black coffee
6 a.m.
old garages
tomato sandwiches
toy planes still in the plastic

Margaritaville on casette tape
Sunday's are car dealership days
tabasco sauce on every dish
two-bite pinchers when we were kids  
every boy's name is Mitch

i am chewing my nails to the bone.

bound to the routine of growing old.

Every 23rd I listen to the last voicemail you left me. And I'll sit and recount each moment until you're burned into my memory. But it never gets any easier, in fact, it only gets harder to breathe.

i see what i want to see.
often, it's you embracing me.
an infinite loop of ecstasy.
then i wake up from the dream.

reality sounds to me like:
"i miss you."
"i wonder if you miss me."

I am twenty-three and I crave serendipity. I crave the inability to allow minor things to define me. I crave early morning coffee, in-depth conversations, and productivity. I want to create, mold, make, then re-shape my circuitry. I want clarity when it's cloudy and unity when I'm lonely. I want to be sixteen shades of blue in a room of maroon. I want to be curious and cultured. I want no beginning nor end, only middle ground — a wallflower with a wildflower's spirit infinitely abloom. I want to be silly and sappy. Witty and wishful. I want to write saccharine sentiments on mirrors in cheap lipstick and surround myself with inspiring oddities. I want scavenger hunts, a marathon of documentaries, a collection of melancholy melodies, and crisp hikes through forests talking with the trees. I want fog in the dead of night and your warmth till first morning's light.

I am twenty-four (soon to be) and I want to be unafraid.

All I've been is alone.
Alone in my head.
Paranoid that others will take notice.
Paranoid and angry at death.
All I feel is sadness.
Sadness and dread for things that once brought me happiness.

I am the lone leaf blowing in the wind with no recollection of where it's going or where its been.

This is a love letter to the greatest man I have ever known.

You were my first love. The way a young girl adores her father  — you were that for me (and so much more).  From you I learned a quiet, confident love one that attributes words to only carrying half the weight that actions do. You spoiled me with your youthful spirit. If ever I, "Chief Two Ponytails," needed to boss someone around in my play kitchen; you were always there to lovingly accept my misguided culinary decisions to serve you mud pies and plastic fruit.

There is no one who loved me more wholly.

As I grew, you grew with me teaching me endless generosity and to never get too tangled up in the details because as is all too real — life is fleeting. You were my constant and now the only time I get to spend with you is in my head. I see you in everything — the changing of the leaves, the color of red velvet cake, and toy airplanes. I was angry at time for pushing me further from you and angry at the world for spinning in your absence. I wished I could fill a balloon with your breath so that I could float away in hopes of being closer to you.

But, even in death, you have taught me the greatest lesson — that love transcends time, things mend and where you were my sunshine, you are now my stars.

I will forever strive to be a reflection of your gentle heart.
I love you like wildfire.