Thoughts From The Heart

I make up infinite universes in my head- you're the center of about 2 million of them: In one, we sleep on the sand and live by the tides. Your blonde locks constantly smell of salt, glow like sunlight, and we are something wonderful. In another, we share a studio apartment in your favorite city. Murphy beds and fluorescent lights, yellow taxi cabs and our hands interlocked amid the flood of strangers.  In the next, you write articles for our small town paper and I write stories about far off places. My outrageous fantasies fill the shelves in our room and your detailed realities are framed in our halls. If I mapped all the stars, you'd always shine the brightest.

To My Future Daughter,  I hope you're happy. I hope you're smiling. I hope you love the world. I hope you love yourself. I hope you eat watermelon all the way down to the rind and meet boys that hold your hand and call you beautiful. I hope you fall in love with books that take you to magical places and stare at your history teacher in awe as he discusses the American Revolution. I hope you have best friends that hug you when you cry and make you laugh until your stomach hurts. I hope you swim out deep in the ocean and watch the sunrise in your pajamas. I hope you dance when you hear a good song and sing when you know the words. I hope you're fearless. I hope you're adventurous. I hope you're happy.

Part of her will always love you. This is because she won't remember you as the boy who broke her, but as the boy who drank too much tea and painted the most beautiful landscapes. As the boy that snuggled with her when rain pattered on the roof above. As the boy who fixed the drip in her kitchen sink and brought her lunch every Tuesday. She'll forget the hurt, she'll forget the pain, and in a cruel twist of fate you'll hold a piece of her heart forever.

I'm the kind of girl you never fall in love with. My eyes are too close together and my skin is covered in freckles. My face is always red and my tummy is always pale. I laugh too loud when I'm nervous and require too much validation. I drink too much and cry too often. I overthink and overcomplicate. I push everyone away and I'm scared to open up. I like my coffee black and wear loose t shirts. I don't catch your eye in a crowded room. My eyes change colors and my mind is always somewhere else. No matter how hard I try, I can't change who I am. Simply, I'm the girl nobody wants.

I knew I was falling for you when poetry started dancing around my brain. Suddenly, your lungs were stardust and your eyes were oceans, drowning me with a simple glance. Your raspy morning voice became an intricate melody and your signature peppermint scent felt like home. One minute you were man, the next you were magic.

What We Think Love Will Feel Like: Adjacent snow angels dancing across meadows and sunsets filled with the brightest of pinks. Confetti and stardust raining down from the sky and hot chocolate with too many marshmallows floating to the top. Boardwalk dates and saltwater taffy wrapped neatly in waxed paper. What Love Actually Feels Like: Holding hands with sweaty palms and butterflies tying knots in your stomach. Drunken courage leading to sober confessions and laughing so hard you snort. Stolen sweatshirts that you wear to bed, his minty scent lacing your sheets like a poorly kept secret. Sloppy kisses and blushing cheeks, but you wouldn't have it any other way.

In my mind, I’ve thought of infinite futures for myself: In one, I live in a beach house with the boy who owns the red jeep and the bright blue surfboard. My day revolves around the tides and I make lobster every Sunday for dinner. We eat and we laugh and at night we take walks along the moonlit sea. Sand fills the cracks in the worn hardwood floors and salty air comes and goes with the breeze. 
In another, I own a cabin in the woods with the boy who bought me a telescope for my sixteenth birthday. We stargaze until sunlight conquers the darkness and we drink water from a well. Our limbs tango beneath the wine stained sheets as the drafty windows let in the bitter winter air, but we don’t care as long as we have each other. In the last, I live alone in a small studio apartment. The city lights flood through my windows and the sirens serve as my alarm clock. My favorite liquor fills the fridge and I eat banana pancakes everyday for breakfast. I own an old fashioned type writer and click away until I create magic on paper. My words fill the world with wonder.

Freckles dance along her cheeks and her fiery red hair sits in its throne upon her head. She smells like peppermint and freshly baked cookies. Her bloodshot eyes scan the hallway and every word she says is laced with uncertainty. Usually, she laughs nervously and twiddles her thumbs, but when he’s around she flashes a toothy smile and finally lets go. She’s scared of a lot of things: spiders, teachers, big cities, loneliness. But most of all, she’s scared to love. She scared to hold his hand and feel the warmth of his hug. She’s scared of heartbreak, even though it’s nowhere in sight.

She has skyscrapers in her mind, but Texas buried within her heart. She wears platform sneakers and sews masterpieces in her basement. She falls in love every day: the brunette boy in chemistry class, the snow blanketing the open field behind the school, the rush of a city sidewalk. She reminds you of summer, full of sunshine and adventure; without a care in the world. She smiles wide at corny movies and makes mac and cheese at 11:00 PM for no reason at all. She has dreams bigger than this entire small town and an endless fire within. Galaxies spin in her eyes, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.

She shines like the christmas lights from across the street and walks like everyone in the world will know her name someday. She laughs until she cries and snuggles with her younger sister on Sunday nights. The white walls in her room are painted with imagination and sunlight, kind of like her. She eats buttery pasta for dinner and stays up until 1:00 AM for the simple thrill of it. She has a map in her mind filled with all the places she's been and everywhere she dreams of going. She thought she loved him, but she never did. What she loves is taking risks, striped comforters, sandy braids, the turquoise sea. What she loves is bigger than any boy could ever be; she loves the world.

Her blonde hair graces her head like a halo and she uses stardust as eyeshadow. Her thoughts are melodies and her words are symphonies, but oftentimes she prefers to keep the music to herself. She laughs terribly hard at corny jokes and always puts others before herself. Her eyes sparkle when she's deep in thought and she knows exactly when someone needs a hug. She dreams of an escape from the suffocating small town, but deep down she know she'll miss it when she's gone.

The sound of her laugh is better than any song on the radio and she smiles like it’s her job. She has love letters stashed in the back of her desk addressed to all the boys who have kept her up at night, making her wonder if she’ll ever really be good enough. She drinks hard alcohol in an attempt to forget him, but always finds herself dialing his number after 12:00 AM. She eats French toast sticks before school and smiles at the strangers on the bus. She sings at the top of her lungs and taps her feet to the rhythms dancing in her head. Although she’s hurting, you’d never know. It’s not a love story, but god she wishes it was.

She’s smart, but nobody really knows that. She wears turtleneck sweaters and scrunchies and hides her glasses at the very bottom of her backpack. She twiddles her thumbs when she gets nervous and bites her nails upon impending doom. Her room is filled with polka dots and a modern day princess bed. She’s her dad’s favorite and they go out to lunch every Sunday, just the two of them. She has five beautiful best friends all willing to give her the world, yet she settles simply for Saturday brunches and Friday nights in an unknown basement. She loves the ocean more than anything. She kisses boys in the dunes and forgets their names the next morning. She goes on highway adventures with her sister every Wednesday. She studies, she drinks, she laughs, she cries, she smiles, and she writes.

There is more to life than him. There are cafes on cozy city corners with vintage chandeliers and that waiter that always smiles at you when you order a chai latte. There are christmas trees that shine through apartment windows and that seventy year old couple across the hall who walk around the park at 9:30 every morning. Rainy Thursdays when you're awoken by the patter of rain on your roof and Sunday nights when the week is yours to conquer. There's swimming in the ocean at dusk when the sky is pink and the saltwater is warm. There's sweet wine to drink with your best friends and karaoke songs to butcher with any willing participant. There are bubble baths after a long day and a clean bed with fresh sheets. There are adventures waiting in some far off country and a boy who will look at you one day like you're the only person in the damn world. There is more to life than heartbreak.

It's September. She can't stop thinking about him. The way his callused hands intertwined with hers as they laid in the sand, looking up at the stars and wishing their love could be as infinite as space itself. It's November. The brisk air sends shivers down her spine and the crunch of the leaves serve as a reminder that things are changing, falling apart. She still hears the crash of the ocean in her dreams, but when she awakes it only makes her feel farther from home. It's January. Winter used to be her favorite season, but the sparkling white snow only means one thing to her now: six more months. Six more months of agony, of hurt, of longing. Six more months until she sees those mysterious grey eyes and runs her fingers through his knotty blonde hair. It's April. The tulips and peonies escape from their slumber and cover the ground in vibrant pinks and yellows. The boy from down the street asks her on a date, but she declines. She's still waiting. The sunshine brings hope and promise as everyday passes, yet her life is still on pause.  It's finally summer. She returns to the sea with her heart open, ready to run back to the boy who showed her the tides. Her hope only to be destroyed by the cold reality- he had moved on. 12 months was too long for him to wait, meanwhile she would have waited years to kiss those sunburned lips one last time.

The first boy you fall in love with is the starting quarterback. His blonde locks grace the top of his head like a halo and other girl's mouths involuntarily drop when he walks by, and yet he chooses you. After the football games you get into his rusty pickup truck, but he doesn't drive you home; always his house first. You say nothing when his hands go too far up your skirt and when his team loses he gets angry, really angry, and you might leave his house with a bruise or two but it's okay because you love him, right? You were only sixteen. The second boy you fall in love with smokes cigarettes and wears old leather jackets. He listens to classic rock on a stolen record player in his room with black walls. His fingers strum the chords of that angry electric guitar as you watch from a table in the back of the bar. He thinks he knows everything about the world, everything about you, but he really only talks about himself. He's mysterious and confusing and yet you think maybe he's the one. You utter I love you in the darkness of his room one night, but he pretends not to hear. You were seventeen. The third boy you fall in love with reads alone in the library during lunch and twiddles his thumbs when he asks you out after chemistry class. He comes to your house that night with roses and introduces himself to your father with a shaky voice. He brings you to a movie and takes an hour to muster up the courage to hold your hand. His warm fingers intertwine with yours and suddenly it's bliss. He walks you to your doorstep and after a terribly awkward silence, he leans in and places an innocent peck on your lips. Overtime, he makes you realize you were never really in love, not until him. You're eighteen, and you finally got it right.