perfect,lovely,worth it

People leave my life like sunshine. I can feel them, soft and warm, bright and golden on the parchment of my skin. Their light trickling to places that have only known bitter nights. Their strength seeping through my pores. Their beams igniting my hope. But come sunset, all I have left is a memory of that feeling. Maybe a timid warmth still fluttering in its folds. A silent echo of its existence. That’s all. I never get close enough to burn. But the stains they leave behind still sear through my rays.
I’ve been wishing for winter these days.

Sometimes, I press my ear to the hollow of my wrist because just feeling it isn’t enough. Sometimes, I have to listen to the helicopter of my heartbeat until I convince myself that I’m alive. I’m alive because I have skinned my knees on football fields, and bedroom prayers. I’ve fallen in love and fallen in friends. And I remember that the e in friends comes after the i because I have friendships that will never ever end. I’ve listened to Augustana and Andrea Gibson on repeat until every word settled in my soul. I’ve fallen off bikes too. I taught myself to ride cycles that sometimes steal the breath from my bones, but I’ve always had hope for handlebars. I’ve walked on cracks in the pavement. I’ve picked a dying rose from the sidewalk and planted it between the pages of a novel stained with teardrops and heartbeats and a little bit of coffee, and watched it bloom into something beautiful again. I’ve only caught butterflies between the lines of poetry, because freedom shouldn’t depend on what someone else finds beautiful. I’m alive because I’ve seen fireflies find their light by darkness. I’ve swam into the ocean until I couldn’t see the shoreline, and I’ve witnessed the moon live up to her name. I’ve wished on falling rain, and kissed in the heart of a thunderstorm. I’ve been high as a kite, and low as rock bottom, and I’ve swam at the surface for a while too. I’m alive because I’ve written until my pen ran out of ink, and made music until my fingers began to bleed. I’ve stood on a stage and sang karaoke to Here Comes The Sun completely off tune, I’ve clapped for myself when no one else did. I’ve seen the blue of bruises, and I’ve seen the blue of the sky on a night when the sun refuses to set. I’ve watched it rise like a revolution with songbirds whose feathers I’ve collected just so I could build my wings some day. I’ve fallen asleep to the melody of someone else’s breath. I’ve dreamed in colours that don’t exist. I’ve played games with life, and I’ve played games with basketballs. I’ve run until my lungs forgot how to feel, until my veins made oxygen from their own capillaries, until my mind defeated my body. I’m alive because i have breathed poetry. I’ve fallen in love with autumn and had affairs with winter. I’ve been the reason for someone else’s smile, and someone else’s flutter in their chests when their heartbeat escapes their breath. I’ve danced without thinking, and I’ve loved without wondering about tomorrow. I’ve fallen asleep on road trips, and I have been awake to listen to silence. I’m alive because I have broken my heart on someone else’s chest, and broken a heart with my own fist just so I could prove that they’re not the same size. I’ve peeled open my bloodstream and stitched back my faith. I have stood at the edge of a cliff and spoken to the wind. I have fallen in love with strangers and bar stools, and kitestrings. I’ve learnt to understand windows and windchimes. I’ve been someone else’s home. I’ve lived on the side of the road, and died in my own skin until I realised that embers can glow from ash. I’ve been burnt by secondhand smoke, and saved by secondhand hope, and written the poems in my bones. I’m alive because I’ve spoken in foreign tongues until they weren’t foreign anymore. I’ve watched someone enter this world, and I’ve watched the light leave another’s eyes. I’ve realized that a mother’s love is the one thing you can never kill. I’m alive because I have scars trickling through my soul that tell stories of survival, and I’m alive because I have survived. But I need to hear it sometimes. Press my wrist to my ear and listen to the life beating through my being. I’m alive, but my bones once told me that you can hear the oceans in seashells even though they’re never really there.

It’s the little things. The way her hair smelled like sunshine. How she refused to let you hold out the door because she was all up in feminism. The stars her eyes became when she saw you for the first time. The way her fingers moved like piano keys. Her smile and that dimple no one else got close enough to notice. All the other things no one else got close enough to know. Her voice when it said I love you. Her lips when they shaped your name. Her chest when she said it skipped a beat. The way she fit, the ways she didn’t, and the way that was what perfect was. How she slipped on her glasses in movie theaters and slipped on your jacket in the cold. The way her shoulders framed your hope. Her hips your handle bars, her handle bars keeping you afloat. The way she never bothered to tuck back that strand of hair. The melody with which she traced your skin, and touched your scars. The way she made your stomach flip and your heart race, and your breath slow. How sometimes, you mistook her for home. It’s the little things that are big enough to rewrite the rhythm of your life.

She was blueberry pancakes
With fresh strawberries
and sweet cream icing.
But the kind of blue that was
far too beautiful for sorrow.
And the kind of icing
That reminded you of summer.

She was the morning we spent
Sipping sunlight off each other’s backs
And eating our bitter tongues
Until I found my sweet tooth
in her smile.

She was sandpaper skin, 
And fuck when the eggs got burnt
Always sunny side up,
And crisp round the edges-
She was more than I could stomach. 

But I drank her in days,
In the honeycomb moonshine from her eyes
And the delicate china in her voice. 
In the high of her laughter 
And the low of her coffe stained neck line
In the contours of her collar bone
And the handle bars of her hips. 

Blueberry pancakes 
With fresh strawberries
and sweet cream icing-
Meet me at the mouth.