwavering heart that someday I may write about it all, and it may save a life. I read a lot in the 5 years I thought I wanted to die and the most remarkable was this-

A man jumped 9 stories and survived. He recalled not wanting to die as soon as he jumped. I didn't want to be that man in that he had to jump to know he wanted to live, but rather brave enough to speak about it so people like me could read and rethink the notion of wanting to die.

I did rethink it. It took me time and effort and sweat and tears and sadly some dripping blood but eventually I realized I never really wanted to die. I wanted a reason to live, and a stranger who wrote an article on another stranger gave me a reason to just that. Live.

Living has scared me shitless, unlike the way possibly dying at my will has. Dying is the period; definitive, dark, completion. Living are the semicolons and commas, the dashes and run on sentences. I want to keep running, I want to keep writing and loving and hurting and waking up knowing I can do it all again one more day, if I am so lucky to be afforded one more day.

I spent 5 years contemplating what would happen if I died, and who would care, and what would happen 5 years after my death. I never really wanted to die though, so I hung those thoughts up to dry. They recur sometimes and I do what I can to keep them out. I spent 5 years "living" on the brink of a death that wasn't even coming unless I said it was, and you know what? The anxiety of it all was worse than possibly dying itself. The anxiety of not knowing if killing myself was worth it killed me the most, left me petrified like a deer in headlights wondering the same **** thing I had for 5 years-

Am I going to die?

Yes. Someday. I am going to die someday.

Not at my own hands though. My hands have held others and felt the ocean at midnight. My hands have placed vinyl into a record player and my hands have made killer banana bread. My hands have petted more dogs than I can count and have gotten me sick because I touched the railings at school during flu season. My hands have held so much more and they hold my life; I do not intend to grip my life so hard and worriedly that I strangle the last breath out if it.

For the last ******* time I DID NOT REALLY WANT TO DIE and I bet none of you do either, even the ones that succeeded in the saddest succession known to man- beating nature at it's own game and taking life that wasn't meant to be taken. I did not really want to die, and you do not either. So where is the light at the end of the tunnel? The notion to hold on one more time?

It is the words I have written, the sun streaming through your windows each day, the hands you have held and the hands that hope to hold yours. It is in the tip you give to the man playing the guitar on the corner of your street, it is the lemonade stand that reminds you of sweet childhood.

Yes, death is promised to is all. Life is not. I can solely promise that your life is worth it though, and that fighting for it leaves you with a story to tell 5 years later when you realized that you never really wanted to die.

There are those you get over,
Those you let go of and let float away like balloons in the breeze.
There are those you take off
Like the heavy winter coat when the sun comes out and introduces spring,
A new life without them.

Then there are those that you learn to live without.
The ones that you take off like a coat and learn to embrace the chill when you find out the coat is no longer your size.
The ones that you let go of but watch as they dance away in the breeze so freely now that you've released your grip.

You kept out the cold
And now I get chills
Because I can't ever put you on-

There are those you let go,
And those you wish you still knew.
You're the coat I wish I never outgrew.

Independence has a nice ring to it-
The cash register when I pay for myself,
The ding of the doors I open on my own.

I don't need anyone to be whole anymore-
I filled my potholes with my own hands,
In my own ways.

I found a way to be alone and be okay-
Though the nights can get long
And I miss trailing kisses trailing to the bedroom.

I can open my own doors and pay my own tabs,
Though I miss opening up to someone else
And independence has a price to pay;

The cold nights can't be filled by anyone
Because one night stands, friends with benefits
Won't fulfill the small void not even my own self could achieve.

I surely don't need anyone to survive,
But that doesn't mean I don't want someone,
Or yearn for a hand to hold other than my own.

It's okay that you broke my heart,
It's okay that the pieces are still tucked behind pillows and underneath my bed.
It's okay I haven't figured out how each piece fits back together-
I've stopped feeling so puzzled as to why I can't let you go.

I stopped searching so **** hard for why you still get under my skin,
And pondering ways it could still work.

It's okay that you found a way into my journals and poems and scrawls upon scraps of paper.
It's okay that I let you so far in that you still haven't found your way out.

It's okay that I write this now because I stopped shaming myself for writing you, about you, even shamelessly writing to you.

It's okay because the most beautiful thing about heartbreak is all I've made out of it, the art of it all.

It's okay because these words outshine anything you could have been for me.

It's okay because even if from the outside looking in I'm holding onto a ghost of someone, I know the gossamere you I once knew is accounted for in these poems.

It's okay because I wouldn't have embraced the humility of not only missing you, but the general humility of life if not for having my heart broken by you, someone who is a good person but not a good person for me.

It's okay because I found out that genuinely loving you didn't take what I could make to new heights the way embracing the humility of continuing to love you has.

I fell stories when falling for you and these words that only could have been created through heartbreak brought me back up.

So it's okay that you genuinely broke my heart,
And it's okay that I'm writing about it now.
It's okay if you read it and it's okay if you know.
It's okay because I stopped letting the ghost of you haunt my every thought.

You promised to take me to the woods and sleep with me under the stars,
You promised me an adventure,
And by God you took me on one-

You weaved me through forest just trying to find you,
Searching for your remnants in the fallen leaves and branches scattered across the forest floor
You led me to a tall tree where I could carve our names into the wood, as selfish as that was,
And deface beautiful Mother Nature because I thought our love was also as breathtaking as she.

Our love was breathtaking-
You whisked me away and ran us to the tops of mountains.
You took me to peaks where I felt alive,
And valleys where I felt so down to earth I could've melted into the paths we paved
The same way I did every time your arms wrapped around my waist
And your head rested on my shoulder,
And you whispered in my ears about how you didn't want to be anywhere else.

I jumped rocks and cliffs with you,
Falling so hard and fast the same way I did
Any time you looked at me with those patient eyes,
Any time you found the time to hold me and love me in any way you could muster.
I fell into water and your sea eyes any time I jumped;
You made me fall so **** hard.

You took me to the edges of sunsets
That never rivaled the way your smile shined
When I told you I loved you,
Or rivaled the way your face looked when you laughed.
You had Mother Nature beat when it came to beauty.
You had me beat when I tried to find a reason to be upset you never actually took me on an adventure like you promised,

Maybe because falling in love with you was an adventure all in itself;
You left me blistered, aching and sore.
But I left you with the world in my eyes, the sea dripping from them,
The mountains weighing on my heart
And the shores soaking my soul because venturing into your world meant I had left my own,

And it took me so much **** time trying to find a path back to mine.
You took me for one hell of an adventure,
And the paths you treaded left footprints in my heart
That are blown away but aren't forgotten.

You promised to take me out to see the sights and walk the world-
Falling in love with you took me for an adventure that you didn't plan for,
And one I couldn't sustain much longer.

That's the thing about you, us, adventures-
They're thrilling and beautiful,
Breathtaking and wild.
They come to an end though,
And the adventure you took me on stained me with a sense of wanderlust you'll never come to see or know.

I teeter on the line of friend and more,
Tight-rope walking with arms out to balance me,
As if that gives me any stability in what I want from you.

I walk the fine line of your friend and more
Because I don't know where you stand about me-
Do you tight-rope walk the way I do?

Or do you stake claim in the friend side?
Do you wait for me, hoping for more?
Are you watching to see which way I fall?

I've already fallen for your eyes
And I'm sure you could catch me too.
Would you hold me though?

Would you let me sink into that embrace,
And maybe find a place in your arms
Wherein I fit perfectly?

Or do you balance me as quickly as I fall,
Making sure I stand sturdy
Without your aid?

I teeter the line of friend and more,
Hoping you'll cross it before me.
I want to cross my fingers behind my back

Every time I say you're just a friend,
Because I know it's a lie,
And a line I want to cross so badly.

Last day of 2014 and I have the best feeling that 2015 will be something bigger and better than I can comprehend at this moment.

2014 kicked my ***, broke my heart and taught me to have a backbone. It taught me how to love and how to let love go, and how to let some love come back. It taught me that family isn't just blood; family is who, as corny as it may be, makes you feel at home. It taught me to hold others when they need it and to not be so ashamed of asking to be held back.

2014 taught me to be my own person, and how being my own allows me to be so much more for others too. This year showed me so much heartache and growth, pain and joy. I learned that friends can love beyond what you deserve and parents, no matter how frustrating, do just the same. I learned that the nights I didn't sleep were some of my favorite memories, and some were my favorite lessons.

I learned that the fine line of love is more like a river that you either clear or drown and the only way to stay afloat is to learn to swim. You have to jump in without hesitation. I learned that netflix really is my best friend and the people that binge watch with me are a close second. I learned that waiting for someone who meets my expectations is worth the wait rather than settling for second best, and that telling other people about their worth is worthwhile in itself. I learned that loving others is the only way I will make it out of this life alive with a sense that I did something right.

2014, in all honesty, was a year of love for me. I fell in love with a wonderful person who I learned infinitely from. I fell out of love with the same person and learned even more from that. I fell in love with my family, even if they are the people that hurt me the most. I fell in love with the way concerts and music makes me feel more than anything else. I fell in love with the friends I have because they love me back, in the most honest and unconditional way possible. I fell in love with the way it feels to love myself and above all else I fell in love with myself.

Throughout this year of tribulation I found the courage to love me and tell everyone about it, because self love is a treasure some dream of, some eye at, and one that only the bravest find.

Above all else I learned that love isn't defined in any song or movie or book. It's what you make of it. It's the phone calls to say hello to far away friends and the hug at your worst. It's the child kissing a mother, it's the big anniversary date and it's the spontaneous adventure with someone you care about. Love is flipping the penny to heads up so someone else has luck, and it's a wet kiss when you're too drunk to even make it back to bed. Love is a shout into a canyon where your own echo may be all you hear, and it's the hope that someone else's echo someday responds back. Love is unconditional positive regard and telling people to get their **** together when you know they need it. Love is this and so much more. Remember that love isn't cookie cut and neatly packaged; it's raw and real, and it comes in a variety of forms. Don't be blind to love because it doesn't fit your preset mentality of what love is supposed to be. This is how you lose beautiful people, by not recognizing their personal love.

2014 is ending and 2015 will begin; I hope you all make it something worth telling about. Find the love in the people you know and the things you do; love hard and love well. Let go of the love for people who don't love you back, but keep your eyes open for love because I swear to God it is everywhere. If you let yourself believe that it is not only abundant, but that you are also so entirely worthy of having it, I promise your 2015 will be more than you can comprehend too.

I'm sure I could write letters and novels on your appeal,
Your beauty and your charisma.
I'm sure I could cover pages upon pages about how you look across a room, and how catching my gaze sometimes makes me lose my train of thought.
It's like a train running off the tracks, steam and engine and rotations over how something so dangerous could be so thrilling.
I could trace you with chalk on the sidewalk and outline all the reasons why I think my outline could fit like a puzzle piece next to yours.
I know I could dive deep into your dammed heart, find the cracks and leaks and patch them up best I can.
I know I could write pages and tell you, yet nothing my lips could say could match the way they'd feel against yours,
And I'm sure that the only way I could keep quiet about you is if you're the one closing my lips against yours.

This isn't really a poem but more a statement that I'll elaborate on in length.

I really think you just have to love 100%. I have a commitment problem aside from loving. I even took a stupid test on it for a class; I'm interested in everything and genuinely committed to very little. I lack substance because of it and I know it. I don't know where I'm going or what I'm doing so until then I just love.

I love indefinitely and those who maybe don't deserve it. I'm friends with my exes and let me tell you that's a whole ton of love because these boys broke my heart and I found a way to love them anyway. I broke their hearts too, and I'm so **** greatful they found a way to let me back in.

I love the people that are annoyed or bothered by me because they give me perspective. Maybe they know something I don't, that a flaw I have can be improved upon. I don't always give these people much weight in my life, but I love them anyway.

I love my family even if these people make me want to scream into a pillow. I love my parents in spite of the fact that I'm scared they don't love each other, and that hurts me. I love my brothers and you know what? I should tell them more, but the best way I know how is to listen when my older brother tells a story for too long and let my little brother drive so he can get some more practice.

I love my friends so much. Again, commitment issues means I have a lot of friends and I love really far and wide because only having a few friends scares me; if they leave, I'm alone. It helps and it hurts that this is how I love; some days I feel so lonely and others I feel like I know the world and somehow, all these people appreciate and love me even if it's tiny and ephemeral.

I love the people I've befriended because they're my extended family. They're the long drives with long conversations about life, the people I talk in accents with, the people I call when I'm crying and snotty and hurting. They're the concerts and the walks in the park, the occasionally coffee dates and "hey let's catch up" and hope we actually do.

These are the people I want to buy little things for so they know someone thinks about them. These are the people I randomly text so they know they're on my mind. These are the people I want to write long letters to explaining why I love and appreciate them, even if all we ever had was a class together.

And loving as much as I do kicks my *** sometimes. I love too much; it scares some people away. I love in excess, so much that some people can't handle it and feel uncomfortable or stray. I know my love can be mistaken for fake, for needy, for romantic and for naïve. Regardless, I love anyway.

I understand and my love will never be quiet or contained and some days I wish I only loved so many people that I could count them off with my two hands, but that simply isn't me. I don't know how to commit to loving only a few and loving them to what they deserve. I've poured my love meant for particular people out and I can't take that back, and give it to someone else. I can't reclaim the love I've given away.

The grass is greener where you water it and my love is a ******* monsoon over a drought-ridden field; I swear my love within myself grew as the numbers of people I love grew too. I don't have a yard, I have a plain. I don't have a rain cloud, I have a storm.

Maybe with age and experience those numbers will dwindle and I'll come to see that loving few is best for me. Until then though, all I have is a pouring love for anyone who doesn't mind getting a little wet. I have a love that may not be all you need but a part of what you seek, and I can solely commit to saying that that's enough for me.

I never thought the hyphen in my last name would indicate divorce,

A severing of my 50/50 blood ties to each of my parents by one tiny horizontal line in between two names.

I never thought that my father Samuel, a biblical name, could not muster even the strength of God to save a marriage,

Nor did I cross my mind that finding myself on my knees meant I was back to a church and a God, somehow shouting to the man that knows love best about how I wanted a love to be saved and it wasn't even my own.

Or that at age 19, the dwindling and sliver-like love of my parents would hurt as much as it does because I've seen fires die out and walls crumble; this doesn't look too different if you ask me.

Samuel, my father-
A man that is not of the father above,
Please solely summon his strength to save the love you are dangling by a thread to a life that if tugged at too hard, could unravel in your cold hands. Your one dream to have a family is going to crumble if you don't rightly love the woman that gave you one in the first place.

And to my mother-
Broken, tired and blue,
Give him the patience your God taught you to have just one more time. Give him the chance to change because I've seen the rain turn to sun and weariness turn to dust when you realize what is at stake. The small steps become the journey and if you only look at how far you have to go, you'll never make it.

I know 20 plus years grows tiresome on the heart and ******* the mind, but when I turn 20 I don't want to have to decide who I will celebrate with, or ask if you two are seeing anyone new. I don't want to see mom in the city and dad alone. I don't want to see my house divided up and I don't want to lose my home.

I know you both came from broke families that bruised your hearts in ways I can't fathom, and have seen the ins and outs of separate homes and step siblings and changes that come too often. I know you two stuck your last names together as a promise to stick together so that my brothers and I didn't have to know two home phone numbers, two addresses and two house keys.

When I was 7 the teacher asked if you two were divorced, and my toothy smile told her no.

I want the toothy smile of my own children to, when questioned about the endurance of love, say no to the notion that it can die out

Because grandma and grandpa were together until they had to go home to the man above.

This isn't about my father's faith or my mother's dwindling faith in him;

This is about how I went back to a God because I'm praying that my parents can find a way to let love back in.

It's beyond me why you'd run past open arms into the ones that dropped you in the first place,
And why you'd find home in a place that tore yours up from the group like a natural disaster.

Nature has a way of making things work,
Ever wonder why that's why you two don't?

And it's a **** disaster to hold your frame like a scared child-
Shaking and sobbing because things didn't go your way.

Please just go your own way,
You're the child who outgrew home and the overcoat she gave you.

Maybe if you let her go,
You'd stop feeling so heavy and fearful of chill.

Maybe if you took your coat off,
You'd feel the sunshine in ways not even her softest touch could rival.

Don't walk back into the eye of the storm.
Walk your way back home,

Where the arms aren't heavy
And the arms don't make you feel so alone.

In the end all you have is family,
And I don't want any of this
Because this family doesn't know how to be one
And it doesn't know how to love or resist

Biting comments and surpassing our
Elders in what they didn't know-
That somehow 20 years later,
This family tree will cease to grow.

Surely I'll have children,
If I can be what I should for them,
But even if I have a daughter or a son,
The tree will still cease to grow again.

The tree died from the chill of your cold remarks
And lack of root in this home.
The tree stood now chance when we branched out,
The tree lost it's leaves and stood alone,

Like myself,
Away from the blood ties and similarities.
Sure, we share a last name,
But we can't share our insecurities.

We can't share our concerns or woes
In fear of being belittled or demeaned.
We can't share a **** dinner at a table
With somehow being scathing and mean.

We can't share a laugh
Because we are too busy tiptoeing
Around in fear of stepping on a foundational crack
That'll never stop growing

Until we learn that family really is all you have,
And could be all you need.
Until then though,
Each of us will leave.

The house will grow colder,
And no lights can illuminate this dark
That grew between us all,
And set us all apart.

I wouldn't surprise me if
I leave and don't come home,
Because home isn't a place but a feeling,
And this is where I feel colder than stone .

Someday I may have kids,
And they'll ask about you all.
I fear all I'll have for them
Is a telephone call

Because grandma will be in the city,
And grandpa will have an apartment alone,
The uncles will be far gone,
And none of us will ever know our way back home.

I can't be my grandmother in that I fix people because I need repairs myself;
My own holes and tears can't be fixed by the hands of anyone else, nor can mine repair theirs.

I can't be my grandmother in that I need someone else to make me whole;
The holes I spoke of need not be filled by another,
Can't be filled by another because it won't fill me up no matter how much that person's love for me spills over.

I can't be my grandmother in that I fear abandonment;
I do not reside in the dark corners of "do not leave me" and "please stay".
Go, if you wish. Stay, if you please. I need not to will you either way, why should I anyway?

I can't be my grandmother in that I love any **** person who offers a sliver of their own,
Because slivers of the moon are almost too thin to see,
Slices of affection so thin I can't grasp
And thinness in love will thin out my own veins until I don't feel the blood pumping in the first place.

I can't be my grandmother in that I make the same mistake over and over again,
Try to love the unloveable and fix the damaged souls and talk on the phone to men who don't care at hours when I should be asleep and fear being alone and needing someone else so much I forget how to need myself.

Despite all of my "can't be's" though, it all sure as hell runs in the family.

I am the pendulum swing from life and death-

Some days I feel so alive I cry and the world is my playground, where I can see beyond the horizons and touch sunsets with my fingertips. I kiss at the stars and create constellations connectioning myself to the universe, each bright orb a reason why I'm thankful for the breath I am afforded.

Some days I am so far to death I look for life in the sheets of people I don't know, the empty bottles of clear spirits when mine is so dark, and anything that may light a spark in the dark cavity of my chest. I light lighters to substance when I am so lacking substance myself.

The pendulum swings so hard and so far, creating winds that I feel as chill on the days I swing to death, and a wind I welcome on days my soul shines so bright the days I feel the warmth.

I'd **** to have a softer swing but I'm killing over the fact that some days I'd **** myself and others I wonder how I could ever even feel that in the first place.

We should just kiss like real people do-*
It's fine if your lips are chapped from the cold ones before me,
And mine are a bit too tight from all the times I've tried to save face.
We might bump noses or hit teeth,
I might laugh and you might blush.
Maybe your hands might shake,
And maybe I'll be too nervous to keep your gaze.
There won't be fireworks or an orchestra to set the mood,
And that's all fine by me so long you just kiss me like real people do.

Seaside escapades
Up and down beaches,
High tide and sun rise-
Where my heart chose to stay.

Evergreens and dirt ground
Trekking trails, running down hills
Jumping off rocks into the lake-
This is where my happiness was found.

Pass time outside,
Where time ceases to exist
And all my worries fade away-
I continually wish this is where I woke, where I reside.

Candles only crumple into themselves and melt, then harden went they're burnt out;

I can see myself the same because you lit matches to me that ignited more than the wick,

More and more, burning into the night just trying to guide the way and keep you warm.

Morning comes, the sun rises too, and with light you don't need a candle to show the way.

Day in and day out, you put me aside. But when the night came about and darkness fell upon your mind, casting shadows upon your heart, you were quick to light a match to me just one more time.

Burnt, hardened and gone; the cold winds from your breathy, diluted and icy moments of speak blew me out one last time.

I understand you don't need me, but please don't reach for me in the dark or light a match to a wick you once knew because you're cold and lost and can't find your way to someone else.

You once took all the light inside of me away; doubtfully so, but if you haven't lost the ways I'd light up your life, I suggest that you get to it because though you haven't, the ways you darkened mine have yet to be forgot.

Your location on this globe
Ceases to keep you from pinpointing a spot my heart-
Even though you're far off elsewhere,
Your stake on the beating in my rib cage reinforces that we are never truly apart.

I just want to slow it down with you,
So when our minds collide, I can think it through-
Slo-mo us forming a connection in hearts and mind,
Confirming I've found what I want to find-

The shoulder to lean on,
The curvature of your body at dawn,
The assurance and accountability,
Your attention, to the best of your ability.

I want to slow it down with you
When you're simply spacing out, haven't a clue
That the cosmos and stars don't have anything compared
The amount of time I think we should have shared

Together, finding the inner cogs and ticks
Of our beating hearts, what does the trick
To make our spinning minds revolve around
The everlasting could be of us, a continuing yell into a canyon's echo sound.

I want to slow if down for us
So we can look past superficial and lust.
I want to slow it down when I'm within your embrace
Because I'm not looking for a chase.

I want to slow it down so I know time passing doesn't mean we will,
Or your time here will fall ill.
I want to slow it down for once and hear the clock's gears tick, pass and go;
I want to slow it down with you so maybe, with patience and time, something between us and grow

Like the forests with towering evergreens
With trunks increasing in age and rings-
I want to slow it down with you,
In every moment, in everything we do.

Though your hand pulled the trigger,
You tied your own noose,
You emptied the bottle's contents into your hands,
You jumped and finally let loose,

Your hand could have been held,
Your voice could have been heard.
Your tears could have been wiped away,
Your demons could have been cured.

They say suicide is selfish,
At one's own will and action.
Why is it that until after the fact,
We finally give a reaction?

Life should be cherished
While still around.
Don't tell me some don't speak up,
Don't tell me they never made a sound.

We're all fighting battles
Day in and day out,
And in my heart of hearts,
These people didn't **** themselves on their own; I have no doubts.

Controversial and complicated,
Evoking and deep,
Taking your own life
Is not a solo leap

Into the unknown of death,
Afterlife and reincarnation;
It's a leap that's sometimes aided,
A path that's prepaved towards life's suffocation.

Yes, suicide is a solo act
Done on your own,
And reasons why people choose this fate
Will sometimes be left unknown.

Don't be a force behind a trigger though,
A force behind tying a rope;
Be a force of empathy and compassion,
A force of inspiring hope.

We can't save the world,
Or all the lost souls.
We can save our own actions though,
And keep in mind what we ought to always know;

You never truly know
What people are enduring,
What people are hiding,
Why people are hurting.

You never truly know
Who needs a simple smile or a grand gesture-
Whoever you help though,
Will always remember.

Therefore, with clichés aside
And pessimistic notions unheard
Please love and be kind and listen;
Their abilities to save and set free are one of the only things in this world I am assured.

We leave marks upon this world,
Without our consent and sometimes our conscious thought.
So try to leave behind marks that inspire and grow,
Marks that in the best light, cannot be forgot.

Though you pulled the trigger
And tied your own noose,
I wish you knew that path wasn't made for you,
And that will forever remain the truth.

I wish you knew that you weren't alone,
Even in your darkest hour.
I wish you knew that pulling that trigger
Didn't give you all the control and power-

It took a life worth living,
A soul worth saving and repairing.
It took your whole life to make it to that point,
And seconds to leave us all despairing

For closure, reason and hindsight
As to why you didn't reach for aid.
But even more so,
Why our own arms, now shaking by our sides, heartwrenchingly stayed.

Homesick in my own home because home isn't a place,
It's the feeling of belonging and those who make me feel so live so far away.

Homesick in my own town where I was born and raised,
Homesick for the people that I love, for the people I wish had stayed.

Keep your hands where I can see them-
Not at the small of my back where your fingertips could roll down my spine and ignite the open fuses in my heart.

Keep your words in your throat-
Swallow them down the same way I swallowed the lump in my throat when I realized I was a trophy on your shelf, a prize that collected dust.

Keep your heart within your ribcage-
Don't offer it out in slivers of affection, in segmented allocations of desire and lust. Keep your ******* heart contained if you can't even keep it whole.

Keep to yourself, it's all I really ask-
I used to ask the opposite of you, though I came to see that you had a padlock on your heart I couldn't figure the combination to.

Please keep far away from me; don't check in and don't text, don't call and don't bother because I can't answer calls from the past nor can I keep my heart to myself when you can't keep to yourself.

Thinly spread like ice sheets in the arctic sea; look through and see the deep depths of ocean water blue, tap tap tap and leave a crack.

Spreading thin and far, encompassing a continent with the chill of realizing spreading thin the way I do leaves me tiptoeing across, tripping on a crack and breaking all the way through.

Chills down my spine, hypothermia creeps in quick and I grapple for solid groud but thin ice can't hold me now, nor did it ever.

Vast and thin left me falling in and now I can't swim, ice blue depths **** me in and all the lights grow dim.

Clocks innately bind us to circumstance and the off chance that maybe we'll land side by side, 11:59 to my 12 o'clock.
Abiding by the time we are afforded, the ticks are sported on the leather and faces on our wrists.
I found you at the wrong time and now I've come to find you're consuming all of mine.

A bowl of seeds in front of me remind me of you-

I had to cut through thick skin and peel it away just to get at the good stuff.

It didn't stop there though-

I had to pick and probe, inspect and search for remnants of the thick skin so when I sink my teeth into the fruit, I wouldn't find myself with a bitter aftertaste.

Red stains my hands and counter tops, just trying to coax the sweetest part of you out.

A bowl of seeds in front of me reminds me of you-

The seeds are sweet yet soon gone, and epehemeral sweetness doesn't mask the bitterness of skin I couldn't get past, skin I couldn't peel away no matter what.

Your body heat is heightened by the blankets over our bodies in attempts to keep out winter's chill,
Yet the heat doesn't melt the look in our eyes when we go through the steps we've threaded so long that the footprints are permanently embedded on the path that led to "us"-

"I love you" is so soft I can't heart it,
And the embraces so short I forget they happened.

Falling asleep next to you means we are close,
But underneath these covers also lies a truth between us that not even skin upon skin could break through;

Proximity means nothing when hearts are far and eyes see through.
However close we are won't make up for it because proximity means nothing when the only time we are close is when I'm physically next to you.

"Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?"

This isn't a pick up line though; I want to know how badly you bruised when your wings were clipped and you fell so fast you didn't even know you had fallen.

I know you thought he was your heaven, your above all else perfect, your safe haven but tell me,

Did he let your wingspan expand and be all it could?

Or did he pick at your feathers, one by one, until you were bare and unable to fly?

Did he tell you you couldn't fly without him?

What did he say that made you believe you didn't have the power to get up and sail along the skylines like before?

Do you feel caged in his heavy arms?

Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?

I think it hurt more when you fell in love with a boy that created a false sense of it, and made you believe that life without him hurts like hell.

I think you mistake the bruises he gave you for ones you think you'd have without him.

I think you're fearful of falling from his grace, his arms, your perception of heaven so much that it will plummet you into the depths of hell,

But I know better;

I think you could make it out alive.

Hell, I know you could if you would extend all you are beyond arms length, let yourself free fall into the unknown and remember to take up the space you deserve.

Open your eyes, open your heart and open your wings because the wind will carry you far, you'll see the world that you thought didn't exist without him, and you'll realize that the real hell is sewing up your heart and delivering it to someone who doesn't heed to the "CAUTION: FRAGILE" stamped on top.

I know it's going to hurt when you fall from your heaven,

But know it'll hurt less than contorting yourself into a smaller version of yourself so you can fit into his figure when you fall asleep together

I know it's going to hurt when you fall from your heaven,

But know it'll hurt less than giving him the clippers every time you feel the need to fly and watch the world and all you could be pass you by.

Put on the show,
Paint the mask and wear it with pride,
As if hiding reality was something to boast.

**** in, zip it all tight
The same way you do your lips
When you'd rather unravel and cry.

Paint the smile,
Stamp it across your face-
Make believe for everyone else.

Put on the façade,
The one that fools the masses.
Yet I know to look beyond your face-

Your eyes are sea storm blue
And sting with tears
Because you let them fill for so long,

And you shut up about your problems
And your insecurities
And your fears

Because the fear of honesty
And reality and being geuine
Kept you from the ultimate release.

Paint on your mask,
Don't let your true face show
For the world to see.

God forbid they know,
God forbid you tell the truth,
God forbid you admit you're unhappy.

The early risers haven't awoken yet,
And the parties are just dying down.

When I'm at awake and alone at 4 am,
I drive around this town-

Through the quiet neighborhoods,
Sedentary stop lights,

Waiting for cars to change them
Through the wee hours of the night.

Driving along the dark streets
With nothing but my radio and my mind,

I find solitude and peace,
Something rather hard to find.

At 4 am, the hour of awake and alone,
I find myself driving amongst the others like me-

Unwilling to shut eyes,
And always willing to roam.

Don't build a home in the rib cage of others is what my mother told me when I found myself wishing my bed was "ours" and home was more so his arms.

Don't nest in the heart of anyone for hearts are fickle, fate is unpredictable and alas, people always change.

Don't place all of your eggs in the basket of your lover- when they hatch and attach, they may be so comfortable that you never leave and never learn to fly.

My mother begged me to not lose myself in swimming his veins, the web of his mind and the sheets when the bed was ours. Some days I wish I would've listened, but finding a home in the heart of someone else taught me this-

Hearts are as fragile as the nests you build in them.

Your wings flapped too hard and created hurricanes when you lost control, and chipped away at your rib cage nest.

You picked and probed with your beak to no end, and left holes and tears in your heart home.

It's not fair that your own heart was so full to the brim with demons and doubts that you unloaded them like your belongings when you first moved in, left scattered around, left out for the mess you were.

Your fragile heart left marks upon your home and the foundations flew away like you should have when your rib cage nest and your heart home grew too small and let you fall. It took falling to learn how to fly but by then it's a little too late.

Do not make a home in the hearts of others, my mother told me.

Someday you'll have to fly away without your heart because the weight of it is too heavy from a lesson your mother tried to teach you, a lesson he taught you and a lesson you've come to preach-

Do not leave your heart in the rib cage nest of another, for it'll nest so deeply that it cannot be reached.

I wrote this for you because there were times I wish someone had written this for me-

Stop hating your reflection, stop hating the girl that is in your mirror. She is you, and you must love your fingertips to your eyelashes, your toes to your stomach all the way down to the edges of your soul and the depths of your heart.

Stop letting him be your world. Have you ever looked at a map? Have you even seen where the rivers go? Have you ever realized that you can get in the car and go? Don't tell me no, because it's true. Instead of following the rivers you let him create them and they flow down your face. Stop swimming in your tears, don't drown in his consuming love. Swim far away and resurface. Breathe in and out. Get out of the water and dry your tear soaked face off, and don't swim until you're ready again.

Stop letting your insecurities shape your mind. They're like needles injected into your body, leaving injuries and drops of blood while extracting your strength to put those thoughts to sleep. You have to learn to form your pretty little fingers into fists and start fighting off those nagging voices in your head that say you aren't good enough. Throw a punch, take a hit, get back up, wipe the sweat off your forehead and do it again. Battle until you come out bruised but on top, exhausted but a winner.

Stop letting him be your measure of worth. His attention and love will never, in your lifetime, fill the void where your own self love should be. He, nor any one guy, will ever fill your heart the way your own self love could. I promise you that loving yourself is so much more rewarding than someone else loving you. I promise I promise I promise.

Stop making excuses. Are you really happy or is that what you project? Is your smile real? Does he make you genuinely smile anymore? Are you falling asleep in his arms feeling alone? Are you?

Stop reading these words and start doing. I wrote this for you because I know he never would.

Storing the tears dripping from your cheeks so I can water color you a picture of why, even at your worst, you're a work of art-

Whoever created you, evolution or God or the pairing of particular chromosomes, dipped their brush into a palette of sunsets and starry night skies and painted your bright smile.

They borrowed from evergreens and forever instilled a dark green hue for your eyes that are as old-soul as the rings of the trees.

Your skin came from the white of peaches, your freckles from the brown of river stones smoothed by the water and time.

The curls and color of your hair came from beaches that only knew washing waves, seagulls and tiny ***** and seashells.

Your strength emulates mountaintops covered in white snow, blown by harsh winds yet still standing tall.

A mind like yours looks like clockwork- gears grinding constantly,, hands spinning and continually rotating, not even stopping when easing into the darkness of night.

Strawberry-red across your cheeks when you blush, the white of crashing waves when you receive news that's takes the color from your face, yellow sunflowers when you laugh the way you do.

A heart like yours was painted from the heart of mine- I dipped a brush into my own heart because I know there is where I know you best, where I honestly know you for who you are.

Cry your tears, give them to me.

I'll make you out to be what you really are, what your eyes cease see-

Your tear-cleared eyes aren't cleared enough for they do not believe that you are nothing short of a masterpiece.

I don't think stating that you make me melt would suffice, even if entirely clichè-

It's the icecream cone in the hand of a child during summer,
Melting away.

That's what you do to my soul when you first wake up and smile with your mouth closed,

And your first breath is dedicated to saying good morning to just me.

Bottle it up, dip my pen into it, and write you out pages and pages about the ways you make me melt-

It could be the way your skin warms against mine on cold nights,

The way your eyes ignite over the curves of my mind, the curves of my hips.

It could be the way your lips light fire to my spine when they embrace my own,

Or even when they whisper silly nothings into my ears.

Yes, I do melt at the sight of you thinking silently, within solely your own head.

I melt when you sing off key and drunkenly dance off beat.

I melt when you linger in the doorway and push your hair back the way I would right after you style it, simple to get a rise out of you.

I melt at the way your mind revolves around the finer things and not the ticking of a clock; you haven't time for keeping time, only time for what's important.

I melt when you laugh and when you smile, when you find me desirable even at my worst and when you close your eyes as you fall asleep.

I dip my pen into the ways you make me melt and write it all out for you to see

In hopes that maybe it'll have the same effect that you've had on me.