Love and Cracked Heals

I find love in between my dads lips when he’s talking about space And in the cracks of my best friends heals in the winter time 

big enough to fit 2 quarters 

I find love in a good John Mayer song around a camp fire in the summer and in the calluses my feet develop from being bare on hot asphalt 

I find it buried under 100 blankets in a freezing cold room and and in the way ginger ale tastes best when flying 10,000 feet up  

I find love in fresh Thai food and summer night drives with the windows down and the music up and the impossibility of 10 and 2 because holding your hand is worth being the last thing I do 

I find love in the tears that come along with the last 5 minutes of perks of being a wallflower and in the sequin sweater I got my sister for her 22nd birthday 

I don’t find love in emptying the dishwasher or telling my dad I missed seminary again 

And I don’t see it in between 6:00 and 6:30 am when my alarm goes off every 8 minutes

And I doesnt seem to show up on the plane ride back from a long vacation or in the smell of a sea food restaurant 

But I think that’s okay  

Once we die we don’t have a choice 

Death has no strings 

And as great as that sounds I think I’ll stick around here for a while 

Because I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of cracked heals and callused feet 

Triumphant souls

Unachievable bliss in the eye of the ones who never thought being alive was a choice 
Breath with me 

Into the vacancy of what we Call home 

Find me bleeding in the arms of the one who told me I was safe 

Find me bleeding in the hopes that this life wont consume me 

But me consume it 

Triumph

over what you thought was un-triumphable 

Make it yours 

Let yourself live so well death trembles to take you 

But not bleed too much 

Laugh at the odds 

Don’t let curiosity kill you 

But bleed

Bleed with me 

To know we have a choice in this world 

Of what is ours and what is fates 

Bleed with me to know we still have the ability to feel 

To live 

To breath 

To be 

Alive 

And how lucky I am to have found someone who’s laugh is enough to keep me from needing to bleed

my favorite things

fresh squeed orange juice and raw honey

chocolate dandelion tea

just hot enough to almost burn my taste buds

freshly washed linens

still warm

homemade pumpkin bread

still warm

my hand when it holds yours

(unfortunately) still warm

plane tickets

freshly painted nails

anything velvet

you

 

Tired Eyes

We live in a world where the way your body looks matters more then the way your mind thinks.

Where good hair will get you farther then a good education and boys always go for the girls prettier at first glance.

Remember when what we would play at recess that afternoon was the biggest worry in our minds?

when how many boys you tagged while playing chase mattered more then how many had tasted your favorite pink lip gloss?

When we didn’t know 3 am studies sessions

Or 3 am phone calls

Or 3 am

9 o’clock was our bed time no argument could change that

but maybe all the while I dreaded early nights I was failing to look at it from the right angle

see now we stay up late but we’re stressed and depressed and we spend a lot of time thinking about what other people think and, maybe thats just growing up

but I’ve noticed a correlation between early nights and my mothers sobriety and I think maybe if i give myself enough time to dream I can wake up excepting the fact that reality doesn’t have to be a sad story

that I don’t have to be a sad story and maybe I’ve had a bad yesterday or a bad yester week or a bad 6 years but that doesn’t mean today is guaranteed to end the same way a-polo 18 did

not everyone has to die dead.

so come be human with me,

lets bask in late night ice cream runs and bad hair days and getting nervous to talk to our crushes

lets never stop making first kisses a big deal

and never let go of 3am drives sticking our heads out the sun roof and screaming something good

because that’s what makes us alive.

To all the people I’m not

I could be a drugatic, an alcoholic, a too far gone too many mistakes made misfit. Not comfortable in my own skin. Letting suicide take me, but not by choice.

I could be my mothers daughter

I could be an artist a painter a sculpture an all over the place traviling fanatic with a 24 by 10 antique suitcase attached to my left hand. Never knowing where I’m going but always confident I’d make it.

I could be my cousins cousin

I could be a genius an author a teacher. A book smart cute in glasses always understanding what the teacher says student. never knowing how much of what i say inspires other people and never realizing but always being the nicest in the room.

I could be my sisters sister.

I could be confident never wrong competitive and hard working. A nothings ever good enough and nothing can’t be fixed by a bottle of water and a self help book. I could be a believer in hiding the things that aren’t perfect and pretending they are.

I could be my fathers daughter.

I could be a good at waisting timer a wanna be good singer a laughs to hard in the theater. I could be a people pleaser another one of anxieties victims. I could care to much what people think and try too hard to blend in. I could not know exactly what I believe and love the smell but hate the taste of coffee.

I could be me

I could write forever and ever all the things I do and don’t want to be, but life doesn’t make humans through words

people aren’t poetry

 So I’ll try my best to stay content with the life I’ve chosen to live, and keep in mind its a waisted life I never learn to live.

not so shotgun heart

you could tell me 100 times over the same boring story about the first time you learned to change a tire and i’d never get sick of hearing it

i want to do anything to make me your everything because baby you already are mine

i want to love with you and hate with you and make mistakes with you but know you’ll love me just the same

i want to kiss you and taste the stars and use the wishes i catch to wish for more time to ride in your not so shotgun heart

i want to learn about all the things you’re scared of doing

and all the things you’re scared of not doing

and i want to do them all with you

i want to watch silent films with you and hold hands in public with you and i want to fall asleep in the middle of conversations with you

I want to do everything with you

I want to be everything with you

I want to be everything to you

growing up with me

At six years old I was growing up in a world where nothing couldn’t be fixed by moms peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I was sleep walking though the idea of imperfection because my dad unintentionally taught me it wasn’t allowed.

I hit 4th grade and suddenly my mom didn’t cut the crust off my sandwiches anymore. I blamed it on her busy schedule but it was the first time in years she wasn’t going to work. Everyday I got more and more used to her locked bedroom door.  I learned to make my own sandwich.

Until 6th grade when dad got home and told me I needed to start eating less bread and start running more miles. Running more miles? I was still naive, I thought maybe bread caused cancer and running fought it and, maybe dad was just looking out for me. But my older sister didn’t think like that anymore, she stopped eating all together and I pretended not to notice the bones in her neck starting to show.

7th grade came and I was the only one that stayed at church anymore. Mom and dad were constantly fighting and fighting and fighting and my sister tried to take one too many sleeping pills. But god knew I needed her around and he helped wake her up again.

8th grade, mom went away to a 90 day program and I didn’t like jelly sandwiches anymore.

9th 10th 11th depression, addiction and divorce consumed Sunday dinner conversation and I stopped asking to be rocked in the rocking chair because not even that fix my anxiety.

12th grade. Divorce finalized the day after my 18th birthday and I picked up the habit of biting my fingernails. I’m not allowed to talk to mom anymore and I keep dating boys that push me around. In reality I keep letting everyone push me around and I am more then embarrassed by the cuts on my wrist because I promise I didn’t do them in my right mind.

so far my life seems a lot like a sad story, but as long as there is watermelon to eat and stars bright enough to wake up to I’ll be here.

I’m not calling it quits

not yet.

This is my hello

Maybe god is real

But if he isn’t my anxiety would make a lot more sense. I don’t know what I believe but I’m really good at pretending I’m talking to someone when I pray, I love people and museums and getting lost in my own thoughts and, I know how to say I love you but I’ve always been afraid of holding hands.

Every other night I doubt my existence and the nights I’m not I’m wishing my doubts to be true.                                                                                                                                                                          I’m not depressed.                                                                                                                    I get way too happy when I find a song I like and can’t help but listen to it over and over until it makes me sick. I like to read, and most the time I’d prefer a bubble bath and a Stephen King book over a movie night with my friends.

I love when people give me nick names and I think I try too hard to blend in. Im sitting here with head phones in but no music playing because I can’t write and listen at the same time.

Road trips watermelon and good earth vanilla chia chapstick have always been favorites of mine. I’m a sucker for anything peanut butter and early June has always been my favorite time of year. I love the smell but hate the taste of coffee and maybe I missed this day of second grade but I never learned how to end a conversation.

This post doesn’t make a lot of sense but my mind never has so, I guess this is a welcome to the reality of my thought process for the past 17 years

this is my, hello.