It’s chocolate chip pancakes at 2:30am
And empty mugs of coffee on my desk

It’s adrenaline pumping through my chest
And the whir of my refrigerator

My focus is ping ponging between
All of the holes in the wall
Ignoring everything but
the pages in front of me

Watching everything through
A double pained glass
Realizing control is an illusion

I fight to get closer and closer to the audience
In my head
Exaggeration stretching onward like salt-water taffy
In the window

Fingers slipping, sweat beading
heavily above my upper lip
Not being 100% sure of anything
Who can blame me?
I am lost in the swivels of society

My face, as a ballerinas, when on pointe
An elegant mask full of nothing
Spinning and spinning
Relying on the inner soles of my feet

The clock slowly and forever slipping
As I cannot reach the top of the bunny hole
Too ******* stubborn to let any of the voices
In my head tell me I should crawl away

So, I look down and begin to read.

each word
a punch to my heart
i go limp
and allow the punches to come

my weakness gives way
to his love
but my heart
grows weary of
the hurt

I didn’t notice it when I met him
I just thought he was a pretentious snob
Who wore shirts with a pink whale

He was a mess and a half
And I had other things in mind
However he would not
Go
Away

I remember the night so clear
I was shaking in my bed
Freezing
Alcohol on my breath

I needed someone to hold me
I couldn’t get warm

I closed my eyes and cried
Just for everything

And I felt someone crawl
into bed next to me
he held me so tight
my body relaxed into his

my head fit so perfect under his chin
the tremors stopped
the tears stopped
and there were his lips against mine

And that’s when I learned
Infinitely more things about life

Stressseddd are my muscles
As I clench my fist
Shaking I recount all of my worries
Building like tall ominous mountains
Restlessly inside of me

I walk past the man huddled in a blanket
Soaking in his own ****
And my hands unclench as I reach into my purse
To pull out a coin

My perspective shifts
The world does not spin around
Me.

a clean white page
freshly pressed
lined with blue
punched three times
stared back at my face

a single hand
took to pen
scribbled in the margin

words told stories
which recounted memories and dreams
blank ink streamed over the freshness

connecting lines to swirls
and dots to dots
sparking electricity

the lines save me from my past
and protect me from the future
decoding each line
I wait to find the answer

When she looks back I want her to see smiles
And a hand outstretched
Which threw her into something better

I want her to know that she can crumble but never be dissipated
That she can fall but never be swallowed up
By the contours of the cracks
In the sidewalk
Which lead her to something new

I want her to know that the tears that she cry will be fallen drops of rain
That silently collect dew in the morning
That all silence is not golden
And all words are powerful

She can take a breath and realize the air she breathes is polluted
But I know that when she breathes out it will be pure
Because by her lips a new era will be born again
She is the change

When she meets someone who makes her feel full
She knows she can easily feed herself
Happiness is not on the end of someone else
But on the end of following passion

She is the fire of a generation
That can realize when she doesn’t know what she wants
I want her to know that she can discover herself in others
That she can find what she needs in the juice that is squeezed from her labor
The labor of love that provides passion
Which fuels the engine of her existence

She is meant for so much more than what she knows
I want her to know all of this and that she is loved
So much that she cannot know the depths
Of the things I will do for her