Here’s a secret about me:
I always look into mirrors whenever someone leaves
When a piece of me is locked outside my doors
Or when tears starts falling, I don’t know what to do anymore
I like seeing myself in my most vulnerable state
A time when I feel like mist let out of a tightly sealed jar,
I involuntarily tear myself apart until I am fanned out into nothingness
I like looking into mirrors to remind myself that my body did not disintegrate like how this feeling made it seem

I like staring at myself as I cry
Maybe to see the soldier who fired the first shot that started this whole war
Maybe to feel a little sympathy for the girl sitting on the ground
Maybe to realize that my tears will not reduce the reality of my existence
Maybe to assure that I may feel like shattered glass on the inside but it hasn’t surfaced onto my skin for everyone else to see

Because just when you think that it’s all over,
When the fighting and the screaming
The pointing and the blaming
The aiming and the shooting has been done more than it should have
And everyone else goes home to show off the skulls they killed their souls for or to simply lay their bones and pride to rest,
You get to stare at someone familiar right in the eye after washing the blood off your face
And you realize who your enemy truly is

And you start to fight a war no one really knows about
A battle that sets no time or date or emotion- one that simply comes
And it’s the most dangerous of all because it happens in your head and in your heart while you’ve been smiling all day long
It’s twisted and confusing because it canplllppidu happen even when you’re listening to your favorite song
And sometimes, it seems as if it’s over because you can’t hear the bombs go off
But truth is, you can’t really hit pause
People come along when the bullet holes start showing exit wounds and they ask you where they came from
You try to tell them but you think to yourself that the war doesn’t have to extend to another’s home
But even if you did, no one would really get it
And there you are with front row seats, paralyzed in your confinement cell you once called home, helplessly watching as the war rages on

And you scream for it to stop
But it won’t stop, it won’t stop, it wouldn’t stop
You’ve been screaming with your eyes closed for so long
That when you finally open them, you realize that you have brought the war inside of you out into this world because your heart could not contain it anymore
And you ask for forgiveness from the people that have fallen from the crossfire of your thoughts and your hands
You ask and you ask and you ask
But darling, maybe their forgiveness is not what we must ask for first
But yours
It’s time to shed truth to the lie that there are two sides gunning it out inside of you
Honey, there are no two factions, it’s all just you

So please, forgive yourself.
Forgive yourself for never trying hard enough because you finally started listening to the lies that say you were never meant for greater things
Forgive yourself for hurting other people because no one really showed you any better
Forgive yourself for failing to love because you’ve run out of heart to give
Forgive yourself for settling for less because you’ve grown tired of walking around
Forgive yourself for not always knowing how to fix yourself because who in the world knows how
It is only when you have come to terms with yourself that the peace you find can finally settle in
Forgive yourself because not everything's your fault
Forgive yourself because you have been forgiven
Find your worth in the One who calls you by name
You are beautiful, strong, capable, saved, redeemed, sought for, enough, and whole
You are a masterpiece, a warrior, a prince, a princess, and an ambassador of the Most High
You have been picked out of love to start a movement that will open the eyes of those who have glued them shut and chose to live in darkness rather than to see the war in this world

Let’s start a revolution of peace from the inside out
Where the young and old finally announce ceasefires within themselves
War becomes a foreign concept, no one would dare seek it with anyone else
Battles start when we begin becoming someone we were never designed to be
Find yourself in your Father and know you will be if you let it be
So if you want to call for peace in a world that has forgotten,
Child, first remember that you cannot give what you do not have

To you,
Know that I will never be your dream
That my hands are just a little too small, you can barely feel them holding on
That this obstinate heart will always refuse to follow your melody and will try to find its own place in this symphony
That never will your world slow down because these feet were never made to settle beyond a frame

I am like rain in excess; I am not a need to be sought after
I am puddles to be jumped over and over and over
I often find myself in buckets tilted over drains
Because I always spill into houses who never wanted my pains

To you,
Know first that our love was, is, and will never be a fairytale
That maybe our happy endings are found in two different books
And characters whose names are just not written here yet

We have learned how to dream with our eyes open
Believing in the possibility of de ja vu but situated in today
We have studied how to make excuses for our stubborn selves
To fake ink in these pages of the stories we have written out of daydreams
Out of wanting but knowing we could not keep just yet

To you,
Maybe our forever is just for now
or maybe for now is simply the start of our forever
One step at a time, we'll get there;
whether there is found with you a breathe away
or at a bus stop with one bidding farewell,
I can never tell
I can however pour out to you all I hope we would be
But we will only know what can be in the time it will be
So I'd rather keep it to myself

But know that you are never forgotten
There are tears reserved only for the memories of you
Places I could never quite stand on again because
My silhouette would always fail to fill the spaces like you’d always do
Words on repeat that never lost the sound of all pain I knew like “almost”:
We almost made it,
You almost stayed,
I almost held on,
We almost fell,
You almost relapsed,
I almost let you,
We almost forgot that our love is not all that we have
That our hearts are never always right
That our love does not define the word itself
Know that I never doubted your love
But there is a love that came before them all
Written in the prologue by the writer up above

To you,
Thank you for loving that I will never be your dream
That my hands are just a little too small, but you can better hold on
That this stubborn heart will always refuse to follow your melody and have added its own beat to your symphony
That never will your world slow down because these unsettling feet have drawn you out

I am like rain in excess; I am not a need to be sought after yet you chose me still
You say I am puddles to be jumped into again and again and again
I often find myself in buckets tilted over flower pots
Because I finally spilled into a house who knew the worth of this "excess"

To you,
Thank you for loving the rain.
For saving me in buckets and closing the drains
I will never really know why I love you lover
Because all these could never find reason of its own
But maybe this little girl simply took after her Father
Who loved beyond the uncertainty and visions of the other

Thank you for pulling me down from skies
For reminding me that my soles were always meant to kiss these grounds
That dreams aren’t always the best,
That one day I’ll thank God for handling the rest

So I throw away my worries and cast my cares aside
I need not fret about being saved because though no prince was sent, the King came down himself
I was never formed as a half in search to be completed
But created as a whole with the option to love beyond the convenience
And out of all these choices,
I chose you to love you

To you,
I’ll be okay.
I am slowly remembering to not seek warmth in the created but in the Creator
I have found the praises He has always filled my heart to store
And have learned to shout them again
My home is not in your arms but wherever roof my Father settles me down
His love is too vast to be swallowed by this ocean of tears
That I have stopped forcing myself to settle for dreams
This heart may be longing for the sun it always found in the rubbing of our two hearts,
But He? He filled it with the universe- with stars and galaxies, with some I have yet to know what

To you,
How do you end this poem? Find satisfaction that these lines will justify memories that will never die and memories that are yet to be?
I. Don’t. Know.
So then listen to the silence that will come in between my stepping back and the applause
Because maybe, hopefully, saying nothing will tell you everything this compilation of carefully collected words could never hold

Darling, this is for you. And maybe me too.