My heart has loved you more every day— how much I loved you then, is twice as much now. And as much as I love you now, I know there’s more to come.

The dress fits delightfully, each curve met with the finest embrace.
My hands and feet are ready, to walk and join yours in covenant.
How long I've felt the waiting, how soon I see your face.
For the first time as I ascend the isle, your tears of joy so evident.

I feel my eyes begin to burn, and look away hastily.
For the tears of love reflected in yours, might be my undoing.
I say goodbye to my mother, and it's from my father I cleave;
to join you, my sweetest beloved, in the most exquisite molding.

Where your name becomes mine, and our souls become one.
We both say I do, and join in an unbreakable love.
We walk back down that isle, now together in hand,
The rain splashing in light symphony from heavens joyful band.

The cheers ring up around us, a song I'll never forget,
A fairytale story, now sealed by God and a heartfelt kiss.
How I love you, my dear, and how that love shall grow;
each year that we remember, what such a small seed could sow.

So, to the future still unknown, we travel towards together,
my husband, now you are, my best friend, my only lover-
I, your wife, your first morning kiss and every evening embrace,
am yours; in body, mind and spirit, your home and safe place.

My heart was ready. Finally. After so many years of being uncertain and gradually pulling down the pieces of me struggling to break the surface; I can breath. I see the blue sky and the shore. I feel the gentle wind, assisting me across the waves. I hear the seagulls cries of joy and I bask in the warm suns rays. I taste the drying salt on my lips and allow them for the first time in so many years a chance to peel back in a gradual, enlightening smile. And as I float closer to a safe shore, I smell flowers and the fresh buds of leaves growing on the trees. I am ready. Beyond ready, to float to safety and peace. My heart has yearned for so long to break free of the waters dark expanse, and all I had to do was let go. To let go of the girl who was always waiting so heartbreakingly for a life raft. And instead become the woman who learned to float and breath and love the simplest pleasures of my senses guiding me to safety. Just let go. Let go, and be.

There is a fragility in staring into a mirror.
In knowing that though the glass is unmarked,
The reflection is shattered.

I feel old in this moment.
As if my soul has traveled far too many times around the sun recently.
I feel my bones stretch with knew realizations and my lunges expand with more knowledge.
I am but another youth,
but I feel so old still.
Life is hard lately.
Life is heartbreaking lately.
Life is constant and ever changing
and I am young but feeling old.
For I feel the breath stolen from his lungs,
I feel the chants of too many years of injustice.
I feel the fear of wearing a badge but wanting to make things better.
I feel the desperation of society.
And I feel so, so old.
What painful times we live in.
What changing times we live in.
I was young,
but knowledge ages you,
And now I know so much.
So I must speak what I know.
And change what I can.
And oh, dear God,
please let this next generation do better than we did.
Be better than we have.
For I am young.
But feel so old.
And there are so many like me
And so many more who have been tired longer.

The desire to fill,
to pour more
into the gaps of my heart,
my soul, and mind.
To completely submerge
those bare holes
until there is no room
for doubts and insecurities.
It is so overwhelming when I stand
in the folds of your arms.
When your presence consumes
those pains and calms my breath.
The need to change
is building.
Empty me,
Fill me.
Change me.
Consume me.
God, use me.
I am Yours.

From ringing bells and cascading lace, caught up in the dust of our feet and the light wisps of bubbles leaving kisses along our face and arms; we run for the four wheel, rumbling engine that'll take us off to a series of financial uncertainties, sweaty embraces, swollen bellies and forgotten dates. And I know, I know I will never want anything more than this. Anything more than you.

If I close my eyes,
I can sense it.
The stiff,
unrelenting
chill.
The brisk morning runs.
The reddened apples piled under trees.
If I close my eyes,
I can remember it.
How it passed every year,
like the mourning of a loved one.
How it tastes like bitter words
from the mouth of an angry parent.
It's the end of warmth.
Winter is coming.

Simmering,
dripping
words.
Caught in
tongues.
Spreading
like
dandelions.
Falsities.
Fragmented
truths.
Some sipping the
words like
humming birds.
Consuming quickly.
Spreading like
pollen on
more
tongues.
Relishing.
Blooming discord.
Growing hatred.
It spreads.
Until,
the sky opens up.
Weeps.
Great sorrowing
drops,
cascade down.
Plummet the
earth.
Clears it.
Cleans it.

My body's stained with the proof,
of all of my regrets.
All those mistakes that I had made
I know you all wish you could forget.

I might not have lived the best one,
but I hope you remember me in stories.
And know that despite my lack of using the word,
deep down I am very sorry.

In the end, I tried my best to hold onto,
The life that I once knew.
Of coffee cups, of cigarette butts,
of and old Chevy truck named Blue.

Loved ones names came and gone
Their goodbyes all sounded the same.
I finally let go of all the sickness,
Now my body isn't in as much pain.

Like a flower blooming in the spring.
And like the trees dying in the fall.
Every body and mind have a season.
And mine has come to a stall.

Now, here I lay, in a rough white casket
Where I'm spoken of in summary.
No longer am I anything,
but a man in whose become a memory.

My world is speeding up. Everyday it gets closer and closer to some invisible end point. I just don't know what that end point looks like. It's scary. Like racing towards an edge and knowing you can't slow down. My heart speeds up. Kicking me in the lunges as I think about it.
  My schedule is always full. Exhaustion is my lurking roommate. I wake up just as tired as I was when I fell asleep. I want to name this feeling but I can't grasp the right words. So I Google hundreds of them. Hoping. Praying. That I'll find one that settles on my soul. So far? No luck. They all start to blur eventually. The A's and the Q's all look the same. The B's and the R's intertwine. My brain is a scattered mess of failed expectations and words I can't express to my full desire.

"Borrow the day," she said,
"When your heart has lost itself in midnight."
"Borrow the birds." she said,
"When your soul aches to take flight."
"Borrow the air," she said,
"When the depths of the ocean chokes you."
"And borrow my heart," she said,
"When this world forgets to love you as I do."

"Oh, come on! Name one other time I have ever lied to you?"

"This time."

"It was only once!"

"Sometimes, that's all it takes."

They tell us to speak.
To free the ache in our caged chest.
So we rip open our ribs,
to let the fears spill out.
Expecting,
hoping,  
that someone will try to catch them.
Envelop them in their arms.
Secure them in their anxiety.
Warm them with their kindness.
We believe that someone,
just maybe,
quite possibly,
however foolishly,
will help us burden the pain
that's trying to collapse
our already fragile hearts.
That someone might clear away
our scarlet, stained tears.
And lend us a hand
as we slip farther and farther,
towards the edge of the blackest chasm.
But even as our eyes scream, "save me".
And our blue lips tremble,
They choose to look away.
Because they knew.
They knew they never really meant it.
It was just empty,
pointless words to try out.
Throw around like party confetti.
      "I will listen"              "I won't judge"
                    "trust me"
"I'm hear for you"                    
                                "Believe­ me"
  "Maybe I can help"                    "Don't hold it in"
                       "it'll be OK"

And we believed it.
For we really, really wanted to.
We wanted to know that we would,
in fact, be, "OK"
And still, here we are.
Smiling as we beat ourselves
into invisible,
blue and purple hues.
Until we let go of the edge
and finally 
                 F
  
                     A
    
                          L
      
                             L
                              
                               ­   L
                                
                           ­            L
                                            into the blackness of the chasm.

Leaving them to finish burying us.

Slowly slipping down the stone walls,
You built so many years ago.
The one made with ****** fingers,
from every cruel and insensitive word.
You stacked it up with shaking hands,
and filled it in with broken hopes.
You thought it'd keep you safe,
but somehow pain always finds loopholes.
So the words kept slipping in,
and you kept bleeding out.
And the only real difference now,
was that no one could hear you shout.
You couldn't fight against their words,
And neither could the stone.
So in breaking it down you learned,
That sometimes pain is better than being alone.

I remember once hearing,
this sentence when I was young.
That if you really, truly loves someone,
then they're never really gone.
So I loved you like an ocean.
More than the eye could ever possibly see.
And after you left, I did remember you.
But realized, who would ever remember me?

Breath hitching with the distorted thoughts.
Spiraling out of near comprehension.
Some looping and tightening like a noose.
Others snapping with speedy progression.
They tug at memories of mistakes.
Drawing them in like old friends.
While ripping apart images of smiles.
Leaving them dangling with frayed ends.
I slip my fingers between strands of hair.
Cupping my skull with violent hands.
My descent increases like rising tides,
When all I really want to do is land.

A burning light has embedded itself into your steady heart.
It glows off your milky skin and brightens up your smile.
It twinkles out your eyes like specks of stardust.
And illuminates your profile.
It puts a bounce to your step and crinkles by your eyes.
And it seems to brush it's glorious glow to each passerby.
One day you were asked, "Why does your eyes hold the sunrise?"
And you spoke with a million rays of light as you replied,
"The world has gotten darker like midnight without stars.
As each and everyone of you demoralize yourself.
So, because I see my worth, a moon you think that I've become.
When really I'm just a star that knows within is where my worth's from."

There's a hum, a whisper, a note in your name.
A noise only heard at the quiet hour of 3:00 a.m.
When the sun has long been asleep in my world.
And your name is able to slip past my well constructed dam.
It arises when no one can hear my heart prattle.
A small touch of air along my already chilled skin.
I close my eyes in this mortal peace and listen.
As your name strums in my head like a violin.
Just for these few silent moments,
I let myself imagine an unrealistic thought.
When your name can pass my worried lips,
And I suddenly become more to you than just an afterthought.

I finds cracks on people
who pretend they're whole.
So maybe that's a blessing.
Or maybe it's a curse.
Either way,
I can't save them all.
And there are too many out there
who laugh with broken hearts.

We're all fighting for something.
Sometimes for things we don't need.
They take up our being,
and sometimes, they're the legacy we leave.
But we keep fighting,
for that one little thing.
And we let it consume us.
Because we're unwilling to set ourselves free.

The truth is very simple.
Our world desires hate.
It will tell you lies inside of truths,
It will smile while it manipulates
It craves the swords on our tongues,
and the stings from our fists.
It feeds us hope while we're young
just to give us knives to cut our wrists.
It tells you to be positive,
while throwing daggers of misfortune at your feet.
It laughs when you're broken,
and whispers to you words of your defeat.
It will want to be your friend
just for the purpose of destroying you
Lifting up all your hopes and dreams,
then making sure you never follow through.
Man plays an awfully risky game,
Where your life is the thing put at stake.
And if you don't play your cards just right,
that's exactly what the world will take.
So, when the world is pulling triggers,
and you think that it's too late,
remember what God gave us,
and know that your love can conquer hate.

Whenever I think about being loved,
I think about all those small moments.
You know, the small gestures people do.
The way they go out of their way to say, "I love you."
With their kind smiles,
and teasing pokes,
and questions about how're you're doing...
However, sometimes there's just not enough small moments in a day.
And maybe that's why there just isn't enough people feeling loved.