There’s this feeling that I can’t escape, like I’m ruined in some way. I remember lying there, flat on my back, not completely coherent of the situation but knowing that every thing about you was going to tear me apart. I remember lying there crying, I’m not sure if I really was or not, but I remember feeling like it. That one moment, when I knew it was going to happen, I looked at your face and there was nothing. There was no feeling, none of the words you had said only an hour prior meant anything. You were emotionless, I know that’s the truth now. I know that I am dirty now, filthy. I want to scrub myself until I bleed, until I’ve gotten some part of you off of me, at least the slightest bits. You might say you’re not judging me but I know you wonder if I kissed the same, if I loved the same, if the feeling behind it all was the same. It’s not, that girl that night was me…but it wasn’t, it was just another form of self mutilation I’ve let myself endure. My scars are infinite, my past was a treacherous path in a painful territory that I had tread with a smile and a bottle.

Rare moments are those that I feel invincible, that I feel as though my body could run across the country, my mind could force my hands to write a novel that would change the world, that I could change the world. It is not a short time after that I realize the truth, my lungs are fading, my heart is weary and my mind far gone from the vicinity of intelligence and openness it once loosely ran through. I will be the death of my soul, this lifestyle will kill me.

He said, “the past is the past,” a cliche phrase, though some of it stands true. I just turned to him and I said, in the purest and most simple of ways, “I was a bad person, I don’t think I am now but how are you to leave your past behind when it seems the rest of the world cannot?”

Skinny Love -Bon Iver
Wonderful -Gary Go
Roslyn -Bon Iver
Into the woods -Bon Iver
Give in to me -Leighton Meester and Garret Hedlund
Naked As We Came -Iron & Wine
Salvation Song -The Avett Brothers
The Death of Me -City and Colour
Comin' Home -City and Colour
Body in a Box -City and Colour
The Sleeping Sickness -City and Colour
The Funeral -Band of Horses
Murdered in the city -The Avett Brothers
Shame -The Avett Brothers
I and Love and You -The Avett Brothers
I Saw Lightning -Telekinesis
Live Like We're Dying -Kris Allen
Kids -MGMT

These will be on repeat in my car for the next few years.

I both love and hate the idea of my future, mostly because I'm so desperately excited and so discouragingly frightened.

This is the tattoo I'm getting for my 16th birthday. Yes, it's a Chinese symbol. No, I don't speak Chinese. Yes, it's overdone BUT no, I don't want a huge tattoo and yes, it has a lot of meaning.

The symbol means beautiful.
I'm not getting the word beautiful tattooed on myself because I'm conceited or anything like that but because the word beautiful is so much more to me than just a word. Each day I can look down at my body, a body that I've had quite a lot of issues with over the years and still continue to, and I will have a reminder that I am beautiful. Despite whether or not I find myself physically beautiful, I know that I'm a beautiful person and the people in my life have taught me that. Each day I can look down at that and have a reminder to treat people the way that I want to be treated, to not judge quickly and not judge harshly. Each day I can have a reminder that the world around me is beautiful and even on my darkest days, I have a reason to believe that something good is going to happen because it always seems to...even the smallest thing. I have a reminder that beautiful doesn't just have to mean that I'm a pretty face but that I'm a good person with a pure heart and good intentions. That's what this tattoo means to me and that's why I'm getting it.

Art and life are a work in progress.

Hearing that I had crossed your mind felt like a weight lifted off of my shoulders, like heaven had touched my cheeks if only for a mere second to tell me that I was not alone, that there was a place waiting for me. No matter if it's true or not, you said it. You said the exact words that I had been thinking for months. The truth is that each passing day, regardless of if I'm with him or if I'm with just anyone, your face crosses my mind at least once a day for the most inconsequential of reasons. I hear a song and I think of your face, I hear a word and think of something you said to me so long ago, or what feels like so long ago. At the same time though, I'm his. I made him that promise and I love him enough to keep it. I just can't tear myself away from the idea of us, in a place so far away from this one.

I want to feel your lips curled around my own, your hand pressed gently against the heart that you previously held in your teeth and your skin against mine, caressing me light as a feather as though it was bruised and wounded. I want it to be that simple but it never will be, because Love is never easy and three is a crowd.