Love is such a weird thing.
It makes you cry, laugh, scream, hate.
Love controls all.
To love is to control your emotions, your family, your life.

Love and hate are very similar in some ways.
The emotions caused by both are thrown around
causing so much trouble in a lot of people's lives.
To love is to want and need.

Pain is also like love.
It's what comes with it.
A big package that nobody signs up for willingly.
To love is to have a ticking time bomb in your pocket.

To have pain
is to have hate
is to be in love.

How could such a small word
have such a big meaning?

So, what is love?
Is it pain?
Hate?
Or is it something most of us have not experienced yet?
Making us quick to judge those who have.

From Head to Toe my body speaks
or rather, screams.
My purple hair says, “I am unique!”
while my soul whispers, “At least, I’m trying to be.”
Blue eyes full of stars yell, “I am beautiful!”
while my heart whispers, ”I don’t believe that, but I want to.”
This body covered in scars screams, ”I have problems!”
while the clothes I wear contradict, ”I have my life together.”
Scars on my shin shout, ”I’ve had fun, fallen, and gotten back up!”
while the skin underneath mutters, ”It wasn’t my choice.”
Painted toes holler, ”I want someone to notice me!”
while my mind breathes, ”No I don’t.”
From Head to Toe my body screams
and believes in something
that I do not.

Before this
There was infinity, reachable by tiny fingers
And wide eyes
Scraped knees and
Bobbing heads disappearing into the trees.
'Nilla wafers and nap time
Took us off through the wildest jungles
Sent you drifting with a patched eye across the ocean
With ol' blue beard

One day, stark as the contrast between warmth
And a dash of ice-water
Every illusion used to protect, to comfort
Became as crystal clear
As shattering windshield glass.

I remember that day
I remember the clutch of fabric in my small hands
The spicy, familiar scent as I pushed it into my face
Feeling no warmth behind it, no enclosure of arms
Only the carapace
Your long-sleeved second skins
That filled the rich mahogany dresser
Long after you departed with the last you'd ever wear.

Not touching the cold stranger in the box made it real;
Nor the sound of it's door as it closed.
No, not even the earth piled atop the pile of
Crushed roses
The stone bearing our names.

It was the sweet, lingering scent
The essence you left behind
That had already begun to fade;
The scent that was as unique as rain on fallen leaves
Would one day leave
Just as you did.