I'm a stupid woman but you called me strong.
I took that with me when I left and always thought you were leaving too.
Turns out you're staying here.
And half of me
half my heart
considered everything just to stay.
Just to give it up and see if I could make something out of you
with just my hands and some deep night loving.
If maybe believing in you from the outside in
could make you smile in the mirror when you look at yourself in the morning.
I'm nakedly holding my love for you in my hands.
But I knew I had to go or you'd never take it.

I've dug enough graveyards in my life to earn myself a tombstone.
Script stupid love lyrics on the surface,
because that's all my beauty is made of.
Just some vulnerability I've conquered over all that time of knowing you
like this, in our way.
But you taught me that I don't have to bury myself any longer.
That loving myself means a lot more than if you love me back or not.
So I took that with me and now I've got a man.

He admires and reflects more of my happiness than his own.
There is a softness in his voice that I've never known.
And I don't have to try so hard to make him understand-
it's just effortless.
It's perfect because the pain isn't constant and because
we don't give up
on each other.

But know that I think about you all the time.
How much I would have liked to give it one last try.
I think about how much you gave me to smile about.
That you brought out a bigger version of who I'd become to be.
How without you I wouldn't be me.

Hurting and lost
Until I washed up on your shore.

"Oh, hey Emily, will you be on our team?"

It was the very bad ending to a very bad day.

Three tests, forgotten homework, stuttered lines,
And this is what got me in the end.

Those girls,
The ones with the
Perfect long blonde beautiful hair
And the pencil skirts
And uggs,
The girls who even manage to make gym clothes look good.

We had lined up for
Captain ball
Which is really just
A mix of
Soccer and basketball.

And we had to line up,
Every inch of back touching the wall,
And the first seven people from each side would play, and then the next seven.

But of course
Those girls
The ones who can't bear to be
Seperated
For two minutes and forty-seven seconds
Had to have the perfect team.

No.
Just no.

I won't "be on your team."

There are no teams.

I lead truth like a thread
through the eye of my
needle, stitched into your iris
and sewed up the virus.
Took bets on bids.
Two kids walking train tracks under your eyelids.

"I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry."*

I say it twice.
Not to enforce a point
but to give both of us
a copy.

You looked at me
and I looked at you
and that's exactly what happened.

Have you ever heard of a woman so strong she could be David's daughter
So wise, King Solomon was surely her instructor?
Have you ever felt more joy than Noah at the sight of his doves' fig tree
Or happy as Mary was when she looked down at her blessing from above?
This is to me, my mother

Have you ever been shown love and compassion mirroring Mother Theresa's grace
Or joined with someone in pure merry and bliss as Kenyans were when the United States elected Obama?
Have you ever received endless love and support from a woman who grew up with so little?
Have you ever thought to yourself, as God blessed the people of Jerusalem with a Star, you have been blessed with one shinning bright one?
This is my mother.

Have you ever felt that there was only one person in the world who would truly be there for you at the end of the day?
Have you ever felt that God truly loves you because the possibilities of not having not only a mother, but this mother in your life are unfathomable?
Have you ever felt speechless and wordless towards the love and grace just one person has shown you?
Have you ever felt engulfed in a sea of God's gift...God's light?

You have never felt this way unless you have met my mother
God's blessings sometimes stuns us.
I believe my biggest surprise is the love He showed me by giving me someone like you.

I was in a real bad place this time last year.
I felt *****
all the time.
And all I wanted was to be with someone
who could make me feel even worse.

So I threw myself over people that could make me
feel a little right and hell of a lot wrong.
I poisoned the revival that was my passioned split,
and I kept binding myself to nights that had
no definite ending and put me in spacey places,
tripped me back to the things I wanted to forget,
always winding up in a grass bed with a body
that wouldn't recognize me in the sunlight but felt good.
Good in the way that made me feel wrecked,
empty, wretched, and sterilized
like a bad blood wound.

I was in a real bad place and I want you to know you put me there.
Not because I want you to feel guilty, not because its my own
sick revenge on the things you tore within me.
But I want you to know because I'm trying to explain to you,
why it is I did those things and I why it is I couldn't talk to you
when you begged me for answers, or for reasons, or if I was okay.
I want you to know I wasn't okay.
Not because I want you to apologize or tell me it wasn't my fault.
But I want you to know because I'm trying to explain to you,
how I could feel so terribly and how that could feel so good.

The pain was better, yes better, because it was easier.
I clothed myself in darkness, painted my world without the color
I always believed you gave me.
I was in a real bad place and I want you to know I might still be there.
Because you're holding me now and it would be unfair if I didn't let you in
on the secrets I kept about how I dealt with the pieces after you.
Not because I expect us to be together, not because I want
everything to go back to the way it was before you left.
But I want you to know because I'm trying to explain to you,
that I don't ever want us to feel this way again.
I don't ever want to see you mask your happiness
or think you don't deserve more safety than you have,
more love than your given
more laughs than you create.

I might still be there, but you don't have to be.
You don't have to comfort me,
for the wrong or even the right reasons.
You don't have to tell me that I'm alright or that I'm beautiful.
I feel ugly all the time and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be,
and I want you to know
you don't have to stick around for me.