It is only 50°
But I left my windows down
I want to feel the cold air whipping
In my hair
Like your hands
And the air smells like fresh cut grass
It is refreshing, crisp
I feel safe
I want to remember the words
“The strength to carry you”
Advertised across a long haul truck
Speeding by me
And this time last year
I would have thought to carry you
To make you love me a little longer
But now, this year, look how far I’ve come
With arms growing so strong
From the weight of me
I had the strength to carry me
And I made it here
The sky is gray today and I almost wore the shirt you loved
I changed quickly
Tugging it over me, like you once did
This time though, this time I thought
I want to keep me in love with me
Nothings going to hurt me baby

I have dreamt all my life that I would create a space full of love and light
And sometimes I feel only the darkness of it all
Like maybe this is where it all ends and begins
Begins and ends

I wake from that thought
I wake from the moment
In between dreams
The moment that taught me
Love is fleeting
In all forms, love is fleeting
No matter how soft and lovely,
Darkness lingers in the distance
No matter how soft and lovely
We can fall into the dark

But in the dark I have grown
And no matter how much they tell me that darkness lingers
I will let not let darkness win
Because I have this beautiful heart
That created this beautiful life
Full of love and light

I have come to know myself best as one.

Just me, with no one to speak to, other than maybe the waiter who remembers my order.

I think about the things I remember about people. It isn’t always, or usually, their name.

But maybe that’s okay because in all ways possible, I remember who they are and that alone give names to them.

I think that’s why being accompanied by just me, no one to hold but me...I am at my best.

Because I am learning me.
I am naming myself.
I am riding this lesson all the way through.

I watched a documentary about monogamy last night. Then I laid in bed and drank wine and almost shouted “I love you” to a man. I said it in my head and in my heart and I let it whisper below my lungs, if that’s even how anatomy works.

Either way, I let love **** me up.

He was crying into sheets as I rubbed his hair and asked whatever God there is, if this love could last my whole entire life. But I think he was not crying over me. The room was hot and full of honest words that I wasn’t thrusting into him like my tongue in his mouth. When I fell asleep, I dreamt about all the ways I’ve found myself and lost myself in so many men. I dreamt about how I’ve let love **** me up, over and over again. And somehow I woke up laying naked with a loveless man on sheets that still had me all over them.

I am softened at my core
Not being touched the right way
Long forgotten
Bruised by something that was supposed to be love
The taste of you is ripe in my mouth
Did your fingers leave this mark
Or is it pieces of us seeping out of me
Like sweet juice that used to drip from my fingertips
Nothing here could grow
Nothing good
Not even in the heat of the summer sun
When I am hungry for love
The orange, yellow dream of love
That could have been
Should have been
I have long buried our dead seeds in the earth
You can bite right into the center of a sweet peach
But I won’t let you turn me rotten
Everything dies, everything dies
Even the purple, blue ache of my heart

I am no angel when it comes to loving right
I have gone to hell and back just to forget
How good we could have been
“But I love you, I love you...so much”

The sky stayed blue
And your face never lost color
Like my world did

And my god, how heavenly it felt
To feel your breath move
Inward and outward

But my god how heavenly it felt
To feel my pain move through me
Reminding me
That even a brief love
Is enough love

                                                             s.a

I was always captivated by the stranger beside me,
More so than the blue skies I ached for
Because no matter how much sangria I swallowed, sitting across the table from you
The blue of love felt like butterflies doing the breast stroke inside of me
You turned me into an animal, excited and hungry, you turned me into The Wounded Deer by Frida Kahlo
You were my world and I was shot through the heart, but my heart is so big, like Texas
Maybe I should turn on the moon and you could help me see through this darkness...
You said there is only one way in and one way out and the road is blocked
Brick by brick by brick,
Your walls have come into fruition
And despite every effort to erase the anguish painted inside of my bones,
Alas I could not but try each day
To be a vision of strength,
A strength illuminated only by the dim light of the moon, a blue moon,
Resting in a sky so big
That even the brightest stars are strangers

When you took me to the sea
I melted into you, like wax
All the waves dried up
And the mountains started moving

I think you thought you were
Some type of God
And I think I thought the same
Because even when the seasons changed
You never went away
At least not inside of my heart,
Which is where they tell you God stays

I prayed to whatever I was worshipping
That you’d live in me
Just one more day
Because letting you make a home
In every tiny corner
Felt better than saying
I needed you to go

If I go to the only place
Our love ever existed
I would be casting shadows
Across your skin
Finding freckles with my fingertips

You'd breathe the only breath you had left
You'd shake the dust off your bones,
Button up, turn your lights off
And my shadows would fade

Like the freckles
You would no longer let me connect
There would be no love left to make
There would be no more love left inside of you

You are skin and bones
And I am trying to keep you alive
But you only exist without me

August burned slow
The sun clung to every branch, every petal
To every moment left in this old life
I couldn't hold on to each ray
Each moment, each day

None of the moments I stood in would stay
They lived in a leaving town
And all the little homes had locked up their doors

These moments were fleeting
And held grace in their hands
They tried to make her mine
But she had places to be that weren't me

The sun started setting
And the sky peeled back my pieces
Like the skin of something sweet  
Broken memories
Falling like ash around my feet

August had burned up
And so did everything after

If you're in a small crowded room
Full of nameless faces
Looking for praise
You won't find some kind of God
Shouting your name

Cross your heart
And
Close your eyes
Everything you wish
Never really dies

Don't fear loss
Don't fear love  
Behind closed doors you used to be
Now you're blooming wild and free
Looking for weeds
And watering them too

You're in a small crowded room
No one shouting your name
Leave fingerprints on the window
So that when your heart beats fast
You'll see flowers at last

And if you ever don't know
How close we are
Look where the sky meets the sea...
Close your eyes
And there I'll be

I got lost somewhere
In the thought of you
And I
And time
And healing...
I wished for the days to move
I wanted them to run away fast
I craved you
My thoughts burned holes in my heart
It became the only thing,
It was all I knew
I let love fall through every little break in the seams,
In the empty spots designed for you...
I wish I could have gone back
To where you left me in the dust
In the places where I could leave footprints,
In the lost days where I moved too fast
I wish I could fill the holes you left,
Sew the seams shut

I left the flowers in the vase
To die and go away

The flowers have died
The flowers won't go
                                          
I left the flowers in the vase
That's where they were when you left

If I could hang from the moon  
I'd swing through every constellation
Like the ropes we cling onto tightly in the middle of summer

We soak in the icy river water
While the sun freckles stars across our skin
And I want to tell you...

Dip your fingers into the sky
This whole world is yours

I am face up
Warm air floating all over me
Waiting for the earth to dim
So I can see your sparks
In the flame we've been burning

"Over there," you say pointing to the west
Cool air sinking in around us
I don't see a sky
It's the moon, it's in your eyes

I'd like you to learn me
Learn me,
Like my eyes are ten and two
Learn me,
Like my hands are the compass pointing home
Learn my heart,
Like love is all we have

Life is not always big
We are all here
Small
And drifting
Figuring it out
Loving and hurting
Leaving and healing

I love you
I love you
I love you

I am sinking into you
Like the moon setting
Sweet dreams

You say with your hands on me
We are drifting into one another
All is warm and right on this night
All is warm and right
And I am loving you

Sunrise comes
You are sinking into me
Like the earth spinning
We are dancing under morning light
And I am loving you
I am loving you

Waves - what were they like when you were with him?

Sunrises - did you love them?

Sunsets - did you prefer them?

Arms - who kept you warm in theirs?

Earth - where did you want to be?

Life - how full does love make it?

Time - where are you now?

In my alone I have created everything I am
I have turned myself into my own god
A god
With lines in her thighs
And bags under her eyes
Tangled hair like the webs she weaved

I am my own god
With a fire in my soul
A fire in my soul
And in my alone I have not forgotten
Who I am
Who I was
Who I became

Beause what has burned in me
Fiercely
Is dancing like embers
I am my own
Oh my god
I am my own

Have you ever felt your identity shrink?
It comes and goes
Like a thief in the night

Withering away each time
Another one removes your shirt, your pants
"Shh don't stop"
It is you in this room
Alone

He is stripping you bare
He tells you you're good with your mouth
They all do
But they never listen to you speak

I swear you were all just a spark
In the flame I've been keeping
And
I swore to all of the holy things in my heart
That I would not let you burn me
And
I am brighter now
You cannot keep me in the dark
--
Dust to dust
Ashes to...
The flicker of me
Leaving you be

Do you ever wish you could be a flower?
Something that people only see beauty in
I think if I could choose
I would remain as I am
A flawed and imperfect example
That this world can be cruel
And we still survive...

Because
Even the flowers die

Sugar, salt, and all of the old pain
I put them in the bottles of wine you'd leave behind
You used to say that I made you feel like cinnamon and honey
My kisses soft as velvet
Fingertips like drip coffee brewing in your bones
I was the poet
But I found salvation in your words
You spoke freely and eloquently,
Like the way your mouth moved all the way down to the tips of my toes

My language is the sea and you took me closer
Where you could add salt to all of my wounds
And I thought, pick flowers and he will see the sweetness in you
But you never saw the sweetness in me
Even when you called me sugar
Even when I was the honey that made your cinnamon sweeter
You said I was like coffee, but that was before you made me bitter

I picked flowers by the sea today
Sea glass crackling beneath me
A remedy crackling inside me
Sugar and salt and the sea,
I made a boat out of your bottles
And let them take the pain away.

I could go to bed with him
But my heart would still be aching
And I could try to write words about him
But my heart would still be aching
Instead of you, I could choose him
But my aching heart
Aches for you

As a little girl
I wondered about God and love
And if they were one in the same

But God took shape
In other ways
She was nothing I had been taught

God became me
I grew holier with age & each year
My grace was lessened by
Him or him
Or him
My God was becoming
A man who had no idea how to love me
I saw God inside his evil eyes
And I thought that God
Was not love at all
Love was not supposed to leave
But he left
And I faced myself
I found her, I found God
Inside my pretty eyes
And it was love.

If you took dirt and leaves
River water, old dust on books,
Tears, bold coffee, mossy green,
Yellow love,
And all of the questions
On life and love and maybe even God and pain and whatever makes you
wonder why you end up in a bed alone with him
Or why he ended up here with you;
Fear, aches, wasted time,
Lavender, dusk, another one...another
Shake all of this up with sunsets, hope, failure, cravings, light, a list of things you never put your faith into...
It makes you into this person who has done wrong and loved gentle and loved hard...
Became soft, rooted herself
Became fire from water
Shouted thank you's to loneliness and cheersed a sky raining down
Stood tall and held her own

Putting up walls
makes a house
a home

Until you find homes
inside people
and people
make homes
out of you...

Small things make me
They bring me closure
Small things close in on me...
They hold me tight
And keep me warm

Small things make me
They take my breath away
Small things have less doors,
Less room for baggage and pain

Small things are hometowns
With no room to grown
Small things bring you suitcases full
Of old love and whiskey and bad love
That you start to miss
Small things are all of the things
You want to take back, relive, redo,
Small things are too small for you
And all that you deserve
Small things are small because
You are an incredibly big thing

Things that make life soft and beautiful, things that make me soft and beautiful, things that steal away unkempt regret, things that tuck you in, things that make you love lightly; in yellow, things that bring up past hopes and gift them like a present; present hopes, things that shine, things that are disheveled in your madness, things that rub your aches away; warm fingertips, things that are blue: not you, things that curve, things that beat, things that love in sorrow, things that love in rejoice, things that make you soft, things that make you tough, things that make you beautiful, things that make you weak, things that move mountains or things that grow them; superfluously, things that make you, things that make you, all of the things that make you.

You are a mountain
I am not
You climbed up
Alone
You made yourself a mountain
And you never needed me along the way
But here I am
Alone
Making my way
I started out, searching for you
Seeing a mountain
So big and so bold
So far in the distance
The closer I got
The smaller you became...
I wasn't getting any closer to you
I was getting bigger than you
I was just becoming my own mountain

I stopped in my tracks
I stopped at your door
"Welcome," it said
Funny...I thought

Love is not welcome
When a door has closed
Or is it?

I could knock
I could ring
I could run
But all I did was
Look at what said
"Welcome"
And wonder if you
Would say the same

There is a valley in my heart,
It is golden
Yellow enough to feel like summer
But the grass is frosted
Masked in cold, in white...
Tipped in cold, in white...
It doesn't take much for the sun to set
But it takes work for it to rise
It takes tattered notes
Filled with hopes
And wishes on lucky pennies
Later, I fall with the sun
I close my eyes
Here I can feel echoes in the valley
The valley is two mountains
Side by side & empty inside
I think you once called us love
Without substance
Not like yellow, like empty spaces
And cold whites
The valley is not a thing but a
Hole in me
Making you whole.

And I love you
And I love you
And I know that it's wild
And I know you don't always feel this too
But I see you and I see you
And I only see you
And I know you think I'm acting a fool
And I know you never said that
But I see you and I see you
And when I see you,
I see you later and I see you then
And it starts when I see you now
I see you later
And when I love you now
I love you later
Because even with the if's
And even with the and's
And even when your love is not now
And if your love is not later
I'll feel it even when you don't
And I'll love you
And I'll love you.

I imagine us
In places we have
Never seen
Surrounded by
Mountains and trees
And long lost love
That you waited to give me

But I'll take it
Because here we are
In a home
With black cups of coffee
And sunsets
In our soul

Our days are not over
Our days are not numbered
Our days are not measured
By a setting sun

I have love I need you to have
And to keep
And I want you to know
That this love climbs mountains
For you

We were young
Okay maybe not much younger
Than we are now
I am twenty two and you are too

This is us currently
Our commanilty
And I wonder,
If I was different

Would you love me like I love you?

But **** these questions
And **** your walls!

Remember me now
22
In love with you

And when we are older
And the lights are going down
Maybe you'll be my side

Or maybe you'll be saying
**** my walls
And **** all of these no's
And you'll be thinking
About twenty two
"I love you like you loved me
But it got so dark in here
And I wish we were 22, too."

I wanted to tell you
In the most poetic way

But you know me,
You know I could never be
A poet out loud

Because when I write
I am sloppy
And when I speak
I am sloppier

My feelings require too much
Depth
To ever be a poet
With my mouth

And with fear in my heart
Shaking palms and
Weak knees and
Every dream of what we could be

I am no poet, in your presence
I am simply aware
Of you
Aware of your ocean eyes
And your laugh that echoes for miles

I am aware
That I could speak to you
In a way that I write
And it would not change
The motionless movements I feel
When you tell me
Your feelings for me
Are not equal
To mine for you

I am aware
That I will never be
A poet with my mouth
But with my love.

If it wasn't almost 2016, I would call you on your house phone from my corded phone in my kitchen, we'd chat quickly as to not rack up my phone bill, we would make dinner plans and call it good.

But it is almost 2016 and I'm actually looking at your Facebook and your girlfriends Instagram and I'm laughing / crying over the gag worthy photos she has you featured in.

If it wasn't almost 2016, I wouldn't even know you had a girlfriend and I wouldn't have tried to save the poor girl from your ***** lying ways.

But it is almost 2016, and when Snapchat helped me find out you had a girlfriend while still trying to **** me, I DID try to save the poor girl from your ***** lying ways. You told me not to say anything more, but I had to stop this because I know the feeling of a heartbreak like the one you were about to cause her.

If it wasn't almost 2016, I wouldn't have access to every social media platform that allows me to see every single detail of your life. I wouldn't be driving myself crazy with questions and no answers.

But it is almost 2016, and I get to watch your life unfold with someone else and wonder why I came in last, still no answers.

If it wasn't almost 2016, forget tinder and my quirky bio with the 6 best photos I've ever taken, you'd call me on my corded phone because you actually knew IRL how fun and quirky I am and you'd already have seen me in all my green eyed, beautiful brunette glory.

It is almost 2016 and that means I am just another girl that you aren't looking for something serious with because you're a boy in his early 20s craving freedom. Instead you send me ***** text messages because you're a boy in his early 20s and you met me on Tinder. I am a girl in my early 20s and when you met me on Tinder, you assumed I wanted less than a relationship and a little more than a "hey how are you?" convo.

If it wasn't almost 2016, you wouldn't have detailed all the ways you would make me feel good because would you ever really say those things to my ******* face?

But it is almost 2016, and you didn't say any of those things to my ******* face, you said it beneath the unsolicited picture of you naked in your bathroom mirror and you even added that ******* emoji with the sunglasses, like what you were doing to me was actually super cool.

If it wasn't almost 2016, I wouldn't have known that you were feeding lies to me on a silver platter, I would have gorged myself on your tasty sweet nothings.

But it is almost 2016, and I am starving myself of something worthy and filling because I can't stop reading the tasty sweet nothings you are feeding her.

It is almost 2016 and I wish I could have said ******* to your two timing face instead of via text message.

*******, again and again and again.

I was in the middle of some move
...you taught me
Something about right to the core
And my head was pounding
But I had to give a good one
Just one more, once more
How were you to know that once mores have always been my weakness?
With conversations and drinks
And minutes and moments with you
I stopped in the middle of my once more
Because I wanted to tell you about this
I needed to tell you that once mores don't mean anything anymore
Unless you're the one
The last one
My once
My more

Last night
In a dream
You said
"Would you like to get out of your comfort zone?"
And this morning
I woke up
From that dream
I thought
When should I tell him
He is my comfort zone
And I never want to leave

I spent the day wishing
To go back to sleep
To go back to that dream
Because last night
I woke
Before you told me
What you meant
By the outside of my comfort zone
And I am waiting
For my eyes to doze off
For you to tell me
Where my comfort zone isn't
So that I can say
In a sentence designed only for you
"You are my comfort zone."

And now it is the night after last
And my mind is painting
A warm safe place
The brushes are soft,
The blues are fading
Brighter tones are splashed across my tattered canvas
I was going to call my dreams museums
But I think I owe you more
Than hanging on the walls
And hours of operation
My dreams are not always
Cathedrals painted on ceilings
But you are always
My comfort zone

1:26 am
My eyes are burning
Can't sleep
Can't think
But you're still there
Back of my mind
All of the time
1:27 am
Floor to ceiling
I'm down here
You're up there
I can't take the stairs
That would be the hard way out
1:28 am
I could crush the place down  
Take the easy route
1:29 am
But how
Do I know what to say
When you've watered me
To the ground
1:30 am
And how the **** do I stay
Mad
When you're only
Begging me to blossom
1:31 am
I love you
For taking my heart
And planting it in your garden
1:32 am
I love you still
For letting me grow
1:33 am
But my eyes are burning still
Because what do we have to show?

I want you to know that
Even though
Things didn't work out
Between the two of us,
I am okay
I always have been
And I always I will be
Because I do not need you to complete me.