every 7 years, every cell in your body is new
one day no cell in my body will remember this
to hold on to it, I’d have to stop living and to keep living I’ll have to let it die with my cells

every 7 years, every cell in your body is new
i am trapped in an in between point
the most severe acts my body had been subjected to have melted to the pressure of time, being as much a part of me as old hair on a brush or fingerprints on a mirror
it’s results on my mind still linger on my skin, begging my hands to hold onto it still
my body rejects my bed, my brain holding onto consciousness through my heavy drowsiness
my heart begs my body to let go, rope burns on my hands swell and fester, bleeding as my fingers grip harder

your absence, like a wound, will rot and fester until the skin around it is raw and hot
but the love i still have puts a bandaid on, and insists it’s just a scratch
the love i still have, like a doctor, gives me a shot while making sure i look away so I don’t see the needle entering my skin
the love i still have, like a shot, runs through my veins, making sure not an inch of me stays painful
the love i still have, like a vein, is in every part of me, carrying the blood to my heart and my brain
the love i still have, like my blood, keeps my body and mind alive, making sure i can love, hate, laugh, and cry
the love I still have, like my body, carries me to everywhere i go
the love I still have nurses my wound until it only festers when it is stabbed by an absent memory, and will nurse it all over again

If I could talk to any past version of me, it would be freshman year me. She would probably ask me what she should be doing differently, I’d tell her nothing. She’s doing everything that leads up to me, and I think I’m doing alright. Being a younger version of me, she would ask me if he likes me. I’d tell her no, he doesn’t. Then, she might ask me why we still like her. Unfortunately, the only answer I’d have for her would be to wait, a love like that only expires through time. I wouldn’t be able to tell her that anything that happens now is only the beginning. Being me, she would only obsess over changing the things that made me and her so different. I would tell her to keep feeling the way she does, to feel everything strongly. That feeling is the only way I hold on to her. That is the only reason I can feel her in her favorite songs, the reason why they bring me to her when revisited. I would never be able to explain to her the solace I feel while escaping into who she is, who I was. To me, her life seems so simple. Given how she feels, she would be terrified to know this. Her life is so idyllic and clear to me now, but only because I have retrospect. It’s all so new to her, so confusing and scary. I try to tell her in these songs I used to adore that change has transformed us, although change is still as terrifying to be now as it was then. She may ask me whether I would change anything. I don’t think I would answer her.

I have a D+ in chemistry.
I have a D+ in chemistry, despite doing my best work throughout the quarter.
I have a D+ in chemistry, so I hired a tutor.
I have a D+ in chemistry, so I obsessed over it for a while.
I have a D+ in chemistry, but my hard work continues.
I have a D+ in chemistry, but the laughs of me and my friends still fill my school halls.
I have a D+ in chemistry, but my scars remain healed.
I have a D+ in chemistry, but I can still listen to music late at night, while the summer air fills my room through an open window.
I have a D+ in chemistry, but the wind still hits my face when I step outside, lifting my hair from my shoulders, the sun wiping my cheek.
I have a D+ in chemistry, but the moon still shines behind the clouds, reminding me she’s still there.
I have a D+ in chemistry, so I’ll do better.

I have spent months of my life, hour by hour, poured over studying psychology.

My test grades reflect skill. I search textbooks and case studies like my own personal bible.

I memorize vocabulary like a mantra, I cite diagnostic characteristics like poems.

I can’t find a chapter in my textbook on why I cannot sleep at night when the air smells the same way it did this time 6 years ago.

No vocabulary explains why me and my father haven’t been the same since I was a child, my teacher will never tell me why I haven’t fit into my body for years.

I will never write an essay using the scientific method to study why my body will never release what has happened to it.

I thought we buried this alive but my fingers are raw and ***** from digging just to find an empty casket; it died long before we could ever bury it, and no amount of dirt or digging or wood and nails could ever bring it to life again

it died a unceremonious death, no one aware enough to mourn it because they didn’t know it was dead

we sat with the corpse because that was how it lived; silent and still but with a unfamiliar stench that everyone around can smell, but never know

if no one is mourning it, did it ever die?

I would love to say our friendship is inherent. To say that our hearts beat to
the same pulse, that we have the blood inside us in common, and that our
words blend into each other perfectly seems like the right thing to say.
However, I would be lying. I have to fight and beg my emotions to reveal
themselves to you.
Trying to write about us feels like drawing water from a frozen well.
Miscommunications happen often and it's difficult to tell what you're
thinking.
But still, we are us anyways.
The water in the lake we grew up around knows our lives well. If its pebbles
and sand could speak, they would recite our every word back to us better
than we could.
The moon knows how much I care about you because I tell her often. She
shines brightly at our stories.
Even when I don't understand you, my mind pleads to.
My hands write the words I can't tell you, and the world of poetry knows
how desperate I am for you to know these things.  
My art glows with my expressions of you. It tells visual stories I have never
spoken.
We are not inherent. I have never been able to tell you exactly how much I
care about you. I am terrified of confrontation and disagreements, so I don't
always say exactly what I think.
But I'll always try my hardest to show how I feel. You may never read these
words, but I hope you somehow feel them anyways.

1 - Feel Nature
      Us, as humans, view ourselves as separate from nature. We think that we        
       bear any major differences from the grass that grows among us or the
       birds that fly above us. We view benign inclement weather as an
       unfortunate symptom of the world around us, something to be avoided.
       However, nature is deeply ingrained in our human spirit. We rely on it to
       live, eat and drink, and to sleep and awaken. Our involvement in nature
       is consequential as the animals we keep in zoos for amusement, the
       plants we farm for food, and the pests we evade and ****. Feel the nature
       and the life around you. Go into the woods and let the leaves, wind, and
       atmosphere consume you and replace your worldliness and doubts. Walk  
       under snow and rain and watch the water melt on you, see the water seep
       into the ground and join puddles and lakes before it evaporates and falls
       again. Sit at the shore of a lake and observe the algae drift with the
       water affected by the wind, everchanging and yet static. Bask in the
       Moon's forgiving light, watch how it monitors the stars and hides behind
       passing clouds, reluctant to reveal itself. Nature moves in seasons, just
       as we often do. As one condition of our natural surroundings leaves,
       somebody or something may enter our lives, separating one era from the
       last, creating a new essence for ourselves, until the weather changes
       once again and life's dynamic nature is confirmed. Welcome these
       changes with open arms and let the world lead you wherever it might
       take you. The sun, in affecting the environment we were born from, may
       evoke changes so great in us that we become as unrecognizable, as
       leaves change after autumn's cycle runs its course. If we don't let
       ourselves change, we will surely reach the same fate as a building built
       on sand after its creator refuses to acknowledge the changing nature of
       the tides.
2 - Respect Pain
       Change will always foster pain, as pain fosters change. Avoiding the
       pain of change simply means you are choosing the pain of staying
       stagnant. Trees do not avoid the winter coming, though the cold will
       surely make survival difficult. In preparation for the winter, as the days
       shorten and become colder, Trees will pump sap out of any pores in their
       wood, which will act as an insulator, protecting them from any
       temperatures they will not handle. However, they will also shed their
       own leaves, especially smaller and thinner ones, and let them fall in
       order to lose less water and energy. Do not run from the winter. Do not
       run from the freeze, and your losses and the sting of the cold air working
       against you. Keep yourself safe, and learn to go through life and operate
       normally under these new conditions. The pain will, someday leave,
       either through more change or familiarity. Life will be different, but
       alright nonetheless. Life will go on, with or without you, so working
       with the change and the pain it will bring is the only way to ensure you
       walk with life another day.
3 - Love
       No matter how many times it has burned you before, do not stray from
       love. Love is not purely romantic, it lives in every interaction we have in
       daily life. Showing love to somebody is not limited to what we do for
       somebody or how we act around somebody. Listen to the songs admired
       by people you love and feel their warmth in the sounds they've hung on
       to hundreds of times before. Love a piece of art by letting it deeply
       influence your own art, let the words and colors and sounds of the artists
       before you morph themselves into the art you create. Love your body by
       treating it as a temple where you, yourself, are the god. Love your own
       power by performing your skills to the best of their abilities. Love a
       deity you honor by dedicating pieces of your life both large and small to
       your worship. Love no longer performed is not love lost. This love is
       still easily felt by a warm memory, a preserved gift, or art created in its
       midst. Feel every piece of love you have as deeply and dramatically as
       possible. Love, often comes as a harbinger of pain. Love also often
       arises from the ashes of pain, providing a warmth that you may have
       lost. No matter what, love fuels every action we take, and without love,
       the cycles that run our lives would cease. If the sun no longer loved the
      earth, seasons would hold no power or rhythm. If the ocean lost its love
      for the land, life on the earth would quickly lose water, and be able to
      live no longer. An artist who loses their love of their craft is robbing
      learning and developing artists of gaining inspiration. A person who does
      not love life will quickly lose it.

God is spoken about as a loving, senile creature. He is seen as forgiving, gentle, and generous.

As a man, God is a furious fire, burning in the image of sin and pain. As a man, God is punishing and unrelenting.

I've never loved God as a man. All he has ever shown me is what he forbids, taunting what he does not allow in my life as a light to a fly.

He leads me to what he speaks of as my own demise. If temptation is my own fault, what does that say of the man that lead me there? Would that not make him similar to the serpent that tempted eve? To the very force he claims to fight?

I find god in the very things he prohibits. If we see god as an ideology full of love, thankfulness, and happiness, it finds its way into everything God, the man, hates and punishes.

I feel god in the love the man behind it disallows so strongly. I feel god in the yearning and adoration that God, the man, so strictly banishes as immoral.

I feel god in every word I've said to someone I love, the compliments and curses.

I feel god in their every reply, the way they show they care in their own way, carries god from them to me.

God, the man, has always picked apart these phrases for every word, dissecting them for transgressions against Him. He has always controlled who or what my cares are for.

Every crime I've committed against God has helped me find god in its fulfillment, in the enjoyment and love I gain in it.

Every time I feel love, it's a love that God is so strongly against.

The love I give and receive is so divine that maybe God is unable to see it for anything other than sin. Maybe God knows that he never could have designed a love so dedicated and seraphic.

God knows he can't see love so angelic, so he dismisses it as evil.