I'm afraid to write about you because
Ink makes me feel everything,
And everything feels so much more real
When my cursive words smudge up against
The side of my hand and stain it blue
As my pen races to keep up with my heart

But it can't be real,
Because I thought I was moving on,
I thought I was growing up,
I thought I knew all of this was
Foolish and starry-eyed

I thought, I thought, I thought
But maybe I need to stop thinking
And just let myself feel;
Feel the butterflies you put in my stomach,
Feel the pure bliss you infuse into bloodstream

And maybe I don't need to know everything,
Like exactly what you're thinking
Or exactly how I feel
Or how all of this is going to turn out

I guess what I'm saying is that
Everything isn't always going to be clear,
I may come up to "two roads in a yellow wood"
And not be absolutely certain which one I'm meant to take,
But I do know that whichever path I choose,
I'd like to be able to scan the trees and smile
Because you're there walking alongside me.

I don’t have a problem with saying too little, you don’t have to carve inspiration into a health room desk or vandalize a bathroom stall to get me to tell him how I feel. I have a problem with acting as if it’s four a.m. all day long and forgetting that you don’t need to know about my every mood swing: my Sunday highs and Tuesdays lows and Thursday nothings. I think my biggest fault is bothering you to tell me all the thoughts that have yet to cross your mind (and maybe wishing they had.) I want you to want to know everything I feel at any given moment: what I thought of this evening’s sunset and how long it took me to fall asleep last night and why track two of my favorite album makes me feel like I’m in a dream. I want you to want me to know why you painted your bedroom walls yellow and how often you floss your teeth and which day of the week you feel happiest on. But most of all, I want to know everything you feel, even before you’ve felt it.

Curled up beneath the duvet
knees drawn up to chest
inhaling the smokey scent of my fleece
sown fresh nostalgia
I remembered how
we laughed and ate off chinaware
while sipping out of plastic cups
sitting by the fire pit
in the backyard
my eyes wandered
towards the woods at dusk
and I breathed
realizing we are just specks of dust
that glimmer in the light of our Creator.

Here’s something you seldom hear: don’t always listen to your heart. Because if your heart is like mine, it’s often fickle and confused. Emotions aren’t always true, they may come and go with the wind. Feelings trick us into believing lies. You look in the mirror and feel inadequate. You hear something so many times that you start to believe it’s true. You take a situation and manipulate it till it’s something completely false. But it’s time you start listening to your head: you may not be in control of what you feel, but you are in control of how you handle those feelings. Look in the mirror and tell yourself, “I know I am beautiful.” Refuse to believe the lies. Remind yourself of your many wonderful qualities. Don’t read too far into things, take them as they are. Worrying doesn’t change tomorrow, it just makes today more troublesome. Decide to be happy. Decide to be okay. Don’t believe everything you feel.

I don't cry about it now.

but when he held me at the waist
I felt paper cuts carve his hands,
saw the broken glass on each side
of my "you look like a girl" hips
slice him open.

He said they looked like wings,
but where are the angels
when I slump over
bathroom floors,
with bent knees and
shattered promises?

you will break the dawn
like eggshells,
cracked like my promise
and I will take the needle,
carefully knit your battle wounds together
with stories from inside
candles flamed kisses.
I will plaid metaphor and memory together
until you are the rag-doll
someone promised to fix.

It's the middle of the night
and I haven't figured out
if these feelings are lying
or if I'm only honest in the dark.

I feel alone every time
I slow down enough to feel
and I'm craving the feeling
your body beside me brings.

I'm not allowed to have you
and it's breaking every bone
inside my aching soul
at least that's my 1am feeling.

i’ve given up on days that begin in late afternoon,
skipped breakfast and lunch,
days that fade slowly and end with
****** cut-out holes in eyelids because
the second i close them and it all goes black,
every moment with you comes back
played on fast-forward, the memories moving so quickly
that both our faces are blurred
and it feels like everything i’ve ever felt for you
is overflowing the tub, filling the washroom with
suds that take forever to melt

i’ve given up on those days.

i’ve traded them for ones that begin with
sunrises instead of sunsets,
days that are spent falling forward
instead of trying to chase the past, and i don’t
look back and see something broken, or
something that was better off left unopened

i look back and see our bodies so close together
that you can’t tell where yours begins and mine ends,
i see my heart that grew twenty-three times its size,
i see you and me wrapped up in something that
i didn’t know existed outside of blurry 35 mm
and overdue and falling-apart library books
that sit on the nightstands of middle-aged women
who are bored with their lives

and i’m just so happy i got to love you at all.

but i’ve folded up all the days spent with you
and taped them in the messy pages of my journal
and now i’m running into the sun,
running away from every lie that’s trying to
wedge its way in between my ribs,
running in the opposite direction of words like "regret"
and any feeling that insists that none of it was worth it

because all of it was worth it.

every moment we were together pumps
through my veins, and it will always be there;
it will be there when we’ve both graduated,
when you move out west,
when you kiss your family goodnight,
when you sit in your backyard with tears
in your eyes because you’ve lived a life
you are proud of

it will be there when i finally make it to new york city,
when i kiss someone who isn’t you,
when i find the answers you inspired me to search for,
when i sit on my rooftop with tears on my cheeks
because i’ve lived a life fuller than i could’ve ever imagined

and you and i will live these lives apart,
we’ll move on and forget what it felt like
to wake up beside one another;
we’ll find what we’re looking for elsewhere
and we’ll understand why this all had to happen the way that it did

but what we had will always exist somewhere,
in rotting apples and old mail and unplayed mix CDs,
in mosaics that line the city streets, in sirens and
red and white flashing lights that shine through
your window while you are asleep

you and i were magic,
we always will be.

It terrifies me that we only get a limited amount of time with people. And that some people get more time than others who should have. I’m forever envious of those who’ve gotten more time with you than I have. That I may never get to be with you as long as they have. That our time is running out. And I miss you already. And I never want to say goodbye. At first it was slow, late nights in your car and afternoons in my bedroom. But now it feels like it’s happening all at once, like you’re doing a snow angel on my heart and it keeps getting bigger and bigger. Kissing on the sidewalk, holding hands in your coat pocket because I forgot to bring gloves. Wandering around museums and having hard conversations on your couch that make me love you even more; even when the air becomes glass, I can’t stop thinking about how lucky I feel to know you. That there’s no one else like you. My heart aches in your arms and aches when we’re apart. And I just want to be as close to you as possible, for as long as possible, because you are the most beautiful person I’ve ever met, and I love who I am when I’m with you.