i often think of you.

waterford, virginia;

home

i miss you more than ever tonight.

i'm gone away.

but my heart is with you tonight

in your brilliance and in your innocence

you're my sense of place

either the intrinsic character of you, or the meaning of you, but, more accurately, both

you were the first thing i ever fell in love with

before my heart knew it could fall in love with souls

but the ache is the same

//

my paintbrushes are brittle and my sketchbook sits stiffly in my second drawer

i've avoided my composition notebook and my keys and blank computer screens at 2:35 am

because of the emotional charge that each of those entail

not because of writers block

and not because of intro to writing due dates

but because of nostalgia

because i'm growing older and my heroes are becoming more human right in front of me

because my soul still hasn't said goodbye even though my mouth did four months ago

because art tells tells us too much about the five year old we wish we could be again

and writing begs us to feel

and sometimes,

sometimes that's the last thing we're willing to do

i wish i knew what it felt like to be loved

but for now, i will continue waiting

and that will have to be enough

that will be enough

and i haven't found it yet. but i am aimlessly awaiting the meeting of our souls. i hope yours sees mine the first day.  but for now, i will try be the person i want to meet on a rainy tuesday afternoon.

i always wanted it to last forever

and i cried on the last day of first grade on the bus ride home
and every year after that
and pretty soon there weren't any more rows to move back to the next year

and they boxed up my little white farmhouse
they boxed up my artwork and my antique dresser
but they couldn't seem to box my nostalgia
we couldn't take it
but i wanted it to last forever

"someday someone won't be afraid of how much you love, darling";

awake her soul

I'm begging you

please never let her lose her sense of wonder

and love her in your most innocent form

she knows heaven is all around her

and she'll go anywhere with you

she'll look for metaphors

and she'll fall in the love with the freckled sky

she's vulnerable, so please don't steal her breath,

convince her to hand it over freely

ask her where she's from, and she'll tell you where she's going

go with her

tell her you'll go with her

//

and my senior year they kept saying "this is it"

and my mom tells me "college is the best time of your life"

and i disagree

this life is "it"

this life is the best time

so stop waiting for graduations and new phases and beginnings

stop with the count downs and the can't waits

because its a monday night

and monday nights are beautiful

lost library books.

because some of us are lost library books

desperately yearning to be found

that we'd be stripped of our plastic coverings and expiration date stickers

our reviews were much too harsh

and sometimes our bindings were the only thing keeping us intact

we were borrowed and used, but mostly used

no one wanted to read our seventeenth chapter out loud,

but neither did we

 we were checked out by reader's who didn't notice our figurative language

who found our metaphors to be merely minuscule,

when so anxiously our pages longed to be understood

and some of us are just lost library books

and maybe we'll be found on an antique store shelf in fifty years

and maybe then,
maybe then they will understand