A Decade Come and Gone

I feel like the last day of 2019 deserves some kind of recognition.  It's taking with it not just twelve months, but the last ten years.  It feels surreal that tomorrow we'll wake up in a new decade, with a timestamp sci-fi movies used to indicate a far and fantastical future.

I feel like I should have poetic words about the last ten years but I don't.  I graduated high school and college.  I got a job and quit a job and found my calling.  I went to different countries, different states, different cities.  I loved hard and fast and I hurt the same way; bright and wild like gasoline on a burn pile.

I stood in front of strangers and read them my words and soaked up their clapping and smiled when it was over.  I wrote entire books and sold them and saw them in the hands of others.

I got my heart broken more times that I can count.  So many times that when I look at the mirror now, I can nearly see the scars on my soul as if they pucker and shimmer on my skin.

I got what I wanted, what I begged for a hundred times and realized that most of the time the things we want and the things we need are vastly different.  I got things I never knew I wanted and I had to learn how to go on when they were snatched from me.

I had so much fun.  I laughed until two in the morning and danced in driveways doused in silver moonlight.  I made last minute trips and smiled until my face ached and felt so much joy that my body shook and tears came to my eyes.  I had the time of my life.

I met new friends and faced new fears and I fought for everything I have.  I fought for the goodness, I fought to exist, I fought for better than I had before.

2010 started in neon colors and froze in the middle, dark and bleak and empty and finally thawed out into gentle, tentative pastels.  It took a girl and burned her down until her bones were all that remained and slowly formed a new skin on her.  The last decade created a phoenix and I'm so grateful for all of it.  The pain, the joy, the long days and the longer nights; it helped me find myself.

And yet, when I look forward to 2020 I can't help but silently hope that the next ten years are gentler to me than the last have been.  I can't help but to hope for a few more quiet days, a little less heartache, a little more sunshine.

As for the last twelve months, the last ten years, I could spend a dozen lifetimes coming up with "what-if"s and "if I could do it over"s but it's over now.  The last ten years made me who I am and while it was long and hard it was also magnificent and beautiful.  It was my life.  

I can't imagine what the next 10 years have in store for me, but I'll go in knowing that I'm stronger than I was before and that no matter what comes, I was created to live this exact life that I have and that's exactly what I'm going to do.

Until next year <3

-M

Go. Anywhere.

There is a need somewhere within me, a need that wedges itself between my ribs and wraps around my bones, a need to go.

Go, it whispers.
Go.

Anywhere.

To walk new streets until my feet know the pebbles in the road like old friends and maps are obsolete.

To wear the city like a sweater until the itch of unfamiliarity fades to a warm, soft comfort that wraps me tight each morning.

To breathe in the air and breathe out the slang and the language like I was born with it in my lungs; like nature planted me the words in my chest when I took my first breath.


There is an itch beneath my skin that begs me not to stay put for too long.

Go, it tells me.

Go.

Anywhere.

Live in new places until they are old friends.

Meet strangers on every corner until every corner is filled up with familiar faces.


Go, it tells me.

Go make the far away lands home so many times that one day, not a place in the world will feel foreign.

Wear the culture like a jacket and the streets like shoes and the language like breath and become the all world wound up in one, single body.


Go, it tells me.

Go.

Anywhere.

Between Two Worlds

Sometimes I feel almost whole.
Sometimes, I can put the trauma behind me and pretend it never happened.
Sometimes I feel like I belong here, in this time, in this place.

And then there are other times where nothing is right.

Times when my chest feels so hollow it aches.
Times when the bones beneath my skin feel like fragile branches of an ancient tree.
Times when winter ice creeps into my veins and freezes me to the spot.
Times when the world around me feels so foreign that I can't see straight.
Times when the wounds I've carried so long that they have scabbed over start to crack open again and sting and bleed and hurt anew.

There are times where I feel like a changeling, left in place of a human girl and destined for something ugly and scary and grim.
There are times where I feel so invisible I'm tempted to scream or to run just to see if anyone would notice at all.

Goodbyes and Reminders

I screamed goodbye to you four years ago with eyes full of tears and a throat full of nails.  My world was ash back then and telling you goodbye was snuffing out the last burning ember of hope.

I cried goodbye to you in my car, alone, counting my way through a panic attack when I saw you in the store six months later.  I've rarely hurt so bad in my life but I still remember the pain lancing through my heart like a needle into fabric, even after all this time.

I whispered goodbye to you every day for a year as I trained myself not to look for your car in the parking lot at your old apartment building.  Even when I knew you had moved, my broken heart found the habit hard to break and I kept thinking you'd appear right there where I left you.

I said goodbye to you again today when I saw a picture of you.  You're not looking at the camera because you're looking at me.  I'm out of the frame, but I remember.  And that picture of you posing for the picture I was taking caught me in the chest like a taser until I was stuck replaying that day over and over again in my head.

Every time I say goodbye to you, I have to say something to myself too.  I have to remind myself that I deserve better, even if you never believed it.  I have to remind myself that I have worth, even if you never saw it.  I have to remind myself that I am precious, even if you never thought so.

Every time I say goodbye to you it hurts just a little bit less.  Maybe today was the last time I'll have to do it.  Maybe by this day next year, I'll have forgotten you and the agony of goodbye will be over and the reminders will be truths etched into my heart.

I Wrote Down the Story of Us

I wrote down the story of us.
I changed your name and the color of my truck but the rest is truth.
Just truth.
I wrote down the story of us, in vague sentences and in specific details and it only takes up ten pages.
Two years of my life summed up in ten pages.
It feels like a joke.
I wrote down the story of us and I couldn't help changing the ending.
So that part isn't truth.
It's all wishes and wants and should-have-beens.
The end is my favorite part because it saves us.
It turns our shipwreck into a painting.
It takes the broken pieces of us and glues us back together in some new, undiscovered masterpiece.
I wrote down the story of us and I miss you so badly I can't breathe.
I miss you and I'm angry and I'm hurt.
It reminded me of so many things.
I wrote down the story of us and I don't know if it should make me laugh or cry.
I do both.
I smile at the beginning, when we were close and things made sense.
And I write through tears in the middle, where it gets messy and we turn into a disaster on the page.
I wrote down the story of us and I wish it was different.
I wish we were different.
Or maybe I wish we had never changed.
I wrote down the story of us.
I changed your name and the color of my truck but the truth is still the same.
The truth is that it hurts.
And the truth is I still keep wishing that the ending on my paper will play out in my real life.

Ghosts

This town is small and full of ghosts.

I walk in the coffee shop and a bell tolls above me.
To my left is the long table where we used to sit.
And I see us there every time.
Blue eyes and soft smiles and whispers floating between us.
And it's so real, I might as well be sitting there with you now.
But I'm not...I never am anymore.

I pull into the parking lot with tall brick buildings lining every side.
The space where we used to park is nearly always empty.
And I see us there every time.
Loud laughter and louder music and smiles so wide, the sky is jealous.
And it makes my chest ache so hard I can't breathe.
We're not there...we haven't been for some time now.

I hear that song on the radio and the memories come back like a tidal wave.
The room where we met is bright and alive in my head and my heart.
And I see us there every time.
Jokes as sharp as tacks and sparks burning in the air between us.
And it makes me sick with the bittersweet remembrance of it all.
You've been gone...for a long time.

This town has no ghosts of it's own.
They're mine.
They live deep in my heart and linger on the corner of my vision.
And I don't think I can ever out run them or be rid of the scars on my heart that they're tied to.

Another Letter I'll Never Send (#3)

Dear ******,

Fifteen weeks wasn't enough time for me to know you.  Years have passed and I still think of you most days.  In the car, I'll hear the song that came on the day I met you and wonder where you are.  In a crowd, I'll see someone with eyes like yours and wonder how you're doing.  Fifteen weeks was all we had and it felt like a breath and a lifetime all at once.  Sometimes, I daydream that you'll walk through the doors of my local coffee shop and come back into my life forever.  Sometimes, I daydream that you'll read this and know I miss you.  Sometimes, I daydream about what it would've been like if we had stayed.

I split my life into phases.  You were the beginning of light.  Of coming back to life.  And I don't think I ever told you just how much you saved me.  My whole life, I've felt invisible-partially due to my own desire to blend but also because people never really see me.  They see my laugh and my smile and they stop there.  They never see the quiet moments when I panic or the nights when I cry myself to sleep.  They never see just how hard I'm trying to maintain.  But then you looked at me and  in that moment I began to truly exist.

My moments with you are so clear in my memory, laser cut and bright and vivid.  I never want to forget the day we met, when you made a quiet joke and I was the only one who heard you.  I never want to forget the moment when our eyes met and I knew I had met my match.  I never want to forget the day I made you laugh-really laugh-and how the sound felt like coming up from beneath the waves and taking a full breath of air.  I never want to forget the way you fought for me; the way you saw the pain in my face in a split second and changed the energy in the room.  I never want to forget anything about you.  The green eyes and bowties and silent challenges.  The tiny spark of hope you lit in the ashes of my broken heart.

Because of you, green eyes still bring a smile to my face.  Because of you, I know I'm not invisible.  Because you, I will always do a double-take when I see anyone in a bowtie.  Because of you, I'll always be holding out hope that the universe might bring us back together.

Love Always,
Boots.

Just Gone, Not Forgotten

When he said my name, it felt like a promise.
And when he smiled at me, it felt like being set on fire.
Those feelings are a memory now.

I miss his voice some days.

When it feels like I'm forgetting him and the edges of his face are blurred by time.

When our moments feel faded, as if they were captured in on film but the photo was left in the sun too long.

That boy, lost in a sea of faces but remembered.

In the memory of the laughter that rumbled through his chest and then through my own.

In the moments when the sun paints the ocean the color of his eyes.

In the moments when memories roll out like tapestries on the back of closed eyes and feelings flit across the skin like whispers.

I was a girl then.  

I was fragile and naïve.

I saw the world through rose colored lenses.

I miss that girl some times.

When the world is grey and the weight of living seems too much.

When I spend days in silence and the word "hope" feels foreign and vague.

That girl, gone and forgotten but in still paid tribute to.
In the songs on the radio.
In the tear stained pillowcases.
In the moments when memories roll out like tapestries on the back of closed eyes and I drown in the feelings that seem so far way.

There are days where I look in someone's face and half expect to find him there, a smile on his lips and a joke rolling from his tongue.

There are days where I look in the mirror and see the girl reflected back at me with the shadow of a warrior keeping her in the shade.

Both of us are gone.
But the moments of us will stay forever; etched into our ribs by our beating hearts and seared into memory by the sparks that flew between us.
Both of us are gone.
But we remain forever.
Never forgotten.

Ideas and Feelings

The idea of staying feels stagnant.
Consistency feels stagnant too and it scares me half to death.
I sit in the car and I love the feeling of movement and I want it to last forever.
But I don't want to run.
And when I get tired, I want a place to call home and the same pillow to rest my head on.

The idea of a picket fence and a house with a porch makes me feel sick.
Though if it's from fear or from wanting, I can't quite tell.
And I want the ring and the white dress,
But what do you spend 50 years talking about?

The idea of my future terrifies me because it's so vast and so empty.
But there's also room for possibility.
There's room for more than the small things that pile up on top of me and crush me until the world blacks out.

The idea of staying feels stagnant.
The idea of commitment is scary.
The idea of going feels vague.
And the feelings are what take me by the throat and squeeze until I want to curl up and let them rage while I sleep.

I Am All Color

In my bones, I am color.
I am vibrant explosions of sound and light.
If you were to spill me on a canvas, there would be no straight, clean lines.
No blank space.
There would be colors overlapping and spilling off the edges.
Neons and pastels and primary colors mixing to make new hues the world hasn't yet discovered.
There is so much of me that one canvas might be too small.
You might need two, or three, or five.

I spent years trying to tone myself down.
Be dark.  Be quiet.  Be small.
The colors in me faded and soaked back in until I was a translucent ghost.
I hid the colors like powder in tiny, secret pockets.
And in the desert, in the heat, in the fire, the powder hid.
But when the rain came, giving me new life, the colors started to show.
They dyed the ground around me.
They dyed my skin and my hair and my laugh.

Now, the colors are home, living in my heart and bursting from me in every sentence, every smile, every breath.
And I won't give them up again for anything.
For anyone.
Because my color, my life, my vibrancy and exuberance are integral to my existence and to lose them for any reason would be to lose myself.

Friends

He says we're just friends and I choke on the breath I've been holding.
Smile-my brain tells me-and I comply.
My heart is short-circuiting.
He would appreciate the metaphor, but we're just friends now.
That's all.
I inhale caffeine like oxygen because it's sweeter than the bitter taste left in my mouth when I replay his words.
They echo over and over and they hurt and numb me and make me cold.
Even when he asked before, it was a miscommunication.
That's all I ever do-miscommunicate.
I wait too long and I hope too high and I use all the wrong words.
Always friends, never more.
Always a step behind the curve.
He says we're just friends-just so I know-and I swallow my pride like a mouthful of nails.
I nod, despite the sloshing in my head and the ring in my ears.
But never a ring on my hand.
Because I'm easy to talk to but not the girl you want to date.
Because I'm just your friend-in case someone misunderstood the way we joke.
I guess it's easy to misunderstand.
I did.
I always do.
But we're just friends and I laugh because it's fine.
It's always fine.
That's just what friends do.

Fragile Hope

I hold hope in my hand like a fragile, hand-blown glass piece.
Sculpted by each moment, stretched by every memory.

I am clumsy so I grip it tight.
Spider-web cracks, cracks threatening to come through.

I loosen my grip and it teeters in my hand.
Ground far below, hands too slow.

Is this what hope feels like?
Too fragile to touch, too delicate to let go?

If I drop it, surely it will break.
If I keep it, surely I will hold it too tight.
Broken either way.

Hope.

Fragile.

In my hand and falling to the floor.
The only thing I have left.

Another Letter I'll Never Send (#2)

Dear *****,

It's been a while.  Years actually.  Every time I drive through your town though, I think of you and wonder where you are and what you're up to.
In a sea of bad ideas and worse people, you were good.  You were always good.  Good to me, good to be around, good to follow.  You were always good.
Some of my favorite memories have your name written all over them and my best years are the ones where we were close.  I'm not quite sure what happened to us.  College I guess.  It has a tendency to expand your world so wide that you lose touch with people, even the ones you love.
When my world fell apart, you were there for me and I probably never thanked you for that.  I've always been bad at saying thank you when someone's seen me vulnerable and stayed.
I remember sitting across from you on the beach and watching you text someone and I had this moment where I was acutely aware that you were in my life and I was happy.  It still makes me smile.  I still laugh about temporary tattoos of pop stars and hats that look suspiciously like UFOs.
I used to write you notes all the time, I'm sure it was annoying but it helped me feel like you were still there even when you weren't.  I kept the note you wrote back after I begged you and begged you to write me one.  I taped it in a scrapbook and I hope I always remember when you gave it to me via someone else because I was overjoyed.
Remember when I was so distracted by blue eyes across the yard, that I walked into a glass door?  You never let me live it down.  I swear sometimes I can still remember how you laugh, the way it sounds like a surprise to you every single time.  That sound is getting harder to remember though. I guess that's what time does.  It blurs the lines and changes the sounds.
I miss you.  I guess all I'm trying to say is that I miss you.  I miss you and I miss us and I can't tell you how grateful I am to have known you.  Who knows, maybe one day the stars will align and our paths will cross again.  I look forward to that day, even if it never comes.

Wished for Nightmares

People always say "be careful what you wish for, because you might just get it."
I wished, and I got, and all too soon, I regretted.
It's been months and the memory of it still makes me feel something twisted.
I want to scream at him to tell the truth.
I want to hide my face and forget him.
I want to sit in a quiet spot and whisper all these things to him and see how he reacts.
Because the memory of getting what I want is all consuming-like the vines that grow in Georgia.
It's out of place, but it's taking over.
It wraps itself so tight around my heart that I'm numb and covered in it.
It weaves in and out of my head until the ground beneath me is tinted green through the leaves.
It's been months but the memory has taken root in my chest and it winds itself around my rib-cage until I can't think straight and my breath feels shallow and painful.
And his name hurts like a thorn as it gets stuck in my throat.
I stopped wishing after him, after the wishes came true and turned into nightmares and now I feel like Sleeping Beauty awake in the castle but trapped by the thorns.

A History of Broken-ness

I have a history of broken-ness and I'm tired. 
My head is tired.  My heart is tired.  I'm tired to the bone and I'm tired of being tired. 
I want to find love and happiness and connection, but it seems like so much work I'm exhausted before it ever begins.  I feel like a vase that's been dropped on the floor and shattered and put back together over and over again.  The first drop was bad but the pieces were big and easy to find and it took time, but I got put back together.  Then someone set me on the edge of a table and pushed.  And I broke.  And I put myself together again.  And I broke.  And again, again, again, until there was no way for all the tiny pieces to be found.  I'm a marbled mess of pieces and edges and glue and tape, and he set me right back on the edge.  I can feel myself tipping at the slightest breath of wind.  It takes everything in me to stay upright and stay together and stay off the ground.  It takes everything in me to stay whole.  And if I break again, I can't say I'll survive. 
I can't say I'd have enough energy or concern to put myself together again.  Not after everything else.  Not after him.  I keep thinking of all these things I want and being too tired to get them or to fight for them.  I swear I could sleep for a month and I'd still be tired, maybe because being tired isn't the real problem.  Maybe because it feels like something deep down inside me is so broken that I don't even care anymore.  I've fixed so many things and I've healed so much that I never imagined I would be able to, but I'm not better.  There are problems that started so early on that still plague me.  Problems with how I see myself.  With how other people have told me to see myself.  Problems with reality and how I hate that it exists.  I'm reading a book and the girl said she writes to disappear.  To shut it all off.  And I think that's the truest thing I've ever read.  I have a lot of reasons for writing but mostly, I write because it tunes out reality and it turns me off and it brings something unreal to life.  It helps me melt into the ground and stop existing.  And that scares me.  The fact that I want to melt into the ground scares me.  The girl I was when I was little never wanted this life.  That girl wanted to be the star of the show and be bigger than life and remembered forever.  This girl I am now...she just wants to be invisible because when people see her, she gets hurt.  And when he looked in my eyes, I was waiting for the hurt.  I still am.  The silence of the other end of the phone is it's own kind of hurt.

To The One Who Feels Like Air

Everything about him is warm and solid and easy.  And I want it.  But I can never tell if I want him, or just what he feels like.  He holds my hand and plays with my hair and makes me laugh and it feels safe and I'm not afraid of it.  When I'm with other people, my blood pressure goes so high that the room starts to spin.  With him, my feet are on the ground and my soul is in my body and my heart is going the right speed.  Maybe that's not the feeling to chase.  Maybe that's just how I'm supposed to feel with everyone.  But I don't.  I don't feel safe with other people.  I don't feel whole or warm or right.  I feel like I'm going to crawl out of my skin.  I feel like my soul is too big for my body and it's pushing against me, trying to escape.  And then he puts his hand on my arm and my soul shrinks back down to the right size and I can take a full breath again.  Is that love?  Feeling like there's nothing wrong with what you are beside someone else?  Or am I the only crazy person who feels like I might float away on the slightest breeze?  Sometimes I think he feels the same way and we're both just clawing at the space between us to keep our feet on the ground.  There's no reason for us to hold hands when we sit in the floor or to hug every five seconds or to poke and hit and touch but we do.  We do it all the time and it's the only thing I have to hold onto sometimes.  It's the only thing that connects me back to the moment. 
I've spent a long time teaching myself how to reconnect with reality.  I count in eights.  I sign the alphabet.  I dissect the world around me with all five senses.  I pick a color and I find it everywhere that I can.  I ration my breaths.  But when he's around, I don't have to do that, I just have to reach out.  Sometimes, it's like he knows and he reaches for me before I can do it myself.  I don't now what that means for us.  Maybe it means we're supposed to pull our heads out of the clouds and be together.  Maybe not.  Maybe I'm just learning what safe feels like and right now, he's the only safe thing I have.  Maybe we're somewhere in between and we haven't found our landing spot yet.  Not knowing makes it hard when he's not around and my mind wanders and my imagination takes over.  Not knowing makes it hard when he's right there and we're constantly reaching for each other.  Not knowing makes it hard in the moments when the world feels way too big for me to function in alone and in the moments when this town feels so small that I fear I'll use up all the oxygen it has.  I don't think I want to be with him, it's more that being with him seems easy and I wish that it felt like that with a few more people.  I don't think I want him, but I want it to be this easy with the people I do want.  I don't know when the idea of breathing became synonymous with his name.  I don't know when the idea of phone calls became normal or when the separate "he" and "I" became the together "us".  I don't know when the tides shifted or when he became part of who I am.  Maybe when we spilled our pain out in the middle of the night and realized that we were both choking on the same brand of poison.  Maybe the next morning when we awkwardly and honestly talked about how rare that feeling was.  Maybe that's when I felt safe for the first time.  Regardless of when or how or why, the fact remains that he is my safe place.  I think of him and my hands stop shaking.  I think of him and my breathing slows down.  I think of him and all the fear that swirls up into a tornado slows down and settles.  I don't have that with anyone else and I don't know what it means, all I know is that it's one of the only things keeping me going these days and I don't want to lose it.  Or him.

Diagnosis: Feelings

Feelings are like this cough that won't leave my lungs.  They rattle around inside of me and clog up my throat.  They tear at me when they come tumbling out without warning or permission.  They burn and they sting and I try to shallow my breathing so they don't catch me off guard.

They settled in like a bad cold so many years ago and then the people came in like weather, changing the climate of my life so I could never truly get well.  I was sick so long the first time, that I forgot what it felt like to be well.  He came in and out, hot and cold, and gave me a long bought of pneumonia and bronchitis and the flu one after another.  They all hurt.  They all felt like death.  They all left me with wet eyes and a throat raw from choking on my feelings.  They left hollows in my cheeks and bags under my eyes and made my chest ache with every fragile breath.

Days and weeks and years passed and finally, I didn't shake so badly when I inhaled.  I met someone who felt like clear air.  Like summertime and deep breaths that didn't hurt.  He felt like breathing after holding your breath for a long time.  And when he left, the cold came in so quick I didn't have time to find a jacket.  I just caught a new cold.  Not so bad as the one before, but the cough lingered for months.  It game me headaches and made me stay in bed and hide from the world.  The world was sickness, that's all I learned from him.  That, and the fact that even things that feel like medicine can make you sick.

When the feelings that felt like sickness finally slipped away, I opened the windows and pulled the curtains back.  My heart was clean but it was empty.  It was lonely and sterile with a smell like pain that made it feel like a hospital hallway.

I didn't know it was coming the last time.  The feelings and their germs snuck up on me when I was least expecting it.  All it took were dark eyes and soft words and they were there in my lungs and I've been coughing for days.  It's an ugly, uneven cough that sounds rough and painful and weak.  It sounds bad but I feel worse.  I feel empty one second and like I'm drowning the next.  I feel so tired, I wish I could quit my job and sleep for the next two months.  I want to sleep until I forget him and I feel better or until he remembers and the truth knocks the sickness right out of me.

Because this cough is lodged in my lungs and the feelings are stuck in my chest and I can't breathe or think or sleep or move.  I want my life back, even if it means wandering the sterile halls of my hospital-clean heart all alone for a while.  I'd take clean sanitized air over this rattle in my chest and the scratch of my throat.

The Thing Is...

The thing is, if you asked me if I love you, I'd probably lie.  I'd grit my teeth and look away and force out a "no" and try to change the subject.

The thing is, even if I said yes it wouldn't matter.  There would still be too much swimming in the ocean in between us that we could never overcome.

The thing is, the way you hold my hand makes me dizzy with hope.  The way you put your hand in my hair and rest your head on my shoulder gives me goosebumps.

The thing is, I try to forget the way you say my name and I can't.  The way you hug me and the things you say stick in my head and replay on a loop that makes me miss you until I can't breathe.

The thing is, I know that it will never work.  But that doesn't stop me from wanting it and from wanting you and from hoping you might want me too even though I know you won't.

Icarus

Every one talks about the fall of Icarus as though he was always in the sky and then one day he flew too high and fell. 
But what I like to see is his escape. 
Yes he was reckless, no he didn't listen, but would you?
Imagine spending your life trapped in a maze and finally breaking free. 
Would you honesty say that your first thought would be caution?
Mine would be freedom.
I like the hope of Icarus, the fact that he reveled in the freedom and he flew to the sun and dove toward the sea. 
I imagine Icarus free, shouting with joy and flying higher than he should because he was stuck for so long and doing lazy loops in the sky.
I like the joy that freedom must have brought him before he fell. 
Maybe because I have spent my life in a maze and I am finally making my own wings. 
Maybe because after being trapped, the exhilaration of flight is intoxicating and I'm ready to fly. 
So you mourn Icarus in the fall but I salute him in the flight. 
One day, I'll have wings of my own and I'll be free and I pray you'll salute me in my escape, even if I fall.

Know

Take me to book stores and let me get lost in the words.  Let me fall back through time into different worlds and countries and places I long to call home. 
Hold my hand when I laugh and hold me tight when I cry and keep your hand on me somehow, someway all of the other days. 
Listen to my stories, because they're endless and they're crazy and they're a part of me, intrinsically. 
Tell me about your day and your life and your feelings because I want to know you better than I know myself. 
Watch movies we've seen a dozen times with me because I love the characters and the action and the story and all of it together makes me feel alive. 
Drive fast with the windows down and let me blare my old songs on your radio and sing at the top of my lungs and put my head on your shoulder while you show my your songs too. 
Dance with me in the kitchen at 2 am and in the afternoon and to the music in commercials and anytime we want just because we feel like it. 
Know that when I feel too much, which happens often, it'll spill over and tears will wet my cheeks but it's not your job to prevent that.  Let it happen and don't be afraid of it, just stay beside me as I dry them up. 
Know that late at night, the mood and the night sky are crushingly heavy and sometimes I might need you to tell me you love me even though I should know that already. 
Know that my heart will be all yours, all in, from the moment you reach out your hand and that it's been shattered a dozen times before. 
Know that when I tell you I love you, it's not out of habit or convenience, but because I mean it down to my toes and you are my world and I need to say the words out loud to make sure you know the truth

How to Let Go

How do you let go of the people who shaped you? 
How do you let go of the things that carved you into the person you are? 
How do you let go of things without closure? 
I like things to end with a nice little bow and a card.  More times than not, it ends in a fight and a finale that says something like "we're better off without each other" or "I don't want to be your friend."  And then sometimes, there is nothing.  There is unspun ribbon and and jagged edges that run on forever and tangle around my feet and trip me up.  Sometimes, I cannot find the definite end, rather I find a moment where the world started to fade to a different color and no reason why. 
How do I let go of that? 
How do I walk away from something if I don't even know what went wrong? 
How am I expected to fix myself and change my behavior and become a better person when I am drowning in a sea of people too scared to call me out on my mistakes? 
How am I supposed to apologize to them for what I've done and ask for their forgiveness? 
I'm not brave but I am not a silent sufferer either.  When someone hurts me, I turn over my arm and show them the wound and often times, it is too much.  Often times, I am bleeding out calling out their name in accusation and they are running away, calling accusations of their own unspecified hurt over their shoulders.  I try to be gentle and forgiving but sometimes, the cuts are too deep and too close together not to call out.  But it is too much for people.  I am too much. 
And sometimes, they leave without a word and what am I supposed to do then? 
When he invites me to something special and then leaves me alone and then slips back in silently?
When they play petty games and block me out and then slip in with a trivial conversation? 
How do I let go without pushing too hard? 
Or is it okay to shove the people who broke me away when they try to walk back in like nothing happened?

Addicted to People

There are lots of things to get addicted to in this world.
I leave most of them alone, but people...you can't leave people alone forever.

And you can get addicted to them.  I do.
They get under my skin and in my heart and in my head.
I see the color of their eyes and hear the sound of their voice and see the way they smile.

People are a tragic thing to be addicted to- a dangerous thing to crave.

Because even after I cut them out, I go through withdrawal and I want them no matter how much it might hurt me.

They used to wind me up and watch me spin out so -snip- they're gone like a loose string on a cardigan.
And then I crave the late nights, I miss the laughter, I want the bad decisions.

He put his hooks in me and didn't care how much it hurt or how much the blood pooled as I tore them out.
And then I crave his voice, I miss the feelings, I want him.

They left me, on my birthday alone at the top of the ferris wheel so I slipped away silently and no one noticed.
And then I crave the society, I miss the crowd, I want the past back.

He looks like all my past bad decisions with softer corners and dull edges and all of him screams danger.
And then I crave his attention, I miss the danger, I want the regret.

I crave people the way others crave cigarettes or whiskey or oblivion.

Even the people who hurt me come back to haunt my dreams and part of me, that broken sick part, wants them back no matter what the cost.

I'm so addicted to people that when I pull away from them, it makes my hands shake and it makes me cry and it makes me sick.
It tore my life open, that addiction, and it's not the same as drugs or alcohol, but it ruined me anyway.
I'm recovering, learning how to pull away, learning how to live without, learning how to choose healthy instead of danger.

But on mornings when the fog hangs low and my dreams are thicker than syrup and my head is full of wishes and wants, the need is hard to shake. 
So I settle for imagination and for pretending things turned out different and for stories on paper where I can satiate the cravings without really hurting myself.

Contradictions

I am all feeling and he is all thought. 

I am the pastel colors that bleed together and fade at the edges.  He is the dark, straight lines that show the picture.  Together, we could make something beautiful, and the thought is terrifying and I think I want it. 

I am all heart and he is all head and together, maybe we could finally have both. 

I am the emotions that slam down the gas pedal and he is the logic that presses the break and steers the car.  Together, we could go anywhere-be anything. 

You would be hard pressed to find two people who are more different than the two of us. 

I am exploding laughter and violent sobbing and more words than you could count spilling from my lips.  He is quiet thoughtfulness and steady plans and gentle joking.  And I am afraid to be too much for him.  But his heart is bigger than anyone I know, maybe even mine, and I think sometimes there might be room for me in there too. 

I am conspiracy theories and belief in wild things and he his fact and truth and together, we could be unstoppable. 

I am the branches of a tree, swaying in the wind and growing ever outward.  He is all roots and depth and strength.  Together, we could live forever. 

And as different as we are, the similarities scare me more.  The faith we share.  Love for family, adoration of friends.  The lack of spontaneous impulse and the finality in all of our decisions. 

I have spent my life chasing whims because permanence is a scary word and when I look at him, I see forever.  He is the jovial youth and the steady life and the white picket fence and the rocking chair on the porch.  He is love and constant reassurance and I need it all and it scares me half to death. 

I've spent my whole life running, floating on the wind like a wish and somehow I ran straight into him and he's everything I ever dreamed of and the truth of it, the reality of how good he is for me, makes my hands shake and my words come out twisted. 

He is all angles and facts and straight lines and I am vines and feelings and colors and I am shaking in my boots thinking I might have found forever.

Child Of The Forest- Read at Bohemeos 1.29.19

Child of a human, raised with Fairies where everything is golden.  This world is new and bright and nothing like your old home.  Who brought you here little one?  The sunlight feels like kisses from falling stars.  Your head is light with wonder and your lungs full of merriment.  Is there anything here that you fear?  Not yet.  Dance weightless, and laugh unbridled.  Sing with the fairies and let enchantment wrap you in its arms.  Bend the sunlight to your will by offering a smile.  Be radiant and mesmerizing.  Let these moments last.

Child of the magic, how long can you keep a hold on your innocence?  How long until they steal it away?  Their world is full of beauty but ethereal faces are masks to hide the danger.  You might love them, but you are still an outsider.  The tune they play is intoxicating, but how long can you dance with them until your finite feet begin to ache?  They cannot lie, but you cannot last.  How long until the revelry turns into a hunt?  Did you know that you are their prey?  You don't belong here.  I fear you never did.

Child of the forest, did someone warn you?  They see your soft edges and your gentle hands and mild words and they long to break you.  You love the glitter of the world around you now, but how long until they turn their pretty phrases to poison and start to spit it at you?  They know you too well; know where to press to make you crack.  Do you know how delicate you are?  It will not be hard to crush a mortal or to kill a spirit like yours.  They were made for this kind of hurt.

Lonely girl, do you really love him?  That beast with glowing eyes and sharp teeth?  Nothing good comes from a smile that wicked.  They taught you not to fear them, so you embrace it.  He feels like a different kind of magic; something dangerous and dark, but you run to it.  You run to him.  You want his shade of darkness.  You want him.  Does it feel like a trap?  Can you see the distraction in his smile?  Can you feel the venom in his words?  Loving him won't make you one of them.  You're human through and through.  Too gentle.  Too weak.  Too blind to see the truth.

Broken girl, do your bones ache now?  Have you fled into the darkness to outrun the truth?  When did their words of encouragement turn to whispers of your failures?  Look at their faces. You'll see the horns.  The claws.  The fangs.  Can you see now the way they laugh when they cause you pain?  You're just a human child, playing at being more.  To them, you will never be enough-until you’re nothing.  You can hide in the trees, but the tree sprites will find you.  Can you hear the hunting call echoing now?  They’re coming for you.  Can you outrun their arrows?  Run.  Run faster.

Human girl, how hard will it be to fight your friends?  This place you called your home has turned its back on you.  Will it break your heart?  Will it break you?  You lived in their kingdom and learned all the rules-that doesn’t make you safe.  Can you turn on them now?  Alone?  For your own good?  There's a long road ahead of you, a war waiting on the other side of the trees.  Are you sure you can do it?  Their glamour is misery when the sharp edge turns against you.  You don’t have much to fight with.  Can you hear them calling, taunting you to come back and be their pet?  Will you go?  Or will you fight to exist? 

Warrior, covered in blood, what have you done?  You demolished a kingdom.  You burned down your home.  And what is left?  What do you have to show for it but bloodied hands and a broken heart?  Does their magic stir in your blood now?  Or is it dead too, like the familiar faces on the bodies at your feet?  You made knives your playthings and you wear poison like perfume.  They taught you too well how to be a weapon.  What happened to your innocence?  Did you give it to the beast before he broke you?  Did you lose it when you cut out his heart?  Dance again, the way you did as a child, wild and free.  Careful now, you might slip on the rubble or in the blood of the fallen king.

Ghost, what happened to your soul?  How much did this war cost you?  You took back your life and now you're alone.  There is nothing left out here.  Can you feel anything at all?  What have you done with the sunlight?  Where did you get the stones to build this wall around yourself?  The war is over; there is no need for all of this.  How tall will you build this tower that you’ve locked yourself in?  We cannot hear you.  It is silent inside.  How long will you isolate yourself?  Can you survive on your own?  Can you hear me?  Ghost?

World of chaos, what did you take from her?  From us?  You lured her in with fairy tales and harmonious melodies that her wild heart could not ignore.  You only taught her parlor tricks while you were casting spells and called it fair.  What did you gain from ruining her?  You made her believe that she was one of you.  Were her wide and dazzled eyes something that you envied?  You've lived here so long, and I wonder, does this place shine for you the way it did her?  Has your world lost its luster?  Did you think devastating her would bring that magic back?

Weeks have passed.  Where is she now?  Is she still up in her tower, locked away from the world?  Did she escape?

The war is over child.  Your enemies are gone.  You can come down now.

Months have passed.  Is she okay?  Alone?  Afraid?  Did she bleed out on the floor?

The forest is waiting for you.  There are new faces waiting to meet you.  You can come down now.

Years have passed.  Who is she now, if she even still exists?  A human?  A warrior?  A hollow shell?

Whoever you are, it’s alright.  You’ll find yourself.  You can come down now.

Broken one, you've been gone a long while.  Is that you we hear stirring at last?  Seasons have come and gone and the world grew wild around the battlement you built.  What changed your mind?  What made you start clawing for a way out?  We can hear you crying up there, from down here on the ground but it’s up to you now.  It was always up to you.  Do you miss the forest and the clean air?  The wild things are waiting.  Come home changeling, come find yourself.  But first you have to find a way out your self-made cage.

Survivor, when did you grow up?  Who is this woman before us now?  The walls of your fortress are dripping red with blood but there was no one left to fight.  Did you have to fight against yourself to make it all the way down?  What is left of you?  Time has healed the wounds of war and this place has grown new.  Does the forest seem different now?  Can you still feel the magic?  Stand still and smell the youth of the earth and hear the wilderness calling for a savage queen.  Do you have what it takes to be her?  Flowers woven into your hair and a dagger up your sleeve.  Sun on your cheeks and shadows at your wrists.  Stolen magic in your veins and fire in your eyes, have you found yourself yet? 

Half witch, half goddess, hold your head high.  You fought for your place in this untamed, fantastic world.  With spells painting your lips and charmed gems that whisper secrets hanging in your ears, go find your throne made of vines and thorns and pretty things and sit a while.  They stole away your childhood, but children are foolish.  You are more than that now.  More than human.  More than they ever expected.  More than you ever dreamed. 

You are wild.  Dangerous.  Free.  Both a luminous child, born of kindness and a magnificent blade forged in white-hot fire.  Draped in the softest colors with words sharper than steel, you can make this world ache to hate you for how much they crave your love.  Let the memories of battle brush across your skin like a breeze and remind you of how you fought to get here.  Give the pain to the ghosts that would haunt you and give the creatures what they’ve asked for.

Child of the forest, did you know you would become their Queen?

Oaklynn and the Forest

Her laughter was sucked out of her as her hazel eyes opened on the other side of the gap in the rock.  Everything was gone.  All the color and the sound and the hope the hidden forest had given her was gone.  In it's place, an ash grey skeleton remained, still smoking from the fire that had undoubtedly consumed the trees.  Her new blue converse turned grey as she took careful steps through the ash.  Who had done this?  Who had known about her secret?  And who would've wanted to destroy it?  Tears spilled as the boy pulled himself through the rock and came to stand in silent shock beside her.  He'd never get to see the beauty that used to live here.  Never get to experience the magic of the hidden forest.  Her knees gave out and she fell to the ground, one hand over her mouth and one hand clutching at her heart.  She prayed he would stay silent, and he did, instead sinking down beside her in quiet sadness.  He hadn't seen it before, but he could tell things were not how they should be.  A sudden panic lit in her chest as she scanned the bony remains of the trees.  Where was Buttercup, the sweet and snugly white rabbit?  Where was Willow, the gangly baby deer who jumped in circles around her as they played?  Where were the blue birds and the squirrels and wild little Bandit, the red fox?

"Bandit?"  She whispered, praying for a miracle.  "Willow?  Buttercup!"  Her cries got louder, echoing off the walls of the towering rocks ringing in the forest.

"Oaklynn-" The boy said her name gently, as if in apology as she got to her feet.

"Bandit!"  She screamed, but the forest was silent.  The only escape her little animals would have had was the gap in the rock where she shimmied in.  But they were hundreds of feet up in the mountain.  Her little darlings would be lost by now.  The thought struck a chord of anguish in her and she pushed past the boy to get back to the mountainside.

"Bandit!  Willow!  Buttercup!"  She screamed their names over and over, a chorus of pleas for them to come to her safe and sound.  Behind her, the boy added her own name to the chorus.

"Oaklynn!"

Their voices felt too small on the side of the mountain and when Bandit did not run up to nip at her and Willow did not come running and Buttercup did not curl up on her feet, she felt broken.  Voice raw and eye red, she slid to the ground in defeat.  Her little family was gone.  Just like the one her home felt so empty without.  Just like the place she had run from.  There was no home for her anymore, anywhere.  The boy called for her again and her name rang through the air like a memory.

"Oaklynn!" 

She could not bring herself to answer.  She could hardly bring herself to breathe.  She was ash inside, just like her forest.  Lost, just like her animals.  Gone, just like everyone else and nothing mattered anymore.

I Was Not Reckless

I was not a reckless kid.  I was straight A's and Yes ma'am's and Please and Thank you's.  I was soft smiles and gentle hands and manners, always manners.  I was polite and overachieving and good.  I missed out on the rebellion and sour attitude and angst.  
And then I got my first taste of pain.  
And then again and again and again until I was blacked out and bleeding.  
I made it to 16 and then I made the wrong choice about who to give my heart to.  Then I kept giving it to the wrong people.  The wrong guys and the wrong friends and it got broken more times than I can count.  
I had to pull myself out of a pit of tar after that.  I had gotten in so deep, I was up to my neck in bad choices and toxic people and worse feelings.  I'm out of that now, for the most part.  I'm washed and dried and clean and trying to pick the last bits of tar out of my hair and off my skin.  I'm trying to get back to that kid who didn't want to be in the wrong place and I'm not failing.  
But I think the poison I was drinking for a while started an addiction and I'm still dealing with the withdrawals. 
 It grabs me for a second and points me toward the one with dark eyes and begs me to find out if he really tastes like whiskey and cigarettes before I shake it off and go on my way.  It trips me up and I land locking eyes with a sad mirror version of myself and wanting to stick my head under water with him, just for a second before I push myself back to my feet.  It shoves me sideways and I slow down looking at old photographs and trying to come up with a way to put band-aids over the bullet holes they left in me before I drop the picture and walk away.  
I am getting better, but the tar is still there in my lungs sometimes, clouding my judgment and calling to me with a sweet voice.  It begs me to take just a tiny step back, to relive one thing and then, it promises, I can be done.  It asks for just one second of my time, just one kiss on the wrong lips, one word to the wrong person, one more chance for the vultures.  I am getting better, but the temptation is hard to resist.  I try to walk away and I drag my feet, slow, slow, slow.  
And I can never quite get the sickness out of my lungs or the want out of my heart or the curiosity out of my head. 

Writing Prompt: The Last Person You Held Hands With

The last person I held hands with made my head spin.  It was late at night and it was sweet and meant nothing more than friendship but that didn't matter.  There was a movie playing, and we were surrounded by other friends and for a second, it felt like just the two of us.  Our intertwined fingers kept us connected over the twelve inches of space between us, but I felt like I was being tethered to the world.  In that moment, it felt like peace.  My heart was racing but I felt safe and loved and whole.
There were at least five people in that room and I was only touching one of them, but I felt like we were all holding on to one another.  I don't know if any of them feel detached from reality like I do sometimes.  He does, I think.  I think that's why we held on to each other.  Sometimes, I think both of us feel like we're seconds from floating away into space if we don't find something to keep us attached to ourselves and maybe we search for that feeling of security in each other.  I know I search for it in most of the people I meet.
I don't find that feeling in many people, and I rarely if ever reach out and touch them.  Maybe I should.  Maybe I should be braver and look harder and hold hands with more people, but I don't.  The last time I held hands with someone, it wasn't romantic the way most people might think.  But it did keep me grounded.  It made me feel safe.
Most days I just want to feel whole like I did in that moment and most days, I have no one safe to hold onto me.

Roof Tops

Two houses with dormers sit so close, their roofs nearly touch.  They hold age old enemies.  Their hate is legend among their peers and they divide the school in two.  The parking lot, the gym, that's his.  The cafeteria and auditorium are hers.  The hallways are tense shared space and their history class is barely controlled war zone.
One night, after a particularly bad day, he looks out his window to see her sitting on her roof in the rain, crying.  His lights are out so she assumes he was is bed.  She had to get away for a few minutes.  The silence coming from her brother's room is too much.  She tries to stand up and slips, but her enemy opens his window and crawls out to steady her.  They settle down, each on their respective roof, legs crossed, knees touching across the tiny space between them.  In the middle of the night, in the rain, he holds her hand while she falls apart and listens as she whispers about how her family is disintegrating.  Her brother is dead.  Her parents are fighting.  She is adrift at sea with no direction and no will to keep sailing.  He tells her about how he lost his mother and his father got mean.  How this house is full of bottles and smells like pain and feels like something worse.  He wipes her tears and he holds her until the bone-deep cold recedes just a bit.  They part with a weight between them, something new and bold that neither of them quite wants to admit: an understanding of the other.
And when they pass each other in the halls, she rolls her eyes, but not as hard.  And his insults get a little weaker every day.  It's a month later when he crawls across to her window to knock.  Her lights have been out for a week.  She hasn't been at school in a week.  Something is wrong, he knows it in his bones.  So he slips out of his window and across his little stretch of roof.  He hesitates before he pulls himself across the gap between their homes.  Things will be different if he does this.  There's no going back.  But the moon is high and he can hear music blasting in her room and hear her parents yelling at her to shut it off so he moves.  The knock startles her from the haze of pain she's been in.  His face is open, clearly full of worry and her heart aches more than she knew was possible.  She crawls out from under a mountain of blankets and hidden by the sound of her music, crosses the room to unlock the window.  He doesn't hesitate.  As soon as the window is open, he is inside the room, holding her, smoothing her hair, letting out the exhale he's been holding for a week praying that she was okay.  Her parents come and go at the door, yelling at her, yelling at each other until the rest of the house is silent and the music has made a home for them. 
She tells him in gasps, that his birthday passed, and then hers the next day, and it is too much for her.  The idea of existing without him, celebrating without him, being without him.  She locked the door a week ago and never wanted to come out.  She hurt, she told him, in a way that was indescribable he held her tighter because he knew exactly the kind of hurt she meant.  When her tears were dry and the exhaustion was taking her over, he helped her down the hall to the bathroom and rummaged until he found a towel.  Her parents were gone, in separate cars to separate places, their hearts in separate worlds and matching states of hurt.  She promised not to lock that door forever as he went back and waited in her room.  He turned down the music until it was bearable but did not turn it off.  He knew she was using the volume the drown out the pain as he once had.  As he still did.  And when she came back, she looked both fresh and more exhausted than before, sunken and small in an oversize shirt that hid her shorts.  It was her brothers.  It belongs to a ghost now she tells him; though he isn't sure if that means her brother or her.  But he knows too well how it could mean both.  He tucks her into bed and listens to her stories and lets her cry and laughs the few rare times she laughs.  Late into the night, almost morning, they fall asleep, him on the floor beside her bed with their hands stretched out as if they tried to keep hold of each other in their sleep. 
The sun wakes him up, and he presses a gentle kiss to her temple before crawling back across the roof to his own bedroom.  When the sun rises, he sees her turn the bedroom light on and he lets out a sigh of relief.  They eat lunch together, on their own respective roofs, legs stretching across the gap and resting against one another.  It is quiet and easy and it feels like something stronger than shared misery that starts stitching their hearts together. 
It is different in the hallways now, when she smiles at him and he offers to carry her things.  They had always been the heads of two opposing factions, and the rest of the student body doesn't know what to do when their leaders sit down at the same lunch table or stay late in the parking lot.  No one can uncover what stopped their fighting or what makes him look at her in awe when she is looking away.  No one knows what makes her smile when she hears his name or what makes them walk the halls hand in hand. 
The roof becomes their sacred space, where no matter what, they can just be.  He holds her there when her father leaves.  She traces his scars earned in battle with his father.  Together, they share the load of a broken life, far too young to have the wisdom they both carry in their eyes. 
They sit on their own respective roofs for a few more years.  And then they take turns sitting on the bed or the floor in the other's dorm room.  And then he sits on the balcony of her first apartment, and she sits next to him at the celebratory dinner when he gets his first promotion.  They sit together at a table surrounded by their friends who still didn't understand the change, even after he bought a ring and she a dress and they vowed to sit on rooftops together forever. 
They sit together on the balcony that belongs to both of them after they sign the lease papers because the roof they wanted was too much. 
It takes years, but finally, they buy a little house with dormers of it's own and they put the nursery on the top floor, not realizing that the next door neighbor's house had a dormer of it's own.  Roof lines barely separate.

A Perfect Place

Light filters through the window, splintering into rainbow colored ribbons of light.  They warm my cheek and I close my eyes.  If I try hard enough, I can imagine myself somewhere new. Grass beneath me, sun above me, nothing around for miles except for trees and wildflowers.  Your fingers barely grazing mine as we lay side by side.  It's perfect-this make believe world I start to dream up.  The noise of the city is miles away.  The sound of birds chirping and our slow, steady breath is all we can hear.  It's something I crave; that freedom.  That newness.  That peace.
And every once in a while, your face changes into someone new and the grass fades to a mountain and the sky turns grey and the wind cold.  We sit together, me and this new version of you, looking down on the world below us.  Still free.  Still at peace.  Still happy.
And then you change again.  The mountain is sand and the air is hot and the silence is full of laughter and crashing waves.
This perfect life I dream of changes every so often but the feeling doesn't.
There is always me, next to you.
There is hope.
There is peace.
There is freedom.
There is breath in my lungs and fire in my eyes and joy overflowing in my veins, warming my skin.
Every time I dream of my perfect place, I am happy.

The Weight of Armor

I push and I fight. I argue and I roll my eyes.
I quip and snap and all I really want is for someone to see through those defenses and hold me. 
Someone who isn't afraid or put off by the armor this world put on me. 
Someone who sees the tears behind the smile and catches them before they can fall.
I never meant to be this way. 
I never wanted walls and armor and humor sharp as swords. 
I never wanted to fight. 
But push a girl down so many times, and what do you expect her to do? 
I survived. 
And now the war is over but I'm trapped in these walls and this armor is too heavy and it feels like the strength that saved my life once is now pulling me down.