I want a lover a lover who not only sees me but knows me the way that flower knows its root the way the moon knows its luminescence the way those birds know the current of the wind I want someone to peel me open like the skin of an orange, the flesh of its shell and drink me whole I want a lover who digs into me with hands scouring hills fingernails laden in lust lips wet with hunger eyes wide open I want this the way you want me I see this from the longing in your eyes the w

He had this way of making me feel like the only woman in the room and yet the last person he'd set his gaze on. I'd look at him from across a crowded party, waiting for his eyes to meet mine, to feel that warm sense of recognition that hit just the right spaces within me, yet were as frequent as witnessing a star firing across the sky. He knew the words that filtered into my soul, the gestures I would cipher pure and the corners of my back where his hands would coast and land

it's hard sometimes loving you when i don't know how i'll be loved when i arrive home or when i wake with the sun rise you're like the moon sometimes full burning, intense, golden sometimes cold a sliver of light barely visible in a darkened sky i can see you even when the night comes but can you see me? i'm here waving you down standing on the mountain top taking you in but you don't see me did you even look? i used to believe i wasn't worthy of love i didn't think someone c

Dear Aaron, I saw you from across the bar; your long hair tucked behind your ears, a few strands masking your eyes. You were playing pool with a girl you came out with, both of you focusing on the movement of the ball when it was your turn. I was on vacation in Los Angeles at the time, sitting with friends at the corner booth, watching from a distance. I pointed you out to them, noticing how the bright lights above the pool table accentuated your cheek bones and how when you

Dear Marco, How are you? Your photos pop up on my computer from time to time; you seem like you're doing well. Life in Europe always looks so alluring. The rolling curves of the Amalfi Coast, the crystals cascading from ocean waves, guitarists on street corners playing for themselves and the night sky, the romance that's blooming within every crevice of its landscape - it's easy to fall in love when there's boundless love all around you. I remember how every new experience wi

He told me he could picture us getting married one day. He brushed his beard against the side of my face, his wet lips grazing my ear, and he smiled as he said it. We were sitting intertwined on his black leather couch after we got home from a friend’s birthday party. He had drank quite a bit throughout the night - a few Johnnie Walker Black’s neat. I could tell he was feeling more relaxed and happier than usual. I laughed it off and didn’t take it too seriously. We had been

I've written a lot about the topic of trust in the past and how trusting people was often really hard for me to do. I've shared with you personal stories of having faith in past romantic relationships to eventually find out that the person I believed in didn't have my best interest at heart. The last time I wrote about those experiences was two years ago, around the time I had taken a hiatus from writing for Struck Inside Out. I've had two full years of reflection, stretching

Do you ever think about the energy of a space? How it's not only the people who inhabit a room or a home that bring it life? Take, for instance, my current writing view. I'm sitting in my living room and to my right is the front door. On the back of the door is a coat hanger with a collection of my boyfriend and I's jackets, hats, umbrellas, and bags. On the floor to the left of the door is my boyfriend's brown, leather shoes. Underneath them is a small, reversible area rug.

I used to think I was alone and crazy in how I felt in my former love relationships. The conversations that my mind would often have with itself were both borderline psychotic and what I thought to be at the time, abnormal. That is until I spoke to other women who not only confessed to feeling the same way as I did, but actually wanted to speak more about the mystery of the “crazy girl” mentality. What is the “crazy girl” mentality you may ask? It is when a woman, while datin

“So don't be frightened, dear friend, if a sadness confronts you larger than any you have ever known, casting its shadow over all you do. You must think that something is happening within you, and remember that life has not forgotten you; it holds you in its hand and will not let you fall. Why would you want to exclude from your life any uneasiness, any pain, any depression, since you don't know what work they are accomplishing within you?” -Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Y

Love has always taken the spotlight of my life. Whether blissfully in love or desperately heartbroken, it has always commanded and depleted me. I hate to admit it, but there have been far too many times where I’ve let myself become devoured by love’s uncertainty to the point where I’d be paralyzed from it. If I had gotten into a really bad argument with a boyfriend, if I felt something was questionably off between us or if there was a lingering distance growing, I’d become na

I’ve asked myself so many times in my life, When are you finally going to stop this already? How many more times do you have to experience this to realize something needs to change? Have you done that before? You find yourself repeating the same old detrimental habits, attracting the same old types of relationships, living out the same old script that’s been rewritten numerous times with new people, places and things, but still the same old plot? Oh, and the leading character

“I have an idea that this is what enduring love really means. Your memories of a girl at seventeen become as real and vivid as the middle-aged woman sitting in front of you. It is a happy sort of double vision, this seeing and remembering. To be seen this way is to be known.” –William Landay Last January I posted a letter I wrote to my Grandfather that I read at his wake. It was about his life – his small mannerisms of drinking tea with lemon in the mornings, reading the pape

Have you ever had a gut feeling that was so incredibly strong and over powering that you simply could just not deny it? Whether your intuition was telling you something you wanted to hear or not, you had no choice but to obey and carefully listen to the little clues it was whispering to you. Sometimes when we’re getting these hints, we don’t want to believe what our voice is telling us, because if it were in fact true, then everything that we once believed in would be a lie.

What is that saying again about taking risks? “Leap and the net will find you”? Or was it, “All growth is a leap in the dark”? Either way, the both are synonymous - take a chance on something new and everything will eventually fall into place. Every new beginning is like a blank page, an empty canvas and a new start. That’s where we believe the darkness to be; in the center of that ambiguous uncertainty that lies in the pit of our stomachs at the dawn of each new venture. I t

Lately I have begun the practice of asking myself: “Are you doing this because you want to do this or because you have to?” It’s become a sort of call to action for me, to see in what areas of my life I am merely going through the motions or actively participating in my present life circumstances. Of course, a part of this life is doing things we don’t necessarily want to do – things we have to do in order to get by. The kind of means to an end job that supports you financial

Have you ever written a letter to an old boyfriend, articulating things that were left unsaid, writing for a sense of closure, only to leave it unsent? I’ve done that twice in my life and both times I thought I was completely over my ex. I was happy to finally feel unattached and independent, only to soon hear a song that reminded me of him or to unexpectedly stumble across an old photo of us, causing my heart to drop into my stomach and knots to fill the void. Alanis Moriset

“Some birds are not meant to be caged, that's all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure.” –Stephen King I’ve been thinking a lot lately about living in the present moment. I guess I’ve