This is for the people who are alone in a room full of people. For the misfits and socially awkward chipmunks. For the ones who feel empty. This is for you because it gets better. One day you will find your people. Chin up little flower.

2. This is for the girls with curly hair. This is for those of you who are too tiny to reach the top shelf or are too tall to blend in. For the gangly arms, the bruised knees. For freckled faces and crooked teeth. For the girls who hate their body. For the girls who love their body. This is for those of you who society states are not beautiful because you are not the norm. This is for the wallflowers.            

3. This is for the 3 AM romantics. For the alcoholics and the poets. For the ones who cry alone. For the people who have passion burning their soul but were not born with the ability to express it.  This is for the actors and   dancers. For the people who have music between their rib cage.          
  
4. This is for those of you who drink black coffee even though you don't like the taste. This is for red lipstick. This is for your out dated cell phone, and your NASA computer. This is for your crocs. This is for the mimers, the clowns, the people who are too scared to love themselves. Your chameleon soul is inspiring.            

5. This is for you, the reader. This is to tell you that you are not alone.

slowly swallowing
throwing out the rest
my good days end in quiet protest
mind against heart
heart beating my ribs
I never quite figured out how to blend in

but I can live happily on the outside of the lines
with you

i know i don't know the right things to say
i'm sorry for trying
you're the one who always somehow spits the right thing out at the right time
i'm the one stuttering and babbling in the corner with my hands on my head
clock ticking on my tongue
counting down time bombs
for when the wrong words will erupt out of me
(an explosion, even though it's a whisper)

found a boy who makes love feel like speeding through a red light at an intersection
who reminds me of racing down the highway
windows down, hair blowing across my vision.
he and i could be a car crash
or a parking spot
he and i are 90mph on the freeway
yet when he holds my hand or brushes the hair out of my eyes
i swear the brakes hit themselves
and speed and light and time don't matter

you radiated more than
the sun, and shone
brighter than the moon
on a cloudless night, and
for some
reason you decided
that i was
worth your time.

i spent nights wondering
why you even
gave me the time
of day and
i still don't know
the answer
to that, but
i'm happy that
you did because you
are possibly the
best thing to
ever happen to me.

thoughts, they are
        smoke escaping from chimneys and clouding darkened skies,
skies home to birds flapping their wings trying to fly,
thoughts are flying bricks falling all at once on shoulders already holding weights,
weighing the night's silence on open palms
and fingers blackened with soot
hold feathers plucked from tree branches,
seeking to clean bloodied slates
in gardens where dreams flow down the river into caves
-caves with lights at the end of tunnels,
and lamps which flicker during storms and
lightning which penetrates even closed eyes.
                       thoughts, they are
companions with opens arms which sometimes have
knives hidden up their sleeves,
and they are wells
which hold coins-
silver, gold, bronze and brass.
dreams and wishes fondled by the gentle, sometimes
     corrosive current of waves
and shadows which carry the tube light just so they stay alive.
     but these thoughts, they are also
my reason for you,
chains and leaves hanging with ease around a neck and rings which sing like canaries on insomniac fingers
   and crimson letters carrying pictures, so
with that is my justice,
because with your name they give me solace, and
with your image they give me peace
and with the sound of your voice in the meadows of my mind,
i find tranquility.
and with the shadows that follow on my heels, i laugh and i smile,
    because with these thoughts
i am with you and you,
          you are
with me
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