Standing Up

You get up
and you fall down.
So you cry and you heal
but at least you know the growth is real.
Put a band-aid on your knee, wipe your tears.
You fall down
but you get back up.

My New House

In the face of love

everything in my body shook

like a house on stilts 

in a hurricane.

But I'm not worried.

A new house is coming soon.

Found Her in the Forest

You walk in and see her.
She's fierce and confident and
carries herself with a silent strength.

You ask others about her.
Most don't know much.

They tell you she has scars
on her hands from holding
her war-torn heart together,
she's got gun powder
caked under her fingernails
and calluses on her palms
from all the grenades she's
tried to stop.

They tell you she fought to be where she is and you like that.

You don't see her as they do.
You see her as a brick wall about to fall.
Strong skin but a heart more
tender than the most delicate garden.

She's shown her forest mind to few and they've always run.
But not you.

Shes hid in her forest for as long as she can remember, like a pearl
that didn't want to be found.
But you did.
You saw her.
And that's how.

That's how you got the girl.

So Much More

We wanted only a taste of the ocean, she wanted more.
When we had our backs turned she swallowed our shoes
we left behind the shore.


She always gets what she wants.
The shore and so much more.

In All My Years

They say we're all just trying to survive.

But why?

In my own personal experience 

I have found that "surviving"

dissects your heart from your soul,

making you bitter and resentful. 

In all my 20 years

this is what I have learned:

do everything you can to avoid

a hard heart, buy the shoes, make eye contact, 

forgive the boy that broke your heart and

be kind to everyone you meet.

The world looks too much like the hands of a skilled tradesmen-calloused and hard.

The world doesn't need more calloused, it needs

more compassion. 

Life's too short

to just survive.

Room

"What are you afraid of? What's holding you back?"

I guess I'm just afraid of loving someone so much

that there's not enough room

for them to love me back.