exhausted, but i’m the happiest girl. my boyfriend loves me, i am graduating in 4 months, i love my jobs, i am going to a great church, i’m growing and learning every single day, and i serve the God of the universe. yah it’s only Monday and the rest of this week is going to trudge by, but I’m still here, I’m still moving and loving and breathing, and there is so much in my life to adore.

All of my best days are ones that end with my head on your chest, my fingers tracing the lines in your palm, your words all scratchy and tired falling in slow heaps from your mouth and into my head. I can’t wait for this all the time.

These days seem like they stretch so much further than they used to and I see you less and less because studying, working, and sitting in class with a spinning head are all I can really expect. And I miss you all the time and try to stop myself from thinking about you as much as I want to, but I end up thinking about how it’s kind of nice to know you’re always there even when I’m not. That I’m being missed. That I’m being thought of. That you’re mine no matter how tight the knots and chaos surrounding my life are. And it’s just so nice to know that I’m loved.

I’m going to be better for you, I promise.

You’ve had my heart for ten months now. We’ve smiled through the brightest days where we’d find our arms around each other time and time again, and we’ve also been faced with the darkest of circumstances where the only safe place to get away existed miles deep beaneath blankets or in the stillness and silence of a dimmed room. I’m not so scared anymore, you know, and I don’t ache like I used to. I used to be so uncertain of everything and I questioned my own thoughts and took back words just after letting them fall from my head, but it’s different now and when I look at you, I get it. And I know myself better than I did when you weren’t around, and I am beginning to see the things you do when you look over at me and now I see the world in the most beautiful ways, and I’m just so incredibly grateful that you’re as eager to see everything with my hand holding yours as I am when you’re gripping mine.  

The wind and rain beating against your window, quick hands and hushed fingers and a thousand stories unfolding from our mouths - you don’t even have to try.

I miss you the most when I know I don’t get to see you and today was one of those days. 10pm tomorrow night needs to hurry up so I can attack you with lovin and kisses n’ stuff.

Your hands and fingers, their joints and bones, are running lengths over the lines and ridges of my spine and the subtle gaps between the ribs on either side, and you say don’t leave yet, so I don’t and with every breath colliding with mine and each beat mirroring the lines you’re writing on my back, I thank God for giving me moments like the ones I have with you. How I can hardly breathe sometimes and you just smile because neither can you. How you read me while I’m reading you. How we say what the other person is thinking. How I get so cold and you wrap me up in your limbs without me saying a single word because you know. It’s just pretty beautiful to be known.

My life shouldn’t stop like this just because we aren’t okay and my happiness and motivation should not depend on whether we are on the same page or not. Burrying myself away in my bed, hoping you’ll finally text back is not the way I am going to spend today. I’m not going to wait for the dust to settle before allowing myself to believe I live a bright life, because with or without the light lit up between us, I am still alive and intelligent and forgiven and lovely and four months away from graduating, and I am finished with the pathetic, self loathing weight that has nestled its way inside my head and heart. I am going to spend the next 2 hours studying and I am going to be focused and calm, and though we’re unbalanced and restless and cooped up with words we can’t say quick enough, I’m not going to waste the breath and mind God has given me by sulking and picking myself apart.

It’s remarkable how quickly things can change. How one minute the smiles can come easy and how the loose ends can look all tied up even when you pull at the spots that used to loosen with the slightest tug. How the stars can sit all lined up in rows that you can count from a single glance and how the glow of the room makes your worries melt into the empty corners where the forgotten things go

to the next where you’re squinting through the tears and begging your chest to stop aching so you can get home in one piece.