Buy the cheapest train ticket to a town you’ve never heard of.
Get off at the fourth stop and go to the nearest bar.
Flirt with the unattainable and fight the unbeatable.
Once you’re kicked out, head to the nearest gas station.
Stock up on Skittles, Starbucks frappuccino, powdered donuts and sour gummy worms.
Talk to the guy behind the register about how much you love your friends, tolerate your mom but definitely not about how much you hate yourself.
On your way out buy a cheap Polaroid camera and head to the local park.
Ask people to take pictures of you in front of the fountain, weird trees, sitting on benches or laying in the grass.
Look through the photos and smile, because this is you at your finest.
Go to the movies and throw popcorn at every love scene.
Visit a cathedral, sit in the last pew and just look up.
I can guarantee the most breathtaking paintings will be up there, so drink it all in.
Mail yourself a letter back home about all the little things that make you happy.
Call your first love from a payphone and pour your heart out, even if it goes to voicemail.
Go to a playground and swing until your feet touch the sky.
Buy a homeless man a Happy Meal and listen to his life story.
Invite the girl you met at the bar to a picnic under the stars.
Ask her about forgotten dreams and do not go home with her.
Visit the local library and write uplifting lyrics on Post-It Notes and stick them in your favorite books.
Go find a lake or a river, a creek or whatever and look at your reflection.
This is you, beautiful, talented, confident, one-of-a-kind you.
Do as you please now.
Swim, cry, or skip rocks.
Then go home and forget everything you did, but remember everything you felt.

I am wilting flowers on the living room
table that you just can’t throw away.
I am laughter held far too long and
the lake you wish to swim but not drown in.
I am in the background of every tourist’s photos
and in the foreground of nobody’s thoughts.
I am the bird that forgot to migrate and
will freeze to death without ever knowing why.
I am pants that never fit quite right.
I am tearful 2 am apologies and stepped on toes
while learning to dance.
I am the alarm that never wakes you from nightmares.

You are a warm bed on a cold winter morning,
the first to be chosen and the last to be forgotten.
You are the chocolate placed on a hotel bed’s pillow,
stolen kisses in the dark and hand holding in the light.
You are Colorado sunrises and Pennsylvania sunsets.
You are hit radio singles and dusty vinyl records,
premium cigars, silk bowties and overflowing picnic baskets.
You are Disney movies and handwritten letters,
and you are the city lights peeking over the horizon.
Truth is, you are mine to keep and I am yours to bear.

In this autumn wind
whatever will Summer bring?
perhaps, a new skin?

Your skin laid out
in shades of blue and teal,
the brilliant white streaks
of wind tossed hair.
Your backdrop, a sky
painted in a noontime orange
as dark wisps of cloud
paint the fluorescent atmosphere.
With everything in
perfect opposites
I wonder
if that is why you seem
so happy.