Little girl with big dreams and big heart, I’ll tell you who I once was, you can tell me who you are

Teach me and tell me everything that you believe

Like if the world was against me, would you fight for me?

Would you prove me wrong and tell me love still exists, that no matter how jaded I’ve become, you’ll continue to insist?

And could I still be loved after I’m stripped down to the core, once you’ve figured me out, would you not need me anymore?

Could you truly say that you’ll love me this way, with so little time and so much left to say?

Tonight I can feel again

I breathe a deep breath and remember that I’m alive, remembering all the feelings of love I had trapped inside

Remembering that little girl this world taught me never to be, and forgetting the punishment on allowing myself to be free

And with these questions and fears yet I’m still willing to remain, willing to endure each pleasure and pain

The pleasure to love you and the pleasure to grow but the pain in not knowing that there can ever be more

When I look back, I can say that these were the dullest years of my life

Outcomes were expected, decisions were made and there was no room for other options

Life had a certainty to it though

I woke up reciting what was going to happen and at night I closed my eyes expecting to feel the same

Others inquired about me and they would say I was put together, driven and at times even confident

But what they didn’t know was the mere fact that I was only getting better at pretending

I spent these years numbing any desires I had for love that had once kept me up all night in my younger years

Eliminating any illusions of fantasies too unreal to grasp

I even accepted the complacency of being ordinary and I ignored any urge towards rebellion

I Ignored all the doubts I had in my heart that weighed me down like an anchor in the water and I tuned out the voice that was speaking to me

I was asleep.

From there, I drifted off

Off in to the winds and easily swayed from side to side, back and forth, high then low, spinning and twirling finding myself lost but still kept

I was controlled-

By every moving object, every moving creature- every single soul, except my own.

I didn’t know where I was-all I know is that I wasn’t dreaming.

I never wanted to relive my grandmother's story

A city girl with a beautiful smile 

A dancing and wondrous soul who longed for the ocean

Deep and endless

A hopeless romantic, truly

She fell in love with a poor man who studied in the city where she was from

When they married, she up kept his home while he worked and raised all five of their children

Time passed

Every night she would cry herself to sleep because he never came home

She stayed

She never dared to be the woman who wasn't good enough for him

Even with tears, she fought his approval, his acceptance, his love

So much time fighting

And she lost herself

The truth is

All my grandmother really wanted to do was dance

Dance with her love

Smile, laugh and enjoy her life with the man who never accepted her

When she was dying, my grandfather wept and told us he never deserved her

The day she died, I saw her cry too

It was then that she received what she had always longed for

As he was turning away she asked him, "Do you believe that love is a feeling or a choice?"

He turned back to her and said, "Well both darling, if I said it was a feeling, I'd have to make the choice to run with that feeling, and if I said it was a choice, I'd have to feel it in my heart to choose love."