I have said
I’m sorry
So many
Times
So many different
Ways
That once upon a time my mouth forgot how to make other shapes
And I’ve had to work on rebuilding
Brick by brick
So many times that I fear this red clay
Will never leave my nails
And I promised that I would better at
Anticipating
So that I could break the windows of this home before anyone else had a chance to even pick up a stone
Once upon a time I made my resolution
Under the fireworks
And god, I’m
T r y i n g
And other people aren’t homes
But this space is so much more comfortable
With a few other souls.
I don’t mean to run,
But sometimes I just have to go.
But,
Have a cup of coffee with me sometime,
Don’t forget your jacket,
I miss you,
This made me think of you,
Remember that time we danced in the rain?
I’ll see you soon,

And if you didn’t hear me say it earlier,
love you.

There are days when this depression is a
Whisper
A ghost hiding in the corner
That feeling that you just can’t shake but never
See
That buzz in the back of your
Skull a bee’s nest
There are days when I say I’m okay and I
Mean it
And there are days the covers are lined with lead
I’ve never been a weightlifter but I know the
Feeling of crushed lungs
This bed is an ocean and I am out to sea
With no anchor
Rough water
Tossed overboard
There are days when this depression is standing
On the shore, yelling
“You should have learned to swim”

But thank the
Universe
For handing you a life jacket and a map to me.

-Alyssa Faye Heckart

I read Harry Potter when I was a little girl,
listened closely as my father
did all the voices,
just right
every time,
Knew that magic wasn't really real,
but knew it felt like it could be,
carved a symbol made from story into my forearm as a reminder that
magic is what you make of it and home
is never as far away as it seems,
and I sometimes forgot what faith felt like,
wondering how I ever believed that
magic
could be more than just words printed on a page.

Now every time you whisper my name,
I am reminded that all magic needs
is someone to believe.

I have been so many things.
I was crafted from dirt roads and
bathed
in starry nights.
Given hair the color of too much
sun.

I once surrounded myself with city walls
just to see if I was carved from stone,
or if my
limbs
could rival twisted steel.
Passed by buildings with far too many windows,
just to see if I could spot
myself
in the glass.

I have planted seeds and hoped to see them sprout in
hours,
just so I could believe I could find myself as fast.

I have learned that gardens don't grow in hours,
that life can take
days
weeks
or even months to see the sun.
And my bones are buried deep.

I can only keep
reaching
towards
the
light.

From a young age
I made myself
Hard
To handle.
Said that I would be impossible
To love
Because that was
Easier
Than getting
Hurt again.
"It will be a challenge
To find someone who can
H a n d l e
Me
Because girls like me are
H a r d
To love".
But laying next to
You
I have never felt so
Soft.

I have never,
In my whole
Life,
Needed anyone.
By as we lay here,
Tracing lazy circles on each other's skin,
I can think of so many other things I've been
Wrong about.

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.

She is
**** and
***.

You show her friends her picture on your phone.
And she is the
Slim sensual figure in their
Sick ****** fantasies.

And she is not
the brain that learning gave her or the
Woman that her parents made her.  

She is every fear her father ever had becasue she is
"Boys will be boys"
and a "healthy" fear of men.

She is every warning ever fallen off of Mother's lips because she is
"Tell us what you were wearing".

She is the careful avoidance of
"Let me buy you a drink"

She is the fear of walking down a dark alley by herself but
turning the corner anyway,
because if she can't even walk herself home,

What kind of life is she living?

She is a culture perpetuated by misplaced blame and the thought
that hormones override self control,
that "I want" is more powerful than

"Please stop."

She is the belief that her body
your body
my body

Our bodies

Are nothing more than tempting.  
Nothing more than pleasure.

You know that she is more.

More than just
a
curvy
prize.

I have always loved me better
in the dark.
Because from a young age, I was made to understand that my body was not made for hands to wander in the light.
That my body, like a favorite pillow, was best loved in the dead of night, lights off, because in the darkness my soft is acceptable.
I am not a size that is packaged nicely.
I am plus size floral print, because that’s what fashion thinks girls my size are.  Plus sized floral print. Delicate, but never in the right way.
I am a size that is too loud.
I have been taught to love black,
Been taught that my body is best when covered, ankles to wrists in a color that was once reserved for those mourning losing what they loved.  
I am better if covered like I am dealing with chemical reactions,
because other people are volatile, and after all if not built for pleasing others,
than what am I?
I have been conditioned to believe that softness is appreciated everywhere except where can be seen.
That my voice is meant to be soft,
my words,
my opinions,
But not my body.
I am wrong in the one way that I most desire validation
.

He tells me that I am right.
His favorite item of my clothing is a short pink dress that I never want to wear, because he tells me I am beautiful, and I am afraid that I am being lied to.  
He pulls at sweater sleeves until they come off, and stares at my arms like they are something to be revered.
Tugs on pant legs until they meet the floor, tells me that I am all the right shapes, and I cry.
I have never been the right shape, as hard as I have tried.
I have always been too big of a circle, trying to shove myself into a smaller square,
I am the block a child can not fit into a different shaped slot,
I have never understood.  
I am reminded that rivers cannot be contained, that banks are broken by their power, that man made dams cannot contain forces of nature.
I am a force of nature, he says.

He loves me better,

in the light.

She longs for the ocean.
Salty skin, the sound of waves,
a cool breeze rolling off of the water.

He is the sea.  
His skin tastes like the water she has never seen.  
His heartbeat echoes through his ribs, beat out, take in,
the sound of waves in human form,
crashing through her fragile bones,
drowning her in memories she never thought she'd have.

She is a storm.  
Volatile and unsure,
droplets falling from her eyes at just the whisper of a cloud.
He is the mountain upon which her thunder rolls,
the meadow that best receives her sunshine.

He is her calm.

I wish I could tell you that I will watch you die.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to be morbid here, but I heard that in a song once.

Love is watching someone die.  

And I want to tell you that no matter what is happening in your life, I want to be there at your side.  That wherever you go, you’ll find me, like your shadow.
You can stand on the top of the world’s tallest mountain, or be laying in a hospital bed,
and even though I’m scared of heights and needles,

I’ll be there,

next to you,

drinking you in.  

Like your fingers, you can count on me.  Like a calculator, like a child counts his steps in the hallway, you can count on me.  

I’ll be solid when you are soft.  
When you can’t hold yourself together, I’ll be your staples.  
When you feel like you are losing parts of yourself, I’ll find them.  I’ll hand them back to you.  
When you’re breaking, I’ll hold you, and I’ll tell you that even the most beautiful statues have their cracks, and they are all the more beautiful because of them.  
I'll tell you that the Japanese repair broken pottery with liquid gold,

and there is yellow coursing through your veins.

I wish I could whisper “You are beautiful” at every single one of your weakest moments.  

Maybe someday I will.  

Maybe someday you’ll believe me.

When you can’t, I promise I can.
When you won’t, I will.
If you need to leave, I’ll stay.
You will forever be the one thing that I am seeking to complete, even if I don’t quite know who you are yet.
Yours will be the side that I will fit into, like the last piece of a thousand piece puzzle.
I will search for you, until I have found myself.
And when you are laying there, in a room that scares me, in a place full of sounds that I don’t recognize, as you exhale for the last time,
I’ll inhale.

I will finish your last action.

I won’t flinch, or flee.

Because

*love is watching someone die.