for him, he has my heart.
he stole it long ago, before I could even notice.
my teenage pulse throbbed with his every move,
and he knew it.
and he fed it, for years.
and all the while my pulse would throb,
but often with pain.
for years, he was the one.
never mine, but always the one.
but every time he broke my heart,
again and again,
until the very last time.
when he could no longer,
because he is no longer.

for you, you have my soul.
everything i am,
and everything i need is in you.
your heart has never shown me anything but warmth.
your hands have only ever held,
and not kept for possession,
or every strayed to catch me.
you showed me so much,
and i showed you too.
i like to think you loved me,
but this
is a sketch.
a beautiful picture
for me to keep
and treasure, forever.
nobody but us
will ever know how much its worth.
but its worth everything to me.
despite ever flaw,
and strain,
and painful breath it took to make it,
it's truly priceless.
and i thank you for that,
eternally.

Today is a hard day. Actually, the last few weeks have been hard. But today, today is one of the hardest yet. I think if I could tell you why maybe you would understand..

I woke up thinking about you again. I don’t mean like one of those “oh remember that one time” thoughts. I mean I woke up thinking about the way your eyes had a dark blue ring around your iris, kind of like mine. I thought about how I had never once seen you with a beard. I thought about how you used to shave your chest for reasons I still find funny. I remembered the way you would like your lips when you looked down and stroked your chin. I remembered you, every crease, scar and dimple I could possible remember.

You know, in the last year I’ve had exactly 2 dreams. I remember it seemingly like we had our chance, like we could try again and you could let me show you how much I love you.
But I woke up, and that dream was over 6 months ago.

Right now, all I can picture is what you could have done. I constantly think about all the things you could have been doing right now, and all the things I will never be able to tell you.

Everyday, you cross my mind. I used to get really sad over it. I used to cry and scream and I remember constantly begging you to tell me you could hear me. I didn’t want to accept I was screaming at nothing. I just didn't want to accept that there's some things I'll simply never know.

But here we are, 365 days later. I can say 3 things honestly. First, I miss you as much today as I have since the day you left. Second, I still don’t know, frankly I don’t think I ever will, if you ever cared about me in any way like I did you. Third, I will never, ever get over the love for you that consumes me everyday.

I hope you know that I mean that. I know you’ve heard it a thousand times a million different ways but I know, and I think you knew, that I cared for you in a way nobody else did. I still believe that you liked the intense care I showed you. Maybe I never admitted it, but you and me both knew I fell for you years ago, and never got back up.

The last thing I have to say to you is a memory. This is the same memory that comes to my mind everytime I think about your smile. 2013, a chilly spring night, salty mists, and your arms around me.

I remember laying in your bed, consumed by you, fascinated by every little fact you would share with me. We laid together, and we smoked. You showed me your music, and you sang for me. You told me about your father, sister and brother, music, school, your friends, swimming, bud, drinking, traveling, California, Boston, your past, your life and you.

I wish I spent everyday after memorizing that night. 6 years later I cling to every morsel of that night I can remember. Because I hope when I die I get to rejoin you to relive that night forever.

I remember the very first day.
It was Halloween night. I was 13 years old. You were 16. The moment you walked in, you captured my attention. For the rest of the night, I couldn't help but try and catch your glance out of the corner of my eye, trying not to stare, trying not to blush. I didn't even know your name yet.
I was 13, and I think that night was the first step I took towards loving you.
I remember the first time I came over to your house. I was 14. You were 17. It was midnight on a school night. You met me at the beach and we walked in the middle of the causeway back to your house. A huge wave came crashing against the wall and you ran out of the way, while I got soaked. You laughed and hugged me trying to keep me warm. When we got to your room, we talked for hours. We smoked. You told me about Mac Dre and the Bay and your life in California and you showed me a photo of your youngest siblings and you sung for me. I didn't leave until 5 AM.
Now, I'm 20. And the last time I spoke to you was February 24th, over ******* snapchat.
Today would have marked the first month into your 23rd year, but it doesn't. Instead, it marks the month you never made. It's been a week since you died, and I still don't know what to do.
I cant sleep. I cant eat unless someone is with me. I cant even think without my head shouting at me running in ******* circles faster than ******* light. This is the hardest thing I've ever done. I think it's harder because I told myself for years I didn't love you, that whatever I felt was some infatuation, for years. But every single time you called me, I answered. Every single time you said "I wanna see you" I said when. For 6 years you were the one constant I had. I could always be sure that I had so many feelings for you. Always. Period.
And I want to make something clear. I would have done anything for you, if you let me. But instead you told me I was nothing to you, that you didn't care. Thats all you ever told me. And all I ever wanted was for you to just say you cared about me. Tell me I meant something to you that I wasn't someone to keep your bed warm.
Then, last month happens. I get a text. Didn't know the number. But, as soon as I got it, I knew it was you. This conversation was the only time I ever asked you "Did you ever care about me, at all?" and the only time you ever said "Of course I care about you."
The next day the line was disconnected. I don't know if it was actually you, part of me says it was and parts of me says its not.
But the hardest thing,
Is knowing the only time you ever said you cared about me,
Was over a text.
That wasn't even from you.

I hope to God it was from you.
I think more than anything, that will be the hardest part to come to terms with.
That you have always been a piece of my heart. That I have always cared about you. Unceasingly, without pause, without hesitation, consistently, for 6 years.
And I will never know if you ever cared at all.

You meant so much to me, I would have given anything to have a chance with you.

I just wish I told you when you were alive.

But I didn’t.
I think why is important, but maybe I’m just ****** up.
Lately I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. And if thinking about thinking is a thing I’ve been doing too much of it.
I’m stuck right now. To explain what I mean it’s like everytime I try to fall asleep my mind forbids it. I’m given no peace even when I’m actively looking for it, and I hope it’s just not me. I hope I can fix this.
I don’t want to spend every night with my heart in my ears and my eyes shut but the voice in my head won’t stop going in directions I don’t have energy for.
I’ve tried everything. I’ve tried talking it into real life, making the voice in my head a conversation with someone. I’ve tried meditating, but honestly who am I kidding. I’ve tried counting sheep, telling myself to think about sleeping, to stop thinking, but nothing.
The only thing that really helps is driving. When I drive I can escape. When I’m not even comforted by my own bed the roads ease my mind. I think it’s because it gives me nothing to think about. I dont have to use my head for anything except driving. Sometimes I just drive down the coast and think about going as far as I can but then I remeber...
I have all this **** to deal with.
Responsible people have obligations to fulfill. I can’t just do whatever I want.
I don’t know what I can do anymore, and I think that’s why I almost cried. I feel like everything I worked to create has depleated into potentionalless burdens. Maybe I’m being ******* myself but lately I feel like I can do nothing good.
I’m lost in this state of mind that won’t let me go. I’m used to being strong and learning to deal with lifes messes but this is too much.
I don’t know what’ll fix me or this or whatever, but I think a cry might do me some good.

To be totally honest I forgot this website existed, until for some reason I started cleaning out my old email, last checked circa 2015.

Along the way, I forgot about these words that used to fill my head. I grew up, apparently. I was so caught up in being everything, I forgot that I'm me. No amount of resumes or friends or post on Instagram determines who I am, only I do. I forgot that I steer my fate.

I completely forgot about the unruly delight of letting words dissipate from my mind into thin air, and trapping them in my laptop screen. There's some unequivocal satisfaction in being able to take a foggy thought, and make it clear by wrapping it in pretty adjective and metaphors. For some reason, my shoulders relax in a way that's different, even special.
I never did this for you, this was always for me.. I forgot that I do this for me.

I forgot what it was like to pick words like the petals of a flower, delicately, because being delicate creatures makes our feelings just as frail and vulnerable.
I forgot to pick words delicately.
I realize now that my words are like bubbles, floating with ease through the air eventually making their point with a subtle 'pop'. My words have been more like lumps of hail, uncontrollably destructive to everything in their way. I forgot what it was like to choke up on emotions that I didn't know I had, that only this simple thing can reveal.

Most importantly, I forgot who I was. This young girl, lost and confused and trying her best to know herself. To be honest I still don't know myself. Sometimes I get mad at myself for that but then I remember, that this, this simple thing, saved me from consuming myself for years. Maybe it still can.

I realize now, that my undying anger can be tamed. That no, I am not some evil beast cursed to live in angsty distress. I am human, I will always struggle to live with my imperfections. I no longer need to try and teeter between the balance of good and evil inside me, because I'm human. I teeter regardless.

I had forgotten the eternal weight of words, how they create and destroy the world around me. That words are everything when you feel like you have nothing. That words can save lives, can save my life. That there can never be enough no matter how hard I try. That's not my fault. I realize now that life is not determined by my words but rather that my words should seek to give life, to enhance.
I forgot that there's no need to hate myself for being human, that if this life needs anything it's more love. I forgot that it's okay to slow down, to speak softly and to question everything. I forgot this for so long, but I think I'm starting to remember.

Sing it they said
Put your thoughts in melodies
And change emotions into rhythm
Say how he hurt you and took a piece of your heart when he left
Preach the heartbreak of girls around the world
And say it didnt **** me to all the victims of abuse
It made me who i am after all, and i dont even plan on killing him
A mad girls love song the poets will hum in their graves
Make sure the battered know theyre not alone
Although we havent lived the same, ive lived some.
Let my words help you, i want to help you.
I want to see you become something i am not
I want you to do great things and be a great person
So 20 years from now you'll look at your life and think of me
A life with beauty like a lotus
Living content in murky impure water
Accept.
Everything.
Theres no need to stress your mind with over exaggerated thought
Show them how your brain works instead
Show them emotions and thoughts can be domesticated
But dont show them feeling
Be the voice of reason at the bottom of the barrel
Act as though youre only scared of feeling scared
Be who youre supposed to be julia
Beautiful, young, logical and rational
Help anyone you can

to die by your side, wouldnt that be such a heavenly way to die?
to take my last breath with the warmth of your lips on mine.
with your hand holding my face and your body hot on mine.
to feel myself drift away when youre holding me in your arms.
reality fades away in your eyes.
to die with your heart, stilling beating for mine.
to leave watching you, such a beautiful way to remember my life.
in an ugly world, ive done such ugly things.
now all i need is to watch it all fade to beauty
while i feel your hand on the back of my neck
and your deep blue eyes stare at mine with love, nothing else.
when im gone, dont mourn the time we couldnt spend.
treasure the moment we have.
though they are few, if i were to die
all time we have spent would feel like my life
like i was made who i am for you.
i want to leave this world with your breath in my ear
and your words guiding me the whole way.
if i were to die, dont watch me, talk to me.
tell me to wait for you. tell me youll always love me.
i love you so much, and to die by your side
is the only way i wouldnt be scared of the eternal light.

i dont wanna be that girl, nobody wants that pressure to be an idealization.
im me, me is julia. julia holds herself,
she doesnt let other people effect her thinking or acting or decision making processes.
so you shouldnt either.
dont act because you want someone to see you that way,
act because you like the way it makes you feel.
live for yourself, until you find your match.
then you live for your family, what you love, only
because you couldnt bare to see them hurt,
and you should care how they see you.
theyre whats matters most to you, you spend an hour getting ready
to see them.
take the time to think through
how they would feel hearing about
what your doing.
those who care dont matter, those who matter wont care.

God is a spiritual being. A great big man who lives in the utopia of after-death. He visits those in need of convincing that the bad things happening will end. He receives prayers from dedicated Catholics and scared little girls. He is the beam of hope a cancer patent sees on his way out. God is the king of humans.

God is everything, but god is nothing. He's the song in the air and the fateful moment that could of killed you, but didn't. He's who you thank when you're son makes it through the car accident. He's what makes you realize you can do so much better in life and helps you define your personal morals. God is who you ask your favors of, when you're really just asking yourself to change. God is the myth that guides humanity.

God is no one thing. God is everything. He is the spirit of good in the cruel world. He's the mother that holds you when you cry and the imaginary slap on the wrist when you've done something very wrong. God is the savior from your old self, and the clothes pin that exists to hold you together. God is no being in heaven, he is the idea that good exists in all evil and the candle that proves in the darkest of times, light overcomes.

I get it, my problems aren't that bad.
Worse things happen to better people everyday.
I live in a costal, wealthy, yatch club town,
Officially an only child,
With my judgmental sister spending her freshman year in Manhattan.
I live with my favorite parent,
who doesn't care what fun I have
as long as I'm honest and safe,
and of course I get my schoolwork done,
and the other who drives me insane
is fortunately not in the same area code as me.

But it hurts
To be the listener for the people who created me
As they speak horrible things about each other,
Express their loathing for one another.

To be so broken
And not to know what do to about it..
Self abuse is in my rearview,
but I just hate talking about myself so much.
I've gotten really good at bottling up
And moving on
Just letting my bad thoughts and feelings
Dissolve into worthlessness.

But sometimes it ***** to be alone.

I just wish you were here to tell me I'm not
and that you love me.

I'm a half broke horse,
like the ones Jeanette Walls wrote about.
Half tamed: Half the trouble
But half of me's still spirited and independent,
Obdurate.
I do me, and I don't do rules.

I don't know what shaped me
Maybe the fact I had life
Come at me too early.
Dealing with endless hate
between my family,
Scars to deep on a 14 year old.

Or maybe it's because
every time I get myself into
some terrible ****,
it always turns out better than
expect.
Maybe cause I'm secretly
Lucky,
I secretly rebel, but always half good.
Always half attentive and abiding.

We get sloppy drunk, so what?
Uh, feel the vibe and ride the wave of intoxication
The smell of ***** inducing fluid surrounds you
Shots go fast enough to ignore the taste
But slow enough to need to treat the sting
Dump it down your throat
Feel the comfort of warmth in your stomach
Let time roll on
And forget what is feels like to be self conscious
As your words begin to slur
And your eyes roll uncontrollably
Your head feels light and your feet feel even lighter
And your words are coming to you by the truck load
So much so you feel you could write a book
And win the Nobel prize for it
Your feelings are blunt and no longer personal
And you can spew tears just because that song you just heard reminds you of the one that got away,
So it goes.
People who feel the same way interact with you
And soon it's like you were separated at birth
Destined to meet and bond over the fuzzy feeling in your gut
We get drunk
So we can party
And we party because
That's what we grew up intimidated by
And now, we control the music
We feel the freedom and
We understand what the hype was all about
A 10 year old once asked me why anyone would ever get drunk
It kills people she says
So I say we all get killed in the end
Might as well feel the intensity of what it's like to come close to the end
We gamble our lives because we're invincible,
And nobody likes to be mundane
We get drunk to find out how vulnerable we truly are
To escape the terrors of sober life
And to have a night to our own that we remember as a ****** banger
But actually don't  remember a thing.

Even though I go to "bed" at like 9:00
I never manage to fall asleep before 12:00
I'm always up watching Netflix
Or writing cheesey things about him in my head
Or telling my dog how good she is
And the occasional snack/ *** break

Most nights I take a pill
Then I'm still awake
An hour later
Which puts me in this situation
Where I have absolutely nothing to do
Except think
And of course smoke some tree

But mostly think

I think about where we go after we die
How the universe and the multiverse and the galaxies and how we can't possibly be the only intelligent life form in that whole vast thing.
About love and how it plays it's cards
How maybe humans become a wee bit too attached
To things that shouldn't matter
And how I simply didnt have morals for a while
And also how I feel my heart grow less black everytime I admit that
I think a lot about this kid
Who kept me in his life, treated me like a princess
Then lies and betrays and tells me he never cared about me in the first place
I also spend a lot of time about my family
How my dad is so wonderful and so dedicated to doing whats right and pushing past the hard times to make that light in the distance a little bit brighter.
I wonder if my sister cares about me, and if she'll ever let me live my own life. I question her all the time but I also look up to her and aspects of her life I wish I had. How if maybe she treats me like **** because she thinks tough love will scare me straight. How if maybe she treats me like **** because she is jealous of me for being everything she isn't.
Then my mom. My crazy, dramatic, self centered, emotion wrecking ball, disaster mom. How she's always been there to cradle me and hold me and understand me when I don't even understand myself. We get along so well even though I annoy her and she ****** the **** out of me. And we make each other laugh. And we love each other, mostly because we're both a little crazy.
And these thoughts haunt my cerebrum
And keep me from my beauty sleep.
In the end I pop another melatonin and smoke out until my eyes feel like the way my soul feels;

Tired.

I keep having the same dream lately
I mean I used to get nightmares about it all the time
But now it's just 1 dream
That haunts me when I try to run away,
Find peace,
In the vast meadow that is my mind.
This dream is the fire that burns the meadow dead.

It's me. On the road. Alone, and panicked.
I escaped, made it out, alive but not yet safe.
It's midnight and the streets are black
And I'm trying to figure out where I am
When I see him behind me.
So I start running,
And he starts running
And he's gaining on you
Come on Julia! Get out! Go! Run! He's right there ******* sprint!
And I'm telling myself this
I'm telling my brain
To tell my spine
To tell my legs
To tell me feet
To ******* sprint
But they can't.
I can't communicate with my muscles for some reason
And it feels like my feet are sticking to the pavement
So I can't run faster
And I'm just watching him get closer and closer
And every single time
I wake up shaking, sweating, crying.
Helplessly defeated
By my own subconscious
So every night
I'm still afraid of the dark.

We're all in a box
In the middle of the ocean
Filled with families and things to do
And we stay in this box, and live
And become accommodated
And build a relationship
With the box with all the people
And it becomes a routine

You can choose to leave the box
Choose to venture out
Meet locals of various boxes
Unique beings
Who can touch you by a different culture
Or you can choose to stay
And make the box your home
Sometimes there are people
Who move from box to box
Quite often
Never really finding a home

One day
A cute blonde with blue eyes and
A love of excitement
And a love for the idea of finding
Someone she actually loves
Was sent on an incredible adventure
Out of the box
Into the open ocean
A truly remarkable
Time to speand
To make the best of

At the same time
A boy from another box
Was sent on the same route
Away from small mindedness and into vastivity
And they met
And bonded
And told stories
And made their own.

The 2 became attached
And shared a love
Even after they returned from their adventures
And it never faded
Maybe forgotten, tucked away
But never gone
Always present

Today they still share a love,
A love so strong and so willing to sacrifice money time and energy, anything that could bring the 2 back together
So she can hold him again and rub her cheek and lips on his neck and feel his warmth around her when she gets lost in his embrace
She felt like the lucky one
For once
She felt so special and so happy
That she ignored the terrible things about the box
And just sat back and thought about his crooked smile and loose lips
And remembered that he was thinking about her too

He became her idea of home
From 3,200 miles away

You know what it feels like to be sad. But there’s a certain type of sad that not everyone has felt. And if you have, you’re not exactly the minority, but I feel for you. You feel terrible, you feel like you just found the edge of the world and you’re so very disappointed because you grew up being so sure that there’s so much to see in the world, but you found the end of it all. Mentally, it feels like someone decided to pound the inside of your skull with a maillot. Physically, it feels like you just got hit by a bus, but nobody cares so you’re just laying limp and pathetic in middle of the road not knowing what to do because you just got hit by a bus. Unable to respond to your nerves, you lay there, hoping for a sign of life. A sign that you’re still here and you’re bloods still pumping through your veins and your nerves are still working properly. I find myself in this specific type of sad quite often.. It eats away at your brain until you feel too stupid to care about anything. It tears away at your soul until you’re just a sad outer shell of a human with a dark, lightless pit inside you where your soul should be, but is no longer.  
So you’re laying in the road, unfeeling and unnoticed by society, you decide you don’t seem like you exist right now, so maybe you don’t. You’re trapped in the never-ending, always-frustrating maze of sadness. You need to get out, you need to find your way back into your life, back into everyone’s life and try harder to make an impact. So next time when a bus does hit you, they’ll notice. So you cut open the maze. And it feels so good to do it too, it feels like the weight of the world is flowing through that cut. Out of you and back into the world for someone else to bare. You cant explain it, and you know you’d sound crazy if you tried, but it feels so good to do something so outrageously stupid and unacceptable. But you think oh its okay because now they’ll notice! Now they’ll care and I wont have to cheat my way through a maze ever again! Hooray, right?
           No.                 Because you were wrong.                You need to find help.
You’re addicted to hurting yourself and you’ll just go on cheating your way through life instead of going on a fabulous journey and having the sweet reward of finding the end of the maze. So take my advice. No matter how hard it seems, every maze has an ending. You cant stay lost forever, and you should be able to make it to the end undamaged and strong knowing you didn’t have to cheat give in to pain.

"How do I love thee?
          ..."
I have a few,
But to be honest I'm surprised I have so few
For the amount I love you cannot be represented in number.

I love you and your free,
hippie-like spirit
And love for the fun of life
Your childlike joy for
Things I know,
I should appreciate more.

For the way you show me you care so much
Is exactly how
I see me in my picture perfect relationship,
Everything I need
To make me a happier, better person.

"Promise?"           "Always."

But that is how I know you
In the islands they call *natures little secrets,
Doing incredible things,
For 16 days,
While 15 strangers become a family.

Oh we were the lucky ones,
Those two likeable, teenagers with a childlike love
A truly lovely relationship
One you see in movies
Ones that make you go,
Awe and smile
But we're not there anymore.

And you're so far away from me
And the incredible-ness had
A time limit
And if I could have it everyday I would
No question,
No hesitation.

And I want you in my everyday life
My routine.
I want to kiss you goodnight,
Walk with you to get coffee,
Say Hi,
At random friend sightings
While walking,
With you.
And get ice cream with you
And go on dinner dates
And greet my dad with me when he gets home from work
And come with me to my sisters graduation
And feel the way I'd feel
If you asked me to prom.

I want to do weird things
And have you act like
My best friend
And I want you to calm me down
When me and my friends
Get in fights
And I want to feel the warmth of your arms
Wrapped around me
And the beat of your heart
And the sound of your breath
Even your ****** twitches,
Which happen mostly when you're tired,
As often as I want.
And deal with the rough patches of our lives
Together, side by side.

But I can't have that.

I went through hell
Then god gave me you...

          For 4 weeks,

                    Out of two years.
Then we're pulled back to our average lives
Spent with the same people
Following the same authority
Doing familiar things
Everyday.
Except you're doing those things
To the breeze of Puget Sound
And I'm doing them to the smell
Of the Atlantic Ocean,
The Bahstan Hawbah,
If you will.

And I miss you so much
And I get so jealous
Of the girls you hangout with
And I hate the fact that
When I'm going to school,
You're sleeping soundly.
You won't be awake
For another two hours.
And I want to text you and
Say I can't wait to see you
And that school will make me shoot myself
And I love you most
And ask how your day was
And that my mom got me that thing I showed you the other day
       ...
But I cant.

It makes me so sad.
You are everything
And I love you so much,
Love or whatever this fantastic feeling this is,
The most out of any amount I have ever felt.
And I want to have it forever.

How do I love thee? Let me tell you how...

I love every little thing about you, and I want to make more memories with you, and I know we will have many many more, because I know the love I have for thee is one to last for years.

I'm sorry*
I'm sorry you don't like me.
I'm sorry that I don't try hard enough.
I'm sorry I **** up a lot.
I'm sorry your childhood was so rough.

I'm sorry for whatever I did that made you hate me since the womb.
I'm sorry that mom would treat you that way, I just didn't know what to do.

I'm sorry I said he doesn't love you, that you life would go nowhere.
I'm sorry I ever put my hands on you, I never *ever should of went there.

I'm sorry if you're jealous of me,
I'm sorry I always disappoint you,
I'm sorry we have mixed opinions,
I'm sorry I get so angered by what you do.

I'm sorry that I'll always be lost,
I'm very happy you're finding yourself,
I'm so proud of you and how far you've come,
I'm sorry my job as a sister wasn't done well.

If Walls could talk
Jesus that'd be a scary world
Just imagine,
Would They be judgmental?
Would They be supportive?
Would They be the words of wisdom and a shoulder to cry on?
Would They tell me 'don't say that' or 'you'll regret that later' or 'don't just let her walk out like that.'
Would They be the stabilization I so terribly need? The mother I wish I had, or the sister I desperately want.
Tell me what's right from wrong, how to make my life better and what it is thats ******* up my brain. After all, They do witness everything.
My Walls would know me better than any human could.
They see me at my happiest, hear every conversation I have, witness my constant vulnerability, even when I'm so low that I put holes in that kind plaster and spill my blood for Them to see.
They know all, like a god. The thought of Them having the ability to speak as we do is petrifying. If I could, I would apologize to my Walls. For all the fights and the screaming and the holes and everything they've had to see. I'm so sorry friends, for all the *******.
And I would thank Them for always being there for me, even thought they don't have a choice.
Now if Walls could walk, I know mine would ride the next bus out of town.
No way would They want to deal with my reckless *** any longer.