A List

I found a list recently. A folded up piece of paper dropped out of one of my old journals as I was unpacking. It was a list of boys. And not “THE” list (this was before then – before the letting go completely – before letting them in). This was simpler, though still lengthy enough, a documentation of boys I’d kissed. Little stars next to the ones that went below the belt, furthered my experience just a little bit more. It seemed so consequential then. The intimacy. The excitement of being wanted. Making out just for fun.

This list is a catalogue of a teenage girl who was just trying to find something.

The first. Completely unromantic and witnessed by a handful of other freshman kids just having fun. Who doesn’t love to play spin the bottle? I didn’t, but I did. And so there died the fairytale and thus begin the trail.

An older boy without a last name.

An attempt at a boyfriend, quickly abandoned.

A set up who was clearly interested in one thing I wasn’t going to give.

A nice boy I actually dated.

A boy I desperately wanted to date but who only took me to prom instead.

There are a few of those – boys that were friends. Boys that I spent a lot of time with. Boys that I thought would take me from friend to kiss to girlfriend. But they always seemed to leave me there in the middle. Dangling between what was and what would never be. Those were the ones that screwed me. Made me feel a little less worthy and a lot more like a “hook up” was as good as it would get.

So that’s what I did. I took what I could get.

The stolen kisses on drunken nights. The boys beds I slept in but never slept with. The boys I used to feel something. To get a piece of what I needed without ever being truly wanted.

It was easier to pretend I wanted what they did – nothing more than that moment (or a handful). Nothing serious.

It’s amazing how fast things spiral, how long a list can grow.

There was a period of time right before the “real world” started that I reigned it back in (as if kissing needs to be stopped). He thought it did. Thought we shouldn’t kiss. And it was in that moment I realized, I could care about my kisses and still give them. That being physical was something important to me, something I couldn’t leave out of a relationship. (Needless to say that one didn’t work out).

And so ends that list, if I had finished it.

It’s weird to have found it. It seems like another lifetime, but I suppose it was.

I am not that girl anymore (thank, God). At least not in the searching and seeking, the giving without getting, the used and being used. But I hold her inside of me. The memories and the lessons, the adolescent entanglements and goodbyes, the reminder of what was good and what wasn’t. I hold onto what it was like to be young, and carefree, and stupid. The reminiscing of boys that started to spark the desire to be loved by one. The ones I actually did (at least, in a way).

It’s a list I’m certain I don’t need to keep but I am taking a moment for the remembering too. That piece of paper is a piece of who I was. I’ve done a lot of growing up since then, but she is important too.

And so to her I’d say, this list does not define you. You are not a slut (never have been, never will be). You care too much to really want nothing. Caring will get your heart broken repeatedly, but it will also keep you hoping… So keep trying, keep searching, keep kissing. Love will find you.

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Let’s Talk About It

I’m 13 years old and middle school is a torment. I’m not one of the “popular” kids. I don’t get invited to parties on the weekends – dances in cleaned out garages with parents distantly close inside. Okay, so I went to one. I remember dancing with a new kid, probably because he was too dumb to know I wasn’t worth knowing. I loved the feeling of someone’s hands other than my own around my waist. The flirting with adolescent hormones that had just started to surge. But my strict Mennonite church background ruined the moment – You’re dancing too close. Your parents will be mad. You’re not allowed to date till you’re 16 anyway. STOP. Shame. STOP. Guilt. You’re doing something wrong. But was I? The fabric of my entire adolescence and early adulthood was being laid out before my eyes, and I didn’t even know it.

My first kiss happened exactly like it does in the movies. Boy meets girl. They fall in love. It’s a picture perfect exchange of feelings. Or at least, that’s the way I always imagined it would go because you know a kiss is a sacred thing. You don’t just give those away to anyone. But I did. Two in one night. Spin the Bottle. As if it could get any less classy. The second boy and I “dated” for a whopping two weeks, meeting up just one other time to make out before we “broke up.” It’s tragic, isn’t it? Firsts hold this hype that they’re going to be phenomenal, change your life. But they don’t, other than to let you down. And so firsts become seconds become thirds become I better stop counting because to keep track most certainly means I’m a slut.

Which I wasn’t, of course. A “make out” free spirit, maybe. Cuz, gosh, that was fun. Kissing someone for the first time was like a brand new rollercoaster ride. Exhilarating, full of adrenaline, and never knowing quite what came next. No one kisses quite the same. It’s like trying a new flavor of ice cream, one that will never be replicated with the next. Each is it’s own sort of delicious experiment. So, I kissed a lot. And, I got good at it.

Still, to my great pride, I made it all the way through college with my virginity still in tact. Cuz as any good Christian girl knows, that’s what matters. Nobody wants to buy the cow when they can get the milk for free… Okay. So it was probably relayed in different terms, like, remain pure or become damaged goods. There’s a reason I was given a “purity ring” in my early teens. And yet another reason I stopped wearing it. How much purity did you have to lose before you no longer had any hope for the blessed marriage they preached? Luckily, this message came up short in regards to my one and only but… I gave up plenty along the way.

So let’s talk about it shall we? “The first time.” Which time? The first that I didn’t choose or the one that I did. A juxtaposition of two boys with very different roles in my life, but whose lasting effect on me would be ultimately the same. Moments in which lust was large and respect was an illusion. I told boy number two about boy number one before we “did it.” We’d been friends for years, so he was supposed to care about the guy who had taken my consent for foreplay and pushed it too far. The guy who silenced me. The guy who hurt me. The guy who forced his way to what he wanted. But, he too only cared about getting far enough. And I had trusted him for years so I let him. But long drawn out friendships are not the pathways to love, they are just an excuse to get physical enough to try.

I’m in college in a new town all by myself, knowing no one. So I Skype with one of my best guy friends from high school, who happens to be a really great Christian guy. You know, the one who always lead worship on Sunday mornings, the one who bought me a devotional for my birthday. So, it starts innocently enough. Except, as I said, I’m lonely. I don’t think I’ll ever hear “Sexy B*tch” by David Guetta again without cringing. You can let your imagination figure out what happens when you combine said music and video chat. It’s probably what you think it is. Which also turned into what it should have never been. Getting physical. In person. Turning something trusted into something more. And with it, tainting once again the idea that Christian boys and girls remain pure at all times. Looking back, it’s probably why I wrapped a lot of hope up in that boy. The idea that he’d save me from myself. That yes, we had faltered, but if it ended up meaning something more that would lessen the fall. Alas, it didn’t and I continued on most certainly tainted.

So here I was, a twenty-something with way too extensive of a history for my very conservative Christian upbringing. (And let’s not forget that mounting pile of shame). Mix that in with a little alcohol and a whole lot of longing for the real deal and I found myself in one hell of a mess.

And gosh, messes are fun at the time. You know you shouldn’t get involved but there’s something kind of intriguing about rolling around where you don’t belong. So I’m in my mid-twenties and I try to turn “fun and crazy” into something like love. It’s the most physical relationship I’ve ever been in to this point. I’m 24 and never been on birth control, but now I am. I crave him like a drug. I guess, that’s what lust is. And eventually it becomes so deep that you convince yourself it is love. And, ironically, I still believe it was. Love on steroids, maybe. Jacked up, found through less than normal circumstances, and never sustainable in reality. I fell hard. And all the while that little voice in the back of my head was screaming – STOP. “This is wrong. This is not what you want.” But, I did. I wanted it. So much so that I “broke up” with him over a year later only to keep sleeping with him while he “dated” someone else. I have never fallen farther. I held on tighter instead of letting go because I was too damaged to believe I could come back from this.

Every scenario took me one step farther in a pattern that began with that first dance. Do something. Feel guilty. Do something more. Feel guilty again. Have something done to you, blame it on yourself for being in that situation in the first place. Good Christian girls don’t put themselves in those kind of situations. Good Christian girls don’t let it go too far. Good Christian girls don’t flirt with their bodies. Good Christian girls don’t fall for the wrong boy. Good Christian girls save themselves for marriage. Feel guilty? You should. Feel worthless? You should. Feel unworthy of love? You should.

And, I did. Sometimes, I still do. That’s the thing with patterns. Even when they reach their end the fabric of their influence is so deeply woven into who you are that you sometimes forget it stopped defining you a long time ago. Or rather, that it never did.

Purity culture tried to barricade my self-worth.

It didn’t preach a message of grace, instead it was laden with fear and shame – holding hands will lead to feeling up will lead to this will lead to sex. So don’t hold hands, lest it lead you down the path of sin. Save yourself. (One message I once heard in a high school youth group). Or another – once you give a piece of yourself away you can never get it back. Which is true, in the way that I can’t take back the kisses I’ve given or the beds I’ve slept in. But false in the way in which it says who I am or what I’m worth. I remember far too many messages about what we shouldn’t do, and yet little if anything about what to do if we did.

I’m fifteen or so and at a high school youth conference somewhere in the hills. And of course, I’m googly eyed for a boy. He’s a couple years older. And I remember simply leaning against him, holding his hand and my youth pastor’s wife pointing to the ring on her finger and saying “you don’t have a license to do that.” As if I had to be married to feel something.

I was feeling it then. I had teenage hormones raging through my body, but instead I was supposed to just ignore them because it was the “right thing to do.” As if attraction was wrong. That yes, God designed sexual desire but you better learn to hold it at bay. At least until the day my Knight in Shining Armor came riding in on his horse and whisked me off my feet, gave me a wedding ring, and called me his wife. Then I would be “allowed.”

I’m here to say BULLSHIT. And not to say that I don’t believe in God’s design for marriage and for sex. Lord knows the battle I’ve had to endure overcoming all that guilt. But I do believe that pile of guilt would have been more like a small dust mound if I hadn’t grown up believing that sexual sin was the absolute worst kind. I know I’m not the first to denounce purity culture. It was a movement largely present in the 90s and early 2000s, and many an article has come out of about its affects since then. I’m simply speaking to my own experience. I could have saved myself a whole lot of pain if the adults in my life had simply been real. Real honest. Real open. Real accepting about the reality of the desires I had that were what God created them to be… natural.

I have spent years overcoming the shame I felt as a result of that message burned into my brain.

I dated a guy in college who was a born again Christian. Meaning, he had a past. He wasn’t a virgin, he used to drink, etc. I met him after. We became friends in a very protected bubble and started dating. I kissed him, once, after a road trip. He told me later on that we shouldn’t do that. And instead of feeling like, “AWW! Here it is! The perfect godly man who respects me and wants to wait that they’ve been telling me about my whole life!” I again, felt shame. Because, I wanted to. Because, I did.

The reality is I like to kiss. Hell, my husband and I did a lot more than that before he asked me to be his wife.

I am not damned because I entered my wedding night “less whole.”

But, the pattern remains. So I’m working through it. It’s taken a lot of time and a lot of counseling. It’s caused strife in my marriage simply because something I want to do for my husband, once upon a time, made me feel dirty. Made me feel less then. But those choices do not define me. And they certainly don’t factor in to my worthiness in God’s kingdom. 

Take Rahab for example. She was a prostitute, yet she found favor with God. He loved her and protected her despite her choices because she had faith in Who He was and what He said. 

I may have been raised in purity culture, but I was also raised with a faith in the true God. The One who says He loves me in spite of my mistakes, or rather, because of them. He created me uniquely and perfectly in His image, sexual desires and all. And while I acknowledge the reasons why sex was designed for marriage, I also know that I don’t have to carry shame because my first experiences were outside it. 

I have “grace” tattooed on the inside of my wrist because that is truly the character of God that spoke the most to me during those tumulterous years of struggle between what I desired and who I thought I should be. It is not about what I’ve done. He loved me while I was still a sinner, which lets be honest, I still am. But because I truly believe in Who He says He is, I am saved from the pain that comes with those choices. And I am certainly free from the guilt that Purity Culture wanted to tack on as extra penance. 

I am not damaged goods. My worthiness as a wife and a mother are not tainted because of the choices I made in my teens and twenties. On the contrary, God has used those experiences to reveal His character to me in extremely beautiful ways. As a Healer, as a Protector, as a Father, as a Lover, as a Friend. One who values me, accepts me, and calls me as His own. 

At times I still wish I could rewrite the story, but instead, I’ll use it. To serve as a testimony to the Truth. 

My chains are gone, I’ve been set free. 

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I Felt That.

“It’s the ones who never loved you enough that come to you when you can’t sleep.” — Warren, Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

I once imagined I’d write a book about them. A chapter for each of the boys who broke my heart, loved me less than I deserved. Sometimes, that idea still creeps into my thoughts. How easy it would be to catalog the way it was, the way we were, the way we were never going to be. Would I use their real names or change them out of courtesy? Either way, they’d know. Of course they’d know.

I’m afraid this tragedy began with falling for best friends. It’s a tragedy because it never seems to go quite right. One simply loves the other first or too late. And that love is taken advantage of because of the friendship… no matter what happens, we’ll be friends. But, that’s bullshit. You can’t love someone and then try to go backward. It hurts too much. And that’s one of the worst kind of heartbreaks in my opinion, losing a love but losing someone that was your friend first. Someone who knew all your secrets, someone who would hold you while you cried, someone you could call in the middle of the night. Someone who understood what made you you…

When they’re gone they take all these memories with them. Things you’ll never get to share again. And inevitably, when you think of monumental times in your life, they will always be there. Like when your Aunt died. Or when you were alone at a new school and relied on Skype too much. When you used to care more about finding meaningful music because someone else wanted to give it to you. Your first time.

And then you grow up a little and decide falling for best friends isn’t such a great idea, so you decide to fall for assholes instead. And I’m not saying to the core, because every asshole has some good in them somewhere. But I’m saying the kind of assholes who want you but not enough to really commit to you. Whether that’s for a few months or over a year and a half. They’re never going to be truly yours, because they aren’t even their own.

These are the boys that are a little reckless, a hell of a lot of fun, and ultimately, the ones who hurt you the most. It’s like a game, wanting them. Chasing them. Laying all your cards out on the table to have them. And when that doesn’t work, acting a little like a psycho-path because they make you question everything about who you are – your self worth, your truth, your ability to be loved.

That’s what haunts you. Not being loved enough. Not being enough. To make them want you and keep you. Or at the very least to be faithful while they string you along.

And maybe that’s what eats me apart the most. Knowing I wasn’t the only one but choosing to stay. Settling for far beneath what I knew I deserved to simply try to stay apart of someone’s life that was clearly never going to give me what I needed. The half-hearted apologies and empty promises. Followed by sex, sex, and more sex. That makes you think – I am wanted. This is good.

And maybe, parts of it were. Of course they were. Or else it wouldn’t have happened in the first place. Love is beautiful. Even when it’s met on unequal ground, it’s beautiful because it happened. But it’s also very painful, because loving means giving someone a part of yourself. A piece of your soul. And you never fully get that back. Those memories, that intimacy, they will always belong to that person and that moment in time. Sure, you heal and you move on. But the story has still been written.

“That’s why it’s a dangerous thing, when you go loving the wrong person. When you love somebody who doesn’t deserve it. You have to be with someone that deserves your faith and you have to be deserving of someone else’s. It’s sacred.” — Billy, Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

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Only in My Dreams

I often dream about
memories I’ve never had
with people I no longer know.

He strums his guitar softly
like my head upon his chest
and I love him once more.

I see our kids playing
even though they’ve never met
and probably never will.

We run miles together
never having missed a step
like true friends would.

He apologizes to me
for everything he never said
and everything he did.

She says we’re friends
always have and always will be
over beers and summer sun.

He’s a nice guy
doesn’t push or force and
I take back that night

again

and

again

and

In my dreams everything
is as it should be
or should have been.

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As If It Never Was

We fall in love, get married, and have babies. We exit the realm of dating and screwing (up) to find our way and become ourselves. The us we always knew we’d be. The “picture perfect” family. The ones who suddenly have it all together because there is a ring and a commitment. As if our old selves never were. As if they disappear with the words “I do.”

I wish that were true. But I still wake up with the ghost of you. Of all of you. The has beens and the wish I hadn’ts. The nights I barely remember with the someones I wish I could forget. The someones I loved. The someones I wanted to. You haunt me with what once was. The feeling I could have been better. Done better. Loved you less and myself more.

I wish I could say I never think about you. But, I’d be lying. You are my past. However messy and intolerable. You are the loves I never wanted, but somehow needed to get here. You are the rollercoasters of my youth. The highs and lows of a life that thrilled me, ignited me, broke me. The kisses that meant everything and nothing. The affection that came on like a fire and drowned me like a flood. The doubt that you made me carry about myself and my ability to love and be loved. The reminder of you so heavy I swear I’ll never be free.

You are now a part of who I am. And I know that makes you feel good about yourself, like you’re unforgettable. And maybe, in some ways, you are. I’ll never forget loving you. I’ll never forget losing you. I’ll never forget how you held me when I lost someone I loved or how we hiked Harney Peak at sunset or the day you told me you loved me. I’ll never forget my first time. I’ll never forget our last time. I’ll never forget the mixed tapes you made me or watching Friday Night Lights or your old Ford pickup truck at that wedding by the lake. I’ll never forget the way you looked standing in my kitchen in those blue jeans or your smile. I’ll never forget that once upon a time you were someone who meant something.

The beautiful memories come just like the air. I breathe in. Let go.

The pain is harder to exhale. It swoops in like a thunderstorm and rains over this life I have built and hold so dear. It taunts me to question what I know is true. To doubt the one man who has loved me in spite of you and what you put me through. To think less of myself because that is all I used to do.

I wish the bad blood had vanished when you did. But there are consequences for loving you.

You made me feel like I wasn’t enough. That I was pretty enough to touch but too hard to hold. You used me to feel something, but not everything. I suppose I let you. You threw the word love around like a net. Just enough to pull me back in. I was never going to be your keeper. You sought affection from others in spite of how hard I tried to love you. You devalued my worth. You dated others before me, after me. I was never as good as what came before but was worth hanging onto by a string in the midst of what came next. I never understood how I was worth missing or apologizing to. When you had me, you sure didn’t seem to care.

We both knowing the caring was my job. Too much, right?

I wish I could say I never think about you. But that would mean you meant nothing. And you (all) were everything.

You grew me from an adolescent teenager in need of a best friend to a woman trying to figure out what love was and wasn’t. What it is and isn’t. You were the wrong guy, so many times. But you were the right guy, then. You showed me what’s worth fighting for. You taught me to value myself, instead of expecting someone else to be my whole heart. You broke me, made me beautiful. You made me strong.

You are a part of who I am. And maybe we don’t talk about it. Because I’ve left you behind. Because I’ve moved on. To a man that met me where you couldn’t. Who loves me like you wouldn’t. Who values me like you didn’t. A man who fought the lies you told me with truth. A man who told me I was worth holding onto. Who proves that to me every day.

But it’s not as if you never were.

You were the stepping stones to my forever.

So, for that, I thank you.

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I Know It Well.

There is a place that still belongs to you, a reminder for my still fractured heart.

A friend recently told me she still cries, sometimes, when she thinks of her first fiancé. A love that was but wasn’t: enough, whole, right. A happy marriage and two beautiful kids will never erase what once was. For memories are merely wrinkles etched upon your soul. Pieces of a past that will forever influence your present and your future.

There is a place that still belongs to you, at 3 AM when nothing make sense.

A dream for the nights I miss you. That soft voice and steady laugh. Mornings wrapped up in your arms. The way I feel you touch me there. Again. Again. Again. The best I’ve ever had. The worst I’ve ever had. A nightmare for the nights I hate you. The lies you whispered like sweet nothings to disguise the other women in your head, in your bed. I fall back asleep praying to forget you.

There is a place that still belongs to you, a lesson I’m still learning.

A never ending supply of writing material. The book I have yet to write. Someday I’ll plaster you across chapters. Someday I’ll categorize our failures into lovely phrases more constructive than our conversations. I’ll make love to you in words, and in the same breath, I’ll tear you apart syllable by syllable. There are no promises to be made for treating our story with grace. The same way you broke every promise you ever made.

There is a place that will always belong to you, a reminder of what love isn’t.

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Kaleidoscope Keepsakes.

Explosions in the sky sounds like you —that easy silence, every breath telling me you felt it too. I hear tears next to memories of all the things we used to do. And, still it calms me. The soft ebb and flow of the chords singing syllables only known to me. And, once to you. Music isn’t the same without you. It’s been years and last week was the first Bon Iver has once again come through my speakers. It doesn’t hurt the way it used to. Just lost, like having a home you no longer know the way back to. Your favorite highway, divided, widened, made public. Nothing is sacred once it’s shared. Never the same the second time, the last time. 
The first time I fell in love I was young, naïve. I’m not sure I even knew what it meant. Different is frightening at 17. Easier to run 700 miles away, pretend reality was only make believe. Love is just a a fairytale until you’re ready.
The last time I fell in love was messy. The way your room feels after a trip. Dirty laundry and unpacked memorabilia strewn across the floor. It’s home, just not clean. You can’t live this way for long, even though you want to. Even though it’s easier to ignore. But love should never be lazy, never feel like a chore.  
Sometimes I think about you, when I’m with him. His tongue moves differently than yours did. He doesn’t know how I like it in bed. Like the time, with the scarf, on the chair. Maybe that’s why you’re meant to be with one person that way. Intimacy is hard to erase. You miss this. Compare that. Start thinking I’m not over it all over again.  
Again, and again. You’re expected to play the game but nobody tells you how many losses you’re going to take when you start. The more I try the less I know. The more I see the less I want to be anything but alone. I’m honest. Too honest. And I’m scared the one person who gets that about me will be the only one who ever will. 10 years and I still want to look to him for advice, for approval, for relief. The pause when nothing else makes sense. He is my late night conversation and my phone call home. The one I think about when I can’t think anymore. Something to hang onto, that song you’ll always remember because of the memories you’ll never forget. Never regret.

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The Ghost of You.

Sometimes, I sleep with the ghost of you. With the memories that are still warm and easy to curl up in. You hold me tight with all the words I’ll never forget. The ones I wanted to believe you meant. The ones I held onto too long. I lay next to the handful of nights I thought you’d stay. When love was something I felt instead of just another line you played.

Sometimes, I sleep with the ghost of you. I lose hours wrapped up in your arms. You kiss me over and over again. My toes curl; I lose control. We have sex like it’s the last time every time. I cuddle up with what’s been lost and what will never be again. You were the love I thought I wanted. I was the girl you never did. This bed is now as empty as your promises.

Sometimes, I sleep with the ghost of you. I lay next to the images I wish I could forget. The ones of you with her and her and her. The empty look in your eyes as I cried. The ones where you genuinely stole my heart. Holding me tight in your arms as you told me everything would be alright. I lay next to the memories of sadness and regret. You were my biggest mistake, my hardest heartbreak, my fucked up love.

I sleep with the ghost of you, sometimes. And, I pray I never meet anyone like you again.

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Nothing is Holy Anymore.

It’s Sunday

I want to read a book
In my oversized chair but
We had sex there
Hands pulled back
With only syllables
Writing a fantasy
I only just confessed

and I think
nothing is holy anymore.

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Just Maybe

Maybe, sex could have saved us.

Your heart was where I wanted to be, when, perhaps, I should have let you inside me. For us both to feel what we needed, how we needed it.

I gave you too little too late.

An after thought to what I craved the whole time. Too afraid to give you something that meant everything and nothing all at once.

My love was never enough.

Words I’ll never say to you are heard by blank pages over and over again. I would have fought for us, but you never gave me the chance.

A summer fling that meant everything.

I should have let you go all the way, like other girls have done since. They gave you what I never did, and maybe that’s what ruined us.

I’ll never really know.

My imagination runs wild with the could haves and should haves. I cared for you with my whole heart, yet neglected to complement that with my whole body.

The lie was that we were beautiful enough.

A precious moment in time I will never forget and never regret. Except that I lost you. And continue to lose you every time I hear of you with someone new.

You didn’t want me enough.

Or, was it that you wanted me too much. And, it scared you. To feel something so serious again. You weren’t ready to commit so you let me go.

It kills me to see you now.

Not believing you deserve someone who treasures who you are. A gentle man characterized by humor and determination. Wanting love but not believing you deserve it. Settling for cheaters and superficial nights in bed. You should be respected, and respect yourself. You are worth so much more than you think.

I saw that every day.

And how I wish to see it again. To be there for you the way I used to be. But we lost the friendship we once built back.

Maybe, sex could have saved us.

If I could do it over, I would risk it all for you.

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Let’s Get Naked.

Let me be naked next to you.

The heart speaks volumes next to someone it trusts. Conversation explodes as honesty shows. All you always wanted but never knew how to obtain. The vulnerability and security of letting someone in. The comfort of knowing you’re not alone. That you will never be alone again. Two hearts beat as one. The way it was created to be. The way you’ve always meant to me. A piece to my puzzle I never knew was missing. I say things I’ve never said and become someone I never was. Come next to me and give me your heart as I’ve tried to give you mine. All that’s lost I promise you’ll find. Forever is how long I’ll fight for you.

Let me be naked next to you.

All the secrets you’ve never wanted to expose. The dark places that you make you unworthy of love. The testaments of nights gone wrong. A person you never were or want to be again. Go back to all the places you’ve escaped from. Revisit the aftermath of brokenness, horror, and misunderstanding. Those are the places you’ve come to fear the most. The same places I’m dying to visit. If only to bring a light you never knew was there. A tunnel toward the reason why. Things only break to be mended and made better again. I will sew you back together. Make you new. We will be each others exception.

Let me be naked next to you.

Flaws are the things we see wrong with ourselves. The same things that are beautiful to someone else. The way you’re beautiful to me. I see ribs gently rising under exposed skin as you flex. I touch your arms as your muscles tighten. I trace the lines on your back slowly with my finger, gradually making my way to where it ends. That’s where it begins. All I ever wanted to be, with you. Two bodies moving in rhythm. The same way your lips speak with your tongue. How your eyes flicker open in intense moments. How you grasp tighter and I know exactly what you want. Together is where we’re meant to be.

Let me be naked next to you.

The promise of not always getting what you want. Fighting for something when we feel like there is nothing left. Trample on my heart as I tell you lies. Pull on me as I push back. Yell for no reason as I walk away for the same. The beauty is what we know remains. A genuine connection to love and to love again. What we knew we always wanted but were to afraid to have. This is what it means to be alive. Taking the good with the bad and the ugly. Never knowing what comes next but always know you have each other. We’d give each other a million second chances, because that’s what you do when you love someone.

Let me be naked next to you.

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I Wrote This For You.

A memory.

The sultry summer air is dancing on tip toe, caressing the space between our fingers. Yours grasp tighter, and I tingle. The sun has long fallen behind faded violet clouds. It is only us. Finally, us. The trees and the hilltops watch from afar. The dirt gives way to tired hiking shoes. Hidden creatures listen to cautious chatter. It’s the start of something unknown again. The way it always is when something begins. The uncertainty of what comes next. I wonder how you kiss. Or, how your hands will feel underneath my shirt, on my bare body, on places you only dream of. I wonder how you taste. I trace the outline of your lips in my head, imagine mine closing in and the way they’ll travel down your skin. I wonder if we’ll ever love, or if you’re capable of it. I know nothing about you. What should scare me turns me on. I get lost in the possibility of you, and hope for what I may never know.

A memory.

It’s Christmas time. I’m sitting in a pile of handwritten letters. All addressed to you. To the boy who stole my heart, changed my world, strengthened my faith. The long nights spent cuddling on your parents couch. The embarrassing display of tears and explicit stories told. You were the one person who saw me through every storm, even when I felt like I’d never find land again. It’s all there. In the torn pages from my journal. The typed on white computer paper. The small shreds of bible verses turned into poems. I gave you my heart in a manilla envelope, sentences and sentiments I will never get back. The same as you. Gone forever. A package never to be returned. Still, I thank you. You made me believe in unspeakable friendship. Proved it’s possible to live through devastating loss.

A memory.

One o’clock in the morning. We’re lying in the middle of a quiet highway, twisted between countryside and mountain air. The first time I’ve seen you in years. Now we’re beneath the stars. You ask me what I would do if things were different. I think about your girlfriend. The one I didn’t know you had. I don’t answer. You know that I would kiss you. I don’t, because I know you’d kiss me back. We just lay there. The music we’ve shared over the past six months plays softly on portable speakers, mixes with the gentle hum of crickets and fireflies. We talk about everything, as if the last five years never separated us. I fall in love with the promise of shared emotions, hope, and passion. This is not my fairytale. But it’s out there, hidden in genuine conversations and familiar songs. You never called me yours, but you gave me truth. The possibility to be wanted for who you are inside.

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