skinny dipping in lake travis. beer bottle in my hand and i'm laughing and spreading my arms wide across the dark sky. mushrooms in your pockets and everything is a daze

it started in march. 

i don't even remember much if i think about it now. maybe. the ride home from the house andrew was sitting in ruby ranch, the first time you kissed me when we were in my brothers room, an old wooden playhouse in your backyard where we stayed awake until 2am. it was hot outside, and i was so skinny and pretty and sixteen. you always let me sit in the front seat of your old SUV when everyone else had to crowd together in the back. i know you didn't fall in love with me because i'm different, and not because i'm witty and sweet and small and always go to bed early. i don't really know why you did, but you did and you made me happy and told me i was amazing in text messages during school.

i'm not sure how we're going to make it as parents because i think we still want to go back to spring break. but we stare at my stomach for hours when he starts kicking and moving around a lot and i just know that we love him as much as we possibly can.

i've been living everyday with my hopes up that you might change, but change is only born when someone breaks

november is over. do you remember how it ended last year? so happy and young and everything stood still. i can't remember the last time you really said i love you and it's killing me

you, calm and persistent. i waited at the edge of my driveway for a fucking hour and a half. and you carefree and young. i am completely in this by myself. and you, happy and un-afraid. i am jealous

you are old and worn out and i knew you so well, and every night was just the same and that's why i left. remember i told you just that? but now it's every picture i see and every hallway i walk down and i'm constantly reminded of you..and how much you loved me and it's so hard. it really is.

it feels just like it did a year ago. marc jacobs perfume, crowded fairs and you...still you. do you remember that night when we stayed at your house instead of going to sights and sounds? and it was nice and calm and i snuck out before your mom got home. i'm seventeen

50 minute classes, 20 of the same questions, 3 word text messages. Your name is replaying in my head like a record that was left on too long. Cracks in the sidewalk get bigger every day. I run my finger along the metal paneling on the walls. The Zales bag in the center consul of your car, and it's just been sitting there and waiting for the right time. I am a new beginning. I am an old story I am a difference between what you had and what you want now. I'm lonely and it's not even real anymore

you're sitting next to me at bonfires and sending me texts while you're at work and making me laugh, playing me all the music you like, you're excited to see me and i feel like its february again only you can't have me like that anymore, only we're just friends. only you're buying me birthday gifts and i can't stop thinking about the little things that you say, the little movements and eye motions that you make

you are my sweetest downfall

this just came into my head
but do you remember the night, i think it was mid-december, and we were running around at heb trying to pass out flyers? it was so cold, and i only had on shorts and a small sweater. we got into a huge argument because i dropped james and armando off at the party and you had to help push my car up the hill. but we listened to regina spektor all night, the same song, and i sung along and we were mad at each other but we both still laughed. and at dinner we took pictures together, and i smelled like marc jacobs daisy, and my scarf wrapped around my arms and your neck and we weren't mad anymore. but instead you looked so sad and we kissed. and later the night i took aaron to the house he was watching, and i was scared alone in the car so you came back to sit with me. we were ok by the end of the night and, still listening to regina spektor, we kissed goodbye and you waved at me before you shut the door to the apartment.

we really did love each other

part II.

the way i remembered him is so different than the way he is now. he was always out in the street in front of his house riding his bike,and i was giving him flirting looks, wearing his sweater, being 16. and he had short hair that never got in the way because he wore silly headbands in every color. and he went with me to goodwill and i picked out funny shirts for him and we laughed and kissed out side on the columns in front of the store. and underneath a sleeping bag in my old room he lifted off his shirt and smiled at me, bright, happy eyes and he told me i was on a whole other level. he didn't know it but he was my best friend. and he always answered my phone calls and reassured me of course i like you, of course i want you to stay here. we were a lot younger than we are now, and it was only 7 months ago. and he is always in austin when i stop by his house these days. and i text him funny little things that remind me of him and he just writes back ha. is this the way it always is?

part I.

he told me i'm not really all this happiness, smiles for everyone, apologizing for the past  type of girl. he told me that he knew me well enough to know that i'm never really satisfied with what i have, and that i fantasize over being other people and never step-back and really appreciate who i am.

(I have been reading Love Exists a lot lately, and wanted to write my own)

Love exists in small conversations,
in the boy you sit next to in history class,
in cheap beer with your friends on a humid summer night on the balcony of an apartment,
in heart breaking letters from 3 years ago,
in finally letting go of a boy who you could never get off your mind.

Love exists between family's going through things they never expected,
in meeting new people and becoming best friends
or in meeting new people and never talking again,
in the ugly yellow car that you realize you love when it's taken away,
in sips of the best mixed-drink you've ever had..in a hot tub.

Love exists in going to the homecoming dance with you best guy friend,
in finally getting enough courage to quit something you've hated and pick up a third art class,
in the broken promises that you can't get past,
in HEB parking lots,
in small smiles and nods from old friends.

Love exists in the ways that we don't even realize.
There isn't cliche, amazing moments in real life.
So you have to remember, and cherish, the nice ones that you do get to expirence
Because that is where love exists...

Well your head is spinning like that carousel,
and I know you're a mess after 3 or 4.
But if you make it different then we'll make our way to the surface,
and your favorite place.
Where we sit, and we breath.
cause I know all the words and I sing you everything.
Well they're just thoughts so go ahead and speak.
For me its just another week, seventeen was once how I dreamed.
And with your scent on my face I can leave and have you for days.

I still can't see you.
The summer came and we got lost, all of us.
I still wont remember your face,
the features mix too well with this alcohol.
So we cover ourselves in your fear,
and stay to watch that moon disappear under these lights.
This city screaming at me.
And as you breathe the words "I better go".
The sun is up and taking back all the shadows that covered this ground,
and our feet, like a blanket of coal.

i hope there is someone else just like me. a seventeen year old girl, avoiding every single person in the hallways at school, sneaking in phone calls between each class period, doctors appointments every month, running around at seaton hospital, i finally feel free.

the music softly in the background
being dimmed out by the sound of pillow cases
and you, clumsy as always, messing with your jeans.

and picture after picture, so proud,
explaining each moment to me because you want so bad
to have shared them all with everyone

do you not have these same memories of him?
holding hands in dark movie theaters,
turquiose bed-spread and sheets all around him and i
long long night in backseats of cars.

it was nice because it went by so quick
see, you took your time, and the end was nice but it was still an end
you can't write poem after poem
about how he hurt you, used you and left you

because he is different then everyone else
and each little half smile i got from him
is half less then you did.

and memories for me are hard to let go.

i guess in the end it's all about being able to accept that not everyone can be how i want them to be. whether it's someone who i never got along with in the first place, or someone that i've loved for a long time. it's hard to keep that peace of mind, though. but when i'm finally able to i know that i'll be a little bit happier. even if it's just a little..