<3

A song my baby brother wrote for moi.
teary, i know.



Look into the eyes of your man
See that he loves you for you
Youre still young; youve got your life ahead
And if you cry then I will too

You are not a crime
You are better than London town
You are on my mind
Your eyes never will touch the ground

Look into the eyes of your brother, dear
He just wants to see you smile
Sometimes people are like warmth and sand
All the rest theyre in denial

You are not a crime
You are better than London town
You are on my mind
Your eyes never will touch the ground

They made the big mistake
They let you turn away
But you held a smiling face
You took your time to ask
And they put on a mask
That everybody seems to have but-

You are not a crime
You are better than London town
You are on my mind
Your eyes never will touch the ground

rip old me.

the past few weeks in choppy sentences….

kissed my white pontiac good-bye, I cried and I laughed and I got to know myself in that car. We held hands and fought and talked about dreams, and you sit and ask me why I cried, and cried when I watched the big flashing lights tow it away on the side of east bound 401 grasping our green eyed puppy. Ive prayed for my hands to be back on that wheel, to smell coconut and peppermint gum. Now it’s sitting in a dirty junk yard, wondering where we went, wondering why I stripped it of it’d CDs, of my ipod, of the peace signs that hung from the rear view mirror. I’m sorry my little pontiac, I never planned to give you up on christmas, No one ever plans on life- it just happens.

lately I’ve lost all vitality. Big changes are coming and it finally brings me hope in getting a new start. This big city won’t know what hit it. im no longer going to hide behind you. I’ll always need your hand but baby just let go for a minute. I am writing because in abandoning this blog I forgot MYSELF.I am writing to remember, I am writing to gain strength from the tragic beauty of my mistakes, and gain hope for the strong woman I am becoming every day.

promises

I have a special brand of tears for you. They have a personalized taste as they glide down my cheeks and into the cracks of my uncensored lips. They are salty and sweet and explosive. They are bitter with repressed words and adolescent angst that clings to the corners of my mind.
For months I had forgotten the taste of those tears. For months I had forgotten the way that they sting, the way that they pierce my eyes- laughing at my resistance to the inevitable breakdown they promise.

Crying for you is like riding a bike. I haven’t had my feet on the pedals in so long but the second I begin to move my legs that old familiar feeling washes over me and I am soaring down abandoned streets. I am traveling back to places in time I tried so hard to leave behind because I was terrified they would define me. I was terrified they would cut me off from the happiness I found in your pride and your smile and the way you put exclamation points at the end of your text messages. I abandoned my past because I wanted so badly to believe in the sweet seduction of a glittering future filled with freedom and trust and getaways. I would rather be hurt by the truth than be loved for a lie. I lose some small piece of self I have managed to shape and mold and fill with color over these 18 years.

I can’t make promises that will someday destroy us both. Promises that will fill your blue eyes with expectations and mine with a burning resentment.. I won’t say okay, but I will promise to love you. I will promise to try to be a woman you can be proud of. No strings attached. I will promise to forgive. and forgive. and forgive. I will promise to never stop telling my truth because even when it brings pain that pain is REAL, and raw, and authentic. That pain is beauty in disguise. That pain will bring revelations and miracles. After that pain brings the poison tears I know so well.

For so long I have been blocked. I put my fingers on the keys and nothing comes. I have lacked inspiration because I have been trying to write something pretty. Something wholesome. Something that will warm hearts instead of awakening my own. Now I know, I find myself in these words. I find my truth in between the run on sentences and typos. I find love. No matter what I write. I find love.

I hope you can find it too <3

love.

I finally apologized to you. An apology I didn’t know i owed until i re-read the words I wrote so long ago. When my hair was long and my temper was short. When I first discovered metal music and lemon cake. I was sixteen and untamable and wondering why I didn’t fit in your arms anymore. I was dizzy headed and full of doubt and torn between the girl i used to be and the woman I was becoming. A woman who knows the power of her words, a woman who knows the value of an apology and when she needs to deliver one. I did not apologize for who I was, how I felt, what I dreamed. I apologized for the hurt that the poems i thought were so pretty caused. For the assumptions I made about the new life you were trying to create for us. For the bitterness that was lurking underneath my words. I am sorry if I ever made you cry. I am sorry if I ever made you doubt the way that I love you. But I am glad that all those entries led me to this one. I am glad all of our tiny disasters created a pathway to love we can walk down together.

Sleeping Separately

Apartment Therapy--couples debated the pros and cons of separate sleeping. While both sides were very adamant, I have to admit I'm torn. On the one hand, I sleep next to a grizzly-bear-level snorer who, judging from the flailing, jabbing, and kicking, fights armies of relentless zombies on a nightly basis. Add to this his problem for stealing covers and the fact that his snores wake himself at least twice a night, inspiring him to sit up and yell, "What?", and you can see why I might occasionally fantasize about a bed of my own.

On the other hand, my grandparents had separate bedrooms. And even though my grandmother said it was because Big Poppa snored, I concluded (as a 6-year-old) that it was because the two weren't very lovey-dovey. As a teenager, I modified that judgment to: They never do it.

Personally, I'm just not willing to give up those tender little moments with you, right before we drift off to sleep. It's all the little things that happen while we're lying there together talking about funny things that happened during the day, snuggling, laughing. You know, the glue.Relationship glue. True, my mind could change down the road. But for now, I'll continue attempting to wrestle my grizzly-man into a spoonable position.

Hold my generation

We are a generation of diet cokes and dirty mouths. Of uncensored complaints and bleached blonde hearts.

We are a generation of gossip girls and american idols, emulating the gorgeous dirt we suck off our TVs. Choosing our favorite characters and playing the part to perfection, falling in love and breaking promises and tuning in every Tuesday night for more rules to live by, more excuses to stab our best friends in the back and whisper when the doors are closed. We hurt each other because that’s what we know- thats glamour baby, it’s drama, it’s life. Do we know any other way? Should we stay blissfully ignorant? Where is the line between reality and reality tv? It seems so blurry these days, I am living in a soap opera and the channel changer is hidden under abandoned shopping bags and too tight jeans.

I wish I could turn it off.

I wish I could rewind.

But there is no rewind. Our generation will be left to save ourselves, open our eyes and choose to be different or swim inside our blurry lines and remain the same. Live with tainted happiness and strive for some artificial form of perfection.
I’m opening my eyes, and opening my heart. All these petty judgements mean nothing in the grand scheme of the universe. All this gossip is juicy but I’ll leave it for the TV. And I will love you, love you, love you when you think you can’t be loved. I will shelter all your secrets and cherish them like they were my own sins. I will hold my generation until we are whole again.

forever...

I know I haven’t told you but I miss you.

I’ve been holding back memories and sucking down sadness and trying not to flinch when I look up on my bare walls and your picture is grinning back at me, or when your voice comes over my Ipod. I have been filling my days with photos and searches and my nights with Diet Cokes filling my mind with checklists and future plans. Anything to fill the void that I finally felt as I drove down the highway alone yesterday. The sun was streaming through my open windows and the old man in the SUV next to me shields his eyes and something in me snaps while Bright Eyes sings the second chorus of your favorite song. Something in me aches to hear you singing next to me. Filling up my car with your presence and your life and your 17 year old worries and fears and sweet, sweet sarcasm. In that moment, I become aware that the seat next to me is empty. Littered with gum wrappers and empty shopping bags and broken aviators.
Seeing that seat shattered me.

You should be there. You should be here. I need you and miss you and I don’t know how to tell you without scaring you away or making you even more upset with me, shes not good for you and shes tearing us apart but you wont have it. I want to hold you and cry. and cry. and cry on your shoulder. I am older and darker and louder. I am cruder and ruder and uncensored to a fault. I am everything you despise and everything you love, the perfect compliment to your soft spoken self. I am the big sister who wanted to be your best friend. who wanted to be your hero. who wanted to be a part of your world so desperately she somehow pushed you away. I wont sit by and watch one person ruin so much. I spent last night sleeping in your bed, the bed we used to lie in on summer nights and talk about the world and our family and our imperfections and insecurities. The bed that has heard a million secrets. I spend nights here because I don’t feel so alone. The ghost of our laughter sings me to sleep and haunts me when I wake and my feet are cold and your not there. Your music and your bold voice wasnt echoing in this house last night. Your sweet laugh wasnt sitting across from us at the dinner table, and i didnt have to whisper no bacon in the ceasar salad to Dad. We lost the person you were...... No one has ever stopped caring, you just pushed us all away.

I can’t turn this sadness into poetry because it hurts too much. I am sorry. I am so sorry. I’m sorry if I hurt you, if I ever somehow made you believe you were less than beautiful. Less than extraordinary. Less that perfect and unique and capable of setting the world on fire with all your brilliance. You and your blue eyes and your squishy nose. I want to hold you in my arms and beg you to forgive me. I want to hold your hand and walk you through high school because when your 17 your universe explodes and nothing is ever the same again. I want to shield you from a broken heart, shop for your prom tux. I want to be the one you come to when your tired of being perfect, I want to rock you back and forth until you realize that even when you’re a mess, you are wonderful and loved and you need to stop putting your life on hold for one person.
And I won’t push you, and I won’t beg you, but when you need me darling
I’ll be here.
Waiting.

I cant stand the sound of so much hate filling up a world that is already full of enough tragedies. I have learned one thing- we are not entitled to tomorrow. We are simply blessed with today. Life is far too short to fill it with meaningless phone calls and degrading insults. It’s too precious to waste on the ones who can’t see how beautiful you are- on the ones who don’t even care enough to try.

Life is too short. Too short for the bull shit. Too short to forget. Too short to let anger turn you cold. Too short to hold back I-Love-You’s. Too short to deprive yourself of McDonalds. Too short to ignore the ones who are dying to open up. Last night I watched my boyfriend finally get in touch with reality, I watched him finally open up. I wanted to cry because in one day he has grown so much, in one day those big blue eyes that I love have opened up to a truth far too vital and beautiful to be ignored- that we are not invincible. That our time is limited, and that while we are here there are people who are dying to tell us their stories, to tell us their dreams, to let us fall in love with them.

I'm ready to fall in love on such a deeper level. I'm ready to spend my life with you to see this beauty and faith in you everyday.

starting over.

Today I made you drive me to Wal-mart and apologized when I took an hour to walk down every aisle. Checking prices on tea candles and fake roses and picture frames because all of a sudden we have this new space.

I can wash my face and crawl into bed and put on lavender scented lotion like I used to in my room back home. That smell makes me forget that I’ve grown up so fast and I fall asleep feeling like a child. In the mornings I tip toe to the bathroom and try not to wake up the handsome boy in the bed next to me. Each day is so new and I refuse to take it for granted.

..

A few months ago this move did not mean as much as it does now. We assumed it would be easy; fun, a new start. But now that these crazy ass, beautiful, exciting people came into our lives we're thinking a little different. We're thinking a bit more sad, a bit more anxious. We've never been so close, so comfortable, so open like this. We've spent every memory this summer with you, you never fail us. The baby who will brighten your day when you walk in the room, no matter what is going on. The jokes, the shows... they're all going to be further than a "be home in 10 minute" text. I cried last night in his arms for the very first time about this, because I was always the one being optimistic, and positive one.

Please stay this inlove..
Please don't ever be further than a phone call..
Please come leave a playpen and pillows at our house so we know you're going to come all the time..

love always.

Vacation, all I ever wanted

Surrounded by tired truckers and itchy grass and hungry misquitos, I have never seen innocence so simple and lovely as in that moment on that 18 year old freckled face I adore so much.

We wanted to escape- but I don’t know what from. Life, maybe. We wanted to slip into the skin of strangers, wear it like it was our own, talk and walk and look older and smarter and richer than we really are.

The rest of our trip was filled with trips to hippie shops. I dragged you through door after door, into the tiny cramped spaces that smelled of inscenseYou kept your mouth shut even though the smell of my sanctuaries made your head hurt, even though the hours that passed while my head spun from all the beauty must have felt like an eternity to you. But you make these small sacrifices for your boho-baby because you love her.

Innocence is beautiful. It is something I breathed back into my lungs as I walked through the friendly streets of my 8 am small town. It smelled like lemon poppy seeds and too much sunscreen and homemade bread. It made me smile to myself for the rest of the walk, it filled me with peace of mind and endless possibility. It is not just the colorful humming birds that tap on your window, or the deer that stare you right in the eye, or the friendly squirrels who laugh and giggle as they chase each other up the trees outside my window that make this place magical. It isn’t the winding rock garden my mom created in the back yard, or the charming victorian houses with three chimneys and spiraling vines and stories to tell. And it’s not the gas light lamps that line the streets or the brick convent with it’s symphony of church bells. No, it’s the peace you can find while walking alone down the enchanted streets that make it magical. It’s the inspiration the wind breathes. It’s the poetry hiding in the corners of this town that make it something wonderful.

I am not angry or scared, resentful or bitter. I am not in a hurry to grow up or break hearts. I am content, I am blessed. I get to see my mamas brown eyes grinning at me every morning, I get to drip sweat onto a blue mat as I push myself to the limit in a window-sorrounded gym, and taste cooking sent straight from heaven created by the hands of my dad. I a family filled with love, an enchanted home, and a blue eyed boyfriend who knows all my secrets. And my baby brother who even though he thinks I resent him, hes the only one whos music has ever truely made me cry or laugh.
Like I said,
I am blessed.

love conquers.

Lately we've been up and down. It feels like we've been moving backwards and forwards and sideways and all over and im exhausted from it.
I'm exhausted from the fighting, and bad words, the apolagies. I'm exhausted from just giving up and falling to my knees and asking why we put eachother through it. I'm exhausted from the tears and to be honest my eyes are all dry.

The other night I sat down and looked at the woman who meant the most to you in your life. We talked for hours, and she told me heart wrenching, tearful stories. That made me love her that much more, she told me life's just going to get harder, that we have it better than most people do and we don't need to throw that away. She told you to shrug off the things you know won't matter in an hour, be kind, be sensible, and to stop pushing the only girl that's ever loved you for you away. I cried in her arms, and then yours.

Today i've never felt anymore different in my life. I felt in love again.

You love me when my breath smells like BBQ. You love me when I lick my fingers in nice resteraunts and leave you 20 minute voicemails. You love me when I’m knocked down, fucked up, tired of the universe. When I’m a total nerd, a liberal minded girl, when I take too many pictures of you. You love me when I can’t look in the mirror because I’m tired of what's looking back at me.
And just when I start to forget...
You remind me of how beautiful I am.

Generations

Now we know, that we know nothing. Sitting in the company of a passionate couple still head over heals in love after 60 years of marriage, til death do us part was something they took to heart you can tell by the look in their eyes. Proving us wrong about things we always thought we had right, about things we were always so comfortable with. 3 years is nothing compared to the times they have gone through, the miracles they have shared together, the heartache, and hard work they have put into each and every aspect of there picture perfect life together. The moment he turned to us, and looked at us with his big eyes, with so much wisdom and so much knowledge and said "enjoy your life together,it goes by too fast"i fell in love, with these souls sitting across the little table from me.

untitled

Yesterday me and my favorite beautiful brunette took a trip into what seemed like a different kind of world. Craving starbucks but settling for big buckets of fruit filled lemonade we walked down rows and rows of people trying to sell their passion. Baskets of raspberries, loaves of bread, cookies, cakes, and honey. We spent hours soaking up the sun, and the beauty behind these tents, and this crowd.

Finally we stopped and flipped through books of endless possibilities. We both settled on one and watched in amazement as this gorgeous girl scribbled henna all over our legs and ankles.

Our escape finally came to an end, when I finally got to the same big building i've been staring at for 2 years since you've worked there I could tell today was not your day. We fought and made up and kissed and talked, and talked, and talked. Part of me enjoys these days, they bring topics of inner happiness, and harmony, and ways to bring all of these things out in ourselves. It brings plans for us, and dreams.

It brings a chance for ME to finally, for once, be there for you, to keep you grounded.

drawing peace signs..

I believe in first kisses and lullabies. I believe in stained glass windows and lightening bugs and poetry. I believe in music and falling to your knees when you can’t fight anymore and you shouldn't have to. I believe in a soul so divine that it can love a world full of sinners and forgive a universe of lovers. I believe in the harmony, we find when we admit that sometimes there are things we cannot change. The sun feels so good and for a single moment in time when I caught my reflection in a cafe window I was overwhelmed with peace. I could breathe. I could listen to the sounds around me and feel like I was part of something bigger than this small boring city. Usually I find that feeling when the car windows are down and a country singer is singing about his town, his love. Or when im rolling around in the snow with an angel who brings me chocolate milkshakes when I cry in blueberry colored corners. Or when you dedicated Change of Pace lyrics to me on crumpled paper and drew hearts by my name. I got lost in you when you played acoustic guitar on the plaid couch by the fire. When I fell for you in big buildings, old cars, and sweaty small shows.
We live in a world with crazy, messed up people.
We live for what we believe in the most.
We live in love.

we are here to love

Today started out with fat free smoothies and pudding cups on the couch. I laid back and watched the style network. I waited for you to wake up stretch, and get your hopefully not hung over butt out of bed as I licked low cal pudding off my fingers and wiggled my toes in my fuzzy No-Slip red socks I reminded myself to breathe, to relax, to forget about whatever it was that was causing all this fuss in our lives. I found you lying in our unmade bed with your hair a mess, I tickled your toes and saw your bright blue eyes open and an immediate smile come across your face. It's all it took to make me thinking all of these crazy ass, unreasonable thoughts.

We bickered and kissed in the parking lot of the over crowded, over air conditioned mall and soon fell back into this easy routine of loving eachother that feels like it started years ago...
but then i realised that it did.

Lately, you've been telling me your feeling neglected. I apolagized because you were right. I'm sorry i've been hiding in all of my journals, and blogs, and movies. I think I forgot how magical and uncomplicated our love could be. I'm sorry I ever let that romantic simplicity slip away.

you and your penis have it easy

"Today I am bloated and cranky and groggy and awful. My bad vibes are pulsing and waving and infecting everyone around me so it’s safer to sit in this little room with the incense burning and pound away into my laptop- i don’t want to spread this kind of miserable Monday virus around. You will be walking in my bedrom door soon, in your loud ass car with your smart ass comments i usually adore but I am dreading today. I could snap at any minute because I am insecure and exhausted and just praying for someone to drench in all this menstrual depression. One wrong move and it could be you and I don’t want to spend all next week apologizing for the thoughtless words my period brought me.

And oh, you are the lucky one. The broad chested love of mine who will never know the agony of changing a tampon or buckling over while singing too loud because your cramps hurt too bad to hit the high notes. You will never know the overwhelming self doubt you feel when you have to suck in to fit into your favorite jeans because your stomach is busting with water and chocolate bars from your last emotional breakdown. No, you can sit back and laugh at me when I cry. You can call me whiney when I need you to offer to hold me more than anything in the world. Because that’s all I need right now. Compassion, understanding, and hell, this may be stretching it, but maybe even a little bit of sympathy. Because honey, you and your penis,

HAVE IT EASY.

You should be praising me for the hell that I skip through. I do not fall off the face of the planet when that special time of the month decides to grace me with its presence. I wake up, stretch and get everything ready first thing in the morning. I eat chicken fajitas on tuesday nights. I make pictures and journals and do yoga. I live my life. I try to spread love.

And I do all while on this hell of a trip, called my period.Now tell me have YOU ever done that?I didn’t think so. So before you start to rag on me for my slight bad moodiness, look between your legs honey, and thank God you don’t have a uterus."

.....

I’ve been trying to find my beauty again. I don’t know when I lost it but somewhere along the line it faded away and a whole winter full of insecurity took it’s place. There was a time when I could lie in your arms and look straight into those bright blue eyes. There was a time when I wanted you to turn your head to look at me at red lights because I felt beautiful, and confident, and I was certain that my skin was glowing in all that darkness. There was a time when I didn’t mind you staring at that girl in Transformers and drooling onto your flannel pillows because I knew when the movie was over you would be staring at me
and that was enough.
And now I hide my face behind a thick layer of blonde bangs, I look away when you look at me and the thing is,
I’m tired of tearing myself apart.
I’m tired of staring in the mirror and picking out flaws, then trying so hard to cover them up with overpriced cosmetics and tea tree oil and new clothes and too much perfume. I’m tired of going through old pictures of myself and wondering what went wrong. Where did that skin, that smile go?
And now, now i know. It’s not my beauty I lost- it was my confidence. I started doubting the greeness of my eyes, the joyfulness of my laugh, the feminine curve of my hips. I started comparing myself to Hollywood glam goddesses on posters.I started measuring myself not by who I was, but by the clarity of my skin or the size of my jeans and on days when I didn’t feel beautiful enough to face the world I hid. And wrote, and sulked. On those days I wore sweatpants and fuzzy striped socks and your baggy tee shirts and avoided the boy who loves me most because I was no Megan Fox. I was not his Transformers hottie with the full lips and a gorgeous tan.
And now I don’t want to be. This is my body. The body with the fingers that write in journals and draw designs on your back after you’ve fallen asleep. This is my face. The face with the eyes that see so many small miracles every day. The face with the lips you have kissed a thousand times, that have sung a thousand songs, that have yet to speak a million words. This is me in all my wholeness. I am not just my body. I am not just my face. I am not my imperfections unless I decide to measure my worth by them. I am love. And art. And creativity. I am a friend. And a daughter. And a sister. And a lover. If i am all these beautiful things, how could I ever look in the mirror and tell myself I’m not good enough?

saved

Hand in hand the two of us walked around a crowded, akward smelling store looking for camping supplies. My mind is somewhere else, but my heart is with you. As our fingers play games with eachother, you kiss me and i forgot whatever I was thinking about before, because it's not important. After shopping I was starving and tired and the soles of my flip flops were worn and dirty. You drove me to the greek restaurant where we had our first date.

Two heartbroken teens trying to dissapear in another kind of love than what broke us before. I counted your freckles as I picked the chicken off my tangy salad, and we re-opened our hearts to a stranger.
Thank god we did. I think we may have saved eachother...
Today the restaurant was empty, the same greek mandolin was playing, and we were seated at the same table we sat at more than 3 years ago. We looked at eachother in silence as you threw all your sour black olives on my plate and we laughed.
You might be my knight in shining armor, but I could never see you in tights.

just the begining...

My once long blonde hair has been traded for an even blonder choppy bob. It shines in the sun of this little city and whips my eyes when we cruise down the street with the windows down and your roof taken off. Its finally summer again and you say my eyes look green instead of dull. We drove around in your car and pretended we had a destination. we didn’t. we were driving to nowhere and i know it sounds dumb but when you turned dave matthews on and put the windows down and rubbed your thumb over my hand,
i felt infinite.

New memories will come from this summer, just like the last, and the ones before. Bigger memories though, our adventure is just begining, heading out to the real world by ourselves.
But the thing is,
We won't be by ourselves. We will have eachother, in a bigger city, a bigger room, a bigger building... a bigger life.
It will bring me hope in all of these things that you are promising me. It will bring me critical thinking and a dream filled journal that shows what fill my nights, and what makes me analyze my days. You'll be there though, hopefully to keep me grounded, to reassure me every day, to show me all of these exciting things in all of these crazy,busy,overwhelming situations. Everyday I look into those ocean blue eyes of yours and its all it ever takes to bring me back down to earth.

Here's for a begining of adventures, of love, of peace of mind.
It will be a sunny summer of loving you, and sleeping in and turning all of these plans into reality.