dawn

[excerpt from my short story: from roma, with love]

I picture her at that moment. a loose balloon sailing into dawn. her memories all meshing back together at once like a broken mirror in reverse. How she would have been smiling on the inside crossing into the light and for the first time in her life, she felt weightless, like her heart wasn’t too heavy for a world not cut out for those rare and precious diamond souls. How can you love someone you never knew? I don’t know how but I can. I do. Until the day I go sailing into the light I'll whisper to the wind the things I'd say to you.

invisible string

i want to lie back and float down the river of alignment. whisper my dreams to the wind and pluck desires like daisies off of the shore. it felt warm and simple. rays of sunlight melting like ribbons in dawn. him smiling in the kitchen. a wave washing over you from the ocean floor. one thing was certain, it’s always right here.

baby

he’s a song. warm scratchy vinyl and hands intertwined. i hear his thoughts and taste his voice on my tongue. he’s visceral like that and we speak the same language like that. i could tell you everything but you know. it’s an all or nothing feeling listening to that song. that song is creamy milk and a warm blanket and music you feel in your bones. it’s all i’ve really wanted, someone silly and also the most serious. do you know what i mean? that person who takes your sillyness very seriously? that person who believes in you like they breathe. his hug is more romantic than a kiss. we don’t need to talk he knows the language of my eyes. everyday is a staring contest that i like to win. his eyes say i got you babe. my eyes are his pools and he’s in deep without a flashlight, he loves to get lost in there just to find himself again. i told him secrets and he holds me tighter after that. and we’re each others safe place because only when you feel safe can you let go and surrender to your destiny.

someone so small

He whispered softly 

As I stopped listening 

Hoping to be forgiven 

For the hearts I have been breaking 

I’m still gracefully tracing 

My fingers over all the what-ifs and theories

The way they used to trace over skin.

And I’m still lacing up my old ballet flats 

To lose myself 

To the dance. The song. The cry welling inside of me. 

Until I can feel without running and hiding and pretending

My heart isn’t this big 

And your heart isn’t this big–

When we both know it is 

It is an ocean and I am swimming 

To the darkest depths 

Without a flashlight. 

I am floating in the center 

Without a life vest. 

Somehow it doesn’t scare me 

To be this scared. 

Where I’m close enough to hear your heart 

Beat in your chest & 

Feel the heat from your breath 

I am living - 

I am dying 

To be seen for the first time. 

Please see me for the first time. 

I am dying 

For someone to take a chance

On someone who feels it all 

On someone so small 

hug in the ocean

i don’t know what to do with that light; the way he sees me. the way he opens and soaks in the sunshine of the people he loves. his softness pangs in my belly like a touch so tender it could tear me in two for all the times i thought love was something else. there is a loneliness inside of him not mine to fill but i want to crawl inside and hold him from the inside out. i want to tell him that being next to him feels like the air is giving me a hug. some people feel so easy to love. some people feel like the world is warm and everybody is here.

soft as rabbit ears

i will feel the fullness of this life the way the ocean swallows the shore every night. the way the sun drapes itself over the mountains to rest. i will feel at home on dusty streets and lay by the river after a swim. i will be as soft as rabbit ears and sleep like a rock. I will drip flowers into my hair and taste like the ocean and honey and rain. i will whisper words you can’t hear that tickle your ears and smell the summer night on your hair. here’s to writing feelings on a crumpled napkin on a one-way flight. There’s a map in my dream and I’m on an arrow going straight through earth’s heart. it’s a rainy drive up the north coast. i’m thinking of him. writing a book. and the air here is lush and so heavy and rich. and this night smells like fire and pine needles and luck.

pura vida

where a road 

meets a stream 

rain falls on the tin roof 

making rivers 

beneath

the cracks in the floor 

my sister is next to me 

falling asleep

there’s a baby 

inside her 

i promise 

i stay

by her side 

in the dark 

the jungle outside me 

awakes 

there is no such thing

as silence 

there’s a snake 

in the yard 

in an old kitchen a 

pot of cacao churns 

under grandmas arm

sweet honey nectar love

I want to feel that I am connected to something greater, more expansive and forever just like I want to be wrapped in arms that do not know what it means to let go. I want to drink from the sweet honey nectar of abundance and never be turned away. I want to feel what it is to be loved by you - to feel your heart expand around me like the rising sun.

labyrinth

this morning i watched the rainbow sunrise over the north shore where mornings always feel surreal. video games by Lana plays in my headphones and I’m back to my first time on the island; barefoot, green halter top, plumeria anklet. feeling so wild and present and beautiful riding around the island in a convertible thinking about a boy . . feeling the deepest parts within me unlock as if a magic key clicked and the labyrinth of bolts slipped open all together all at once, a feeling that all was well with my soul. that i am home in the unknown.