it's so hard
seeing someone you love
*shrink

You tell yourself you're never going to do it again; the thing that lets you pour out your emotions. But you know you just can't live without it, even if it's hurting you and the people around you. You know that next time you feel empty, worthless, useless, that it will be the only thing you can think to do, that will, at least, temporarily, set you free. And that is what addiction is.

you’ve lost weight-*
i am not skin and bone but my clothes hang
an elliptical waist that slips to my thighs
a second skin that wrinkles and lies
and says i’m well
by the cut of my body, bone crests emerging
like white flags-
i’m the shape of a woman,
a well woman-
a woman cut down to size

Seemingly ethereal yet certain to exist
Is someone truly magical whose magnitude is rich
However if you asked me to describe this girl named fate
I'd tell you that there are no words which elegantly state
The tantalizing story of a soul so beautiful
Hidden here among the ranks of tales invisible
And if you were to read about the stories she could tell
The picture painted certainly is imagery of hell
Yet even in the deepest darkest recess of our mind
Is a light in certain quantity that's heavenly divine
So if you were to ask me what this all could even mean
I'd smile at the thought of "us" and that's enough for me.

I always knew that I couldn't
spend the rest of my life with you
but I knew this when we met:
I was prepared, it would be fine.
then love happened --
the kind of great poetry
and esoteric novels,
the transcendental kind
that people write songs about.
it was the kind of love that made me think
the excrutiating goodbye would be
worth it -- that every kiss would compensate
a sleepless night thinking about you.
I was wrong.
they say it's better to have loved and lost,
but I have watched heaven burn down
and it was heartwrenching and terrible.
I knew I wouldn't spend my life with you;
had I know I'd spend it
missing you
I might have reconsidered.

Jordan gave me rose quartz prayer beads. Freddy picked me up and spun me around.

I kissed the beads and kissed my hand and blew it to the stars, over and over again.
Thank you universe, for the kind hearted people you have dropped into my existence.
Thank you universe, for the good music, the good ****, good wine, and good company.
Thank you, for the smiles, the laughs, the cigarettes, the numbers given out on backs of receipts.
Thank you for the swing sets, the campfires, the coffee and tea, the cars we drive around in.
Thank you for emotions.
Thank you for the feeling I get when someone kisses my forehead,
the feeling when someone compliments my smile,
the feeling when I notice the moon for the first time that evening.
Thank you, for the moon, the stars, the clouds, and the autumn breeze.
Thank you for the sounds, the crickets, the leaves rustling, the clinking glasses,
and the sound of small kisses.
Thank you for the snort I get when I laugh to hard.
Thank you for the bass, the guitar, the drums.
Thank you for the shouts, the soft spoken, the loud, and the whispers.
Thank you for the doors, the staircases, and the windows.
Thank you for everything that ever was, is, and will be.
Thank you for the indefiniteness of the now.
Thank you for everything.

I once read in a book, that the likelihood of our proteins folding just so to make us what we are is comparable to that of a twister rolling through a junkyard and assembling a jumbo jet.
This is something I like to remind myself daily.
It is so miraculous that we are here today to experience everything and everyone around us, and be able to document and share it.
I hope one day someone can look at my photographs and writings and feel these immense and overwhelming emotions that I feel in these moments.

They are beautiful
Silent, but loud
Peaceful, yet dangerous

Can they be trusted?
Are the secrets that are hidden,
too longed to be forgoten

They can open as they bloom and close in harsh winters

Are the barriers of choice too strong to be broken?

You read a book once

About a girl who woke up to rose tattoos

Blooming across her hips and thighs

Like real flowers

But when you look down at your own hips

The only things blooming there are fat dimples

And the bruises you gave yourself

Like a replacement for the wounds he never gave you

But you almost wish he did

The rose sits bedded in her lay
kissed by the sun through the day;
of men she gives no regard or
speech when they confess to adore
her rich velvet pelt lined with silk
of stem and leaf and each morn's milk,
for the rose is wise and knows too soon
the turning of a man's heart in the length of a moon,

that when their fingers grasp to take
against her will her beauty *****,
crushed for the love of another rose
and one who can think and not just pose;

and feel! Feel the return of a beat
in a man's chest and respond to spreading heat-
so she, the rose, always knows
her life is lived and lost by love alone.