1.) life is fleeting. live in the moment.
2.) people never call anymore. call your mom. call your grandma. call your old friend that you haven't talked to in middle school but wished you knew how they were doing.
3.) one of the worst things in life is to sit at your deathbed with regrets. all those "i wish," "i could have," "i should have"...just do what you're scared to do. it means you're about to do something really brave.
4.) people can't read your mind. no matter how close you are with that other person, they are not a mind-reader. just say what you're feeling, thinking, going through.
5.) you never really know what someone else is going through. show God's love to them.
6.) we forget while we're getting older, our parents are getting older too. cherish the time you have with them while you can.
7.) it's normal to feel lonely and to feel lost, especially in your 20's.
8.) don't worry; everyone else doesn't know what they're doing either.
9.) stop thinking you need to make all these societal milestone "achievements." people grow at different rates.
10.) no one will ever fully and completely understand you like God does. there's that saying: "God loves you more in a moment than anyone could in a lifetime." it's true.

When shadow, what ruins the glint of light on dew,
does cast a moment in all of what can't be,
the wait for what is there, but seen by few,
starts search for those who find they cannot see.

But even the lost can hear the song of love,
and even the broken can feel the warmth of joy,
but time, what seems to stop but for the mourning dove,
must take a dream of love to then destroy.

Then when time slows its pace to give us breath,
and together we find our dream that lacks in strife,
eternal our love will be with no found death,
and in all things, we'll find a love of life.

Now and always, my love, we'll see things through.
Now and always, the one I love is you.

get me through the rough
see through the sun
blinding my existence
a phenomenon I want to end

asked to craft words
when pain is the only source
breathing as I am forced to
running short of reasons

forlorn in blazing crowd
masking the status quo
fully erase the context
to fit in your norms

I still fret a lot
I find no validation
people are for themselves
pretending they are not
like these words lacking rhymes

As protruding collar bones
and hip bones
and ribs

As hunger
and money
and happiness

As knowledge
and wonder
and sadness

As crop tops
and skinny jeans
and piggyback rides

As thigh gaps
and dainty hands
and jawlines

But
I am not beautiful

I do not have bones that push so far out of my skin
That they tower above skyscrapers

I do not have size 00 jeans
or 32 A cup bras

I do not have a scale that doesn't sigh
when I step on it daily

No
I am not beautiful

I was taught I am ugly
I am a pig
I am the definition of repulsive

Beauty is taught
And so is self hatred

when people are in love
they often say
they simply fell
tripped over their own two feet
face forward
and into the arms of their beloved

i did more than simply fall
onto the ground of your love

you, for me
were an ocean
and i dived
headfirst
roughly
harshly
almost painfully
into the waters of “you”

i knew i could not swim
but i did so anyway
i was drowning
entangled in you
surrounded by this being of “you”
engulfed in this feeling of “you”

and i did not know what came over me
but i let myself drown
i did not try to swim back up
because if i went back to land,
releasing myself from your grasp
that would mean losing the feeling of “you”

and after
submerging into the depth
the love
the passion
of “you”

how could i ever leave?

I want to turn back time

Before the lies
Before my cries
Late in the night

I want to turn back truth

Before it hurt
Before cruel reality
Revealed itself to me

I want to bring them back

Before were four
Now we're no more
The family that was us