You lay in a field of flowers counting each bird that passes overhead.
You've erased concern and decided to live for the moment because you always would say, "we might be dead by tomorrow."
Flowers grew from your heart and bloomed across your lungs,
creating a garden that sang the most beautiful hymns,
while my garden was withering.
Each breath you took was never wasted,
but I couldn't help but count mine like they were birds passing overhead.
Every night you would view the stars and moon with pure amazement as if it was your first time seeing them.
You gave all your love to me and each kiss was coined in my pocket.
You fell in love with me every night and I fell for all your hymns.
Soon enough the world would pass us by but I wouldn't blink because I could live off your touch for the rest of my time.
You showed me there is more in life than just one color,
but instead, the world is a whole painting with colors that can't be described.
You showed me just how beautiful the world was.
You taught me how to grow beauty from my eyes but lately, I've been dreaming and falling for stars.
Imagining what it'd be like slow dancing with the planets, getting lost in constellations.
But I'm just not ready to go yet however I do not control time.
You showed me that dying can be beautiful.
That we'll be okay because when we leave we all become one with the earth and one with nature.
So love, love me until time runs out,
until I become one with nature.

And many years later as time starts to fly by and you slowly start to watch your clock tick down, you'll know where to find me, my love.
I'll be up with stars.
Somewhere lost in the cosmos.
I'll be spinning with the planets dreaming about what it would feel like to be able to walk on flowers again.

You saw
my heart's brokenness and
you took the tiny pieces
of sin and hurt and ugliness
and
turned it into a mosaic of
beauty and grace.

Now it's my turn to rant
I'm so ******* tired of being
held to higher standards
of being the one with a halo
of being something more
I'm always labeled
song writer, poet, college student
I'm just Dan *******
just Dan
my blood runs red and blue
I just want to leave
I'm no one's savior
no saint
but I'm always painted up
some perfect picture for someone
some safe haven
some heaven
it's my turn to rant
I'm nothing more than
Dan

So I know it's late but I need to vent. Sometimes getting held to higher standards kills me. It's like I'm on this pedestal and I can't breathe
I'm my mom's baby boy and my dad's therapist
I'm our friends' secret keeper
a sponge that soaks up all the stuff no one wants to remember
I'm summer and I'm winter in the thick of December
the ember in the fire and I'm burning low like I'm the fuel for peoples' furnace
and maybe I just imagine it
maybe I make it up in my head
but it feels real to me
Half of me wants to be the one people confide in and trust
but half of me wants to disappear
to just leave and join a crabbing ship
somewhere out at sea
so I can prove to myself that people will live on
that with me gone they will end up ok
maybe it sounds like I'm full of myself
or that I put too much weight on me as an anchor
but that's what I feel like
an anchor cast out into the ocean to keep everyone from drifting, safe on their ship while I
sit at the bottom
with a mouth full of sand and cold salt water seeping into my skin
Even anchors
need a break
a reprieve from their duty.
Even anchors need to surface
for a taste of
fresh
air

Magic exists all around us.

2. When you laugh your nose crinkles up so perfectly that your freckles dance like little dandelions in the wind. Know that you are special.

3. One day you will find yourself. For now you are allowed to be lost, you are allowed to be confused and you are allowed to be scared. We all are.

4. You have experienced pain and you are still here. I am so proud of you. Do not disregard yourself you beautiful warrior.

5. You have stardust in your veins, you are a living, breathing, walking extraction of the universe. There are galaxies inside your head, moons in your eyes and the ocean in your heart.

6. You are enough.

Take the leaf from out the table
The guests have all gone home
Just you and me if we are able
Once again to be alone

The emptiness that's in the silence
Grabs a hold our hearts
Wasn't it love we once relied on
Before alone came to play its part

Place the extra silverware after it's polished
Back inside the bottom drawer
We won't be needing it at all
For at least another year or more

The leftovers that we are left with
Is in not having much to say
About our missing wants and needs
With loneliness being the cutting blade

Make sure to put up all the chairs
Leaving an extra one behind
A seat where silence can sit and stare
At these lost and lonely lives

The good Lord
Provides a roof
Over my head,
And embraces me.

I close my eyes
And dream his
Wonderful dreams.

Ears still open to
The world's hurt—
Still listening.

Hearing the scores
Of angels, crying:
"Hallelujah, hallelujah!

There is refuge for the lost,
The blind will see again,
So get up and walk,
Get up and walk."