you asked me if you are the
first person to make me believe
in love.

i told you,

no.

but you’re the first to make me
believe in love again.

sun rays reach down and
hold my body in a warm embrace

as a light breeze puts rhythm in
the trees and whips my hair around my face

i feel at home in this place.

forever waiting
to learn why i was put here.
where do i find purpose?

i'm trying to paint away the sadness
one color at a time.

i paint
bright kaleidoscopic skies
strong, swaying trees
a brave blue wave
a million pretty pastel floral arrangements

but none of them can cover up
the blues of my sadness.
the reds of my anger.
the black to blue to purple to yellow-greens of my bruises.

i still try to paint away the sadness
one color at a time
until the scenes i paint on pages
become the ones in my real life.

i’m a zombie,
only half alive.

i’m a ghost,
i don’t even know
what i look like.

i’m out of touch with myself
and everybody else.

i haven’t heard my voice in weeks,
i’ve forgotten how to speak.

my mind is in knots.

there are so many twists and turns
that I can’t seem to follow
and I’m getting frustrated.

where is the start and where is the end?
and why is it so confusing?

i can’t sit still—my legs want to get up and go
but my brain is too tired for that right now.
i stay seated and try to untangle what is
the big grey lump in my skull, trying to figure out what it’s trying to say.

but it’s illegible and i can’t,
like a foreign language I don’t recognize.

hopefully as i spill out on to what was a blank sheet of paper i can break through those knots and maybe comprehend the load of thoughts running through and around each other in the space of my body that has been assigned to them.

i only wish i knew for certain that there would finally be a break through and that i will know what I should be knowing.

gathering myself might help as I feel as if
i’m spread across a massive surface that
i can’t seem to find all the pieces of myself on.

but how can I find myself when I barely know myself?

when i find out, i’ll let you know.

like the stars in the sky that I admire
every night and miss when they’re gone.

like the trees, so green,
that let me breathe more clearly.

like the vast, blue ocean I stand before
that satisfies my hunger for something beautiful.

and like the red, beating heart in my chest
you keep me well and alive.