woman.
house of fire and hope
and light.
woman.
canvas where loveliness and
fierceness blend.
woman.
ocean of flowers and life.
garden where all things wonderful grow.
woman.
you.

my soul
has turned into a house
with leaks in its roof
my words are the raindrops
that fall through
and i
i am trying to catch them all.

feeling alive feels like
yellow flowers growing in my bones
and blooming on my skin
it feels like the sun rises
not in the east
but from within me

i am standing in front of you
and you don’t see me
i am the moon and stars
but you only see the night
i am the poetry in songs
but you don’t pay attention to my music
and then
you wonder
why i hide
from you
why my voice turns into silence
when you pass by

the magic of poetry.
is that it makes everything
beautiful.
it fills your lungs
like air.
it turns your soul
into a sky full of stars.
your heart
a field of wildflowers.
you.
into a poem.

on my right leg,
under my knee
lives a cinnamon colored stain
that looks a bit like africa
the same way i look a bit like africa
in the shape of my nose
and the waves of my curls
waves like the water that carried my
ancestors in boats
all the way to this island
of salt and sugarcane

unknot the knot
in my throat
with a look
a word
maybe a kiss
that will give me back
the breath you’ve stolen

did you expect my flowers
to bloom among you?
what could grow on your dry land?
only weeds.

there are things
you think you know
but when the words come
from somebody else
their truth
(your truth)
becomes unwavering

one day (or night)
it hits you
(the feeling that you are not alone anymore)
and even though you were never afraid of
(loneliness)
you don't want to feel it anymore

in twenty one days, on the twenty first of may, you will be turning twenty one.
twenty one seemed so far away when you were growing up. i remember how you pictured twenty one year-old you, with wavy jet-black hair, thin bones and a radiant smile.
your hair is wavy right now, thanks to the rain that hasn't stopped falling; your bones are the thinnest they've ever been; and i think you've got a pretty radiant smile. so, three out of three, i guess.
and your life is better than what you dreamed.
you are surrounded by so much goodness.
your mondays, tuesdays, wednesdays, thursdays and fridays are filled with the laughter of fifteen children that steal your phone to take selfies and give you hugs that leave you breathless.
you have the friends you have always wanted. it took you a while to find them, but they're here now. they are your home.
you are doing beautiful things with your life. your words are in books, in journals and in people's hearts.
your life is more than life. it is light and fire and bravery and hope and a song.
and you are loved.

9:24 am: i am cleaning my room and singing along to an ed sheeran song. i thought of me, cleaning our house, and you, leaning against the doorframe and smiling at me.

1:24 pm: it has been raining all day and i am wondering if you believe in the beauty and magic of rain like i do and how perfect it would be if our first kiss took place on a rainy afternoon like this one.

1:26 pm: i refuse to entertain the thought that the two thoughts i've had of you were exactly four hours apart means something. but secretly i hope it does.

3:54 pm: will i think of you at 11:11 tonight?

4:19 pm: will i love you even when you make spelling mistakes?

9:24 pm: i wrote a poem today about my high standards and i thought of you and how you won't be afraid of pursuing me, of loving my heart. i thought of your fearless heart and how it will love me the way i am.

9:28 pm: i am thinking of the number 24 and how at the 24 minutes of three different hours you popped into my head. did you think of me today? did the thought of me make you smile? do you wonder about me, the color of my hair, the shape of my face, the song of my heart?

9:32 pm: my heart sometimes wonders if it's pointless to think of you, because maybe there isn't a you. but my soul tells my heart that i think of you, and therefore you are.

10:24 pm: before i close my eyes, i hope to think of you. and after i close them, i know i'll dream of you. and if it happens at the twenty-fourth minute of whatever hour it is, i won't be too surprised.

10:27 pm: i am starting to believe that 24 is a magic number.

call me complicated,
but how can i settle for less
than what i want?
call me complicated,
but i think you’re just scared of me,
of the music my bones sing,
of the wildness of my spirit
and how my hair has a life of its own
i think you know i am too much of a woman for you
and it scares you

i woke up this morning and
my phone told me today was
april 29th
and my first thought was that
today is your birthday
and how you were older than the rest of the class
because you repeated the second grade
it’s funny how i always remember this day
even though we no longer speak
except when i run into you in the college hallways
and the last real conversation we had
was probably in the fifth grade
it’s funny how i remember you
even though i really don’t think about you
and now you are just
a poem i wrote
on your birthday

do your eyes still shine
like two stars in the sky?
do they still close
every time you smile?
what song is your soul singing?
what blooms grow in your garden?
are you found?
or are you still lost?
if you are, know
i'll always wait for you.

do not fear the rain when it comes
and do not fear when it goes away
don’t be afraid of the waiting
don’t be afraid of the tears
when they decide to fall
don’t be afraid to feel
to wallow in the grief.
let yourself pause.
listen to your heart.
gardens don’t grow in a day.

i want to cry until i become an ocean
until the rivers of salt tears wash me clean
i want to be free
and i don’t want to feel so alone
i want to untangle the knot in my throat
i want flowers to live on the edges of my soul
i want to fall in love
with a pair of eyes
that fall in love with mine
and i don’t want to feel so alone
so unworthy of love
and i want a song
a song for me
and i want to breathe without it hurting
i don’t want love to feel
so far away
i want rain to fall and wash away the pain
and i want the words
for everything i am feeling
and i don’t want to feel so alone
i want poetry written for me,
love letters and late-night texts
and i don’t want to feel so alone

i wanted to write a poem
about your curls
and how they made my heart
beat like a drum played by a five-year old
who had chocolate cake for lunch
how my fingers were fighting each other
and fighting the urge
to tangle with yours and
make their way to that
chocolate colored head of yours
and get tangled in it too
and i wanted to write a poem
of how much i wanted to be like Cinderella
and leave something behind
with the hopes that you’d call me back
something like a notebook or my
polka-dotted waterbottle
but i guess the only thing i left
was a tiny little part of my heart
on the backseat of your car

you are not afraid of being,
of feeling, of living
what you are.
and you don't live life; she lives you.
you are color, you are joy.
you don't hide,
you are in the midst of everything,
between yellow flowers, red roses
and pink sunsets.
you are in the waves of the sea,
dancing and swimming
in waters of grace.
you are in the stars,
you are in the sun,
you are in the light.

if you ever read a poem
i hope you read me.
i hope you find the poetry
that hides in my body,
my rhyming eyes, my dancing feet,
the curve in my lips,
the cinnamon of my skin.
if you ever read a poem
i hope you read me,
i hope you read the words
written on my skin,
how my eyes spell out the word
'light'
and how my hands speak of art
and my heart sings words like
bravery and hope
and if you ever read a poem
i hope it's me.

i’ll name you after a flower
and i'll let raindrops fall on your forehead
so that you bloom
i'll plant kisses
like daisies on your cheeks
so that you become a garden
and i’ll sing to you my love
so that you never forget the words,
so that you never doubt you’re loved
and i'll write to you
words i don’t know yet
i will reach to the sky
and bring down stars
to teach you to shine like they do

i stopped being the rain
and the sun
that gave you life
and i turned into wildflowers

there will never be enough flowers
to fill the garden in your heart
and there will never be enough stars
to cover the sky that is your soul
and all the words
won't be enough to tell the wonder that you are
but heaven knows
i'll try

i am finding myself
in the beautiful things,
and finding the beautiful things in myself
and suddenly
i don’t feel so lost

you were every color
of every rainbow
you turned into every star in my sky
you were the sun
i danced around
and i was the moon
to your earth
gravity couldn’t hold me down
or keep me away from you

i am not the remains
of what you left.
i am whole.
i was not left to die.
i am alive, thriving.
i am the flowers that grew from your rain.

write poetry to your soul
and use verbs like
love
and adjectives like
wonderful and precious
and enough.

may i grow
so tall and bright,
so free and wild,
so brave and vibrant
that when you see me
standing
you think i am
a sunflower.

coffee and milk
sand and sea
night and stars
flowers and rain
you and i-
the perfect blend.

see me
the way i
see myself
with the waves of the sea
in my hair
and their song in my swaying hips
see me
the way i
see myself
with flowers growing
in my soul
see me
the way i
am

kiss me under the bougainvillea tree
let the leaves fall on our heads
as our lips hesitantly touch
and one pink leaf will land on your nose,
and our lips will curve into a rhyming smile

may you learn to be brave
and may you always run carefree,
certain of your worth and the power inside you.
may your song be your own,
and when your song is different from the rest,
sing louder.
may you never forget that you’ve always had wings,
and may they carry you far.

“you are so skinny.”
and beautiful.
and happy.
and full of life, with two stars instead of eyes.
but you can only say,
“you are so skinny.”
you only see my bones,
my thinner thighs.
but look at me.
see me.
see how my soul has grown so much it doesn’t fit in my body,
look at the light in my heart,
at the words written in my soul,
look beyond my skin.
look at me,
look at me and tell me
that my smile is brighter than the sun,
that i look happy,
that i've changed,
that i've blossomed.
there are so many things you could say
but you only say,
“you are so skinny.”

i don't want you to get lost
looking for me
i want to stand in the middle of your heart
to be the brightest star
i want you to see me
i don't want to hide

should You ever take my words away,
let me keep a few.
let me praise You in the morning,
let me say i love You.
let me number my days,
let me say thank You.

one day
we will be whole
but until then
we’ll keep fighting,
we’ll take one day at a time
we will laugh and we’ll cry
and we will learn to take our walls down
we’ll be a lighthouse to each other
and carry one another through the night
we’ll see the sun rise
and we’ll find the courage to try again
the waves might try to drown us
but promise me
you won’t sink

your heart is beating;
the music is already playing.
you just have to dance.

dreaming of coffee dates
and your hand crawling towards mine
and a love
dreaming of watching sunsets
next to you, and your fingers tangled in my hair
and a love
dreaming of you, singing songs in my ear
and a love
dreaming of the way your arms
will feel around my waist
and a love
dreaming of your eyes, lit up by your smile
and a love
dreaming of not wanting to hide from you
and a love
dreaming of a love
and a love
and a love.

remember me like this,
with a smile on my face,
with a spark in my eyes,
with my words
dripping down my hands
like honey,
hoping to sweeten your days.
remember me like this,
quiet and thinking,
wanting to keep this moment forever.

how does the light get in?
through the cracks
the brokenness left,
through the doors of an open heart,
through the windows of a soul.
how does the light get in?
when you smile,
when hope is found.
how does the light get in?
when you wish upon stars,
when the sunlight touches your face.
how does the light get in?
through the words of a friend
and the kindness of strangers.
how does the light get in?
when you let it.

stop swimming
in oceans of shame,
of guilt, of regret.
let grace be your lighthouse
and swim to its shore.
let yesterday drown
in the sea of forgetfulness
and let go.
the past is not yours.

this day is yours
to love
to hope
to make beautiful things
to laugh
to start again
to make it what you want it to be
don't believe it is too late
to dream new dreams
to fall in love again
to wish upon a star
to be who you are

your heart is a flower
water it daily
with joy
with songs
with cotton candy skies,
watercolor sunsets
and kind words
let the light find you
and make sure the sun
shines on it
and watch it
bloom.

don't let me forget my smallness.
remind me that without you
i am nothing, i have nothing,
that everything beautiful in me
comes from you
that my soul,
my words
belong to you.
don't let a day go by
without me thinking of you,
talking to you,
wanting to hear your voice.
draw me closer.

listen to the music of raindrops,
singing,
“you are growing,
you are a flower
and you will bloom.”

find me braver,
find me kinder
find me loving with
a wide-open heart
find me with flowers on my head
and forgiveness in my heart
find me alive,
find me in love

don’t run away from the pain,
because it is yours just as much
as hope is.
learn from it and grow,
for it is part of your story.

it sounds cliché
and i wish it weren't true
but my heart can't give you
what you never gave me
and yet i don't blame you
because maybe
the same thing happened to you

when the morning comes,
may you smile at the sun,
and may its light touch your heart.
when the morning comes,
may the birds sing to you songs of hope.
when the morning comes,
may you find the grace your heart needs.
when the morning comes,
may joy light the way before you.

show me your heart,
show me the beauty you keep inside.
open your soul,
don’t hide it;
let me see the light that shines within.
tell me your story,
tell me what makes your heart beat,
what sets your soul on fire.
tell me about your pain,
and know that it matters,
that every thing about you matters.
know that your life is a gift,
that your life is grace.