For the past couple weeks, the lights have been kept on and I can finally see how much I meant to you.

I wish it was dark again.

focused
her eyes like the sun
stare
down at the snowy blanket
eager
to make it black

she
grabs a branch and
creates
a world of her own

Maybe I should be content
Perhaps life was being kind to me
It took everyone away gradually
Instead of in a handful.

If we
Stepped back far enough,
I bet we could
Fit the Earth
In the far corners of our hand.

If we measured
The heavens just right,
And picked out the exact
Magnitudes, I bet you
We could do it.

Because I know.
Whether we know it or not
The distance between
Our hearts
And the very center
Of the universe
Isn't all that far.

We just
Have to find the right
Measuring tool for it,
And no,
The telescopes,
It won't do this time.

The galaxy we are shooting for,
It exists only
On the pinpricks of our fingers.
Its standard unit
Is that of closeness and
Of vast quiet.

I'll show you.

On the count of three,
I want us both to close our eyes
And whisper.

1...
2...
3.

See there?
There is home.
And you hold it
In my palms.

the only word
  that comes to mind
      when trying
           to describe my
          father is
              strong.

So it shook
   me up a bit
to see him
in a hospital
             bed.

Do not fall for the plucked daisies & the sweet smelling roses
Just yet
Do not let your mind wander off to places even out of your own reach
Just yet
Do not fall for the tousled hair boy with poetry on his skin and a heart as soft as clouds
Just yet
Do not unlock your heart for someone who tells you you're cute
Hand over the key to somebody who focuses the camera on you and not on the sunset ablaze in the distance

Don't rush Love
Ring Love at 2:30 in the morning and you'll get him, half asleep and drooling on your nightgown.
Wait for Love and he will arrive at your front door with a grin on his face, a rose free of thorns, and a ring in his back pocket.

You decide.

Somewhere stuck between the line bordering
faith and reality,
there is a girl.

A girl to whom
there is no such thing
as five thirty in the morning.
There are only beginnings,
fresh grass, and
mugs of hot chocolate.
She doesn’t seem to know
what it means to drag your feet
or to
lifelessly slide your toothbrush’s bristles
against the cracks and crevices of your teeth,
wishing you were already at the end of the day
when it had only just begun.

To her,
every printed word is spoken.
She can hear the pages breathe and her heart sings whenever
another character enters,
because for her it means
one more person
to love
which is something
she never seems to run out of.

It is why her eyes dance
and roses grow ‘round her face,
it is why gladness
pours out from her fingers as they
glide across ivory keys,
it is why she sprinkles her words with salt,
why she refuses to let her city on a hill grow dim,
why she believes that death
is a new beginning,
why her hope never wavers,
why she won’t stop giving and
giving and
giving.

Her faith shakes mountains, but sometimes,
only the mountains know it because she
gets frustrated, too.
I’m here to tell her that she
may not see it now,
but the seeds have been growing in places
she didn’t think possible.

So continue to plant them
with thrill and with wonder,
as you live each day like
it was the first.
Don’t stop the water’s flow,
and soon you will find yourself
laughing at Doubt’s face,
I don’t think you’ve ever seen
Doubt’s face.

You’ve been alive
for three hundred
and sixty five days more,
but if growing up means
losing the fireworks in your eyes
and the beautiful thoughts
that sprout from your mind
then,
I beg of you,

don’t.