It's nearly been a week since we last spoke
I've been counting the days
I hope I can keep counting
If you know what I mean

You smile when you pass me
But don't dare say hello
Don't you dare say hello

When you find yourself drowning in self-hate, you have to remind yourself that you weren’t born feeling this way. That at some point in your journey, some person or experience sent you the message that there was something wrong with who you are, and you internalized those messages and took them on as your truth. But that hate isn’t yours to carry, and those judgments aren’t about you. And in the same way that you learned to think badly of yourself, you can learn to think new, self-loving and accepting thoughts. You can learn to challenge those beliefs, take away their power, and reclaim your own. It won’t be easy, and it won’t happen over night. But it is possible. And it starts when you decide that there has to be more to life than this pain you feel. It starts when you decide that you deserve to discover it

So, what's the deal with ******?
Why is it that there's this whole weird thing
associated with being unclothed,
as if we don't wake up and each of us
strip down for a completely naked shower,
and under our clothes, we're completely naked.
Why is it we spend so much time pretending our bodies don't exist
and fragilely hiding behind these pointless social
constructions about what and whom you should and shouldn't be,
why do we lie about who we are and cover it up
because it's not safe for children?
CHILDREN ARE THE SAME SPECIES AS US.
THEY ARE THE SAME SHAPE.
They get naked too.
and if they're not quite the same shape yet, why do we hide what they're going to become?
It's completely pointless to build walls and act as if they were set there by someone other than ourselves, we've given each other amnesia, it's always 'they', it's always 'society', that did it.
Why do we create all these rules and desperately
struggle to follow them as if we weren't the ones
who wrote the rule book and we aren't the ones
who can erase it?
Why does he cover his emotions because he's scared to be called gay or too feminine?
Why does she wear long sleeves or look down when you talk to her?
It's not because of some conniving voice in all of our heads,
an imaginary force,
It's every time you made a sarcastic joke about people who defied the norm
and every time you yourself were afraid to break it,
you built the walls and now you're suffocating within them.
I see you, there, hiding, just like me, and it's painful to repress it, isn't it? It hurts because there's something more we're longing to do, somewhere else we're longing to be.
What is it that is so broken within ourselves that
we can't be raw and we can't be free and we can't kiss random strangers when we want to?
****** isn't dangerous if you don't hurt
and you don't make someone else feel vulnerable
or like they're trash for displaying
the image of God.
Why are we hiding the image of God?
Why do we cover our hearts like they're shameful to show?
We are born into this world naked and our parents
try to instill this ridiculous idea in our heads
that we can't share our innermost thoughts, we mustn't display,
"society won't like that"
YOU. ARE. SOCIETY.
I am a member of this universe, just like you,
and I was born naked and I take showers naked
and when we get up on stage, we're naked
and late at night, we're naked,
and when we cry, we're naked.
WHY ARE THERE ANY SECRETS LEFT WHEN WE ARE ALL HUMAN?
I have pain and joy, just like you, so show me.
My goal is to unclothe the knights in shining armor
because I don't care about the armor, I care
about his heart.
I will strip down these walls dividing you and me,
because I want to know everything about all people.
I want to unravel the secrets deep within God's mind.
I want to open the doors that are locked,
and I want to see you naked.

Why do girls lie to themselves and tell themselves,
I'm a six
when they're really an eight?
Why do we inaccurately portray ourselves
and seek to obtain these impossible standards
and gaze at our thighs for hours wondering
why did I ever let this happen to me
or noone will ever love me if I look like this
we'll hunch over our stomach rolls and wish
we could slice them off with a blade and they'd heal back flat, all the fat gone;
we'll wonder how anyone could find us pretty
and we'll doubt if they do
because the only boys who have ever been nice to us
are either playing a cruel joke
or are our fathers.
But here's some news: who you are is not defined by your poundage or the amount of lipids stored under your chin,
when you sit down, how far your thighs push out;
or even that terrible bit of fat under your arms
when you wave bye to your gorgeously thin friends.
Who you are is not merely 'pretty'
or 'skinny'
and I desperately don't want you judging yourself
on what some boy's favorite part of your body is
or what passerby think of your ***-
your body is more than skin deep,
your body is more than fat,
you have muscles and organs and things too,
there are more important things, like how
strong your heart is or how many gasps your lungs have had-
those things make you a valuable, important human being
because fat- well- that's not what makes you who you are.
And that's not what I love you for, because darling,
my favorite part of your body is your mind.

When you ask of me, why poetry
I'm not sure you understand
That it's the center of my universe
The very depth of who I am

The molecules in the air I breath
Oxygen pulsing through the veins
The storm brewing beneath the surface
The pounding of the rain

It's the timeless anticipation
Of the thought that's yet to come
The tearing open of life's seam
The beating of the drum

The first peak of the desert flower
When it feels the gentle touch of spring
The smile in the eyes of a child
And all the joy it brings

The in and out of the tide
In the pulling of the waves
When you ask of me, why poetry
What more is there to say

you matter to me- and since you matter to me,
you hold power over my heart
that you can't abdicate unless I fire you.
Because it is I that bestows the crown and you
physically do not have the power to remove it-
and if you try, all it does is rip my heart out,
because you're trying to take it with you
and I want to keep it;
my rootstrings are yours to do with as you please
and maybe you don't want the burden but I'm sorry,
it's too late, I can't stop now,
this has been going on for too long;
you could tell me to abandon my family and I would,
for you,
and without agenda, and
declarations of love do not require returns,
for it is like gift-giving- mindless social
conventions, and my darling, you are not conventional.
You can't let someone else carry the yoke, you
have me at your will,
and just as much as I can't make you love me,
you can't make me stop loving you.
If you must, you can let me down easy-
but my heart is in your hands.
So please, please, please, darling,
be gentle.

I'm sure people have told you your name is beautiful,
but darling, it's not just your name that's beautiful
it's your eyes
and your soft hands
and all the times we've fallen asleep next to each other
and that little smile you get
or how desperately and painfully in love I am,
with you,
and how much it hurts to be near you,
and sevenfold is the pain of being away-
how nervous I got when your sister sent me a picture
-you were seated next to a man's arms-
who was he? your small body
is a bullet straight through my soul
I fear every day I've lost you and you're gone already
or that you'll find a boy and fall for him
and never think anything of me ever again
I've felt the way you moved around me-
I never want anyone else to feel that-
because I want you, all of you,
you and me,
forever,
and all my stupid lines of poetry
are cliche and hurt my own eyes reading them
but they're honest
and still fall short
because I'm so in love with you,
and we've faded so far, so fast, from what we were and have been-
how can I get us back?

They're flying around now
and I'm on 2% so
I need to write this one fast-
Maybe, these lovebugs
are what's spreading this, along with
the quickening of the heart inside
with the warmth
And maybe if I catch enough lovebugs
I won't have to love you anymore.
Or maybe, just maybe,
if you catch a lovebug,
you'll love me, and I can keep loving you,
just like I always have.