I want to hug you one more time.

I want to leave things with how we loved each other once upon a time.

I want to follow strangers on Instagram after screaming at a concert together one more time.

I want to watch horror movies and banter until dawn one more time.

I want to go to your jazz concert one more time.

I want to kiss my dog one more time.

I want to sing karaoke YouTube videos with my dad one more time.

I want to push the shopping cart while my sibling puts in cookies n cream ice cream one more time.

I want to make blueberry bagels for my neighbors one more time.

I want to drink cranberry and guava juice one more time and lay on the porch swing, listening to your memories one more time. Accompaniment composed by the birds vocalizing their frequency of residence at your fairy garden

I want to live this art that life imitates.

Naked as you came, Saturn was there.
Down the line, you’re smelling twenty-seven blown out candles, cutting the cake. Shocked to see her return. She takes a piece and I’m disoriented. Why is she dressed like this is a sleepover? Rolling in luggage with a houseplant in her other arm? She’s humming while bringing in cardboard boxes and I don’t remember giving her a birthday invitation nor will she pay rent.

And her birthday gift on your birthday to your birthday party on your birthday with a birthday gift was glass and champagne to the face.

She points at my chest and tells me to “get fucking real.”
Growing up is just removing layers and layers of iron coats nature and nurture have styled you. Of course, you never asked for them. But, you chose to be fearful AND still walk. Barefooted while others were born with boots. On rocks, unfinished cigarettes, broken concrete, broken glass. Though some have come with boots, they may have not been born with spectacles as you do. Each and everyone one of us are the same because each and every one of us are different.

The final level is the “imaginary”. Two realities where my benefits lie in optimism. Where some view it to be delusional and naive, it’s a method of survival.
I refuse to believe I am a fool to dream of a world full of love.

The magic you try to chase through fantasy and escape,
Is right in front of you.
My biggest grief was the greatest gift of clarity.
It’s no longer imaginary.
I know I am happy because I wouldn’t be able to value love without the boulder, the one whose fingers slipped from Sisyphus’ callused, bloody grip.
The serenity in accepting the push just to fall. The serenity in choosing to be happy.
“What punishments of God are not life’s greatest gifts?”
My Surrendering was my greatest victory.

I don’t want to die anymore.
I want to live.

And I will take my terrified, traumatized, horrified younger me, and hold her hand while I show her that because even if it’s all in complete darkness, It does not prove that there won’t be greater things waiting for you in the sun.

But you have to keep walking.
To come home to the sanctuary within you.

“Glad you made it safe! I’ll see you tomorrow <3”