Late last night I had an epiphany. It could have been the cereal or the Siberia-like weather talking, but I had a newfound realization. It really was late. Late nights are great for overanalyzing. I could have been doing just that. Yet, this morning, I was reminded of my revelation.

You and I live in a generation full of selfishness. Narcissism in relationships, in particular.

That was it. That was my epiphany. Maybe I'm just late coming into the game. Maybe everyone around me made this connection before. But I hadn't.

I am patient. I like to think it's a positive quality of my personality. But, my patience tends to roll over into being a push-over. And all of the men I have been with treated me as such. Many of them used me for their selfish advantages.

Before I start ranting on and on and give you the backstory of each of my relationships, I want you to know that I'm focusing on what ended the relationship, or what caused the downfall. It was selfishness.

But, it wasn't outright selfishness. It was narcism in disguise.

Every "break up" conversation from his side started off with an "I'm sorry". Then, he would give me a bunch of half-hearted reasons as to why things weren't working out. Finally, he would end with an "I'm doing this for me."

Don't get me wrong, I'm all about being there for yourself. Sometimes, we need to find out who we are as a person. That exploration can be muddled when you're pursuing something new.

But as I was letting the cereal digest and watching the ice form on my windows, I finally realized it. Many men of this generation are selfish. Selfish to the point of self-sabotage.

Within the last year, I've briefly and not-so-briefly dated three men. These were their break-up lines:

Man #1. "This is the year I start getting into my major. I feel like I need to figure myself out. I'm doing this for me. I need this."

Man #2. "I don't know what I was thinking. I shouldn't have tried to get into a relationship with someone right before I was headed back to school. I need to do this for me. I need to be able to figure myself out."

Man #3. "I've always felt trapped in Minnesota. I need to go to Arizona for me. I don't have time for you. I can't focus on a relationship right now. I need to focus on my life, my job, and my schooling, for me."

You might be reading this and thinking that I'm great at whining. I'm just a girl who's bitter, burnt out, or hurt over what once was. You might be thinking that I choose all the wrong guys; that I'm prone to "bad guys". But I'm none of those things.

All three of these men were different. All three came from different backgrounds, different states, were various ages, had various personalities, and different interests. Man #1 was shy to the nth degree. Man #3 was extremely outgoing. Man #2 was well-off. Man #3 worked a minimum-wage job and scraped by. Man #1 was an athlete at heart. Man #3 loved metal and Netflix. Every man was different... yet they all had one similar commodity.

They were selfish.

Each one asked himself, "what am I getting out of this? What's in it for me?"

Maybe I was intimate with them. Maybe I wasn't. Maybe I was the one with the car or the finances. Maybe I wasn't. The situations were different in each of the three relationships. So, I have a feeling that none of these factors influenced each man's decision.

They were selfish. That's the only way I can pinpoint the end of each relationship down.

I'm not saying that all men are dogs. I'm not even saying "To hell with men!" Although, a part of me understands that relationships weren't meant to be viewed with this mentality. The whole, "what's in it for me?" forefront is the exact opposite of what a relationship should be.

And that's where my conclusion stops. I've finally realized that many men of this age are egocentric... but I don't know what to do about it. I now know what I don't want in a relationship. Now, I can see the red flags clearly. But I'm unsure of where things are headed.

What I do know is that I won't settle for selfishness. I won't settle for a man who wants to know what he can "get" out of a relationship. I won't settle for a man who puts half of his heart into something and keeps the other half for himself.

I will wait for someone who is willing to ask himself what he can do for me... not what I can do for him. I will wait for someone who will put all of himself into a relationship. I will wait for someone who will leave his selfish mentality behind and put me first. I will wait.

Sure, no man is perfect. You might be thinking that I've put my standards too high. But I deserve high standards. I deserve to be looked at as rare, beautiful, and treasured. I wasn't meant to be cast to the side for selfish reasons; for "finding myself" or "doing this for me".

I was meant for more, and I won't settle for anything less.

words and feelings and actions and thoughts
tend to congeal together with time
my creative spontaneous quick thinking
cost me clock ticking

my age grows larger and I begin to rot
I watch people function domino effect
followed by theories directly speaking
Freud and other teachings

completely speaking
open unrevealing
doors and locks
with rooms crisply burnt
or merely dreaming

White walled rooms
recently inhabiting
night engines, dream catchers
conversations via phone-
the private type in a bedroom
alone
White walled rooms
now emptied by bodies
with strong meaty arms and legs

Quickly gotta move out quickly
gotta respond to this
good morning darling text
next work five and  half hours
running on 80 mg of battery power
I’m always dragging my tail

forging sagacious epoch
activating neural station
escaping hokey-pokey jiggery-pokery
transcribing ineffective fragments
digesting bear news

opposing usual exhaustion
deferring oxter reference
cascading style sheets
containing double readings
mumbling lorem ipsum
locating moose jaw

enforcing meticulous patterns
deconstructing vertical centering
manifesting additional destinies
deleting !important statement
craving sleep paralysis
receiving cryptozoological vibrations
lightning fast collapse

distracting tunnel vision
culling deadbeat sequentialists
overanalyzing twitter analytics
acquiring arbitrary relevance
spinning ping-pong sign

floccinaucinihilipilificating
floccinaucinihilipilificated
floccinaucinihilipilification

interjecting ****** holophrase
minifying conventional language
securing downpour refuge
admiring octopus chandelier
resuming party music
taking mental trip

encountering ersatz telesthesia
denigrating bygone grudges
maintaining elevated composure
ignoring neurotypical haters
eliciting cryptic emotions
foreshadowing triple crown?

experimenting acrostic restriction
noticing ubiquitous "threes"
aggrandizing loyal legion
favoring ursine narratives
finding oblique resilience
yielding orchestral undulations

I am the kind of person
Who has mental breakdowns in the line at subway
Decision making is difficult
Or maybe I'm just crazy
And I might be
Every day is unpredictable
Every day I wake up in the same body
A different person
People never believe me
But believe me when I say
I change on a daily basis
My mood is completely erratic
And always shifting
It is not desirable
To be this unstable
With the daily possibility of hurricane
And ever-present disaster
There is bound to be destruction
I think deeply about everything
Too much and too often
My personality is introverted
Yet I get upset when I'm alone for too long
Human contact is critical to my being
But sometimes I get upset if I am looked at the wrong way
I push people away
And then get mad when they don't come back
I don't make much sense at all
Really, I don't
Potato
I got a massage once
And cried for the whole 80 minutes
Because I had realized
I needed to pay someone to touch me for that long
It was still worth it
It's not normal
To fall apart this often
But I do
So often that it's become my daily routine
A repetition
Of overanalyzing
Freaking out
And then worrying
Followed by bouts of hysterical crying
I cry at the most irrelevant things
But never serious situations
I've been to two funerals in my life
And didn't cry at either
I didn't know how to
I am impulsive
I have seven tattoos
All of which were added within a span of three months
I make my decisions at the last minute
I'm addicted to netflix
I bawl my eyes out every time I watch lilo & stitch
Which is often
Sad music makes me depressed
But it's still the only thing I listen to
I say I hate hookups
And then spend a night with someone who will never speak to me again after
I look for love in all the wrong places
And then get ****** when I don't find it
Yell at happy couples because they are happy and I am not
I smoke cigarettes only because I like the smell of them
I drink too much
And then not enough
I look good some days and then like hell the next
My pillow has a permanent imprint of my head because I sleep a lot
Some nights I don't sleep at all
And then cry about it in the morning
I think I cry too much
And most days I realize this
I realize that I am
A mess
A whirlwind of ugly
Black and white
Back and forth
Thunder storm tidal waves
That constantly pick up and crash
A kaleidoscope of everything wrong in this world
All put together in one single being
I am the definition
Of insanity
But when you look at it
In the right perspective
I guess it starts to make sense
Starts to fold into something other than just breakage
I can't see the appeal in the chaos
I can't see the beauty
In any of this
But maybe someday
Someone will.

**** I'm so scared
and I'm so in love with you
but I don't have a **** clue
how I'm supposed to trust
that what we have is the thing
gushed about in movies,
and swooned over in novels.
How the hell does anyone decide
that they know with all certainty
and perfect clarity
that that one person
is their one person,
the one meant to be?
I notice little things that irk me,
rub my nerves until they fray
and I wonder, will those
be the things that bring about
the death of us?
Or am I overreacting, overanalyzing
every single moment that passes
because I'm just so ******* scared
of what the future could possibly be.
Because ****, am I scared  
But ****, am I in love with you.
And the biggest torture
of our relationship is,
I don't know which
of those parts of me will win.
Because no matter how much
I am in love with you,
****, am I scared.

We are separated
Like the sky and the earth

You are filled with potential that once felt like expectation
the ruggedness of a thousand wild stallions running to the course of their strong united heartbeats
and of the sweat and blood that you've merited your endeavors with

I am filled with ribbons of gentle caresses and a familiarity with the unnoticed weight long hair brings
determination like that of the tired
ceaseless tide that rises up again each morning
and of sweet and salty compulsions

We are separated
Like the Heavens and Earth

You are more than the smell of leather and Copenhagen
You are more than the litter of miscellaneous items next to an inevitable jar of change sitting on your wooden dresser
an exact replica of the Skaggs males' before you.
You are more than calloused hands and a beautiful voice that crawls out and harmonizes with cicadas in the heavy heat lingering into the August night.
You are more than the millions of melodies you've blessed us with
More than the far away look in your hazel eyes as you master your guitar
More than your hearty laugh that delights my soul
More than your kind spirit
More than your careful words
More than your wise wife
More than your delicate girl that I hear call me Aunt
But these things stack on top of one another
Like bricks of a building under construction
Beams of titanium not unlike a skeleton protude into the clouds
Ultimately creating the tower I will proudly claim as my older brother
Directing my acquaintances' attention to the structure that
in this moment
unfinished even
eclipses the sun
Casts a shadow over me
a cool blanket of security
I know the closer that I draw to you
the less I will see of the shambles of other buildings that never compared to you
My view of the misleading wooden structures behind you that will be set afire or deteriorate in the constant turning of gears in the clock of time
will be obscured by your sheer splendor

We are separated
Like the sky and the earth underneath me

And just like the two we are connected further down
The horizon
where we will meet is filled with bittersweet triumph painted in the oranges and pinks of the sunset
I turn and see the horizon behind me
where we began
in all of its plainess
Our childhood in a gray
Hillcrest Terrace
Friday night prayer
Denim and pattles
Oatmeal and cough drops
Iced tea and lilac bushes
All threaded neatly into the full drops of rain that fall from you to I
Connecting the ground and the sky
I turn back to the front and admire what I imagine it will be
Our children's loose teeth
and long cramped car rides
Porch swings and homeschool books
Owned land and old trees
Laughter and loyalty
Irony and victory

We are separated
Like the sky and the ground

But we run in the same direction
not interrupting the others' path
I was not there with you when you let the heaviness of the thoughts in your head fall into your awaiting hands as your shoulders shook
Every ragged breath tinged with cheap whiskey
But I have followed suit of my own accord
I was not there with you when you questioned your very identity until you wondered if you would  recognize yourself if he called you by name
But I may have been caught contemplating the same
I was not there with you when you were overanalyzing one of our sisters' new boyfriend's character and gauging his deservingness
But I often did exactly that
And I was not there with you when you fell in love with your beautiful lady and decided to make her yours
But I was praying for it to be her

An endless fire burns inside me
Searching for
courage I won't have
and words I can't find
Until I can heat you with these flames
I will continue to look at you while you are preoccupied and let the words choke in my neck as reverence floods me for this man who
like his father
remains oblivious to his massive impact and priceless company

Poorly-contained ball of anxiety
Anxiety
Overanalyzing every interaction
Interaction

I'll tell you something sweet
Sweet

Write down
antidotes
and compliments
and silly jokes
on sticky notes

Scattered
along the floor
on the wall
in the car

I'll tell you something sweet
Sweet

I wish I was good at being myself
I spend my day overanalyzing videos, trying to understand what everyone does and I don’t
I try to find new ways of being myself while looking into others

I wish I was good at being a girl
Good at keeping my hair brushed
Good at keeping myself beautiful and available

I wish I could stop
Stop dreaming of running away
I wish I could stop feeling rage in every finger, it hurts to touch the ones I love with so much scorn in my hands
I wish I could be here without wishing to be there and away from where I am
I wish I could stop
Stop the madness in my head, the run on sentences that sprint laps around the person standing infant of me

I think thats why I’m bad at being a girl
I'm not the good kind of girl
Not the kind of girl who loves, I obsess
Not the kind of girl who savors life, I just try everything at once
The kind who runs when she needs to rest
I wish I could stop and simply be a girl