And sometimes,
It is all I can do
To just be.
To just breathe.
I am not always
Sunshine and
"Well look who it is?"
Some days I am just
"Sorry" and
"I'm trying my best".

Some days I am sugar and cream in my coffee,
And some days I am
Full to the brim
Cup after cup of sorrow and
"No, I'm just tired".

No, I'm just tired.
No, I'm just tired.

And maybe I was born
With this feeling at home in my bones.
This weight
This constant thought
That I am not
Enough.

Or maybe it's a
Poison.
Trapped in my veins from the first time I was
Bitten
By words far sharper than my
Thick skin
Could handle.

So I am stuck.
Between the notion that I am a forest
Rooted in sorrow
Or a
Patient
Waiting for exsanguination
So that the poison is pushed out
And I can begin to
Flow
Again.

One day, it will happen.

Love will open the door and walk into your life.
Silent, unannounced.
Like a house guest you didn't know was coming.

At first, Love may be quiet,
Speaking only in questions, learning about you.
It will ask that you let it in, give it the key to the gate you have built around your scarred heart.

And you will refuse.

And Love will not push.

Instead, Love will pull.
Prying fears from your mind, and taking tears from your eyes.
And Love will replace them with stars it has carried in its pocket since the moment it first learned you existed.


"Love is patient.
Love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered. Love keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth it always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails."


Love may not show up when you expect.
Where you expect.
Love may not be as you have always pictured.
It will find you when you least expect it.

In a coffee shop,

On the way home.

In the smile of a stranger that you swear you've seen before.

Love will meet you exactly where you are meant to be.
And you will recognize Love, and you will remember Love, for part of your soul was placed in Love's heart when it was first given breath.

Love will find you where you are.

And you will feel the
whole
world
change.

I have wished for years
That my collarbones would make themselves
Known.
That my muscles would
Atrophy.
And my skin would become
Paper thin.
All for the sake of exposing the calcified lattice
That holds me together.
Holds me down.
I have wished to see my ribs
So that I could better understand the bars that my heart
Beats so fiercely against.
I have wished my spine to rise from beneath sinew
Form peaks against my skin
Just so I can see
What makes a man
What backbone is
See what makes me
Stand
Against those things that I do not desire.
Yet here I am.
Synapses stretched between
Head
And
Heart
Eyes sundered, seeing what my heart can't take.
What my fragile fingers fail to grasp.
I am a graveyard.
Made of stars that decided they were meant for other tasks.
Rub your charcol across my bones
Just to see what stories the universe has told.
For it has lived and died a thousand times, and now
And now, this time around it chooses to call this body
Home.
So although there are days I wish my hip bones would rise like
Mountains
In the desert,
That this soft skin would part and give
Rise
To bones like Aspen trees,
I will accept that my
Clavicles
Are the bottom of the sea bed.
And I am
Mile
Upon
Mile
Of stormy ocean.
Still waiting to explored.

If my fingertips were full of art
like I had so hoped they were once
I would paint a mural between your shoulder blades.

I would show you how the stars have been brighter,
how the minutes move faster,
and how my tears, though still numerous,
have been gentler
with you.

But all I can give you are these words
the same three,
whispered
shouted
laughed.

Because they are the only things I can say
when all the
gratitude
gratefulness
joy
security
rushes to my mind.

So I will push the knots from between your shoulders,
trace your muscles with my
fingertips
lips
breath
and hope that
"I love you"
paints as beautiful a picture on the backs of your eyelids
as it does mine.

I have
never been
an easy girl to love.
Because
I once thought that
everyone
disliked me as much as
I
disliked
myself.

When Jordan
asked me to be his girlfriend on the playground
in fifth grade,
then followed with
I'm just kidding, I could never date a fat girl
I thought
right then
that those words meant my
body
was
incapable
of
even
being
accepted.

But now,
as your fingers sweep over my bare skin
in the flickering light of
our
coffee scented candle,

I realize just
how
wrong
I
was.

There is something about the way you
brush
my shoulders as I stand at the sink,
crying.
Because the water is scalding my hands but I cannot move them
will not
move them because I am feeling too much I am fearing too much.
And if I focus on the hot water, if I let myself cry
then the fears won't fall from my mouth
hot
like tears.
Because I will always be afraid.
But as your hands, gentle like your words brush the tears brush the fears from my cheeks
I am okay.
I am reassured.
I love you.

More and more

each day.