Life is heavy
It sits behind my eyes
On my shoulders
In my chest
Sometimes the weight of it
Gets to be too much
And I find myself gasping for breath
But then I go home
Or as close to one as I have
And he smiles at me
Over a smoking bowl
Tells me stories that he didn't know he had
Curls up around me
Listens to me breathe
And in the dark and the silence
Ear pressed against his chest
His heartbeat steady
I can rest
And everything feels that much lighter

Sometimes I think about how close I came to never meeting you. So many things had to go a certain way to get us both to that chemistry class, to the chairs in which we sat. The thread binding us is so fragile that if I went back and changed one tiny thing, we wouldn’t be here, and I would never have known what I’d missed in you... But we can’t know what we’ve missed out on. We can only know what we have now.

Never fall for a damaged person because they'll lure you in. They'll captivate you with their mysterious past.
They'll tell you that they're broken beyond repair and then you'll make every possible effort to prove them wrong.
They'll scream, they'll yell, they'll howl, they'll yelp. . but somehow you'll become the cure for their pain.
You'll fix them up and believe that it's a permanent change. But their demons cannot be suppressed for long.
Their aura will always allure you and you'll end up being the victim.
Intentionally or unintentionally you'll fall in love with someone who feels nothing but numb.
And this vicious cycle will continue.. because now you'll become the broken person and someone else will fall in love with you.

I am not obligated to approve of everything someone else does
I am not obligated to always be nice, especially when I am not treated nicely
I am not obligated to be agree with people constantly
I am not obligated to laugh at someone's jokes
I am not obligated to look at someone
I am not obligated to act kind at the price of acting with love
I am not obligated to apologize for my feelings when someone else upsets me
I am not obligated to blame myself when I am acting according to my conscience
I am not obligated to always be the one who apologizes
I am not obligated to remain in a toxic relationship
I should be loving
I should look people in the eyes
I should not be petty
I should stand up for what is right
I should express truth and justice at every opportunity
I should respect myself enough to let go of people that put no effort into our relationship
I should respect other people enough to still be friendly even after letting them go
I should respect my own feelings enough to be vocal about them
I should respect other people's feelings enough to be vocal to them
I should be discern unhealthy and negative things for myself and make the choice to change them
I should acknowledge that I can be wrong and I am often wrong
I should also acknowledge that I am not always wrong.

I understand it now, the difference between lust and love.

I've got a lot of dead skin to slough off and a lot of people
that have forgotten how to love
of whom I need to let go.