I have grown up more in the last few months than I have in the last few years.
I used to think that real love meant kisses on the lips and making excuses.
Sometimes I find myself making wishes on eyelashes, hoping to find your hand in mine.
But I learned that cake is still cake, no matter the shape it's baked in.
You don't have to kiss me on the mouth or stick a label on me to know what love is.
I don't have to make wishes because I've grown up more in the last few months
Than I have in the last few years.
I have learned that real love is loving every bit of that cake, no matter its shape.
Sometimes, real love is holding your hand with no real expectations
Other than knowing you're going to keep it there.

I remember when we had phone calls until little girls got up for school.
I remember the drunken laughter, peeing while talking and spilling beer.
I remember hearing the sleepy giggles of your own flesh and blood,
And when you told me you couldn't wait for us to meet.
I remember showing you my soul from two hours away,
And trying to keep my tears quiet over the phone.
You always heard them, though.
You always heard me.
And you let me hear you too.
You let me past the stubbornness and the walls around your heart
And that was better than being heard.
Sparse text messages aren't as good as our late night calls, but I suppose it's better than nothing.
I fear we're dangerously close to nothing.
I remember when you told me you'd always be here.
Where are you?

When I met you, I never thought I’d be that girl again
Fallin for another man’s tricks and bein another **** puppet
The difference here is now I know a thing or two.
My honesty came from a bottle or five of Blue Moon
In a dark hometown parking lot. In the play of my life this is a familiar scene.
I always fall harder and I always care more and ******* I have run my fingers to the bone
And my heart to the ground and my bank account to the negatives trying to keep you here.
And when people ask, I will deny that after all this time my face still lights up when your name
Hits my phone and I’ll jump at the chance to hang off your lips like the Camels in the door of the truck
We spend so much time in the back of because we claim there’s no reason to have to miss the way
We fused so well and fit so perfectly.
But after so many of those nights, I realized I know you better than you think I do.
I know you like I know the scars on my arms and like I know how I have my daddy’s skin but my
momma’s mind.
And every ******* time you pull me into that back seat and you press your forehead to mine as you
Press the rest of yourself into the rest of me, I feel it and I know you feel it too and don’t you dare
******* tell me you don’t love me too because we both know what those silences mean.
Between kisses, when we just stare at each other; one always asks, ‘what?’ and without fail,
The other will always reply, ‘nothing’ because we’re both too weak to say how we feel in that moment.
The difference here is that you know a thing or two because, between bottles of beer, I told you.
And if I know anything too, it’s that I can read you like my favorite poem, and behind the aggressive
Façade and the smoke you’ve inhaled, you’re just a scared little child holding a beer living a life
You do not truly understand.
And if I want anything in the world right now, I want you to hand the beer to the man I know is inside
You and let him become drunk on the words he needs to say and let them find their way to my ears.

If I could say anything to who I was as a teenager, it was to maintain a safe amount of careful skepticism.
When you fall for that boy, pay careful attention to the way his parents are behind closed doors.
You will not be surprised when he tries to keep you for himself and not even your mother may have you.
When he tells you that you cannot talk to the boy you’ve been friends with since middle school,
You will learn to listen to him, be that wrong or right.
You learn to listen to him because defiance becomes a ****** nose or a bruise to hide.
You will try to stand up for yourself and he will beat you into the grain of the wood floor
But from the skin of his knuckles he will teach you to be strong.
When you give him what he wants in his room to avoid another black eye,
Each ****** will teach you what it means to be indestructible.
Every punch, kick, knock-down, drag-out screaming match will suddenly pop into your head years later
When you learn to tell the next man that you will not put up with anything less than the magic you’ll
Find at nineteen.
And you will learn to believe, after slicing and starving and keeping so quiet, that you are too beautiful
To let anyone convince you that you aren’t any longer. Not even yourself.

You have never known my pain
Until you have to cover every inch of yourself,
Tugging sleeves and pants in the heat;
Tape on a smile to mask the anxiety in your eyes,
Longing for the intimacy your flawed skin won't allow.
You have never known my pain
Until the shower cleans more than sweat and dirt.
It becomes a hiding place that cleans the shadows from your soul.
Until you fear every pair of eyes, even your own.
You have never known my pain
Until you have carried the scars I do
And hidden yourself away from the light in your life
Cowering in the darkness, somehow you don’t deserve the light that tries to find you

If you do know my pain, my god, how my heart aches with yours
If you bear these scars, my god, how my soul weeps with yours
If you do share this pain, my god, feel my hand in yours
But before you jump, open your ears and listen
My god, my heart sings for the future I know you hold
Because I finally saw mine
And my god, don’t you know that you don’t have to jump to fly?

The night I met you, you put your hand to my chest.
I sunk to the bottom of this hole,
And alone in the dark, I pulled myself apart,
Tearing skin from skin and prying out the bones.
When I reached the heart I thought was long gone,
I found a familiar set of fingerprints.
Like a crime scene I didn't know existed,
I keep finding traces of you I never expect.
I couldn’t believe I let myself fall so far,
I didn’t realize it til we’d collided so hard
I keep finding debris, so many of your little pieces and parts
Embedded deep inside me like a pair of crashed cars
Even after we’ve separated and cleaned up the wreckage
I still find pieces of you in the caverns of my heart
And I’ve never been so grateful for falling apart
Because sometimes you get put back together better than you were at the start.

Before I begin, let me make one thing perfectly clear:
Everything I’ve ever given a **** about, I’ve been unabashedly critical of.
So believe me when I say that I appreciate ever word out of your mouth I’ve spanned the distance to hear.
You have all these years that you hang over my head, dangling them, subtly mocking from the end of a thread.
Yes, darling, you’re well aged and well-read but I’ll be ****** if I will let my experiences be invalidated by a few years and your fiery, well-meaning arrogance, let that be heard as it’s said.
It’s true that you know me better than most but don’t get it twisted. You sure as hell don’t know me better than me.
Pretend all you like that I’m buttered-up and convinced that your life lessons and late night calls have set me free, but you know as well as me that’s a lie fed through your precious mind’s teeth.
I boil and I freeze so I know I can stand the heat, but just remember one thing:
You’re intense and addictive but baby, the scorpion still stings.
And one twin will **** well bite while of your praises the other sings.