I keep playing my guitar
I feel you in the strings
Playing songs that remind me of you
You're in every strum
Every line

I could turn you into poetry
But the feelings I have for you
Barely fit into prose

The world is falling apart,
but I would gladly live through an apocalypse
if it was side by side with you

I'd watch the last sunset
journey of the moon
and twinkle of the stars

If I knew you were watching too

I wish I could walk along the path you leave behind
Do the things you do to me that I'd never do to you
Say the words I know will hurt and cut you deep
So you can understand what it feels like to have
Those scars that run across your heart and weaken your mind

I'm jealous of how highly you think about yourself
How easily you hurt others without a second thought
How you can do whatever you want
Say whatever you want
And never face a single consequence

If I could walk a day in your shoes
I'd break a million hearts with every step
And when I'd get tired I'd have a glass of water
Poured from the ocean of tears from all those you've discarded

And I feel like I'm your ghost
Pacing in the steps of the one who hurt me most
Bathing in your legacy of tragedy
In all these memories I am searching for my remedy

But all I have found is a band-aid to rip off
A quick and momentary pain I won't remember once it's done
In my mind I shake the walls of insecurity and reminisce
About the times I was able to commit such crimes of passion
About the times I was stronger than the person that I am now
When I wasn't too scared to rip that band-aid off

The crushed wing of a butterfly still inspires me to fly
It shows me not to take my own for granted

I should have said it back
It haunts me
I should have filled a book with words for you
But I couldn't even say those three

He used to feel like the embodiment
of all my past lives
and all the ones yet lived

Now he has become more
like a living ghost
one my magic
can't seem to touch

He feels more like a memory
than a person
just an echo
of the boy I loved

Most people say family is forever and everyone else is just a choice
But truth is we choose our family with every passing moment
We choose our spouse, choose to have children
We choose to stay; to care; to coexist
While this isn't always the case for every one in every place
We often have the option to choose our family
Sometimes families tear each other apart with hate
Instead of leaving we choose to say "We are family" and stay

We don't choose love

We don't get to decide who takes our heart by force and in a flurry
We can choose who we will allow keep it safe and hold onto it
But we don't get to decide who we fall in love with

We call it a fall because it isn't a walk, a run or a jog
It's sudden, unexpected and unanticipated

We don't walk around this world knowing the love of our life
We bump into them, we are introduced, we trip and fall
We stumble into love and we stumble out

We don't look around a room and say-
"That one, that's the one i'm in love with"
That's not love, that's lust and attraction

We fall into, for and because of someone else
We get hurt
We pick ourselves back up
We laugh, we cry
We don't get a say in if they leave or if they stay
We lose, we grieve
We blame and we accuse
But we don't get to choose
Because love is not a choice

Love is a feeling
A calling
An urge
An undeniable force of gravity; A magnetic field
We are pulled towards and pulled apart
We are pulled so hard together we knock each other over
Just to get to our one true center

Love doesn't have a name
It's not a person
It's a connection
My love is the force that pulls us together
My love is the hurt that knocks me over
Whether I wish it was or wasn't
Love is not a choice

We can't lie to ourselves like we lie to others
A heart that beats is simply such
You can't tell it to stop or beat for someone else

Family we choose
Love we find

Our love was such a beautiful flower

One so unique and brand new it didn't even have a name
As it's petals bloomed and towards the moon it grew
I felt a love that was so deep and true

I thought that it was so beautiful and ethereal
That it must be immortal
That I'd see it in this life into the next and the one after

But it wilted
All the petals browned and fell
The roots rotted and leaves receded

Every flower has its season, this one just came late and let false hope into my heart

No matter how much I watered
How much I changed the soil
How much love I poured into it-

I could not save our dying flower

I hear that love is the strongest blade
With the kind of strength that cuts through all that's wrong
And builds whole kingdoms from the rubble
But every day through lover's eyes
I watch it defile all perfection
And empires fall with every deception
All the dishonesty that is unburied
Teaches lessons you ought to learn before you're married
Hold yourself and don't look up
Eyes that search will surely find
Perfect love that masquerades with devil's at night
I find that within this life there are no gallant knights
True love never satisfies
A hungry heart that feeds off lies

You make me want to be a better person
I guess that's what love really is
How selfish of me to want that now

Palms opened up
Rose incense burning
I asked for a sign
And she gave me yearning
Now I crumble
Like the ashes burning

Why lock your heart in a cage and give someone else the key?
You didn't spend all those years in isolation
Just to lock yourself up once you're finally free

What right does she have to tell you when to feel together?
What right does she have to hold your freedom in her grasps?
Does she kiss your cheek and make you forget your weaknesses?
Does her smile tell you that you are worthy
And only then, do you believe?

When he holds your hand, is that the only time when you feel safe?
When he caresses your fears away, only then do you feel healed?
Will he hold you in his arms and make you forget your past?
Will it be worth it when he makes you forget all your trauma
And the past repeats?

The four walls of your mind reflect my tower
I waited for someone to come and save me
That was my first mistake
Healing has to come from inside out, not from outside in
Save yourself before you rely on a possible savior
No one else can mend your wounds
Don't rely on forgetting, try learning more about healing

I was never frustrated with you
It was me
It was the pressure
All the eyes on us
All the hopes and expectations
And as I let those feelings suffocate me
Somewhere along the way I guess
I decided to drown you too

So many things remind me of you now. Pool tables have especially been reminiscent. I desperately long to be back in the moment when we were at Divine Lake walking through the woods. When we were sharing stories, laughing, bonding. That was when I should have fallen in love with you. Sitting by the edge of the water watching the sunset. That was when I should have kissed you. Would I waste these beautiful scenes with you now? Despite the stinging of the cuts on my ankles from the vines, that day will always be the sweetest. How you used to always wrap your arms around me and hug me, not wanting to let go. I understand it now. How warm and safe, the bitter bliss of immortal memories. There's this picture I have you at the Japanese Tea Garden that's my favorite. You're so beautiful and radiant in it. You make all the colors of the fauna more vibrant with that grin. All of those times you held your hand out for me to hold, I curse myself for refusing. For being too embarrassed to be so vulnerable. Now I don't even have the memory hold on to.

It's so curious the way the human heart
***** us in through the eyes
Captive to these unfair emotions
Covering every inch with stitches on our skin
Reflecting all the love torn apart within

Bruises on our egos, showing how shallow we can be
Everyone trying too hard to please
The social norms that leave us on our knees
Praying for release from the things we can't control
Because we're all so scared of the unknown

Fake your intentions, pretensions feed the flame
All of the questions that are keeping us awake
What more can we forsake for those illusions we all chase?

And is it worth it in the end
When we look back at the lives we've lived
Knowing every move was calculated, faked for show
Because we were told to live that way
Faking our emotions, driving out the sin

With the same hands used to yield we beckon with a wave
Inviting back all the things we've thrown away and overcame
All the envy rinsing off our skin, falling into life once again
Because we long for the touch of other's to fix what we cannot
Yet we hate and love each other in the same fragile thought

How is it that you fear me like I'm a toxic flower
But still hold me in your arms like I'm all that you desire?
Feeling up my emptiness, caressing away all that is corrupt
Walk with me in the shadows of my soul, breath the air within
Will you hold me up to the sun, that I may feel again?

The last time I believed in God
I was 6 years old in Sunday school
I asked my teacher why we believed in a man above the clouds
I loved that woman, but her answer wasn't enough
All she was able to say was "Just have faith and the Lord will save you"
Children are simply meant to blindly believe what they are told, but some how I couldn't
I was defected
Because that was the day I stopped believing

The last time I spoke to God
I was 16 and losing sight of who I was
I asked him why he thought he deserved so much credit
For the world he made
A world that self destructs
A world where people find it so hard to breathe they take their life
A world where we can't see ahead of us because the future crumbles before it comes

I asked him why he let his children starve
Why he let them cry at night with no hope to hold on to
Why he let them hurt, shrivel up and die
Why he let them live in poverty

I asked him why I was supposed to have undying love
For a man who doesn't cherish the creation of his own two hands

A father
Who doesn't pay child support
Who doesn't hold his child in his arms
Who doesn't tell them he loves them
Who doesn't put food on the table
Nor a roof over their heads
Who doesn't speak or console
And who leaves his children alone and unprotected
Unsupervised and broken down

If we hold our own human fathers up to this standard, then why don't we hold the father of all responsible for his neglect?

The last time I prayed to God
I wasn't kind
I didn't ask for anything
I simply called him out
If a God truly exists
I hope one day he is put accountable for his crimes
And is punished for his sins

When I let you go
It felt like a hurricane trailed through my body
As if my heart had a cave-in

You said you were glad I was being mature about it
I know you were thankful for the sacrifice
And I know you needed time to fix your health

But I wasn't mature at all
Behind the apathy and silence
Behind the sweetness and indifference
I was watching acres of flowers wilt before me

All I could do was watch our garden die
Even though you never sprayed any pesticide
And there was no lack of water
No lack of sunshine or warmth
There was nothing wrong-
It was only the remnants of shattered hope that poisoned the soil and rotted the roots

I see the world in different shades of him
I try to keep my eyes closed, pretend not to see
I deny and deny and refuse to feel
Because he is too important to lose to love
So I will suffer until I learn to let him go
Or perhaps one day I'll cave and finally let him in

Because he is everything I have ever wanted
And everything that I never want to lose

Do you know I don't want to drink to forget you?
I want to drink to drown in you

All I want to do
Is drink you all away
These feelings that I prayed for
They came too ******* late
Now you're gone and all that I long for

Aphrodite, you're too cruel
Like a genie
You always give me what I wish for
With a cost too much to pay

Apathy and loss
Then loss and longing?
It's a sick game you love to play

And I play it everytime
Failing the same level over and over

Hoping one day I'll be the winner

I never could keep one
But now I can't stop writing
Hoping to write you out
With the rest of my thoughts

You taught me to smile at the world that let us down
And I don't know why, but when it came from you
I love you felt like a promise
And in your smile I saw a forever I thought could last
Maybe I was wrong for believing in a love so strong
Maybe the times weren't right, maybe the stars weren't aligned

To hell with fate I say, for leading love astray
I saw all I ever wanted in you
Maybe you were just lonely, and maybe I was too
I guess I gave you more love than you could ever return
But if I love you was a lie then I wish you'd have never told the truth

Please tell me it wasn't just because I was there
Tell me that you really cared, that I mattered to you
Tell me my love was one you didn't want to lose
Just don't tell me a lie, you know that isn't fair
I loved you like the earth loves the rain
You gave me love and helped me grow
But you taught me pain

It was a hurt I'd never known
It was holding the world in my hands and having to let it go
Like holding the key to paradise and dropping it down the drain
No, I'd never felt such pain like I did when your love went away
And I had to leave behind the love I needed the most

Coming back to you is the cruelest thing I can do.
Maybe I'm not hoping you'll let me—
I'm begging you to stop me.
It's a car crash, and I'm the one driving.

I can't stop wondering and worrying.

Are you over me? Of course— but do you hate me? Probably not, you're too sweet. But I'm sure you found rage in your healing, and gods, you deserved to feel it.

Are you seeing someone new? I hope not—but if you are I hope they are treating you better.

I hope they laugh at all your jokes. I hope they always let go last when you hug. Always answer your calls at the first ring. Put you first. Save you as their lock screen. I hope they keep you warm at night and make you smile.

I hope they say I love you before it's too late.

They say if you love something
To let it go
And if it was meant to be
It will come back
But if I didn't let go
Am I meant to come running back?
If I let go now to spare
That golden heart I already broke
Do I deserve it if you come back?

I used to believe in second chances
In lightning hitting the same spot twice
But then I became the one needing it
And I can't imagine someone as clumsy as me
Holding onto something fragile that I already broke once

I've never loved the story of Cinderella
She's a girl who is know for her courage and kindness
But I think she mistook courage for defeat

Courage is fighting for what you deserve, for what is right and just no matter what stands in your way
But she never did any of that
She slaved away for a decade, working her hands to the bone
Covered herself head to toe in soot like a cloak of safety
And she never complained

That was her version of courage
Accepting pain to avoid the discomfort or disruption of others by sacrificing herself
This is not courage, this is weakness

Cinderella should have thrown down her broom
Stood with her head high and if a hand were raised to her let her raise a hand back
Let her speak with defiance and justice
But Cinderella never did such a thing
She worked herself day in day out
And cried when the possibility of freedom slipped away

Cinderella was not the hero of of her own story
She was a girl waiting to be saved
She had no courage in her, only fear and helplessness
She may have been kind, but save herself she did not

They brush their fingers across the chicken flesh of our skin
Leaving their static electricity behind

They caress our insecurities
With words of possibility

They hold our doubt
And replace it with support

Lightning is a destructive force
It is not a curse to never see
It's fury strike the same spot twice
We should take it as a blessing

In tarot, the tower card has lightning
It symbolizes truth, necessary lessons
The upheaval and destruction that follow
There is a beauty in it's violence

In it's crashing fury, we grow
It's a shock back into reality
When we fall too hard, sink too deep
A slap that wakes us from the siren lures

It was never a necklace that I wore—
but a bruise in cursive, spelled out by teeth,
a coerced surrender, etched in violet.

Often, flowers bend toward the sun—
not from longing,
but because they have no choice.

And like a flower’s petal,
each refusal fell—
until none were left to fall.

Not all blooming is voluntary you see,
some unfurl only to escape the dark.

Time ticks by
One moment it's
December snow
Then suddenly;
April showers

Then the May flowers came
Those secret devourers
September was a sigh,
Relief from August terrors

October bloomed regrets
November numbed them
But regret doesn't leave
It turns into something vast

And then we're left in June
With nowhere to run
Nowhere to hide
Left with mistakes
That eat us up inside

Eros shot his golden arrow and I'd been hit
Through his words the flame was lit
There was no negotiating it
Because bottling up your feelings isn't lit
As if all the planets had aligned
There was nothing left to be denied
But fear is like a heavy chain
How long can we allow it's reign to remain
Freedom beckons with loves lingering light
And with these feelings I take flight