I hate the way you always try to play it cool. I hate the way you never admit to the way you feel. I hate how you never let me be right and how you never put up a fight for the things you want. I hate the way you just accept things when they go wrong and always question things when they go right. I hate how you always talk down to me. I hate the way you always laugh at my jokes when they're not even funny. I hate how you always cut me off. I hate how you play my piano and I hate how you know my favourite songs. I hate how you're always so afraid, so petrified of falling in love. I hate how you never believe I care and how you never cut your hair. I hate the way you pronounce my name, and the way you love me is never the same. I hate you when you're so far away. And I hate seeing you up close. I hate the way you sound so good on the phone. I hate how you're the only love I've ever known.

I've been thinking a lot lately. About memories and how they seem to slowly slip away as the days go by. They never leave all at once. But one day you think you'll never forget this moment and this person and then months or years later you find yourself struggling to remember a simple name. Of course there are some memories we can't possibly forget. Some absolutely incredible, where we felt on top of the world; most of them haunting and excruciating, that have incinerated themselves onto our hearts and souls. And we'll carry these with us forever. But I've found that the key is not to think about how heavy they are, and how much they're weighing us down. But how strong they make us that we never stop making more. More mistakes, more reckless decisions. We are so brave to keep making promises and we are so brave to keep letting love in, over and over again. I know it's hard to give someone your love when it was handled so carelessly in the past. And you don't think you'll ever feel the same again. And you're absolutely right. Because it will keep getting better and you will keep getting braver and stronger and full of love. You are growing and your heart is expanding and you are learning every single day to forgive and never lose your hope. I beg you, please don't ever lose your hope. You have battle scars that tell the most heartbreaking and inspiring stories and that make you the beautiful human you are today. You have a smile that never ends and arms that are always open. You are the everything that I want to come home to - sweet coffee, warm bed, contagious laughter. You love with a heart overflowing with forgiveness and acceptance. You are the one who stays, when it's long past time to go. You are second chance after second chance and you deserve the entire universe. Don't let anyone give you any less.

you got a fast car
i want a ticket to anywhere
maybe we can make a deal
maybe together
we can get somewhere
anyplace is better
starting from zero
got nothing to lose
maybe we'll make somethin
me myself i got nothin to prove

i've been wondering
when it stops
people say it stops
when you want it to
but how do i tell that
to my dreams
when all i can think about
is running up to kiss you
in the parking lot of anywhere
it makes me wanna drink
and say everything
like sometimes i think about
what it would've been like
if i had let you go
when i
was still strong enough to do it
like i never knew hell
had such a pretty voice
like i tried to make it all day
without saying
"wish you were here"
like lately i've been going back
to all the places we've been
to see what it's like without you
it is the worst game
of hide & seek
every time i close my eyes
to count
you just go home
i seem to only wear my seat belt
on days you call
on days you're all *never been better
and i just wanna tell you
how much I hate window shopping
and daylight goodbyes
you just sit there
when you could say anything
you could tell me
you noticed i started drinking again
you could even make it up
you could say you miss me, too
you could say
you missed me so much
that the other day
you accidentally bought
two coffees instead of one
you could tell me
how you've been
without me
that you sleep so much better
these days
without having to worry
you can say what you have
to just don't say leaving
was like shooting fish in a barrel
cause i swear i'm nostalgic
for things i pretended were real
and i swear
i don't want a seance
until there's something
worth bringing back
take me back
to all the places i tried to love you
back to a time
where i knew my name  
without you having to say it

*you got a fast car
is it fast enough
so we can fly away
you gotta make a decision
leave tonight
or live & this way

Your words stumble out of your mouth, awkward and careful. Your smile is nervous and your eyes glow with a mixture of uncertainty and hope and you just can't manage to look me in the eyes. When you told me I was beautiful it was the first time someone said that to me and I took it to be true and not with a shaking head and arms waving in disagreement. Because, for the first time I actually believed I was beautiful before you said so. But it was remarkable nonetheless to hear it come from your lips and when I saw your smile mirroring mine I knew you were made for me to keep and not just to hold for the night. You laugh uncontrollably at your own lame jokes and it felt a little less like a random party and a lot more like just you and me. And people told me after you left that we were in our own world together and that made me both smile and flinch at the same time because I've never been good at keeping concentration but sitting next to you it's like we're the only living beings for miles and everything else is quiet noise. The first time you kissed me it was messy and misplaced and it tasted like cream soda and *****. We were laughing a bit too loudly under the full moon in my best friends garden and it was in that moment that I believed that any tangles of the heart can always be untangled by unapologetic laughter and some drunken honesty. I also realized that I wasn't waiting for you to come and save me but you were waiting for me to save myself before you so gracefully came into the picture. The second time you kissed me, it was slow and meaningful. We had the previous nights memories replaying in our minds and we kissed like we would never run out of time. I sincerely hope we never do. You see, I think I want you in all the ways a person can want someone they've known for two days. And that's incredible, because you're easy to love and I love easily. But I know I don't need you or anyone else anymore to complete my soul. I think that's what they call an epiphany; a great realization where everything that was murky and blurred suddenly becomes crystal clear. And it was in that half an hour ride in the back of a cab where I was holding your hand and we both couldn't stop smiling that I knew I was ready for this, simply because I had learned to love myself and you didn't have a choice but to follow in my footsteps.

Hey you,
I know you're so scared
And I know you're a little lost.
I know you want to love,
But can't afford all the costs.
A heart is a house on fire
And you don't want to get burned
But with happiness comes a little hurt,
Is a lesson still to be learned.

I now know you're not quite like me
That's something I could not take
Sometimes I wish I was not so reckless
It would save so much heart ache.

But maybe if you learn to let
Your heart lead and your soul be brave,
I can learn to have some patience
And this mess can somehow be saved.

You should have met her back then.
She used to be so brave.
She used to be so fearless.
She loved with a heart so full and warm and eager to give everything she had.

She never feared the day he'd leave
And so when he did
Something sort of broke.
Her romantic soul and dreamlike mind
Suddenly awoke.
The stars in her eyes grew dim
And her hope ever so thin.

I wish you'd met her back then.
You can hardly recognize her now.
She plasters on a perfect smile
And puts up the strongest fight
She's even met someone new,
But it just doesn't feel right.

I wonder if you'll see her again?
The girl with the ocean for a heart.
She loved too deeply and
drowned them all to death.
And although it's gone
And he's moved on
How can her love just simply end?

Do you allow yourself
To drown in our memories too?
It hurts my chest but I still smile thinking about those days we spent together.
How cruel of life
to give me something that makes me so irrevocably happy,
and take it away so suddenly
and so
harshly.