Just Smoke

You were all I wanted.
You stood there and let me love you.
Never close enough to touch, but just close enough not to give up hope.
I never understood you.
I don't.  Even now.  After all this time.
All you ever did was walk away.
But for some reason I never could.
Maybe you were stronger than me.
Or maybe you were just weak.

But you came back.
And I thought you were it for me.
But when you were finally where I wanted you to be,
close enough to touch,
I reached out and reached right through you.
You were just a cloud of smoke.
Nothing substantial.
Nothing real.

Maybe I was too real
or you just weren't enough.
But you burned my eyes
and made me cry.
And now all I have smell of you in my nose
and I can't run far enough way.
There isn't enough clean air to wash me out.
You were just smoke
and I breathed in too much.

Eye of the Storm

She stood in the road, soaked to the bone in rainwater.

It was howling, raging all around her.

For days, she had tried to stay dry.

She hid in makeshift shelter.

She covered her face.

But it was no use. 

The rain came 

and no one could stop it

and she could not avoid it forever.

So she stepped into the storm and waited.

Just when she thought it would never end, 

the rain slowed to a steady mist.

The black clouds parted for a moment

and a single, splintered ray of light fell on her.

The suddenness made her squint.

But soon, her eyes adjusted.

It was beautiful,

the way she looked.

Standing there covered in light,

staring up at the clouds

soaking wet.

She could see the sheets of rain coming toward her.

But the light transfixed her.

The storm didn't matter.

Only the light.

She stared, praying it would last

drinking in it's warmth and the rainbow that sparkled out of it.

She knew what the storm felt like.

She knew she could only wait for it to pass.

But in that moment,

she forgot about the rain

her soaking clothes

the howling wind.

She could only thank Heaven for the Eye of the storm.

And for that shattered shard of sun.

Thank You Anonymous and Thank You Mom

Mothers are so under appreciated.  They know us better than our classmates, than our friends, than maybe even our fathers.  Better than we know ourselves.

They detect the subtle changes in our mood when something goes wrong but we try to hide it.  They can see the change in our mannerisms when things are looking up but we don't want to jinx it so we keep it to ourselves.  They can spot good friends when we're too short-sighted.  And spot bad friends when we're too absorbed in the good moments.

My mom said something the other day that made me realize just this.  I was blabbering on about a guy (as usual), a guy I really like.  And she just smiled and said "you don't tell him to shut up".  Now that sounds bad in so many ways.  It makes me sound rude, and the conversation sound silly, and me sound literally like the biggest jerk on the planet.

But if you know me, the way she does, the way I didn't until a few days ago, it makes a lot of sense.

I've lost a lot of people.  A lot of friends.  And because of that, I have a tendency to put up walls and keep people at a distance.  How, do I do this, you may ask?  Sarcasm.  Dry humor.  Empty threats.  Eye rolls.  I'm the girl who says "shut up" and rolls my eyes when all I want is for you to keep talking.  But I can't tell you that, because then you'd know that I care and that when you walk away it'll hurt.  I say "I'm going to punch you in the throat" before I hug you because I'd never actually lay a finger on you but saying I love you is way too scary.

But this guy, I don't threaten him.  I don't roll my eyes.  I don't tell him to shut up.
And I didn't know why until today.  You see, this conversation with my mom was going over and over in my head.  And I wanted to know what was different.

As you all know, or maybe you don't, I struggle with social anxiety.  It's pretty bad, I have to talk myself out of panic attacks on my way to class.  I won't eat at school because the idea makes me so anxious that I get nauseated.  I hate getting out of the car because it makes me feel like I can't breathe.

But this guy, when I'm around him, I'm not nervous.  My hands don't shake.  I can breathe.  I can form an actual sentence without stuttering or tripping over my words.
I don't tell him to shut up because he makes me feel safe.
There's something about the way we work together, something about all the things we have in common that just feels right.  For the first time since I was fifteen, I have someone around that doesn't scare me.  If I need his help, I know he's there, but i also don't feel like I'm bugging him if I just want to talk.

So consider this my anonymous thank you to the kind, fellow artist, who gets the way my brain works.  And thank you to my mom for helping me see him, and see myself, in a way I didn't before.

Always a Prince

I always wanted to feel like a princess.
I wanted a prince.
A castle.
Dances held in my honor.
Troves of fluffy ballgowns.
Shelves full of tiaras.

Then he came in.
And I didn't feel like a princess.
But it didn't matter.
Because I was happy.
I was laughing.
He cared what I thought.
He cared in general.

The one person I thought I'd never connect with turned out to understand more of me than my best friend.

And it was better than a fairytale.
Because when you're happy, you're always a princess.
Every accessory is a tiara.
Every pair of ripped up jeans feel effortlessly beautiful like a gown.
Every step feels like floating across a ballroom.
Every building is a castle.
And he, he is always a prince.

Big Small Town

Our town here, it's not so big.
We see the same sights.
We break the same speed limits.
We pass the same buildings.
We cut the same corners and burn rubber on the same pavement.
We probably know a hundred of the same people.
Hundreds of people probably know us.
But somehow you and me are never together here.
Our circles never cross without intention.
This town is small.
But it feels so big when I think of all the things I know of you, and find myself unsure of where you are.
It feels impossibly huge when I know you're right down the road, but not here with me.
It's a small town, and everything reminds me of you.
I either want to live this town with you, or get out and never look back.
Because living together but apart is nauseating and I can't go on.

Patchwork Heart

She had a patchwork heart, stitched together with memories.
She had fallen so many times.
Falling apart, and rearranging the pieces, so that they never quite fit the same.
Some parts didn't quite match up anymore.
Some pieces were too small to reconnect.
So she walked around, half reconstructed.
Some days, the pieces were uncomfortably tight in her chest.
She sighed and cried and shifted to make them fit.
But they never did.
Not right, anyway.
They just sat, jagged, barely touching, held together by fraying thread.
And every once in while, a thread would give out.
She would convulse, stumble, fall.
And wait until the shaking stopped to spin another thread of memory and stitch herself up to keep going.
Never quite together, never all apart.

Aching Soul

There are few things in this world that tug at my soul.
There are moments, for me at least, where want becomes need.
My pulse quickens, my heart constricts, and in that moment, I am nearly in tears because my life is devoid of whatever it is that I'm looking for.
When I was sixteen, it was a boy.
Now, at almost twenty one, it has become destination.
There is an inexplicable need to travel inside of me.
My bones ache for new soil and my very soul yearns for the experience.
I think those are the feelings we need to follow.
The ones so strong that they bring us to our knees.
The ones that take up every inch of our mind, unraveling us until we are nothing but unquenchable curiosity.
Because in the grand scheme of things, how many moments like that are we going to have?
When something grips you in your very essence, it's not something to ignore.

His Alone

And just like that she was in love again.

He was her heart and soul.

Everything good and bad, she wanted it all.

She wanted his demons and his problems.  His angels and his songs.

She wanted every twisted, jagged edge that made him who he was.

And though she could find replicas, they were but empty shells compared to him.

They were breezes compared to his storm.

He breathed life into her very bones by simply existing.

And before he even knew it, she was his alone.

Chest of Novocain

Maybe if I fill my chest with Novocain this ache will go away.
"They didn't even fight for me."  I think as I stifle another sob.  The deep red sunset mirrors the drop of blood forming on my lip where my teeth hold on tight, fighting to keep the sound inside.

Nothing matters as long as they can't hear me.  They can't know I'm drowning in tears and shattered memories.

It was one second.  The one second I've been dreading since they let go.  Since I cut the cord.  I saw them all together, smiling, happy, going about their lives as though we didn't just fall apart.  I could've handled that.  I suppose.

But I didn't count on the comic book store to slam my heart against my rib cage like it was trying to escape.  That was too much.  Too much emptiness.  Too much missing them.  Too much of my past reminding me how little I have in my present.

They didn't fight.  They let me walk away.  They didn't bat an eye at my accusations.  They acted like our falling apart wasn't going to shatter them the way it shattered me.

I would've fought for them, had the circumstances been reversed.  I would've agreed to any terms.  But they didn't even give me a chance.  They didn't fight for us.  For me.  For themselves.

Don't I deserve to be fought for?
Am I not enough on my own?
Am I that replaceable?
Am I so insignificant that I could disappear tomorrow and no one would notice my absence?

They didn't fight back.  Like everyone before them, they told me they loved me and then they left.  Because love is just a word.  And words are just pretty lies, no matter how you fashion them.

You Were Never Toxic

When you get your heart broken, it can make things seem dismal.  You start to think you imagined it all.  All the sweet words, the moments, the looks.  A broken heart tends to tint the world in darkness.

When I was fifteen I fell for someone that I probably would've been better off without.  And I blamed him for breaking my heart for a long time.  Until last night actually.  I spent six years hating him and yet not being able to give him up.  But last night, I found an old journal from high school.  I started reading and my silly little commentary on life brought a smile to my face.  When I realized just how far back it went, I started wondering what I had written about him.  And I finally found the many pages devoted to the confusion he caused my heart.

I didn't imagine things between us.  For however briefly, we did have something more than a friendship.  I could finally remember the butterflies when I saw him, the sweet torturous joy when he found me backstage and I gave him something I had made.

Suddenly, this person, these memories, all of these moments that used to bring tears to my eyes made me laugh.  I never thought I'd live to see the day when I looked back on him and smiled.  But the truth is, I had so much distance from where we began, that I couldn't see things right.  It took my sixteen year old account of every encounter we'd ever had to remind me how much I loved him.  My friends thought he was the worst thing for me.  Toxic.  Poison.  Danger.  But he wasn't.  They were jealous, and fake, and clueless.  He was everything I ever needed.  He was a lesson in so many things.  And if he hadn't been the first to break my heart, someone else would have.  It had to come eventually, and I'm glad it was him and not someone else.

I've spent pretty much every moment since I met him wondering how I was so lucky and also how life could be so unfair.  But the truth is, he didn't break my heart.  Sure, I wish he had stuck around.  I wish he hadn't gotten engaged.  Twice.  I wish we had had a shot at a real relationship and not this weird stuck in the middle thing we've got now.  But it way my expectation that crushed me.  It was idolizing an idea of him and not accepting who he really was that hurt me.  It was my series of many mistakes that broke my heart.  He was just being a nice guy and indulging a silly sophomore that thought the world of him.  In all honesty, I owe him more gratitude for showing me kindness than anything else.

I don't know if he's one of the few that sees these things.  I'm not sure I want to know.  But last night, I learned a valuable lesson.  Nothing is all bad.  There might be pain in the middle, but you can't forget the moments that gave you inexhaustible joy.  Because if you dwell on all the hurt, every other situation in life becomes tainted.  And nothing is worse than good memories that have been twisted and tainted by time.

Army of Darkness

She had always held the illusion that she was a princess.  The embodiment of love and light and sweetness. But one day, she fell for a villain.  Dark and dastardly and toxic.  And that was the beginning of the end of her delusions.
Once she fell and stained her snowy reputation, it was just a matter of time.  The years went by and the darkness accumulated in her heart.  Sometimes she couldn't control the violent outbursts.  Try as she might, she couldn't pretend forever to be that immaculate, glittering princess of perfection she'd hoped to be for so long.
She fought for light.  She fought for love.  But it never mattered much what she was fighting for.  The forces of the world were much too strong.  So she gave in to the poison screaming through her veins.  Before long, she was more powerful, more irresistible than she could have ever hoped to be.
She took control of the growing grains of hurt and formed an army.  An army of her past regrets and demons and heartaches alike.
And once she commanded the forces of darkness at will, she could banish them for days at a time.
She could never be rid of them for good, but it gave her the control she needed.
She could be the princess she had always hoped with the power of the villain who had stolen her heart.
With an army of darkness, she built her castle and her future out of beams of light and stones of sadness and no one could slow her down.

No More Fire

My life has a tendency to fall apart.  I'm not great at keeping things together.  But every time it falls, I find some fire, some resolve to prove that the world can't keep me down.

This time though, the fire is gone.  Life has stamped out the embers until they were just ash on the ground.  I look for resolve in everything around me.  People.  Music.  Books.  Characters.  But nothing seems to stick.  I don't know where the fire went.  Or how to bring it back.

I used to be able to fight.  I was a warrior.  I was strong.
But the weight of the tears in my pillow is finally too much.  And it's all I can do not to freeze to death in this desolate wasteland.  No fire means no fight.  And without my fight, what am I really?  Just a girl with a broken heart and no one to help me back up.

Again.

You fall in love.  You fall out of it.  You go through all the steps.  Grief, anger, denial, acceptance.  And just when you start breathing freely again, the past rounds a corner and slams into your chest, leaving you with shaking hands and cloudy eyes and shallow breathing and icy blood.

Just when you think it's been put to sleep for the last time, your heartbreak wakes up again.  It catches your eye and caresses your cheek and makes you question every thought in your head.

When you've stacked the pieces of  your heart right and you turn to walk away, it catches you by the ankle and your progress spills out on the ground.

You think you've got it figured out and then it falls apart again.  Your future shines on the horizon, but how can you walk away from so many untied ends?  And just like that, you're fighting back your past one last time, trying to salvage your future.

Sorrow Is [built from prompt]

Sorrow is the texture of sandpaper, constantly shredding and filing and grating on your skin, rubbing you raw until the pain in unbearable.

It sounds like rain, tapping on your window, relentless, just enough to make your head pound and your chest ache for freedom.

Looks like tumultuous water, you see the hints of motion from a distance, but once inside, you’re trapped, forever doomed to toss and turn and drown.

Tastes like ash.  Dusty and stale and dry and nauseating, turning everything grey and wasted.

And it smells of poison, a dark, pulsating mass of deadly force, inching ever closer, making your nose and throat burn and stinging your eyes.

Sorrow is not for the faint of heart.  Sorrow is not for the weak.  Sorrow is internal warfare of the heart and mind and none of its soldiers come back the same. 

The Year of Opportunity

Welcome to 2016.

The past year has been filled with highs and lows.  I honestly can't tell you how many times I felt like my heart would burst with happiness, or with sorrow.  Several points in the past year have made me realize that I give people way too many chances.  I never want to be hard-hearted or mean, but I do deserve a certain level of respect from my peers and I intend to receive that respect. 

 I lost sight of my worth in 2015.  I let my past drag me down.  So I'm going into this year with no real friends, but I'm fine with that.  I let go of all the dead weight from 2015, and I'm going into 2016 light as air.  I don't need anyone who doesn't need me, and I certainly won't settle for anything less than what I deserve.

My word for the new year is Opportunity.  I'm going to find them and take them as they come, and hopefully, open up a whole new world of possibilities for myself.  Who knows what this year will bring?  I don't.  But I have hope for the best, and I know regardless of the outcome, if I keep my eyes on Christ, I'll turn out just fine.