I had to put all the stars together to make a wish for you to see the smikle we wrote under the Christmas tree. Ornaments of fragile hearts we chastised to flatrten the ends of ribs we hallowed out for a symphony of butterflies my hands dont have enough movements for when you say hello. Our lips have mouthed dances longer than the air turns to crisp, and Ièm sorry our fall broke into oranges brighter than the summer that froze our hearts. That the leaves whisper secrets more tender than our first kiss. Two thorns could never rewrite beauty, but could I you this winter? The seasons are about to change again, but no matter what temperature the weather feels, I'll still call you mine. We have been friends for some time now, but our friendship is still early morning fog that I get lost in. No high beams, just your smile.  No more crying, just more writing. No more feeling an intense feeling of regret, just me holding your hands into a happiness that wont break with the simple touch og ongoing depression. I know you didnt mean to leave us for a few days, but I never stopped caring, not even for  a day. We still search for worms as night owls, but the early bird always beats us there. We were never morning people, but coffee made us out to be a photograph stained with tears - because holding it in my hands meant that i was going to burn it later that afternoon,. I know your heart is not inside of your chest and I know just because you're inside of a house.... That doesn't mean that you're at home... And you know something else? Just because someone says they love you, it doesn't mean that they love you for you. That's the cruelty we write about and my, isn't the weather feeling a bit cold without us holding on like lovers who havent met since the initial impression of this may be the last time I'll ever see you again. Hey, don't worry. I'm not a season, I don't change just because it's going to stale and my face is pale. I'm not going anywhere without you. If we are like the seasons in any way, it is the consistent three months we planned carefully each year.

//

Our youth was a mess of strawberry vines tangling our ankles, drinking straight from the cactus and using tweezers to  to remove the spines that slipped underneath our skin. Salt lining the threshold because the screen door never closed all the way, and we didn't want the spirits to sneak in.

But grandpa built this house with his own hands and we love it, creaky floorboards and all. Hide and seek in the basement, never mind the mould that was trying to run us out. we used to run away to the rest stop over a mile away, our feet were caked in dirt and we never had much luck catching signs of any ghosts. Halloween in the corn mazes and all those Polaroid pictures that we swore had UFOs in the corner. the adults all entertained our games, never told us it was just our smudged fingerprints.

As we grew older- the dirt was just dirt. no more days of trying to survive the quicksand. That old house went up for sale after Grandma died. When we packed the place up, I I destroyed the line of salt, told her to finer her way to the light. I took so many pictures, put them all in a folder and sent them to you, but I never got a response. I guess you werent daydreaming about witches and windmills anymore. Maybe that's good. No more mouthfuls of sand or bloody noses.

But there's still the summer you were just a crow boy. A scarecrow with cotton mouth, always heaving up sawdust. It doesn't matter how far we grow apart, I'll still always be nimble-fingered girl, picking miscalculated pellets out of your open wounds.

//

I used to tell myself i was like the void, empty and dark and untouchable. I was accepting of this, the void is where we all inevitably end, the destination we all seem so afraid of - death.

I have reached it early and yet I still live. I breathe and dance and I love, there is a colour in this void I have found; and amongst the backdrop of black even the most faded of colours seem fluorescent to my eyes.

The void is not empty or dark or untouchable. The void is the beginning where you expected to find the end. The black is your canvas to paint and the colour will build into a symphony.

//

 One day, you'll wake up and realise that you're pouring your heart into an empty cup.

//

Cheers to the aftermath; because it sucks, it absolutely sucks being left alone to save yourself from drowning in your own tears; but this is not the end, not even close - it's only merely the beginning, and believe me when I say, "you're going to be okay."

//

Sleep in on the weekends so that your responsibilities realize they take your for granted.

//

The stars always find a way to shine despite the darkness and you too will find a way to go on despite the horrible things that happen to you.

//

She stared into her coffee like it contained the whole world, contemplations written in wrink;es, squinting, trying to find truths in caffeine.

//

Let me tell you something, kid. I know that you're sad. And I know that you think some boy qith pretty eyes who makes you laugh until your stomach hurts is the answer. But he isn't the answer. Or the saviour. Or the light at the end of the tunnel. He's just a boy with pretty eyes who makes you laugh until your stomach hurts. And I know that you want him to reach a hand to the floor and help you stand again, but he can't fix you. He's sad too. He's looking for an answer, and newsflash: it isn't toy. It isn't anybody. Because people aren't going to teach you how to wake up even when it's hard, and how to feel life all the way to your gut without trying to throw it back up, and how to demand your own kindness. No, kid. That's something you have to figure out yourself.

//

There are moths in my kitchen again and this isn't a metaphor for anything, it's kind of really annoying but I'm also grateful in some weird kind of way, you know? I guess it's just that the rot lives in something else now. I guess it's that someone else is overfeeding on dead things too. Jessie says I should buy more glue traps but no else deserves to be stuck in this house. No one else needs to be pinned down till they starve. Jessie says that's the quickest way but I don't think I'm really against the moths.

We're all just trying to chew our way out of here.

//

Concept: Me and you, you and I, us. Draped lazily atop the bed, limbs crisscrossed, intertwined with comfort. Oh wonder spirals through the air, soft notes muffled by tired speakers, fairy lighths brighen a corner of the room, the soft light rays stretching to touch all surfaces. Heart shaped bulbs are mirrored in yoir eyes, indigo pools I have no wish to leave. This is my happy place.

//

I'm selfish.

I'll take the love you offer me and leave you nothing in return. I'll tear you apart just to see if I can, only to put you back together with stitches and glue. Dont come to me looking for love; don't expect me to make you happy; don't wish for a forever by my side. Come to me in ruins, and I will leave you a little more beautifully broken.

//

I met a boy last week.

I could talk about a lot of things.

I could talk about his hair,

and how it danced in the wind

like so many falling leaves;

or maybe his eyes,

and how they glistened

like the shimmer of an ocean in the sun;

or his smile -

and how it stretched across his face

and my butterflies were replaced by

elephants;

or his-

wait,

where was I?

Oh! yes,

i could talk about a lot of things,

but I think I'll keep them

to myself.

For now, all I'll

talk about is how

he looked at me,

and i felt like my jagged edges

had finally found a home.

//

i spent the last few years writing

about someone I cannot have,

and no matter how much i wanted

to send those love letters off, I

couldn't. So, for anyone who's

reading this, i really hope that you

don't have to love in silence.

//

Everything is going to be alright.

Maybe not today, or tomorrow,

or even a month from now. But

eventually, everything will fall into

place and you'll be alright.

//

I. When you smile

the world forgets to breathe

and all the air

sets on fire.

II. What I mean to say is that

yesterday when you asked me how I

was doing

It was the one thing that

happened

all day, and I know

you're just kind like that

but it made things a little bit okay.

III. You are the heat of the noon sun and

the slice of cake and laughter of an

erupting mountain, oceans turn still

when you meet them, you're a ribbon

of bright red,

you burn so bright that even rocks

melt

beside you.

IV.  I want to burn my mouth on you.

V. What I mean to say is

it's okay if we're going nowhere,

as long as I'm going

with you.

//

Kurt Cobain in his suicide note wrote, "it's better to burn out than to fade away," and the more I think about it, the more it strikes me, would you rather slowly lose your light? Like you're the night sky slowly losing it's darkness as the morning comes around for the sun to steal away all of your brightness or would you rather be a wild fire taking over the forest and slowly being put out?

//

The spirit is unbent and unbroken,

yet the body is shattered;

reduced to fragments,

scattered

then reassembled to mimic a whole

in order to fool the brain (in all its

limitations) of the reality

of existence.

//

I stopped picking scabs, stopped

resorting to the past, realized this

part of me isn't bruised anymore;

what's left is just a memory of where

the bruise used to be,

and sometimes that memory haunts me,

but not all night. Not all day. Maybe

there's still a scab, but it doesn't bleed.

So I listen to the song that make me

think of you and i feel nothing but

the soothing sound of your voice

when it was beautiful to me, my

memory racing to the passenger

seat of your car. So I answer your

text messages with something dumb

and i laugh when I hear your

response, so this isn't filled with

sadness anymore, it isn't a gaping

hole anymore. We don't talk about

serious things, we pretend we

forget.

And I miss you, but I'm glad you're

still in my life, and I miss you, but I

won't die without you.

//

Eyes shut.

Wishing it all away.

Clenched fists,

pursed lips ,

heaving chest,

salty tears,

begging for a better day,

slipping fingers.

Shaky arms.

Baby you're okay,

Baby you're okay,

Baby you're okay.

eyes open.

//

Learn this, and learn it well -- you are noting but a mortal, nothing but an empty name and the absence of a crown in your fist. (and he is divine.)

//

Whisper your lies into the stars and watch the night change from black to pale. Your skin tone too frail  to understand the truth about the colour of things. We wanted to bleed the truth, but we bleed red. Let me tell you something else, the blue in our veins and the blue in the sky-- there's nothing closer to a lie than the shit we tell ourselves. Be like the ocean, be like your red and accept the truth,

//

Memories do not always soften with time; some grow edges like knives.

//

This is not finish.

This is full-bodies, big-boned beginning. This is kiss me, I'm mine.

This is hold me up to 12 o'clock sun. This is see the light push through my fingers, see my skin become the red of my inside.

This is follow me down to the black roads, chalk my name onto the pavement, car-sized.

This is read me out, letter by heavy letter.

This is hold me under your tongue, stick me to the roof of your mouth, spill me from your lips like thick, lumbering, molasses title of tome.

This is call me tomorrow, and the next day and the next.

This is I may be home or I may have somewhere holier to be.

//

Now that we're gone, i want you to move forward. I know you are still in pain right now like I do, but never hurt yourself just because our story ended up. It wasn't just your fault. Don't put the entire pain on your back, we share the common storm. We are hurting because of what happened and it's normal since we've had each other for the longest time. I know our eyes are full of sadness and regrets,

but some things in life must come to an end, and we are one of them.

Now that we're gone, I want you to stand up and look around. We are still in a murky tunnel, but it doesn't mean we can't see anything at all. Pain overtook our sight, but not all of our senses. We could still stand up, walk, breathe and feel. It is dark and scary, but remember we started as blinds before we knew each other. Our relationship was just a piece in you, not your entire life.

Now that we're gone, I hope you will find someone who won't do the things that we did before. It's because I don't want you to remember our memories when you're with her.

I hope she will always be with you to wipe your tears away when you cry randomly at night. I hope she will never cross the road we've paved before. So that you won't feel my presence anymore.

Now that we're gone I hope that we see each other again, I would see an unfamiliar happiness on your face. Not the one that you wore when we're together before. A different presence which I'm not comfortable of. I hope someday when we meet again, you would thank me for leaving you because you've found your perfect half.

//

Live in my palms, I won't crush us.

i will use your lips to store my books,

every time your smile is read--

I just found my favourite line,

I just found my favourite quotation

and that is worth being happy for.

//

Press your thoughts on my lips and we

will figure this out together. Tell me

what's wrong and what's bothering you.

Tell me everything and I'll tell you

that it's all going to be okay. if our skin melts away and

we let our blood drip into a glass of

water, remember that even if we break,

I'll be there to break with you.

//

Tomorrow in the woodsmoke of her body

don't you dare remember me. Don't you

dare. You better love her until your fingers

bleed. She is good. She is better than me

and she doesn't deserve to have her heart

torn to pieces because she trusted you. I

look at her and see a mirror. You better not

hurt her. She is the last good thing you have

going for you.

//

I have never known a sweeter sound

than your laughter

maybe they are right when they say

laughter is the best medicine

because when I hear that glorious sound

my sadness melts away

like a spoonful of sugar on my

tongue

and I am sure that if I heard

your laugh everyday

I could never be unhappy again.

//

I couldn't tell which storm had more rage, the on the other side of the window or the one in my head.

//

You're busy swimming laps around while I'm drowning.

//

Dandelion girl with

her heart all full of wind,

a wild child songbird

oh god but you fell for her

in the backseat of a car

when her fingers found yours

in the shy dark

you get drunk under the stars

and make a blanket fort

in her backyard

and when she leans forward

she asks you

where you want to kiss her,

but every inch of her takes

the breath out of you.

you want to kiss her

on her nose on her lips on her collar bones

over coffee under trees --

where do you want to kiss her?

how do you unfold a map of infinity?

//

I remember you in all my best moments

when I fell life engraving

its mark into my bones

and I'm living moments

i want to burn into my brain

I remember you for that split second

and I wonder if you feel it

somewhere in you

I wonder if your blood runs a little warmer

if your heart pangs for even a moment

the way it used to when it was me

and you

I think about you in all my best moments

that I'm having without you now

And I'm not saying that I love you

I've been there

And I still have the scars from the

stitches I removed to prove it.

But you're still with me

in all the sun rays, airwaves and full moons.

Now that our ending isn't what we ever wanted to

imagine

know that you're still with me

not in the way that I promised you would be

but in the only forever I have to offer.

//

You should try saying "sorry" to the

stranger you bumped into while

walking too fast, headed nowhere.

Maybe you can give them a smile as

you apologise because this world

needs more twinkling eyes instead of frowns.

Call your parents and ask them how

their day was-- they always asked about yours.

Call your mother and ask what she would

like for dinner

call your brother and ask if he'd like to watch

a movie when you get home because you haven't

spent as much time as you'd like together.

People are so bitter over their past,

even when they are in a happier

place now. Make amends to make things

that no longer are. Make peace with

yourself. Be alright alone, by yourself,

and surround yourself with the kind of

happiness more permanent than the one you searched for.

Tell a stranger you like the colour of

their eyes or the way their dress fits them perfectly.

Compliment them.

Human beings deserve compliments.

When the rest of the world is dragging one another down,

tell a stranger that they are going to be someone

and watch the stars form

in their eyes. Every single one of us has a

universe inside.

Let people make you feel. Let life

inspire you. If you are full of warmth,

don't look forward to Winter.

Seasons come and season go.

Allow yourself to be happy.

//

She won't be me. She won't sit in the car for an extra three minutes just to finish the song. She won't hoard words and scribble them in the corner of post-its hidden around the house for you. She won't actually laugh when she types out "lol" or even crack a smile. She doesn't stare at the stars and drink coffee like it's only thing keeping her alive. She doesn't get excited over the smallest things like space and puppies. She won't eagerly run up to you and attack you in a huge, even though she saw you yesterday or kiss you like it's the first time, every time.

She's not me, but you'll wish she were.

//

LESSONS IN SELF-LOVE:

i.) Be liberated. Feel free to do whatever you need to do to be okay. Soak yourself in warm water and bubbles or take a night out under the stars. Get cozy with a couple of beers if that's your thing. Walk around your house naked (if you live alone or with people who you can be naked around.) Eat enough gummy worms to make your seven year old self sick. Feel free. Free enough to act without judgement, free enough to exist in your space where nobody else can tell you what to do.

ii.) Remember that humans are at least 50% mistake. Nobody walks through life gracefully, it's more of a stumbling journey. Forgive yourself for the little things and for that which you can't, believe that they have made you a different person. You are not the things you have done, no matter how heavy they have made you feel.

iii.) Treat yourself with what you can. I don't mean flood your free time with luxury, but reward yourself with even the smallest of gifts. A piece of bread that costs exactly what you have in change, a pair of socks that makes you laugh, a beautiful set of earrings no matter how fake they are (I really doubt anyone notices from a glance.)

iv.) Reach out for help when you need it. Existing is a difficult thing to do and we cannot do it alone. You are not a burden, or a task, or an anchor holding anyone down. You are not invincible or infinite, there are no stone walls in your chest to protect you. Fall back on others, scrape your knees, let the universe win this one. Because you'll get back up, and you don't have to do it yourself.

v.) Do your best. That's really all you can ever ask of yourself. Work your hardest and don't look back. Will your limbs to get up in the morning, and try to get your brain to rest when it's supposed to. Put the most you can into what you do -- and I'm not saying it has to be 110% all of the time, but drive yourself to do what you can. If life's going to be a bitch, you have to make the most of it and take it all back.

vi.) Take care of yourself. Whether it be in mental health days or  retail therapy or vent sessions over whiskey, do it. Let yourself be vulnerable enough for you to feel the wounds on your body and know that you can tend to them. Don't put anything before your health or wellbeing because nothing should stand in your way of feeling like you're worth the care. Love yourself enough to worry about it. Mend your scars before throwing yourself out there again. Because you'll conquer whatever it is you need to, so long as you make it through this okay.

//

I placed myself in the dirt a year ago. I saw the worms crawl through my thoughts and I let the ink run dry, my, they never taught us how to cry about people. They never taught us how to love, so we have problems when it came to the mirror. Lately, my reflection is a little better. Lately, the muddy puddles show the midnight sky. Lately, the rain has been. The rain didn't leave and we shouldn't stay outside for much longer, we lose winning battles., but losing a war is never the end. Every book has a place on my shelf,  and yeah, we've died to feel something. They never taught us about needs and wants. They taught us our abcs and 123s, I can't spell some names and I can still count my lovers all down to the cell. We change every year, we change every day. I guess the dirt grew more roses than I can admit. That's why I can't take a compliment. My apologies.

//

The moon is so quiet --

he sneaks up behind me

and covers my eyes

and laughs

(you are almost the daybreak,)

you are almost

the dark inside of my chest

you are almost anything at all.

//

If you're syrup, I'm the sore throat.

If I'm the restless storm you're the clear sky

If I'm the heart, you're pumping blood

you feel like a Saturday morning

you're the good thing to come home to

I see us in colours

If you're on fire then I'll be your baby blue

you're all endless red beneath my eyelids

but we'll make a pretty sunset

you feel like sunshine to taste in my mouth

the excitement running into my fingertips

I feel like I'm jumping off a plane

without double checking the parachute

but you've become a safe place to land.

//

I am so tired of everything being about race, or gender, or sexuality. Race shouldn't matter, gender shouldn't matter, sexuality shouldn't matter, none of it should matter. We are all people. The only thing that should mean anything is how we treat other people.

I am not the colour of my skin. I am not the people I love. I am not what is between my legs or on my chest, or what is in my head. I am just a person and none of that should matter. What should matter is how I helped someone picked up their books or how I talked about someone behind their backs. If you want to judge me, judge me for the choices I make, not the amalgamation of bits and pieces that creates the shells that those choices fill.

I am not my race or my gender, or my sexuality and by god I am more than the sum of my parts.

//

You know, when you are at the bottom for awhile you start to get comfortable and build a house for yourself so you are scared of that safety that nothing can be worse than that; so you don't even notice that you tend to sabotage yourself and you get mad for that but you can't help it because you don't feel ready to leave your comfort zone yet.

//

 My heart felt like they were ablaze. My heart leaped into my chest. I watched his cold fingers leave mine and a little part of me went with him.

//

I think he liked me. Isn't that strange? Not being sure of a person's feelings for you, but I guess that was always the scenerio with me. Full of uncertainty and maybes. The kind of relationship you see in couples who're not official but could be in the future with a little teaspoon of doubt. And it's hard. Being in love with someone who only might think of you as a friend or a partner in crime. But still. I have no choice but to treat you the same,

//

I love you because you haven't given me a reason as to why I should not. I love you because with my toes in the sand, you've kept my days warm, I love you because strangers make the best of friends. I love you because the sky didn't ask to be the sky, shit happens, we have to live with that. You have to live with the knowledge that somewhere on the planet, out of billions of horrible disasters, there's one safe haven out there and it's all yours. I love you because these three words have become a cliche, but still we write and people still die and live as if this you because the message in the bottle was written and sent, but you'll never get to read it. I love you because we don't need to hurt anymore. I love you because we need to smile more. I love you because my favourite colour is red, we use blood to sprinkle sunrises, we use tears to scribble in the ocean. I love you because our inner thoughts dont get a break, we can never learn to get over it.

So get over it.

And if you can't, i'd still love you because love is love is love is love won't mean a thing if you don't believe me today. If you don't believe me until I'm waiting at the end of forever, maybe then you'll believe me. I love you because people tend to look past the good. This one time, you need to see the best.

I love you because we're all made of fire lines waiting to touch forest, we're all fire lines trying not to break like levees. We're all on fire, some of us just forgot. I love you because the weather is changing and we need to prepare for winter. I love you because you've never done me wrong. I trust you to love me and you trust me to love you.

I love you because poetry is soft but I love that you're a constant reminder that the world won't always be your best friend - you're my reminder to breathe. I love you because with my head in the clouds, you still keep my happiness grounded and I've been getting high to the thought that one day, I'll be happy again.I love you because you because the love quotations do do this world justice. I love you because the movies are a lie and we need something raw. I love you because the books are fantasy, but reality with you, isn't too far from a fairy tale.

We all need step sisters and an evil step mother. We all need a dragon to protect us from a corrupted prince. We all need sharper thorns. We all need prettier petals. We can learn a few things from rose.

Admire me from afar, but fuck with me and I'll fuck you right up. I  love you because flowers smiled today. I love you because doubt shouldn't be your only emotion.

I love you because I love you should be simple enough. I love you for today. I love you for tomorrow. I love you from now and until the last star goes out. I love you because love isn't defined by a simple three words. It's more fragments of when we forgot how to breathe and which way points us out of this maze. I love you because I love you.

//

I have kissed blue skies into my own veins and until I became your friend, I haven't seen much sadness quite like it... And no, sadness should never be romaticized and no, depression should never be rewritten as something we should all go through, but if I'm always this sad and I feel the need to go off myself this many times. I feel like my words will mean the world to you. So here I am, gentlty nudging the colours into your eyes.

You always said that I could be something and we have been friends for such a short time, but beauty isn't always lengthy. Beauty isn't always apparent. Beauty comes and it goes, Where the win may blow, where you may lay your head and wherever you may break, I would love you to know this one thing from me to you. That even if you didnt see the same sky as me, id rip the blue and place it back into your hands. i would give you many reasons now to cry and baby, your tears arent clear, they're red. Your body trampled by thieves and wicket poetry. Your tattoos finding more peace on your skin than they did with the needle. The empty pair of eyes that I deem sad, they used to be like mine, when I was younger and I smiled at everything.

From the way some boy smiled back, to the way I always knew that my Father was never going to love me like the way I wanted him to. And yes, we live in broken homes in a broken time... Doesn't it feel like the world is moving without us? Does it feel like we left ourselves behind for the wolves? The pack feels out pain, so we just howl with them.

I have seen some flowers and no, snapdragons do exist. You are the garden and i am merely a passerby. if we stop being friends one day, if you don't remember my name, if you lose the colour of your eyes, if your hair bleaches itself into the white noise, if you go insane one day or finally decided that the suicide letter was every bit real-- i guess I just wanted you to feel love and to know love. I know i haven't had the pleasure to hug you... Bit ig my heart skips a beat and asked about 1,2 and 3; 1 would always be for you, 2 would always be for you and 3 would always be for you.

A friend of mine taught me a valuable lessons.

She said always ask because it's polite, but mainly because people don't always get to pick and choose. And that's why I always pick. That's why I ask now, May I write something for you? You don't have to love it, you just have to know that i wrote it because I love you, even if you choose to break,

//

She kisses his cheek and in an instance it all makes sense, that this burning of his skin should be because of her, that the tingling of her lips is indepted to the jawline she can't help but want to touch. Her hand is engulfed in his too, his fingers tracing over the patterns in her veins even she does not recognize. She cannot help but be hyper-conscious of the way their sides are pressed together, the way her fingers linger on his lap for a second more than necessary. From the way his fingers curl around hers a little tighter-- she knows he notices too.

The way their hands slip into each other is not practiced. it is fumbled and takes a few ties for her to become comfortable with a beautiful creature cradling her palm ever so gently. In the darkness it is easy to rest her heard on his shoulder and pretend they are alone, that years from now they are sitting together and for a moment it is just as it is at the second, heads together, arms tangled.

//

We make hobbies of counting the rain, naming droplets after each man gutted by the death sentence of silence. Women with goldfish hands who'll tighten their knotted bodies, squeeze themselves dry, to oil motor mouths-- for women who let men drink them up. I am collecting raindrops for the atacama women, women who spit out motherhood because she feels like dried paint, and wombs like that can only home dead doves.

This rain falls harder as breathing decreases. I swear to god, this harvest will not drown, drought eyed women who know what to do with the abuse, the loneliness, the jealousy of men; but burn their anger to ashes before tasting it, who would rather make orphanages of their bodies. The rain is crawling her way in to the earth, and there is thunderstorm dancing in our roots.

I am only a girl but listen, you are not to blame for their blackened dreams. Dear girl, rain becomes acids at your touch. See now our tender soaked bones are open mouthed. We have agate love running out of our pores, covering us thick to say, "Look at me. Look at what you have not destroyed. Look at what we've built."

We are a screeching, mad language and once you realize this, you will see the ark for what it is: a paper boat, a prison. In this story, there is no rainbow. In the story,  you do not swim.

My god of a girl, you walk.

//

If I could experience my first love again, I'd learn how to look in mirrors. Press my palms against cold glass eyes until I saw that my reflection was beautiful. I would take myself on dates because sometimes it is good to know that I can exist with anybody else. I would throw myself a compliment every day, not to inflate my ego but to set it in place because I should be allowed to feel good about myself.

I would ask if i am okay at the end of everyday, hold myself tight if the answer is no and let myself cry if I have to.

I would let myself wander in my own thoughts, never push for more, let everything go at its own pace because I am a growing human and the only enemy to change is an iron grasp on passing yesterdays and I do not want to make the mistake of letting a stranger take their place inside of me.

I would make promises to be better and I would see them through -- these scares will be reminders of tough times but I won't confuse them for weaknesses; every relationship has it's rocks and I am climbing to the tops of mine.

If I could reteach myself how to love, I would start with the person I should have loved first: me.

//

Candy cigarette stuck between your lips. You smell like smoke and I am a house fire.

I ask if you've bought your new car yet. You say you like the feeling of riding a bike with no brakes. I give you the phone number to a dealership.

You kiss me and it tastes like blood. I ignore it and kiss you back. Sweet sixteen just turned sour.

We go bridge jumping on the 14th and the water is cold, too cold. I can't feel my legs. You drag me to land. I pretend I didn't almost die.

You knock on my window one night and midnight. I look like a mess but I let you in anyway because you look like one too. I thought you were coming here to kiss me. You told me you've never loved me and then you left.

I dont lock my window anymore.

Come back before i forget you were ever here,

//

Drown yourself with chocolates. Forget the fact that you're not into sweets. Remind yourself that there are things worse than tasting something you aren't into, and that's losing something you don't ever want to.

Walk alone, from your house to some place. Stand in the middle of it, when you start questioning what the hell you're doing there, remember that this is not the first time that you're clueless as to what you're doing. Remind yourself that you're going to get out of it. You always do.

Visit an old best friend, that one that you drifted away from. When she asks you what you're there for, tell her: closure. When she asks what for, tell her: for the things you thought you had a chance with.

At the end of the day, nobody will even remember how sassy you were earlier at lunch, or how truth you've blurted out. At lest not for a long time. So raise your eyebrows more. Laugh at your own silliness. Tell them your thoughts. Don't care. You've learned that caring too much only leaves you more fucked up than you initially were. You don't want that again.

Hum. Sway. Glide. Float. Fly. Move forward- no, no, dart fucking forward, girl. Shrug. Shake it all off. Forget. remember only the relevant things. And that excludes the dickheads. And again, raise your eyebrows more. And if needed, raise your middle fingers too. Remember that you're free now.

//

QUALITIES I WISH TO INHERIT FROM MY MOTHER:

i.) Her smile. The imperfect crooks and snaggleteeth that always meant I was off the hook. It was the first thing I looked for every time I made her mad and I never failed to find it. It was the best form of comfort a ten year old could ever ask for. If I could have it for the rest of my life, I wouldn't forget how to forgive myself.

ii.) The calluses on the rough side of her hands. Impervious to the fires she cooks over. I wonder how many meals it took before she grew used to the heat. I used to not be able to touch microwaved Pyrex but she can mold hearth out of flames. Turn any morsel into love. Leave every tough situation with hope.

iii.) Her spine. God knows how many times the universe has tried to knock her down. Undo evolution and direct her head towards the ground. But every time it came around, she built herself back up again. Like reconstructing toothpicks into a tower, she was careful to give herself a stronger backbone no matter how long it took and how many times she would have to do it again.

iv.) The seasons in her eyes, Only she can call upon the heavens to bring hurricanes and rainbows into our home all at once. There is nothing more versatile than the emotions she reveals in those glass windows. No wonder why we call her Mother Nature.

v.) Her spirit. I have seen her body broken. I have watched my father tear at her limbs. I have listened to her curse the world she was born into. I have held her as she let the blood of her family run through her fists, and not once has she given up will to survive.

vi.) The love that has raised me. It is both tender and fierce- a characterization of who she is. A relentless promise to watch me turn out alright. A million sacrifices that I can never repay. An infinite expanse of time that she has never invested in my being. A soul she crafted with her own two hands. i can only wish that my love can be as honest and unselfish as hers.

//

The gods are so painfully human; has anyone ever asked themselves which came first? Who was created and who was dragged into existence by no one at all? How can we sepearate ourselves from these beings who mirror us so exactly that we see each other in each blink, each turn of the head, each shout and each silence? When do we stop worshipping godhood and start worshipping humanity?

//

I remember when the boy I first kissed told he was trained in the art of self defense and because of this, he thought he was a warrior. Because of this, he said that he was capable of manslaughter and if you so much as touched a finger to your hip in a suggestive gesture, he would tear you apart.

I grew up with a gun in the house. It slept on top of my dad's bookshelf, it's iron lungs threatening to spit a bullet out every time we peaked, tiptoeing on top of a kitchen chair just to see it small mouth so quiet in peace. For now, at least.

I remember seeing men in cowboy hats every Sunday in church. Wearing their pistols on their belts like symbols of victory. And I wonder why we identify ourselves as conquerors. The human race. Even subconsciously we are trying to escape from our own mostrosities but these weapons of reality are forced down our throats from the very beginning.

I flinch when a teacher raises a hand to me because I hate remembering the burning string of conflict. And I cringe when I see a girl carrying brass knuckles on her keychain because the feeling in her chest is more of a fearful question of- what am I fighting for? Self preservation, I suppose.

My brothers grew up watching GI Joe and I used to observe as their eyes widened to the size of awful moons watching as bombs exploded in fiction, of course, and on the TV- until we hear that these things really are happening. Why the hell are we romanticizing the idea of fighting when there are already too many people in this world dying?

Maybe it has something to do with pride. Something to make the weak hearted feel more powerful in their own skin than the little guy. Maybe that's why we raise our children like this. But for the life of me, i cannot imagine why we send our babies to bed willingly letting them fall asleep to gunshot lullabies.

Because we see the end result. The camouflaged boots trampling someone else's family and it doesnt feel real until you hear the screaming and often our privilege is to only hear it captured in videos. We stand up in class every morning and repeat the pledge of allegiance to a militant state of hypocrisy, even though we see them come home with worse things than PTSD.

The bloodshed of our ancestors, the lives lost at the hands of our brothers and sisters. These are things we cannot shake. We have left a legacy of red and often pay no respect to the dead.

//

I don't want to be "just enough", when I am stardust fingertips and sunlit afterthoughts. Burning, burning bright. When I am a honey coloured sky, barefoot, and daisy-crowns. Stuck in an ever-glow. All sundresses, dreamcatchers and tea leaves. You're the prettiest thunderstorm I've ever caught in. But I'm the brightest streak of lightning, and i'm the one you're chasing. I want to be everything and more, more, more. Slippery glitterfish, all glow-in-the-dark, the girl you are desperately, undeniably, relentlessly in love with.

//

Find me somewhere in the cold shallows of your morning coffee. In the pastel clouds of a shy sunrise. I exist between the wrinkled pages of the novel you've read over and over again. My heart beats in the lazy ripples of a lake on a summer day. My blood runs through dry creek beds- the ones where you find the best stones. I am damp pine needles in the brightest corners of the forest. I am the deep breath you take on the back porch of your cabin in the winter. The comfort of drawing something you can't help but feel itch in your hands. People do not fall in love with me easily, because I am a shadow found in soft moments, not through of often, but felt deeply.

//

I come back and the city looks the same. The streets are still dingy and crowded and loud. The walls are still peeling and the floors still creek. The door still doesn't quite fit right in the door frame, but the sun is still bright and blidning and the breeze smells like sweat and men and home.

You come back and I look the same. My fingers are still bony and thin and breakable. My heart still shudders and my lungs still falter. My fist still shakes with feelings I never learned to contain, but my tongue still wraps your name soft and familiar and my eyes look like stolen kisses and shared blankets and safety.

We come back and life looks the same. Money is still scarce and tight and never enough. Winter is still deadly cold and summer is still suffocating. The fire escape is still the best damn spot we know, but our hands are still clasped and entwined and your lips taste like hope and promises and future,

//

Goddesses die every night- yet when a god offers smalls sips of himself as sacrifice, he pretends he invented humility. This is not the case. It has never been. Ignore him.

//

I'm jealous of the blankets that'll keep your warm tonight and of the breeze that gets to kiss your skin. I'm jealous of the sunlight that comes through your window because it gets to see you first in the morning. But mostly, I'm jealous of your bed because I'd rather you lay on my chest and let my heartbeat sing you to sleep.

//

In September,, we fall in love twice as fast, Three times as hard. Nine lives and everything. We become glitterbugs and it's beautiful. This dacning-in-the-dark, summer is coming, we won't last the very first snowdrop. But we fall anyways, simply because we can. Because we're young and that has to be worth something, I think.

When it's December, you look something like love. I will feel it. And we have all the time in the world.

//

Someone once asked me what I think love is. Instead of saying something simple like "love is when you come home and see your dog," I wrote this:

You're standing on a cliff looking towards the ocean. It's a sunny day and it's absolutely beautiful. The sky and the water are almost so alike bu different at the same time. They're both blue but one is just slightly darker than the other, and one is up high but the other is down low, but they both meet in the middle on the horizon. Once they meet, you can no longer see how far it goes. It's forever a mystery to our eyes, but it does end at one point- that's for certain.

You decide to walk closer and closer to the edge of the cliff, trying to get a better look at the beautoful scenerey in front of you. But as you get closer, the sky gets darker and and the water gets crazier. You're at the edge and you're so close you could fall right off and into the chaotic ocean.

The clouds go from grey to a shade of black that is darker than no other.

The ocean creates tidal waves bigger than imagined but you stand on the edge in hopes you won't fall and you yell "I love you". it floats into the air and to the once beautiful horizon that never ends, but you never see it. it disappears into the now blackened sky and the dark blue ocean that no longer collide into each other to create a beautiful horizon, but rather something completely unfamiliar.

Something you wouldn't choose to see again until the scenery you once found beautiful turns into that once again.

//

Imagine you and me; it is 2 in the morning and you're eating ice cream while I curl my hand through

your hair and I am watching you. I know you feel it because there is the barest hint of a smile on your lips and darling, this is how I will love you, and as i lower my fingers to graze your cheek we will be the picture of tenderness. Imagine, You and me, and moments like this.

//

This is to say, I bit the serpent's head clean off it's body. I danced in the middle of a smoke ring and I didn't think once about the fire that caused it. I let the ashes melt on my mouth like peppermint. I watched the dove slam its head into the glass door, didn't flinch once.

This is to say, i stopped pretending love was a tangible thing that could run its head into a door. Somebody asked about California and I said, "who's selfish enough to need all that water instead?" Wildfires and earthquakes don't make for a good story any day. Give me something with substance.

This is to say, my heart doesn't skip a single beat anymore. An eye for an eye, a metaphor for a metaphor. Keep your talons and I'll keep my claws. You're greedy and i self-destruct when I'm bored. give me back the taste of summer, you can keep the the snow flurries.

This is to say, you've got all that water and you still talk about drought. I stopped sleeping with one eye open. Thanks for making strawberries taste bitter. I sent you a post card and the plane ticket said, "if this is love, I think I'll pass."

This is to say, remember that bridge?

I'm burning it.

//

You are both fire and water and i cant' decide if i want to be set on fire or drown.

//

You make me want to speak in French, talk of all that is beautiful until I fall asleep on your shoulder. You make gardens grow in between my ribs and bring opal skies to my mind; you always find the right chord to sing me to sleep. I keep counting my lucky starts and it just doesnt add up-- how my deconstructed past has allowed my path to intertwine with yours.

The days grow young still and you have remembered that i think the trees are like puzzle pieces in the sky and i love the way your eyes can talk about love more than your lips do.

i keep choking myself with fears that the future may hold but that is all uncertain. I can't tell what the days ahead will bring, but I know that you have and will always be a constant lighthouse on my horizon, keeping me going in the right direction.

//

Look at the stars, the way they shimmer kisses covering the face of the universe, gentle and steady. Look at the way they burn hotter than we can comprehend. Think of the worlds they could devour. The lives they could snuff out.

Touch the ocean. feel the waves lick your fingers just as they meet you, like they love you already. Imagine the depth of them and the fathomlessness ready to swallow anything they're given.

think of all the things lost below. feel your heart. Touch it as it beats, pumps seconds away, loves through the hours. Remember the way it can crack right down the middle, like a bomb, bursting right through your ribs.

See all the danger.

It's everywhere, in everything, but tell me, does it tarnish the beauty or just add a few more shadows right where they belong? Right where they'll stay.

//

Take one moment. A moment out of this minute that will slowly turn into an hour and this will all be in the past. A memory. You can't ever just go back to it again. Just stop.

Memories are what make you up, because you're human. Every day, we go through seconds of time and they make homes within our minds. Will you think about the stars at night? They're like us.

We've managed to evade the mirror maze and walk into our lives, facing the way that humans are so beautifully intricate but destructive at the same time. I don't know when our reflections will scintillate upon the glass and we'll realize what we've done, but nothing erases the way we that we're all made up of the thoughts that have gone through our minds and the way we compose music with what we say.

"We were loved, but we did not love, and the eclipses erased our shadows."

Reality is real and it is evil. But one day you'll know that there has to be light for the darkest supernova to burst into flames of laughter on your lips and the feelings that this, this is right. this, that you haven't had in a long time.

One day, the universe will finally piece itself togeher, but that day has not yet come. One day, fires wont be set alright by dreams. And all you have to do is watch the world with your eyes made of silvery whispers of words, because this, now, is beautiful, and just breathe.

//

You always have something to say. Something like colors. Like a child using crayons for the first time and leaving it in the car not realizing that summer is bad for the seats. They learned to never leave it there again. Like the light shines off of stars and how we miss it when we only see darkness. Something like a breath of freeness. Like there isn't a care in the world if I only tired to see what I already have in my veins. Like nothing inside of me is broken. Like I'm more than a volcano and nothing less than amazing because I'm me. Even if I spew out fire that burns your petals, your hands and the sole of your feet. Even if I left you in a dark place, you still managed to be all colours and the first time seen right before we think it'd be night time for hours more because we've been overthinking about what we've always apologized for. You make it seem as if the stars themselvbes place its shine inside of my depths and nothing bright or dark could ever ruin my very structure of imaginative words or how thoughtful my insights will always be to you.

You make it out like i am more than a shade of everlasting grey mixing in black and white forever, you make it so, and I just want to say, that even if I die a black star; I'll always try to shine for you.

//

We are afraid to open the box and see what's in it. We are afraid of the fact that it may carry something we won't like. We are often giving attention to the things surrounding that box and yet we are fidning something that will fulfill that little emptiness inside us. But what if that box contains the thing you've been finding? You may not love it at first, but when the time goes on, you'll realize it is that :something" that will complete you. You're just being too frightened to experience new things and people in your life.

//

it amazes you, how sometimes, you can hear the sun telling you to breathe, how when the night seems too dark, the moon is still smiling down at you, how the stars can be so warm when they are so distant, how the core of the earth is singing of hope even when you have almost forgotten how to form the world, how every speck in the universe wants nothing other than for you to smile again.

//

I. if she asks to photograph you, it's because she loves you. She doesn't want to forget this moment, and she most definitely does not want to forget you.

II. when she makes you laugh, she might just snap a photo. if she does, your laugh is probably her favourite.

III. there will be moments when you look your worst, and she photographs you because to her, you still look your best.

IV. she will find beauty in the way the hair curls and how the light hits your eyes just right; she will tell you that you remind her of the sun, all consuming and lighting up her world.

V. she keep her journal with her at all times because she knows she will think about you. When she does, she wants to capture each moment so when it's gone she will have a memory of the way ytou made her heart flutter into her eardrums.

VI. if she writes you love letters, she truly loves you. For, writing how she feels rather than saying it is like opening her up and viewing her core.

VII. her journal is her mind just written out in complexities onto a sheet of paper, so if she lets you read it, she trusts you, she loves you, and she needs you to understand her. \

VIII. Late at night she will play her heart out in thought of you, and though you may not know it, you are her muse.

IX. her fingers will callous with frustraion because the song she's writing for you isn't enopugh, not for you.

X. Some mornings she will wake you up with the sound of music, most likely something soft, agelic and laced in your name,

XI. Photographs, music sheets and and journal pages say more about who she is than she ever will, so listen, look, and feel it all.

XII. and lastly, she will love you with her mind, her eyes and her body. When she loves you, she will love you with every part of herself.

//

1. Never allow anyone to turn the galaxies in your eyes into dimly lit stars.2. Everyone has their own pain3. Never apologize for how you feel. Your feelings are valid. You are valid. 4. Your heart will be broken. It's inevitable. But in the case of a broken heart, do not allow your heart to grow cold. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and love endlessly. 5. Your parents are only human, not the superheroes we made them out to be as kids. Love them, despite their mistakes. They are getting older too. 6. Where you were on the social totem pole in high school will not matter once you step into the real world. Trust me.7. Your mental health is more important than anything. When you're up until 2AM weeping into your pillow so your cries go unheard, don't worry about that test the next day. Make yourself some tea, get some sleep. A test can be taken again, a life cannot be relived. 8. There is an enormous difference between a boy and a man. A boy lives for the chase and will become bored once the games are over. With a man, there will be no chasing or mind games. A man will take the time to know every inch of you.9. Time can heal most anything. 10. Love yourself. Love yourself with no requirements or conditions. 

//

You remind me of the summer. Your dark hair, the way your warm eyes sparkle and shine under the light of the sun. The subtle flush of pink on your lips, like a Garden Phlox of June. The warm touch of your skin, its resplendent elegance and its angelic splendor. The high tide of of midnight is like your soul, gone within the blink of an eye, and back before the last star falls. Your are like the bottom of a daytime ocean, mysterious and inviting, secretive yet conspicuous. 

Your spirit is reminiscent of a July sycamore, reaching for the empyrean and basking in the sunlight. Your mind is inspired by summer rain, its tragic beauty, its humid air and sticky fog. A kaleidoscopic sunset, a sky dappled with the grays of the dead of the night, spotted with the hues of agony and the complexion of bliss. 

Like a forest canopy of late May, you are not all that meets the eye. On the surface, you are reserved, living within yourself and exploring your depths. On the inside, though, you are uproarious, bustling with laughter and life and joy, fostering an entire ecosystem. The 8 o'clock fireflies could be your sisters, glowing in the darkest of times, gracing the world with their neon light.

You are the last night of August, blown off into the wind, taking with you the last of the picnic days and the starry skies of the nights wasted in your embrace and afternoons spent intertwined. But you are also the dawn of the first September morning, bringing with you the chilly kiss of autumn and the promise of a bright winter. 

//

I want to know how you make your coffee in the morning. I want to be the one making for you one day. I want to know how you like your sandwich, I want to bring you picnic dates and kiss you all over your face.

I want to know how you like the music on the dance floor, I want to dance with you, slow and upbeat songs one day.

I want to know how you are at 2-4AM; I want to be there for you. I want to know what you love, I want to be on the list of it.

I want to know what you hate, I want to avoid mistakes.

I want to know you, I want to love you. I want to know how you liked to be loved, I want to be the one for you.

//

Your fist, open it, uncurl your fingers like the lid of a treasure chest- is there anything inside, anything buried in the anger you see? I found a flower in mind, it was wilted and crumpled and filled with answers. My best friend, his held a heart, it was already crushed and it too was covered in all the things he had not realised lucky. Hearts are muscles, they can heal after the violence so open your fist dear, let go.

//

I. The smell of your shampoo fills

the room; I am soaked, foolishly

thinking I could be beautiful.

II. I have only known wings as your eyelashes in the form of love letters.

III. I have never seen the sky, and but god, it could have been you. It could have been you.

//

He never falters to alter the trajectory of rain, projecting omnipresent tendencies into my cherished painting scenes; though his heart contains immunity to colour, his secrets smells of rain and I'm still finding a way to dispute his beauty.

The ridges of his scars cauterize pain if only for a moment, excluding air from early ejection; I had a plan written in bravery to march up to tomorrow holding confidences gaze, but the power of will is less than yes when my insides are a mess whenever you look my way.

Propelling through downward spirals of jumbled thoughts dictionaries cannot define. I always find here - in between the probability of falling and writing a solution that could explain this feeling you have frozen into my chest.

I may never learn the value of x but why gave me you and that may always be my favourite equation.

//

So here is where we rehearse the lines of seeing each other soon, and how we had a good time, and then you'll say I'm amazing. I'll tell you I hope you find someone great, and I can feel my nose getting bigger as your cheeks turn redder. We stare into each other's eyes to remember details we're forget sooner than later, and we take everything in for the last time.

Soon, you'll forget my eyes and I will leave you behind.

//

I'm a firm believer that love in its purest form is anything but beautiful and easy. And in turn, that's the beauty of it anyway. I believe in working through the tough instead of walking away, and finding the root of the problem instead of leaving it buried in the ground. But if you ever find yourself wanting to leave because you've found that I'm no good for you, I'll let you walk out without a fight. On second though, I may even hold the door open for you.

But if you ever try to walk away because you think I don't deserve you, you couldn't get rid of me even if you tried.

If I stay, it's because I adore the person yopu've become, and I want you as you are. You will never feel the wrath of me trying to mend something that doesn't need to fixed, or so easily throw something away just because it's broken. I won't be so quick to find another light when yours goes dim. Rather, I'll sit with you in darkness for however long it takes to rekindle that flame within you.

If I sense a storm on its way, I promise I'm not going anywhere. And when your currents become stronger, I'll simply hold on tighter. Even if it means that my soul needs to drown in yours.

//

I've seen your definition of perfection.

She's a few pounds thinner, and a couple inches taller. She's a cup size bigger and a dress size smaller. She turns heads in parking lots and makes love to perfect strangers with her eyes alone. Her eyelashes are close to a mile long, while her shorts are always a bit too short. Her skirts are always a little too tight, but you don't seem to mind. [I probably wouldn't either]. She laughs at jokes she'll never understand, simply because she knows everyone enjoys the sound of her voice. She seems to make you happier than I ever could.

But I've witnessed the way you've tried to touch her heart. You shiver to the point where even sitting by a warm fire couldn't remedy the chills. I see the tire marks on your back from the buses she's thrown you under, but you brush them off without a care.

I've seen your definition of perfection, and she is the furthest thing from me.

//

There will come a time when love is no longer enough -- where affection runs thing and words sound better in silence. Time will instantaneously become your worst enemy. Certain songs will make you believe that sound can travel into and eat away the most sensitive parts of your skin. And certain scents will make you wish you could no longer breathe.

You'll pray that you never hear the one distinct voice you looked forward to hearing all day, but secretly wish for ti to return, because it was always the last thing you used to hear before you fell asleep at night.

But you will be okay in the end.  It might take weeks, or months. If your heart is stubborn enough, it may even take a year or so.

But you will be okay, because soon enough, those songs will lose meaning, that voice will be lost in the crowd, sleep will come more easily, and your worst enemy [time] will eventually become your best friend.

//

I think about everything that has brought us to where we are now, and it remind me just how easily i could have passed you by and not at all be aware of your existence. It's exciting and terrifying all at once, because now that you're here, I get to spend every remaining moment of my life with your presence locked inside my mind.

You're the only one I want to start my mornings with, and you're the last thing I want to breathe in before I render unconscious. What I've been spending mindless hours trying to say, is please don't flee from me. You are, by far, my strongest sense of reality. Ever since then, everything else has been fiction.

//

She's the perfect combination of mysterious and subtle, all while emulating an open book that waits for you every page to be touched, to be turned, to be read again and again.

She's a worldly paradox beyond my comprehension, a seamless dress unraveling her every desire and a rapid cloak of fire burning every one of mine.

She;s an arbitrary holiday everyone is dying to celebrate, a volatile story with an ending that you're dying to figure out, and a climactic plot that keeps you at the edge of your seat.

She's the breeze that caresses you when you walk into a cool room on a hot summer day, and the warmth of a blanket wrapped around you as you sit by the fire on a blistering December night.

She's that new favourite song you hear in a coffee shop that you'll never hear again, but you'll always replay it in your head, dying to know its name.

She's a foreign film full of words you can't comprehend, but regardless, you fall into this deep infatuation. And if only she were granted the chance to see herself from my perspective, she would forever be in disbelief. For she has never delved into the kind of love that squeezes the heart likewise of a dress two sizes too small.

And she gazes at me skeptically, unaware of just how much she means to me. So every single day, I'll remind her until it is nothing short of crystal clear.

Every single day, she'll make my heart beat indefensibly fast. And every single day, I'll love her more than I did the last. She'll continually wonder why I have waited this long, but she'll soon come to realize that it was only her who has occupied the vacated room in my heart.

And yes, it does feel as though I've waited a lifetime, but if I have, I'd patiently wait another.

And if you only knew her, you wouldn't hesitate to endeavor.

//

When I came across him for the first time, I couldn't even decipher if he was even an actual person. He had the face of a man you would probably find on the cover of a magazine. And we all know that those are meant to deceive. But let me tell you, he was real. He had this strange way of making me feel unproductive.

//

Every time he laughs, I swear the earth starts shaking beneath me but then I realize it's only the sound of his voice. The contours of his face have not yet left my mind. Not even once. I've always had the worst memory, but ever since I first saw him, I can still recall the shape of his eyes, the purse on his lips, the curves of his arms. Every time he touches me, my entire body catches fire.

Every time he looks at me, my senses go numb. And I wish I could say this to him instead, but he refuses to listen. He refuses to hear the truth from the one person who only wanted to love him the sake of loving at all. He'd never been loved so completely, that it must have terrified him.

You can only imagine how much it terrified me, thinking I could one day lose him, Whenever we are apart, nothing ever makes as much sense. Ever since he became my light, I fear the dark. And ever since I declared him as my sanctuary, I have never felt so homeless.

//

I feel as though I've been drowning in this constant fear. I couldn't even tell you exactly why. With all the words in the English language, you'd think piecing them together in the right order would be simple. But being in your presence makes it nearly impossible.

I've been dying to find some truth in this massive heap of deception. Maybe it in your eyes, but God knows that I'm too much of a coward to look straight at them. And Maybe you've heard it all before, but you tug at my shirt like a child who needs to hear it again. Maybe you've already hit rock bottom and refuse to let anyone pull you back up other than yourself. That's one of the many reasons why I can't want anyone else but you, but I also can't help but want all of you, because although I might be damned for this, that's how I have always been. You're either everything to me or nothing at all.

Perhaps I'm a fool waiting at a dead end. Perhaps, I'm the last one to cross the finish line. I've seen your heart, even in its most detrimental state and I've been aching to see it again.

//

I can only hope that you stumble upon someone for whom you find yourself tearing down those walls for. That someone shall be deemed the luckiest gal in the world. And hopefully you'll find ger so enamoring that she makes you lose your train of thought. And in this, you deserve someone who only kisses you with her eyes closed, letting you know that she trusts the movement of your lips.

But I'll be damned if you should settle for anyone unless they desire to touch your soul before laying their eager hands on your body. Because how else will you certain that she's traveled to and from the depths of your beautiful mind?

i can only hope that she'll choose to protect you when everything else seems to have gone astray. I can only hope that she'll fight for you when everyone seems to have turned the other way. I can only hope that she'll fall madly in love with you every single day.

I can only hope for all this because your love for me has long since gone away.

//

My love,

I may not know the answers to all of your questions when things seem to go wrong, but by the empathy in your touch, I realize that you don't expect me to. What I do know is that several beautiful months have elapses, and I still somehow associate every wonderful thing around me with you.

It's as if your presence has somehow manifested into the gloss on the road after a morning rain shower or the caffeine that runs through my veins throughout the day, allowing me to complete the task that once seemed impossible. You both have that in common. this all brings me to one possible conclusions -- you seem to have been the right answer to everything that goes wrong in my life, and I can only hope that someday, I will be the right answer to everything in yours.

//

My love,

Forgive me for neglecting your request to address you otherwise. I still find it hard to call you by any other name. Perhaps this letter will simply be mistake. Perhaps it will be the last, I haven't a clue. I try to remain strong like I had promised , but nights have truly become unbearable. Despite how much of my body hovers over the center of the bed, it remains empty without you. Even the sheets miss the way you'd caress them as you slept.

The last time we spoke, you said that my happiness was destined elsewhere, but could you sincerely vocalize those words while you look me in the eye? Could you possibly fathom that I could be as elated by anyone else but you? Could I not have done anything more to prove that I'd rather have you from afar rather than another up close?

Every time I relive the moment you left, the air I breathe can only resemble needles in my chest. And i wish you hadn't kissed me goodbye. I know that I was the one who had trouble pulling away, but who knew that I'd still be able to feel your lips pressed against mine... I'm sorry my love, but until I have fully accepted that you have let me go, my body persists to writhe and ache.

I can't shake the fact that I miss you all the time.

//

I've been thinking immensely about our last conversation and i recall all of those details you shared. i never fully understood what a privilege it was to be physically and emotionally present to such a resilient beauty. It's almost as if your head was meant to rest against my neck. As my hand stroked your face and made its way to your chest, I could almost feel the bruises from the beatings your heart had taken.

It makes me wonder how many times you've felt lost. No, not the kind of lost after six beers. I mean lost in a sense where the last thing you wished for was to be found. Lost to the point where you only desired to be alone. Lost to the point where you indeed became adrift in your own body and your own mind.

I've seen you behind closed doors, my love or, felt you, as i should say. I understood that everyone who has tried to force their way in was only asking to be thrown out. Those whom you invited in had only seen their way out. You were torn with the dilemma of those you wanted and those that you could never trust. i wanted to be the difference. I wanted to show you that love in its most natural form is also its most selfless form. I wanted you to know what harmony sounded like even in silence. I wanted to help revive your faith in everything. I want to let you know that those bruises will merely be history.

//

You are that place between heaven and hell.

//

Questions I will ask you if we meet again:

1. You believed in love so deeply and the way I made you feel, how do you live knowing it wasn't enough for you?

II. How do you ask to see all of someone's soul yet when they need the warmth, you only provide the cold?

III. When did you know that what you wanted, wasn't me and why did you wait it out, just to abruptly leave?

//

It's hard to pretend to be strong all the time. I wish you would come to be when you're sad, I'd tell you that pain will make sense someday. You see that star up there? One day it will die, and so will this hurt. It's okay to call the nights lonely and for the days to be empty, some more than others. You don't have to be okay sometimes. Sometimes you are not, and that is okay.

//

I wish the world could see you the way I see your eyes when you go on and on about sports and its history. You're always surprised by how intrigued I am by all the facts you throw at me about your favourite team that I could care less about. I am not interested in history; I am into the way your passion lights up the room and you are engulfed by all the words coming out of your mouth-- you don't even seem to realize what it does it to me.

I wish the world could see how big your heart truly is. You love so much and you love so hard. It doesn't make you weak, it makes you strong. You think there are so many skeletons hanging in your closet but I wish you knew how many demons you've extinguished-- you should be very proud of that. If the sun could fall in love, you'll be the first person they'd choose to shine on. I think the moon would leave the sun and sacrifice its night for you.

//

I. Blame the person who hurts you, not yourself. Never blame yourself for not being what they wanted or not being "good enough:, You are made with perfectly flawed traits, stitched together to be loved unconditionally.

II. Not everyone you love will love you back and the people who do love you, you won't always reciprocated the feelings, but that doesn't make you or them a bad person. You can't love everyone and not everyone will love you. I refuse to blame the people that can't find it in their soul to give me what I give them. I don't give to get back. I give because I want to and because I can.

III. Don't let one person tell you negative things about yourself. One opinion out of a million does not make you who you are, No one paints a masterpiece for you, you are the art piece. You make who you are. You are the artist.

IV. Don't ever settle. People always feel safer with things that they are used to and comfortable with instead of seeking for the heart pounding feelings and moments that take their breaths away. I never want it to be easy; I want it to be hard to breathe and suffocating when I give something my all, I want to learn how to survive through that.

V. Learn how to say no. No, I do not want to dance with you. No, I do not want to kiss you. No, I do not want to date you. No, I do not want to do this. I do not want to do that because that does not make me happy and that does not make me feel comfortable, so no. And I don't need to give you a reason nor do I need to make up an excuse say "no."

VI. There are different kinds of people. Don't always categorize people in groups because people are not meant to be labeled. Just because one person hurts you, does not mean the ones in the future will. Just because one person holds a knife doesn't mean the next one will use it. There is good out there; there is good in the world and there is good in people. Not everyone is a monster. I strongly believe that the majority of the population is good.

VII. Do not let the past prevent you from living in the future. Do not let the pain and hurt take over. Don't close yourself up to others just because you have been broken before. Never allow the demons of yesterday to control the beauty that is to come in the future. Vow to never allow it to always be stormy for the sun does eventually shine down on all things beautiful. I am beautiful and so are you.

VIII. You can swim across the world for someone but they might not even step outside in the drizzle for you. Even if you hold the umbrella for them.

IX. Never give someone the power to rid you of yourself. Don't ever fall out of your routine or lose who you are permanently. That is so important.

X. Love yourself. Learn to love the birthmark on your face, the chipmunk cheeks, the thighs that jiggle when you walk, the nose you think is too flat and your fingers are too short. Learn to appreciate your almond shaped eyes, your skin colour, the thin hair that doesn't grow fast, the beauty mark under your eye and the stretch marks on your waist. Learn to love your sense of humor, your laughter, your emotions, your tendency to trust easily and how happy you always are. Learn to love the way you love others deeply, how you sometimes fear being lonely, the way you enjoy walks alone and the radiance in your soul. Learn to love yourself at 3am when you cannot sleep and can only think of the skeletons hiding in your own closet and learn to love yourself at 3pm when you are cranky and unable to get out of bed. Learn to love yourself and come to terms with the fact that you are you, and that will never change.

//

The unwritten rule is, if you leave someone, you must leave them all behind. You must take everything with you so there is nothing left for them to keep going back to. If you're going to rip something, let all the pain hurt at once so they can be left alone to heal without your interruption. no one wants to get caught when they have gotten so far. And, if someone is leaving you, remind yourself that you are not falling behind but merely learning and moving forward. You leave their suitcases in what you used to call home and run. You run as fast as you can before they take it back. You don't turn around for them to open old wounds with new hands because they are leaving you, you must be left and you must get up to leave as well.

//

I now know why my "I miss you" never made its way to your mailbox for even if it did land on your doorsteps, you cared more about the other bodies in skirts than you ever did for me.

I now understand when people say how your emotions are dictated by the way someone feels for you-- I was afraid we'd never make it (as I now know) so I never said it for the fear of you hearing but not listening.

I now know that I could have howled at your many moons and you would claimed deafness and blame me for not knowing so since the evening we met.

//

I wont promise that you'll forget it, but I do promise you'll find more worthy moments to remember. In a few months, it may still sting but it's not the same kind of piercing pain you felt the moment it happened. In a few years, you'll think about it and there's an emotion you can't describe-- not happiness, not sadness, but it no longer aches. I can only wish that a decade from now, you will sit at the table with your friends and laugh about it. I can't promise that it won't mess you up, but I can promise that messes can be cleaned.

//

"Tell me you love me once more," she whispered. "I don't think I'll ever get tired of hearing those words from you."

"I love you."

I moved something in her, not her heart or her chest, but it was a feeling she's never had; to have someone who saw more than just her eyes and messy hair, to have someone repeatedly tell her how much she meant and how worthy she was of their love.

She was born searching for a great love, yet, she was terrified of its power and its ability to give so much and take it all away in an instant. Her fear always stopped her and this was the wrong time to let something as important as those three words slip by.

" I love you too.

It's as if every cell in me can feel it and as for all the new cells being born, they come into this world knowing that they too have a love so great. I love you so much it terrifies me. I love you so.

Sometimes it's as easy as it is difficult saying those words.

//

When you love someone, everything about them starts to become infinitely better, You look at them like it's the first time all the time, and I know they say that butterflies stand for nervousness but it's not the anxiousness in your stomach but more of a warmth in your soul whenever they are on your mind or in front of you. Even if you hated music, you'd still love the melody in their laugh and the song in their voice. You can walk downstairs to buy a gallon of milk and within the twenty feet you will find something that will remind you of them. It's as easy as seeing their favourite colour or a stranger order coffee the same way they will. As you start every day, you wish the sun would never set so you would never have to miss a conversation, if sleep was not necessary.

When someone loves you, they will find their way to you and you won't have to ask them to come meet you in the middle of the city just for five minutes. They will want to. They will want to listen to you rant about your current mood and listen to you when you are stressed about everything, even when it is absolutely nothing.

They will touch you with tenderness, kiss you with the softness they inhabit and when you are close enough to feel their heartbeat, you know it's for you.

You'll be able to see the electricity in their eyes and the fire in their soul whenever you are together, enough to light up the world and even the sea can't burn you out. It's always a special moment with them, even if it's the simplest things such as taking a walk or drinking tea on a chilly day, and even that'll be more than ordinary. As this person continues to stay in your life, you will realize how deserving people are of love, especially yourself.

//

Life, eventually is a four lettered word. You can live in all the fancy apartments and buy the most expensive watch, yet, money is still paper you can replace. People find themselves attached to materialistic things, confusing them for feelings of being rich and wealthy but being rich-- being truly rich is being fortunate enough to have soul you call home. True wealth is an inexplicable feeling no new furniture or phone can replace.

Your life is not defined by what kind of wines you buy or where you bought your shirt. It is not which restaurants you choose to dine in or how often you can afford vacations. It's the way you can choose to approach people whether you have a dollar in your pocket or more than enough to buy ten dinners.

When you pass, you want to be remembered as being someone who lived well, who lived with kindness in their soul, so much you could burn the sun for outshining it. It's the moments you spend touching others and if you can change people's worlds, even if it's just planting new flowers in the garden of someone who doesn't believe they have a green thumb, then you are living well.

//

Imagine how wonderful it would be if you could heal people, if you could take their pain away.

//

I want the kind of romance that will make my head spin -- like a first kiss with the person who makes every atom in your body feel as if it's combusting, and then again the second time, and over and over again every time after that. I want the passion that takes you out of your element, where one look can touch your soul and just a glance can make the hair of your arms stick up or give you goosebumps without knowing the reason why. I want the kind of love that gives you the warmest hug and mends all your pieces together or make you realize how worthy you are of the affection  and honesty this emotion can give, the kind that will make you wonder why you ever though about giving up on in the first place.

//

The world is demanding sometimes, societies passing guidebooks and rules on how to be or how to love and it is transformed a lot of us to become a soul who pretends to have no emotions.

There is nothing wrong with feeling so much you feel as if your heart will combust or letting someone romance you and let you be who you are. There is nothing wrong with letters and watching the stars or holding hands whenever you can and eskimo kisses in public. You have the right to be excited about every hug and look forward to every walk, to want to do cliché movie things and rewrite your own story. \

Sometimes romance is sitting in front of the television and eating an entire pie of pizza together. other times, it's staying in bed all day just wrapped around one another. Whatever kind of romance it is, let romance be. Let yourself be thrown into these feelings, let your emotions make show you parts of yourself you didn't know existed, and let love be wild. Let it run free.

Romance only dies if you let it, love only wither if you let it go.

//

We will be more than stormy nights and hazy days. We are sunlight peaking through stained glass, the sunset in between trees, and the view of the ocean when we make it to the top. We are the long walks and kisses in the rain when you forget your speakers, for our song is in us. I am fraid of thunder and you tend to run faster than lightning, yet, we still dance.

//

One morning when I wake up, I want to look over and find your sweet disposition and delicated lashes, resting on the warmer side of the pillow, sleeping peacefully next to me.

One night when I lay down in bed, I want to look over and watch you get in next to me and pull me towards you so my restless mind can finally sleep serenely listening to your heartbeat.

//

You say, "together we'll go anywhere, you and I -- us," and we danced in the kitchen to my favourite Ed Sheeran song, chest to chest in the middle of the night. You say, "every time I kiss you, it's like the first time," and you softly and slowly knock on my door while I let down my walls. You say, "I see rainbows in your eyes," and you let me sleep on the left, even when that is your side of the bed and it is harder for you to fall asleep on the right.

You say, "you make me feel as if I can fly," and intertwine your fingers with mine as we speed down roads surrounded by only trees that can hear us laugh.

So it goes, when it's three in the morning and I wake with a bad dream, I see you in hindsight and I know it will be alright. Here I am when it's three in the afternoon and I can't wait to come home, even if it's just to he sound of your voice or as simple as knowing that you are back in your childhood bedroom, painted all blue.

You make me feel all the things I thought only existed in books, in movies, in the words I read when my heart is too full. You make me feel like the most beautiful poem without ever picking up your pen.

//

People are made up of libraries and museums and classrooms. They all have stories, they have art and are filled with lessons. Each, as unique as the street they are on or the way their buildings are, and how the books are stacked and coordinated, or how the art pieces are placed. Some shelves are dusty, while others have words scattered all over the chalkboard and empty seats.

You must know that everyone is made up of so much, please don't think anyone is merely an abandoned house for even that has its own story.

//

You are the smell of we grass, the scent of coffee brewing in the morning and as simple as raindriops on a sunny day. You are a new favourite dress, waking up late on Sunday afternoon and the feeling of running your fingers through a new haircut.

//

When sunlight

meets my window,

I wake

to the sweetness

in your gaze

and I swear I have whispered

your name

over and over

before.

In another life

you took my hand,

revealed your seas,

and I kissed you,

listened to your melodies;

gentle as the summer wind

against new leaves.

You are the poem in

me.

//

The more we talk, the more I want to know-- I want to know what it was like to live five minutes away from cruising down to open roads and to come home to your mother's homemade soup by 7pm. I want to know your soft spots, what makes you tick and what turns you on and off from one second to the next.

What makes you a storm and what makes you the sun?

What is your lighthouse and what caused you to be lost at sea?

Sometimes we dance and I want to know how fast your heart is beating. We listed to your favourite songs and I wonder who or what it reminds you of.

The more we talk, the more I want to tell you. I want to tell you about the time I was six and my mother bought me a jade bracelet for good luck (which I still have). I want to share my journals, my paintings and all the meaningful things I hide in a box somewhere on my bookcase.

I am a water sign with too much fire in me.

I like to sleep with the doors closed and with a blanket over my feet.

Every minute I spend with you births new cells and they are learning how to be the person they have always wanted to be.

Your shirt on my floor, hand in your hair; I have never felt as naked as I do when I am with you.

//

I wanted to turn you into pretty words, poems as lovely as your eyes when you look at me or how they light up talking about your dreams and listening to mine. I wanted to tell you my secrets, the ones I rarely even think about for they cause tsunamis in my world and I have had more than enough of my share of disasters.

I wanted to be an open book. I wanted to be read. I wanted to be heard. I wanted you to place your finger against the pages and turn until you got to the end and even with that I know you will look at me and ask for more.

I am willing to give you that.

//

There was a time in my life when I thought you and I were more than a phrase, more than a moment in time that I could not get out of my mind; where you were stuck on my heart, as permanent as the tattoo I got months after accepting our fate, but yet, I still imagined how life could have been, how it should have been if I were the one dealing the cards. Yet, months and months later, as we head into the third Summer since your name has been embedded in my soul, I have become accustomed to the way we will never be.

You are there. You were always there. I was here. I have always been here. There was a time in my life I thought we would have made our way to the same place, hand in hand, starting and ending on the same foot.

There was a time in my life where I thought this moment would never come, but here I am now, with my heart in someone else's hands.

//

I crave your body next to mine, not sex, but the intimacy of your skin on mine.

To have my legs tangled up with yours, to feel your breath on my cheek, to have my fingers write letters in your hair and to feel your heartbeat against mine beneath these sheets.

I would like to have your hands hold mine and your mouth sing my name-- just the innocence of being next to each other is enough for me.

//

We walked down an avenue I have passed many times with fingers tightly intertwined. There is magic in rediscovering a familiar place, as if some of the marks were not there before until their feet touched the ground; and the cracks, well, it is as if the cracks begin to mend and not even storms can weather them down.

//

Vulnerability makes you feel opened, torn and light headed; weak as I let you in during the night where half the world is lonely and the other half is madly in love with someone who drives them crazy and out of their minds.

Yes, there is strength in capability of being exposed; there is power in knowing that while being defenseless, you are at your strongest.

That is how it feels to allow you in, to stand on ends fearing that a heavy wind may come, but knowing you would not let me fall.

//

"I like waking up next to him in the morning," I said, "not because there is a body next to me, but a warm soul that lights up the room more than the sun glowing through the glass. Sometimes you share a space with someone and the room can feel lonelier than it did when it was empty. With him, it has never felt more full.

I like a room full with the smell of morning coffee and summertime in the middle of a windy and rainy month.

//

You do this thing where you look at me and I become the little girl who's seeing the world for the first time. You give me those wide brown eyes of yours and I find myself wanting to hold to moments; to ask time for another second or two where we can stay in this feeling of serenity and bliss. I find my fingers lingering on the page, unable to turn it, for I am so overwhelmed by the images of you and the words you say and the things you do that make me fall for you.

//

"I wish to wake up with you next to me," she said, "to know that you will stay. People have a tendency to get out of bed one morning and change their minds and at times, love begins to feel temporary. Where does it go if not here?"

He looked up at the clouds slowly passing by and pointed, "it stays for awhile and it passes. But it comes back. I think that if you loved once, you can love again."

//

I am more than your maybe plan, much more than something that you try to fit into your schedule when you have an empty slot. I am more than a vacant spot to park your car. I refuse to be a one night stay in a hotel or the break you take at work when you are tired. I am not a vacation or a getaway, I am either the town you call home or nothing at all.

//

I found myself in empty coffee shops, not so much for the people or the taste, but for being surrounded by the feeling of missing you and even when you were no longer real, I stayed because a part of the emptiness was comforting enough for me to keep going back.

//

I want to be the place where you begin.

how you come undone,

and the way you end.

//

I think it is quite beautiful how one can set their eyes on another and think to themselves, "there is something about that one," and there is this instantaneous connection that draws them in. You watch it in movies, you read it in books and you dream of  the moment when someone will look at you the way we view the stars and hope they will come into your life the way sunlight hits through glass.

Surely if you don't believe in love at first sight, you must believe in that moment when you first see a person and suddenly, the sunset isn't just orange but a vibrant fire across the sky with more colours than you could ever imagine. Then it is three in the morning and you're screaming their name out of agony and out of love.

//

Some people only make it far enough to kiss me or to tumble onto the same bed as me. A few will find their way into the deepest crevice of my soul and change every cell in my body; there will never be one left untouched.

//

"Do you see beauty in this rain?"

"Is that supposed to be poetic?"

"I think we've made it more so than it is, sometimes rain is just rain. But now, rain is when you think of someone or when you have a memory you can't let go. Rain is the thoughts of being left behind. Rain is being cleaned or washed away."

//

We don't find ourselves in bed together a lot, but we make love often. When he is walking towards me in the middle of a crowded street, his smile makes its way down to my stomach and I no longer worry about spiders dressed as butterflies.

When he wraps his arms around me, I being to understand that vacant parking lots never stay empty for long and sometimes ringing car alarms are better than the silence you pretend to love.

When he looks at me with those deep brown eyes, I see my favourite places and the wild destinations I've never been, but I could go, I'd go anywhere with him. Every touch-- the bumping of our knees, or the brush of our arms; he says our hands fit together perfectly when his fingers find mine.

We do not need a bed to caress, to feel, to touch, when all the love we make merely exists right here.

//

"Did you ever see us going to the places we did not? Out of the city, in another state, across the sea or to a small village? Maybe make our way past the empty night skies and into the morning with your clothes in my drawer?"

"I pictured us sharing a towel and getting our hands dirty from picking flowers from someone else's backyard and then panicking about getting caught trespassing because you wanted to find nice marble for your fish from their porch," he said, "but we did make it to some of these places, where we looked at one another and it felt like putting up faerie lights in your room for the first time or taking our first polaroid and your mother stuck it on her fridge. We may not have sailed together, but we have gone further than any plane ticker would have taken us."

//

You do not get to tell her about me. You do not get to tell the story of how you moved on, yet your arms still found me in the middle of the night and the way I left with all the memories and emotions, packed in the bag you kept for me by your closet. You don't get to keep my toothbrush in the cabinet behind your dirty mirror to remember me. 

You keep saying sorry, as if another one will relieve or erase what's done. You do not keep apologizing, constantly reminding me of your selfish and stubborn ways. Here we are again in the middle of the night, whispering secrets and laughing, talking and staring into each other's eyes and you do not get to do that. You do not get to make me happy another night to have me walk home alone tomorrow.

//

Sometimes I wonder if it  is history that makes people stay. It is hard to leave behind the things you once knew. What people do not often realize is that the past is not now and everything that lives there is not the same if we were to come across it again today. That is why there is no such thing as doing it over. It is never the same moment again. Times forces itself to change. 

//

So love me. I dare you to love me. Love me harder than the movies and storybooks I hope exist. Love me by all means; take me to cliffs and forests and seasides and we can lay there and just breathe. I can be that easy. We can escape into the night, surround ourselves with warm breezes, fireflies and lanterns that light up your street. Did I forget to mention that no one has ever made it past the sunsets and late night conversations? Choose me. I need you to choose me.

//

I will not be forgettable. You do not get to love me and leave me, just to forget it all as if the love never existed. I will have you howling at the moon, wishing you still had music in you. You will wake up sweating from your dream filled with my eyes, my laugh and your favourite spot on my neck you kissed the most and I swear, you will still feel me move beneath you. I will have you tangled up in vines, unable to free yourself. You would not want to so anyway, even if you could.

//

I wanted to be the scent on your skin, overpowering the Old Spice soap bar and the reason your lips ache the next day. I wanted to be brighter than the sun when you open the curtains and as graceful as the dust that falls onto your radiator. I wanted to be the one who traced the lines of your faded tattoo and fixed your necklace whenever it reversed.

One night you whispered to me, "You are beautiful," and all I heard was, "it is you, it is you, it is you."

The next time, you asked, "Are you seeing someone new?" and all I wanted to say was, "it is you, it is you, it is still you."

//

I should have known we were a mess to begin with. The first night we tumbled into your house, you were drunk and I was intoxicated just be being next to you. You pushed me onto your bed and I wanted you to rip my clothes off and you were worried about going too fast and too rough. I remember laughing and proceeded to let you take your shirt off as I came undone. Your bed was a mess. I was a mess. You woke up with a loud headache that could not be fixed by ibuprofen. We were a wild match, like a fish out of water trying to survive our of our elements. We broke things we could not fix, started fires we could not put out, just to be washed away by the sound of the alarm waking us up righty in time for reality. Darling, that was how we burned out. We cannot both be fire; we can only handle so many scars before it becomes too much. Maybe I was too much, or maybe you were not enough. I may have been a mess but at least I owned a mop. You left trails of dirt whenever you walked in the house.

//

I reread the letters I never sent two years ago, and it is bittersweet how much has changed. How funny, I used to be able to feel your skin on mine the moment you looked at me, yet, when you kissed me for the first time in awhile that night I kept wondering if I'd still be able to find you in there after all this time.

You looked the same standing in the doorway with basketball shorts and an old white t-shirt. Red cheeks, tired but bright eyes, wearing the same smile I used to know. Then again, you probably thought that about me when I showed up in the cold with my heart still within your reach and curly hair, just the way you used to like it.

I looked at you and all I could see was skin, when back then I could only find the boy who laughed at my jokes too much and loved my innocence as much as I wanted him to wreck it. I wonder what went through your mind that night, when we found ourselves lying on your bed one again with the city lights outside your window. I do not think either of us saw that coming.

I will never forget the first time we ever laid eyes on each other. After that night, I will always feel the last time we ever held each other too.

//

We loved so fiercely, oh God, we loved each other so much that no one else's love would have compared to our unconventional one. It was difficult and tough, we were rough around the edges, but when we were together it all came so easily. Two people who knew the needed to exist in other, two souls who wanted to breathe one another; we had it all.

We danced in empty ballrooms and tripped on the same steps, we would reach the top and slide down the railing to start all over again. That was us. No matter how many stairs of flights it took to get to the top, we made it. We wanted it so badly. We fought for it. When we looked down on the wooden floor, we knew it was worth it.

We loved endlessly, bound to nothing but early mornings and late nights. Two ordinary people made extraordinary when their paths crossed -- this was us.

We loved with sunrises in our eyes even when the sun was setting and I think that was the greatest part of all.

//

When we get older, we stop trying to figure out what shapes the clouds form and stop counting how many stars are in the sky. We forget about the smell of fresh grass and how it feels when the storm finally stops and there is this subtle tranquility when we open the front door. We stop wishing on airplanes and we stop howling at the moon, until you realize how far along you have come in your life, without ever stopping to just breathe. 

If you stopped to talk to the darkness on some nights, you will see the flicker of lights. Things will seem minuscule. All your thoughts and troubles, and all your successes and reams do not mean as much as they did when you were trying to focus too much on the end of the road.
When you look up, you see more than what is ahead of you. 

//

Tonight, I do not want to know if you got off early from work so you could take her ice-skating, just to see her fall on her two left feet. I do not want to know what perfume she is wearing or what colour lipstick she will leave on your cheek.
I do not want to know what colours you see in her eyes or the shade of her hair dye when the street lights hit both of you. I do not want to know where you place your hands when you walk in the streets or the words she whispers when the moon peeks through your curtains. I do not want to know where she leaves her clothes or how she makes your coffee in the morning after.
i do not want to know how you are falling in love with her. 

//

WHY I MUST LEAVE YOU FIRST:

I. My mother always took my father's tantrums. It was one of those things where if she got mad, he got mad at her for getting mad. Every time they fought, she would never win. Even when she was right, she would lose.
II. I am tired. I am drained. If I keep this up, I will have no love left for the day that one person who is so deserving of it, walks into my life.
III. I have survived loving a man who did not love me back, and you are a boy.
IV. You say you are staying in my 2016 but you and I both know you have left already. You left me first.
V. You were once my escape. Now you are the reason I need another paradise.
VI. It is a horrible feeling to hold on to someone who needs to be set free. It is a terrible thing to wait for something when you must leave, but it is worse to waste your time running in circles, waiting for the bullet to hit when it should not have been shot in the first place.
VII. i am not the roses i never received. i am a garden. i am the rain. i am all the of the stars and I am my own sun.

//

Sometimes,  I feel as if i am the old building tourists come see. Once they take photographs and have left their fingerprints on me, they leave and never come back. It is as if once is enough, that those pictures can now say it all.
Then there are the locals who live by me. They run back and forth in front of me, some going to the same houses, while others move to a different town.
People are constantly moving. They are letting ho and finding new things to hold on to.
Sometimes, I feel as if everyone is moving on except me. I am the dusty old floors of a vacated house with the lack feeling of comfort and an old fireplace at home. 

//

He talks and all i can think about is how I can listen to his voice for the rest of my life. Maybe the sound of his laughter when we eat ice cream at 2am or dance to Pour Some Sugar On Me when everyone else is rushing to work and we are here wasting our time being late. He runs his finger through my hair and all I can think is how messy mine looks whenever we leave the bed unmade, as undone as the way he makes me feel when he leaves trails of kisses down my spine. Maybe the way he touches as if it is his first time meeting the cells in my body or looks into my eyes and I feel his fingertips reaching in for my heart as I let his soul collide with mine.

//

I. I do not love you but i can see myself doing so.
II. You said you never slept on the right side of the bed until I decided to sleep on the left. At night, I wonder if you are dreaming about me or about someone who used to lay where you were at that moment.
III. When we talk, all I can taste is the bittersweet aftermath. It is sweet, but it stings. God, it stings when I know you are here, but you are not really here.
IV. There is less than 20 miles separating us, not even a river. Just lots of stop lights and traffic but I feel like I will never get to you.
V. You are but not enough. You want me but not enough. You like me but not enough.
VI. I want your company. i want your love. I want you to stay but not this way.

//

Somewhere in the dark alley of my mind, there lives all the past ghosts. Sometimes when I am lonely, i think about them. I think about the ones who let me get away and then i think about how things were so easy and simple when they just were, without everyone walking around in our cities.
We let the gates open when the city started burning down.
I am learning to be the ruler in my own place but it is hard to kick out these ghosts who help me build it. They continue to live in them and some days they get the best of me; I forget to remember that this is mine.
This land is all mine and I will not let anyone else hover over it.

//

I have been told that people have tendencies to choose the option that is safer and I am far from that. I am dangerous, highly toxic, with a dose of "I'll drive you mad and crazy" but you will find yourself still thinking about me some day out of the blue.
Even when I am gone. I know I am not safe. I know I am a ticking bomb waiting to go off. I know I am sometimes the brakes that do not always work, leading to the crash that is inevitable. I am the steering wheel that will take you to all the wrong places, or maybe, maybe I am the hole in your tires, stopping you from getting to where you are heading.
Hell, I am even the cracks on your windows during the middle of the winter, with the chilly breeze that makes your hands too cold to focus on what is in front of you, or the dusty rear view mirror that prevents you from seeing clearly.
I am dysfunctional. I am a wild ride. I will intoxicate you without whiskey or vodka, but you know what? I am one hell of  a ride. I am sure worth the ride.

//

Sometimes you let them in again and I am not sure if that means you are brave or foolish because there is always the risk of being hurt or left with more scars than the first time around. Somehow, this person is worth it.
They are special and they mean more than the heartache they put you through; they are worth the hearth throbbing, heart stopping, heart wrenching moments every time you stare at them, after all you have been through. I am not sure if that says more about you than it does about them, how they let you endure another form of pain while staying in your life, or, how you continue to let them be your moon while you are the waves.

//

Little girl, I know you are sad and I know you probably sit down sometimes and wonder why bad things can happen to good people. I know it gets hard to handle when a raindrop becomes a drizzle and drizzle becomes a storm and then it becomes the hurricane that the weatherman could not predict.
Little boy, I know it is hard to live in a world where it is considered less than masculine for a male to show their emotions. I know it is hard to be judged by the way you look and the things you wear, the shows you watch and the food you consume.
I know some days are tough, when you look in the mirror and all you can see is everything you hate. If there is one thing that makes your heart kaugh; maybe the smell of rain or the taste of morning coffee, or the face your best friend makes when they embarrass themselves in public or the familiarity of your mother's cooking.
Even if it is just the colour of the sky before the sun rises or the sound of the ocean, stay for that. There is some kind of happiness beneath it all, and if you continue, the list of things that make you happy will continue to grow and as will you.
There is always that.

//

You are not just home. You are the scent that lingers on my sweater, the aroma that soothes. You are soft pillows, the old dusty mirror and the night light that listen to our secrets. You are the eyes that listen to our secrets. You are the eyes that make the world disappear when I am looking into them.
Your laugh is my favourite song and your hands, man, I love the way mine fit into yours.
Whenever you hold me, it feels so familiar, like the feeling of rain hitting pavement and you are sleeping soundly while listening to the sky. Your old Christmas blanket and my favourite fleece blanket go well together with sleep. Those lights in the living room, with our feet on suede couches, as we laugh in sync watching old movies.
You are not just home. You are you and there is no place like you.

//

Love is love and I think that is the only way to define it. It is wonderful and it sucks at the same time. Today it makes so much sense and tomorrow, you will not even remotely understand it. It hurts, it is cruel, but it gives and it heals.
Love is happiness. Love is lunacy. Love is chaos. Love is combustion. Love is tranquility. Love is both a volcano and an ocean. Love is oxygen you breathe when you are drowning. Love is the sanity when you are going crazy. There is not enough ink to describe it all.
There will never be enough words to justify our fall.
Love is love, after all.

//

The unwritten rule is, if you leave someone, you must leave them all behind. You must take everything with you so there is nothing left for them to keep going back to. If you are going to rip something, let all the pain hurt at once so they can be left alone to heal without your interruption.
No one wants to get caught when they have gotten so far. If someone is leaving you, remind yourself that you are not falling behind but merely learning and moving forward.
You leave their suitcases in what you used to call home and run. You run as fast as you can before they take it back. You dont turn around for them to open old wounds with new hands; because they are leaving you, you must be left and you must get up to leave as well.

//

People like us are simple you know? We want the sun burning in our veins and the stars in the palm of our hands. We look at the moon and even if we are alone, we are no longer lonely. We kiss without our lips and crave to be touched without traces of fingerprints.
We chase fairy dust until home is more than just a place, but a sense of permanence. We need the taste of freedom and stick to old wings that will somehow continue to soar eventually, even when it gets broken.

//

You can let your lustful bodies touch
even though you're commiting a sin,
but you cannot keep loving someone
who is not willing to let you in.

//