Why do we do the things we do?
When we go for a walk or sleep with the lights off or drive around at 2 am
Stumbling over our own feet so hopelessly human out on a quest trying to find something to relate to
We're just brave souls throwing ourselves into a future we've convinced ourselves we deserve to stand in
As if we knew tomorrow were promised to be happier
Perhaps we are just waiting too much
Waiting to adventure, waiting till we're older and less scared but maybe less spontaneous
Because people change and we can't stop that because we can’t stop anything but ourselves
Hold back feelings, opinions, gestures, words do not mean much after you have waited too long to say them
It's funny how we have to experience things ourselves to learn the lesson and even then we have a hard time making the appropriate adjustments
I know the devil enters our mouths when we're angry
And I think we all just want someone to be vulnerable around and not be judged by them
We lie to make other people feel better
We lie to make ourselves feel better
We lie just to do it
Looking out the window imagining where we want to be but instead of being honest we will only say we like the view
We would always be hungrier than our rations would allow because are too scared to ask for more
We would rather starve then cause trouble for those in the kitchen
But I've learned that there are times when you need to throw dirt to keep your face from becoming dust
Honey dripping heartbeat doubt
Questioning motives of those we ae sure we have figured out but just when we think we know it all
Thriller taps your shoulder and reveals the rest of the puzzle we swore we'd finished long ago
I think it’s important to sit down in your own company to register the concerns you were not familiar with but were always there
Everything humming with the arrival of traffic over the horizon you release the tension over a cup of coffee
Life is all about choices
It's the choices we make that connect our constellations, every second of every moment hinging on a point so relevant but so arbitrary, like handfuls of stardust being thrown onto an empty canvas
Why do we do the things that we do?
Sometimes we don’t know, but there's always a reason for it

They say that when you kiss someone you are supposed to feel fireworks going off in the back of your mind, a beautiful eruption of wonder in your chest, a tickling feeling in your stomach but fireworks only last seconds and I'm afraid of choking on the smoke it leaves in the aftermath. I'm afraid of burning out, of blowing up, of decaying into dust.
2. When I was 13 I broke my ankle running in the dark down the street. I do not remember what I was running from or what I was running to but I remember the fear and pain after I had stumbled onto the ground and tried to convince myself I could walk on it and I was fine. I am afraid of breaking and trying to be okay but only making it worse, I am stubborn by definition and will always try to stand and start running away again.
3. My cousin fell in love, hard with the boy with dark hair and funny jokes and nice clothes and ambition to do something with his life. They were together for over 6 years and on their wedding night, she found him in bed with someone else. I watched her crumble, drinking her coffee before it cooled down, burning the inside of her mouth, torching all of the words she couldn't say to him, all the words that she couldn’t say to anyone. She stopped talking, I sometimes wonder if she writes poetry to simply remember her language.
4. I remember when my dad found of my mom had cheated on him, he found himself on a downward spiral, running to the liquor cabinet for reassurance, hating himself sober, and he didn’t want anyone to help him. He was always stubborn like a kite stuck in a tree that didn't want to come down. He was okay with never being okay because after you lose the one thing that made you feel like your life was worth something, when they leave, it makes you feel like it isn’t anymore
5. I know that when I fall in love I will want to take him to the hilltop gardens and show him the place where I find rest and solace. The place I go when I don’t want to feel alone. I will make him listen to my favorite songs and let him touch the valleys of my body that I never really loved. I will memorize his smell, accustom myself to his physical language. And I know that since young love doesn’t always last I will never want to go the  gardens without hoping I suffocate, I will be swallowed by the lyrics of the songs we would dance to.
6. I don’t want to need him. I don’t want to have to forget the way he would tickle me when I was upset. I don’t want his taste drilling cavities in my teeth, I don’t want to miss him when he's not around
7. I do not mind feeling nothing, I do not mind being distant from love if that means I my heart won't die before I do
8. I don’t want to have to stop smoking so many cigarettes because he's worried about the way I breathe when I sleep. I don’t want to have to make sure I don’t smell of burnt lungs around his mother.
9. I hate the way I know I'll tremble, shake, quiver at the thought of him kissing someone else or letting my call go to voicemail when he's not busy, when he just doesn’t want to talk
10. I don’t want his mother to cry because she thinks you can do better than me. I don't want my mother to cry because she's scared of how I'll cope if you ever decide to leave, she's scared of losing her daughter.
11. I don’t like endings, I often times don't finish books or songs or poems. I have drafts hanging up on my wall as a reminder that unfinished things can be beautiful too. I am not very good at putting something away after having finished it. I think letting you go would **** me.

One. Realize your heart has been broken
Take responsibility for the ***** inside of you
And how it's job of pumping blood into your lungs has gotten harder
It's okay to forget how to breathe as long as you're learning new things
Two. Learn new things
Pick up a book and read it to the very end
When you don’t feel like going to class, go anyways
Do not let the fatigue and agony keep you from gaining other important things
Three. Get very drunk
I know we are supposed to worry about getting stronger
But no one starts at the top of the ladder
Waiting in line is the world's most popular past time
Get sloppy and wild, let your inner goddess guide your heavily intoxicated nature
Forget their name right before you forget your own
Let someone else relinquish their fingerprints all over your frame
Cover up the old paint with new wallpaper
It's okay to remember all the things you once never thought to consider
Four. Write.
Write and then write some more
And even if all of it sounds the same do not fret
Because sometimes there are only so many ways to describe being defeated
Having the fire within you go out to its core
Let the smoke coming from your throat gain purpose by putting it on paper
Five. Make blueprints.
You cannot build something from scratch without planning ahead
You will probably not remember much of your life before them
So start a new, rebuild old friendships, revive old hobbies
The possibilities are endless with a blank sheet of paper
Accept your new reality without resentment.
Six. Start anew.
Fall out of love with them
With every gentle touch mimicking a lullaby putting you to sleep in their arms
Forget the laugh that filled every molecule of oxygen you ever breathed
Forget the weight of passion
Kiss as many people as you need to get the stamp of their lips off your brain
Seven. There is no way to manage heart break
It is consuming and clingy
It locks you up inside of its prison and you swear this will be a life sentence but don't let it
Heartbreak is not about trying to convince yourself that you don't miss it
It's about limiting the amount of things you would do to get it back
On some days you swear you would jump off of a building
And on others you wouldn't even take off your nail polish
It's not that this is supposed to be easy, it is only testing your endurance
Realize that you are in prison
And learn how to pick the lock

You are never given a warning
Often times, not will try and stop you
Your heart will flutter like hand painted butterfly wings
You will know you are in love when your hand is aching to write poems on their shoulders
Love grows like vines up from your stomach climbing to your heart and mind
Braiding into itself like a strand of DNA
Singing prayers and sacred alphabets of lust
No one is sure how to describe love because we negate definition when we know it is deliberately dangerous
We make it seem like this heartache is so wonderful
Because it is better to feel something for someone that to not feel anything at all
A joyous disaster is still a disaster
We are putting up wallpaper to cover up old memories, love songs, favorite colors going grey
We are never sure of what to do when our pulse turns to choir of sledgehammers when they tell you that they just don’t love you anymore
Something will trigger inside of you and you will feel like a city of stained glass with an approaching terrorist attack
But we continue to fall in love
Wondering how many times we can survive roulette

Thoughts from my least used paint brush:
I sometimes wonder what red taste like
I have seen my keeper bleed
****** knuckles, wrists, and knees
I often wonder if different shades of the same color hold the same feeling
I have never felt orange
Have never knit together sunsets or flowers
I am abstinent from such beauty
I have known blue
Paint bucket skies, blended grace to look upon
I do not want to take credit for what I have done
But I still want to be a part
I want to explore the color green
Plant gardens on woven white paper
Grow tall, thin, wide, strong
Walk in this ecstasy as a gardener
I want to build sky scrapers reaching into the lust of clouds
White, black, grey
I am okay with being neutral if it only means I will sip the savoring make up of this masterpiece
A possibility always seems to be floating next to me
I am only waiting to lifted into nirvana
I will wait forever for just one monument with my name carved into it
And I will not falter, I will not give up
My mouth has gone dry but I am hopeful to once again meet with my love of creativity

I remember all of the secret places that will never be secret again in life
The inside of my playhouse, up the ladder and through the wooden door
Talking about boys, laughing about TV shows, discussing our birthday parties that came too quickly
Never thought growing up involved so much grieve
I remember all of the secret places that will never be secret again in life
The rooftop of a house under construction at the end of the street
Smoking cigarettes, telling jokes, gazing at the world we thought we'd never lose
Talked about our future like we were the ones controlling it
I remember all of the secret places that will never be secret again in life
The front seat of your beat up truck, the middle seat in particular
Arms intertwined, singing along to the radio, talking about life as if we were sure of our future together, as if we were sure it would last
Along the way we tripped up, fell over, and now you are standing and my laces are still tied to one another
And each time I try to revisit these places that were once so beautifully hidden
I fall right back on my face when trying to walk into it, because the past is the past and it always will be

On their knees they beg for security, comfort, lust
Takes over their body, aching for affection without authentic feeling
One night stand painted golden, framed for friends to dazzle at the stories
Where the girl was just drunk enough to go home with you
She lost her keys, slipped into your pocket, under your arm slurring confused directions
Taxi cab drivers lost business when men discovered payment other than money
Standing at the front door smiling, lingering in hopes to be invited inside
Oh darling you look just beautiful enough to undress
Songs from the garden blossoming under his reign
She is dancing in the unknown foreshadowing of a casualty
Because waking up alone often hurts more than the hangover
The bed remains cold and *****, littered with earthquake memories
She does not remember taking off her clothes
She does not remember because she did not do it herself
This disease in minds of girls that they are only worth as much as their body can supply
Spreading like an epidemic often caught by sitting on any barstool, passenger seat, dance floor
Bedroom with pretty strangers who cannot withstand a night away from home
Bleeding out the crippled reasons as to why he left before morning
Searching for a phone number, business card, letter
And sometimes the easiest thing to find is reality