when i'm asked what i want to do
with the rest of my life,
"spend it with the only one
who overwhelms me
with feelings of contentment,
makes me smile like nothing
is ever wrong or out of place,
and comforts me with his arms
of relief
and bliss"
are the only things
that run through my mind.
but to the person asking me,
that sounds absurd. unimaginable.
unrealistic.
so i resort to a shrug and simply say
"i just want to be happy"
but your name is embedded in those
five minimized words.

                                                   -h.m.r.

i'm trying to find something to live for.
so harmfully caught between
living for myself and living for God.
i know He is in control
but i would like to hold the steering wheel.

it's said that man plans his steps
but the Lord guides those steps.
i can't help but want to be the planner
and the guide.
i'm not sure if that's wrong of me.

i guess it will take time to help me,
to enlighten me, to really show me
that God is in control.
i shall lean not on my own understanding
because i'm afraid i don't understand anything
at all.

                                                          -­h.m.r.

all of my life has been a sad compilation of attempts at trying to change myself to fit in.
to listen to a certain genre of music or dress a certain way in hopes of gaining someone's attention and even more, admiration. "listen to this, wear that, laugh now, bat your eyelashes more"

it's always been about pleasing people and morphing my own likes and views to appeal to other people's desires

until i met you.

when i first met you i drowned all of those made-up personality traits. i burned all of the clothes in my closet that didn't make me feel like myself. i trashed all of the makeup that everyone convinced me "made me look so beautiful"

because i knew that you didn't care. and that's not a bad thing. you didn't care about the music i listened to, the things i wore, or how i looked when i woke from a deep sleep.

you cared about the content of my character. you cared about the goodness of my heart and the beauty of my soul.

because of you, i love the person i truly am when no one is looking. i love the person i am even when people are looking. because of you, there is no difference between the two.

                                                               ­                             -h.m.r.

i am not the smudges dragged across my paper from the pen when my hands wouldn't stop shaking.
i am not the ***** scuffs on my shoes that were once spotless.
i am not the shriveled leaf that used to be thriving on a tree.
i am not the dust that calmly settled into the corner of the floorboards.
i can convince myself of all of the things that i am not
but struggle to believe what i am.

i am the emotion behind the words i write to escape from reality.
i am the long walks i take when i feel so **** alone.
i am the leaves i plucked off of the bushes when i needed something to tear apart in my hands.
i am a creature constructed of particles bound together, but slowly coming apart at the seams.

but i think the reason i have trouble coming to terms with what i am
is because all i am is really everything i am not.
                                                            ­                               -h.m.r.

when i look at you
my fragile heart feels like it's ruthlessly
being squeezed as a doused sponge would be
when the soapy water is being drained from it.

when i think of you
my dead brain feels like it has blacked out
as if it were in a one-on-one cage match
and the opponent took advantage of an open shot.

but when i'm physically with you
all i want to do is trace uneven circles
around your porcelain skin and plant dainty flowers
in the sidewalk cracks of your lips.

i want to tell you how you make my heart uneasy and my mind unsure.
it hurts to know that i don't even need to tell you because you're already aware.

you like the power you get
from being the dishwasher and the winning opponent.
you like the feeling
of geometry being invisibly painted on your porcelain skin.
you like being the soil in which i delicately garden and harvest you.

i guess when you're done you can hang me up to dry
with my black eye being the only thing i get in return for loving you.

                                                           ­                                        -h.m.r.

if hanging myself up to dry
and folding my sheets end over end
would bring you back to me,
i would be wrung out
and my sheets would be crisply creased.

but i'm still dripping wet
and my sheets are still crumpled on the floor.
                                                          ­                            - h.m.r.

i want to know what it's like to not feel anything instead of everything coming at me full force and repeatedly crashing into me until all that's left of me is tormenting feelings of uselessness and broken "i'm sorry"s and i want to know what it's like to not feel anything instead of the smallest things tearing my heart to shreds wondering how and why they held so much power in the first place. i want to know what it's like to be on the opposite side of the way i feel i want to be happy and full of joy again and i want to be happy to live instead of dragging myself around each and every day wallowing in a sea of self-pity that i swim in every day until i finally drown myself in at night when i can't sleep at 3am because i'm awake wondering what it's like to be anyone but me. i can't escape these horrible feelings because i can't run away from myself and that's the saddest truth i've ever had to live with

i love you this morning
it's a come home safe morning
fog on the road
& no seatbelt kind of morning
the sun is over easy
& nothing's on fire
there's punctuation
where i don't want it
and extra love
in the glovebox of my car
been thinking about being honest
how these poems are all me
but they tell the story
how someone else
might believe it happened
within reasonable doubt
no copy & pasted love letters
no 'who ever says hello first gets my attention for the day'
try a little tenderness
in my ears and today
there are instruments
in the back of my head
i think you love me
because i'm sunburned
felt it in a 'come hell or high water' kinda way, that 'touched from far away' kinda way that 'if i touch this piano one more time one of us is going to break' kinda way
and i drove over 17 bridges yesterday and today i'll do it again
and i think nobody gets
what that means except maybe you
i just tell them i love the scenery
that somebody must've made
these trees blush just for me
you know how i love
to change the subject
i bet they'd love the view
i bet you would too
and all these metaphors
for other things are beside the point
this is a metaphor
for why i don't wear my seatbelt
a metaphor for why whiskey
knows me better than you
could ever try to
all the buildings seemed to sag yesterday and all the stars
are doing that cliche thing
where they talk
quiet jet noise
& some lumbering giant
made everything shake
not those hand metaphors
not another one of those
& keep the sea to yourself
i think it was a train
it's sound hugged the embankment
for a moment
and then trailed off into nowhere
and that's kind of like me
how there's a town called 'rescue'
close to my home &
it's no coincidence
that i've never been there

i used to pace my room
in confusion of why i couldn't get over
the single month we spent together
sharing coffee, kisses, stories, bodies
i barely knew your middle name
but we talked again a few days ago
and i asked you, "do you think
if the people we are now were to
have met eachother before the
people we were then, we would've
had a chance?"

inthe moment it took
for you to reply
i finally figured it out
me and him, we are the
connection, as opposed
to the attraction i have
mistaken it for, he taught
me how to love softly, he
talks like he still knows me
and i still don't trust it but
i have never experienced
anything like this and
now i am pacing my room
again, caught on a simple
text message, sent 11:29am,
that reads "yes, i do."