I want to rock and sway and stomp through words. To saunter through their aisles and piece some together with care like daisy chains and K’Nex and those pop-together bead necklaces. I want to unfurl the words smoothly but at a trot, and then. I want to walk down the aisles of the word store and know the right time to sweep my arm left with a swinging force, sending domino words crashing from their metal shelves and then.

I’d be better off if. I’d be full as a fluffy pancake if. I’d be soaked through with golden light if. I’d finally love myself and thus also be more likely to love you if.

If love is a tool I am sometimes sitting cross legged in front of an empty toolbox.

Today I will take pause and breathe and say to myself “You, you are the priority, how are YOU, you worthy thing, you being of light and actual, goopy, sweet sopping messy love. Do you want this hug?”

Eating slowly, sitting with it, trying not to drop my face in my pea soup.

Are you finding it hard to be alone inside your bubble?

Are you terrified of being hated, misunderstood?

Are you worried the ugly with show if you don’t caramelize the outside?

I am not JUST SAYIN’. I am fully sayin, full frontal, full stop full meaning. And I want to be made to blush, not out of shame this time.

I know it’s unpopular but what about the ways we hurt each other?

Today the water was cold on my legs. Today it was a relief to tell myself Hey just jump in one more time you’ll like it you won’t regret it and it’ll feel So. Fresh. It felt so fresh. I was like, living. Washed clean. I was a simple life form breathing air with a body in water. I was a flailing dreamer trying my subtle best to float. I was trying to show you I’m smooth while you were not looking. I was sure I was free and my breathing was good and steady. For once I did not think.

Ok stop right there. Turn three circles to the left. Drop and give me 20 or at least 15, sing the alphabet backwards, look in the mirror and slap your own face. You are a creative monster. You are a beast to know. You are a wonder of the world with bad guts who overuses the word “totally.”

Things become less funny the more I learn about you, the more I learn what it took you to think of your joke, the more you explain. It’s like, I was really intrigued by you when we first met. I still am in a different way but now that I’ve heard what’s going on behind your eyelids, under your tongue, things feel duller. Less firey. Less volatile.

I know I shouldn’t complain. I should be excited to know that I love you. But in my deep bones I am a jumper. I am ready to take flight, at ease only when you are talking to someone else in my presence, becoming new again. When I see who you can be in the glowing light.