On Her Skin

She wore her heart on her sleeve and her past on her skin.

Her cheeks were freckled with long-dried tears and memories.

Years of laughter had lightened her hair and warmed her skin.

Her smile held a thousand stories, and her eyes shone with years of dreams.

She was the embodiment of feeling in a world of fakes.

And the joy that radiated from her soul captivated him from day one.

The Same Stars

They were miles apart.
Worlds away really.
Her head was in the clouds,
in the words she carried in her heart,
in her doubts.
His mind was somewhere magic,
where limits didn't exist,
and reality was no constraint.
But they looked up
in the same moment,
and saw the same sky,
the same stars.
And despite all the distance,
their souls kept fighting to be together.

His Eyes

Looking into his eyes took her breath away.  

There was something there, behind their stunning color.  

There was depth.  

There was beauty.  

There was a kindred soul.

Or maybe she way seeing herself reflected back.  

Maybe it was her, without the cracks and the bruises and the flaws.  

Reflected in his eyes, she was whole. 

There was motion too.

It was gentle, like clouds drifting away.

Or like a light, summer breeze.

In his eyes, her storm was gone.

There was no rain.

No lightning.

Everything was peaceful.

She decided in that moment that if she ever fell apart again, 

she'd just look in his eyes to put herself back together.

Opposing Faces

I've been two people in my life, fluctuating between two faces, two identities.

When I was young, I was who I am now.  Anxious.  Quiet.  Introverted.  Scared.  Shy.

At 13, I found a different side of me.  Loud.  Popular.  Happy.  Outgoing.  Sarcastic.  Witty.

And then, when I was 15, things fell apart and that little scared girl came back.  And I've been her ever since.  I've fallen deeper and deeper into her fear.  Her anxiety.  Her self-doubt.  Her silence.
It felt a lot like drowning without any water around.

Recently, I was pulled from the invisible waves.  It was a joint effort, I did some of the leg work, but he did a lot of it too.  And since then, that 13 year old girl who had the world in her pocket and the universe on her side has been calling a lot.  Right now, it feels like a battle between the two.  As much as I want hope to win, I've lived in anxiety long enough to give it a solid foothold.  But hope is strong.  And so am I.  I know she's in there, that girl who could rule the world.  I just have to figure out how to give her back her throne.

Growing Into Myself

I've finally realized a few things about myself, and I thought that in the case that your drowning in uncertainty, maybe sharing them would help you.

I finally realized that I'm never going to be the kind of girl who can wear heels, and leather pants, and red lipstick.  I'm never going to be a bombshell heart-breaker.  I'm never going to be "cool" or "intense".
I'm always going to be the kind of girl that trips over her own feet.  The kind that considers "brushed" hair as a "style".  The kind who likes to rock polka-dots and sneakers with a dress.  I'll always be more comfortable in jeans than in short shorts or a dress.
My favorite colors are always going to be bubblegum pink and cotton candy blue and I'll probably always use candy to describe color.  I'll always be able to name more crayola colors than U.S. Presidents. I'll always prefer staying in with a book to going out.
I'll always be overly excited about tiny things.  I'll always be awkward in public and spazzy at home.  And I'll always use outdated words like "nifty" and "hooligan" and "snazzy".  I'll always be a hopeless romantic and I'll always have a hard time letting go of the past.

I say all that to say this; until a few months ago, I was surrounded by people who made me think that these silly things that make me who I am, weren't enough.  That I was wrong.  That I wasn't enough to matter.

But I'm here to tell you, that I do matter.  And those people who told me I didn't, they're long gone.  It hurt so much to let them go, like I was losing part of myself.  But now enough time has passed that I'm starting to see the light, and I'm starting to see myself.
I was so lonely that I settled for toxicity in all of my relationships.  Now that all those toxins are gone, I'm breathing clean for the first time in almost ten seven years.  And I like myself again.  There are a lot of things I'll never be.  But I like who I am.  And you should too.  Because no one should be able to change you.  The right people help you grow into yourself and when you find them, you'll know.

Broken Fairytales

There was nothing beautiful about our fairytale.
By the time I found the ending, all the pages were bloodstained and shredded.
Torn apart by the fighting it took to get to the end.
Instead of a glass slipper, I lost my innocence running from you. And you never bothered to try an return it to me.
Instead of a sleeping spell, it was my heart that was broken. And you didn't wake me up, you left me there to die.
Instead of a poison apple, you handed me a mouthful of empty promises and choked on their lies.
You were a prince when I found you, but you turned into a beast. As if my love were some curse that made you that way.
And nothing hurt more than turning to the last page and finding myself alone, without a happy ending.
All alone after the fight I made to matter to your story for so long.

Around not About

She always talked around him.

She liked subjects that brought up his career, his ideas.

She prayed for others to mention his name.

She liked to talk about their similarities and how unexpected they were.

She liked to talk about herself in relation to him. 

But she never said his name,

or talked about his eyes.

Or about how his smile took up her world.

Or how many times she had imagined them together.

She never talked about him, just the exterior things that happened to associate with him.

Never about how his voice calmed her nerves,

or how he could make her sit still.

People thought he was just another planet in her orbit,

but he was was her whole galaxy.  

The glitter in his eyes made up her stars

and he was her everything.

But she talked around and not about so no one would ever find out just how much of her existed in him.

Whispers of Memory

When the sun comes up over this dusty town, and paints us all in gold, I think of how times have changed.
I see the ghosts of memories on every corner, just behind reality.
Visions of us when we were young and nothing mattered but having fun.
I can hear our laughter on the whisper of the wind and it sends a chill of disappointed sadness down my spine.
I wish I could just forget us.
Forget cards under the table and dancing in the street at 2 am.
Forget the smiles and the special places.
Forget the fights and all the accusations.
Sometimes, when the sun comes up, I realize I haven't been thinking about us.
I hope that maybe I'm free from the chains of the past.
But as the sun slips away, all the pain comes back.
And every night, I miss the way things used to be.
When it was us against the world and not all of you against me.

Camp NaNo Project Chapter 1 Excerpt

Blinking slowly, the world comes into focus.  All around, the smell of dirt perforates the air.  A raw pain flares in my wrists and panic clutches at my chest.  I try to move, but the ice cold chains hold fast, their clanking deafening in the quiet space.

      What happened?

      Legs shaking, I try to stand, but my bones turn to liquid and I hit the ground hard.  Sucking in a shaking breath I sweep my eyes around the room.  Nausea crushes my abdomen.  The room is no bigger than a broom closet and my claustrophobia tightens like a vice around my lungs.  Panicking, my breaths come in quick succession. 

Help.  Someone.

Caden.  The name slips through my mind, as my vision darkens, like sand through numb fingers.