floating

You threw it into the ripples, carelessly and recklessly, without wheels. You ripped it from your chest, blessed it with your breath, then allowed your fingers to unfold. The water held it tightly, rocking the boxes gently down, down. 

I, weaker each moment, strained to grab hold of it to slowly pull it under water. Hold it there suffocating long enough to make it float up blue. I am forced through chained fences of ocean. I stay floating, in limbo. 

i love you most

Sunset Beach

It's 5am and I want to be lying next to you
I want you to kiss my fingers

play with my hair and tell me it looks nice in the morning
our legs intertwined and our toes touching

I want to lean on your chest

listen to the rhythm of your breathing

I touch the back of your neck 

your heart beats faster

knowing you are here is my favorite sound 

I want to be alone with you

in the hours where the sun is asleep

I want to trace the lines of your lips

until the sun rises

I want you to say "I love you"

just so I can say "I love you most"

In the dark hours of night and the vulnerable hours of the morning, you learn the make up of their soul. You learn the shapes of their face, the lines where their smiles meet their cheeks. You learn stories, observe the way their sentences curl up into question marks.

everyday

"It would be great to finally sort stuff out. Fix things that are broken."

You know how they say "why do it today when you can do it tomorrow"? No. I have been frustrated countless times with the amount of hours in a day. I have felt entirely overwhelmed with all there is to accomplish in one day, and most times, have to bump several to-do's onto the next day, and onto the next, next, next. This is inevitable. The only way that I can change this is to change my perspective. Visit gramma and papa today. Organize things today. Read that book today, even if I only have time for 10 pages. An eighth day of the week isn't going to be invented. The time that we have to do things that we "don't have time to do" is right now. Today. Every day.

an autobiography

I want to run
when someone gets close enough
to hear me breathing
to see my father leaving
to watch the heart that my mother wove into me
breaking, shattered on the ground

I lose my vision
when someone looks close enough
to see the dullness of my big eyes
plastered open from the painted emptiness
I'm sure they look at my eyeliner
how it is a reflection of the way I do most things
close, but never quite right

I can't breathe
what happened this morning?
where were you, did you like, die?
why do you wear those marks like punctuation?
like something you never learned
they look like fishnets
seductive, but I always slip through the holes
and hit my head
hard enough to feel some blood again

I am a child who is hooked on all the wrong things
like loneliness, fire, and documentaries
instead of phonics

dear self

I've never met anyone like you. 
That's probably a good thing.

thursdays

You came over on Thursdays, crawled into my white sheets and lit my darkness, filled my emptiness just enough to make the shallow waters only ankle-deep. Just deep enough for my heavy feet to wade through the shame.

how to be alone

This video always brings joy to my day, and reminds me how blessed I am to be my own best friend. Inspired by these words today and always, and hope you are as well.

light waves

Waimea Bay

Waves
I toss and turn so much each night
that my skin might as well be turquoise
I rock so much that my eyes
should be blue

I often am afraid that I am going to suffocate
how I felt with the blankets on Robin Lane
or that time that I stole his bike
and hid it behind the bushes in the park

And I often do
each time for a new reason
the suffocation is unexpected
floating 
then suddenly I am gasping for air 


How is it that darkness is considered the absence of light? Are we talking about total darkness here, like "utter darkness" or just "kind of darkness"? And while we're at it, what constitutes light? And I'm not talking scientifically. I'm talking real life. I can identify specific months, days, or times in my life that are characterized by one of the two: darkness or lightness. But I also can identify many months, days, or times that have been a mixture of both. And I think that's perfectly real too. It's time to acknowledge these "mixtures.". It is these that make up our experiences that are suffering, pain, joy, and freedom all at once. These are waves of light. There is light, undeniable and beautiful light. A first kiss, getting a raise at work, setting a goal and reaching it, meeting the love of your life. But what is also undeniable is the waves that carry this light. The crashing, dark, heavy waves that carry you along in your journey.

slow

This morning I never actually woke up, and yesterday I was never awake, waiting for the hollow bones of my body to fill with the marrow in my lungs and the space in my heart. I took the strings attached to your kite and I cut them deeply, cut them quickly, and waited for the water to run clear. I took every forced conversation etched in my journal and I tore the pages. With fever and haste, I kicked up the buckets of blood and watched them paint you black and blue.

I sat in my shower until the weight of the water drowned me. The glass jar you kept beneath your bed fell from my top shelf and shattered on the tile, the edges of each shard bruised with the shame you sent me in letters, notes, and poems. My toes creeped outside and I watched for you, I waited for you. I drove all the way to work clutching onto my skin that you touched last summer. Red lights always seem much more lonely, and tires seem to float above the ground like lily pads in a polluted swamp where water coasts fluidly.