I tried to close my eyes and walk through life blindly. I often stumbled, fell, cried and got lost. I heard many honest people lie through their teeth. I've felt the rough hands of a hardworking mother and father. I've learned the meaning of patience, hope, charity and sincerity.

When I opened my eyes I asked myself; "Now what have I missed?". I expected to see hardship and disaster. A world run by liars and held entirely on the backs of the innocent, broken and bruised. Yet I forgot my most important lesson. Hope.

It came in the form of the birds singing their mellifluous songs in the trees. A trail of sunshine falling through the fluffy white clouds. The bright and ignorant smiles of the passersby. Yes, the world is ugly. But I have learned to see the beauty in between; I have learned to look.

To fight as enemy to thy current
Is but to strive in vain
A heart that beats is simply such
Thy thunder scarce is an echo for me, he, or she
Ahwær thy heart may flee
Will it be me, loves hearth shall I be

My parents carry regret and insecurity everywhere they go
When they first open their eyes in the morning
When they close them at night
And every moment in between
Guilt and doubt sit on the edge of their bed

My mothers eyes hold back years of trauma
Abuse from her childhood
Abuse from herself
Cowering in the shadow of her present self
Stuck somewhere in the past, she can't move forward

My father holds nothing back
His sharp words telling me I'll never get it right
Making me feel small and insignificant like a penny in the road
I don't think I could ever love or respect this man
It's so hard to see into his mind and through his eyes

But I know he is insecure in the same ways as me
He doesn't want to feel useless or be forgotten
He is afraid of failure and blame
He's is also cowering in the shadow of his past
Stuck somewhere inside himself, he can't climb out

My eyes carry hope and determination
My favorite words to hear are "I'm proud of you"
Because I never thought I would ever hear it from my parents
But I am older now
Mature enough to know that pride doesn't need to be spoken from someone else

While my parents are trapped in the past,
I'm lost in the future
Too busy dreaming of possibilities to see the present
A beam of light hangs over me, distracting me
I'm too captivated to look away and see ahead of me

We are all trapped and isolated inside ourselves
We are roses grown in sand
Blaming each other for our own lost vibrancy
We are butterflies without wings
Judging each other for why we can not fly

Don't fall in love with an actor
All they want to do is play the leading role in your heartbreak
They are just rehearsing for someone else while they fake their way in and out of your life
They steal the spotlight in your eyes and take all the credit they can carry
They treat love like an audition
Then they run away like you're Macbeth and let their ego swallow you whole

He thinks that everything that blooms and flourishes is only born to wither before it perishes
Happiness to him is like a candle that's run out of wax and can no longer be lit
I try to lift him from his pain, but I carry him away in vain
Everytime I think I'm holding him high enough above his fears and insecurities
He's distanced himself and disappeared once more

He's a rose that's grown from sand
He only sees himself as a freak and an anomaly
People around him tell him he's a burden
That he is useless and insignificant
They take advantage of his kindness
He wants to disappear rather than be a disappointment

I feel like I'm always fighting to hold him above the river of Styx full of souls with their reaching arms desperate to drown him
If my love isn't enough to save him
I hope someone with stronger arms will come along and pull him from the current and onto land at last

Please hold on to my dreams for me
Put them in a ziplock bag, carry them wherever you go
But don't give them to me
I lose them so easily when they are alive
I only find them once they've died
I'm sorry for my recklessness, but know that I've tried

I want to hold my dreams the closest to my heart
Inside my passions and within my hope
Swirling feelings of bliss hide with them
I want to keep them safe from my doubts and insecurity
But I can't be trusted with such fragile things

In my hands they tangle and fray
Falling victim to procrastination and vanity
Tattered and bruised they lose their shimmer
Like pyrite and nickel they lose their shine
What happened to the glitter and blinding glow?

As my belief and trust in myself fades
All I see in my dreams
Is someone drowning at sea

Sometimes I'm a pure and innocent shade of white
The shade remeniscent of cotton ball clouds on a sunny day
Sometimes I'm mixed with green, blue and black
I turn into a murky and distant gray; rain clouds
Then sometimes, I'm just pitch black
Void of every thing, a combustion of chaos
I'd rather be the colors that shine down falling through the cracks of a cloud
That shiny shade of yellow and gold that no amount of paint can perfect

That's what he feels like
Sunlight on skin
All the warmth and shimmer
He reminds me of the scent of sunshine
And everything bright and beautiful
That intangible color of sunlight through a cloud?
That's him
Ethereal