At seventeen, bright eyed, and naive to  what love really meant spelled out, I met you

We spent long summer nights cruisin' in a car that lifted us up as high as our expectations and as low as our heart breaks, all with the flip of a switch.

Love songs playing so loud through the speakers, we couldn't hear anything but the words our soft caresses spoke to eachothers skin

We lied awake through many nights with ruffled hair and wrinkled sheets, taking turns watching eachother sleep

I snuck in lines of poetry at bedside, wondering how I managed to live without ever feeling this way before

I was so in awe of the waves crashing I don't think I ever saw the riptide coming, suddenly they were my tears pounding the shore

I still have nightmares of the Bobby pins the part of you I couldn't fill, felt the need to leave between the sheets

Like a good queen I stood by you, and I surrendered myself and self esteem so that you could stand tall for the world to see

Bracing myself for the collision, wrists outstretched in front of me, I told myself that I would fall for you

And I did

Over and over, 7 years later I still fall for you. With each day break and each sunset I fall for the image of the future I engrained in my mind at 17

Our love is without question, not a single soul that has seen your reflection in my eyes, or mine dancing in yours could refute it

Call it fate, serendipity, call it naive call it stupidity. I met you at seventeen, and still believe you are the one for me

I could write a Haiku for you
Even a poem titled "100 reasons why"
I could fill endless marble notebooks
And I wouldn't even have to try
I could find obscene amounts of synonyms
To describe the way I feel when I'm around you.
I could use metaphors and imagery, painting pictures that astound you.
Although I'm not quite so certain, about those hyperboles
I find it hard to think I could overstate, the resounding power you have over me.

Has your heart ever screamed so loud, the rest of the world went silent?
A flashbang in your ears, like a love lost that left you blinded?

I'm winded.

Have you ever run so fast, wondering if it's in the right direction.
Scared of the potential of a real love, of a gods honest connection?

He left me branded

Taken for granted, I realize now that self love has to be self taught.
That confidence and happiness are a pursuit of self I never sought.

I could hear a pin drop

Like the other shoe in a relationship I thought would last a lifetime.
Like the expectations I had for a young love that had a short lifeline.

I lay in a mind field

Trespassing on grenade filled lands, full of bitter broken hearted remarks
Attempting to close a chapter in a life, I don't even remember wanting to start

I intimidate myself

This women in the mirror, she doesn't look like the meek, "take what I can get" girl i used to be.
Wishbone turned to back bone, she stands *****, chest swelled with pride as she looks down on me.

I want to be my mother's daughter

I received two of my life's biggest blessings on the same day.
Taking equal space in my heart sharing everything but their own names.

It's all for them

This uncharted journey, risk and all, to keep those bashful smiles on their faces.
Like mother like daughter, they'll know that they are going places

It's not foreign to me

Being last on the list of people I need to take care of in my mind.
At least I know wholeheartedly it will be worth it this time.

The are the fight in me

They are the lesson for the self love i taught myself.
They will know to love themselves before loving anyone else.

It's quiet

The whole world goes silent when their blue eyes land on me.
I will thank them everyday for the women they helped me find in me.

Your lips tracing every bone as if to paint a picture.

Etching it into your sultry mind so you never forget the way I feel.

Adding color to your masterpiece making me blush from the shivers you so intentionally send up my spine.

Out of the corner of my eye, watching your gaze shift from arching back to clenched fingertips.

Knowing all too well how hard I try to keep your name from escaping my kissed raw lips.

I can only hope I never have to live without this feeling.

As it is almost unbearable to feel your touch retreat as the alarm rings just as the sun begins to rise.

Both of our minds and lips alike, escaping only a word, but one that holds all of the power in the world.

"Tonight"

I thought of you this evening
heart tethered to the ceiling
fingers teasing the hem of your dress
our stolen names
our clumsy address

Thought of you on Parliament Square
holding a clipboard
and shouting in the rain
tied a ribbon to your hair
with a silver paper crane

Thought of you with innocence
thought of you with ***
all the miserable spaces in between
the collisions we forget

I thought of you this evening
by the milky blindness moon
argued on the cause of death
agreed it came too son

Thought of you this afternoon
thought of leaving too
this artless life
I lie beside
in the wake of you

Thought of you and all the thieves
that chanced upon my way
I never counted you among them
I still love you to this day

I thought of you this evening
eyes tethered to the ceiling
numb and dense with pills and regret
you taught me the art of forgiving
even when I could not forget

Terrified to rest my eyes
I'm being suffocated by reality.
These days have worn and run me down
They couldn't take much more out of me.