Short Breath.

I can't decide what I feel. Last night had my body and mind drained in completion, for the first time since days when, looking back, the reasons seemed simple. I've lost my will to make sense of it, and given in to simply forming sentences from pictures. This failed me last night. Breathing speeds when your heart gives way, and without a lifeline, there's no hope for caught breath. You're the only one I wanted to be bothered by. Simple banter, simple caring. My breath caught somewhere between lungs and mouth, but you had my heart beating double time; the short breaths I could steal from the air were a work of your art. I wish you knew that you do this to me.

I'll call and ask about weather, tell someone to talk so I can think. I think about remembering to push my stomach out when I scratch a sorry excuse for oxygen. I think about how badly I wish I could walk to your door. I nearly asked you if I could come over because your words seem to make sense more than most. The way we talk is less than a game and nothing of an act, but I grapple for understanding and pass my time analyzing like I've found it common practice to do. You're the words I sit down to express and can't get out.

This escape of mine isn't a hobby; writing is a necessity. When I say therapy, don't assume a metaphor. This is my very literal "how does that make you feel?" These are the words I need to hear to unlock that sentence I've been trying not to speak. These deepest confessions form tears that come from countless failed attempts to just cry them out. The most meaningful tears I've cried feel like they're being pulled from my veins, drying up to a very empty shell. After nights like these, there's nothing left to run through me. Tears of blood begin to make far more sense when you don't just take religion's word for it. There are things in life we feel we can't lose, and yet, when you have nothing, you'll still be alive. When nothing makes sense, you'll still know the music you rely on by heart. Nothing is irreparable. Making 15 phone calls could leave you with nothing where that one where you had to make yourself hit send was all you needed to hear. Break down.

Honesty at its best is telling anyone who wants to be in your life exactly how you feel. If you belong here, you won't run away. You asked if this was typical, and I kindly directed your attention to the likes of words like these. This is why I don't have to lose my breath. "Your brain has control over your stomach." If only I had expanded beyond the stop hurting me and I'm sick of feeling like this statements, I could've saved my parents some pocket change. I start with one line and form a page. I start with a page and form a novel. I haven't written one in awhile, but I feel the tide changing with every familiar motion my six or seven fingers make.

I think I just might need you in some way. It could be that I'm just be passing time with you, but I can say this is entirely unfamiliar to me. Just fitting your name into conversation sends excitement streaming from the butterflies in my stomach to the curve of my lips. When you're around, this is redefined. Slightly off-limits and constantly surrounded by mutual acquaintances, I hide a secretive smile and thoughts of my head on your chest. This is a mental battle at its finest. When we're this young, we really do have nothing to lose. I don't care if the end is a little closer for you; you still can't claim discounts in lines of retirees. Life is just beginning. Just take your time. The timing may or may not be right, eventually; I don't mind. Your mind works double time over me; I reiterate my lack of worry and enhance your own. I'm letting go. I'm letting go of worrying about what everything means, because as long as there's a smile on my face, I have what I need for however long it lasts. Leave fear and caution behind.

I'm letting go of optimistically looking for loopholes in the letdown. I'm learning how to inject optimism into downfalls instead. I don't say sorry as much anymore, because I've learned that more often than not; I'm not. I don't take back anything I've ever done in eighteen years and eleven months of life. I don't regret being a worry-filled smiling half breed as a child, or a slightly out of touch nearly adult. In one year and one month, I can claim two decades. I don't consider this time a guarantee after seeing so much loss. If I live to see my own real love, I'll cherish the fact that I got to know the way it feels. I want this for you, because now I live for both of us. I want so much to live because I know that every day I have is a gift; I look around at this place filled with red-eyed kids and blow-off beef heads and know that they don't understand. They think time is a right. They think growing up to a dream job, true love, and a family is exactly what their future holds. I don't know if I'll live to see tomorrow, but if I do, I'll wake up and kiss the sky.

This life is imperfect, but it's everything I've ever wanted. This life, filled with cruelty, beauty, evading love, and frivolity is mine alone to known like the way words connect in my mind. It doesn't matter to me that I've never seemed to be worth the full attention of someone's romance. This only gives me hope that however much time I have left will see the day that I'll be taken by surprise. It doesn't matter that I've been disappointed, hurt, and lied to, because I appreciate the moments where I was shown complete trust and shared happiness so much more. We wouldn't recognize anything, anyone as beautiful if we didn't know its antithesis.

Can you watch while someone struggles to pick up the contents of their spilled life? Or do you lend a hand, if only to bend down and offer them their offset lipstick and throw in your own reassuring smile? You don't know how many people you've saved by simply smiling as you walk by. Here, everyone holds doors. Most people say thank you and you're welcome, and the parents of this Nick Jr generation would beam at the sight. It's not just a mannerism. We don't say it because mommy's standing over us with stern, thin lips insisting "say thank you" like it's a threat. We left them behind and learned what it was like to mean it. Say what you want about youth, but I see every day ways in which we're learning to be influential. It starts with the simplicity of an open door and goes on to the metaphor of countless more.

I may not have many I can run to here, but I've learned to appreciate both the few and the new. We need far less than we've grown accustomed to. I used to love going out into the woods by myself, and all the adults would yell at me when I slipped away. That little delinquent was onto something. I've become far too affected by safety, and now I can't let myself walk in the dark without being aware of every presence in the air around me. Do you ever just want to throw on something colorful and walk through the leaves in your bare feet? 1 AM had me dying just to explore. The better part of me knew this town of young targets made my aching less than favorable; I just wanted not to care. I just wanted to forget my shoes and count on nature to keep me. I didn't want an arm to hold. Two layers and a handful of hopes form one impenetrable cloud.

I keep getting up because I can't keep anything in. Some days, I feel so good about myself, and others, all I can do is critique. I do not enjoy being a cookie cutter female, so the first likes to take over when the second tries to cut in. I prefer it like this. I could define wasted time as time spent thinking you are anything less than beautiful. You have something within you that no one else possesses; I know it's been placed on repeat for so long that it seems untrue, but it's what I wish I could say if the world was listening. Love yourself. No one else can love you quite as thrillingly as you can love yourself, and I'm a firm believer that in order to love another, you must first love yourself. Don't let gender roles define your worth. Don't let spiteful comments, usually hidden in shades of jealousy, color the way you look in the mirror. It doesn't matter if you're five pounds heavier than you want to be or you have a quirk you're ashamed of.

You aren't perfect, and who would want to be? Think of the standards, the expectations. Everyone deserves a vice, and we're equal in our downfalls. Love your own, and as a result, you'll be able to fully love someone else's. Never tasting true love allows you to define it more clearly and appreciate it more fully. I like to think I'll be thrown upside down one day with my thoughts still in line. I think to think I know everything just to learn I know nothing at all. You would kill for this, just a little bit. For now, I want to spend my time telling myself everyday to sing like no one's listening. I've always been shy when it comes to my voice, so I make up for it in words. It always has made the most sense to me jumping from a page. This carried me from booksmart to passionate. Sometimes seeing the lists of interests others contain makes my one seem so insignificant, then I remember the days I've gotten by only because I had it, and I know I could make a list pages long. There are others, but none as influential as the two gracing my last hour.

I won't spend my words on the despair of 20 hours ago because I know it won't wrap around me again. I understand how beautiful it can be to break down; it was the clarity from chaos that I just hadn't understood. I'm not worried about you being okay. You're better by these challenges that have seemed absolutely unfair, and I see positivity as far as my premonition will take me. Hang in there, for me, for you. I need you every second of every day. I won't fail you. I could add an again, but I know you won't let me. I've never needed a singular energy more than yours, and you've proven to be the exact brand of confidence I need. I'm going to do my assignment in this to make everything alright. We'll make everything alright. Look at this as the beginning, because we've never allowed or needed our starry eyes to see the end. You're why seven months have seen me turn from fetal position weak to internally strong. You built me up, and I'll do the same for you, from the inside out. This is looking to the future and laughing at the memories. I need these pages I've bound to keep me honest.

After hours of being unable to comprehend beyond the pages I didn't study for yet still somehow understood, I am finally starting to make sense of this. It's the countless, limitless emotions that hit all at once and the many targets that inspire them. If I could define the receiver of my ever-present use of that elusive word you, the list would be as long as the paragraphs they fall in. I am patchwork of influence and individual. I need every piece. This is how every breath tastes as sweet as the first I ever took.

I'm in love with this messy life of mine.