I long dreamed about what it'd be like to have my flowers plucked by you.
Now I'm realizing that your touch was not a pluck
Quite the opposite, actually.
You sewed your seed and it was there that Love grew.

How sweet it is when dreams manifest

Can't stop thinking about that magical forever,
when you marched into my Garden
and planted your heart
          in the center of my universe
Where it beat
And beat
And beat
Inside of me.
And it fit so perfectly
As if it were mine all along
As if it belonged...

Finally starting to hear and listen
There's only one right way for me to take.
My own.
               Letting go
of dreams
                   that involve me forcing  .
Never gonna be
                                   150
                                  again.
No matter how
                         Ideal
It may seem.
            That was what was right for then,

Consistency
Has never
Been key to trajectory
No matter how bad
I think
I wanna
                              be smaller,
I will never fit into those jeans
                                Again.
Into that box
Again.
         Into categories that have me mad that the orange isn't red as red as the apple
               When it was never meant to be.

Wondering when I'll accept that...
I'll never be
                            150 again.

Today I learned a sad story
About my family.
The closest family on this side of the Mississippi
There were guns and violent words, punches and anger and unthinkable almosts.
I wonder how people who love eachother so fiercely, can be brought so low. Lower than any mind could imagine.
I wonder how cousins, who are more like brothers, could come to blows,
Battling mutual pain that stabs deeper than any heart could imagine.
Battling each other instead of loving each other.
Today I learned a story of depression, anger, sadness, jealousy, resentment, skeletons,
People who are held up so high, and given no cushion in the untimely event of a fall.
I know how it feels to be expected to be the model one, the perfect one.
I know how it feels to crack under that pressure.
What an unconveyable feeling.
Today I learned a story of heartache and pain.
Today my heart aches for my family.
We've lost so much that I think we're struggling to see all that we have left.
Each other.

I've been missing you so much lately and initially these desperate feelings were dripping in shame. I felt embarrassed to see your name in every 'L' in sight, and to think of you when all of my duties of the day were over and my mind was roaming free at night.
Feelings forbidden, I know better than to reminisce and fantasize. I learned long ago that hope was just a comfy lie. I learned long ago that We were just a random time in both of our lives. A defective tree that would never bloom, no matter how much the rain fell and the sun shined...
there'd never be any fruit.
I know so much, I've grown so much, but still sometimes I can't help but wonder.
What if?
What if things would have worked out if I would've just stuck it out and gave you the benefit of the doubt? Being a man is hard, finding yourself is hard, life is hard. So many things that come between who you wanna be and who you are. So many questions. I know.
Being adopted is hard sometimes, I bet.
What if my patience hadn't run out and I wouldn't have run away...
I still paint you in my future, like I'm saving your place in line in my life because you have to come back.
I need you here.
I need to feel you again.
So many unanswered questions.
Who will I share my forever with?
Who will I smolder in passion with until I can't take more so I lay entangled (with you) overdosed on love and life and happiness?
How do I explain in my dreams to our [4] babies that they'll never have my nose, or your love for shoes, or my temperament and intelligence, because they will never be....
How do I silence the memories and restore my sanity.
How do I go on, officially, and finally, without you who is my happily ever.
How many poems until I really feel better.
If I could write you back into my life I'd pen all night, but no amount of rhymes and feelings and stanzas will give me what I want more than anything. You.
The thought of you doing it all again [but getting it right this time] with some other woman is enough to make me sick inside, so I don't think that thought too often. I know you're bound to someone else and probably me too. But...I still love you. Im still human.

You were born today
And I'm thankful for God's amazing capacity to create.
But I know that just as God giveth, God also  taketh away.
I know that just as love blooms, love also withers away.
But regardless of trajectories and destinies and fates
I'm so glad You were born today.

now that I've seen all of your sides, I have a decision to make
I could love you for the man you are
...and the man you aren't,
or I could gather my love and walk away.
learning to accept that you are you and could never be who I want you to be
--made you even more beautiful to me.
Because here I am, knee deep in you
       and you knee deep in me
I tread through your dimensions, and with every hardship we survive,
I  learn to love you a little bit different.