“1. There will be some days when you close your eyes while crossing the street, maybe because you want to see what fate has in store for you, or maybe because your depression is running rampant again and you don’t know how to calm her. It’s okay. I will still love you.

2. There will be a year, or a series of years when your birthday doesn’t feel special. Celebrate anyway. Because people spent time baking you a cake and buying you cards and even if they’re your family and they’re obligated to, they still love you. Cherish that love. Revel in it. It is the best gift you will ever receive.

3. You will learn that the saddest word in the English language is stay. Whether it’s your mother’s voice whispering it before you leave for college, or your ex-lover’s desperate screams as you walk out of the house, it will always be a hard word to hear. Sometimes you should listen to it, other times you shouldn’t. Trust yourself. Go with your gut.

4. Along with hearing the word stay, you will also hear the word why from every person who is remotely related to you. Why did you get that tattoo? Why did you try to kill yourself? Why aren’t you married yet? You don’t have to answer them. Be selfish. Keep somethings to yourself.

5. Some nights you won’t be able to sleep. You will lie awake at 2 am and contemplate existentialism and wonder if the French had a point. Get up. Get out of your bed. Do something. Because even if there is no God, what you do matters, who you are matters. You matter to me.

6. Some days you will want to run away and never return. So go. Drive to a small town in the Northwest, maybe Oregon, and settle down there for a while. Tell people your name is Elizabeth, because you loved Jane Austen as a child and because this a town full of strangers and who’s to know the difference? Don’t be selfish. Call your mother each night and remind her that you love her. Come back home when you find yourself seeing your sadness painted in the shadows, and when you feel more at home in the arms of a stranger than on your own.

7. There will be several nights when you lose yourself in the medicine cabinet, because liquor and morphine seem like a faster cure than time. It’s okay. I will still love you in the morning.

8. One day, in the midst of work, you will learn to forgive. It will start out with a simple reminder of the past, maybe a facebook notification from an old schoolmate or a wedding announcement from an ex-lover. In that moment you will learn that yearning for the past isn’t romantic, it’s stupid, and that if Gatsby had just let go of the green light he would’ve lived. So forgive your past, it didn’t know any better, and move on.

9. Leaving home will hurt, but soon you will learn that home isn’t a place but a feeling, and that there is a compass on your heart that points directly to that feeling. Follow that compass. Don’t get sidetracked by boys who don’t care or alcohol that doesn’t forgive. If you follow that compass, no matter how lost you get, you will always have a home.

10. The hardest lesson you will ever learn will be to love yourself. But you can do it. There will always be days when you hate yourself, days when you wish you had never been born. But darling you are beautiful, and if Shakespeare had met you you would’ve inspired his 18th sonnet, and if Monet had known you he would’ve given up painting water lilies and chosen to paint you instead. I know it’s hard to love yourself, but sometimes it’s okay to be a little selfish with your love.

11. When you begin to feel worthless, remember that the stars died for you. You are made of elements that are thousands of years old, elements that make up every atom of your being. When you want to cut your wrists, remember that the souls of stars live in your veins. Don’t kill them. Don’t be selfish.

12. Some days will be beautiful. Live for those days. Live for the days when the sun shines on your soul and the smile on your face isn’t forced. Live for the days when you don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks because your scars are a part of your story and you don’t need someone else’s approval to wear them with pride.

Live for the life you always wanted but were too scared to pursue.

Live for you. Live for me. Live for every person who has ever loved you, for the people who have come before you so that you may be here today.

Live for the fire that burns in your soul, that tells you: keep going, you’re almost there, just a little farther. Because when Rome burned down the emperor didn’t run away, he stayed and he sang for his people. Stay. Sing for your people. Sing for us.

Are you listening? Because this is your life, singing a siren song to capture your attention and steer away from the rocks, to guide you back home.”

The Twelve-Step Program for Life, by M.K. (via perfect)

I tried to sleep this off but I can't.

I tried to be the bigger man, but once again, I can't.

How does love work? 

Honestly, I need to know the trick of the trade. I need to stop going to bed with the notion that peoples' minds change in nanoseconds and they're all bastards acting on a whim. I need to psycho myself into believing that people are more than lipstick stains, trash talk and the lingering smell of stale hypocrisy. All I want is to revel in the security you provide without my prompting.

All I need is your attention.

Do you know how lovely it is to have your hair stroked without first placing your hand on his thigh? Or to be kissed before you even pucker up. To know that, despite time eroding the sensitivity of nerve endings and visual receptors the sight of you still knocks the wind out of him. The tiniest gestures, the ones you used to pay attention to.

I want to stop feeling like a god damn obligation. These days I feel like a bag of party tricks you mastered and now it's sitting on your shelf and when you've exhausted your options you know I'm still good to entertain. I think it's sad how much I try to mask, try to let go of and tell myself I'm being too sensitive. I'm pretty good at jokes with you now, matter of fact, the biggest one is me. Is it sad I'm crying now? 

Because it's the little things that fall out of line of your vision. And every minute spent in blissful ignorance is another hour spent in my bed just thinking about how every single time I end up being the one who invests too much, tries too hard, and gets walked out on. 

It doesn't have to happen this time too, please, it can't.

 Or, maybe I just need to get the fuck out of here.

of pertinence to our relationship

Did you know that sometimes I get lost in the circles your lips make?
On other days, however,  I am drowning in the streams between your rib-bones as your semi-
conscious, sleeping frame stretches
did you know that I once scraped my knee from tripping on the effortless way you slip your tongue between my teeth, and it bled from the gravel that was your breath whispering promises to my breastbone

since that day, I have not recovered.

I wanted somebody to tell me I am doing things right,
that in a world smitten with half-truths, a rarity would ensure
then that very same blasted universe spat out a 5'9'' promise and I was to
keep my heart guarded and palms open towards you
but,
I could not prepare myself for the likes of you
You who elbowed your way into my life like one would shove into a crowded bus on a Friday evening,
relentlessly and with purpose
your presence demanded it be felt and I nursed it like my life depended on it
but then again all of it before your entry seems largely irrelevant now
and I don't fall asleep to the rhythm of hot tears dripping onto a cotton blend of pillows anymore
or the hollow beating of my sullen heart weakened by disenchantment

did you know you changed my life?

Just a little bit longer.

Algorithm

It's 2.58am on my clock and over at your side it may be more or it may be less

I know it doesn't get colder than 26 where I live but right now the manufactured cold feels like 15,

Maybe more, maybe less

All these numbers have me bolt upright in bed thinking about your digits

How they connect to a calloused palm

Bearing the lines I like to trace as we share secrets in the dark 

I was once 7

Telling my mother I loved her more than the number of grains of sand in the entire world

And now I've met you

The entire universe in one bundle of cells and sinews

I can't quantify the feeling in my chest

The chestnut strands I bury my hands in

But I'll stay up all night counting my blessings 

I wish I spent more time splintering wooden doors than having them slam in my face

If I had more resolve in me maybe I'd allow you to spread coats of poster paint with your tongue 

On the fingernail scratches littering the jaundiced bones of my ribcage 

Sometimes I think my mind is too big for my body

I also think about how silence was never our best trait but there are days when I'm lying on your chest and I become painfully aware of the thump thump thump of the doldrums

And the fear we will wither away tastes like gall in the back of my throat 

Because there will be days that salty tsunamis will clog my lungs and cheap talk and paint will wash away in clouds of dissipating colours 

I'll grab them with my fists in hopes of capturing the pigments only to lose them

Like that day I held on to the fabric of your shirt only to have you wrench away

Your smile was playful

And I sank my teeth into your shoulder 

All while my thoughts went on like a litany in my head, please don't get away please don't get away please don't get away please 

I've had my share of second chances, open doors and wild romances.

It better be right now.