but i realized some bigger dreams of mine (taylor swift @ raymond james stadium | 10/31/15)

last night, taylor swift started playing fifteen on an acoustic guitar and my heart leapt into my throat. you know those times when you feel all the tears and the years burning behind your eyes? that was me. eyes shining; singing along at the top of your lungs; remembering how you felt exactly this way, but now you know better. you're not fifteen anymore; not eighteen anymore; not twenty anymore. you made it to the other side, and it's a goddammed celebration.

but before then, and after then -

jumping to your feet when the stadium lights go out. the screaming reaching a fever pitch. taylor swift, a vision in a purple skirt and sparkly jacket and white ray-bans: it's been waiting for you. whipping off those sunglasses and flashing a million-dollar smile you swear is meant just for you. flashing colors illuminating every single person. standing there with lights in your eyes and a grin on your face like you're a little kid again. shouting break-up songs that feel so powerful it's like they're reaching back through time to say, look at me now. stomping and fist-pumping through bad blood and screaming that hey! 55,000 voices strong. watching this 25-year-old genius fairy princess CEO perform delightedly with a legend; watching her perform just as enthusiastically with a brand-new artist singing a brand-new song. talking to the audience and making you feel like she knows you, understands you, wants you to joyfully live your life. haters gonna hate hate hate, but who cares - dance it out, watch those fireworks burst, burn burn burn fabulously into the night. i buy it, i drink the kool-aid, but most of all i believe every word.

this has been the best year of my life. me too, taylor, me too.

i said shut up and dance with me

sometimes it's really weird how, say, a song from 2014 can remind you so acutely of a moment from 2008.

even the stars look lonesome sometimes

a long time ago someone told me that what i wrote reminded him of maya angelou. i had no idea how much of a compliment that was, and how unworthy i was of that comparison.

what a fantastic, wise, talented lady. rest in peace.

i got this feeling on a summer day

i haven't written about pensacola.

i haven't written about pensacola because i never thought i would be missing it. i never thought i'd look back on that year and a half with nostalgia, that i'd miss familiar hangouts and stupid silly nights and days that seemed insignificant at the time. i knew i'd miss some people, but not with the sharp pangs that are usually reserved for things like notre dame and london.

i haven't written about pensacola, because in my head it somehow feels like we haven't really left. leaving college and leaving london were final because we all left at once; the places couldn't be the same, even if we went back. but pensacola goes on without us; our friends are still there, business as usual, and we were the ones who were airlifted out and dropped here in the wide expanse of texas. sometimes it's hard to watch life go on without you.

i haven't written about pensacola because i never thought i'd sit on my couch longing for a night out on the one main street, or an overpriced sugary drink at a beach bar, or wanting one more float down the river (well, okay, i did think of that one).

i haven't written about pensacola because part of pensacola was really hard. part of pensacola was crying myself to sleep and feeling insecure about making friends and missing everyone and everything. but part of pensacola was also pulling myself out of that rut, with the help of jeff and old friends and new friends and family and music that felt like it was made for me at just the right time.

i haven't written about pensacola because a part of me wants to keep it close to my heart, and i fear that if i let it out that'll mean that it's really over, that i've left it behind for good.

i haven't written about pensacola because i haven't been able to find the words to say that a place i thought we'd just be passing through ended up being just as important as the ones i hold most dear.

that magic that we got nobody can touch

there's just something about those times when you see your friends again and everything about it is perfect, right down to everyone's little imperfections. there's just something about smiles and hugs and telling stories too quickly because you're afraid your time will run out before you know it. there's just something about crying from happiness at a friend's wedding because their love and joy makes your heart overflow. there's just something about glancing at another friend at your table through your tears, and seeing that she's sobbing too.

there's just something about friends who refuse to give up, who won't let something like distance or work or the million things that keep us busy come between us, no matter how long its been since we've talked.

sometimes i worry that our group will splinter but it's weekends like this that remind me that we have something that lasts.

on sunday afternoon as we drove through middle of nowhere, ohio, we sat in companionable sleepy silence as we listened to music and watched the fields pass us by. over the years, we've gotten further and further removed from the people we were when we were cramming for tests and laying sprawled on our hallway floor. but that weekend, and in that moment in the car, it felt like the two versions of ourselves were finally reconciling with each other. we can be both. we can love both. we can move on, and change for the better, but there's a part of us that will always be the same.

fob @ verizon wireless amphitheatre | 9/28/13

i want so badly to write down everything i remember, but at the same time i want to hold it tight to my chest and never let it go. last night was joy. pure, unadulterated, incandescent joy. i could keep putting corny adjectives before the already somewhat corny word "joy," but i'll hold myself back. the point is, i thought that last night was going to be emotional and that i would probably cry and that it would be a cathartic experience due to the fact that lot of those songs got me through some of the more difficult parts of my life. but instead of reflecting those harder times, the concert reflected the fact that i had gotten through, and that i had made it to the other side. at the risk of sounding even cornier, the whole damn thing was a celebration of growing up and triumph and being different and not caring what other people think and loving yourself and loving everything. it was joyous and beautiful and just so, so much fun.

believers never die. thank you, thank you, thank you.

i couldn't stop smiling all night.

come together, come apart

change is coming. it feels like summer just started and suddenly, we're in september, and the months have become weeks have become days. my life is always a countdown to something and the next one's already started. i always get emotional in the face of change; a mixture of sadness at leaving and anticipation of something new. but the best thing about change is that there's always something to look forward to, even if they getting there is rough. we only have a few weeks left and we're stuffing that time full of everything it can handle. every day i wake up to sun, every day the clouds roll in. sometimes the gray lingers and sometimes the skies open up and the rain dumps down on us. sometimes the lightning cracks so loud it makes us jump. i'm always on a precipice, you see; i'm always looking for that edge, 'cause life is boring when you've got flat empty space for miles. i always need to feel something, whether it's that knife in the chest or that rollercoaster stomach-jump. i'm reaching out my hands to the future and grabbing hold of whatever i can pull toward me. here we go again. bring it.

progress report

warning: wallowing.

restless restless. i open and close tabs on my computer like i'm going to find something new. i pull old books off my shelves and cry over the endings. i listen to a three-song loop over and over while staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out if i can write anything other than bad poetry anymore.

rush rush. i feel like i never have a moment to breathe. i work, and then i go to work, and then i get home and have to work some more. weekenda are an escape but monday mornings come too quickly and i have to take as deep a breath as i can and plunge in again. stolen moments typing up a storm, sneaking a look at a page, watching a 30 second youtube video. i feel like i'm never gonna slow down.

reminisce. i'm not even gone yet but i'm already missing everything. always weigh what i got against what i left. i don't want to pack everything up again. i don't want to trade emerald waves for muddier waters. i know that everything is going to be fine, but i feel like i'm watching life pass by from the bottom of a well. just waiting for the kaleidoscope to turn.

more dreams and less life

i am feeling really restlessly nostalgic right now, for some reason. it's like my heart is fit to burst. but what's new?

today is my last day in costa rica, a trip i haven't made in four years. it's so strange to think of the place i was in when i came here last - i had just gotten back from london and i was utterly and completely lost. i remember sitting at the table where i'm sitting right now, playing bananagrams with one hand while i facebook-chatted my london friends with the other. i remember being caught between the person i was when i left, and the person i became when i went abroad.

that trip, we went to the beach, and this trip we did too. as i wandered among the rocks of playa escondida i recalled how i would wander last time, skipping stones and agonizing over the boy i was dating and the boy that i was in-over-my-head crazy for. i have never felt so grown up as i did this time around, standing on those rocks and remembering how i didn't have a clue what i was doing, and knowing now that everything turned out all right in the end.

i feel like costa rica is a place that has seen so many sides of me - from the times that i was too young to remember, to the times where i'd roller skate up and down siba's driveway, to y2k and my first taste of champagne, to high school summer breaks and weddings and christmases, to college and the heartbreak of distance and early-twenties angst.

this place has seen all of the good and the bad of my life, and it has managed to give me exactly what i need - whether it's a week at the beach, a stroll in the mall with my family, winding drives up and down the mountains of the countryside, breakfast at my favorite restaurant, or nights spent eating air-popped popcorn and playing board games. i may not have any blood connecting me to costa rica, but it is my second home - other places may come close, but it was always here all along.

come on get higher

that slow song just came on my itunes and reminded me of warm days with cool breezes in an indiana town three years ago. it's funny how feelings can catch up with you after all this time. if i close my eyes it's like i'm sitting in my room with the windows cracked open, pressing repeat over and over, smiling to myself for no reason. it always takes the dawn of spring to make me look back and realize how hard every winter really is. it always takes new leaves on trees to show me how lonely bare branches really look. i will always miss college but on days like these i miss it just a bit more, remembering and running across the quads on the last days of school and walks to starbucks for a passion tea lemonade and wearing shorts and flip flops to class and nights staying up late saying our goodbyes. it will always be beautiful, in that messy college kid way, and it will always be bittersweet.

but here, today, i can open my windows, i can throw some ice cubes into a glass and i can smile at jeff and remember that those days are the reasons that these days exist. they are different, and in some ways they are harder, but looking back, they will be beautiful too. these are the days we are building something and even though we don't really know what it is yet, one day we will remember who we were these days and thank god this existed.

kick drum beating in my chest again

i am 24 years old. this shouldn't mean that much to me, but it just does.

when i was 17, fall out boy got me through the toughest of times, the loudest of fights, the worst crying sessions and the hardest feelings of betrayal. through them, i got out my frustrations of my awful job in parkland and worked out my feelings about graduation before leaving for college. through them, i cried over my ex-boyfriend, cried over my ex-friends, and learned to love myself again. through them, i told my true friends how much i loved them and realized that landing on a runway in chicago is something never to be taken for granted. through them, i started to define who i was, and i walked the streets of london feeling like i had at least one thing figured out.

fall out boy's music--however you choose to define or judge it--shaped my life since i was an immature teenager. and beyond that, i loved the melodies, loved the words, loved those boys regardless of who said it was shitty music or a stupid band. the few times i got to see them live, i screamed my heart out because they just meant so much to me and it was the only way i could show it.

i am 24 years old. this past monday after four years, fall out boy announced that their break was over. and i will tell you without shame that i got up and did the most embarrassing victory dance and did not care one little bit.

and it's because this band shaped who i am. this band gave me words when i didn't have any. this band gave me joy and cleverly crafted phrases and hope. and they are back and i couldn't be happier. you imperfect boys with your perfect ploys. you're the best. thank you.

this world we live in

A Brief for the Defense
Jack Gilbert

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.

you're already home where you feel love

we lost. we lost, badly. i cried. it was pathetic. i cried some more. i came home and hugged my mom. i watched the end of the game from the corner of my eye as i posted on facebook about my love for my school and how proud i am to be from that place.

and then it hit me, that i am the luckiest to have this.

on saturday night, at a pep rally, i was part of a roaring mass of people who flew and drove cross-country and took off work to come here, ticket or no ticket, to cheer on their team, because this school means so much them. on sunday night, i danced on the beach with my friends as i ran into so many kids i only see once a year if we're lucky. the streets of south beach closed down as the gold, blue and green swarmed it, and we laughed and we cheered each other on and we marveled how we were here, we made it, we were here.

on monday i donned my number ten jersey and my beads and my lei and we meandered through the stadium parking lot that seemingly was overrun with irish fans. we yelled "don't stop believing" in the middle of a mass of dancers in the backer re-created and hey, it's all true - we are crazy, and we never stop believing,

we were: giddy, nervous, entranced, joyous. we were: shocked, hurting, hurting, hurting. we always are: loyal, strong, true.

so yeah, i'm still hurting. we're all still hurting. but there's always next year, and next year, and next year. and more importantly - we'll always have each other, and we'll always have that place up in northern indiana, where even on the grayest of days you can look up at that glint of gold and know you're okay.

'cause there are stars up above, we can start moving forward.

and all my friends say, hey, turn the record over

i think 2013 will be a year for resolutions. i think 2013 will be a year for ambition. i think 2013 will be a year for making dreams happen.

2012 was about beginnings, about transitions, about letting go of the past while loving it just the same. 2012 was about adjustment and adventures. 2012 was about a rollercoaster of emotions and ideas. it was good and it was also hard, and while it was a year to remember, it's time to say goodbye.

hey hey, see ya on the flipside.

settle down, it'll all be clear

i think that home can never be a singular place. i think that home is where you make it. i think home is memories, home is people, home is someone always welcoming you back to where you belong.

*

i returned to a summer beach house that i've been to four summers in a row now. slathering on sunscreen in a beach chair, riding bikes down lazy streets, eating ice cream on a bench outside at twilight, late night monopoly, drinking out of plastic cups on the beach watching the stars, sunset cruises and crab cakes for dinner, movie nights and falling asleep on the couch. i could have been doing it my whole life. this is a new family of mine but i feel just fine. i feel just fine.

*

i arrived again in london on the edge of september and it was like i had never left. the last time i came with one burden, and though i've long shed that one i came with others: the ghosts of all the people i've been carrying around since 2008. it was like every building to every stone held a memory, like there was a film over my vision reminding me of everything i thought i'd forgotten - every stupid joke, every 3am sidewalk, every conversation shared over cider, every late homework night, every best friend, every heart broken - and it was bittersweet because i'm not that girl anymore but there's a little part of me that desperately wants to be.

but somewhere along the way this time, we made new memories. different memories. i went to places i'd never been before (because london is infinite, and you could stay a thousand years and never do enough) and i began to realize that even though i'll never have the other london back, i'll get a new one every time i go. one night we sprinted to the london eye and i looked up at the lights in the big night sky as the wind streamed through my hair and i laughed at the sight of me and i thought, i could get used to this.

*

if you didn't go to notre dame, it's impossible to describe the way your stomach drops when you see the sign for exit 77 and catch a glimpse of the golden dome rising up from the trees in the distance. it's impossible to explain how your feet and your heart just know the way every time. it's impossible to stop the smile that spreads across your face as you walk through campus, passing familiar landmarks and familiar faces.

going back to notre dame is always something i think will be so transcendent, so mystical, so heartwrenching and bittersweet. and those reactions and feelings are true of a place like london, a place that felt like home, but a place that i could never fully know. with notre dame, it's not any of those things, because notre dame is not only home but also a place i know inside and out, like the back of my hand, like the inside of my soul. being back on campus isn't strange because it's a place i belong, plain and simple. why would it be strange if it's a place i'm supposed to be?

we sat on the steps of the dome waiting for the drumline to assemble at midnight. we planned our night at the backer just like any other night. we sang the songs and chanted the cheers and clapped our hands and yelled for our school to destroy the wolverines, please and thank you. we stood in a crowded line and danced in a crowded bar and swayed in a circle to the same songs they've been playing for years. and not for a second did it feel like we'd been away so long, even though when we're away it always feels like an eternity.

for the rest of the weekend we went tailgating and to the football game and rejoiced when we won and collapsed with exhaustion when we got back to our beds and went to basilica mass on sunday and cried over the hymns and took pictures on god quad and when we drove away i kept looking back even when we were long gone because of the hope that maybe the dome would be there, tiny but there, never fading in the distance because it never fades in my mind, not ever.

and these are the reasons i know notre dame will always be home - not everyone will understand it, but i hold it in my heart, and i'll always have that.

*

we drove nine hours to parkland and we settled into my old house like we had always been there all along.

my room had changed - furniture moved, furniture gone, new pictures on the walls, most of the decorations that made it my room were neatly stack in the closet on shelves. and still, it was my room, because it was changed but i was still there, just a little older, a little more mature. and i know i have a long way to go but in a bizarre way, seeing my room helped because it made me realize that it doesn't always have to stay the same for it to still be home. i don't have to stay exactly the same forever to still be me. memories live in these walls and they live in me too. i know i will always have a place here. goodbye is never forever.

*

we're leaving for pensacola again today. i'm always sad to leave here but i know that when i step into our apartment with all our ikea furniture and our pictures on the walls and our big tv and our little tiny kitchen and the dust and the life we're trying to build - when we get back there, i know we'll be home.

let it take you over

for four years i have dreamed of going back to london. it's haunted my dreams and thoughts and writings and because of that it's become almost hallowed ground to me. going back would be like a pilgrimage, a journey back to a sacred place where i left memories and secrets and pieces of my heart buried deep beneath the ground i can still feel under my feet.

and now, the prospect of returning has become an almost reality, so close i can close my fingers around it and cradle it in the palm of my hand. and now that it's more real, i'm thinking to myself: what will i do?

i know it could never be the same as it was four years ago. i know that i could only have that experience one, at that age, in that year, in those circumstances, with those people. there will be no drinking outof nutella jars, no games of kings with cider, no secrets shared at the crack of dawn, no dancing in the bars until our heads were spinning. and after all this time, i am okay with that - i'm glad that it happened but am content to leave that in the past.

what i think about now are the artifacts, the pieces of me that are still woven into that city, that i feel like i am on a mission to go and excavate.

in london, i was stripped raw. i became a person i never wanted to be, but at the same time i was also the most myself i had been in a very long time. even though i was confused and conflicted, it wasn't because i couldn't figure out what i wanted or who i was - it was because i could see it clearly, laid out before me, and i chose not to see it, or do what i had to do.

and yet, there was so much beauty in that confusion, in that charmed semester where i was just me, without the labels of friend or girlfriend or sister or daughter or classmate. the people there that i knew from before were either acquaintances or friends i had grown apart from, and none of them were in my primary group of friends, anyways. and so i drank and i danced and i laughed and i was honest and i did what my flawed, flawed heart told me to do, and it got me in trouble but to this day i wouldn't change any of it, not a thing.

it's so funny to think of the person i was then, and the person i am now - we are so different and yet we are the same because we are both the most honest versions of myself that i have ever been. i learned a lot from michelle, version fall 2008. i wouldn't be where i am now without that lost girl who forged ahead even though she didn't know where she was going.

right now, i long to go back because i miss my city and i want to walk down those streets again and drink beers in my favorite pubs again and take in the imprints of history. i want to hold jeff's hand as i walk down the strand and show him the magic and life and wonder of this place i love so much.

and at the same time, i long to go back because i want to retrace my steps. i want to go write over the old memories with new ones. i want to pick up those pieces of my heart that are scattered around that city. i want to come to terms with that lost girl. i want to somehow reach back through the years and tell her to keep living and to keep learning and to cherish that time because the nights spent crying only make the nights spent laughing that much better. i want to tell her that she can become the best version of herself. i want to tell her that it all turns out okay, it really really does.

libero

why is it that children's books are the ones that stick with me? not too long ago i unpacked my boxes of books, cradled them lovingly and placed them on my new bookshelves in meticulous alphabetical order. now, when i look at my books all lined up in rows, i realize how many of these books i read for the first time when i was 10, 11, 12 - and have re-read so many times since that the pages are beginning to detach from the spines, that the corners where i turn pages are so worn that they're permanently bent into turning position.

when i re-read these books, today, it's like reuniting with a long-lost friend. it's in the re-reading of these books, as an adult, that i truly see the care and nuance placed into these books intended for children, the themes and literary devices so seamlessly placed within the narrative that my 10-year-old self had no idea they were even there. but now, instead of just enjoying the story and characters, i can really appreciate the deeper meaning - and even if there was no deeper meaning intended, isn't it remarkable that these books still have aspects i can relate to, more than 10 years later?

the joy of these books will always transcend time for me. in the past month jeff has awoken many a time from his slumber to see me sniffling, teardrops falling onto the already long-stained pages, desperately wiping my face with the sheet or pajama sleeve. i have loved these books for so long that they are a part of me, that the characters are my best friends, that what happens to them, in a way, also happens to me.

maybe it's because these books are written for the naturally innocent; for those who, even if they've experienced hardships, are not yet marred by the cynicism of adulthood. they're not jaded, yet. they have no need for swear words or sex scenes or love triangles. as we grow, many of us become convinced that we need at least one of these things for a story to be "realistic." but, as the unicorn gaudior says in a swiftly tilting planet, "what is real?" good children's stories are innocent and straightforward and not marred by the unnecessary filler many young adult and adult novels (and bad children's books, for that matter) fall prey to. and still, good children's stories say something about life, about death, about friendship, about family, about love, about the world we live in, about the world beyond our doorstep, beyond our country, and even beyond our own planet.

too many times i've stepped into the library, lingering for what i deem to be an appropriate amount of time in the adult fiction stacks, maybe picking out a classic or two, maybe coming across an old favorite i already know to be decent, maybe seeing an new offering from an author i already like.

but then, then - i tiptoe my way to the children's section and push my way past the tiny tables and chairs and around the picture books and there - there is where my heart lives. there is where i marveled at how the westing game just had to have been written backwards, because it's so clever. there is where i laughed and laughed at the wayside school kids. there is where i peeked into the fictional diaries of pioneers and slaves and peasants and merchant girls and princesses and queens long gone. there is where i traveled to europe in bloomability and road-tripped across the west in walk two moons. there is where i cried over beth march and pined over laurie lawrence. there is where the phantom tollbooth taught me about wordplay and the power of imagination. there is where countless fairy tales have been told and retold until i knew them backwards and forwards. there is where harry, ron, and hermione taught me about courage and friendship and goodness and truth in the face of evil and war, with a bit of mischief thrown into the mix. and a hundred other things. and a thousand other things.

you can call me juvenile. you can say that i don't understand the nuance of true adult literature. and perhaps i don't. but, perhaps, i don't really need it - not all of it, anyways. for these are my old friends, and they have stayed with my thus far, and they'll stay with me as long as i shall live.

hands up and touch the sky

one week: so near yet so far. i'm happiest when i'm traveling; i have always been about the journey. on long car rides i often find myself feeling slightly disappointed when we slow down, pull in, stop, park. there's something about the way the landscape rushes by outside the window, the way all the lights blur together at night, the way that if i crane my head back and look straight up, it feels like i'm flying.

a week from now i'll fly to boston and in my head i can almost see the dotted lines on the map, tracing my progress on this roundabout little trip from here to pensacola. i'm practically itching for it. i'm excited for reunions, excited for big cities and nice meals and sleeping in. i feel like i've been holding my breath for the past few months and i'm finally going to exhale.

new life's gonna start and here i am.

events become feelings, feelings become events

it's about exactly three years ago to the minute that you got yourself kicked out of that midnight volleyball game and flopped down next to me, feet kicked up behind you. funny to think that three years ago, i was trying to get over a breakup but didn't quite yet realize that i was already exactly where i needed to be. funny to think that the two kids drunkenly laughing in the grass three years ago had no idea what life had in store for them, and could only think about the night and the moment and the smell of the grass and the sand that turned up between our sheets the next morning. march 2009 was one of the happiest times of my life - the heralding both of spring and of a new life for me - a new life that, i'd come to realize, was always meant to be shared with you. here's to those two kids smiling at the ground, breathing in the south bend night air and the start of a time full of wonder, of beginnings, of the finding of something you've been searching for your whole life.

you always told me you wished you could get a postcard from your future saying, "everything turns out ok, everything turns out ok." but i think if we really had that postcard and that power, we'd hold back on sending it, because the thrill of figuring it out for ourselves was just too wonderful to be true. and yet, it was true: every sun-drenched moment, every moon-kissed minute, every, every, every.

i wear my heart upon my sleeve, like a big deal

living in the present is hard
when you're stuck somewhere in between
neither a rock nor a hard place but
living underground, holding your breath, waiting
for the chance to go outside
the sun is warm on your face but the gray clouds betray the sky's intent
and when the droplets drip then tumble down upon you
all you think is, i should have known
some days feel more real than others but still
you're living in a twilight zone
diamond on your hand catching the light of your childhood bedside lamp
sleeping with a teddy bear when you'd rather it was he by your side
all your ages coming together at once and looking at you, wondering
where you came from, and where you're going
time goes by both fast and slow
and life is like a pile of papers on a desk, building steadily
as you think, i'll get to it tomorrow
and then tomorrow's just the same
and the way this feels
can't be translated to handwriting or pixels
so you close your eyes, head tipped back, heart full to bursting
and as you type you know it's not what you had in mind
but somehow it helps all the same