All we've ever wanted is to love and be loved.

She looks at me like i put the stars in the sky

She is the house that built me
when my heart had nowhere to grow
and hers are the hands that held me
when i was scared to be alone
she catches me every time i fall
like it was her assignment at birth
and she makes me feel like in this world
i finally have some worth

she has taught me lessons
i could have never learned
in a classroom
sitting behind a desk
she is the reason my heart is still beating
in this tiny chest
and even if i only see her
when she's home for holidays
or if i pay the airlines
to take me across the states
my favorite part of this world
is only a text or call away

it is so hard to put her into words
because she is so much more
than i could ever describe
and i want her to know,
and you to know
that she is the sunlight in my skies
she holds me together
i am the storm
and she is the better weather
and whether or not
i have promised it before,
i am hers forever.

Sticky young hands
Clutching magnolias
Holding them out
Like an offering.
The unrequited love
Of years to come
Glistens in his eyes
For but a moment.

Sharp young minds
Clutching magnolias
Spinning webs of imagination
Like silk worms and spiders.
The webs, soon to be tainted
With lies and flies
And magnolias.

Bright pink magnolias
Epitome of womanhood
To brighten the rainy day
When he layed magnolias
On his mother's grave.
Only a child,
Weeping into his father's
Sullen form.
To young to understand
Death.

Sticky young hands
Clutching magnolias
Holding them out
Like a promise
To remember.

**** those people who said it only gets better.
They lied to us.
They lied to you and me
and all the other kids with tear soaked cheeks
and problems with substances/self harm/depression.

It gets better
but its got to get bad first.

It took me years of tears to realize
that things will get better.
They will.
They may get worse first,
they may stay the same for a while,
they may get better and return ten times worse
but they will get better.
They have to.

Your mother told you kissing me must be like kissing an ashtray.
You told her you'd rather kiss this ashtray
than the sweetest strawberries.

Why did you say that?

I remember waking up very early the next morning,
maybe three hours after I fell asleep on the bathroom floor.

I tiptoed through the house, careful not to wake anybody up,
even the guy who kept telling you to drink
even though you very kindly asked him to stop.

I'm not sure if you ended up drinking,
I forgot most of what happened that night,
but I remember shouting from the tire swing
that I loved you and that I loved you
and that I loved you.

I found where you were sleeping,
relieved to find no body next to yours,
and calmly placed a hand on your forehead.
You stirred, before gently grabbing my hand as it pulled away.

Eyes still closed,
you asked me how I felt.

I feel okay, nothing appears to be broken.

You said nothing and went back to sleep.
I said nothing and sat there for a long while.
I watched your chest rise and fall with each breathe,
and I loved you and I loved you and I loved you.

After a time I stepped outside to smoke a thought,
and the thought I smoked was not of you or of the night before
but of my mother.
She told me,
after I brought home my first date, two months into my freshmen year of high school,
that just because I desire somebody's love,
does not mean I deserve it.

I loved you and I loved you and I loved you
but I did not deserve your love.

I'm always excited to see girls be open with sexuality and ***. Why? It's refreshing and empowering that a woman can say, "I enjoy ***." It seems so simple and trivial but the stigma that guys can get it in all they want and girls cannot for fear of being "easy", "loose" or "slutty" is frustrating.

I always felt like I had to keep quiet about what I liked and didn't like because that's what girls did; keep quiet while the guys can go on for days about all the *** they got. Boys could high five and congratulate each other like they had made a conquest whereas girls could whisper or keep quiet all together.

As a girl, I felt like opening up about *** would make me unworthy of respect because somehow my ****** experiences, or even a lack thereof, could determine my worth or how much respect I deserved from my peers. I felt like exploring sexuality somehow meant, in the eyes of others, that I didn't "respect" myself. But let us not forget that boys somehow earn respect for having ***. How can that be okay? I lose respect but guys earn it? It's ridiculous to me.

I grew up thinking I would be shunned for losing my virginity to my longtime boyfriend at 16 years old. Granted I wasn't mature enough for that at that age, but I didn't even tell my best friends until a year later. The culture and mentality that women cannot or should not be vocal about *** and sexuality is belittling and suffocating.

So for the record, *** is awesome. As a girl, I don't have any shame in enjoying ***. I used to, and maybe it's a little rash to use social media to rant about something like this, but that's simply how I feel. I'm not stating that people who are quiet about *** are wrong, because not everyone is comfortable talking openly about *** and that's TOTALLY FINE. What is not fine is the notion that girls cannot or should not be able to talk openly about *** without being called names or being scoffed at.

Society tells me that if I sleep around, I'm a ***** or a ****. Frankly I'll sleep around all I want, if I want, when I want. I'll still sleep easy after. I am comfortable in my own skin, I am comfortable in someone else's bed. I couldn't give a **** about what anyone has to say about me, my stance on this topic or my openness towards ***.

All I have to say is that I enjoy ***. You can get used to your hand if you have the audacity to call me anything other than my name for saying so.