i once loved someone who tried to control me…

i once loved someone
who tried to control me, and so
it became somewhere i couldn’t breathe.
but i also once loved someone i couldn’t trust…
and that was a kind of prison, too.

because freedom and trust aren’t
strangers to each other…

like there’s a way you feel yourself
pulled so strongly to someone who makes
you feel free… and i also think you don’t ever feel
more like letting your heart run wild than you
do with someone to whom the state
of your heart matters.

– butterflies rising

this love story
has been a slow fall.
and these wings
have been a slow unfold.
and there has been a fight here
for my worth, and it sure has
been a hard-fought one,
and this road home has been a long one…
but there’s a little bit of light here now.
and even though it’s been a long
time coming… the light is coming.
and as uncertain as i am
of how much farther i have to go,
i know now that i’ve got it in me to keep going.
and until i feel free… i know now that
this heart won’t give up.

– butterflies rising

sometimes
this world feels
like the heaviest place
that we could ever know,
and it aches just to breathe here.
but then i look around,
and there are all of these
beautiful things… sunlight,
goodness, stars… you.

– butterflies rising

i think we find our soulmates in the places we go to find our souls

where we are drawn and pulled. and when we are shifted and stirred. in what makes us feel. and feel alive. or feel understood, like outstretched hands and lifelines, like home. in our self-searching, where we feel soul memory. or in the inspiration touches and in what feels like free and brings us wide-lung breathing. and in our fire-catching and lightning-chasing, they meet us there with sparks. where we light-find and heart-reach or lose breath and dream wild… i think we find our soulmates in the places we go to find our souls.

– butterflies rising

we can fall into others with so much intensity and gravity, but then, when it comes to ourselves, we can struggle just to find a simple acceptance. but what if self-love is so much more than just a tolerance of yourself. and what if the things that feel like they are just leaving you on your own are not, but they are asking you to learn to choose yourself… and to do it with the same kind of fierce and reckless passion that you have chosen others. and what if that’s what this part of your journey is for.

– butterflies rising

i have to believe that pain
doesn’t just wear our hearts out;
that it stretches them with purpose,
that it’s meant to give us a pulse…
in breakdown, we are broken open,
and in hurt, we find more humanity,
passion is stirred from our aches,
and empathy is a muscle that grows
the more we feel… and so we
come out brighter from our darkness.

maybe if we let it… our pain can have
beautiful purpose.

– butterflies rising

don’t you ever wonder… why you are
so quick with questioning the good and
so sure in believing the bad?

we so easily let our fears be
these uncontrollable, raging monsters,
and yet we see our dreams as such
tiny little seeds…

why are we not letting the beautiful things
be the ones that grow wild?

– butterflies rising

we so easily
let our fears be these
uncontrollable, raging monsters,
and yet we see our dreams as such
tiny little seeds… why are we not
letting the beautiful things be
the ones that grow wild?

– butterflies rising

i think i’ve always fought stillness
with chaos… maybe because it feels easier…
you can’t be shaken from your footing if
you’ve never even had it, right?

but now i’m being asked to
stay still in the uncertainty, to try to learn
to breathe easy in all this delicate nuance…
to start to question the way i’ve made such a habit
out of fearful, so breath-held and chest-tight,
always just hoping for gentle in the unknown…

because what if life doesn’t have to just “not hurt”…
what if there could be something so beautiful
waiting for me in the unknown

– butterflies rising

what if today
i breathe easy here in my skin,
and exhale, unafraid, trusting that there is a
destiny-kissed grace saving me from any cruel wind that
may blow back. i could stand a little stronger in my space…
knowing that it’s universe-given and me-shaped.

maybe i’ll even glow a little here,
be a little wider-winged and brighter-lighted.
let myself consider that everything i am
and all that i want to be is ok.

and maybe not just ok… but what if i am perfectly on purpose.
and what if i can trust that every next step is the one i’m meant
to take and that even when i feel wayward, i’m still always
on my destiny-blessed way.

– butterflies rising

something i can trust…

if i’m being honest… my relationship with trust
is a distant one, and my trust in the universe is a timid thing
because life has felt bigger, and this path has felt harder
at times than i’ve been able to take.

and i’m still trying to believe that i am growing wings
that were measured just for me, that are right-sized just. for. this.
strong enough to lift me through it and beautiful enough to
make it all worth it. but this distance with trust has made me
feel anything but sure… and i guess trust is a muscle memory
i just don’t yet have.

but i want to.

so when the light seems quiet, and the guidance
feels hushed, i’m going to lean in. because maybe it’s gone
quiet to get me to lean in… just so i can learn that when the voice
inside has something to say… that it’s something i can trust.

– butterflies rising

i once loved someone who tried to control me…

this heart won’t give up…

and there are all of these beautiful things… sunlight, goodness, stars… you…

we find our soulmates in the places we go to find our souls…

the same kind of fierce and reckless passion…

i have to believe that pain doesn’t just wear our hearts out…

we so easily let our fears be these uncontrollable, raging monsters…

why are we not letting the beautiful things be the ones that grow wild…

beautiful in the unknown…

wider-winged and brighter-lighted…

something i can trust…