You are pathetic.

Pathetic. That should be your first, middle, and last name because you are, in every sense of the word, pathetic.

YOU were the one who approached meme. YOU were the one who was drunk. YOU were the one whining about being lonely. YOU were the one seeking my help. YOU were the one playing mind games. YOU were the one asking if I was interested in you. YOU were the one.

Not I. Oh no. I was the one stupid enough to be listen. I was the one hoping I could help. I was the one trying to make you smile. I was the one who cared.

Never in all our time of knowing each other have you been the one to seek out a connection. That should have been enough warning. Each and every time before it was I and I will admit my fault there. Maybe because I had a school girl crush on you, maybe because I thought I was pretty enough, maybe because we laughed with one another, whatever the reason I believed there was a glimpse of something more or at least something that could be. I should have known. I should have listened to all the voices telling me to run, screaming that my first instinct was right.

You are no good. You are a trickster with an adorable smile. You are a liar with a sweet voice. You are a deceiver with care in your eyes. You are bad and I will not bring you to your feet when you come crawling in need. I have spent far too many days crying over damaged goods and broken men. I will not waste one more tear drop on someone like you. I will not care one more minute for someone like you. I will not throw away one more wish to be loved by someone like you. I will only pity someone like you. I will only pity the pathetic.

A Fleeting Moment

I was walking through the park with a melody drifting in my head. It was nice to be alone and not feel the need to match another's step. The grass was green, the sky was blue, the air was sweet. For so long I had forgotten the taste of a warm summer's day upon my skin. A smile played across my lips and my eyes danced along the faces of laughter, love, life. My eyes danced along these faces when they came to rest upon yours. I had not seen you since the bittersweet end of a bitter cold winter. I know it is a cliché thing to have done but my breath did stop. You were smiling, you were laughing, you were wrapped in her arms. I did not know her face, her eyes, her voice, her. I did not know her but I knew she was not me and in that moment, in that moment I realized I no longer love you. I do not know the feeling that washed down me but I know it was not jealousy. It was not pain. It was not anger. It was not hate. It was not fear. It was not and yet it was. My heart did not yearn for you or ache because yours yearned for another. Instead, my soul cried out because I was alone. I am alone. I am alone. I am alone. I am alone. I am alone. How did I not see that there is no one left by my side? Not a friend, not a lover, not anyone. Since we went our own ways, I got lost in mine. I got lost in my moving on. I got lost. Then I blinked, just a quick every second blink. And there before my eyes, you no longer stood. My mind, my heart, my soul, they played a trick on me and how they fooled me well. Now as my feet grew into the sidewalk I was more alone than before. I was more alone than before because in that moment when you were, I still had the memory of someone. Yet now that is only an illusion, a child's mind game. Someone brushed past me and I caught the scent of her. She smelled of lilacs and honey. She smelled of what I dream and I wished to be her for surely she was loved. My world was spinning and yet I was falling straight down without a single twist or turn. I was falling and I knew how to stop. I knew the way out. I knew. I know. But I am not in a rush to rescue myself because I have nothing, no one to save myself for. I left the park today and I swear I shall not return until I smell of lilacs and honey.

Shh. Don't tell anyone!

The secret to life is....

a warm cup of hot chocolate.

sleeping in on Saturdays.

a summertime rain.

banana splits on the 4th of July.

capturing the perfect shot.

butterflies on a first date.

knowing who your friends are.

a mother's embrace.

a perfect first kiss.

chocolate cookies out of the oven.

blowing the seeds of a dandelion.

a compliment from a stranger.

snuggling with a childhood teddy bear.

a penny on heads.

your favorite pair of jeans.

laughing until you cry.

talking on the phone until two am.

coloring with crayons.

reading a book you cannot put down.

a child's laughter.

getting a card on your birthday.

the ferris wheel stopping at the top.

dancing until your feet ache.

rolling down a grass covered hill.

the first dip of your toes into a creek.

listening to the ocean in a sea shell.

the smell of a loved one.

catch and release.

a hot shower that steams the mirror up.

an outdoors concert.

daydreaming.

getting your hopes up once in a while.

trying even if you will fail.

singing loudly in the car.

forgiving.

a really good hair day.

But the real secret is the one you would never guess...

love yourself, love others, love till it hurts.

And then...love some more.

Let me let you go

Is it possible to ever stop loving your first love? I certainly hope so because I cannot keep playing these games where he comes and he goes and he throws my entire existence in utter turmoil. Listen to me when I tell this:

I cannot love you like I did so why do you expect me to? I am not the same naive, hopeful girl you first kissed under the home bleachers. You are not the same rebel, sweet nothing boy that held me close during our first high school dance. We have changed, we have grown, we have learned. I am still as crazy as the day you met me if not even more so. However, it is more controlled and rational if insanity can ever be classified as rational. My heart still skips a beat in passing but my lips never move fast enough to call your name when my eyes take in her hand clutching onto yours the way my fingers intertwined into yours. You were my first love, you will forever be my first love. But I cannot still love you like I do so why do you make me feel the same butterflies and seasickness? You're more painful when we talk casually on the phone than the months I went just wishing I could hear your voice again. You tell me today that you made a mistake when you refused my love two years ago out of foolish pride. You tell me today you regret losing me. You tell me how your life was nothing until I came into it and I helped you more than I can ever know. You tell me all these sweet nothings like the days we spent in the tall grass my head resting on your chest. You cannot tell me these things when I know, when I know, when I know that I cannot have you like I did. And when you call me your friend, do you know how it hurts? I know you do. I know you do because you talk about how hard it must be to think about her dancing in your strong arms so shortly after they had just held me. I know you know what you are doing to me and I know that you are getting some sick pleasure from it because I know you know I still love you because you still know me and I still know you, no matter how much time has changed us, how much we have grown, how much we have learned. I cannot do this with you. I leave in August for school. You leave in December for the Marines. I cannot do this with you. I cannot spend the next few months falling all over again just to be pulled harshly back into reality. I cannot let myself keep only room for you in my heart when I have so much more love to give and feel. I need to move on. I need to walk away. I need to so badly. But I cannot when you will not let me. So please, please, please if you ever loved me at all, please let me let you go.

He will never read nor hear these words. Instead, I will just fade into his background again until he so desires to bring me into the light. And then I will cherish every blissful moment in the vicious of this first love, this never ending love, this tortuously wonderful love, this pain ridden blessed love, this...this...this is my love.

Rainy Day

like keyboard vomit let's throw some syllables together and paint a pretty picture.

can you do that or is it another thing i have to do all on my own?

watching you now is like seeing a puppy get kicked down a flight of stairs.

but oddly enough, there is no extra beat of my heart in sympathy for you.

some day, some day i will be long gone and happier than i've ever been.

what will you do when you don't have this sad little girl to push around?

everyone thinks you're so cool, so smooth but you know i know.

that must be why you try to hold me down until i cannot breathe.

but believe me, you cannot drown the truth of someone who lives a lie.

everything i do, i did it all for you yet never was it enough.

maybe when this sad scene plays on the movie screen, i'll shed a tear.

we both know the next day i cry for you, over you will be a rainy funeral.

till then just paint a pretty picture with your words reeking of booze.

and i will dance and i will laugh and i will sing and i will fucking love.

i will do all the things you wish you could but have no heart to feel.

i will be everything you dreamed of and you will be nothing to me.

Graduation.

So last night I graduated from community college with a pretty two year Associates of Arts and Sciences in General Studies.

Doesn't that just sound lovely?

It's one of those special moments in life that do not come around very often. You graduate high school, then in four or more years maybe college. It is not every day that you walk across in front hundreds of people in a horrendously unflattering cap and gown. I'm the first of my siblings to graduate anything, let alone college even before I leave high school.

And yet, strangers on the street seem to care more than my dad does. He showed up drunk. He showed up drunk to his only daughter's college graduation.

I don't even know how I'm supposed to feel about it. It isn't like I should be surprised. As a matter of fact, I should have expected it from the beginning but part of me hoped that it would be different. He would realize how important a day it was. He would be a loving and supporting father like I see in the movies, like I see when I look at my friends. He would hug me and I would feel happy in his arms for the first time since I can remember. But that was just naive of me. I'm a college graduate now.

Shouldn't I know better?

Chasing Butterflies

Skinned knees but too young to care,

The smell of lilac still hangs in the air.

Daddy said, "Butterflies make wishes come true.

Catching them is all you have to do."

Incoherent Individual

I’ve never been one to go with the flow, to follow the shepherd, to dance in perfect step. But one trait I feel that I share with the majority of people is my inability to decide. I know there are some who are given two options and there is no hesitation as to which path they take. However since I have this subconscious desire to take the road less traveled, I find myself doubting my left and my right. In a world of six billion people, how am I to know the way less chosen? Or is that even possible to do anymore? I heard someone once say that every thought has been wondered, every action has been done, every word has been spoken. Now I know that there are still so many new possibilities that have yet to be discovered in technology, nature, healthcare, and all of those vast subjects. But for a person, for one person, can they truly be an individual anymore without regards to fingerprints and DNA? Take the fact that I love the smell of “wet earth” as my mother calls it. It is the sole aroma in my grandmother’s deep, dark basement and ever since I was younger, I have pressed my cheek against the cool wall with eyes closed. Each time, I would have this strong urge actually to lick the wall because I wanted the smell to dance on my taste buds. Now I confessed this to my mother a few weeks ago in simply a casual conversation and she laughed at it, claimed it was “odd”. Of course, I agree that it is an unusual thought but surely I am not the only one with such a quirk. With that logic, how am I truly an individual when I’m merely sharing various traits, habits, identifiers with millions of others? Physically, I am aware that I am and there will never be another. Looking at my scars, it is slightly weird to think they're mine. It is as if they should be on everyone's skin. But they aren’t. They are only on mine. They are my own beautiful everyday snowflakes. I don’t know if I believe the same of thoughts, feelings, emotions. Since the dawn of time, surely there must have been one other person who has thought the same bizarre ramblings that have crossed my mind. Someone must have felt the same yet varied pull on the heartstrings to prompt rash and passionate actions. There must be, or has been, at least one other person who is as crazy as I am. And if there is, if there was, then what is to keep me from falling in line and drinking the Flavor Aid like a good little girl?