I see you-
With your wide eyes,
And your hands stretched out,
Ready to catch the world
At the tip of your fingers.

You're searching
For a reason to escape-
To hop on the next ship
To God knows where,
And make metaphors
Out of all the wrong places.

I see you with your casual grin
And your nose scrunched up like this.
You're sniffing out danger-
following all the red flags,
And searching for a story-
One about the line between
Staying alive and living.
It looks a lot like
A crime scene
And your hands are painted bright red.

I see you with your
Too thick sweater
And hiking shoes.
You're preparing for the worst,
Whether the weather
Or the rickety trail ahead.

All you want to do
Is run until your feet
Leave the ground.
Your soles are a little worn in,
And your hair
Ruffed up from the hood.
You're afraid to let the raindrops in
Thinking you might catch a cold,
Or an excuse to latch
Your feet onto the bedroom floor.

Not you.
You were made for moving.

I see you
Looking at me-
Every instinct telling you
To walk away.

Just stop.

Hold on a little while, darling.

There's a cup of coffee
Freshly brewed
On the table downstairs.
Set down the baggage
And step inside.
The door's wide open,
And the cold is creeping in,
But right now,
You can keep warm
By the fireplace.

I may only have two hands
To hold all your troubles,
But I will gladly share the load.
All you need to do
Is stay.

i remember you
there are days i almost don't
there are days i wish i didn't
there are nights i ask
all i do is ask
until there are no more questions left
at least i think there aren't
but they come back in hurricanes
and i weather the storm
every day and every night that i miss you.

i know that there was never anything there
it was only a night
only a day that turned into a night
that turned into a mistake
at least it felt like one
but it wasn't
it might have been the best thing that ever happened to me
and it meant something
that you may never have remembered.

it turned into a song
that i can never play without my heart pumping faster
it turned into a story
and what a story it would have been
if i had the heart to tell it to more than seven people
but right now,
i'd rather keep it between us
a secret locked away
a little deeper than the rest
tucked away and sent to bed
with a warm kiss goodnight.

there's a little spot i go to sometimes
where the air is a little cooler than usual
underneath a tall old tree
with branches like fingers reaching for the sun
casting shadows on my face.

there's a little feeling i get,
a sinking in my stomach
with no sign of relief
it plunges deeper and deeper
and all i feel is empty.

i guess all i'm doing now
is waiting around to escape-
to get away from here,
and find refuge somewhere much, much farther.

my heart is a little empty
and alone.
all i ask is that you hear it,
and figure out
the irregular beat.
that calls for you.

I have not written a good thing
In quite a long time.
But you-
You are a good thing.
But I have not written you.
I did not write you.
No matter how much I try to
I find it difficult to put your name into letters,
And your laugh into syllables,
Your smile into sentences,
And your hugs into paragraphs
That can cover the world in warmth.
And I think one day,
I'll find that you've already turned
Your life into stories
Because I took too long trying to write you.
But your letters,
Your syllables,
Your sentences,
Your paragraphs,
Your stories
Do not belong to me-
Are not mine to tell.
And after all this time
Only now have I come to realize
That you are a poem in your own right
But the honor of writing you
Has never been mine.

There's a little more to this story
Than I care to write
That one day, you grow a little older

And you start to realize
That the gates are open a whole lot wider
But the chains bite at your feet all the same
And you still feel
Trapped

And you can't explain the feeling
That makes you want to scream and shout
To nobody in particular
Because all your heart feels right now
Is heavy

And they tell you over and over again
To bend your knees
And widen your stance
And take the strength from the bottom up
Don't break your back
Just lift.
But you're weak, and you've always been weak
And there's no day that you think things might just get better
Because lately, they haven't
And you tell yourself over and over again
I'm never going to be that type of girl
That cries in her bedroom
And resigns herself to sadness
And thinks the world is some hopeless place
Because all that is to me
Is a weakness-
A sickness you can't diagnose.

And I'm scared.
I'm more than scared.
I'm terrified
Of the potential of becoming that type of person
Because I'm not.
I'm just not, **** it.

it's hard not to get a little bit nostalgic
when the clouds pour a little harder outside
and the sky looks foggier than usual
when the possibilities seem like they could fall through your fingertips
because in this moment
the world is on pause
while the roads overflow,
the wind howls hard enough to turn umbrellas inside out
and all you can do
is wrap yourself beneath the covers
dim the lights
and think of the many things you should be doing
that were put on hold
to make room for other, more sentimental activities
like daydreaming-
letting your mind wander around fields
with sunny skies and morning breezes
and think of arms
that should be wrapped around you
while you curl up into a cocoon
hoping they never let you go
i think this break
is what we all needed
this warp in time
this still frame of many
this calm during the storm

a glimpse-
that's all i ask for now
a glimpse into the world that is waiting for me
that someday there will be things
i will learn to understand.
that someday there may no longer be
this void in my left chest
and instead a regular thumping
pumping blood through my veins
and rushing to fill these hollow cheeks.
that someday i will no longer feel this ache
for something i never had
for you are out there
somewhere.

i strongly hold on to the belief
we have never met,
that we have yet to cross paths.
but then again perhaps we have
but my eyes were too busy
scouring the crowd for someone else.
then in that case, i apologize
that our eyes didn't meet a fraction of a second longer,
to give away the possibility
of glimpsing into the future.

after all, there is no good
in fast forwarding through the *****,
corrupted parts
to get to the happy ending.

so i will not wait
for this story does not end nor begin
in my exposition to your story
but rather,
it finds itself intertwining
chasing crossroads
melding and tangling itself
in other threads
and finding itself enamoured
with the possibility
that you are out there
a little further down the line
and all i have to do
is float along and get caught up in strings
that are as unfamiliar
as the future we are yet to write.