i want nothing more than a new years kiss
from you.
so save your lips for me, save your
fingers for me,
until next year.

I am running.

It is an hour past midnight into the new year, and there are people streaming out of buildings and cars speeding by on the street, but I am running. I am in a dress and flats that are threatening to fly off my soles, hair tangling in the wind breeze but all this doesn't compare to the smile breaking onto my face, eventually turning into a laugh. A real laugh, one with arms high and heart abandoned to the moment. To now. To being glad that I have survived another year and lived to tell the tale, because despite the pain and the empty, these moments make the suffering worth it.

The moments where everything in the world seems to have righted itself and I realise that this planet is beautiful. That my own fragile life and state of mind is beautiful. That the shadows and the darkness are nothing in comparison to the light. That despite what life can throw at me now and then, nothing will ever compare to this. It is the unlocking of the heart and the accompanying audible 'click' that makes me live. Actually live, and not just survive day by day. And to be grateful, for having this moment. For having the now, in my life, and not slip back into the past.

I am aware that the past never really leaves a person, and if you're not careful, it can become a person. And maybe sometimes, I have been in that dark and scary place. But it is a new year, with hopes and dreams and wishes and chances to make things right. To make things better. To learn new things and make new mistakes and fall down and get up and do it all over again, because we're human. And that's beautiful in it's own right; persistence and resilience. The hope that tomorrow will be better, starting from now. And this is my now.

I never run. But right now I am, and it's not away from something but into something. A new hope. A new life. A new beginning. The past is not behind me, but with me. I have made that mistake once, and never again. It will accompany me because it helped form my heart, and sometimes we need to look back to appreciate where we are today. And I do. I am grateful for my life and the falls and the triumphs. The heartbreak and the anguish. The joy, the laughter, Every feeling I have and can possibly feel. Everything.

I am running.

It is brilliant.

(A.H.Z)

It's been a journey
Of ups and downs
A rollercoaster ride
I never want
To be on
Ever again

Despite that
I'm blessed
For my friends
For my parents
For the love of my life
For my beautiful dog
For all the memories
We have shared
And captured
Throughout
This year

Have a good 2014
May the year
Be a blessed one

I like the color of your sweater and the stripes on your sleeves and I especially like how the ends fray and the gray looks more like milk than it does a rainy day sky or a weatherbeaten road.

2. The reason I stepped back was not because you smelled funny, or that I was shocked to find you there, but because the air condition was hitting me right on the shoulders and I left my red sweater at home.

3. Okay, so maybe I was a bit shocked at finding you there; it’s just that you’re the first one who’s ever bothered lingering at the poetry section besides me, and I’m not good with surprises; in fact, I hate surprises.

4. But you’re a good kind of surprise.

5. I like your glasses. I used to have a pair just like them before someone removed them and told me that I should learn to see differently. Things have been kind of unclear since then, but I’m learning how to hold onto the side rails.

6. I hope you’ll let me remove yours, too.

7. Your hair looks like a bird’s nest. I wonder if you’re hiding life or pieces of green bottle in there. That’s a lovely shade of brown, by the way. I’ve never seen chocolate curls before.

8. Do you think that if a pine wants to, it will grow until its branches poke holes in the sky for stars and pinecones to fall out so we can catch them in our palms and compare who got the most scratches and who caught the most stardust?

9. The book you picked up happens to be my favorite. If you turn to page 118 you’ll find a poem about churning seas, angry thunderclouds, and a drifting boat that lost its sail.

10. I think I finally found my sail.