“I wish you could feel it when it’s dark at night, and I think of you when I pass the streetlights. But I know you feel the care without me being there.”

It felt vulnerable to have people know my weaknesses, but there is so much strength from going back to the start and re-determining who you are.

Let go of the honey-sweet lies for the bittersweet truths.

When you and the world are out of breath, take the steps to ensure your own needs are met. By the moment you know someone can’t on their own, you’ll hopefully be ready to help.

I carry on knowing that when I deteriorate, my body will be a museum of all I can do and all that hindered me.

It’s really hard to grow up wanting to provide people with resources and support and realizing that while I can and will do that – I also need more than I thought I would.

The thought of you having to try hurts because it feels like you should have known to let me go before you grabbed ahold.

Tell me I’m sun-kissed, but you burn my skin. And you already told me, I was paper thin.

They hit like waves, the memories of those old summer days. Memories you’d have thought to erase, but they crash ashore without haste.

I write poems of the past; they reveal the reasons we didn’t last.

My body is a field site of muscle memory and weathered bones.

I can’t take it all in or else I’ll grow cold when the heat already escapes my fingers and toes.

Healing means looking within when you want to move on. Healing means letting go when your grip is too tight.

When you write me into your story, don’t set my end in stone. Feel free to let me go. I’d like to join your story, but remember I have my own.

I want to tell them how tired I am because I don’t think it shows. But maybe it’s the same for them – all strangers to the weight each of us carries. So alone, we carry these loads.

Reading has always been my sweetest escape, but I write to convey that which I want to escape or what scares me to say, even if it’s something positive.

We’re so distant, words can’t save us.