Maybe the grossest thing I've ever written.

Disney taught me about love when I was a little girl
Fairy tales with fairy tale endings
I knew what I wanted
I was hopeless
I sighed and dreamed
I believed in romance

But as I slipped out of my teens,
I decided that the rules had changed
I told my best friend that I believed
But not in me
I didn't call it cynicism

I grew into who I wanted to be
Not without scrapes and bruises along the way
But I decided to love me on my own
And I did
And I didn't need anyone else

And then I moved
And I changed again
And I keep thinking about who I was before
and before that

In todays world of screens and auto-correct
Nothing beats that feeling when your crush is crushing back
I'm not the little girl expecting sunsets and roses
But I do belive in me
And in us.

A Story from the Road

They were out of Arlington before anyone knew that they were gone. They had passed out early the night before, exhausted from a day of touring the monuments. No one stirred as they packed their bags and grabbed Snacks, they were used to being unnoticed. Their aunt hadn't driven in years, not since an almost fatal collision scared her into taking the bus permanently. It could be years before she noticed that her car was missing from the garage down the street.

   He took the first driving shift because he was older by 5 minuets. She was happy to sleep through the border into the next state. The post card with the picture of the San Antonio river walk was on the dashboard, it had been sent a year ago. "Love Dad," had been almost entirely smudged away by her thumb. She liked to trace the curves to see if any of them mirrored the lines of her own writing.

"What if he's not there anymore?" She asked again.

"It's as good a place to start as any," he said. "Put your seatbelt on, you know we can't get pulled over."

The sun was only just beginning to light the sky. Their aunts alarm broke into the relative darkness and she reached out to postpone her day for another five minuets. 

words

I can’t find my journal

Can’t find my vehicle for getting words to ink

So this will have to suffice

But see how even on screen I skip to the next line

Expecting the page to end

To meet the edge

What does that say?

That tapping and typing will do in a pinch

But I breathe words to life on blue and parchment

rather than blinking black on indifferent white light

There is a lot that I want today

I want to learn to be stronger

I want to do the hard things that will make me better

I want to stop hesitating

I want to burn bright in actions not just words

I wish I could write my future the way I write the lives of my characters

I want to live poetry so I don’t have to write it.

This is not a poem.

Sometimes I feel as though I am living in a whirlwind.

But the wind is stirred by everyone else but me

You are joining your lives with others

You are creating new lives

I am moving slowly while you all orbit around me

I could step into the circle, but I hesitate every time I see an opening

No, not yet.

Next time.

Maybe.

The only wrong choice is to not choose.

I can put the words in ink on my skin

I can say them in the mirror to myself

I can write them to you.

But it’s easier to find excuses to put them off

And go search for a lost object instead.