I've always been nervous
not loud enough to say how I really
feel about this or that. OCD about strange
things like sugar packets and cups on the table
and gradients of tea. I could stand up for other
people but never for me. Always been quiet about
the things that matter and the things tattooed on
my heart like that bird on your arm.  The things that
speak to me in the middle of the night like knocks on a
door, Knock, Knock.  Wake up at three am because God
is yelling at me, but I can't tell any of YOU that because
of the bitterness locked in your chest and there's bitterness
locked in mine. For all this anxiety that I feel up in front of
this crowd, You all make me want to not say things out loud
Because as much as any one of you say you accept all things
you have never once accepted me. And I'm slapping pavement
with bare hands in the middle of the night, red callouses from
holding on too tight, begging for a way in when I'm only ever
gonna be left out because you've water-hosed me from your bathroom
tile like old chunks of grout. I've always been too nervous to say how
I really feel, because my God scares people away.

So here I am too afraid to look off this piece of paper because my voice has never been
above a whisper, and I'm too afraid to see any of you up close and personal,
a shake that no public speaking class could ever fix, because these tremors
are more like heart quakes, and all your demons are hitting my st-stutter
buttons, who ever said you weren't terrifying was a freaking liar

you
are.

The universe
With all its mystery
Everything constructed
with infinite complexity
Yet comes together
with such simplicity

There's the stars
and there's the sun
Giving us light and warming the earth
From this the plants came forth
They live their life
Giving us the oxygen
Upon which we rely
Now the planets inhabitable
But we must become collaboratble

So respect the earth
From it we came forth
love the air
and the ground
love every person
every plant
love every part of this great planet

I saw him on a train.
He was wearing an old wool coat in the middle of summer.
Unorthodox.
His thumb clicked his lighter awake.
Inhale.
Then a big speech bubble of smoke.
He looked up to find me watching.
I said I think I've heard of him before.
Maybe in a movie or a book.
I said I feel like I've been waiting to meet him.
How I felt the itch of an adventure in the back of my heart.
I asked his name.
With a dangerous grin, he replied, "My name is Love,
And Darlin', you're in for one hell of a ride"

girls like me, we can't make ourselves stay.
i wish i could, i do.
i can't shake the itchy-skin feeling of being here
and i can't help but want to get away.

we have fickle and jealous hearts, girls like me.
we can't trust ourselves to be loved
because we love so changeably.
we're difficult, girls like me.
difficult to love, difficult to fall out of love with.

we're born with anger.
we have all the ghosts and the wisdom our hearts can hold.
i am difficult to please and it's no one's fault but my own
and i get tired of people and i get tired of places
and no matter where i am i always want to leave.

i don't choose to be as restless and as jealous and as jittery as i am,
and i don't choose to feel so old some of the time
and i don't choose to be so guarded, so hypocritical, so abrasive.

girls like me, we are beautiful and strong and ages old -
it has been since the beginning and it will be till the end,
spirits like ours.
we are breakable and irrepressible
afraid and invincible
and we are made to survive things and to know things
and we are made for the wildest of laughter
and we are made for the too-big types of sadness
and we are something to see.

You send shivers down my spine when you walk in,
Cause the butterflies to flutter like mad.
When you look in my eyes,
You burn right through me.
You are the sunshine when my skies are clouded,
The light when I can't find the good in the world.
I could be all that you need,
You are all that I want.
My stomach knots when you are next to me,
You make me nervous and giddy.
I smile at the thought of you,
Quake in your presence.
You have all control over me,
And you don't even know it.