from over here, love looks so sweet. but… so. terrifying…

and i'm still learning how to be mine

from over here,
love looks so sweet.
but… so. terrifying.
because i don’t yet know how.
how to be so close to someone and not
crumble into a wild mess of love
where i lose me.
the last time i got close…
my god, how i lost me.
so much that i could barely feel me. or hear me.
and it’s the deepest ache i’ve ever known
when i can’t feel me.
so i’m still learning… how not to dim
and quiet and run and hide and tame me.
how to hold my own fire even when
my heart catches fire.
how to hold on so tight to my own depths
that even when i’m tangled deep in you…
i’m still always mine…

and i’m still learning how to be mine.

– butterflies rising

– butterflies rising

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without a fight…

...let me fall madly for me first.

beautiful…
the way you say it,
how it feels. too. good.
like quenching thirst on my skin.
how i feel too desperate to hear it…
but how i can’t let it stay because
i’m too unsure to hold it.
so please…
don’t say it.
i want to have heard it enough in
my own voice that i don’t need you to say it…
but, also… so that when you do…
i can let it fall on me without a fight

…let me fall madly for me first.

– butterflies rising

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for so long i thought if i could just become. enough. that it would be enough…

for so long i thought if i could just become. enough. that it would be enough for him to be good to me

for so long
i thought if i could just become. enough.
that it would be enough for him to be good to me
until i finally realized that wasn’t what he wanted.

he wanted me to be pretty enough
to be beautiful in his eyes,
but my eyes better not be too bright,
and that dress better not be too short,
and those lips better not be too full of lush and love
or talk of too much life for anyone else to see
something beautiful in me…
or heaven forbid,
for me to see something beautiful in myself.
and those dreams i had to find my voice and to spill
all the wild from my heart out into the world…
if i was chasing those dreams,
then i wouldn’t be small enough or sitting still enough as
the sure thing there waiting while he was chasing his.
the more i tried to be. enough. the more i became too much.

because underneath all the ways he needed me to be small,
“enough” is what he felt like he wasn’t.

– butterflies rising

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if i could just become. enough. that it would be enough for him to be good to me…

she’s flowers and fire. - butterflies rising

for so long
i thought if i could just become. enough.
that it would be enough for him to be good to me
until i finally realized that wasn’t what he wanted.

he wanted me to be pretty enough
to be beautiful in his eyes,
but my eyes better not be too bright,
and that dress better not be too short,
and those lips better not be too full of lush and love
or talk of too much life for anyone else to see
something beautiful in me…
or heaven forbid,
for me to see something beautiful in myself.
and those dreams i had to find my voice and to spill
all the wild from my heart out into the world…
if i was chasing those dreams,
then i wouldn’t be small enough or sitting still enough as
the sure thing there waiting while he was chasing his.
the more i tried to be. enough. the more i became too much.

because underneath all the ways he needed me to be small,
“enough” is what he felt like he wasn’t.

– butterflies rising

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i love like flowers and fire… i don’t know any other way – poem…

i love like flowers and fire...

i love like flowers and fire…
i don’t know any other way. soft and vulnerable,
and wild and burning… with my heart broken. wide. open.
and even though he came in like wildfire, he was just. broken.
and hardened. and filled with an ugliness raging inside of him
and he thought that if he raged hard enough against me
that he could rage an ugliness out from inside of me too.
then he could say, “see, it’s you.” that he could be so hard to
love that he could make me feel hard to love too. but i just
softly left the room. a graceful exit. and i wrote all my
feelings down to shed his hardened residue. and to remind
myself of all the ways that there are such beautiful
and tender things in me… always.

instead of becoming rage too, i said to my heart..
exit gracefully. heal and grow.
don’t look back.

– butterflies rising

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