Remember

My greatest fear is that I'm insignificant.
That people might be able to move from my life and not remember me a month from now.
That I don't matter nearly enough to be significant to anyone.
So promise me you'll remember.
Remember my voice.
My smile.
My laugh.
Remember the times we spent in silence, simply enjoying the togetherness.
The shared secrets.
The inside jokes.
Remember the random facts I liked to tell.
The nicknames we used.
The words we overused.
Remember me, even if you start to forget, try.
Because you matter so desperately to me.
And I don't want to feel foolish for memorizing your every move.

Intensity Of Feeling

You are intoxicating, overwhelming, exhilarating.
I can't get you out of my head.
I'm constantly wondering where you are, who you're with, what's on your mind.
It's like someone wiped my memory and only left you.
I can't breathe when I think of you.
I feel like I might be sick from the sheer anxiety of thinking of you.
I am overcome with the desire for you to know how I feel.
I am overwhelmed with the desire for you to feel the same.
You are like a drug I didn't mean to take and am now addicted to.
I can feel you coursing through my veins, whispering in my head.
I cannot come up with a word to describe the enormity of my need for you.
The scope of my love for you.
You are all I've ever wanted. 
No one comes close to what you are.
Nothing can touch what you do to me.
You are not just someone, you are the only one.
The only one I see, the only one I want, the only one I need.
You'd think after four years I'd have forgotten your name like a distant memory.
But no, you are fresh on my mind.
Your name perched on my tongue, ready, as soon as an opportunity presents itself for me to speak it.
I can feel the phantom touch of your fingers on my face, a ghost of the last time I saw you.
I can hear you in my head, the words you said mixed with the ones I wished I'd heard.
Everything with you is intense, extreme, profound.
I cannot be mildly attracted to you, I am enamored with you.
You are the stars in my eyes, the blush on my cheeks, the stain of a smile on my lips.
You are my breathless moments and my wildest dreams.
You are everything I need and everything I want.
I cannot fathom feeling this way for another.
I can barely understand the way I feel for you.

On Paper

I am terrible at face to face communication.
I can't formulate a sentence correctly, im awkward, im uncomfortable.
I suppose that is why I find solace in the written word.  Words on paper are easier than words I have to manufacture and push out of my deft mouth. 
On paper, I can be anything I want, I'm not constrained by image or accent or age.  If I want to be a princess I can.  If I want to be strong I can.  If I want to be rebellious I can.  If I want to be snotty I can.  If I want to be glaringly honest I can.
On paper, I lose my inhibitions.  I write daring things I'd never dream to say out loud.  I can write the most gut wrenchingly honest pieces of my soul without the slightest bit of embarrassment.  I can write about the transgressions passed upon me by others and tear them apart without have to confront them.
On paper I don't have to worry about stuttering or mumbling or saying the wrong word.  I can plan and plot and erase.  On paper, I can be completely me, 100 percent.  I've written things on this blog that have never left my mouth.  I've written things on this blog that I would never LET leave my mouth.  Something about the written word demands honesty, it demands sacrifice.  And somehow, through all my cowardice, I am brave enough (or stupid enough depending on your perspective) to sacrifice my dignity, my secrecy, my civility for the demand of honesty.  And that makes me love this profession all the more.

Hurting. Mourning.

I pull my quilt closer as I gasp for air. Trying to quiet the sobs, I press my warm face into my pillows. I never knew the hole in my chest could ache this hard. It physically hurts. Tears blur everything as I mourn.

Mostly, I morn for her. She was a mother and a friend and a sister. Her loss was so unexpected that it still hits me a year later. I miss her every single day. Nights are worse. When my mind won't shut off and I replay memories of times before we lost her. I miss her more than I knew was possible.

I mourn for lost friendships as I need companionship dearly right now. Loneliness has etched a foothold in my heart and grows daily, fed by my isolation. It is now a massive shadow I cannot escape. Im scared it will be this way forever. I need someone. Anyone.

I mourn for him. For love I handed out too quickly to someone I didn't know. For the heart he broke and continues to dismantle to this day. He makes me so happy. So damn happy. But he tears me apart and I am in agony. I hurt so bad right now. The sobs wracking my body make my lungs scream for air. It isn't fair for me to love him this much with nothing in return. Without him I feel hollow. I feel empty. I feel tired. But when he's even the slightest option I am on fire. I am more alive in those moments than my whole life.

I mourn for the happy girl I used to be. The one with no cares and no troubles and no sorrow.

I am hurting. I am mourning.

What Comes With You

Closing my eyes, I see you there and I smile.  If this is the only time I get to see you, it's good enough for me.
You are perfection, taking my breath away with every moment in front of me.
You elicit a response from me like nothing else before.
Heartbeat frantic, breath quick, mind dizzy.
You make me do things I never knew I could, never knew I would.
I knew when I saw you for the first time, you would take me down.
No matter how strong I thought I was, you destroy me in the most tantalizing way.
I love the feeling I get with you.
Reckless, crazy, dazed.
I love who I am with you.
When we are on the line, I fight like I didn't know I could.
You bring out the troublemaker in the pacifist.
I'm dangerous with you, for you, because of you.
You change my chemistry, me entire being.
Loving you is rousing is an unnatural way and I want it.
I want the strangeness. I want everything that comes with you.

Drowning Never Felt So Good

It settled like dust over every inch of everything.  Traces lingering no matter how much you tried to clean.  It seemed to multiply behind your back.  You would turn around only to find infinitely more than there was before.

It clouded the air.  Made it hard to breathe.  Coated the walls so their color was lost.  Stuck to every inch of you body like wet sand.

It was overwhelming.  It was too much.  It was everywhere, in everything, everywhere you looked.

And then the dam broke.  Water rushed in and cleaned the whole place out.  Flood waters swept everything away, every trace, every hint of it was torn apart.  The rush was terrifying, dangerous, fatal.  But so restorative.  The water washed it from my lungs as I choked and from my mind as I fell into the blackness.

When I opened my eyes, I'd never seen a brighter place.  It was all gone, and with it's demise returned the color of life and the vibrancy of reality.  Drowning never felt so good. 

At 16

At 16 she found her once in a lifetime.

Her first heartbreak.

Her story to pass down to her daughter.

Her place where her mind would always travel in states of nostalgia.

 

At 16 she found her butterflies.

Her restless nights.

Her take-your-breath-away moments.

Her racing heartbeat.

 

At 16 she found him.

 

He made her dizzy with need.

He made her bite her lip.

He made up for every ounce of doubt in her blood with his words and his smile.

He made her toss and turn at night.

He made her lose her appetite when butterflies were fluttering anxious in her stomach.

He made her see the world differently.

He changed her view on love and life.

He taught her how to be more than the quite girl everyone thought she was.

He brought out the stronger side of her.

He brought out the tough side.

 

At 16 she found the boy who changed her life forever.

She found the one she'd never quite let go.

She found the one that made the word "forever" seem way too short.

She found the one who set the bar for everyone else.

 

At 16 she found him.

You

I want to write something beautiful, full of profoundness and depth, but all I can think of is you.

You.

I want to write something entrancing and captivating and easy to sink into, but all I can think of is you.

You.

I want to write something dark and mysterious, let my dark side come out and play, but all I can think of is you.

You.

I want to write something poetic and happy, full of light and pictures and joy, but all I can think of is you.

You.

You take up every space in my mind. You fill every empty corner of my soul. You are my waking thought and my final, drowsy thought as I fall asleep. You work your way into everything I say and do. You are everywhere around me. You make it impossible to think of anything else but you you you.

On Her Bones

He could see right through her.
He could read her like an x-ray, like her insecurities and secrets were scribbled on her bones.
He was terrifying.
He never backed down and his boldness was unnerving, making her quiver where she stood.
She was a challenge and he was ready to win.
But as scared as she was, she was also intrigued.
His determination a beacon for her fragile mind.
She considered herself strong, but he... well he was just plain fearless.
When she iced him out, time and time again, he simply taunted her to come play in the snow flurries her attitude created.
When she opened up, he pried and pried until she snapped shut once again, just like that.
He blatantly named her fears, her worries, and her secrets, demanding she acknowledge them.
But for as much fear as his brashness instilled, she was drawn.
And when she decided to choose him, to give into the terror and take a ridiculous chance, she fell into him all at once, not an ounce of her being remaining her own.

Can't Keep Up

I can't wrap my head around you. You're the embodiment of chaos and I honestly can't keep up much longer.
You're fire and ice.
Hot and cold.
On and off.
You're radio silence and deafening sound.
You're everything I love and everything I hate.
You're nothing and everything.
All at once and yet infrequent.
Nothing makes sense around you. 
I am tired, so tired, of trying to understand. Could you please slow down for five seconds and just explain?  Because I can't hold on much longer.

Just Hurry

Our future is in your hands.
I suppose I should go ahead and walk away but something inside me is begging me to stay.
I leave the decision up to you, but I beg you, just make it fast.
As much as I hope you choose me, part of me is worried that you won't.
If you leave, I'll be okay with some time.
I know how to put myself back together in the wake of heart break.
After all, you taught me the first time.
But if you choose me, please do it now.
I feel like I'm hovering in an unknown area waiting for your decision to be made.
The one person I could tell is being distant, and honestly I don't mind.
She has nothing positive to say to me anymore.
She would immediately go for the worst and assume you're leaving me.
And maybe she'd be right.
But somehow it hurts more coming from her, like the idea of you wanting me is unbelievably stupid.
Like I'm an idiot for hoping.
And I can't stand that about her.
So I'm trusting you to make the choice.
I'm not seeking outside opinion.
I'm trying not to dwell on the thought of you but dear Lord in heaven it's the hardest thing I've ever done.
So hurry up and break my heart.
Or hurry up and put it back together,
whichever it may be, just hurry.

Language Barrier

We have a language barrier, you and I.
I am all words.
All feelings.
All dictation.
I like to spell it out.
I like to tell you, on no uncertain terms, what I'm thinking.
I like to say it and say it over and over again.
I'm the longest novel you cold ever buy.
I'm a million pages full of words and affection that you can't misread.

You're all pictures.
You show, you don't tell.
You're artistic and creative and ambiguous.
One image can mean so many different things and you love that aspect of it.
You love what drives me crazy.
You see in color.
You're wordlessly moving.
You are your own form of art.
And for the life of me, I cannot decode your symbols.

We have a language barrier and I find my self wanting more and more to be bilingual for you.

The Tumult of Sleep

The act of falling asleep is tumultuous for me.
My mind is spinning faster than the speed of light, idea whirling to and fro.
As I close my eyes, scenes of the past days and dreams of the future play out on the back of my eyelids.
I toss and turn and flip and maneuver in my cushion lined prison.
How could comfort become so torturous?
My mother used to tell me "be still, close your eyes, go to sleep" when I was tiny and restless.
Oh how I wish it were that easy.
As I chant "Sleep.  Sleep.  Sleep." in my mind, I feel my consciousness begin to quake.
It starts as a low rumble, disrupting the flow of thought and making me yawn.
Before long, it is a full blown earthquake, sending pieces of reality shattering into a vast and empty darkness.
And only after several minutes of explosion, does my consciousness give in completely, surrendering me to the bottomless pit of sleep.

Are You Thinking Of Me?

The strong wind falls and scatters leaves across the ground.  The sun shines in my eyes and I think of you.  How you're always there, lingering, waiting, always in the back of my mind.
Sometimes you blow in like a breeze, a memory of happier times drifting into my day.
I'm falling asleep and your name crosses my mind, bringing a half smile to my drowsy lips and stirring the butterflies in my stomach.
Sleep is a sanctuary of darkness until your image, your voice, and your touch taint it, somehow making me nervous in my sleep.
Sun shines through the window, glaring into my eyes and heating the room.  Your name is on my lips, making my heart beat faster and my stomach drop to my feet.  Every inch of me is on high alert with your name in my mouth, making my fingers tap nervously and my knees bounce.
Driving down the road, I glance at the empty passenger seat beside me.  These worn seats have been home to so many except you.  I wonder what this old pick up would look like with you in it.
Music filters through my ear buds and somehow all the lyrics are about you.  It makes me want to know if you've ever heard the songs I'm listening to or if you'd care to.
Everything I do, everywhere I go, I think of you.  I wonder what you're doing, what you're thinking, praying you're thinking of me.

Again

Everything about him drives me crazy.

The way he says things that make no sense.

The way he's in and out of my life like lightening.

The way he gets in my head and I can't get him out.

But he makes me feel things I've never felt before.

He makes my heart pound.

My chest ache.

My stomach knot up.

My whole spirit soars with him.

It's unreal how much I feel for him.

No one else has ever done this to me.

No one can make me feel like this.

This feeling is one in a million and I only hope he feels the same.

That maybe he doesn't know how to express it.

Maybe he's nervous.

But I don't know how much longer I can play this game.

It has to be real sometime.

Because if not, I'm going to go mad concocting scenarios in my head and lying to myself. 



Dear Stranger

Dear Stranger,
You have no idea how badly I want to talk to you.
I'm sitting here listening to music, crying my eyes out because of you.
I had to lock the door to block my tears from from prying eyes.
I had to muffle my sobs in a pillow to quiet the sound of my breaking heart.
I thought we were best friends. 
I thought you told me that you didn't want to lose me.
What happened to everything we had in July?
How did we get here?
What did I do?
What's going on?
I know you're hurting, but I wish you'd tell me why.
I got a message today that made me rethink everything I've ever decided.
And you were the one person I wanted to tell.
You would know why it was so unexpected, so stressful, so rattling.
You would know how to react.
You would have some funny comment, some silly reply.
You'd have me laughing instead of crying.
But I feel like telling you will just annoy you and I already seem to be on your bad side.
Things flipped like a switch and my head is spinning.
I'm so confused.
I thought I could trust you.
I thought you were different.
You were the one person that made me feel worth while in my darkest times.
But now, you're the one person making me feel utterly and completely alone.
I miss everything about you, even the things that used to annoy the crap out of me.
I need you...
Please come back.
Don't shut me out like this.

Alone into Forever

A sinister darkness grew within him. 
A darkness born from grief and pain and agony and confusion.
It moved like a swirling cloud blocking his view of everything and cutting him off from the world.
And he became the embodiment of fury and sorrow, a walking danger to all sources of light.  Surrounded by shadows, cloaked in a dismal, choking, cloud of dismay, he stalked through life shoving everyone out of his way.
Every good Samaritan that stopped to help him ended up bleeding and running from the scene as his pain manifested outwards. 
No good deed went unpunished and no helping hand was accepted. 
He chose to march alone, dark and angry and full of hate.
The longer he fought, the lonelier he became.
But when he tried to calm the rage and reach out for a life vest, no one was willing to throw one.
He had hurt too many, scared them all, and in his isolation had severed every tie.
And so the anguish mounted, intensified by nostalgia and loneliness and self-pity.
As minutes became days and day became weeks, he built up his storm again, using his shattered being to fuel the winds.
With the fire of pain burning deeply within his chest, he pushed on, past the lost friendships and broken relationships and walked alone into forever.

Silent Arguments

As the sun sets and the announcer comes though the speakers, I wish you were here.
I wish you were sitting beside me laughing at all the crazy people out there.
Laughing at all the girls and their insane clothes and their cries for attention.
I wish I had this memory to share with you later down the road.

As they come out into the arena, I wish you were watching with me.
I wish you were here to cheer and scream and holler.
Yelling at the top of our lungs, until we collapse from exhaustion back on the metal stands.
I wish you would have decided it was important.

As I drive away from a night full of excitement, I wish you were riding home with me.
I wish we were together and we weren't silently arguing about nothing.
Ignoring one another and casting angry glances that make my heart break from the inside out.
I wish I knew what you think I did to you.

For as many people as I have willing let walk out of my life, you are the hardest to let go.  It makes me sick to my stomach to think you don't want this anymore.  I thought I had finally found someone to replace the gaping hole in my chest.  We've been through so much together, it seems a shame to let it all fall apart in silence.

I want you to yell at me.  I want you to tell me what I did.  I want you to walk to me.  I want you to want to fix things.  I want a chance to repair what I didn't realize was broken. 
Because I love you and it's not fair to leave me stranded with no idea what went wrong.

A Spitting Image

Your idea of "friendship" is a load of crap.
You are a master manipulator.
You have to have your way no matter what.
You only care about yourself and what benefits you.
Every line you fed me about "being able to trust" me, and "caring" about me, and "being on my side" was a lie.
It sickens me to think of how much time I invested in you and your emotions and your well being.
I wasted so much time on you.
What bothers me the most is that you know what I've been through.  You know how hurt I am.  You know where my heart is.  Because you're in the same freaking place.  And I would never, in my entire life, do this to you.

I am not her.  I don't love you.  I don't obsess over you.  I'm not even interested in you okay?  All I wanted was the friendship I thought we had, the friendship you said we had.
And as much as you hate her, as much as you hate every trait about her, guess what.  You're a spitting image. 
You are just like her and I hope that hurts more than anything else.  The way she plays with people's heads, the way she lies, the way she's so selfish but thinks she's God's gift to mankind.  You do it all.  You are that person.  You're selfish.  Conceited.  Vain.  Fake.  Stupid.  Manipulative.  Childish.
You are everything you hate in her, and I only wonder if you hate her because she reflects you.  I wonder if you see how similar you are, and how much everyone hates her, and you are terrified we'll feel the same if we see it in you too.
News flash.  I will.

I hate how you treat me.  I hate how you treat everyone.  I hate how you think you're better than everyone else.  I hate how you act.  I hate how you talk.  I hate how much time I spent with you.  I hate that I though you were different.  I hate that I was wrong.  I hate that you're such a disappointment.

I hate that it hurts to lose you.  I hate that I even got close to you in the first place, because I knew this would happen.

You were the one person I could count on, the one I could talk to, the one I really trusted and you screwed me over anyway.  So have a nice life while the lies last, but don't come crying to be when they crumble.

A Waiting Game With Sanity

Walking up to him was intimidating.
Like he was deep inside the walls of a castle, surrounded by armed guards and I was walking up completely empty handed.  I had nothing to offer him but empathy.  We were the same, but I had no idea how to get him to understand.  He didn't realize I had a castle of my own a few hills over.  A castle I rarely ventured from.  I know why he loved it there.  Felling safe, protected, and home after such a devastating blow was crucial.
He was like stone, impossibly hardened to the songs of the world.  To the idea of trying again.  Cold and rough and heavy.  His presence like a darkening cloud that seemed harder to escape from as time went on.  Warning after warning passed through my mind, shouting at me to give up and walk away.
But there I was.  Bearing my soul, begging for him to give it a shot.  Praying that he'd come outside, given failure would mean a volley of arrows through my already mangled heart.
I wonder if this is how the prince felt, calling out to Rapunzel.  No, this was worse.  At least she was willing. 
He couldn't see that he'd trapped himself.  That he was in need of rescuing.  That he needed help.
I didn't know at first either.  It felt better than anything in the world to lock the door and never look back.  But time turned into an unbearable sentence that I couldn't make myself serve.  Sooner or later, he'd feel the pressure too.
Only, when he started looking out the window for a savior, he'd find one.  Unlike the dismay I felt when I realized I'd have to rescue myself, he would feel relief.
As imposing as his walls were, as fiercely as he was guarding himself, I wouldn't give up.  I couldn't.  I couldn't watch someone struggle the way I did, drowning in silence, choking on self-pity, slowly fading out of reality until there was merely a ghost and no longer a person inside.
I was terrified.  Scared of rejection, of failure, of him.  So scared of him.  But I stayed.  Playing a waiting game with his sanity and praying for a victory.

Instantaneous Fall

It was a moment, an instant, when all became still.
The songs of the birds, faded and now silent.
Children wake to find icy windows, and leaves cover the ground.
Temperature drops give way to sweaters and scarves encompass necks again.
Where I stand, Fall is not such a season as a state of mind.
The fast-paced relax.  The chaos slows down.
We pull out our coats and favorite winter hand-me-downs.
Everything gets a dash of pumpkin, here, in the Fall.
The tress don't change, merely die and shed, the process isn't beautiful here as it is elsewhere.
But the spirit is.
More smiles are given, more jokes are told.
The colder air seems to revive and renew every heart in this town.
With Fall comes a sense of acceptance and a breath of change.
It isn't a gradual process.
It happens in an instant.
It happens over night, our instantaneous Fall

Caught in Limbo

She's caught in limbo.

Advancing and reverting and making no progress at all.

Things that seem strange are accepted while things that seem right are denounced.

Looking right and left, she sees no way out other than moving forward, into unfamiliar territory and the ball of anxiety in her chest weighs her down. No longer a girl, and not yet a lady, her place in this world is unsure. She tries to grow, to move, to change, but her confidence is shaken by uncertainty.

Is this how a lady would act?  Do I have to act as a lady would?  Does this make me immature or am I okay for now?

Questions plague her mind, making sleep unenticing and headaches inevitable.

How does one cross this transition and is it usually this hard?

She wonders about everything in her life but no answers come for sure.

The things she wants are changing with her, and some of them seem impervious to a girl of her age.  But then again, as her age reaches upward, should not her wants follow?

Her ideas of the world are lost between naivety and cynicism. Her plans stuck between dream and reality. 

Navigating this passage is like sailing through rough waters in slow motion, seeing the possibility of disaster all around and merely being able to pray that you steer the right course.

My Independence

Independence is something we strive for as young adults.  We're constantly bombarded to be self-reliant and not need help.  But my independence tends to by my downfall.  I'm fiercely independent and sometimes it gets in the way of relationships.

It is never my intention to be antisocial or rude, but I am self reliant most days.  I need space.  I need time to myself. The thing I fear is that my relationship will become my identity and I never want to give that a chance to happen.
Sorry if I tend to push people away.  I could sit and write for hours about how many times people I trusted with my life, ripped me apart.  I'm a cynic.  I'm a loner.  I'm distrusting.  And I'm way too young to be those things, but it doesn't change the fact that I am.
I don't mean to push or to draw back, but when I see those warning signs, I go into self preservation mode and I immediately retreat behind my walls.  If you really want to know me, to be my friend, to love me, you have to understand that.  You cant just assume that I hate you or I'm stuck up or I'm antisocial, because I'm not.  I'm just doing my best and sometimes my best isn't good enough.  I hate myself sometimes for how I recoil from human interaction.  I hate that when people try to make plans with me, I want to say no every time and have to force myself to say yes.  I hate being this way and I'm trying as hard as I can not to be that way. I don't like to settle for less than I want so I tend to stay alone.
So give me a chance.  Try to break down my walls.  Try to rescue me from my self-made prison.  Just don't get upset if I don't seem willing, because deep down I am.

Like We're Dying

There's a song by Tim McGraw called Live Like You Were Dying.
Its a great song musically but I love the lyrics more, they really make a point.

The song is about this guy who finds out he's dying (obviously) and then he goes and does all these really great things, taking advantage of the time he has left.  He goes skydiving, climbs mountains, rides a bull, changes the way he loves and the way he speaks.  He makes over his whole life in light of his diagnosis.  But my question to you is, what would you do if you knew how long you had left?

I think we all want to say that we'd do what he did, we'd take risks and do crazy things and admit our love for people and be kinder.  I think we'd all like to say that we would just come to life in a new way and totally demolish our last days with fun. But would we? 

Or would we sit around and mope?  Would we start saying goodbye?  Would we cry and beg God for more time? Would we do everything in our power to avoid that inevitable day?  Unfortunately, I think we would. 

As life would have it, none of us know when God will call us home.  I think that is the most generous thing ever.  Because without an impending date of doom, we have the chance to live like we're dying every single day.  Why wait until the last second?  Why live bored and sad and then jump on the party train right before it's too late?  Why not live a life worth living?  Why not jump out of a plane?  Why not declare your love for someone?  Why not go ahead and sweeten up your words and be genuinely good to people around you? Do crazy stuff, do the things you've always wanted to.  Kiss a stranger at midnight on New Years.  Travel.  Don't live in a protected bubble, waiting till the last minute to live, because what if your last minute comes before you think it will? 

We don't know how long we have, and we can't control it, but we can make sure that we live a life full of memories not full of "I wish I had"s.  We can look back with no regrets, all we have to do is make the choice today to live the way we want to remember living.