Inside

A person born in a burning house

believes the world is on fire.

I wasn’t born in a burning house, 

but I wasn’t taught to stop drop and roll;

so when the clouds migrated from the sky

to my ceiling,

and and my lungs began to burn 

brighter than I’d ever seen the glow in our fireplace, 

I didn’t know what to do. 

I kept everything in thinking it’d slow time, 

thinking it'd heal itself, 

but I found the more I kept in,

the hotter it burned, 

until I blew. 

And lit the people around me on fire too.

To Trailblaze

I was taught to trailblaze,
but when I turned twenty, I was handed a map—
drawn in borrowed ink
and stolen street names.

College.
Career.
Marriage.
Mortgage.

But the lines blur and cross,
the ink leaks,
the roads end.

We are not copies.
We are not traced in carbon.
We are living sketches—
unfinished,
imperfect,
burning into shapes and paths
no one has seen before.

Twenty is not a destination.
It is no landmark, no milestone.
It is a light breaking through,
a refusal to walk roads worn thin by others,
a reminder that the earth only burns
where we choose to walk.

Every breath

It started with my dad ‘snoring too loud.’

But I could hear him too. And I wished he would stop, just as much as my mom.

Until one day I found myself wishing on every dandelion, every birthday candle, on every shooting star to hear him snoring in the room next to me again.

And every breathe I blew, every wish I made I made it with my whole heart.

People say everything works out, everything happens for a reason.

But how do you tell a girl, who grew up watching Disney fairytales they are just stories.

How do you explain that wishing for her parents to find the will to love eachother again was just the start. Just the name calling by the world.

That in a world full of beauty, magic, and love

exists a mirrored life.

I’ll tell you. The way I taught myself

as I grew up wishing for anything but was.

By drawing connection

that without endings, there are no beginnings.

Without night lies no dawn,

Without fear lies no courage.

With no time lies no memories,

With no loss lies no love.

Life is made of both,

we are made of both.

One cannot breathe, nor fully live without the other.

So when I find myself wishing, on every clover, every number seven, and horseshoe;

I stand still in my chaos,

and remind myself,

wishing isn’t about changing the past,

but believing in the fire still waiting to be lit ahead of me.