You are not 21, college did not grant you 3 more years of life. Please be careful, this is my body too.
2. If you have come across beautiful minds to explore, don't be so quick to build a home yet. Start with a tent. And if they help you pitch it, things will be less likely to unravel.
3. On the first day, pack up your tent just in case. Because you are never the only being in a forest.
4. Don't bring a map, build one. Ask to explore the mountains and valleys and hills of them. Tell them it's for your geography project.
5. Don't really have a geography project.
6. When you come across a river, there will be no bridge. Others who have traveled here have probably turned back. Shock them, and swim.
7. People may try to stop you, but remember they may be the ones who don't know how to continue. Not everyone you meet is a blessing.
8. Not everyone you lose is a loss.
9. Listen to your mom, she's been through this before. Even though you are characteristically different, college is always the same.
10. If you find yourself missing someone who doesn't miss you, remind yourself that that is not love, that's co-dependence.
11. The difference between love and co-dependence is that one of them will burn you.
12. Love will never start the fire.
13. You don't need to be an architect to build your walls around you. Some people will tell you that you need blue prints but my father never once looked at directions and he created your home.
14. Don't bring the problems of your home with you. Nobody wants to see those shackles. Find the key, unlatch yourself, and run.
15. I know you are tired, but this is the way.
16. Keep your room clean. The clothes on your floor hold on to stress. If you keep everything in order, life will stay intact.
17. Know when to speak. Sometimes words are not as necessary as actions.
18. Step in love with yourself because if you fall, that means you have to find strength to get back up. Always keep yourself upright.
19. You are a universe in yourself, a crowded nebula of light. It's okay to get lost in yourself, because you will be immersed in the stars.

i am scared
you will tire
of hearing
me say
'i love
you'

Broken conversations,
empty lungs,
doors half open,
hearts almost out of love.

We used to talk of how
we used to be infinite.
But now every second now feels
like a stroke against an unforgiving current.

Our conversations broke
as the flaws of our souls
fell through the cracks of this glass foundation.

These upset words that escaped you
left the air around me a little sad,
a little awake,
and with a lot of echoes.

My lungs went empty
talking you down.

I left the door open for you.
So you can walk in
and slip in quietly-
I won't say a word.

And this heart could never go empty,
not mine.
Yours,
at this point,
I know not.

Flowers never lost their color
as long as you walked this earth.

.................................

                      I

     ­              a
                m

               s
             u
            r
           e

   t     ha    t

         p
         l
         a
         n
         t
         s

g     r o    w

         t
         o
         w
          a
           r
           d
             s

               y
                o
                  u

and it goes like this:
one day you will look at me
and tell me i'm beautiful like
you always do and i will
not be able to take it anymore

i've been trying hard not to
be in love with you like i know i always
have been, because since day one
i never wanted to just ******* or lie to you
or push you away

i just
wanted
you

beautiful you, with
your quirked eyebrow and your
mother's nose and your love of
stormy afternoons and most recently
me

(i think about you all the time)
you tell me, like i don't understand
but one day you will learn that
i have written hundreds of lines of
poetry about you and i hope that they
will make you
smile

an eclipse,
a magical yet temporal event,
where the sun and the moon collide,
but it is temporal,
it lasts long enough for them
to realize they do not
belong together.
and we were an eclipse;
you were the sun,
and I was the moon,
when we collided
we created art
                            but
                           ­           we
                                              we­re
                                                       temporal

                                                     ­                        (b.c.)