When I was young,  school was my place. As an awkward oddity I found solace in words and reading.

Wasn't long 'til I was being called brilliant. Those days were some of the few times in my childhood life I felt strong and confident and worth something.

I was sent to an advanced school. I ate books like candy. I had a passion for knowledge and wisdom.

So what happened?

As my head got cloudier, I fell more and more behind. Well, behind for me. I was still an AP kid, so nerdy and there. But I was also quiet and, for AP, pretty average.

I stopped excelling in sciences and math as much as I used to. Everything got so much blurrier around then. As my head got more and more uncontrollable, the less brilliant I became. And the more I hated myself for it.

I could barely take time to feel everything but the raging inferno of emotions that was slowly taking over my life. I had learned to lie too well about it, so well that it was nearly my entire being by the time I finally got to stopping it.

For years I had to accept going from brilliant to average, and I accepted it as just my place. That I excelled in youth but dropped off and being good at writing would be my last, final brilliancy.

Then, nearly a decade after things began to go nuclear,  my head began to cool.

I sometimes fear how clear everything feels, how the touch of my fingertips on my keyboard still feel beautiful but in a less insatiable way. How the sky is blue and everything makes sense and how my mind craves to know more and more.

I am excelling. I am standing in front of classes that I am clearly not as qualified for and doing well. And, by god, the whole beauty of it is that doing well does not correlate to this buzzing going on in the back of my head as if its about to explode. I just feel it. This energy coursing through me that loves to know and remember and learn and do everything in my power to make everything I do wonderful. Its like magic but I know its not, its me. I didn't know "me" could be brilliant anymore. I was nearly certain "me" couldn't. I was a writer, and I was content.

But now there's this thing inside me I haven't felt in years, that has two wide eyes and wants to feel the world. Its curious and strong. I didn't think I was that strong either. I thought I just knew emotions and pretty words.

I sit here, though, and I am brilliant. It feels so arrogant and cocky to say, but I'm me again. I'm the little girl who got lost in the fire, but I thought she burned and died.

Yet as my head finally cools and the ashes fall, she reemerges and she's like some unbelievable phoenix inside my soul.

I thought I had to accept I could never be anything like the brilliant little girl that got swallowed by a monster inside of her. That I had to accept losses like I accepted losing everything I loved in my life for 18 years.

But I don't have to lose everything. I don't have to assume all that is lost is gone.

I am reading, and I am learning, and I am growing. There is this new growth in the old, weathered forests of my consciousness. It didn't have to resign to its ways, it can be anything. I can be anything.

Because finally, after years of forgetting, I am brilliant.

You are what makes them brilliant
Without your brilliant self on my mind
I would not be able to write brilliance

I don't think I could acheive all my dreams if it weren't for you, The one I never expected. I would have feebly fought for them, pined for them, but I don't think I could have gotten myself to a place where I could get them on my fingertips.

I'm going to be an author. I finished a novel, I pushed past my wandering imagination and uncertainty because you made it easier to feel my bones. To do the things that are like breathing for me.

I have a lot of worry in my heart, I always have. I worry about not being good enough or going crazy or about your safety or about the future. I don't know if I've gone madder, but on the precipice of loneliness I am not terrified. I am only wishing us both the best.

I won't see you for four months. Alone that fact makes me miss you already. But I'm not scared about it. You want to build a life with me, and you of all people don't take statements like that lightly. You may be far away but you aren't leaving.

This is a time for both of us to get ready to be the people we want to be. You get to start getting your dreams together. I'm sure as hell going to do the same thing. I cannot wait to show you with my eager little smile how far I'll come in those months. I hope I floor you. I hope you'll love me more than ever. I'm sure I'll feel that way about you.

I don't think I'll ever be that girl who feels releived or settled about being married to the well-off, wicked smart guy. If anything your intelligence makes me feel I need to keep on pushing. I want to be just as rafiant and brilliant by your side, not seem like the lucky trophy wife with the ****.

This summer will grow us. I hate to have us grow so much apart, but its how it is and we, ever adaptable and strong, will manage. I'm sure skype will be our ally.

But only with you, and I hope you feel similar with me, that we can be this grand together and have the sort of life that we could only dream of. We can have a life that neither of us never realized could be so insane and wonderful all at once without the other. I don't think I've ever been a better version of myself than I have with you. I'm stronger and I'm responsible and I'm willing to do stupid, crazy things to work towards all my hopes and dreams come true. I'm still so crazy but it doesn't matter to you. God, I ******* love you.

I cannot wait for the grand together life we will have. Only a few whiles until we get there. One summer, then some time together. Then my final semester as you get things ready in our new world and then...

Well then hopefully that grand together never needs to be forced apart again.

whoever you are, wherever you are, you are wonderful.
you are full of life and love and the world is so lucky to have you walk upon it.
whatever you might be going through, it will be okay.
i promise.
everything is always okay if you're patient.
and if you wait long enough, everything is brilliant.
never think that you are the only one.
we are all broken in some way.
all of us are struggling to survive.
so please never feel you are alone.
talk to someone.
please.
if we all just spoke about how we were feeling the world would be a much better place.
if you have no-one else to talk to feel free to talk to me.
if you message me on here i can give you my email.
i'm always willing to help anyone and everyone regardless of age, gender etc.
i've been through a lot so i know exactly what it feels like.
sometimes you just need to be reminded that you are beautiful.
that you are special and loved and magical and so so wonderful.
i know it doesn't always feel like that but you are all those things.
every single one of you is brilliant and every single one of you deserves to live.
no matter what you're going through, you will overcome it and you will be okay.
i promise.
this is not a poem but i hope it helps somebody.

Youve asked me
To describe her
For you say you want
To understand her.

But all I can say
Is  that she
Is simply a poet
With a shattered pen.

Life's ink has stained
Her slender fingers
Dark blots cover her paper
But still she writes.

You cannot understand
Illegible scrawls
Scattered across
Once clean paper.

To you it seems as if
She's finally gone mad
Perhaps she has
Always been mad.

But she is brilliant
For she has hidden
Her broken pieces
Beneath those ink blots.

If you truly want
To understand her mind
I suggest you start reading
In between the lines.


-ARI

Sometimes it's okay to be wrong.
It's okay to not be
The smartest,
The funniest,
The most well-adjusted.
It's okay to be
Broken,
Hurt,
Sad.
Because it's not about how you are now
But about where you're going to go next.

Life is about
Nothing and everything;
Decisiveness and indecision;
Stagnating and flying.
It's about how everything is possible.
Everything.

So if you're
Broken,
Sad,
Or hurt,
You can be
Fixed,
Happy,
Whole.
It might not be easy.
There might be days you think you walked down the wrong path.
But you didn't.
Because every path is the right path.
Because every path is the path you need to be on
To be here.
To be you.
And you are pretty special.
More than anything,
You are special to me.