Rough Edges

His green eyes shimmer as I catch his eye once again. He's been peeking over his shoulder at me for the past hour. My heart flutters in my chest as he faces the front of the classroom again, and with a sigh I close my eyes. How am I already this far gone? I wonder to myself. I daydream about what it would be like to hear him say my name. What it would feel like to hold his hand. What it would be like to be someone important to him. I try to shake it off but my mind is wound around the thought of him too tightly. I gaze at the back of his head and imagine what his tousled hair would feel like under my fingers. I see the muscles is his shoulders contract as he gazes over his shoulder again and I drop my eyes to my desk. I wonder if he knows that I can tell he's stealing looks at me. I wonder if he knows I'd love one of those looks to hold my gaze for just a moment longer. My stomach twists into knots as I hear my name and try to figure out what question the teacher just posed to me. I glance at my paper and mumble what I pray is the right answer as my cheeks flush red. I hold my breath until I hear the words "good job" pass from his lips, giving me permission to slip into my infatuation induced coma. My eyes drift back to the deep grey shirt in front of me and wander down the tan arm, coming to rest on the tattoo that scars his skin. I ache to ask what it means. When he got it. Why he wanted something so gruesome as a skull etched into his body forever. A familiar wanting wrenches my stomach and tugs at my heart. I will him to speak to me in my mind. I cross my fingers and wish he would at least smile at me. But that's not his style. He's too intense for that. He's dark and mysterious. He's introverted. But something inside me aches to pull out his inner joy. The happiness I can feel lurking at the very edge of the blackness. I know it's in him. It has to be. I crave to seek it out as I did with a boy like him so many years ago. A boy who stole my heart with a grimace and a shrug rather than a welcoming smile. Something within me is drawn to his darkness. Maybe its something I should ignore but it's too powerful. He awakens a part of me that has been in a deep sleep for a long time. The last time it was brought to life, my world was spinning like it is now, but I have never experienced more emotion than I did back then. And I'm dying to feel that again. He can make it happen. I know he can.

Dont Put Me In a Box

Everyone I know has some idea of who I should be.
Many old ladies in my church think I need to be a nurse.
Some of my friends think I need to be the giggly, girly, preppy, girl I was in junior high.
My parents, thankfully, love me no matter who I decide to be.

But what people fail to understand is that I'm a lot of different things rolled up into one person. Yes, I can giggly and girly and preppy sometimes. But I'm also so much of a tomboy it isn't even funny. I like to dress up and curl my hair and do my make up some days, and other days i don't even want to put shoes on. Sometimes I go out side in shorts, boots and a sweatshirt. Sometimes I can't leave my house until EVER SINGLE item touching my body is in the same color family. I can be eloquent, rhetorically savvy, intellectual, and elegant. And I can be the biggest-hickified-redneck-word-makin girl you've ever seen. I like to wear twirly dresses with my vans and my big camo jacket. I like to put on lots of mascara and a wop a huge, messy bun on top of my head. I like to giggle and I have an affinity for cursing though I try not to. I can be disgusted just as soon as I can enter a burping contest with my little brother. I laugh a lot. But I cry a lot too. I can be a total complete ditsy blond girl sometimes and sometimes I can blow your mind with how deeply intellectual I can be. I like to blast the country station with my windows rolled down in my Chevy. I like to listen to classical violin music. I can spend three hours in a Bass Pro Shop or a Vera Bradley store.

I am so many different things rolled into one, that I cannot physically be just one. I can't JUST be country. I cant JUST be preppy. I cant JUST be smart. I cant JUST be a ditz. I have redneck days and tomboy days and stupid days and smart days and productive days and lazy days and all kinds of different days. I just wish people would stop trying to shove me into one specific box when I clearly have aspects of all kinds of boxes. I wish I could just be accepted for the tornado of personality that I am with out being labeled a "poser" or a "fake".

The Crash Of Waves

He had a way of turning up at the most inopportune moments. Just when she had her life back on track he would pop up and her world would implode.
It was as though he had a sensor and when her life read "peaceful" he would arrive to create chaos again. She had changed her mind. She was moving on. She was happy.
And then he came waltzing back in with his wickedly sweet smile and his charm. He set her spinning like a top. His presence drowning her in confusion, unaware of the distinction between reality and imagination. She never knew how to interpret his quiet comments. His gestures toward her. His kind accolades.
It was as though once her heart was rid of all but one sliver of him, he grew rapidly, like a fire, consuming her once again. The constant upending of emotion was torturous. Like being burned and pushed in icy cold water one after another, over and over in a deadly cycle. Like being pulled far into the ocean and constantly battered by crushing waves. She could catch her breath for only a moment before being sucked under again.
He was her torture. 
He was her wave.

Passion Is A Changing Love

People often ask me why I chose to write. It seems like an easy question to answer, but there are so many reasons, I end up muddling them together trying to get it all out. I have so many reason why I love it I almost can't count them all. I stumble upon a new reason every day.

It's therapeutic in a sense. I can be bawling my eyes out and once I start typing or put pen to paper, the tears turn into words and rather than flow down my face, they flow onto the page. Writing is power if you do it correctly. Power to inspire. Power to create. Power to change minds. Power to give something or someone a voice. Power to give yourself a voice. I love the idea that the same twenty six letters can be strung together in so many different and varying orders. I love the way words can be laced together in an intricate pattern, weaving tales and stories and idea. I love the way words can be beautiful, written or spoken. I love the way a good book can grab a hold of some part of you and draw you in until you're crying into your pillow at 2a.m. when something dreadful happens. I love the way a line in a song can cling to a piece of your soul and bring you memories or laughter or tears. I love the way words, ordinary, everyday words, can create such stirring emotions. Words hold more power than we give them credit for. Words are a life force of their own. That's why I love writing at this moment. Ask me in an hour, or a week, or a month, or a year, and you'll receive a completely different answer. Because, as I grow and experience things, the different aspects of writing strike different chords in my heart. Ergo, as I grow, my love grows. As I change, my love changes. And that is the key to passion. That it not grow old, but morph and change an grow along with its owner.

The Girl In The Song

She's the girl who smiles all day and cries herself to sleep at night.
She's the girl who sits back and laughs at every ones jokes but tells none of her own.
She's the girl you catch staring off into space with a sorrowful look on her face.
She's the girl who can smile through the tears just to lie and say she's alright.

She always felt like the girl in the song. The broken one who needed help but was too independent to ask for it.
She always felt the words. Felt them tug at her heart and meet with  her soul as though they were written for her.
She thought she was the only one who saw her that way. That no one else understood that the smiles were tying together broken pieces of a sad soul.

She sat in the front seat of his big, blue Ford.
The song came on.
She smiled out the window, mouthing the words.
But when she looked over, when the line about her was sung, he was singing along and pointing at her.
Her heart stopped.
And for once in her life, her smile was almost whole.
He sees the cracks.
He sees the pain.
He may not understand, but he recognizes and that's more than she could have ever asked for.