girls

In water so fine, a few minutes of bad memory all but disappear downstream, washed away by ten thousand belly busters, a million cannonballs. Paradise was never heaven-high when I was a boy but waist-deep, an oasis of cutoff blue jeans and raggedy Converse sneakers, sweating bottles of Nehi Grape and Orange Crush, and this stream. I remember the antidote of icy water against my blistered skin, and the taste of mushy tomato and mayonnaise sandwiches, unwrapped from twice-used aluminum foil. I saw my first water moccasin here, and my first real girl, and being a child of the foot washers I have sometimes wondered if this was my Eden, and my serpent. If it was, I didn't hold out any longer than that first poor fool did.

I know that your soul is on life support and that you feel lost and like you__e completely spinning out of control, but you__e finding yourself _ here, tonight_ even in this darkness.

I really believe that there is an invisible red thread tied between him and me, and that it has stretched and tangled for years _ across oceans and lifetimes. I know that it won__ break because our souls are tied.

If ever I was running, it was towards you.

I just want your voice aimed at me again. I want to absorb the direction of your eyes_

I love him in ways that I can__ explain to other people. They don__ understand_ it__ not their fault.

I want you to trust yourself, baby. Love is all that matters and you__e always known that. You__e known, since you were a very little girl, what your life is meant to be about_

Everything hurts right now and nothing is helping because as the pain is getting worse _ so is the love.

I know that this process of __e changing my life_ doesn__ just end once I set fire to this list of things I hate about myself. Tonight isn__ as much of a new beginning as it is a violent end and I know the real work hasn__ even started yet.

I feel a resurgence of my 6-year-old self_ that little warrior, goddess of a girl reminding me of who I was when I was little, before the world got its hands on me.

I__ going to follow this invisible red thread until I find myself again_ until I finally figure out_ who I__ meant to be.

Me plus you. (Imma tell you one time) Me plus you. (Imma tell you one time)Me plus you. (Imma tell you one time)One time. When I met ya girl my heart when knock (knock knock) Now them butterflies in my stomach won't stop (stop stop) Even love is a struggle and it's all we got. So we gun keep keep climbing to the mountain top. 'Cause your world, is my world, and my breath is your breath, and my heart is yours...

Please_ Whoever you are, whatever you are_ I believe in you even though I don__ completely understand you. I feel you around me even though I can__ exactly describe what I__ feeling. Sometimes things happen to me and I know that you__e there and I__ humbled by the lack of coincidence that exists in the world. Whatever you want from me, it__ yours _ just please help me. You know how I get when I lose control, and I find myself constantly being pulled back there these days.

The Truth is, we all get lost as we try to find our way. Perhaps the key is to stop, take a look around and enjoy the scenery as we go.

I__e always seen this in you, ever since you were a little girl _ this hunger to love other people into their highest selves and it__ what has made me irreversibly and just so forever in love with you.

Young men do not respect girls they can take advantage of - and they do not as easily take advantage of girls they respect.

I__e grown up defined by this desperate, undeniable, __an__ breathe_ kind of space inside of myself and I__ afraid that the diagnosis is fatal.

Something, somewhere, knows what__ best for me and promises to keep sending me people and experiences to light my way as long as I live in gratitude and keep paying attention to the signs.