My head. My thoughts.
It's a bunch of you's and a bunch of me's, doing everyday things.
Sometimes you ride in the car with me to work when I'm feeling overwhelmed.
Sometimes you're buying ice cream with me at Raleys, and choosing the red box movie.
Sometimes you're lying next to me, telling me about your day as your fingers twiddle with mine.
I like the times when you're with me, but I want the times where I'm with you.

I don't share a lot with people. I share a lot with my notebook.

My feelings overflow onto a blank page.

My worst fears tower in the shadow of each letter.

My happiness bounces off every sentence.

And the things I love most stay hidden between the lines.

I sit and think about my life and I start tearing up because with the hardships that this world can put you through, life is still so beautiful. I am sitting here feeling my heart swell out of my ribcage because I am a human who can feel something. So simple yet so wonderful. Feelings. Emotions. Passion.
They are so great that I fear them. The thumping of my heart scares me because the things that make you feel so deep can hurt you the most. But maybe that just means you cared. Is it so bad to care? Is it so bad to feel something that is greater than yourself? Maybe feelings aren't so bad. Maybe we should welcome the heart palpitations, the butterflies and grinning for no reason. The day that I no longer feel is the day I realize that I am not alive any longer. It is 5.49pm on a Saturday. I am alive.

I am craving a love poem.
I want to accentuate your smile and the laughing lines that form at the sound of a cheesy joke.
I want to illustrate the traces your hands leave on me.
I want deep conversations and I want pointless banter that will keep us laughing until the sun lays it's golden rays onto your silhouette.
I want to record the sound of your oh-so-sweet voice in the dark.
I want your eyes locked onto mine in a big room of strangers and I want our next adventure marked on a calendar.
There are many things that I want, but it isn't this fictional character I have created.
I just want you.

A stranger once asked me, "What is your deepest darkest secret?" I laughed at his curiosity, hesitated for a few moments and then gave up.
"I can't think of any at the moment." I replied.
Lie.
"I'll have to get back to you."
Another lie.  
My deepest darkest secret is the words that spill from the ink of my pen into limericks, narratives and sonnets. It is the raw, most pure form of my fears, hopes and dreams.  
It is poetry.

Social Anxiety
[so-shull ang-zahy-i-tee]
noun
1. A condition that unexpectedly turns the most colorful canvases gray.

inside me is a tidal wave.
wrapped around my heart and suffocating my lungs, it stirs, and it stirs.
sometimes i feel it's mist clawing up my throat,
but my lips only part for the red sea.

inside me is a tidal wave.
twelve pieces of bone can't seem to succumb the riptide that crashes through the abyss that is my heart.
so it sheers into my brain and rolls down my face, leaving nothing but stained cheeks.

inside me is a tidal wave.
or so it used to be, for it has made it's escape.
anger had spit through my mouth.
determination had sweat through my pores.
and sadness had glistened in my eyes.
but happiness, happiness shines through my core and warms the crevices of my heart. happiness warms the bones that were once broken and happiness soaks up the flood that had once consumed me.

inside me is the sun