How could it mean nothing to you?
you ask me,
of the way our bodies moved together
surrounded in blue midnight and the sounds of revelry

How could I feel nothing
for your weight against me and your mouth on mine,
wrapped in the twilight bubble we made from gin and hours of dancing.

I feel nothing because
I still stand across the ocean I created
to distance myself from the hurt you flooded me with,
and I refuse to meet you in the middle of it all
to drown ourselves in the love we lost.

That night I felt drunk and expansive
and I missed the way you touched me
but the ocean still remains between us
and we now stand on different shores.

At last a beautiful paradise
Flowing oceans in a midnight moon
A lavish mountain on a peaceful day
A calm after a thunderstorm

The progress made from teardrops fallen
To friendships made and furthered strides
With pain between it all to teach
Within it all a balance

For now reflecting on the past
Looking to what’s still to come
Between it all in present day
Content a smile pleases me

Happy New Years !
New Year letting go off all the negativity welcoming positivity...........

its the time of year
where when i pass off
my mask to another me
it is not questioned
i can push myself deep
into the concoction of
the new year's drink
forget myself
but create a new me,
approachable and talkative
a real catch
the girl i wish i could be

then after the ball hits the floor
polluting the party
exciting the people
the new 365 days arrive
i'll be me again
until next year

twenty seventeen
hostile, hurting and honest;
you begin to set.

This year,
love has so many more meanings than the last.
Love takes up more of the space in which emptiness lived until now.
This year, love can be definable,
or not.
I've learned that some types of love do not sound like
"I love you"
but can only be felt.
In the kind touches of a companion,
of a new little sister,
or of your cats.

Love that can only be seen,
in the pictures of you and your best friend at a party,
in the face of someone who will stay on the line until you say goodbye first,
in your co-star on stage when you realize you've got it down.

Love that can be defined, but only in the obscurist of ways
because who are we kidding;  we're teenagers.
"You are so good"
"I can't wait to see where life takes you"
become immense words of love.

Love only whispered,
in paying for your friend's coffee,
in adding a special touch on a card,
in promising to run away with your best friend when she shows up crying about her mother.

Love,
a light touch of mysticism, the kind that makes you stay out late talking in a Walmart parking lot,
the kind that fills you when you make plans to run away to the city after graduation,
the kind that takes you 40 minutes to get lost in before realizing it.

This year was spent loving,
maybe not even myself most of the time, but loving nonetheless.
A swift movement, a soft turn,
and here we are.
A new year of undefinable, definable, mystical, whispered, and purposeful love.
I can't wait to see where life takes us next.

Read more.
Words are the map fragments of wisdom you need to navigate your way in a world constantly sending you searching for that which you don’t yet have a name.

Write more.
And don’t keep it to yourself.  Your voice deserves to be heard too so scream in cursive and whisper in all CAPS, bleed through paper and heal through the spines of notebooks
you’re spiraling onto something, breathe in commas and step over periods because you’re not over
you’re the most beautiful run-on sentence

paint more.
You’re an artist whose perspective warrants an audience,
so leave cerulean fingerprint traces in your titanium touches,
mix gesso with mars and be alizarin against charcoal

stand out. And stand up.

Find adventure in the every day.  Skydive through small talk, zip line through steps up stairs without an end,
life is the ellipses in silences your eyes seek to make stories,

explore.
This world. People. This city you’ve landed yourself and take calculated risks.

Tiptoe through moshpits and stomp through meadows.
Cartwheel into concrete conversations headfirst eyes wide open,

be vulnerable, to those who deserve to see the rawest parts of you.
And leave the ones who’d rather exploit them behind

leave others’ opinions behind.  Let them be the ones collecting dust.
You are stronger than you’ll ever know and ten-fold what they’d ever expect.

So let them guess.
Be the question mark in the corner they can’t place.

Your story is complicated.  But that makes you interesting.
What doesn’t challenge you doesn’t change you and you’ve been challenged each and every day

you get out of bed and speak when so easily you could’ve lost your voice the night you lost your body.
It took you some time and a few nameless faces to claim it again and you’re still working out what that means,
you’ve always had your own way
but all the ****** assault pamphlets name this normal.

[For once it’s a label you don’t detest.]

So this year be normal if you so choose, but also be weird.
Be loud, not small, be confident, and not sorry.
Take up space.
You deserve to.

You are Woman and you are Strong.

Push, but don’t ever shove.
Love unapologetically and fiercely.
But don’t force what a boy is not willing to give.

Find someone who will pay your heart the same attention he does your body.
Scratch that,
find yourself.

Read your body’s brail, your chapters of goosebumps, and play chess with checkers across your skin.
Unlearn and relearn and unlearn and learn to remember you are enough and it is your turn.

Look in the mirror and accept the pieces looking back are in progress.

Keep writing.

Watch the moon make way for the sun. Be brighter than both.
Let your irises draw constellations across galaxies unwritten.
Move so far forward, you stop having a reason to look back.

Forgive that which you cannot change.
You’ll make more mistakes, scrape more knees and trip on chainlink chokers, your jewelry limbs you haven’t yet untangled.
But forgive yourself.

Kiss the boy. Kiss the girl. Kiss no one.
Live in the present tense and with future declaratives.
Appreciate the thousands of little moments still looking to be made yours. Make them yours.

You are worth all the struggle.  Don’t forget.

Be kind but don’t rewind.  
Stay authentic even when you don’t make sense and your words aren’t oil enough to separate

paddle through the waves eyes closed if you have to,
the salt may burn your scars and you may lose your bearings, but keep going.
Maybe this is the year you’re going to learn to swim.