this little café is all abuzz with conversation. my latte is lukewarm and neglected. i am too busy leaning forward in my chair, eyes fixed on your mouth, i haven't thought to take a sip. you are speaking thirty words a second and i am trying to discern each sentence, but before i can, one hundred more have been spit out onto the table. i can tell by your animated face that you are sharing something significant, but all i can hear is the milk steaming and the gossip being shared at the surrounding tables. the light above us is flickering and swaying and it is possible that it is all the hearts beating in one place causing this tiny earthquake to take place. one sip, my drink isn't right. i asked for hazelnut.

laying in bed and laying in bed and laying in bed
with you

i had to save this because it is just too special.

favorite things about being alive: singing, laughing, hiking, hugging, kissing, playing guitar, listening to other people play music, reading, doing things for people, surprising people, making people feel special and loved. best feeling in the world.

music, poetry, art, love, kittens, discovering things, exploring things

being spontaneous, photo excursions, and most definitely writing

the smell of dark rooms

skeleton keys and creaky wooden floors

really old leather furniture, the way my dad's t-shirts smell, waking up early

back scratches, my brother's sneezes that could wake up the entire neighborhood, being looked in the eye when i'm not expecting it

book shops with cats, attics, candles

trees with exposed roots, seeing how in love my grandparents are after so many years, time capsules

i like you.
i like you too.

maybe it's just the vicodin (i just got my wisdom teeth pulled), but this sappy conversation made me smile big time.

you swim around inside of my head all day long
do you like it in there?

chapped lips holding back words that have been sucked dry of all meaning

My heavy heart is weighing me down, my chest is one with the ground, yet the earth feels so good beneath me. The grass starts tying itself around me in perfect green bows. My arms and legs are the roots of a tree stump and I'm not moving anymore. I'd much rather have a big heart than a cold one. I'd rather be hurt than be the cause, yet I am heartache and it's seeping into your chest and there's nothing I can do. My mistakes are clouds floating overhead, you're trying to guess their shape, but they're raining on you instead.

Your voice travels across the ocean, in with the tide, passing state borders and county lines. It wanders its way under my door, between my sheets, up past my face. It's a cool breeze on a summer night, the cold side of the pillow. "Everyone will leave sometime," you say, but what does that mean? Life is just a cycle from the day we are born up until the day we die. Hello, goodbye, hello, goodbye, hello, goodbye, hello, and goodbye. I'm here when I want to be there and I've always been told to follow my heart, but maybe I don't know where it is anymore. I'm standing and sitting and I'm running around in circles, but I've lost track of which direction I'm going. My compass is broken and I'm out of breath. I think it's time my heart found me because I'm all out of places to look.

Your eyes are spilling out all over our hands and your tears are like raindrops falling one by one on your chest where a puddle is formed right above the place where your heart now has a hole. Your feet are up on the wooden table and they've been there for so long I'm starting to think the roots from the dead tree are going to start to intertwine with your legs. The room's filled with a stale fog that will never lift and instead of talking, you keep filling your mouth with the smoke of cigarette after cigarette and now the fire alarms going off and it's saying everything you've been trying to say. Screaming the same thing over and over again while you just sit there and stare out the window. I can't even see you through the fog anymore and I'm starting to cough against the sound of the alarm, and I'm reaching out for your hand, but I can't see past my elbow. I'm falling through the haze and right before I hit the cold floor you pull me up next to you. I still can't see you, but I feel you looking at me. All I can hear is that damn fire alarm, but I can feel what you're trying to say through the tight grasp you have on my hand. You won't let go, you'll never let go and neither will I. And that's all you needed to hear.

my spine is like a ladder and you're climbing up into my head. you're under my skin and you're making your way in between my ribs, playing my heartstrings until your fingers are raw, trying to play the right chord. you're just going to keep strumming and strumming until your fingers bleed and your blood mixes in with mine and we won't know the difference. you're never going to play that chord you're looking for and you're just going to keep mixing in with my blood until i overflow and stain that white canvas red.

Isn't it incredible how fast hair grows? How hair stands on end and that they are called goosebumps? How simple things like nails growing, eyes blinking, and chests rising signify life. A broken bone and a broken heart have completely different meanings and entirely different cures. How tears of joy and tears of sadness can look the same, unless you look a person in the eye. And if one million people were lined up, I'd look only for you. How coffee always tastes better with a little milk and sugar. How trash cans are like diaries of our daily lives, yet it's all combined into one individual life. One ugly, smells-like-shit mound of garbage, that's the combination of all of our lives. One big mess. And how socks and mittens are incessantly going missing as if the hands and feet of the owner were in them when they weren't really in them. How fingers and eyelashes and lips feel on the skin. How it makes me blush. How it feels to sleep next to someone, even when their feet are freezing. We feel so vulnerable when we open up the rib cage and expose our hearts, but it's so easy to keep it locked up.

I need to keep my heart where it belongs. Imprisoned behind my ribs, deep within my chest. My tongue held hostage behind my lips. My oversized teeth guarding my oversized mouth that is now regretting what it has just revealed.

My life is full of so many loving people, but they will always strangers to me. No one knows my feelings and I can't imagine anybody that would want to know what goes on in this little head. No one knows the songs that reach down my throat and grab at my heartstrings until I'm being played like a harp. And I have so many people in my life, but they're all at a distance. They've always been just out of reach. There are so many walls around me, walls that I have never wanted, and never will want. I want to get out of here, set foot on the soil of every country until my feet are black. Until exotic flowers stem from my toes and I'm turned into the most beautiful garden anyone has every seen.

I keep drinking, but my thirst is never quenched. Isn't it a miracle that even some live to be one hundred? There are millions of instances, of ways to die that are out of our control, yet I've made it this far. I've never broken a bone, never even had a cavity, but each space in between my breaths brings me closer to death. But is also what keeps me alive. Am I ready? Are any of us ever ready for anything? I live the way I live because I've been taught to plan for my future, a future that may not even exist. I've also been taught to live every day like it's my last, but how can I do both? Lovely things stay at a distance because I'm too busy being educated about the sentence structure for phrases I may never say and conversions of chemical reactions that just might wait to take place until my body is decomposing, which I, of course, won't live to see.

Why is it so much easier for us to love the imperfections of someone else rather than our own? The way you bite your lip when you're holding something back. I love it, you hate it. The way I can never walk in a straight line. Well, maybe you don't love that, but then again, neither do I. I don't love the way everyone holds on just because they don't want to be alone, but that's also because I am that way. Watching the skipping stones jump across the water until they sink to the bottom, that's just it, it's living. We just keep going and are admired just up until we start sinking, and at that point no one cares anymore. When we hit the bottom we just get buried back into the earth, a skipping stone is just a rock, and a rock is nothing beautiful to look at.

I would really love to start over new. Get in my car, fill up my tank of gas, and drive until it runs on empty. Keep on going when the the little orange light flashes up at me, no matter where I am, I'll be happy. I might meet someone new, someone interesting, with a life story far better than mine. A story that breaks my heart with sadness and makes my eyes tear up in laughter. I wish I could know everyone, I get a sinking feeling inside with the fact that I never will. Millions of faces that I'll never see, with smiles that will stay forever worthless to me. I feel like that's not how it should be. I'm trapped in the world I've been raised in, but it's all my fault that I haven't gotten myself out of it yet. My car is sitting less than twenty feet away from my body, yet I hold myself back because I know I would cause disappointment. I have repetitive dreams where I get sliced up by ceiling fans, I wonder what that means. Or spinning my car out of control through the air and watching my clothes fly around the inside of my car in slow motion as the blood drips down my hands. And outside of my window birds fly past me, just living their lives while my car crashes down on the ground below them, but of course I don't die, I walk away from crushed metal that once was my car and all I wonder is what I'm doing with my life.

I cannot find a pattern and make it stick
Nothing is beautiful enough to keep going on forever
The repetition becomes dull, tiresome
I would like to meet you
A handshake that says hello to a life that's just beginning
And if I've already met you,
I'd like to know you
Know the inside of your hands,
your scars and their stories
how you're feeling by looking at your eyes
But I cannot help but want to run away
from the thought of my life on re-run
Maybe you will run with me
Maybe you feel the same
I'd like to think I'd prefer the repetition of someone
rather than being alone

and i feel dead because i'm not really living my life, just what everyone else considers living. i don't like following a plan, but what else would i do? i want to set my foot on every inch of the earth, yet i've lived in indiana my entire life. i feel like i'm inside of a cage and you just won't stop talking no matter how loud i yell. i hate when you talk about him like that and i hate when he talks about you like that. i never want to hear it. i can't even look at you in the face without snapping myself in half and it's funny because you are never there to pick up the pieces.

i'm content on my own, even in times like these, but that doesn't mean i don't miss you. and it's better to feel loved than to feel alone even if you want no one else around. i want to count the raindrops on the window before they're all gone. it's like the sky is crying a battle for how many tears it can shed and it always wins no matter how big of a puddle i leave on the floor yet no matter where the tears come from, they evaporate the same.

The hours start repeating themselves
Like the hands of the clock moving the same circular path
The only thing differentiating each hour
are the numbers we read
Just the page numbers of story of our day to day life
A 24 page book with the same ending up until we die
Days and weeks turn into months with no change but the seasons
The calendar is just a piece of paper,
Leading you to think your life is full of importance
While your mind is numb to the thought of your dull life
I sit awake hoping that it will never be me
That I will find myself never in just one place

I dreamt of limp arms,
hundreds of them
hanging over the side of a bridge.
Every time a ship sailed underneath
the fingernails from hundreds of dead bodies
scraped the wood of the top deck
slowing it down ever so slightly
as if they had something to say.
Thousands of fingers pointing downward
counting thousands of ripples in the river.
The riverbed holding old fishing hooks,
ink from old letters that were never read,
the blank paper that no longer holds meaning
Screws, rotting wood, anchors holding nothing in place
a lens from a pair of old glasses belonging to an old pair of eyes that no longer see
pieces of life jackets that failed to save lives
broken tea cups where fish now lay their eggs
wedding rings and broken promises
bones from fingers pointing the blame at everyone but themselves
of watches full of water and stopped time
And the hands of the dead bodies will forever point downward
Like the hands of the broken watches

We crave the attention of so many bodies
So many eyes looking our way
Hundreds of smiles we return
Yet we still have this void
The emptiness within
What will fill me up?
God, how easily I lose my grasp
on what makes my face light up
My heart remains warm
So easy to turn to the faces that do not know who I really am
How can I find myself in the eyes of the selfish?
So many fragile hearts,
Too many broken
The hands of the clock lay limp
We're wasting our time anyway
Constantly planning our futures
up until we die
Breaking over and over again
Up until the glue has run out
Where has all the time gone?

The leaky pipes up within the clouds
They're pouring down on me
The rain is warm,
it touches the skin like delicate fingertips
Pleasantly soaking me inside out
Washing away the dirt layering itself on the outside of my soul
What was once wearing me thin
Is now a puddle surrounding my feet
I'm free to walk away completely pure
Hand in hand with the sky

I'm as real as I've ever been
I can't help that I'm speechless
My words turn to dust once I open my mouth
Collecting on old pictures
They're all in the past now
Rip the memories of me up,
throw them away,
Just go on and forget my existence

Wondering what thoughts are going through the minds of the hundreds of passerby's
We're all looking for something, or someone
All lost in our own minds
Curious as to how many faces I've passed that I've never really seen
While we're all looking for love in all the wrong places
Searching the eyes of thousands of faces
Counting each second until we find what we think we're looking for
All time stops until we must say goodbye once again
Each moment slips through my fingers as quick as sand,
smooth, silently collecting into a pile on the floor
A pile of memories, the moments we've shared
I keep them in my mind on speed dial
Yet you never feel quite close enough
Eventually the wind carries them all away

Searching for the way I feel
is like trying to find a needle in the hay
I wish I could pick myself up out of bed
Lift one foot and then the other
Walk until I'm running
Force each breath in and back out again
Crash down into more pieces than I'm made up of
Too broken to be put back together
Eventually my pieces will fade in with the ground
And I'll disappear once again
My teeth aren't smiling,
they're clenched tight waiting
for you to grab ahold of me
Shake me free of the anxiety
Take it all away
Let me open my eyes and see you
Respond to my prayers
My fingers will remain intertwined
until I find hope again

My mind is as made
as the sheets on my bed
Remaining touched only by my sleeping body, alone
I wake up every night dozens of times
Tossing and turning,
so many words to say
and no way to say them
We're in a room full of conversations
That we're not having
The words remain behind our eyes
Can you read me?
The words remain unspoken until we're too far away from each other to hear
Each letter falls to the floor before they travel the distance
Being swept into too much of a disarray to be arranged back into their initial meaning
My tongue remains tied,
double knotted with uncertainty
Your taste in my mouth has faded
Just like it always does
Although it certainly comes back in time
This dedication is intriguing
I do not hear you enough,
Your voice is beautiful
Time is passing too slow again,
like we're on two trains going in opposite directions
It all starts to blur together
I don't want to become the path I'm following
Blank papers sit, waiting for my words
Love letters that remain unsent
Yet to be written
I want to pull at my thread
Unravel myself back to the beginning
Start all over again

How frequently you come across my mind
It's almost as if you don't leave
You've taken up a permanent residency behind my smile
When I see beautiful things,
I think about how I want you to see them too
Driving at midnight past fields full of fireflies
One by one they light up the night sky
How badly I want to get out of the car
and lay there all night just staring up at the lights
It's so much more beautiful out there than it is staring up at my ceiling
I want to let go of being boxed in
I want to run away
For once, I want to be the one that's leaving.

The truth is no matter how much a person claims that they're not afraid, it's a lie. Everyone is afraid to some extent. If you're human, you have the capability of hurt, of heartbreak, of loss. One word can completely change what kind of day your having. One person has the capacity to reshape the way you feel about yourself. Of course we're all scared, because we know that we're risking ourselves for the sake of happiness and for the sake of someone else's happiness. We want so badly to protect ourselves from the hurt that we protect ourselves from what good could come out of these situations as well. You cannot defend your heart from breaking without keeping yourself from really falling in love. If we would all just admit that we're scared of failure, of complete and utter heartbreak, we would be able to love with all of our hearts. Knowing that taking that risk is worth it just for the chance of maybe, just maybe falling in love with someone. There are always going to be roadblocks making us feel that our happiness is out of reach, but without these challenges, we wouldn't be able to know what it feels like to overcome. We all know how it feels to achieve something independently; imagine getting over these road bumps with someone on your side. Love is worth taking the risk. Let yourself fall.

It's the collection of half-empty glasses on my bedside table
The photos that never turn out just right
The words that consistently come out all wrong
The list of things to do that never gets finished or even started
I don't know where to begin
because I don't know how I want to end
It's the hours I spend learning information
that brings me further and further away from what I will become
It's the fact that I'm running away from myself
while standing in place
It's that what I love the most is what scares me the most.
I love loving. I love being loved.
Yet I hide in the doorway, holding my breath
Until it's walked just far away enough for me to move again
The street is dark, the concrete, damp
I can see my breath
It lingers in the air until it's stale
Like the whispers that take place
when I'm just far away enough to hear
The warmth of your skin
It's enough to melt the cold
I'm racing, chasing myself
But I don't know where I'm going
Because I don't know where I'll end up.

The days when the sun doesn't set until nine
I can't keep up with the time
The days, the hours,
They're blurring together
My time is read by memories
Yesterday, Tomorrow
The time I've spent with you,
those hours are linked closest to my heart
My heartbeats are synchronized with each tick
The stopwatch is counting:
How long does it take to fall completely?

I am not going to let petty arguments
waste my life away
I know myself front to cover
I have each page memorized
Every chapter, every word
I'm the book you could read hundreds of times
Each time you find something new that you didn't see before
But I'm the only one who knows the whole story, the metaphors,
the meanings behind the words
Being honest is the only way to live
I don't waste my time with hidden motives
If I wanted him, I would act on it
i will never go crawling back
to anyone of my past
I'm as strong as they get
Each experience adds a new ring like the years of a tree
They all make me stronger,
you and no one else can knock me to the ground
My branches stand high above you
I won't be affected by your negativity
It won't weigh me down
This is my life and I've chosen to live it with a smile
My laugh is the song on repeat
And I'll forever be dancing to its tune
You can choose to view me with disfavor
but I'll keep on smiling
I'll leave you in the dust
I'll just keep running toward the sun
Up until my day comes
There's no stopping me.
There is nothing you can do to break down my positivity.
You may have my heart
and you may break it,
but what's wounded can always be healed
It's been mended before.
I'm not afraid to take a risk.
And I'm not afraid of failure.

Laying on my back in the cool grass
A sudden breeze lifts my hair above my face
It is conducting the symphony of stars overhead
A constellation keeps forming itself through my imagination
of the words I so badly want to say to you
There are so many ways to say it
Too many words, too little time
No matter how many times i rework it in my head
It ends up with the same meaning
You are infinitely beautiful
unlike the stars which shine with nonexistent light
The light which appears to us,
but in reality holds no life
Your beauty lies deep within your soul
When your physical body dies much like the stars
Your beauty will transcend your body
In your soul
Your heartbeat is the countdown to your life
While I look up at the night sky
I know we'll live on
I just know we'll keep on living

My tears tell the stories of so many goodbyes
Evaporating into silent, nonexistent hellos
Standing in the terminal
With flowers for you
Standing until they wilt
And eventually they’ll rot
I’ll just keep standing
Until there’s nothing left to stand for
And when I collapse
The ground will catch me
I’ll be laying amidst the rotting flowers
Singing in pathetic harmony

I've been laying down here for hours now
My body's imprint lies in the earth
The wildflowers are swaying above me
In tune with the orchestra of the summer sounds
I've been counting the stars,
Connected them in patterns
I get them confused with the fireflies circling above
They are so beautiful
They create their own universe
And I can reach for their stars
Holding the light in my hands
I am so content here on my own,
but I still think about you
You've taken up a permanent residence in my mind
But mostly in my heart
I used to count your freckles
Connected them in patterns
The sun has said its goodbye
And I'm welcoming it once again
The hours went by so fast
You stayed in my thoughts
Its almost as if you were here with me
Maybe you were in your dreams
Will you wake up and feel it as a reality?
I'd love to share the beauty of this scenery with you
And I'm hoping that I already have

You are the insomniacs cure
You allow the frail body to fall asleep
To release its tension
I'm losing myself in you
And I'm finding myself in you
Are you feeling it too?
It is a free fall
I have jumped but not yet landed
I am diving into the unknown
But you are there to catch me
You are holding me high
You know, I've been hurt before
It has told me not to trust
But I can't help it
The way you look at me when I'm not looking
I can feel it
It tells me otherwise
You were made to trust
I was made to trust you
I hope you can trust me too.
The sound of your voice
It is enough to make me feel alive
It is raw and it is beautiful
And it is yours
It's speaking to me
You know you make me feel special
You know you make me feel
It is a free fall
You have jumped but not yet landed
You are diving into the unknown
And I am ready to catch you
I am holding you high, holding so tight
I know you have been hurt before, but that's alright
And it has told you not to trust
But you can't help it
The way I look at you when you're not looking
You can feel it
It tells you otherwise
I was made to trust
You were made to trust me
I hope I can trust you too.
Your life is the book
I never want to put down
The story draws me in
Each page is beautiful and true
Keep me reading
You keep me reading

Forever changed
Lost in your smile
Your eyes envelope my soul
Entirely
No longer is there distance
Infinite closeness
Almost
Beyond physical capabilities
Our hands are so small
Compared to what lies within
My feelings are exploding outward
Overcoming the physical being
An eternity, this eternity
Lies within, lies ahead of us
This irresistible fate
Keeps me guessing
Curiosity will never fade
Everything about you is important
I want to know everything
So deep, I yearn for more
You are enough and I can't get enough of you
All of you

Listening to the voices outside my window
Unfamiliar to me, but unmistakable to those surrounding them
The voices of the person in the other room
I could tell that voice out of a crowd in an instant
How individual the voices are that linger into our ears
Within our souls, embedded
How special the voices of our loved ones seem to us
Holding them tight
Letting them sooth us to sleep
Brushing my teeth until my gums bleed
Not for the purpose of cleaning,
but to prove that I'm alive
The blood flows due to the life I possess
Changing the trash that tells the story
of my days
The food I've consumed,
The receipts of the meaningless purchases
The materials filling my closet
They do not define who I am.
The stories the ones close to me hold tightly in their hearts
Those are what explain my existence
The beauty of my life is contained in the ones around me
Within me the secrets are locked up
They're the only thing keeping my story incomplete

While you are wasting your time
using each other
What could help you move on
Who could be there,
Is walking straight past your steamy window
The hand you could've held
keeps walking
Alone
and away from you.
Leaving you unsatisfied,
in your disheartened solidarity
next to the pointless lover at your side
You both lay there,
envisioning a better tomorrow
when that day is already long gone
The footprints of that bright future have faded
no longer imprinted in the dirt next to your house
your bedroom, with the jumbled up sheets
You've lost your chance
at being strong, moving on
You're stuck in the shadows of the meaningless
Elbows in the air,
The sweat attempts to wash away the feeling that it's all wrong
but the evaporation leaves behind a rough, bitter sense of guilt
The guilt of knowing
you're back where you were before.

There's a whirlwind of feelings surrounding me
Throwing my hair in my face
I'm running in every which direction
Toward and away from you
Should I follow my feelings or follow my head?
I think it's impossible for me to follow my head
My heart is uncontrollable
I think I like it that way,
but I'm sure you won't.
I'm everywhere at once,
but you can't find me
I'm a mystery to you
Read me like an open book,
but you'll notice my pages are out of order
The wind picks them up and carries them wherever it likes
It makes life more interesting
My story thus far is a comedy,
and tragedy because we all die in the end
It's as non-fiction as it comes
My life is my life, no false lines
to make you laugh
My life is highly amusing
My feelings are easily hated
(on the surface)
You know you love them deep down,
the mixed up wonders which define who I am
You raise your eyebrow,
I'm undefinable.
The more you know me,
the less ordinary you will feel.

I've wrapped myself up,
sustaining the heat, the passion
It's all held within.
I cannot give it to you,
it's as if it is stolen from me
without warning
I cannot help or control the process
Who will take it from me, who i will give myself to
Who will make me smile the way i need to
It sneaks up on me
It never seems to work out
the way I want it to
I'm someone else's leftovers
I sit there on your mind,
but your effort is only to push me further away
toward the back of your mind
You want me to collect the dust
of your other thoughts
I am susceptible
You have the power to harm me,
but that's a step in the right direction
I am finally feeling again,
even if I'm bound to get hurt
It's worth it.

[4th piece of my incomplete book]

The cold air brushes past me
As if it's leading me away from you,
or toward you,
I can't see straight anymore.
It's rushing me in every which direction.
I'm unstable, I'm dizzy
The chaos of living is catching up with me.
I close my eyes, I breathe deeply
My anxiety decides to stay
I dig my fingers into my arm,
I am completely lost.
Not only am I lost like I have been for so long,
but I am physically lost
I have no where to go.
I can't come home, because I was lost there too.
I miss the comfort of our bed,
even if I was sleeping with my eyes wide
Awake for every moment of the night
I wonder if you're out there somewhere,
lost too.
Maybe we're standing inches away from each other
Our eyes closed,
maybe our hairs are touching
I open my eyes,
I am alone.
The fog surrounds me,
It's suffocating.
I never felt trapped in your arms.
If I knew where to find myself I would bring it back to you.
I wonder if you would love it.
Or would you politely unwrap it,
with false excitement, thanking me for the gift you'd rather return,
but can't?
You'd pretend to love it when I'm around,
but shun it once I left the room.
It's not like you can lie anyway,
I have always been able to tell.
You're so readable when it comes to honesty,
dishonesty.
I wonder if I'll even love the ending product,
the final draft of myself.
What if I hate it?
What if you hate it too?

[3rd piece of my incomplete book]

I woke up in a daze.
As if my dream were reality,
just whipped away from me as my eyes open
Now it's only a memory,
but not in the truest form.
I woke up in a daze.
All I could think about was sharing this dream with you.
I felt that I already had, but it was only a dream, my dream.
I somehow hoped that this dream occurred to the both of us,
in the same space and time of our minds,
but that's just hope.
What is hope anyway?
Do our souls dream?
If that were the case,
I'd believe that we could have shared it.
Would that make it a memory?
The chances of that connection are slim to none.
I know you well enough to know you don't sleep.
You lie there restlessly,
just waiting for the night to be over.
You hate when the sun goes down
It reminds you of your inability,
Your restlessness.
You always feel like you're wasting your time.
I wish you knew dreams like I do.
It's what I look forward to.
I know your insomnia like the back of my hand.
The hand that falls asleep beneath your anxious body
I always fall asleep before you shut your eyes
I always wake up to the smell of your coffee
That is why I wasn't surprised to roll over to an empty bed.
Well, besides the book you read on repeat night after night
It helps you forget that you are awake amidst a sleeping town
I wonder if you read to the rhythm of my breaths
Each word, in and out,
I wonder if that is what you call sleep
Inhale, exhale, soak in the meaning
That morning my mind told me you were downstairs writing
You're always writing in your leather-bound book.
My heart told me different.
I felt a hole.
A part of me leaking out.
Internally bleeding away my happiness, my soul.
My stomach dropped two hundred stories
I puked out my disbelief
I know she's gone. I can feel it.
More or less, I stopped feeling.
All I want is to feel the small of her back,
as she climbs into bed with her coffee every morning
Should I go back to sleep and pretend this isn't happening?
Will that make her come back?
It's all a dream.
Am I still asleep?
I'll be asleep until I see her again.

[2nd piece of my incomplete book]

I woke up on a park bench,
It was raining.
I was completely soaked,
but never have I felt more alive,
more at home
I rolled over as much as I could
I now stare across the distance of the park
There are no walls surrounding me
There is no one near me
No one to steal away the sounds of my own breathing
The trees are swaying, the rain is pounding
As if each breathe is the start of a measure
To this natural orchestra, the nocturne of my life
I sit up and wait for the switch to flip
The natural light of the sun begins to rise
I wonder if you've woken up yet
If you've turned over to see what's left of me
The book with my goodbye,
The crease in the right side of the bed,
I slept in the same place for so long
I wonder if you'll come looking for me,
I wonder if you'll know that I slept on this bench
when you walk by it when I'm gone
Should I leave a clue that only you would notice?
I guess I shouldn't give you false hope.
It's not that I want you to find me,
or do I?
How long would it take you to give up on the scavenger hunt of myself,
Would I be building myself up to being someone you thought you wanted,
the person you thought you needed?
I've already failed you once,
I can't bring myself to let that happen again.
I wrap up inside the raincoat of myself
What am I doing?
I have to remind myself that I've wanted this for so long
I've needed this for so long
You're the only one I ever thought I loved
Even if that love wasn't mine
I stretch my arms out
I wonder if they're extended towards you,
our house, the walls that kept me trapped
The hands that held me back
I'm crummy with directions
You'd be able to tell me
Maybe it's better that I don't know
I left a tear on the side of the bench for you,
but the rain quickly washed it away
It soaked through the pages of my leather-bound book
All of my thoughts have been pressed together,
The ink runs out and onto my hands
As if these years are being erased,
compressed into an ink-stained book,
the writing is almost illegible
The distance between the start and the finish of the story
No longer could be counted by words,
Only blank pages.
I bury it next to the sidewalk
Where we used to walk the dog
Maybe she'll smell it, she'll know it was mine
Perhaps you'll be able to decipher the pages
The gaps between the runny words can be an explanation
An explanation for the blank stare I gave you
after you kissed me goodnight on our last night.
That last night... I stare blankly into the morning,
I have failed you.

[1st piece of my incomplete book]

I gaze over at your sleeping body
Your chest rises and falls at a constant pace
Like the tides of the ocean
Bringing in new feelings and taking away the old
My breathing gets panicky
I can't sleep anymore
I grab my book and read without soaking in the meaning
I take the red pen out of the bedside table drawer
and circle "I can't do this."
I flip the pages to find what else I'm trying to say
"I'm sorry."
I leave my book in my place on the right side of the bed,
It doesn't feel right anymore.
I walk silently out the door
I grab my chest, but not for the pain of leaving you,
but for the pain I'm about to cause you
Part of me hopes you'll wake up and stop me,
but I'm already out the door.
My chest tightens, my palms are sweaty
I feel like I'm escaping out of myself
Breaking down the walls that kept me frozen solid for so long
I stare blankly back at the window we used to share
I feel cold
It's eighty degrees out
My palms are sweaty with the tears I'm unable to cry
I left my favorite book at your side
Thinking that somehow that will make up for everything
I know it won't.
I look back at the blank window as if your silhouette were there.
I put my hand over my mouth,
I whisper,
"I can't do this. I'm sorry."

The sand beneath my feet
The grains outnumber those of our existence
Flowing in between my toes
The sun shines on me,
but it also shines through me
and onto your eyes, it lies inside
I can't help but stare
I am constantly in awe with your beauty
Another one of God's immaculate creations
I can't help, but listen to every word
every story, every laugh, every silence
You are so beautiful.
It's not as hard as it seems to find beauty in this world.
The waves crash in, and roll back out
Bringing in the new,
Taking away what once was
Washing away the past,
letting the newness take place
Over and over again the past is replaced
All I can do is thank God for bringing me happiness

No matter the distance
The miles we are apart
We still look at the same blue sky
Together, but separate
Our arms outstretched,
ready to hug the air
The space between us is filled with millions of people
breathing in and out
I wonder if the air you breath ever reaches me
Floats through my hair
Or gives me goose bumps on a cold day
Who knows...
This world is so small,
but we're even smaller
The space between us seems so vast
But in reality is quite minute
The only thing we have in common right now is the roof over our heads
The blue skies enveloping us within this world
The starry skies at night that we share with billions of others
Look up and we can share it together.

When I was little I used to go on family camping trips in a small tin-sided, pop-up camper. Not only were the sounds of the insects singing outside the zip-up, waterproofed cloth walls relaxing, but the feeling of unity and love I felt just from the fact that I was spending time with my family left me excited to wake up every morning. Even camping in the rain was soothing to me, the different tones of the sounds the droplets made when they fell heavily on the tin roof above my head... Waking up just to see that we'd sit inside the cramped space all day with each other sitting at the table that doubled as a bed playing chinese checkers while my brother shoved his red marbles up his nose... Laughing together, waiting for the rain to stop only so that we could sit around a fire together, hike together, just BE together. I can't believe I took that all for granted. Not only do I miss times like these, I feel like I hardly remember them. I keep the useless memories in my head, like the fact that one time we watched the Hunchback of Notre Dame on a rainy day, the way the crank which lifted the camper into it's full form looked like, but what about the moments of love I felt? Where are they? I wish I could reach through my mouth, up through my brain, into the back of my mind and pull them all out onto the table in front of me. Extract each memory useless or not and slap them onto the blank pages of the book which lies in front of me as I try to recollect what it felt like to be in this family. All I'm able to grasp is the lack of that family I once had, the red plastic checkers pieces we used to play with are now missing... leaving it all black. "King me" one piece says, repeatedly, they stack and stack up until all I can see is a black tower... It's in the way of what I want to see, what I want to feel. How did this all just slip away from me? How could my insomnia fail me in the times where I should have been paying attention to these feelings of wholeness? How could I sleep through that entire chapter of my life? It feels as if it was all a dream... A dream that I know I felt, but will never fully remember.

You're plucking away at the strings of my heart
Like it's your very own instrument
Your guitar tuned exactly how you like it
As you play your newly created song
My strings get worn in
They're wearing through
Wearing thin
I don't know how much longer I can go like this
Your fingers play so beautifully,
but only for yourself
It's leading to my destruction
My thoughts could be your lyrics,
but would you even listen?
Doubtful.
I'll be singing until my throat bleeds.
And you'll be playing long after my strings have been ripped apart.
Long after I exist.

I used to think the person I looked at in the mirror was another version of myself living in another universe. The mirror was just a window into the world of my alternate self. I mean, I was probably ten at the time, but the feeling of more than just myself in that mirror made me feel infinite. It was a sense of mystery, a sense of comfort, that somewhere else; there was someone else like me, exactly like me. Now, I know it's just a piece of glass, a reflection of the person I’ve grown up to be. Although I'm glad there's no one else exactly like myself, I wish I were a different individual. These thoughts constantly cloud my mind as I lay in my bed. Insomnia sweeps in, I can't relax. All I can do is try to settle my unstable mind... full of racing thoughts, ideas, and imaginary situations. Once I finally fall asleep, what seems like a minute later, morning sneaks in, tapping at my shoulder, waking me from my dreams. I always dream. I dream so much that I sometimes mix reality with my dreams. It’s almost as if I never went to sleep. The mornings kill me. I always want to stay in bed until the last possible moment before my classes, which I feel are worthless. That’s a completely different story all together.

I'm sick of feeling like a conformist in this world. College life seems like a waste of my money (my parents’ money) and time. The only reason I'm here is because it's necessary for my career status in the future. Spending tens of thousands of dollars a year to be taught by mediocre grad students that have horrible grammar and obnoxious teaching methods just seems like a joke to me. It’s just plain old trickery. It’s the government tricking the country into thinking these classes help to build what is viewed as the “perfect” future. This country is so messed up. Society controls the timeline of our lives. It controls every inch of our being, our ideas of intelligence, money, relationships, and even beauty.

To be "beautiful," you must weigh one hundred pounds, be an unhealthy shade of tan, and have an ideally shaped face and body. I hate how skewed beauty is. No wonder the divorce rate is 50%. People are unhappy with great personalities and healthy bodies... Nothing is ever good enough because media has shoved celebrities with eating disorders and drug problems on the covers of every magazine... and on top of that, they're all photo-shopped to "perfection." People are so unhappy with their bodies that they feel the need to alter themselves with plastic surgery and treat their bodies as if they are flexible enough to not eat for weeks. Being unique isn't precious anymore; it's scorned. The ways of the world have swallowed morals and identities all together. God's creations are viewed as ugly, unappreciated figures that should do all that they can to be thin, eye-catching, and unified into a species of monotonous idealization. Everyone feels they aren't good enough, beautiful enough, fake enough, but in reality, no one is smart enough to realize that loving the person you were created to be is the real beauty. Why do you want to be like someone else? Someone who is obviously unhappy with their own body and needs drugs and bulimia to feel beautiful?

The statistics of eating disorders, plastic surgery, and pornography have sky-rocketed in the past fifty years, only to leave every truly beautiful person feeling empty and alone. These walls of sin and worthless media block every relationship and no one is doing anything to change it! Constant failed relationships and unhappiness with the self has lead to the suicide of identity. What ever happened to simplicity being the ultimate sophistication?

Society complicates individuality by making it seem worthless. The importance of individuals is basically invisible, leaving this country only to keep spiraling downward. The geniuses will never know their true potential because they are too worried about their outer shell. Their appearance within this world is all that matters. The open-minded are dwindling, leaving this world in a bubble of lies. It’s as if society wants to suck people in so that they can’t think for themselves. Magazines, Music, Movies, Television, video games, and internet sites keep minds from thinking freely. Time is no longer more precious than entertainment. People waste away time they could take to change this sinful and empty world only to fill their brains with worthless entertainment.

God is no longer the almighty because society believes to be above it. They want Godly power and they will do whatever they can to contain it. People idolize celebrities instead of our creator without even realizing that they are in the wrong. Celebrities are paid more than our teachers, more than our doctors, more than anyone else in the country. What does that tell us? Media rules it all. Society has made appearance and entertainment the center of our lifestyle. No morals are taught through these meaningless societal norms. Love is no longer special; it’s just something that happens over and over again through a life. Divorce is expected. Sex is no longer sacred. Where has hope gone? Where is the faith in true love and being an individual? Teens lose their virginity every year to people they believe they love because of media and society’s bull shit. If people focused on the truth, that things can actually be special in life, we’d be able to save ourselves for an individual worth saving it for. We’re ruining our purposes by giving every single part of ourselves away without love, without thought! It’s unfair to us that realize what we’ve done after it’s already too late. Depression stems from these things that are meant to be special, but are ripped from us because we don’t know any better. Why do you think people are so unhappy? I can’t wrap my mind around the fact that these things aren’t meant to be special. What is the point of marriage if love and sex are no longer sacred? How can people be in love and give themselves away over and over and then decide, “this is the one!” It doesn’t make much sense to me. I don’t want to fall in love five times and have multiple sexual partners and then decide to get married. I want to dedicate my entire being to that person and have them dedicate their entire self to me as well… and yes, I mean respecting me even before they meet me by not faking love and sex with another. I want to do the same. I want marriage to be special, not only in itself, but between my husband and myself. A husband should view his wife as the most beautiful person in the world, not letting society define beauty otherwise. I want to feel like the most beautiful person in the world because of this. I don’t want to constantly be compared to celebrities, porn stars, and every other societal ideal of beauty. I don’t want to constantly compare my other half to the idealistic hotness of a male. If it felt all right, I wouldn’t be ranting, but it doesn’t. How can it be right for a person to fantasize about others while claiming to dedicate him or herself to their soul mate? Society has messed up everything. No longer is the individual appreciated. Spouses can no longer look into the eyes of their other without a wall of secrets and judgments. How can this world be saved?

I wonder about the thoughts, the songs
which are running through the minds
of the people I'm passing by
Each person connecting the lyrics
with different memories, feelings
A lover, nostalgia, inner secrets
Reading each person like an open book
Wishing I could soak every word in,
but the pages consist of hidden meanings
The truth is,
What's visible is only the cover
The books of their lives are bound so tight
Their souls are wasting away
like dust-covered books on the back shelf
I wish to know each page inside and out
Memorize the words,
decipher the meaning behind the text
Each person has a uniquely beautiful story
Not enough of our thoughts are shared with others
More love would exist in this world
if we let ourselves become more connected
Look into the eyes
of the passerby
Ignore the daily monotony
See what lies behind the tired eyes
Share the music between your souls
Let the notes surround you out loud
Resonating to the beat of your hearts

As each note pours through me,
each sound, resonating differently
draws me closer
As if they're riding along with the wind
Lifting my hair up to touch my face
Composing the music which surrounds me
Leading me to
the places I've been searching for
for so long
The music between souls
This sacred connection
It forever draws me near
To happiness
There's so much more to this
And the flow of the words,
the strings,
leads me to believe
I can see the beauty in everything
Even once my eyes are closed
The sounds remind me
That I'm surrounded
Wrapped up tight within this life

The knot that's been keeping my mind tied down for so long
has been ripped apart
I feel as if I am myself again
Yet, at times, my stomach still drops
I remember all that's been lost
but then I remind myself of the positivity that I've gained
I am sick of holding myself back
The invisible wall between me and the rest of my life
Will this complicated mess dissolve in time?
I feel that it will, but the anxiety is overwhelming
My patience is being sucked out of me, leaving me dry
I feel that my life is a constant strain of waiting, hoping,
waiting, hoping, when will it all fall into place?

Thoughts continuously keeping me from falling asleep
Each idea floating out from my mind
Surrounding my body,
Suffocating me like a hungry snake
Unable to let go of the stress
My day keeps going on inside my head
Daydreams are the only dreams I'm having
the never-ending theories that pop into my head
Each one leads to another
I have an infinite amount overflowing
They keep me on edge
Will I ever be able to unwind?
I toss and turn just waiting for the moment to come
when I stop thinking and start dreaming
Relaxation seems impossible for me
I am so sick of laying there motionless
Impatient and full

My voice no longer
yearns to sing
Guilt caught in my throat
No notes left floating up and out
Flying up through the air carelessly
I am feeling stiff
My vocal cords coated with sadness
Selfishness leaks through the broken piping
Connecting my brain to my heart down to my soul
Is it really as bad as it seems?
I am laughing with your pain
I've been told that this is the time to put myself first,
but I can't help but wonder if that's what's right for me
Or to what extent this is meant to be
I'm happier knowing that I'm causing no pain,
even if it causes me to be unhappy for a period of time

These flaws don't have to lead to our fatality
It just leaves room for growth
Growth into being a better version of yourself
This rough draft leaves room for corrections
with the help of you

Living a habitual life
stagnant, stuck in the repetitive
is enough to drive one to insanity
The possible, the unknown
our hopes, dreams, art, and love
Our subconscious need for more
than this day by day monotonous calendar
It shows us that we are more than physical drones
Each subconscious mind of each human-being is vastly different
Yet we are still capable of feeling unity
Oneness through our desire for the possible
Music is necessary for subconscious survival
Without memories, the icons, the feelings
That flow from the musical sounds
We would lose our integration, along with our individuality
Our connections would be flawed, nothing deeper than the physical
The arts expose our subconscious, our inner-ability to communicate the surreal
The creation and adoration of art, of music
Is timeless
We are always wanting to return to this timelessness
The flow of this togetherness
Oe with the subconsciou self
Or one with another
Eliminates distractions
Because one is so intent with the beauty at hand
It transcends ones static, unvaried physical self.

This empty pit in my stomach
Causes me to bite my lip
Ignore the pain
Loneliness leaves its trail within
My hand outstretched,
My arms are not long enough
You are hundreds of miles away
I am feeling much like a stone
Storing my feelings away in the back of my mind
The dusty boxes left unorganized
I am an infinite amount of miles away from where I want to be
Where that is, I don't even know
Unmeasurable is the distance between my soul and its happiness
What do I believe?
What if I never know?
I do believe I love you.
I think I love everyone.
You, to me, are infinitely special.

As I walk,
I leave my footprints behind me in the snow
Yet no one will ever know who those footprints belong to
The only ones that may have a chance at recognizing
are the ones who walk by my side,
but they still have the ability to forget, to overlook
What if every achievement I have in life is just another footprint?
My actions may be recognized,
but will my soul?
My being maybe ignored like most of the others.
My footprints may be covered in a layer of fresh snow,
Walked all over,
or just left unseen.
Ignorance.
No matter what, there's always a chance that my efforts are leading me no where,
yet it's always worth trying anyway.
Even with the slightest chance at making a difference,
It's worth knowing if even only for myself,
that I tried to make a change.

Life is so fragile
One life gone, one death
leaves dozens of lives affected
Relationships ripped apart
by machines, accidents, murder, war
Hundreds of fatal possibilities
It would be more efficient to live alone forever
never having to deal with the pain of loss
yet we don't want to live in a solitary world, companionless
We want love.
We want intimacy,
passion, closeness
For me, love is the strongest emotion I have
By seeing someone's life shatter before their eyes today
The love of her life shot dead,
I have realized that what I'm going through is not loss
Distance isn't loss, I feel selfish
But at the same time it makes me hate waiting
Because as life ticks away,
so does the time I have to spend being in love
The time I have before I die, or the one I am meant to be with dies
There are an infinite amount of possibilities of when this could happen
I don't understand what life is all about, it's so delicate
Easily broken.
Like our hearts,
the hearts of the ones who are going through loss
Broken and full of the blood pumping through them
Keeping them alive
while they stare at the limp body
of the one that they will always love
Life is one twisted story
One which I doubt I'll ever understand.

There may be a meaning to why we didn't have a proper good-bye.
Maybe we're not meant to have to say good-bye at all.
If there's no good-bye, there's no defined distance,
we're overcoming the physical miles by leaving it without a dramatic exit
Maybe it wasn't an exit at all.
An acceptance that everything will fall into place,
whether you are here or there.