I miss the simpler days.

It is not that they were better days,

They just required a lot less energy to breathe.

Riding around with friends

Blasting Usher and Kesha

Trying to find people who would buy us alcohol

Acting innocent while rushing the gates of our boundaries.

Curfews were early

And days were long

And it felt great.

It felt beautiful to be alive.

To be breathing and know that we were living.

Kissing friends and strangers

And partying with people who started out as acquaintances and ended up being our best friends.

No cares, just freedom.

Wind in our hair

And love in our hands.

Being reckless and raw and powerful.

I miss the simpler days.

I would trade the better days to go back

Breathe living air, and drink healing waters again.

-AshleyAnne

What do you call it?

Kisses that tingle

Hugs that are warming

Hands held casually

Tears shared openly

Eyes become endless

Smiles turn goofy

Giggles, spontaneous

Hearts given freely

TRUST

Now vulnerable...

I sat in that diner with my eyes black. I was numb.

My nose was painted with dried blood.

The sweet older waitress kept filling my coffee mug and saying, "it gets better sweetie"

As sweet as she was, and knowing she was only trying to make me feel better, I felt nothing at all. Nothing until she said that same line over and over. Each time I felt angry. Like she was lying to me.

Things do not always get better. And she is 70 years old, ironically working the graveyard shift and refilling the coffee of a broken young girl who could barely afford 2 dollars for a cup of bitter coffee.

Bitter coffee was a good companion. It was hot enough to distract me from the painfully numb heart in my chest. It continued to be emptied and refilled.

I could tell that the two men that were grabbing a quick sobering bite to eat were curious as to what was wrong with me. They wanted to know my story, but were too lazy to read the scars on my skin.

Why would someone so young and beautiful try so hard to kill herself? They do not ever understand though. I never tried, I simply did. With every man who bought my body, and every slice I made in my flesh - I died.

I was dead a long time ago. So, with empty eyes and dried blood on my face, I sip my coffee and try to rest in my emptiness. I tried to convince myself that there was no one in this diner besides me and the sweet older waitress who kept refilling my coffee.

$3.00 on the counter and I am back in the harsh, cruel place that makes sure I never get my head above the gravel. The more cement I breathe in, the heavier my lungs, the easier it is to keep me down.

"Things will get better" like a broken record in my head. A seed of hope in a barren soul.

Maybe she knows more than I do, and maybe this hope is like drug. Smuggled into a hell that I will never escape.

At least I will always have the coffee.

-AshleyAnne

I feel hurt, my life has betrayed me. I'm trying to save the world but can't even save me. I took the shiniest path and it did me grimy, telling me I wasn't cut out for this, that I really ain't shit. I know life ain't about the money but if he who holds the money makes the power then I better hope my passion pays me highly.

My anger consumes me, my chest is tight and I can't breath, I wish I could distinguish this anger and make the world feel it, know what the fuck they've been missing. Abuse comes in many forms, you find yourself making excuses for relationships that aren't even the norm. Taking shit from others and swallowing your pride, knowing that to get by, your sharp tongue sometimes you gotta hide.

At the end of the day, you want to make this person who signs off on your paycheck an ally, kissing ass isn't cute but you think it'll help you get by. It doesn't take time to lose yourself, and you go from kissing ass to sucking dicks. You're a prostitute to your boss and even though you've already got the job, you're still selling yourself and proving your worth.

Fuck the norm, fuck ties and political correctness and morning meetings. Fuck making a paycheck to pay for hard liquor to get you through the week to be able to make it to your job. Fuck the unhappiness of making someone else the money, and working yourself into the ground to prove that you're more ethical and deserving than anyone else. Fuck coupons and "discounts" and the need for a car to get to work. Fuck insurance and mortgages. Fuck higher education and school loans that leave you in jobs in which you are unable to pay those loans.

Fuck this world and how we've been taught to live in it.

I have always had skin problems. Not acne, but scars and discomfort. For some reason that only the secret gods know, I was born into a flesh that feels like a jail cell. Most days, this body is trying to shut down. Barely breathing. Aching.

I would like to say that I could shed like a snake, and feel some kind of newness, but I am - and always have been - worn out.

I was busy reading the paper and smoking pipes in the womb. I held knowledge where most people only held curiosity. And the world has tried to kill my aged soul.

Someday I hope to think of myself as a fine wine. Maybe I am an acquired taste, but what is not?

In the evening, I sit and stare at white walls like they are the night sky. I wish on the imperfections I can find in the paint job.

In the mornings, I sigh a sigh of relief and grief. I am relived that I have survived, but grieved that it seems to be all I can do - survive.

I am uncomfortable. I am imperfect. I am aged far beyond my years. I am an acquired taste. Sip on me. Tell me that I am here for more than labored breathing and scar tissue. No one can tell by looking at me that I am cursed, but maybe it is everyone else who is cursed. Maybe I will be the cure. Maybe I am the antidote to the worlds ignorance.

Until the moment of purpose passes, I will wait and bleed. I will burn down and float atop the same waters that try to pull me under every day.

-AshleyAnne

In bed with my wife, I joked, "You know I love so much."

"How much?" she played along.

"How do I count the ways? Well, number 1001: I love you for your beautiful brown eyes.

"That's easy." she smirked.

"Number 837: I love you for the way you ran around the parking lot after you got your new sneakers at REI. Number 529: I love you for that way you say my name, the vocal inflection you use. Number 997,"...and so it went, until she smiled and laughed; and we fell asleep together.

And when I saw she was having a trying day, "You know how much I love you?

"How much? she brightened.

"Number 998: I love you for no reason at all. Number 83: I love you for your son. Number 7: I love you for the way you laugh when I say that word. Should I say it?"

"What word?" She inquired hesitantly.

"Goofball." I smiled.

And she laughed and laughed like she was drunk with joy. Then we climbed the stairs. I followed her and playfully slapped her behind.

And one tense afternoon, "You know how much I love you?"

"Oh boy," she rolled her eyes.

"Number 367: I love you for the soul you are in this life. Number 746: I love you for the the way you sing that song by Richard Clayderman (that I did not like but came to adore because she did.) Number 111: The way you feel when I have my arms around you when we take our afternoon naps together. Number: 27..., and so it went until I felt stymied and embarrassed because this time I could not think of another thing to say.

It was a gift, a running joke, an expression of my love for her, and a reminder to myself to keep going deep inside and realize all the ways I appreciate this beautiful ancient being who chose to be with me for awhile.

People keep asking me how I survived. I do not really know. I know that every day I had to remind myself to breathe. I know it took a long time to build myself a new heart.

I cannot hate you.

I cannot get over you.

I will always love you.

It's just the way things have to be, I guess. And I have this hole inside of me that is shaped exactly like you. It's a black hole inside of my bones. I keep grasping at everything and anyone to try and fill this hole, but it is bottomless. There is no end to it, possibly because there is no end to the love and devotion I have for you.

Ask me to come home.

Ask me to be yours.

Ask me to let you in.

I will.

Maybe because I forgave you. Maybe because I can't un-love you. Maybe because you are the only one who can stop this disaster in me. Maybe because I am a fool. A fool with a heart that clings to pain the way that an infant clings to its mother.

Pain is my mother. Insecurity is my father. And I am the product of everything you love to destroy.

How did I survive? I survived by locking love away in a small dark box and storing it in the bottom of my left lung. Every time I breathe, I risk setting love free. Survival isn't really what they want. They want life, and that is something I haven't had in a long time.

-AshleyAnne

You gave me a heart

When all I wanted was a hand

But I fell in love with you

Not knowing the hope you placed at my feet

Was only sinking sand.

-AshleyAnne

I am a stranger,

I cannot help it,

It is the way I was born.

I will never belong,

And though I will always try to fit in

I will always fail.

I have learned that not belonging anywhere

Is not really a failure, it is a victory.

I have already won by not being chained to a reality that everyone else is born into.

I will never feel time the way they do.

I will love harder and deeper than they are capable of.

I will be what no one else can be.

I am a stranger.

Not a sinner.

Not an alien.

Not something that needs to be poked and prodded.

I am just new. And I will stay new as long as I am living.

And when I die, I will be new again.

I am a stranger,

And that makes me strange to those who are not strangers

But it also makes me silently powerful,

Like the moon and the way it pulls the ocean.

I pull humanity without a single word.

-AshleyAnne