aching to touch stars… i hope you keep it close… no matter what. if it’s imprinted on you…

aching to touch stars…

i hope you keep it close…
no matter what.
if it’s imprinted on you,
like soul memory,
then i hope you keep it so. close.
and that you hold on tight
no matter what.
there will be little traces of someday
in the not-quite-yet, and i hope you feel them.
and that you can find a way to trust them.
even if weary sets in and uncertain gets loud,
i hope you can be gentle with that doubt.
and that something in you knows that it will pass.
and that it doesn’t mean give up.
i hope you never truly feel give-up.
but if you do, then i hope that some. how.
the fight in you finds its teeth
and that heart of yours finds its fire
and that you can reach deep down into that
part of you that is aching to touch stars and just
find a way to stay dreaming no. matter. what.
i hope you can hold on and hold on
and hold on… until you can feel
every last bit of your hope
holding you right back.

– butterflies rising

if it keeps your heart restless and aching
to touch stars… then i hope you stay dreaming
for it, i hope you hold on.

– butterflies rising

it’s one of the darkest feelings
i’ve ever known… unworthy.

and maybe i want to learn to start
questioning it when i feel it.
like… is it always even mine?

because if it’s from someone else…
someone else’s unkindness, or judgment,
or their own unworthiness they’re projecting…
then i want to learn to say no.

i think maybe my own battles would get a little
easier to face if i wasn’t also fighting the
ones that aren’t even mine.

– butterflies rising

soft and vulnerable and beautiful, just like flowers.

this world can
feel so harsh and ugly
to you because you are
so soft and vulnerable
and beautiful… like flowers.
now imagine this world
without flowers.
so please let yourself be
something in this world that is soft
and vulnerable and beautiful,
just like flowers.

– butterflies rising

it’s so delicate here.
but it’s where i’m the most brutal.
it’s where my raging gets careless,
and the delicate things end up crushed.
i fight my hardest fights
trying to love the deepest love,
but i’ve never been more unkind
than i’ve been in these close quarters
…in this head, and to this heart.
and when others have been unkind,
how quick i’ve been to betray myself and just agree.
and i’ve let it all hurt so much that unworthy has felt
like the only feeling i may ever again know…
like a flower whose every last petal has been torn away and
thrown to the wind with nothing left to recognize as beautiful.
just wilted. and bare with pain.
but what if it hurts this way for a reason…
because that ache in me is the fight in me
to learn to feel different.
because somewhere deep inside i know
that i want to be delicate here… desperately.
and when they’re unkind, and when i’m unkind,
somewhere deep down, i know that i fiercely. disagree.
and there’s a wild blossom in me and it’s too beautiful
to ever just be torn away and thrown to the wind.
and there’s a tenderness that i’m made of and an intimacy
that i’m part of… one that i’m going to learn
to take such delicate care of.

– butterflies rising

self-love…
the most delicate intimacy

– butterflies rising

she wanders
out in the flowers,
in the wild, where the breathing
is easy and free… because it’s where
the judgment goes quiet…
and everything beautiful is so untouched.
it’s just beautiful. and wild. and fearless.
and whether it grows into something more
or burns down and has to start again,
it just does… fearlessly.
beautifully. and wild.
so she wanders out where she
can learn to see herself that way;
to see herself in the way that she looks
at flowers… like she’s a beautiful
wildness on fire.

– butterflies rising