I wish to age like a wrap-around porch
In a thunder storm,
While generations tell tales,
Sipping drinks.
A porch of blinking stars,
A shelter out of rain,
With ascending and descending friends.

I will age like a tree,
Grow stronger in the wind;
Give shade and shelter to all
Beneath my ring-aged limbs.

I wish to age as a river bends,
Contiguous with all shores;
Floating everyone I know
On eternal waters,
A current winding with no rest.

I will age like a star,
Burning bright, giving light,
Something to reach for.

I wish to age like a mountain,
With secret caves and riches.
And you can rock your soul
Around, over or through,
Solid, snow-capped summit,
Beckoning you.

I will age as the moon,
In stages, full and new;
Each night different,
Unnoticeable fading,
As all who age will do.

Don't judge me by my looks
And don't read me by the books
I am brash and I am kind
I am hard to define
I am bold. I am shy
I am grounded, but I fly
I love, and I give
I cradle, I forgive
Though soft I may feel
I am thunder, I am steel
I am smiles and I am laughter
I am happily ever after
I am tears and I am ache
I am a mess when I break
I hold tightly, but I know
When it's time to let go
I am dove, I am hawk
I am the rose and the rock
I am rain. I am sun
I am I. I am woman



Thank you all so much **

She treats grace as an abhorred enemy.

Resisting has become a place she’s grown to love.

She longs for freedom forgetting that it’s already hers.

Ensnared by phantoms

albeit,

she knows
In having nothing, she possesses everything.

Her shield is refined by aberrant foibles.

Scarred, yet covered in the Only perfect love

She’s

flawed, but good.

+ crowned saint

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because the last time I opened up to someone artistically they told me it was pretty dark and I should keep it to myself.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because I was raised in a culture that was anti love and pro meaningless ***. I saw endless commercials about movies that glamorize a lifestyle in which your body is fulfilled but your heart is ignored and at that impressionable age I learned my heart came second but my allure came first and the less I cared that happier I would be and I carried that belief around with me the way I used to carry around a Bible as a child.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because of the time that I opened my father’s phone to reveal a family secret I would hold to this day against my own moral instincts unraveling miles of insecurities wondering if I’m not a good enough daughter or if he stopped loving my mother or if true love was never real and although I had been taught marriage was my purpose, it was what I believed would make me happy, maybe rings aren’t enough to stay in love and maybe people’s feelings change and maybe no one actually has a “one true love” and that this purpose I had been taught was really an endless wild goose chase that only lead to broken families and lost souls.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because sometimes I still wonder why I fell into an abyss of toxicity at such a young age. And when I say wonder I don’t mean a trivial ponder, I mean I contemplate every possible reason why the person who I once believed held the universe in her eyes would lie to my face, why she never kissed me in public and our love was always a secret, why she valued girls with blue hair but my blonde hair was not good enough, why I had to hide bruises from my family when I was still in high school or more importantly, why at the time, I thought I deserved them. These thoughts, this lingering paranoia that I am undeserving of healthy love, they muddy my interpretations of real life and distort reality and effect my relationships. My doctor would call these intrusive thoughts, my best friend would tell me they’re symptoms of PTSD, but I have come to realize that I’ve been burned and I am damaged and I hope to god I can recover.

But you,
Oh god, you
You can write this poem. You can be my safety net while I’m free falling in love. You can be the one to listen to my mental tilt-a-whirls, you can be the one that introduces my body and my heart, you can be the one that calms the storms in my mind when I’m questioning the love I’m deserving of. You are the one who makes sure I fall asleep in my bed after drunk nights, you are the one that still sees my value after acknowledging my flaws.
You can write this poem.

We are watching the clouds
bandage an incarnadine sky,

we are practicing our best knots,
weaving an army of tourniquets,

we are slow-dancing
barefoot on the edge
of a razor.

We are watching
a demolition derby
in the driving rain,

the smell of motor oil
mixing with gasoline,

the hard melancholy
of dying machines.

We are waltzing from room to room,
smearing our names on the floor,

we are keeping time to slow music,
bleeding out behind closed doors.