**** butterflies in my stomach when i see you, i get the rush of wild mustangs trampling my body. the pounding hooves rattle my heart, and blurs of the meadow between heel and head hint at your blue-green eyes i so intently memorized. deafening neighs mask whispers in my head telling me to gaze a little longer. the force of their stampede whisks me off my feet just as your voice always does. but as the trailing horse disappears over the horizon, i'm left with the intoxicating feeling of your arms holding my broken pieces together.

we so often leave out passion in the topic of love. love isn't just an emotion shown towards another person, but a passion shown towards a hobby or dream or goal. when we say we would lose every meaning of life if we lost love, we shouldn't just mean the love of a human being because they're so fleeting. we should mean our love for the one verse of a song that sends electricity through our veins or the exhale of emotions when you have a pencil and paper in your hand or the warm glow of street lights contrasting on the fallen snow because when we lose someone we love more than anything, that doesn't mean we have nothing left to love or live for. it just means we have to focus on something else we love for a little while to help us heal.

these will be the things i remember when i'm sad and need something to remind me that theres more to this life or when i'm staring into space and can't hold back a burst of happiness or when i'm laying in bed with a racing mind of how things are finally coming together and thinking of how happy and content i am
but also when i'm happy and my mind brings me back to missing you or when i'm unable to put my thoughts together and have to swallow back tears or when i'm consumed in a mountain of blankets late at night still unable to stop shaking and avoid the numb cold looming over me and my heart is pounding in my chest as i remember how happy and content i used to be

maybe the sky didn't look the day she fell down; maybe the sun covered its eyes to avoid seeing her frown.

i grew up being told things that made me feel like a diamond in a pile of gravel, but now i'm laying shattered on my bathroom floor and i didn't think diamonds were supposed to break.

don't do that to them. don't just disappear, leaving them to think about you in the mornings when they wake up and at night before they go to bed and in the quiet moments when their group of friends stop talking or on the long car rides when all they're left to do is stare out the windows or when they see a happy couple in public and wonder "why wasn't i given that?". they'll wonder what happened. wonder if they should still hurt from being left hanging from the frail branch of false hope. wonder if they're still supposed to care. you'll leave them glancing at their phone screen when it lights up hoping the words say your name and imagining what they could say if it did, but deep down knowing they won't. they'll lose the ability to focus on anything but deciphering what went wrong and what they could have done wrong. what they didn't give you that you wanted or needed. what words they could have said to make you stay. they'll notice you in everything their eyesight comes across. they'll see your eyes in the glinting stars and your smile in the crescent moon and hear your laughter in the saddest of songs. don't leave them to act like they don't feel the hollowness and lump in their throat when people ask them about it. don't leave them to hold back tears when they remember moments. just don't do it. they're better than that, they don't deserve that, and you know it.