things i will tell my daughter over and over again

i. your worth is not in the way you look, the way you dress, the scars you have, the ways your body bends and stretches, the way you can lower your gaze out of a falsely throttled respect or the way boys compliment you. your worth is in your mind, your heart, your soul. you are not a pretty toy to be played with, you are a human with emotions and thoughts and awfully annoying habits. you are made of mistakes, carved out of flaws that need healing. you are not God. do not try to play God. 

ii. there will be days when you will feel too fat or too skinny. days where your skin could be one tone darker or one tone lighter. those days, you will hate your freckles and your eye bags. you will hate how your hair doesn’t cooperate and how you can’t wear that one shirt without showing off your breasts. those are the days you need to work harder on shaping your mind. those are the days you need to get up and read that really difficult book you have been putting off. you are going to work yourself hard to become a more thoughtful, a more profound, a more well-read, a more educated person.

iii. there will be boys who flatter you and there will be boys who humiliate you. neither matter. you are not an object. you will not let them objectify you. you will stand up for yourself. you will fight your own battles. you don’t need a chivalrous man to fight them for you. you are on your own and you will thrive on your own.

iv. you will be kind. your kindness will be your biggest strength. you will learn to forgive. you will learn to empathize. and you will learn to give when the person you are giving to doesn’t deserve it.

v. you will love. fiercely, passionately, with your whole heart, and with your entire being. you will not let the cruel harden you.

vi. you will make mistakes and you will learn from them. you will cry, you will wipe your tears, and you will move on. it is okay to be who you are. it is okay to feel things. it is okay to be human, in your own way.

notes to self

i. the days it’s pouring and you are running late to your class and your jeans are wet and your shoes squeak, let that boy help you, accept his offer to share his umbrella. you won’t come across too many kind souls but every so often, you just do.

ii. smile at that stranger you are riding the elevator with, who seems tired and broken. it might help them breathe easier.

iii. the three hours you have in between your classes, spend them by the fountains or among the tons of books in the library. give up internet and cell phone and technology for a few moments. enjoy the smell of dusty wisdom and the way water droplets fall on your face. for a few minutes, just be.

Kaleidoscopic Moments

The cries of bruised egos mantle my thoughts tonight. I think of the time when I was six and swinging on this swing and the sun was setting and I just kept swinging because I truly believed that I could reach the sky. A cup of tea and your memories keep me warm on this cold bitter night in late-March. As winter and March refuse to line up, so do my thoughts. The universe is restless in its infinities and you are restless in your thoughts and perhaps the two aren’t different at all. You close your eyes for a few minutes as your favorite song plays. You already know all the words by heart. Heck, they’re probably a poster in your room. But you feel the impact of those words again. You notice a phrase that you loathed once that now fits in your life perfectly. It's a weird coming-home-after-months kinda sensation. The only difference is, you can finally smell what your home smells like.

It’s easy to fall in love with a writer, you know. They remember things, and isn’t that all you have ever wanted? For someone to notice how hard you try to be that perfect daughter. Your father, who always wanted a son, expects nothing from you. You try so hard your feet begin to crack and every time you move, your bones feel the momentum. So you fall in love with a writer in hopes that perhaps in a twisted way, your father would see you as the son he always wanted. Writers are weird creatures. They seem to be fighting the most vocal and brutal war with themselves and you find yourself pulled to them because their chaos is beautiful. You think that in their haunted decrepit souls lies the most beautiful raindrop you have ever seen and it absolutely must be saved. Oh, you fall in love with a writer in vain hopes that you will live forever. You hope that the tradition of storytelling which begun with orators and now exists in print, the ancient art of weaving quilts of fortitude will live through you. You are a selfish being, after all. 

The Haunted Man

I wake up in the iridescence honesty of yours as you swift through the morning chores and grapple threads of broken promises. As the mask of perfection disintegrates to  brutal honesty containing a pile of imperfections and almost-there's, the flakes of your concealer begin to fall.
That's when you get to know someone. A cup of coffee with two cubes of sugar and a few moments of peace. We laughed. You and I, we laughed and laughed and laughed. For where else is there peace.

I find my God in broken characters and tattered books. My prayer is the hour before sunrise when I am bleary-eyed and all I can do is read one more page of this really good book. I worship all those who have been able to pen what I have wanted to say. I bow down to the way people string words together because quite frankly, I don’t know how to use words. And this is my religion. 

Blanche

There’s a wall that surrounds me. It’s too white sometimes. I can see my shadow when I face it. A black outline of my physical scars. It has started to define me. I have stared at it far too often. If you ask me to close my eyes, I can tell you precisely where my veins bulge. I can tell you how my skin folds when I move my muscles. I can tell you where each scar begins and ends, where each mole is. I have studied my body that closely.

If you give me more time, I may even be able to tell you how fast my blood flows.

But what I don’t know is my soul. I sit in a desert of solitude. I see the untamed waves of thoughts crash into the shore. I see them beg for acknowledgement. But I turn my back and walk away. I am too scared, you see. Terrified of the profound depravity I may possess. I have years worth of time. People ask for longer days, but my days? They’re endless. And yet, I am never done reading my silhouette. 

Heart

Here, could you hold this for a second? People tell me it’s my heart. Lately, I have been disagreeing. 

You see, I always viewed heart as this perfect shaped red object that could hold the entire universe. I thought of it as the place that refused to give up. The sanctuary that held all the truths. It’s been my escape for years. I would walk into it and forget the world around me. I would daydream and blame it on the heart. I would walk through its chambers and leave my feelings there. Right atrium, for my deepest sorrows. For it is the tiniest of them all. It was my way of limiting my grief. Right ventricle, for my dreams. To dream big for I refuse to anything but. Left ventricle, for my hopes. For it is the largest chamber and hope belongs there more than anywhere else. And right atrium, for my love. For I don’t have much to give. 

But you see, lately, it has all turned into this one giant mansion of chaos. I walk into it, trying to organize my emotions into chambers. I want to pick and choose where everything should go. But I can’t. 

So, could you just hold it for a moment while I fix my arteries and veins? They are mixing all my blood. I can’t breathe, you see. My heart is killing me.

Breathe easy.

Breathe easy. Take a second and appreciate your breath. Just for a few moments, think of the path your breath takes. Think of the way you inhale Oxygen. Think of the way it’s diffused through your cells. Think of the way it travels to every part of your body. This one breath, these Oxygen atoms-they know your body better than you. 

Can you fathom that? Can you fathom the beauty of this? Something so small. Something so negligible. Something so minute. It has the power to know you better than yourself. 

I just. It’s a thought I need a life time processing. Just wow. 

So if you feel stressed, think about this. Take a second to think about the depth of this simple action that happens involuntarily and yet controls your life (literally).

And then think about what you are doing. What you are living for. Why is it, what is the reason, that you want to keep living? Why are you letting something so small hold such immense power over you? Because to give something so small such profound power, you need a reason. Is it the fear of unknown? Or the will to survive?

Talk to yourself. Think of the reason why you will not cease to exist. Take that reason and become it. 

He is the warm jacket on a cold winter night walk. He is the mindless bantering. He is the bizarre video games, the ruthless murder of zombies in Call of Duty. He is the annoying interruptions right at the climax of a really good book. He is the empty pantry and countless cups lying around the house. He is the arguments at four am about existence of dragons. He is the same t-shirt for a week. He is the awful guitar notes and off-tune bathroom singing. He is the frustrated math problems and the intelligent scientific queries. He is the laughter when everything seems to be falling apart. He is the reason you know everything about Manchester United. He is the constant reminder to breathe easy. He is also the push to work harder. He is the chalked line in the car dividing the backseat into your area and my area. He is the coffee sessions and philosophical thoughts voiced at one am. He is the never ending Scrabble games. He is road trips spent playing “I Spy.” He is the lame knock-knock jokes. He is the childhood spent playing street Cricket. He is the first concert. He is the angry games of ‘Ludo.’ He is the Whataburger runs at two am. He is the best friend I could ever ask for. He is the brother I am too lucky to have.