I sit patiently in the passenger seat staring out the window watching the scenery move at 60 miles an hour.

All I can think about is how you’re sitting so close to me, not even a foot away.

But somehow, you still feel so far.

The trees outside feel closer to me than you do.

I ask you where we’re going and you stay silent. I don’t think you heard me.

I turn my head to the window again, routinely.

You turn the volume up on a song we both know.

Our fingers begin tapping to the beat in unison.

That makes me feel a bit closer to you, but not much.

I wonder if our hearts are beating in unison as well.

I don’t want to ruin the moment by speaking, but I have so many questions.

“How old were you when you lost your first tooth?”

“When did you figure out the truth about Santa?”

“What is your favorite color?”

“Do you feel the same way about me? The way I feel about you?”

I mutter the last one under my breath.

“Did you say something?” you ask.

“No, no. I’m just talking to myself.”

I don’t think you heard me when I told you how I felt in your car.

Thank you for always being my friend, even when I was in a bad spot. Thank you for never letting me down and always giving me advice. Thank you for continuing to give me advice, even though I’m stubborn and hard headed. You truly are a best friend and I’m sorry I didn’t realize it until recently. Thank you for guiding me through everything. Thank you for never leaving my side. Thank you for sticking up to me. Thank you for being you. The you that is beautiful beyond comparison. You have a beautiful mind and a beautiful soul. You are so great and worth every breath you take. Thank you for never leaving me. I love you.

Tonight, I sat in the front seat of your car. We were on our way back to camp. The time was just right. The sun was setting. The sky was a pinkish orange. You had the windows down and the air felt just right. As we drove over the lake, you were basically screaming the words to an 80’s song, I giggled to myself and looked at you. I looked back out the window wishing there could be more moments like that one.

Hi. I hope you’re well. I don’t know you, but I hope you had a good day. And I hope you have a good tomorrow and all the days after that. You are a beautiful person. I hope that you aren’t sad because I hate when you’re sad, even if I don’t know you. I love you, though. If you ever need anyone to talk to, I’ll always be here to talk. I hope you’re happy because you deserve it.

I hope that one day we will be sitting in your car, going nowhere. And that day you will look at me as I stare out the window and realize how much you really love me. And then you will grab my hand and I will look at you and smile. And all the words will be in that smile. And I would lean in to kiss your cheek, and that’s when we would fall in love and run away.

I don’t know what I’m feeling right now. I just feel sort of numb. Like when you leave ice on your skin for a while. Except the ice is inside my body. I’ve lost the ability to hurt. To feel pain. I’d rather feel pain than nothing at all. At least that way I know I’m alive.

I close my eyes again and go to a place I feel safe. The tall, green trees. The place of purple and yellow flowers. The place of soft grass and a gentle breeze. I’m in a white sundress, sitting on a log under the sun, or maybe I’m lying in a field. I’m lying there with the person I love. We just look at the sky and the beautiful place we are in. I feel like I could write a book about that place. A place I’ve never been to but long to visit. Every time I imagine it, music starts to play, my eyes close, and I’m at peace. For those few minutes of silence, I am truly at peace. All of my worries, pains, and troubles are gone. That place I visit in my mind keeps me holding on for a little bit longer. I want to visit that place someday. I want to see the beauty. Nature is beauty and I want to be beautiful. My place keeps me safe, and it’s all my own. When I get there, I can say to myself, “You made it. You did it. You’re here, you’re safe, you’re alive.” And boy, will I cry when I get there. It’s my Heaven on Earth. I will make it. I will do it. I will get there. I will be safe.
I will be alive.

The wind whipped over the sidewalk, lifting brown and yellow leaves into the air before dropping them again a few feet later; I knew just how they felt. The leaves get stepped on every day and no one thinks about it. No one stops to admire the color and the beauty. No one likes to stop and look at the shapes and how creative they are. I’ve never met someone who had truly appreciated the magnificent complexion of the leaves. For years, this is how I’ve felt about how I and the nicest people are treated. Not only can beauty be taken advantage of, but so can humanity.

I don’t believe in monsters, but you don’t need to believe in something to have it crash through a wall and ruin your life. I learned that the hard way. One day you go to sleep and the next day you awake in a panic. I would never have thought I would have my life threatened until I awoke with him holding a gun to my heart. I tried to stop him but it didn’t work. He shot me where it hurt. He used my weakness to **** me, and it worked. Now I’m in this sort of hellish place where I’m trying to convince the demons to let me go back to who I was.

If I had a dollar for every ghost I spotted along the way, I’d have enough gas money for a year. It felt like everywhere I turned, something reminded me of the past. How when something is new, you can’t put it down. You play with it so much until one day, you do something to break it. You got bored, so you wanted to try something new. You knew what you were doing, but the toy didn’t. The ghosts of the path I walked were the owners of the toy. That toy was my heart.

10 months. It’s taken you 10 months to build me up and then tear me down. I don’t think you realize how much you made me fall for you. Your brown eyes that remind me of when we sat on the bench at our old school after the fair, laughing and kissing. Your smooth hands that remind me of when you stroked my hair at that church after the football game. And your unforgettable giggle that reminds me of how you smiled during our kisses at the playground where we’d run off to after the movie.
All of these details made it harder for me to hate you. I don’t know why you let go of me when I was still holding on with all of my strength. I’ve been to one of the greatest cities in America. I should have been happy. But instead I sat there thinking about how you promised me that one day we’d go together. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think of you. I wish I could hear your voice and feel your touch, if only for a few seconds. I would be the happiest girl in the world.
I hope this isn’t the end of our story because I’ve always hated cliffhangers.
I still love you. I never stopped.

The only times I’ve felt like I was suffocating was in an elevator, in a crowd, and when you told me you didn’t love me anymore.

His laugh was contagious.
His touch so gentle.
When he looked at me, I felt safe.
His smile protected me with warmth.
I sat afar, admiring from a distance.
His ignorance to my pleasure
Makes me wish I lived in ignorance, too.
Because he’s not mine to have,
He’s not mine to hold.
But I will wait
Until it is my turn.

I was walking down the street and encountered a man who lives in a box.
He stopped me and began to speak.
I pulled out my wallet to hand him some money.
He placed his hand on my arm and shook his head.
He told me that he had plenty of money,
But that he was poor in friendship.

Looking good and feeling good are two different concepts.
When you walk down the hallway,
And see someone with the latest fashion,
You’re not seeing the emotion on the inside,
But rather the want to fit in on the outside.

I didn’t know death had a face
Until I felt the knife
Dig deeper into my back.
I didn’t know pain was death’s best friend
Until I felt my heart
Drop, drop, drop.

My favorite quote states that
Any thought that humans are rational is a thought on quicksand.
I never really paid much attention to the truth of this
Until you introduced yourself.
You spoke your name as though you said,
“Hello, I’m irrational.”
Then it clicked and suddenly I understood.

I stared at it right in the face.
I’ve heard it go by many names.
Night, reaper, death.
I’ve seen it in many forms.
But I never thought I would see it in your eyes
The night you said goodbye.

You’re the best thing in my life and you can’t even remember me.
You’ve forgotten the way we used to be, yet I still go through the routine
Everyday.

Even though you are not mine to hold, I still place you in my heart. Even though my time with you has come and gone, I would add more hours into the day if that meant I could talk to your soul once more. Even though I know I should move past the past, never forget when I loved you and how I still do. Even though life will pull us in different directions, I hope to keep you in mine. And even though you don’t love me as you once did, I am honored to have seen the stripped down parts of you that I did.

When I read stories of people in love,
I always tried to play it out.
But when I met my lead,
All I wanted was to get out.

You and I played a funny game.
Like the sun and moon.
We knew that our existence was never destined at the same time.
Yet we tried to cross paths, somehow.

Beauty ran through your veins like a river.
Anything you touched was effected by your elegance.
So then why when you touch me,
I feel your hands become cold,
And the beauty fade away?

You and I used to stay up until the break of day just looking at each other through that tiny phone screen. When did those stares become blank ones on the street? When did all those memories become just that? Memories. I feel like a fool to believe you still love me because you’ve told three others that, too. I know I’m smarter than this. To fall for this all over again. But they say ignorance is bliss, right? You were once my bliss. Whatever happened to that little house in the woods where we would lay around all day listening to music and falling even more in love? Or the two kids we’d already named? So tell me, do you still love me or am I just wasting my time?

Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, children. Lives lost, bonds made.
Wreckage, heartbreak, turmoil, destruction. Questions. Pleas.
Heaven and Hell. Shock. Dismay. Loss and hospital. Sirens.
Help. Help. HELP!
Goodbye, goodbye.
“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”
“I’m going to die; I’m going to die!”
Crumble from the south.
Crumble from the north.
Smoke, rubble, lives.
Run!
Silence
Open mouth, tears.
Questions, calls.
“Are you okay?”
“Hello?”
“I love you.”
“Be safe.”
Cops, fire trucks, ambulances.
Terror.
Terror.
Terror.
Goodbye.

I’ve thought about what I would do if I could go back to that moment when I decided I was in love with you. What I would do in that moment if I knew where I’d be a year and a half later. Mostly it depends of the mood I’m in. I hear “Only Love” by Ben Howard play or drive past that school and I wouldn’t change a thing. I would do it all over again. On the other hand, if I go into that gym or go into that movie theatre, I would change everything. You helped me love new things and hate old ones. You hurt me, and for that, I’ll never forgive you. But you also taught me how to love life and not to waste time, and for that, I’m eternally grateful.

I don’t know what attracted me to you. Maybe it was the way you said my name. You didn’t say it with that Southern twang like the people around here. Maybe it was the subtle “hey” you gave me when we first met. We knew who each other were but we were too nervous to say anything else. Maybe it was the passion you had in your eyes when you were doing what you loved. I’d never found passion exciting in another person until I saw it burning inside you. All in all, I think it was how I barely knew you and I wanted to. You were like a story that only I could write. You were like a book only for my eyes. Oh, boy, I was ready to read every page.

If someone told me that I could go back in time
And fix all of the mistakes I made, what would I change about us?
Would I go back to the moment you confessed you liked me? - Would I say it back?
Would I go back to when you asked me to be your girlfriend? - Would I say yes?
Would I go back to when you first kissed me? - Would I pull away?
Would I go back to when you said those three words? - Would I repeat them back?
Would I go back to our first fight? - Would I have ended it then?
Would I go back to the big breakup? - Would I have fought for you?

When we incorporate beauty and aesthetics into a photo, it tells a story. Art is a manmade way to tell a story. Painting, photography, writing, dance, sculpturing. It’s all art that gives a story, whether it’s heart-warming or heart wrenching. I don’t think there is another way to fully satisfy our emotions. There’s always something that draws you in and makes you say, “That’s it! That’s what I’ve been feeling! Now I understand!” Beauty in art is something that links cultures. Art and beauty are languages in their own way. I think this is because everyone has emotions and everyone feels. This is why we’re so biased on our own photos. We want everything we create to be beautiful, without flaws. When others point out our flaws on our works, we become harder on ourselves to meet society’s standards. Having flaws is inevitable but I think we forget that.

As the night passes, I watch the colors of the sky turn darker and darker until it becomes light again. It’s been about a year and a half since my light escaped from the place of my heart, which has been darkened by your mistakes. Ever since I was a little kid, I’d always be awake past my bed time because I felt more at peace. And I guess maybe that’s why I loved you. Because you were already covered in a dark shade. I was fascinated. I stayed up. My parents always told me not to stay up too late because I would be drained the next day. I never listened. So I stayed in your arms a little longer. But I should have listened because I’m now black like the night and forever tired from my broken heart.

I looked upon the town I live
But I saw much more than that.
I saw stories and songs.
I did not see houses, I saw the outline of a book.
You might say I was in the biggest library.
Though I will not get to read every word etched onto their skin,
I am glad I have read the ones I have.

For a moment I forgot that you weren’t mine
I became overly excited about seeing you again. 
I was hoping it was going to be like before. 
When you would hug me and you scent would stain my clothes
And my chin would be buried deep into your neck, breathing the words,
“I love you.”
But instead 
All I got was a simple hello
And another wave goodbye.

12 months ago, the truth came out and my heart fell into pieces.
11 months ago, you went to be with her. 
10 months ago, you told me you still loved me and we were together again.
9 months ago, we were not together anymore and I had to tell the police what I knew.
8 months ago, I miss you.
7 months ago, I miss you.
6 months ago, I still love you.
5 months ago, I miss you.
4 months ago, come back.
3 months ago, you came back.
2 months ago, you found someone again.
Today, I still love you, I wish that someone was me, but for now, I must let it be.

This time last year it was you and I.
This time last year you still loved me.
But seasons change and times moves forward.
When did you become a season and a time?

I drove by the place where you first met my parents.
When everything had just started off between us.
I looked and it was no longer there.
I sat in the parking lot for a few minutes,
and stared at the empty building.
It had become much like out love had.
Broken down and deserted.

I sat there, on my bed, softly sobbing into my pillow. It was one of those days where I seemed to be doing everything wrong. I was having a lot of those lately. The doctor said I was depressed. I believed him, but I didn’t want to.
I was getting up to take the pills he told me to take. God, I hated those pills. They’re not going to fix me. Nothing can fix me. I’m a waste of a person. Why am I even-knock! I looked in the mirror and put on the most believable smile, then walked to my front door.
You were standing in the rain without a jacket so I invited you in. I wish someone would invite me in from my thunderstorm. You saw past my “smile” and asked me what was wrong. I just looked down and shook my head, tears dripping down my cheeks, hitting the hardwood floor.
You asked if I had any paint. Too tired to ask why I pointed to my backyard. Black and white were the colors you came back with. You told me to sit down, so I did. You started painting something in black.
When you were finished you asked me what I thought it was. It looked like a person, so that’s what I guessed. You told me it was a painting of me. I told you I didn’t understand.
“The black destroyed the white wall,” you said. “You’re both the black and the white. You feel black, like space. Like there is nothing inside you. You look like the white. You’re pure and innocent. Now, when I cover this black paint with the white, it’ll appear the same as the rest of the wall until something messes it up.” You looked at me and I at you. “You’re much greater than your mistakes. Then that black inside of you. You just have to believe it yourself.”

I sat there looking at him. I don’t think he noticed. We were sitting outside watching a movie. We weren’t alone, but it felt like we were. I remember how his eyes light up so bright. Brighter than any of those stars. I tried to make jokes because the night before he told me he enjoyed watching movies with me. I made him laugh and he put his head on my arm. His hair smelled like rain. And, oh, the ache to hold his hand hurt. Maybe he wanted to hold mine, too. All I know is that was a moment I’ll not forget. When I was there and he was there and everything was alright.

Depression. Unhappiness. Hurt. Sad.
It goes by many name. That feeling of emptiness. Like you’re being pushed under water without a chance of hope. It creeps upon the nicest of people. For me, that’s what’s unfair. You always have that bit of pessimism in your thoughts. You can’t focus. You don’t know the meaning of happy anymore. Even the little rocks feel like giant boulders on your shoulders. You feel like if you talk to anyone, they’ll call you names. You keep holding it in until one day it pops like a balloon. Then you grab a new one and fill it until it pops. It’s a never ending cycle. It’s something you can’t do alone. It’s hard to ask for help. But it’s up to you. Would you rather take the easy route and be sad or take the hard route and be happy?

I watched my favorite movie today. As I watched it, I began to remember how I told you the main character reminded me of you. As the movie played, I wasn’t watching the person. I was watching you. Maybe that’s why I cried during the happy parts. Because I saw the boy smile and it reminded me of yours.

I picked up that poetry book you gave me for our two-month anniversary in October. We used to talk about poetry like we breathe air. It was natural. Ironically, it’s titled “Gasoline.” You were the gasoline that lit my heart.

I listen to the playlist I made as a surprise for you. It had all of the songs we listened to together and fell asleep to. I still remember that moments we had listening to them and how you smiled when I have that CD to you.

I looked at that yearbook photo of you that I keep in my wallet. I remember how you hated it because of your braces. You were so glad to have them off. I thought you still looked cute with them. You told me to shut up and kissed me

I remember the first time you told me you loved me. We weren’t dating. You were telling me how you’d felt about me for a year. I told you I couldn’t imagine having feelings for someone for that long. It’s funny because it’s been six months since I’ve talked to you and you don’t know I still love you.

We are the monsters from the fairy tales; we’re supposed to be the bad guys. The ones that hide in your closet and sneak under your bed. We were the monsters you imagined when you were six. Ten years later and you got smarter. You figured out there were no such thing as monsters. And in a physical sense, you’re right. We just took a different shape. One you can’t conjure. We are just voices without bodies. We are the monsters that tell you that you’re worthless or ugly. We’re the reason you never go out. We’re in your head. Some of us are louder than others. But I’ll let you in on a little secret. We’re only as loud as you allow us to be.

The world and my mind
Are like a dark forest.
You were the one
Who would shine a light
And light my path.
But since you left,
The light has gone out
And I’m quickly becoming
Afraid of the dark.

My eyes burn.
My stomach is in knots.
My palms are sweaty.
My heart is broken.

My heart used to grow
With beautiful flowers.
Now my heart grows
With thunder and rain.
I thought you were
The gardener,
But you ended up
Being the thunder-maker.

I build up my dominos
In a line I’m familiar with.
But before I’m able to finish,
Someone knocks them over,
In a line I’m familiar with.

Life seems unending.
Not in a flower field,
Dance in the rain,
Love to all kind of way.
No, life seems unending
In a dark forest,
Thundercloud overhead,
Death to love kind of way.

My soul felt like the weather:
Dark, dreary, and unwanted.

I used to lay in bed
And look at the night sky and say,
“I become so sad at night because the sky is dark.”
And then one night
I looked up at the sky and saw the moon
Bright and beautiful
And then I said to myself,
“If the night sky can have something so bright and beautiful shining inside of it,
then I can, too.”

It’s funny because as I sit here,
Watching you love another,
I still continue to fall
Deeper and deeper
Hoping that in the end,
You’ll be the one of catch me.

It started to snow yesterday,
Something very rare here.
It made me think of you.
You were s beautiful,
A beauty so rare.
But when I got close enough,
You became cold.