align.

there is a subtle attractiveness in my handsome words,
(the quiet, me-only words, not the ones i share with the world--those are messy and red and blue and smear together like that of a child's runny nose)
and it inspires my ripened heart,
freshly amazed by grace and charity undeserv'd.

it's like the faint smell that still comes back of those rebellion-cigarettes,
the ones that are illegal now, that tasted like vanilla but still just smelled like
smoke,
smoke,
smoke.

it's falling in love with myself, when i once asked to the air,
"is it possible to be fallen in love with, when you yourself don't even believe in love?" and the answer is 'Yes,' because Jesus loved me all along,
and didn't even smirk when i doubted myself,
just touched the small of my back and smiled softly, patiently.

now, while all past lovers contact me in their different ways,
and closure surrounds my spirit,
and the depression is nothing but small anxieties just like you have,
and it's a faded cloudy gray (but mostly clear) color,
i feel like me.

major.

growing up feels like this,
quiet, with background music,
and slow mornings, sometimes with curly hair.
i used to believe in moments that you felt you were growing up,
that they were monumental and striking,
but they're so still, too,
and often before sunrise.
it's waiting for that letter that won't come for months,
it's waking up early, like christmas morning,
and mama and daddy aren't awake yet,
and lying there at 4:39 and wishing you could fall back asleep.
it's in the sighs as the heat clicks on,
and you move so you can press your toes on the crisp window pane to see how cold it is,
and it is very, very cold.
and you smile.
it's pumpkins from lovers and magnets from cardoors.
it's riding down the streets you once walked, feeling like glory.
i do hope growing up will always feel this way,
even when i'm seventy, i'm still going to be growing up,
and i hope i don't change.
of course, growing up is change,
but a writer is a writer,
i hope,
forever.

misconceptions.

our God, is an awesome God he reigns,
from heaven above with
pride, self righteousness, and pity for those
less awesome than he.

this is the frustration of figuring out
boyfriendland
and how to keep a best friend
that would never leave me anyway.

it's deserving the good things,
when all i think i deserve is all the bad things.

finding out why i devalue sexuality and why
waiting
now seems so ideal.

this is BITTERNESS,
misconceptions,
pocketing my anger into judging others,
and turning into my mother.

birthdays and beginnings.

confusion, overwhelmedness, and intrusive memories.
these things are pounding on the walls of my heart like tension madly squaring in upon me from all corners. it is not the color of depression, but it is the sound of oppression. it is the sensation of defeat with your eyes wide open in the battle-field where the wounded have already died and the dead are decaying-- only whom were from the enemy's side, for the winner was the christ.

curvaceousness, asian eyes, and jack johnson's music-sized persistance.
it's purple and unforgiven and it's self esteem, heavy like the size of hungry-girl's hips and the food her mind craves, and starved like the stomach that is pursuing other dreams of being nineteen and forever-on comfortably.

untouched non-virgin ladygirl, backwards definitions of intimacy, and the quest.
they are problems that will plague my heart like sticky half-set glue under my finger nails after a half-hearted project that i didn't clean up when i was done. it's miserable and sticks to the roof of my mouth like the desire to finally vomit and remember what happened in dark rooms.

cigarettes, concerts, and fights with best friends.
it's the micro-waves of healing underneath the initial tidal-wave that suggests forever-sized depression. it's the tears amidst the drunkards, salty from pent-up-edness, and silky smooth like the way best friends hold hands in the rain, running like chasing metaphors. it's slick like the ground during and after the fresh rain, complementing the birthday-lightning that lit up the sky like Jesus-Rockets.

and this is birthdays and beginnings.
just like someday tomorrow will be endings.

soulfood.

hair, sticking to the back of your neck,
stuck with sweat and nerves--
it's bleached and dry, but it once used to
glisten naturally.

(kind of like my heart.)

poetry is like the blood of my soul,
and when punctured,
i bleed.

i am clearing the clutter,
of every shape and colour:
trash on the floor to
trash in my soul.

we all have something to contribute,
for you all have deep, soulful beauty,
orange like sunshine in the late day and
unique like sideways grins.

pair the boys with their guns and
the men with their ladies-
growing up is decisions.

candlewax.

ten candles, nine smelling of the salty ocean,
and one of sweet vanilla,
melting, making messes on my desk.
sizzle, spark, wax is making designs on my things and the mess is kind of like
me.

in one big
whoosh
smoke smears into the air like
soft fingers delicately grazing your face,
in pale gray colors like that of deaths gentle touch.

realizations like
yes it was love
and
i might be wrong
are plundering their damage on the villages of my brain,
and pull out tears from thin air while the ladies and gentlemen dance in pairs
right before my eyes.

making beautiful art from
his words and our creations,
and feeling the weightiness of responsibility,
i come to realize who has fought my demons,
in the name of Christ,
those not even of my faith,
but completely of my heart.

so the music starts and the music stops
but still my words flicker across the page like little tiny animals with wings and ideas,
and i have to hit backspace ten or twelve times a line,
just to make it look right.

Storyteller Girl.

these deep-set lies trickling down my bottom lip are like the subtle scars on my arm,
apparent only to those paying attention.
i'm starting to believe only that which was once just a lie...
that the only brand of freedom was something of one night of cigarettes and regret--
but now i see the free life called submission
(,a paradigm none of you should expect me to understand fully.)

but now i will try to let the roots become unrooted,
and only remember how much i used to know before this year began as anticlimacticly as it did.
have faith, future babies --and lovers--, i do believe i'll be able to do this,
but only on my own. no partners in crime today, lovers and gents.
this girl's gotta do a few hits on her own. and yeah,
i'm gonna bleed a little bit more on the way.

red hair and rockstar musicians in my mind,
expensive lowlights and stretchy umbrellas in reality,
slowly i'm going to become not who i once was, but instead,
who i'm meant to be.
i will no longer revert, that's for the witches, that's for the past.
and there will be no missing, dripping wax or nosebleeds on my journal pages this year.

just poetry and occasional photographs from disposable cameras,
and probably no boyfriends, just a trail of broken hearts along the city skyline.
then someday, i'll be in college and drug-free and i'll say no to whomever i want.
and i'll be an adult. (because the cookies are about to come out of the oven.
i will not burn the recipe this time.)

it's storyteller girl who is causing you to lose your mind,
because her eyes are so deep and velvety,
you can only stop to think of her, and only her.
so the infatuation must stop, because she is only a storyteller girl.
and those lies, however faint to the naked eye, the naked man,
are still there, and they are still
lies.