Remember that you are a work of art.
That with the sun light hitting you as you glisten or a shadow creeping upon your skin, a master piece is still a master piece ,with or without the lights on, crowded or empty showcase.
Do not forgot the splattered paint you call your failures, built you into who you are.
You were an art exhibit he did not wish to enter.
Remember that just because he didn't look beneath the covers, that there wasn't a Mona Lisa waiting to be revealed.
That the messy days were bad enough to leave.
That the good days weren't good enough to stay.
That just because he looked that way instead of your way, that you aren't okay.
In the end, you were just too much. A man's ego is never one to be tampered with but you had the power at the tip of your fingers and he took it away. Not only that, he took it away without saying that the simple fact , those were his problems not yours. Because you are a master piece.
You are a work of art.
He was the one that chose not to open his eyes.

I believe that in some universe, we were meant for this.
We were meant to make this into something great.
That the reason our fingers were separated was so when the time came, your touch was meant for mine.
I believe that reason we can't physically see ourselves without a mirror, is because we were supposed to fall for each other's attributes.
Your eyes were meant for me to fall for every time they brightened up about something you love.
Your smile was meant to break and fulfill my heart every time the wrinkles started to appear.
I believe your laugh is meant to be my favorite song.
I believe that your lips had the purpose of making me melt every time they would come across my skin.
I believe that somewhere, in a different time, your love was meant for me and you believe it too.
But this isn't another universe, this isn't just somewhere, we are standing on our time, as we speak, as I write.
We believed that it was a good thing.
That we were a good thing.
As we took time for granted, as we watched things drift away, it was no longer what it could've been.  
In this universe, the one we now experience in,
our time has ran out, the clock hands have stopped moving for us.
We're over.
In another universe that wouldn't have been okay.  In the universe we were meant for, this distance-full love would've been tragic, but here it isn't.
Over here, what we could've been is only memories.
I've accepted that in this universe, our connection wasn't meant to be traced back to one another like random magnets in a space-less box.
In this universe we aren't together and that's ok.
The memories are enough to keep me full for years to come.
The memories are enough to make me grin from time to time.
The memories are just enough.
Enough for me to except that in this universe, we were simply not meant for each other.
In this universe, that is all okay.

But I know what you're going through.
I know that it hurts.
I know that the pain is breathtakingly exhausting.
I know.
I know that your lungs give out everytime you scream their name, internally.
The shades of sadness you wear are now thicker than the blood your heart would bleed out everytime the image of the future with them was at an edge.
I know that everytime you look up from the grey gravel you drag yourself upon, a strike is ran within your nerves because you can no longer love with your eyes anymore.
I know that although you weren't the one that brought it all to shambles, you hopelessly imagine that they will open up the curtains within them that restrained them of the love you had to offer.
I know.
I know that breathing around them after it has ended is the most dramatic difference because for so long, the love you both shared was formed in the most  synchronized pattern.
It was all you knew.
I know it gets better from this point on,
But I also know that the urgency to chase after them is still pulsating within you.
Right now, it is all darkness, but you have yet to encounter the light.
I know.
Soon you will too.

Vow's were said. His finger's crossed.

Thinking of you makes me numb.
As if my cloth-less body lays there, in iced water.  
But in time the water becomes hot
Having the warmth in my heart catching up with my thoughts of you, having it run through every nerve in my body submerging with the feelings of my insides, and the physical attributes of the outside.
While I soak up the water, I remember of how wet you made me.
How your fingers were surf boards and I to you, was the ocean, waiting on a tidal wave.
Your lips gave me comfort like a beach breeze climbing over me as you rolled on top.
But that was just the beginning.
Your body and mine intwine into one and suddleny I'm not alone anymore.
We are one.
Your strokes like waves and my arches like the ends.
Put together is almost amazing and endangering at the same time.
The water is falling.
I'm almost to my end but you aren't nearly finished.
Our eyes trace back to one an others and we stare for a while.
Your eyes like the moon and a smile like the sun.
So painful yet so beautiful but you have no idea of it.
Too bad this is just my emotions running around and drawing pictures of what things would've been like.
Of what it would've been like if sand didn't disappear into the air.
Of what it would've been like If you never left.

It's a cycle of repetition.
Mesmerizing a smile.
Falling for the eyes.
Having their voice echo in your head throughout the day.
You go through the phases, yet they don't.
Finishing a race, not realizing they have already quit.
As if they were the rabbit and you were the turtle,
doubtfully but entirely getting ahead.
Failing to notice that the break they took,
was a sugar coating way of splitting to a separation, forever.
Today's love is nothing of love.
Only empty promises and wandering souls floating in and out of others.
You wonder why they take your time as something so limitless.
The connection so quick and intense, that in the moment things seem okay,
but as the spark starts to die, you realize, it was nothing but a minor flame in a wild fire.
It was only, just a click.

I reminisced about our memories and my soul walked out of me to try and reconnect with yours but I was rejected. I listened to our song and my heart cried. I was breathless. I thought I was okay. I even had something new but when it came down to it, I sat there ,alone with my empty chest, needing the oxygen to be restored. You asked for my heart and you tore it down and I couldn't get it back. The sense of love I couldn't get that back. You did this. No wait, I did. Love is a choice and I chose to love you. I chose you but in the end. You didn't chose me. Because I was never really an option to your heart. You took my heart out while you were inside of me, mentally. I sat in a bright, sunny room and somehow it is still dark. My mind is on replay with all our bad days and yet what's left of my heart was still aching for yours. The only thing that uplifted me was the rain. It was already sad so there's no place for my emotions to make it worse. The rain was my happy place. Where things can be sad but it all appropriates with the mood. The sad rain was my happiness. In art class we were taught on curves. As I glowed, I noticed the curve I was thinking about was your pathetic smile. Love is an overrated movie that everyone raves about but once they get a preview, they wish they hadn't watched it at all. You were the most beautiful, surreal yet sorrowing film I've ever seen. That is why it hurt. Because I once loved you. Your presence made my skin want to jump on top of yours. I wanted all of your embrace. All that you can give. But that was only what I wanted. In life things aren't given to you at a very second. Sometimes never at all. Your laugh was a symphony that matched the way my heart beated for yours. Sometimes I wonder. What I'd be like. What you'd be like if you were mine but I guess that's the mystery to it all. I loved you and you weren't even mine. I craved you and I hadn't had the slightest taste in forever. I wanted you. Forever. My mind split into 2 parts but you always brought it into one. She thought that love was never truly at happen at this age but then again what if it's the right person. That's when you came in. You completed me and my thoughts even when I didn't want you to. You ripped me out of my dignity and grace. I  couldn't even look you in the face. It was getting hard to be around you again. I had to stop before it was the end. I stopped. Yes I stopped. All the pain and the sorrow, washed away. Maybe all I needed, was the rain.

To those who left.

You pressed the push to start on me becoming myself again, a better version of me.
As the engine roaring,
I continued to accelerate but you stayed behind.
Behind in the faceless crowd.
You no longer had visual of me and I no longer considered having you in my sight.
I progressed, I exceeded.
I continued down my own road and yes, while you helped have the start of that happen,
I became who I am today, by my lonesome.
I encouraged myself, I motivated myself, by myself.
See, you were only the key switch that began my race.
My roar become more than you could handle and you vanished into the smoke I call my successful breathes, after having so many dreadful sighs.
Now you want to say that I've changed.
To say that I accelerated too hard, that I'm caught up in the fumes.
But the real question remains, how would you know?
You stayed behind, no longer the one in my passenger seat.
Only watching from what you could see on the sidelines.
As for myself, I continue to get comfortable in this new lane I've created for myself.
I continue to get comfortable in this better life of mine.

They thought she was healing, letting any guy get a taste of her forbidden fruit.
That even though no one could say they've had a bite, that she was out trying to find someone appreciative of her taste.
That she was just trying to find the light in it all.
They thought she was looking for her own acceptance inside an empty  man's soul and that whenever things were rough,
She needed that shadow figure she would call her own, to be around.
That she was selling herself short because when the prices were high for that one buyer, she was too much to be enough.
But it wasn't like that.
In her eyes, she was growing
breaking out of her self made cage that previous men provoked her into building.
Trapped in there for so many months.
That was her healing.
Her mind expanded, her scary thoughts extended their stay and became what to everyone was the surreal reality.
She grew, she moved on.
She has taken off her cuffs when she was ready to stop being prisoner in a self unloving comma
And now?
Her wings, they fly from beehive to beehive.
Not looking for love.
Not looking for herself.
But going for the muse she kept herself from.
She was going for the light that came with no longer staying dark.
The wild side.
Even though the other bees don't see it that way
It doesn't really matter.
Because if the honey is sweet, the honey is sweet
Now she's getting a taste.

The silence spoke about a thousand words.
While the sentence caught up in their throat
While the words twisted in their tongue
The pause of not giving an answer, was the answer.
While the mind was unknowingly tinted
The eyes were what explained it all.
Arms became stiff and shoulders became tense.
Physical body language is a master manipulator.
A kiss should mean feelings but the heart was not one to beat for the other anymore.
The ears and brain did not coordinate anymore, when your name was called, their nerves didn't dance around at the speed of light.
It was a malfunction, an error.
It was signs of something shutting down.
You knew it was coming though.
The knowing of an end, while still being in the middle.
You knew, even when you didn't want to.
Even when they didn't.

There I was, presuming in one of my guilty pleasures.
Letting the words on a page create in imagine in my mind, my own imagines.
It's the biggest reason why I enjoy, what I enjoy, I get to involve myself with another woman's work and make it come together.
There I was, when I felt something but that wasn't what was new.
The process of having all those words be gently put together as it creates a story, always made me feel some type of way.
But this time, it was the essence of Deja-vu flushing over me that moved my attention elsewhere.
It was a sorrowing tone.  

How come I'm always able to see the good in someone, ways they are never able to view me?
How can I separate the flaws and obscurities of an individual, to take them for who they are, when they don't take the chance to know who am I truly am.
I notice those things.
I notice everything.
There is this content-ness living inside of me.
Helping me, exhale the calm air.
With that, I have the ability to feel right and wrong.
Last night was the preliminary example.

About last night.
No one is able to surprise me.
I'm too familiar with lies and signs being thrown at me.
With that being said, I can't even surprise myself. I know me, too well.
As we sat there, we had an empty conversation.
It was like we were talking to ourselves, only with question marks at the end for the other to answer.
A conversation so meaningless, I can't seem to remember.
Body language was spoken and it told me, he wasn't the only. Not even close.
Funny though,
At some point I was all about feeling too much, all the time, and now?
I feel nothing.
I even forget about how our eyes met for a split second because although they traced back to each other, I didn't feel the lust we had pulling us to anything closer.
I guess that is all we could be.
That is all we would ever be.
Lust.

Death strolls around my mind everyday, just in time for it's graveyard shift. Wandering through the depths of my issues, relinquished from the unsustainable leash my emotional tactics can't seem to keep her under. Every night, she walks so gracefully over non realistic events and makes herself the outcome. She wears the sharpest heels known to man yet is careful on which nerve she lands on that specific day. Some days , my body aches of chills, some days I'm electrified with the heat of a burning sensation, imagining the what if's. She feeds off of me, chipping away at sanity.

But I think what hurt the most is when you said " you deserve better " and walked away.
Because from my point of view, I was looking at better. I was looking at the reflection of my happiness.
Viewing you as the best, as the better, yet you couldn't see it for yourself.
The shadow that stayed behind me and kept me going, completely vanished.

I caught the lack of sincereness that strung in between the words you put together and so called named an apology.
I remember the thin line of sympathy you tossed over as I overflowed the text box with my thoughts.
The way you so gracefully let go of it all, I was the feather in the wind.
As you tugged along the scrap of a string we called our forever, I wrapped myself up with what you threw away.
I tied together all the good things that lived within me and put myself together. Alone.
Everyday was a better day.
I sunk into my solitude and prospered like no other.
To think that we were suppose to be forever, to imagine that this thing we had going on would be thrown into the dirt like this.
Everything that gets put down into soil, evolves into what it is meant to be.
I am meant to shine, and you were only the beginning of one-sided growth.

Walking on glass, no aid has been offered.
Crying loud over my sorrows, the closest ones tend to hear it all from a distance.
Blank expressions, empty conversations, all to make up what is a called a connection.
Weights on the shoulder dragging it all down, but a foot to the head doesn’t seem so heavy.
Uplifting others, bringing the mind to the clouds, yet the hands of which were brought up, do not give some in return.
Do not expect, for which disappointments are made.
There is no obligation for any type of aid.

Your mind was screaming, yet no words came out.
Your heart was racing,  yet you were as calm as day.
Words slipped off his tongue, the way it danced on everything but your face.  
" Do you want to come play ? "
There are angels who've danced with devils but still, they deserve what to know what heaven is like.
" No I don't want to play. "
You said those words yet your soul aching for just an ounce of his touch.
He really liked games, they were his favorite.
But you were no longer the dice to be played with.

They say it’s what we strive for.
It’s what we desire.
It’s what we chase.
It’s what we need.
Its why we live.
Love.
It hurts.
It grows.
It changes over the years.
But it’s always love.
To cry.
To laugh.
To smile.
To break down at 3am in a shower, wondering to yourself what is wrong with the universe.
The feelings attached to this idea, painful yet most exhilarating.
Nothing of what you don’t already know though.
So why?
Why love be the important concept in us human-beings?
Because it’s passion.
It’s hope.
It’s faith.
It’s the base of our life’s purpose.
Why do anything in life if not searching for more dept?
Looking in-between the lines for happiness.
From the moment we open our eyes till our last breath, it’s what we desire, chase, and need.
Its why we live, because till the end, it’ll always save us.
Love saves us.

When living in a puppet show, the strings are always attached.
To live a life where what should be yours, is considered a favor or gift, is a life not worth stressing.
In the moment, hatred turned into permanent resentment, is not why I am here.
To let clogged emotions devour your peace of mind, is not what I am going to do.
It’s not worth it all.
Looking at these yellowish-orange walls and to only wonder how many shades lighter is it going to take to suddenly feel like home?
It’s never felt like home, but to accept that is the comfort that home gives, in your mind.
Wasted breathes but a lack of redemption.
It’s not worth it all.
The ceilings rising higher giving me the space to feel but my personal space only seems to get tighter as if it’s condensing between air and my skin.
No air bubbles, no space for progress.
Time is up.
As the chandelier sways, the essence of this house mimics it’s movement ; still, dull, dead.
I am always below the chandelier but my spirit is higher.
I am higher.
I am higher than the walls, than the ceilings, than the atmosphere that is my “ home “.
I am higher, because it’s only the beginning of my life.
Where I planted myself, where I rooted the person I want to become and not the person I am now, sitting still. To feel upset for not changing is not worth it at the moment, for there is still a lifetime to grow.
It is not worth it all.
All that is being, the beginning of my life.

Never have I seen so much hatred in the eyes of the man who was the reason I opened my own.
Never have I seen so much fear in the eyes of the women I once saw as the strongest warrior.
In this house is where I lay my thoughts, but it will never be called home.
Isolation is my home, rarely does one ever knock.
To sit here and have comfort in the orange painted walls and meaningless decor, is a feeling that’ll never be encountered.
Looking through the window and into the grey sky, birds swift with the wind, and I too wish to able to fly away from the grey that is my life.
In my bed, I dream of sleep,
my death without such commitment.
But yet I stay, yet I fight and yet I manage to be all that is my beliefs in what is meant for one, will be.
I am meant to soar higher than my bedroom ceiling.
I am meant to be a strong as my will of not turning the other way.
I am meant to be something more than what is perceived of my lack of disciple and neglect for settling.
I am meant for better.
Given these eyes by the man who now hates me,
they shut, while my mind still at work.
I’m the warrior my mother wished me to be, and now she is in envy of what she could not see in me.

Why I am not enough the first time around?
A black shadow in a colorful room.
Pink and purple splattered on the walls.
Yet my darkness drips stilly, a momentum so tranquil.
The thought of this wraps around me tightly.
Can love not seem to hug me? Even as I hold it close?
I guess love washes over those in the mix pink and purple.
What a collision, a lovely magenta.
But what about me?
Within my darkness, there is infinite depth.
Within my darkness, there is grounded beauty.  
But it seems as though magenta is the brightest of all, where my shadow just lays in it's shining.
Erasing me from all of eternity, an almost invisible silhouette.

Maybe it’s because we want to seem ok
To disregard the hurt and pain that we feel inside on our emptiest days
Maybe it’s because we wish things were different
To have the slightest bit of hope hanging from a thread, intertwined with the aching of our hearts
Maybe it’s because we aspire for change
To long of a time where the universe aligns with our internal clocks and gives us just one last chance.

But maybe it’s because we know that chance will never come
And the burn marks of our inner misery turn into scars we can never ignore
To wear our suffering on our sleeves and let the agony of our existence cloth the rest of us
Maybe it’s because in soul-time we know certain thoughts may never come and lie to rest
To let our daydreams last till nightfall and whisper our deepest desires to the moon.

But when morning comes, the heights of grey turn to yellow, for the sun shall always rise
And we awaken ourselves, returning back to the reality of lies
We look at our reflection, a clear image of our despair
For what we can see may never be of deceit
And our crooked smiles tell the real truth between you and me.

I poured my heart out to him,
Like water in a glass.
The reflection of my soul deep within its splashes,
But he slipped as it overflowed.
He didn’t drink it fast enough.
Slipping from every side.
The life of me now splattered on the floor.
Everyone can see,
I poured my heart out to him.
But he slipped.
And all of who I was to him soaked beneath his feet.
For I was apart of him,
And he was only wearing me.

It was the type of hurt that trembled within you.
The type to make one’s heart shiver in anticipation for another's warm reassurance.
To think she and I are the same is nothing but a shame to our pronounced love kindling flame.
Hearing those words, my self esteem boiled while dripping down my legs and into my feet, leaving me with the numbing sensation of not knowing where we stand anymore.
I hope you do not slip on over those drops of me, my self identity.

Only they touch me like that.
With their fingers pretending my back is a violin.
Gently running up and down,
They make their way up.
There’s a twirl near my neck,
Rolling into my hair.
Their fingers interlock with my coils,
So gracefully massaging.
They pull my head closer,
Up near the chest, where their heart beat sounds.
My arms wrapped on the waistline, keeping our bodies as one.
This is our love position, closest to the soul.

To love oneself is a mystery.
Am I fulfilled or empty?
In admiration of others, do I see myself or just a delusion built from my imagination.
From what perspective am I best?
His or hers?
Mine or yours?
How does one become content knowing they will never be on the other end as the eye of the beholder?
We all accept not knowing the entire truth, being held onto this whim.
This whim of mental security.
To understand that letting go of what can not be controlled is taking control.
We can not control what others see but can control what it is we see and that is the base of truly loving oneself.
Because maybe we may never be in complete control.
Maybe we may never be on the other end.
Maybe we may never understand the perspective of anyone else’s, but our own.
But as the sun rises everyday, that is something that is set in stone.
Our mind is a reflection of what we see on the outside.
To indulge in oneself is the biggest gesture of passion.
We must grasp onto ourselves and hold our spirits tight.
To never lose sight of what is in our own control, not others.
Because to do it for others is impossible.
From one mind to the next, what the world is thinking is simply just a mystery.
A mystery of what the truth really is,
and what we may never know.

They say mind over matter,
But sometimes the sadness is so heavy.
Pushing down on your vibrant vibrations,
And making a small tingle feel like a burn sent from hell.
It is too heavy and as if,
It cradles you, reassuring of how much of your sanity it really carries.
You’re scared to fall,
So you sit still and wait.
Sinking in, down to the depths of you that were unforeseen and
through you in every direction, it is now the one sitting still.
Leaving you with the doubt of ever getting your seat back,
The seat of mental control.
It rocks you, back and forth,
Somewhat of a wooden pendulum, soft with yet rough creaks.
For your time is almost, to the nearest end, over.

For the time has come, and all of us can see
You are not all is said to be
Land of the free, a promise of liberty
Only a distilled version of reality
Because in this world, our eyes will never meet
There is no connection between you and me

Could it be the remembrance of southern trees
Or the scent of magnolia in the breeze
For you to believe you are still better than me?
Be it colored, all that is outside of white
My people put up a good fight
Our eyes open but you wish them closed
Souly to be forgotten
Like the names of my ancestors I will never know

Years of despair
Our diaspora now everywhere
Your destruction sails from sea to sea
Berlin as the start, oh how you scattered us to parts
A tryst of greed with some tea
Railroads our only opened doors
Forced onto this shore, we had always wanted more
The motherland was never yours

But fear is the only language you speak
For the time has come and we all now see
You were never one to bring peace
And never what was said to be