“We’re in spring and I have learned how to be gentle and sharp; strong bark on budding trees. Hold out your hands. I’ll leave a pink kiss and a pocket knife.”

Yes, this life is mine, but more often I watch it take place and my hands feel too far away to touch it.

Please come here, but not too close.

Change is not a four letter curse word I once believed it to be.

I’m thinking about how early the spring flower buds rise up from the grass; just barely on winter’s heels. How uncomfortable, how cold the soil must be, still half-frosted, when the roots start to take shape.

My love lives in my cheeks – gives me away by the first smile. all the lines from years spent laughing, warm with extra freckles in the summer; a poker face that doesn’t keep once my knees fold.

I don’t want to be a saint, I want a love I don’t fight alone to keep.

I know I could be an astronomer of this swooning.

If every feeling comes like a wave, I try to decide what kind of coastline I’ll become.

I’m choosing to believe things are getting better again. The give and take of joy, remembering a few days of ache does not mean forever.

Meet me where happiness doesn’t feel like a false spring.

Your anger, your sorrow, your fear, are okay to feel through, no matter how big it feels now.

I’ll craft a haven that that cradles every joy and sorrow, but doesn’t hold them to keep.

This does not have to be a hard life to love. There is not enough time to let it stray too far from my hands.

I never lose pieces of me, I just gain new understanding.

I’d get lost in this green, ferns leaning against the trees, soil stuck to my feet, never dream of finding my way back again.

There will be a time where this hurts less and it will not mean it didn’t matter. It means that in the face of feeling something precious slip in my hands, I will always find a way back to myself.