I've learned my ABCs at one,
learned to read by four,
constructed my paragraphs at six,
a know-it-all reciting parts of speech by seven.

Letters assembled themselves ready for scrabble.
Rocks, paper, scissors,
I never learned to let go of the paper.
And grew up with dry fingers caressing books.
Breathing in language and literature.

They say you can only love something so much
until it leaves you empty.
But I've only ever truly loved a few things about life,
and first was how words strung empathy.

The way I wrote about tying yellow ribbons on trees for a hero at eleven,
wrote about anything that won me passports to a passion I had to sacrifice a few years later after fourteen,
wrote about the boy who broke my heart at seventeen,
wrote about the monsters in my head at nineteen.

I don't know how words always found me
whenever I tried to run away from the world;
how they kept my sanity along with melodies for as long as I can remember,
and made countless others feel less alone.

What I love is a weapon
that has sparked revolutions, waged wars.
What I love is art that built acropolises from embers
and most the world's wonders.

It rushes euphoriant through my veins as much as it does through yours,
yet it is neither blood nor oxygen.
It is all the words burning as we keep them hidden,
dying for us to give them meaning.

they run through my veins.
my past experiences,
the times i've fallen
and the times i've stood up.
they run through my veins.
my dreams,
the answers to my purpose,
to my identity,
to my beliefs.
they run through my veins.
the people who have hurt me,
the one's that i've forgiven
and those that
have forgiven me.
they run through my veins.
every tear and every smile.
every glimpse of a second
that has made me
stronger, and brighter.
everything i am,
is because
they run through my veins.
the letters that spell out
redemption.

I cried today
Because I realized that I
no longer expect you
to walk through the door.

I don't look at the corner
of the back yard
expecting to see you there
working on something.

I don't plan our dinners
based on your favorite foods
or worry over when the food
hits the table.

We eat when we eat
We eat whatever
It really no longer matters
You were the picky one.

I cried today
Because I realized
something that broke my heart....
I'm used to you being gone.

I was in the twilight of my life, and the charming person I met along the road was my only dawn.
At night, I fall asleep with images of myself, swaying and smiling with them... you
I wished over and over and over again, that smashed yet sparkling me could stop loving you, darling.
I want nothing and everything with you. It completely scares me.
I had nightmares of becoming a beautiful yet tragic poet, but upon meeting you I saw those dreams spread like the billion stars in the night sky.
Honestly, I didn't mind because I know that all it takes is getting all you ever wanted, and then completely losing it to know what you can be.
Years of being on a never-ending world journey and my memories of you were the only things that persisted me, and my only blissful moments.
When the people I used to live around discovered what I have been doing, and whom I have been kissing, what I’ve been drinking, and how I'd been living, they asked me, “What the hell are you thinking?
However, there's no use to talking with people who have a home.
Every experience was fire itself and that terrified me yet helped me obsess for freedom, dear.
These faint-hearted mice do not know what it's like to find safety in other people - for ‘home’ to be wherever or whomever you want.
I want an honest compass pointing me anywhere but I have an indecisiveness inside me that is as wild and wavering as the sea.
I always had this fiery madness intimately inside me it dizzied me and then you tossed gasoline on it and it dazed me.
I think I was born to be the other woman.
The woman that belongs to everyone and no one at the same time, merely emptying herself to please others.
But then I start to believe that I am my own woman. And that wonderful tease in control and loving the war I created with myself.
I adore being the unrequited one in particular. You are my coffee but I feel like the mistreated coffee machine.
Thank you for my dreamy blues.

I'm a murderer
I've stabbed my own heart.
I'm a thief
I've stolen my own happiness.
I'm a liar
I've told myself how much better things would be.
I'm a slothful woman
I fell asleep.
I'm greedy
I've eaten my own pain.
I'm hungry
Just not for sin again.