I want to make art for you.
I want to make art for you because you are beautiful.
Because you're simple, not in a coarse way, but in a wholesome way.
In a way like the sky or the rain.
You just are, and I wish I just was.
I want to make art for you to thank you for that.
I want to make art for you because I think maybe not enough people have.
Because you ever wanted to die,
And because I'm so glad you didn't.
Because you like storms the way I do
And you make me think new thoughts when I don't think I'll ever find any more
And because you hold a thousand people inside of you, ready to leap onto a page or seep out through your skin,
All of them beautiful and clear
(Like the sky and the rain)
I want to make art for you because
There should be art out there because of you.
Not just created by you
But created because of you.
I want to make art for you because you are another way to love someone
That I didn't know existed.

Silence often stills me.
I don't like it.
Sometimes I will accidentally find myself sitting in silence
And a cascade of sadness will begin to drift over me
And inside I will see it coming
And in my mind I will flee from it.
But...
It's like sleep paralysis, almost.
If you've ever woken up unable to move when you want to, you know the feeling I mean.
Get up! I think.
Turn on the television.
Take your pills.
Eat something.
Get a voice besides your own into your head
Now
Or it will be dire.
And I sit there
Still.
Paralyzed.
Feeling black ice glaze over where my panic should be
And depression creeping towards me like a dense fog.
And just as I am about to be swallowed by it
My mind returns to my body
And I jump up, escaping.
It is
Disconcerting to say the least.

Unless you're very lucky, one day you will look into the eyes of someone you love and know with all your heart, and find absolutely nothing familiar there. And you will never find any of it again. As if they've just gone. And there must be reasons, but you will never know them. You will only endure their consequences.

My skin often feels like
An ill fitting suit.
Too big in spots
Too tight in others
With seams showing and scratchy fabric.
My life often feels that way-
Something I tug at that settles for a moment
And then shifts back into discomfort when I take a breath.
Sometimes its worn spots let in the cold wind,
Vicious.
Sometimes it sticks to me and refuses to peel away, suffocating.
I feel like a child in church
In her Sunday best
Who knows she must sit still and quiet
Even as the shoes pinch
And the stiff collar closes round her neck.
I sneak glances around me
Trying to discern if anybody else feels
This way.
They all seem content.
Comfortable.
Still.
Perhaps if I just breathe shallowly
And don't move a muscle
I will learn what they know
And settle into my shrink-wrapped existence.
"Tiny people with tiny lives-"
Is it the truth?
Or do they just look small
Because they've learned to squeeze into the space they've been given?
Does the woman ordering coffee in her business suit and heels
Sit up nights, unable to sleep for a longing she can't name?
Does the man mopping the floors
Dream of a woman he will never touch
Again?
I wish I could find those parts of people.
The parts they hide.
Because mine won't stay hidden.
There is something too thin between me
And the world
And it is poorly fashioned
And it is tattered.
And sometimes people look at me with disdain
As if I've walked out of my house naked
Unable to properly clothe myself
And I wonder
If they aren't
Right.

You need to go.
And I don't know how to do it.
I don't want to forget you, to cut you off. I don't want to shatter my love for you.
There has to be another way.
But... you need to go.
I can't keep waking up sore every morning. Raw.
I can't keep talking myself out of tears.
I can't keep wondering why the hell you matter to me, and abusing myself for caring about you.
But I don't know how to do it. It's not in me to extinguish a love.
I have sacrificed every part of myself at least once to avoid it.
It has been the single thing I am unwilling to do.
The one unwavering line in the sand.
And I know where this leads- this trying to erase it.
I know because I've tried,
In pain,
In desperation, to destroy a love before. And I couldn't do it.
I threw more and more at it, unleashed every weapon I had.
And by the end...
I had caught the rest of me in the crossfire, and the only thing that remained untouched was that love.
You need to go.
But that will happen again if I try to uproot you from my soul.
It is a humbling lot. A prideless realization. That I must wait.
That I must serve the part of me that holds me captive, the only part of me I know as indestructible,
The part that reigns because nothing can dethrone it.
I must bow to it, because I like what else I am.
I know that even if I tried with every ounce of courage and hatred I have built up over my years to demolish my love for you, the dust would clear,
And it would be the only thing about me left.
And I don't want it to be.
I don't respect it enough to let it be my defining factor.
And so I sit and stew and wait, for it to loosen its stranglehold, or for you to come back.
It is a prideless thing. And I am a proud person.
And it chafes every single day.
And I swallow it, and go on.

Today I saw a photo of you
Holding a little puppy and smiling
And your hands were in its fur and I looked a second too long at them
And I found myself thinking how much I love your palms
And the creases in them
And how soft your fingertips are
And how you are one of the only people
With hands smaller than mine
Small and perfect and smooth, like a child's.
And the force of how much I love you
Crept up behind those thoughts
And crashed through in a wave
And I looked away, chagrined,
Embarrassed to have such beautiful thoughts
About somebody who won't even speak to me.