Glitter.

She falls apart in a glittery mess. Confetti in the shape of little paper hearts and little golden sequins. Rainbow glitter littering the floor. Making beautiful messes.

She scoops handfuls and throws it in the air. Sparkle on the way down, stings her eyes, she’ll never wash it all out of her hair.

She’s working on loving all the messy pieces of the confetti gun that’s exploded from within her heart. She’s having to learn how to twirl without a partner. It’s gorgeous on the outside but she doesn’t know about a happily-ever-after.

She falls apart all over her hardwood floors. Alone, again, she’s trying to find the lovely in the glitter fluttering and falling; anything to not cry anymore.

It’s a disastrous party in her little studio as she dances barefoot in the love she doesn’t have somewhere to place. She wraps it in her fingers and braids it in her hair, looking to repurpose this love where there isn’t any space.

It’s a rainbowed room dappled in yellows, greens, reds, and blues. She’s a complete mess but she’s trying to find a way to love the glitter as it fills her room. Trying to find happy now that she doesn’t have you.

Left.

He left me.

He left me because I was too much me. He says he loves me but he’s searching for anything that could be.

He says he loves me but he’s searching now and I guess the joke was always on me. Try too hard, love too much, send him flowers, he’ll still leave.

He’ll tell anyone who hears him that it was because of me. I couldn’t be a nine to five and with that he couldn’t be my partner in life.

Less than a day and he’s already moving on. Social media, searching, always ready to keep on moving on. And on and on. Keep on moving before his life catches up. “I love you,” minutes before. He doesn’t really mean it, anymore.

My heart broke the first time years ago. He used a well placed chisel to open up the crack. Tapped the hammer tonight and now I’m back.

Dead and gone. Broken and used. He got exactly what he was after and I’m perfectly lovely abused.

He tells me that he loves me while he’s searching for someone else’s clothes to unbutton. He’s a liar and he will continue to use those words to fill his plate. He’s a glutton.

He said he loved me but now I know it wasn’t ever really true. He’s marketing himself like he’s something shiny and new.

I’m not new and I’m not quite broken. I’m a fixer upper with a show stopping smile and a bit of bitterness in my hair. I don’t believe in soulmates and I’ve forgotten how to care. I burn down everyone I’ve ever touched; they can’t last, they will burn, ashes to ashes all I create is dust.

Part Two.

So many moments make you believe it’s the biggest moment in your life. So many moments seem more monumental than the last. What chapter are you on, would you ever turn the page back?

This is the first chapter to my Part Two. Love wasn’t enough on Valentine’s Day, although there was a lot of love. There was so little said and so much hurt. Love doesn’t always let you let go but leaves you face down in the dirt.

My dream is coming true, later in life, but so young too. I’m luckier than most, I know. Not many people get to have their dream careers come true. One of the reasons I lost Love but the beginning of my Part Two.

Terror and sadness and overwhelming pride, my measly body is bursting with emotions I’m desperately trying to hide.

The hurt is spilling down my face and watering the weeds. But. I’m taking a running leap into the direction of a newly found dream.

Love doesn’t leave, She just sometimes changes form. She won’t leave me, She can’t, I need her to get through the coming chapter two now that I don’t have you.

Back.

My wildest dream just came true. It didn’t fall into my lap from the stars I’ve been whispering my wishes to. I worked hard and I fell. I researched and I failed. I gave my all and finally, it’s my time to exhale.

One percent get to put on that purple dress and fly across hundreds of skies. One percent are picked to be the elite, the ones who have done more than just tried.

My wildest dream is in my pocket and I am the one who made it happen.

But with this dream I’m losing him.

I can’t have both, he says, it’s too much distance.

So part of me is a tempest, guttural whoops into the world. I did it. I made it. I’m the victor all on my own.

The rest of me is demolished forests and splinters forced in on ribs. Useless woods that grew for us, flourishing in the winter. You say my forest can’t shelter us. I guess it’s just a pile of ash and dust.

I have two dreams and one of them is being taken from me. Where do I put my heart when it’s handed back to me?

Jump.

Jump into the abyss and know you’ve spent years properly exercising your wings.

Jump from that highest cliff that seems as if it’s meant to break you. Just know the holes in your wings have been sewn back up, that you’ve prepared for skies that are rough. Know that you are brave and no one can take that away.

A “no,” feels like the ground came up to meet you faster than you expected. Like you were so sure you were soaring and never saw those rocks ready for the kill. Ready to take your dreams and bury them as if they were never real.

Just jump. You are a beautiful winged thing. Made to fly, leave the ground, the most natural thing.

The spells you’ve cast and the cards you’ve pulled have only relayed what you already knew. This is the time, the moment, this is for you.

Know you have prepared your once feeble wings for this monstrous thing. You will fly, you will make it, this moment is mine.

Love.

You deserve a wild love that tangles fingers in your dark brown hair.

You deserve bare skin, grinning with wine stained lips and the kisses that include his beard.

You deserve the truth and all things fair. You deserve those long sighs he gives you on his navy blue sheets. You deserve those clammy hand holds through December streets.

You deserve freezing nights starring up at all the stars while he lets you name them and tell their stories as if they were ours.

You deserve coffee soaked tongues that find each other before the coffee is done.

You deserve this love. You deserve this calm. You deserve this love you’ve been dreaming of.

Universe.

It’s heavy carrying all of the stars inside all of this darkness. It’s heavy to hold up the Sun and to still cradle the Moon. It’s quite a task being an entire universe, too.

My weary sky paints the darkness each and every night. Indigos, silvers, and navy, they will always be there, painted and lavish no matter the weight of that universe inside.

The stars aren’t as light as they seem. They are shards and splinters that can make your skin bleed. I will hang them no matter the cost to my skin; the only little bits of tangible heaven.

The weight of this universe I grow inside pushes against the Sun and forces Her to rise. Lovely, bright, and warm; rusty red and yellow hues always there to wake you.

Be gentle with the skies you scream into. You don’t know if they’re waging war. You don’t know if that universe took every ounce of strength to raise those pretty lights for somewhere to direct all the cries.

Okay.

And in an instant I was okay.

I wasn’t torn into a multitude of pieces that frayed in the relentless Winter winds.

My lungs breathed out and with it the last shreds of hate within.

And in an instant I was okay.

Words have a power more ruthless, sly, more cosmic than you know. It’s how we cast spells, it’s how we take down a man, or don’t.

And in an instant I was okay again.

The war torn wastelands I till inside myself trying to get to fresh soil are finally clean. A few simple words make the hardened earth soft and I’m able to garden like the witch they’ve always seen.

And in an instant I was okay.

I breathe out and dispel all the pettiness cloaked in darkened shrouds. I’ve worked so hard to keep it all out. I breathe in, breathe out. I’m really okay now.

Haunt.

He was there again last night. Quietly slipping into my dreams, stealing my breath and squeezing out memories.

There isn’t much I can do when my eyes are closed and the movie scene plays like it’s something I haven’t already seen.

In and out of consciousness I’m in and out of tears. Must you stay the ghost in my head, the one that dredges up old fears?

Fall away from the inside of my eyelids, fall away from sleep. Take my thoughts of you and don’t come in unless you mean it.

I feel your breath breathing in my neck, your hands perfectly intertwined in mine. I smell your body and wake up confused and hurt from this one giant lie.

I don’t know how to undream you or banish you from my sleep. I don’t know how to make myself kinder when I can’t control the company my subconscious keeps.

He was there again last night. Calm and quiet and aloof. My very own Spector that I’ve raised from my very own sunken graves, I don’t know how to sleep without you.