“and I saw you, alone, dreaming. I watched a smile rise and colour you with sunset…”

“Once, I saw a bee drown in honey, and I understood.”

“As for myself, I had a lot to say. But I was silent.”

“A Guide to Being a 17 year old: First, you have to be indecisive. And I mean, REALLY indecisive. Think of it as trying to pick a flavor of ice cream, except your decision will determine what kind of ice cream you eat for the rest of your life, and some of the flavors could possibly kill you. You also have to be moody. And I mean, REALLY moody. But I don’t mean occasionally crabby. I mean some days you don’t want to get out of bed because the world will seem like the flattest goddamn bottle of champagne out there, and other days you will be that bottle. Once in awhile you’ll get these crazy urges, probably while you’re trying to sleep, and you’ll feel like cleaning your entire house or being the next great contemporary poet. Chances are you will remain in bed and proceed to get anxious about everything you could be doing. That’s another thing. You have to worry a lot. And I mean, REALLY worry. It’ll feel like you have an internal bees nest and just when things have settled down, the one kid from down the block you can’t get rid of bombards it with his slingshot. Most of the time you don’t even know what the hell you’re worried about. You just worry. But enough about your weird habits. You’ll figure those out eventually. The real kicker comes when you decide to venture into the unknown abyss of love. Yes, you will love. And I mean, REALLY love. But not right away. You’ll meet a girl, probably over social media because you’re too afraid to actually talk to her in person. She’s gonna intrigue you. This is how it goes. You’re going to try so hard to impress her with your witty, flirtatious phrases and eloquent words. Spoiler: it works. But don’t get too excited. You’ll start to think wow! I really like this person, but I don’t know if we’re ACTUALLY compatible because we completely bypassed the friend stage, the basis of all successful relationships. Actually, scratch that last part. You won’t realize that until afterwards. Anyways. You’ll date for awhile. You’ll see a few movies. You’ll start to think about her lips on your jaw and the electricity pulsing through your nerve endings when her hand rests on your arm. You’ll call it love, for the sake of labels. Then, when you’re way too invested to have any hope of a happy ending, things will go bad. And I mean, REALLY bad. You’ll start to constantly question yourself when she doesn’t look at you the same way. You’ll try to change yourself because your whole life you’ve never known anything different. You’ll break up. A jagged split that’s anything but symmetrical. Pieces of you will be left on the other side. You tell yourself you’ll learn from it; you’ll become a better person. But the worst is not the break. The worst is having to keep yourself company afterwards. You are a recently finished party where no one was quite interested enough to stay. You sit alone in the big hollow house that is yourself. You’ll crave attention. The kind that comes with temporary longing and permanent regret. You are once again the flat champagne bottle, hanging on the rack as people talk about what you once were. But you won’t change. You won’t do a damn thing about it. Because this is what’s comfortable to you. Being stuck in a boat that’s constantly taking on water but never enough to sink. You will not be the motor that propels you to shore. But just when it looks like you’re about to go down, someone will save you. Someone unexpected. She will come like the calm sea breeze rolling in on a Tuesday afternoon. You are tentative. Your heart is like the Christmas gift you’d rather keep yourself than give to someone else. But she will take it. It won’t be like before. Your walls will be violently torn down, and you’ll realize the human body is a work of art no prodigy could capture. You’ll no longer wonder about the future; you’ll long for it. You can’t wait for the moments when you can wipe that little bit of toothpaste from the corner of her mouth or ask what you can make her for dinner. Yes, you will want to make her dinner. And while you still don’t know what flavor of ice cream you want and you still haven’t figured out what you’re worrying about and that flat champagne bottle still hangs from the depths of your mind, everything will feel okay. The swinging pendulum that is your delicate life will settle into an unfamiliar but pleasant rhythm for as long as it can. But there’s one last thing you should hear… Good luck.”

“You’re an atheist’s nightmare; all I ever did was believe in you.”

“My grandmother told me to start going to church “You have to believe in something” she said. I believe in the creaks your floorboards make when I slip out of your room, the soft light that comes through the window. I believe in the slow-rolling fog on cold mornings, the washboard roads and stop sign glances. I believe in “goodbye” and “see you soon”, if there’s a difference. I sit on the porch instead of a pew, talk to myself instead of God. I have faith in the unexplained. My Sunday sermon is not played on an organ, but with fingers tapping on the steering wheel. The backseat is a confessional, words are uttered between precise movements. I pray to live, not exist. My sins are covered in sweat and gasps for air. There is no one to forgive but myself.”