He's got freckles, little orange spots adorning him like stars in the sky.
He's got gorgeous eyes, grey, brown, green. I get lost in them, look in them so long that I see my reflection.
He's got smooth skin, and soft lips, and floppy hair that's always too long.
He'll poke fun at me, and I'll say 'shut up' with a grin on my face.
I'll poke fun at him, and he'll gasp and clutch his chest in mock offense, before he cracks himself up.
He's got an amazing smile, an adorable laugh.

He says he doesn't talk much, but he talks to me for hours.
He deals with a lot of hurt, but he never dismisses mine.
He seems like a badass, but is the biggest sweetheart in the world.

He loves the sea, those sparkling blue waves, and I love the sky, with its twinkling stars and glowing moon.
Like the sea and the sky, we're two very different things, but we meet at the horizon, and that line is where we are home.

It gets worse
At night.
When all the lights are off,
When I'm completely
Alone.
The feeling
Can be overwhelming.
This heavy, black
Misery.
This pulsating, pointless
Anger.
I'm driven to tears
By my frustration at
And fear of
Things that are far, far
Beyond my control.
When I am in this feeling,
It is real.
It is so,
Scarily real.
But the next morning,
It's gone.
Some sadness may linger,
But that blackness
Is gone.
It's like
It was never real.
And I don't know how to fight this,
When almost all of the time,
It isn't real to me.
So I make it real.
I make sure
That this feeling
Is remembered.
I write about it,
I mark it into my skin,
Letting the faint scars remain,
So I can look at them
And remember that
The black feeling is real.
That forgetting about it
Won't make it go away.
It'll just render me blissfully ignorant
Until the feeling comes back,
And there I am again,
Exactly where I was last time,
Feeling like this is the first time I've ever
Broken down in this way.
Then I feel like a child
Without any experience,
Any means
Of dealing with this.
I mark myself
So I don't forget
That what I feel
IS REAL.

Sometimes
I need to disconnect
Shut the doors
And draw the curtains
Through which the world watches me
A few minutes, hours, days
With the windows closed
Vainly
I worry that the world needs me
That it's clawing at my closed door
Calling me, needing me to open up
But really
The world moves on
It keeps spinning
It keeps moving
Without me
The air outside my door
Is still, quiet
Anxious little shadows
Figments of my imagination
Embodiments of my anxiety
They creep under my door
They tell me to return
To open the curtains, windows
Sometimes I do as they bid
I throw open the door, expecting someone
But seeing no one
Other times I tell them
That I wish to be alone
And sometimes they even listen
They'll slink back out under my door
And leave me be
Not often
But sometimes
And when they do
I am alone
Not lonely, but alone
And it is peaceful

What makes something real?
To see, to smell, to touch it?
What if it's not something anyone can see
Or touch
But something you alone can feel, hear
Some, many
Barely hear it
Barely feel it
Some, others
Call it a voice
A nagging, clingy warble
Like a fly buzzing by my ear
Only when I swat at it
It grows louder
Deafening
Until it's all I can hear
Twisting my perception of the world
Taking what I see, hear, feel
And changing it into something worse
It makes the worst of every situation
It tells me what to think
It tells me what other people think
And sometimes, I even believe it
What if...
You can't...
You won't...
I didn't always know
That this voice lied to me
That a single failure
Wasn't the end of the world
That an unpleasant conversation
Wasn't the end of the world
That being rejected
Wasn't the end of the world
That really
There aren’t many things that would happen
That would be the end of the world
I learned
That this voice
This perturbed, apocalyptic voice
Isn't all-knowing
Or a fortune teller
Or a mind reader
No, it's just scared
Just like me
It is me
And it is real
And it's not going anywhere
But I don't want it to
I don't want to swat it away
I want to make peace with it
For it to perch in my mind
Like a sweet-tempered dove
It will still chirp, and chatter, and trill
But it's a part of me
And if I'm gentle, patient
If I treat it with kindness
Maybe it'll do the same