she strode past us with a strangely humble presence,
short dark curls matching a flawlessly and painfully casual outfit.
It must've taken her at least three trips from the shelf to the counter -
there was a stack of maybe 11 canvases in front of her, all varying in shape and size.

she was an effortless kind of beautiful,
the kind that boasts without saying anything.
you could tell so much about her just by looking at her appearance,
but at the same time all her movements seemed to be keeping secrets.
Her conversation with the woman at the cashier reflected her lightweight personality,
and I liked the way she used the word "surfaces" for the blank canvases -
that word was a large mouthful of potential.

I really hope she'll paint them in all the different shades of European blues and greens and bronzes that I had caught a glimpse of in her eyes.

my life is a blur.
hundreds of days,
all tumble-dried into one story.

but you are an exception to this.
when I picture you in my cluttered mind,
you are always there, in full focus.
you pinpoint my existence on the back of your hand,
and memories of us play along to the beat of
'mad sounds' by Arctic Monkeys at 2:11,
completely out of my control.
I think I'm falling,
because everything else is more blurry than ever.
(but I guess I won't know until I hit the ground)

Today, I want to be a poem:
I want to be able to
reach my hands out to either sides
and stitch myself into words
that make sense.
I want them to tell me
that I am perfect
lyrical
unavoidable
beautiful

no matter the structure
of which my words and veins intertwine
into an embodiment of my cautious self.
And when that's not enough
I can spend my free time rewriting definitions,
and savor the feeling of being
a simple string of thoughts
loosely connected by the
everchanging ideas of symmetry, and transparent beauty.

my mom taught me that
"cautious will keep you alive".

I learned that cautious is a shield
from the potential of pain;
but she never told me how it could be a barrier.
I never realized that confined safety prevented expansion,
limiting my existence to all things familiar.
sometimes I stare at my legs -
the only scars marking its surface are the ones I've made myself,
because I'd rather be hurt by something I've known forever,
than by the unfamiliar rough ground of a playground floor.

cautious will keep you breathing,
but it will not keep you alive.