Three weeks ago, I saw my aunt without a wedding ring and her baby, Abigail, without a clue.

The questions that were fired at my mother after she delivered the news to me formed a ball in my throat the next time my aunt explained why Uncle Charlie wasn't at a family party.

I know my own vision was blurred but I saw every pair of eyes turn towards Abigail.
She was smiling over a bowl of chips.

My aunt hugged me goodbye loosely and although she probably needed me to pull tighter, I couldn't without thinking of his suffocating hugs.
Maybe she would feel the same.

My brain still houses a jumbled combination of every rare word whispered about it.
My stomach contorts as my grandparents fear his presence to pick up his daughter the way I now fear my own family for being so ridiculous.
He isn't dangerous.
He didn't do anything wrong.
They fell out of love (apparently).
Everything takes two.

How can they welcome a person in to the family then reject him without remorse?

My heart is sore every passing day I'm reminded that Abigail is only one years old.
I want to catch her tears when Mommy leaves her for weeks at a time the way her two front teeth catch her tongue when she tries to pronounce my name.
I want to make sure she fully understands what love is before she experiences heartbreak.
I want her first broken heart to happen when she's sixteen and the first people she learned to love to not be the culprits.
I want everyone else to stop denying the fact that she definitely has an idea about what's going on.

When my aunt and uncle told my Grandmother they needed to talk, she clapped and asked for the due date.
I sat in my bed upon finding out with that same shock,
subconsciously numbering each couple of the family in order of most likely to be divorced.
Guess who was in last place.

Their wedding replays in my memory alongside the effortless conversations with my uncle I now long for more than ever.

I worry about him.
I worry about her.
I worry about Abigail. Everyone does.

Because she sings the closing Barney song on repeat for a family who provides forced smiles framed with bitten lips.
Because I don't ever want her to think she should stop singing.

Three weeks ago, I saw my aunt without a wedding ring and her niece with a new fear.

Those who say they have direction are delusional.
Because if anyone knew where they were going, then they would already be there.
Though at least we all know where we'll end.
And those pearly gates come faster than you think.
So when you're checking your compass.
Make sure you don't blink.

Shut up
if you're here to complain about girls,
or boys.
Or anything in between.
Shut up
if you consider any of your friendships
a cage, and most importantly,
SHUT UP
if you're the type of person who would
treat another person like some sort of goal,
some sort of potential accomplishment to
brag to your friends about.

Perhaps nice guys finish last,
because they realize there's more to life than a
finish line.

I'm studying real poets.

Shelley, Sandburg,
Frost, and Wordsworth.
Coleridge, Blake,
and William Butler Yeats.

Do you know why they're
considered real poets?

Because they made art,
not hashtag trends.
Wrote from Experience
with black quill pens.
Sure, they got high,
but wrote on instinct.
And The Road Not Taken doesn't
mean what you think.
They wrote about about life
and the world that they heard,
not ******* in the margins
of Microsoft Word.

Tonight, I didn't feel welcome in my own living room
And as I sat staring at the stained carpet of my bedroom,
I didn't think of that but of the people who never do.
If I could remove my heart to go out to them
To maybe help them feel full again, I would.
Because exclusion is the least comfortable sweater
And it scratches hard when family members become the stitching.

Because sometimes figuring out how to release emotion is worse than enduring it.
Because sometimes undelivered letters deserve to be written.
Because closure always comes out above anything unfinished.
Because someone is unknowingly cradling your heart.
Because someone knowingly used to.
Because friendships become your favorite jeans - comfortable but worn out.
Because life is an ongoing stress machine.
Because you don't feel like reading,
Or doing anything.
Because the pen kisses the paper the way he no longer kisses you.
Because you want to get better at writing,
Or just better.
Because it's indescribably beautiful.
Because you feel.
*It doesn't matter why and the reasons are endless. It only matters that you do. And that you love it.