You said I was the first
And only girl you ever loved.
To show me,
You gave me
a little black ball of fuzz,
A tiny life,
with eyes as green as yours,
And with that cat,
You sparked my newest love.
When I doubted,
You didn't bother to ask why,
You just ran.
I came back,
Hoping you were there.
Ironically enough,
You had left me for a girl
Who already loved cats...

But she will never love you.

I heard the question mark when you first saw me
and the exclamation point when we first talked

I heard your commas when we walked and spoke
your colons before you delivered the punchline

I heard the whispered parentheses
when you told me you loved me.

Then I heard the semicolons when we fought
with ellipses and brackets of contained rage

And finally, I heard the period
at the end of the sentence that was us.

I'm afraid to write about you because
Ink makes me feel everything,
And everything feels so much more real
When my cursive words smudge up against
The side of my hand and stain it blue
As my pen races to keep up with my heart

But it can't be real,
Because I thought I was moving on,
I thought I was growing up,
I thought I knew all of this was
Foolish and starry-eyed

I thought, I thought, I thought
But maybe I need to stop thinking
And just let myself feel;
Feel the butterflies you put in my stomach,
Feel the pure bliss you infuse into bloodstream

And maybe I don't need to know everything,
Like exactly what you're thinking
Or exactly how I feel
Or how all of this is going to turn out

I guess what I'm saying is that
Everything isn't always going to be clear,
I may come up to "two roads in a yellow wood"
And not be absolutely certain which one I'm meant to take,
But I do know that whichever path I choose,
I'd like to be able to scan the trees and smile
Because you're there walking alongside me.

like a rose
trampled on the ground
a beautiful delicacy
that has been ignored
not yet found
like a rose
vibrant in all ways
full of potential
who lives its own kind of way
like a rose*
we are all like a rose