Oh California!
How my heart burns for you,
how beautiful you are!

The greenest trees and the most picturesque beaches.
The soft sands of the desert,
and the rolling slopes of the foothills.
My body, my mind, my spirit, all belong to you, oh Great and Wonderful! California.

Your hills are on fire,
scarring the beauty of your curves.
Your rivers run dry,
suffocating the green into brown.
How my heart cries for you! Oh dry, oh burning, oh how relentless this war against you, oh California! And there is no relief in sight, winter promises no respite, and the summer will be long and tough and dry like the ones before and before and before.

Oh California!
How I tremble, how I shake in awe,
your sun burns a bright orange,
smoke fills your sunsets,
even fire cannot detract from your beauty!
Oh cleansing rains!
Oh cleansing El Niño!
Oh how I beg you to save California!
My California!

My roots go deeper than that of the greatest redwood, California is my home, and not the most fearsome of fires could cause me to leave, not the fiercest and most ruthless of droughts could scare me away!

Oh California!
Let my tears be absorbed by your thirsty soil!
Let my body one day feed your hungry crops!

Oh California! I am yours, to the very last.
God bless California!
God bless the desert and the mountains!
God bless the foothills and the valleys!
God bless the beaches and the forests!
God bless my home and spare it from the relentless.
California is my God, and I hope she hears my prayers!

Long ago,
there lived the most beautiful princess and her name was Ornia. She was loved by her people, and she loved them back. On the day she was to crowned queen a terrible cancer appeared in the heart of the mountain she called home.
She prayed to the Spirit of the Sun and the Spirit told her the mountain is sick, because there is not enough love being returned to it, only love being taken from it.
Ornia, feeling her heart heavy and bursting with love, crawled through many cracks and fissures in the mountain until she reached the center.
There she released her heart from her chest, wove the vessels into the cancerous ones of the mountain and cured it.
Still, silent, she lies there, feeding the mountain love.
The people so loved her and recognized her sacrifice they named the mountain after her: Calif-Ornia.

You're no further away than you were before, but the high tide is in and I accidentally slipped my floaty onto the train with you, and I'm afraid of drowning.

It was so easy to love you and maybe that's why it's so hard now.

Before, thinking of you brought feelings of peace, well being, contentment.
And now, through no fault of yours (rather through the faults of a jealous heart beating in my chess) when I think of you it's always marked with feelings of sadness, anger, and (naturally, I suppose) jealousy.

I'm gasping for breath,
I have no floaty pulling me to the surface.
The shore I left from is a lot closer than the one I wish to reach, and I don't know if I should swim back, keep going, or drown.

I have no reference
No ability to see
If this is perfection
If you are the best one for me

Your gut is loud and confident
That I am the one you seek
But how can I know that
You are the best Fish in the sea?

It is not the present I fear
But the future I can not see
Will a random stranger suddenly come
And sweep me off my feet?

Will years of happy marriage thrive
For all eternity?
Or will passion wilt away for all
And split our family tree?

I want to be believe you'll always be my cup of tea and we'll get our happy ending.

I hate this feeling that all is ending,
This waking fear that my heart is finally breaking.
A snap and a crack as the work breaks,
A scream and a tear as my ache blazes.
          I am moving in shallow phases.
                    The moon above is casting these mazes.

I reel in fear that your touch is gone,
I ***** these words always laced with love.
A moment of fear before everything changes,
A rend in my soul as my body cries.
          A year and fifteen more filled with these lies.
                    My eyes are blown wide in the light from your skies.

You are far away, so far away,
As my eyes bleed gold I have to play every scale.
I could stay on that field of stars forever with you,
Under the smoke my voice will still shake.
          Forever and ever my soul will ache.
                    I am so afraid that even with this distance my love will not break.

i think about the songs i wish i could write about you
deep and sweeping words that would compare your eyes to the sky and your laugh to starlight
compare the curves of your body to the most breathtaking places in the world and every childhood story you've told me to yards of silk folded and stored reverently in the attic of my head, on the shelf closest to my eyes so i'll remember them always
but then i remember that
these verses tied to your wrists with delicate, translucent chords
while they may make the tide trace currents in the lines in your face
they will not make your heart collide with mine

almost two weeks have passed since you did
i think about the night that fell upon you rabid and hungry
and i know that for me, it is yet dusk