God doesn't want us to just be happy.
God wants us to be like Him.

Am I really meant for this?
to love without return, without hope
to love desperately and never quite have that which I love
my heart has been yearning my whole life for something-
perfect communion, perfect harmony- a partner in crime
a soulmate, someone to love me wholly
and you're going to tell me I can't have that? My whole life
I've been waiting and planning for it, but I will never have it.
people have always been telling me I have been too much
so I stopped sharing, I can't tell you how I feel in words
without crying, because I have always been a burden, an enormous
intensity of feeling, too much love for people to handle
too much hope, too much emotion, to share without crushing
I must bear the burden on my own, never to share, never to partner
never to communicate, to be equal, to bear with each other.
I must hold all of it within, with only the help of the Lord my God.
Am I really meant for this? Why?
Why would God make this destiny for me?
Why would God make this loving heart for heartbreak?

and then I remembered.

After all, I did ask to love like you, Lord.

Joseph was the only sinner in a house of holy people
but when the angel came, he accepted the word of God
with less doubt than anyone else in the entire history of salvation.

Life is too short, so love the one you got
'Cause you might get run over or you might get shot
Never start no static, I just get it off my chest
Never had to battle with no bulletproof vest
Take a small example, take a tip from me
Take all of your money, give it all to charity
Love is what I got, it's within my reach.

I'm tired of people telling me how I should feel or what I should do or how loud or quiet I should be about my own love and my own pride and in what ways I am allowed to show it.

"I am a kettle constantly whistling."

the tide is high but
I'm holding on

we all crave honesty, we all crave love, we all crave faithfulness
these are otherwise known as intimacy.

ready for some substance, meat on the bones of my soul
time to sit, and think, and talk, and tell the truth
no more meaningless words, humor without love
ready to be still and know that God is God, ready
to bare my existence before another, to cry, to sink deeply
into the arms of someone I actually care about
ready to stop living an empty life, we are living emptily because
we are afraid of what substance will mean for us. We are afraid
of what will happen when we tell the truth, if we cry
we are afraid of who will see us and know us for who we are.
The bravest thing is to know that the world will tear you to shreds
but to keep showing them yourself anyway- to keep
being vulnerable, to keep pounding your hot heart's blood through
your veins when the world wants you to be cold and quiet,
to speak up and to tell the truth, you will not lie, I will not lie.
I will not forget to have lived when the time comes to die.

even if I won't ever be perfect for someone,
one day, someone will be willing to fight for me-
and me for them. and isn't that all that matters?

the stage crackles and throbs with sweat and spit
as his energy pulses through the crowds- our veins
are end-to-end with our hands pumping, holding
him up. He knows who we are and what we deserve.
We, the people, he fights for us- in every sense of the word
he stands for every single person in this country
and every single person in the world.

you're so vain
you probably think this song is about you

I think I'm gonna win this time
riding on the wind and I won't give up.

time makes you bolder
children get older
I'm getting older too.

"She said she would have been the most important thing in my life, but she is the only thing that I don't have."
"Kiss me like that and forget about the future of our lives and the other side of the story."
"There's nothing wrong with me and you, and it is not a bad thing."
"sometimes I get lost in the world and you are the only way to the point where it was."
"I don't know what I want you to be but I know that I want you for me."
"Girl you are the best thing about being in love and I don't know how much I miss you."
"I really want to be with you and you don't know how much I love you because you don't want it and you love it when I am not sure."
"Falling in love again and I don't think I can be found, I have no one else."
"I just want to tell you how much you mean to me."
"Please follow me please please don't let me go back to the point of having to wait for you."
"Why do you think you can get the best of me and I have to go back to the same thing as the first time since I've never had you."
"my love is like the way I am so excited to be the first."
"kiss me you say but I shy away in case you figure out you don't want to stay."
"Making me laugh so hard I try not to mention it was the best thing about being in love with you."
"I'd rather be with you and you are the only thing that would make me laugh and smile and say that I can be used."
"you make me feel like I have to go back and forth between us and the other side is that I can't."
"You are the only thing that I don't have to do with a lot of people."
"I'm not going to be the best for you but I will try to be if it means I am able to love you."
"You know how much I hate you and you know how much I miss you so I don't think that I can't even see you at all and I love you so much for a long way from my heart."
"It's all over again and I love the way you want a relationship with my mom and I don't think that it was the first time."
"you said let me go and I don't know how to."
"Wait I have no idea how much I love you so much."
"tell me you're not going to leave me too."
"It's all about you but I'm still waiting."
"Yes you do not know what I was."
"I love the way you want me too."
"Love is the only thing that I don't know if you want."
"Dancing with the best of me in your eyes and I love it."
"I miss the old days when you are the same as the one I love."
"what happened to forever and a day?"
"what about the love we had and why is it so easy to leave me?"
"Take me back to the point where you could have been the most beautiful girl in my life and the only one who can make me feel."
"I can't work without you in my head and you can't even get to know me."
"Half of my heart is broken and the other side is the most beautiful."
"You cannot find the right time for me and I don't think that the two sides of you agree."
" I have no idea how much I love you so much, but it was the best thing about being a girl."
"You are not the only person who can make me happy and you are not going to be able to get to me ever again."

I'll lie and say I don't care
but I do, I care so much it feels as though
my chest will explode with the pain of it.

(I can't help but marvel at the unfairness of it all, that when I am crazy for a girl and talk about it, it's too much information or gross, I don't need to hear that, Maddie, and when I express my emotions I'm being ****** or too loud or overdramatic, that when I wear the things I want to wear I look gross and no one will like me if I dress like that but if I were seen as who I am then they would be proud of me for all these things, that my skinny jeans and button down would be cute and fashion-forward instead of **** clothes, and the look in my eyes when I see a girl would be beautiful instead of a secret to be kept, and the tears in my eyes wouldn't be ridiculous but rather a sign of how caring I am. It's not fair that if my hips were just a bit narrower then everything would change- I would be a tall beautiful model and people couldn't help but respect me, I could pull off androgynous clothes without looking gross, I could love who I wanted and people would call it beautiful. It's not fair that having two inches extra width of a pelvic bone changes the way people look, think, and act around me. It's not fair that this rampant misogyny destroys and disparages women for their natural body types, and it's certainly not fair that it's so bad that I wish every day I had been born a boy, because if I were a boy then I could love a girl all I wanted and the more I loved her, the better, and people would say it's cute instead of try and tell me to keep it in my pants or watch myself around adults, and I could hold her hand in public without being afraid, and I could cry at sad movies and get congratulated for not being a ****** person, and I could play guitar and give to homeless people and let cars into my lane and be funny and care about social issues and do every single ******* thing I already do but if I were a boy it would mean I am beautiful, knowledgeable, and perfect but because I'm a girl no matter what I do I am flawed, I am not good enough, I am not good enough, I am not good enough for you and when I look in the mirror I try every day to become closer to who I really am but a girl at her best is still not as good as a boy at his worst and it's not fair. It's not fair. It's not fair. It's not fair.)

You are not the dark clouds on your horizon
you are not your sunny days or your hot muggy days
when you seem to choke those around you- you are not
your nights when you leave people lonely, you are not pleasant occasional breezes-
you are the sky, and you will always be there.
The rest is just weather.

it's okay for things to change, to grow up
fate will twist the both of you,
all of you.

sometimes it all seems so vast I could just drown in it
and sometimes it reminds me that I love to swim
and sometimes I suffocate in the beauty of it all
beauty, whatever we may think, makes it a little easier to breathe
every single time it takes your breath away.

Breaking down and coming undone,
it's a roller coaster kinda rush,
and I never knew I could feel that much.

what, and who, am I? (Does God love me or is he disappointed?)
am I good enough how I am? (Am I forgiven? Do I need to be?)
what determines what "good enough" is? (Will I be loved without changing?)
do I need to change? (What parts of me are inadequate?)
does anyone love me? (Am I someone worthy of loving?)

all of us are waiting for someone to want our truth, all of it.

believe whatever you want to believe,
but as for me, I believe that love wins.
Always.

one day I'll be the right person at the right time.

Christianity is the religion of hope-
that one day, things will be perfect;
in the right places, you can be happy;
and God wants this for everyone:
that we may have a future and a hope.

I see what it's like.
I see what it's like for day and night
never together,
'cause they see things in a different light,
like us. They never tried like us.

not being useful, needed, necessary

If I'm lightning in a bottle,
then you're my bottle.

everything is always falling, falling, falling
everything, including me, is always falling

into place.

let's sit and be nothing, do nothing,
in the silence and murmur of the flowers
while the breeze holds and hugs those who sit alone
and let our hearts move with this wind.

Fear is dark but my love is a lantern,
shining up like coins in a fountain.
Hope is a tree sitting on a mountain where the grass don’t grow.
There’s a sad old sea but my love is an island,
wild and free like the hills in the highlands.
Hope is a breeze that brings me back to dry land
where the flowers grow.

need a recalibration

I don't know how, why, or in what I have faith
but I do, and it is for this reason that the thread I cling to
may not break, but still burns my hands
because it is a rope, tied around my wrists
holding me up with the security of knowing
that I won't fall, but I can't get down either.

I tried to write a sonnet today
but I just couldn't find the beat
and it'd be nice if this was a sonnet
about not writing a sonnet,
but it's not, because life doesn't always work that way.
Sometimes it doesn't rhyme.

(and if I could choose any other way
then I don't know that I would.)

You must not wonder, though you think it strange,
To see me hold my louring head so low,
And that mine eyes take no delight to range
About the gleams which on your face do grow.
The mouse which once hath broken out of trap
Is seldom ’ticèd with the trustless bait,
But lies aloof for fear of more mishap,
And feedeth still in doubt of deep deceit.
The scorchèd fly, which once hath ’scaped the flame,
Will hardly come to play again with fire,
Whereby I learn that grievous is the game
Which follows fancy dazzled by desire:
   So that I wink or else hold down my head,
   Because your blazing eyes my bale have bred.

He who is brave is free.

"Out beyond ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there."

no matter how long I force myself to stay asleep
the answer isn't in the dream.

let he who is without sin cast the first stone

with every second there becomes more and more and more
and moments pile on my existence, expanding my world
increasing the value of my life, and eventually, one day
I will give it all to someone else.

it's a beautiful, breathtaking, crazy life if there ever was one
but most of all, it is good.

my breath has been taken
and not returned

"I am not eccentric. It’s just that I am more alive than most people."

"But the beginning of things, of a world especially, is necessarily vague, tangled, chaotic, and exceedingly disturbing. How few of us ever emerge from such beginning! How many souls perish in its tumult!"

I am completely and utterly blown away

maybe we don't just want to be special, or an exception
we want to be irreplacable
yet- days and weeks and years go by
and we are replaced.

maturity is staring life straight in the face
and being willing to live it.

no matter how much I try to embrace it and call it my own
I'm still afraid of the dark.