I want to feel the tips of your fingers dancing lightly on my back. I want to feel your chest pressed to mine, skin warm and refusing to let go. I want to leave my mark on your neck and along your collarbone. I want to get my fingers tangled in your hair while i take your bottom lip between my teeth. I want to wrap my legs around your waist and show you just how much i've been missing you, just how much i've been wanting this, just how much i've been needing you. Its been forever since i've felt anything and i want to feel you.

You woke up that morning and decided that it just didn't feel the same. My eyes didn't light up like they used to, my smile had lost it's width. My words lacked sincerity and my affection was scarce. But what did you expect? You left with my heart still gripping onto yours, having ripped it right out of my chest. You walked away with broken promises, loose ends, and all of my secrets. Why would you have ever asked me to love you like before? Only someone so naive would think that to be possible. Hurt changes a person, it changed me. I had the choice to sink or swim, and i chose to fly. I did loops around the clouds, i walked on the spikes of the sun. All the while i began to love again, especially myself. You would never get that same amount of love back, because things had changed. I had changed. Of course things didn't feel the same.

Another year in your life, another 12 months your heart has been beating. Another 365 days your lungs have been taking in air. I hope you have lived so much that your heart skipped beats, and your lungs lost their breath. I hope you did so much living that your organs couldn't quite keep up with you. I hope your heart swelled with love and that you always reached for the stars. I hope you smiled every chance you got and that you were able to jump out of your comfort zone. I hope you made memories to be remembered for a lifetime and that you touched the lives of others. I hope you do even more living this coming year. I know there are big things waiting for you at 27, and i can't wait to see all the beautiful things god has in store for you. I hope you embrace each and every one of them, and truly live.

I can't help but laugh when i think of you. You had a great sense of humor but i'm no longer laughing with you. I'm laughing at you, and at myself. I laugh because i settled for someone like you, and i laugh because you let me slip through your fingers. I laugh because success is the sweetest revenge and that's exactly what i'll be getting.

We got news today. The kind that makes tears bob in your eyes and your lips quiver on the edge of a scream. But that's all that happened, the tears never fell, the scream never sounded. Something held me together when i desperately wanted to fall apart. I wanted to cry, scream, feel something. Just feel something. Every part of me wanted to be upset and get down but my spirits lifted higher and higher, about 4 inches away from heaven. I felt an embrace and love and reassurance and i felt my worries fall down, never to be seen again. I felt God and now i feel nothing less than peace and happiness.

The smell of rain reminds me of you, along with this little town i call home and porch swings. Wildflowers remind me of you and so does the crackling of a bonfire. The color blue, like the blue you see in the water during sunset, reminds me of you. Coloring books, sweet candles, hot tea, the stars above my bedroom window, it all reminds me of you. I feel ties to you in ways i have no explanation for. I only know i feel this constant pull towards you, a tug on my heart. You remind me of a past life and a past love, someone who i once was. You remind me of all the beautiful, sweet, soft spoken things life has to offer but are so difficult to collect. I once had them all, and that was when i had you.

"Never let anyone convince you that our god isn't good." That's what my aunt said to me today, laying in a hospital bed. Her hair is falling like leaves and her skin as pale as snow yet she still has this warmth in her eyes and shining through her smile. That's god in her. I grab her hands in mine and i feel his presence flowing through her fingers. He is with her, in her, around her, because he is a good god. He takes each step with her, he whispers words of comfort through the breeze. He holds her in a warm embrace each night. Through every trial she is able to shine for him, because he is with her. She is a living testimony to how good our god is. I will never forget those words.