Be Gentle With Yourself

Dear High School, Why are you so manipulative? Why are you so naïve and ignorant? Why do you corner us in this 4 year trap? Why do you portray yourself as a place of endless possibilities and support, but in actuality exist as a cage of deceit and judgement? Why do you tear down our confidence by exaggerating our flaws and faults? Why are you blind to our inner beauty and integrity? Why do you cloud our sanguinity with regret and guilt? Why must you knock us down over and over again, and make it impossible to stand? Why do you hide hope and courage behind an unsolvable puzzle, while placing fear and doubt in front of us? Why do you desensitize us to empathy and trust? Will you ever let us win this treacherous battle? Dear High School, I am lost and confused. I've been left behind in the dust of manipulation and lies. I've been bemused byy the deception and invective words thrown in my face. I've been past my breaking point, but now I've been assembled. Each mistak...

I wish I could go back. Back to when I was falling asleep on you at church, with you gently playing with my hair. Drifting in and out as the preacher's words float around my head. I wish we were back there. Back to the innocence and simplicity of life. Back to when I was your pure perfect angel...unable to cause harm. I wish we didn't have to fight. About curfew and boys. About right and wrong. I wish we weren't so similar. Stubborn and persistent. Caring and opinionated. I wish we weren't so different. "Good versus Bad" My hatred for confrontation, and your love of expression. I wish you were my best friend. Calling you when I'm caught. Asking you for advice and homework help. I wish I didn't screw up. Or let you down over and over again. I wish I hadn't bruised and broken your image of me. I wish you still looked at me with hope. I wish the disappointment would leave your eyes. I wish I still made you smile, and nev...

Me: I hate these days. The days where the walls close in on you, the ceiling falls towards you, and the air crushes you. The air feels like a mix of Elmer's Glue and glass shards.............I always loved peeling Elmer's Glue off my hand. You can't fill your lungs. You're trying to get oxygen to your fingers and toes, but the glue has seeped into your veins, into your bones. A permanent block in your lifeway channel. It's all just a little harder on these days. Harder to smile, harder to move, harder to sit, harder to eat, to drink. Even harder to take a hit. I hate these days. The days that challenge my every thought. That remind me of my unerasable past. That past that continually lines my thoughts and actions. The days that fill me with doubt. Am I as strong as I was yesterday? Why is this happening today? Where did the hope go. It was just here! That flower I smelled yesterday, that dash of sunlight that turned the sagebrush into an enchanting st...

So my wise and life loving Aunt Joanne told me in March of 2018 that she and my Aunt Judy were doing a bucket list type adventure where every main 5 years they were doing things they'd never done before. She was currently working on 65 new things before they turned 65! I love this idea because it doesn't have to be crazy things like skydiving, touching every continent, or swim with sharks...it could be! But it could be something little that you've always wanted to experience... so Marlae and I created our lists. I had 9 months to complete 25 new things. 1. Learn to drive a Manual -Did this in Europe, a good mix of break downs, exhilaration when I knew what was happening, and some close calls with almost hitting pedestrians. I don't think I feel the urge to ever do it again, especially not in downtown Amsterdam.  2. Experience First Friday in Fort Collins - Historic Downtown Fort Collins is home to a vibrant art community! Each month during First Friday Gal...

Who provided me the bricks I built this fortress with? Who is the architect of this bastille around me, with no moat to be seen. Spending months yearning for an escape route, begging to understand how it’s come to this. When did I become cold? When did I become so hard to know? How did I become the person that gets nauseous seeing engagement pictures, feeling bitter towards those that have found love? Mocking the basic pictures of a beautiful hand that could never be mine, due to the bloody stumps that lie at the end of my fingers. Was it you, first love? The first guy that made my heart jump. The one that first made me believe that true love existed in soft rock and mayday parade lyrics. The one that made my hands sweaty, and that created the story of ever after in my head. Who opened this world of "love" to me. The one that in the daylight stood by my side when I first learned what breaking is, and who viciously reminded me that ITS NOT YOUR FAULT. And the same one th...

find the new beginnings the smell of snow and rain the energy of the moon during transition that fly that lands on your knee in the opening of spring find it in nature you belong there walk into the canyon arms you are an old friend the mother I never had and the father I know too well. a new partner, a lover when the leaves fall and the birds sing on that first silent snowfall, with the moon swinging above in the disarray of the stars and in the trunks that hold the canopy up find your hope search for it in every smell, sight, and feeling believe in it, cling to it, wrap your limbs around it and never let it go.

12 years ago I carved my first scars. She asked me to help, but couldn't stop. I wanted to help, so I started. 11 years ago I had fallen into a hole of fake smiles and a hatred for myself that I couldn't name. 10 years ago was despair, nothing to believe in except the words on my wrist to convince myself there was something more. 9 years ago I was weightless, skin and bones, and craving the destruction of myself. 8 years ago I was weighed down by you, while carving my skin in secret. 7 years ago it was all new yet the sadness and anger still bleeding from my soul. 6 years ago I was escaping my shelter of shame and confusion to a whole new independent disarray. 5 years ago didn't exist; slathered in hangovers, cigarettes, and mistakes. Blurred from reality. 4 years ago I fell, I slammed, and then I awoke. 3 years ago I questioned, I decided, and I hoped. 2 years ago everything was scary and wild. I was alive on top of mountains, my soul screaming. 1 yea...