Honestly,

I'm homesick for the night the meteors showered me in kisses and the stars were pinholes to heaven. You held me against your chest and I memorized the sound of your beating heart. The summer breeze kept my toes warm and you stayed up with me until the sun's early morning rays came and lit my face with its first 'hello.' You left your taste on my lips and your scent imprinted in my mind. I already knew I loved you. But there was a moment in between our sleepy sentences when I realized you were him.

Yours until the pigs fly, 

Alessondra Marie

Damn you

Today is one of those days where I'm going to be late to everything. I can just tell. My feathers are ruffled. 

Each time she said it my brain would revert back to my childhood and I'd think of Mojo JoJo. I think that was his name. He was a monkey. He was evil. 

It's a "I wanna crawl into my coffe cup and run away to the mountains" kinda day. Everyone is tugging at me for commitments and answers. 

I just want to go fishing damnit. 

You kissed me about a hundred times more than I expected you to kiss me ever again. But every kiss made my boots heavier. Knowing I wanted it. Knowing it was wrong. Knowing it meant something but knowing that something meant nothing. Wondering how I'm going to stop. 

There was a life to be built. But the fear of your absence will always be looming over my head. 

And that's why I just want to go fishing. Damnit. 

Yours until the pigs fly, 

Alessondra Marie 

Matthew 7:6

I looked at you and I was falling...

Falling...

Falling...

"Someone has to be the first. There's nothing shameful about being that someone."

There's no shame until your heart sits in your stomach and you realized you gave a pearl to swine. 

I saw you and you were falling...

Falling...

Falling...

Gone. 

Yours until the pigs fly, 

Alessondra Marie 

Apples and insomnia

When I was little I couldn't eat an apple without my fingers and mouth getting sticky. I would also get this overwhelming sense of nausea shortly after finishing the sticky apple. Although time has made me vastly more aware, nature will not relent and my fingers still remain sticky.

Insomnia tells me of my childhood; it explains what I didn't understand and reminds me of what I've forgotten. It colors in the grey details. 

It makes me sad. And angry. And anxious. I wonder what I've missed and who I could have been if I only I was then who I am now. This memory of apples taunts my heart. 

The anxiety kisses my lips and holds me close. I worry for every goddamn man in my life. They're all going to be killed. If not literally, figuratively. Their core will change and their heart will beat to a new rhythm.

But I'm sticky.

My fingers, my mouth. 

And the taste of nausea is teasing me. 

I hate apples. 

Yours until the pigs fly, 

Alessondra Marie

Some Nights

I'm breathing in your booze.

"He's too good for me. He deserves better. But he's all I want and I'm selfish so I keep him and call him mine."

I'm coughing out your truths.

"There are so many reasons you deserve someone like him. You're a good person."

I'm drinking to my lies.

"I'm not a good person. I have a good imagination. You're all a creation of my own device. You think I'm a good person because that's what I want you to think."

I'm holding onto the words you say.

"Your only only problem, and our only bridge, is your battle with self-loathing. You're not a bad person, you just think you are."

I'm kissing my desires.

"He's what I think of in the morning, what I long for at night. He's what makes me excited to wake up tomorrow."

I'm deciphering this foreign feeling.

Yours until the pigs fly,
Alessondra Marie

I was Thirteen and it was Real.

They spoke as if I wasn't in the classroom laboratory with them. I felt my cheeks flush pink with anger and embarrassment. My fingers started to become clumsy as my eyes swelled with tears. I kept my head down so they wouldn't see. Their words were like hot irons, prodding exactly where it would hurt the most. It made me sick. I stood up, with a goal in mind. I turned to both of them and parted my lips to say something. The words escaped me. I stood there with my mouth gaping open, forgetting how to speak. I turned on my heal, walked past my teacher and grabbed my black and white backpack as I uttered under my breath, "I'm going to the bathroom." 

I couldn't even begin to imagine what they whispered as I ran out of the class. I had it coming to me. It was my fault. It was always my fault. I pushed open the bathroom door as I yanked out my phone to text the best friend I had never met. 
"My friends hate me. I hate me." 

I stood in front of the sink, bracing myself as if I could fall over at any minute. The droplets of mascara stained the porcelain white sink. I hated myself for crying. I looked up into the distorted reflection that sat above the sink. How could they call that a mirror? I could hardly see my reflection. Frustration with the school swelled up in my chest as a kid walked into the bathroom. I gave them a heavy blink and walked into one of the stalls. I slammed it shut and threw my backpack to the floor. 

I stood in the stall with my back to the door for five minutes after the kid left. I gritted my teeth together and screamed inside my head. I clenched my eyes shut and slowly sank to the dirty bathroom tile. I shook my head with disgust. Disgust with myself. Disgust with her and him. My hand balled into a fist as I pounded on the tile. 
"Why does no one care?" I called out to anyone that was listening. 

I tore open my backpack and found the stupid pouch my mom gave me for my girl stuff. I dug through about a dozen tampons before I found my only loyal friend. 

My phone buzzed.
"I don't hate you. I liek you. Things will be okay." 

Too little.
Too late.

Yours until the pigs fly,
Alessondra Marie

You're on my brain.

I cannot tell you why I connect every experience with a collection of words. I just know that I try to make something beautiful out of even the most horrible things.

It's a peculiar thing, how a cluster of lines and predetermined sounds can create something that holds the power of either life or death.

They can create wars. They can end wars.
They can make peace. They can end peace.
They can express love. They can express hate.
They can end friendships. They can create friendships.

The possibilities are endless.

Would you just trust me?

Yours until the pigs fly,
Alessondra Marie

1 John 4:8

When I turn 18 I'm getting a tattoo. Not because I'll be an adult making a decision without parental consent for the first time in my existence, but because my 18th birthday is on a Monday and nothing good happens on Monday's. Especially not on that Monday. It'll be the Monday after Easter Sunday. At least it will be for all you white folk. Greek Easter is nearly a month later. But hardly anyone celebrates Greek Easter unless they're Greek or are very close with someone that's Greek. Which is unfortunate for me since I don't know too many Greeks. Since nearly everyone in my life is white, and not Greek, my birthday will be masked by the death of Jesus. So I'm getting a tattoo. 

It sounds blasphemous when I put it that way. The truth is that I've wanted this tattoo since I was 14. And like most things in my life it doesn't appear to resemble much of anything scripturally. But if you ask me about it I'll have something to say. 

It bothers me when things are redundant. Like "hahah lol" or using two of the same words in one sentence. Sometimes it annoys me when people use two of the same words in the same paragraph. Unless they're anything like me and or the Old Testament of the Bible and use the same word over and over and over to make a statement. I'm hypocritical and I'm okay with that. There's a time for all things. There's a time to be simple and there's a time to be verbose. 

Knowledge is to know a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is to know not to put a tomato in a fruit salad. 

I want to love hard and get married and have a house with a pond and have babies and raise little people into big people. I want to show someone that I know how to give my heart away. I want someone willing to receive it. I want someone to encourage me spiritually, be there for me emotionally and give me a good foot massage every now and again. I want to live in Montana or North Carolina or somewhere with a lot of open space and no one to be in my business. I want a house painted blue with white shutters and a deck that goes all the way around it. I want to be able to swim in my pond in the summer and ice skate in the winter. I want to have something be mine. 

I'm afraid of things changing. I'm afraid of things changing between Him and I, between him and I. I feel stuck and crazy like there's no where to go but down from here. I want Him, and I want him. I know He wants me, but I just want him to want me. 

It's time to take in that long overdue breath. Just breathe in and out. There's nothing to prove and no one to prove anything to. 

Yours until the pigs fly,
Alessondra Marie 

My heart feels so empty. But my soul is alive.

I opened my white-wicker toy box. The hinges creaked from neglect. I pulled out the decorative pillows to reveal my oldest friends. Memories of rabbits and pigs and monkeys and dolls flodded my mind. I pushed them all away in a search for the one I needed. Once I saw her, I wrapped my fingers around her arm and pulled her out of the box. It had been a long time since I last needed her.

I sat on the floor with my knees facing up, holding on to my childhood bear. I heard footsteps on the other side of my shut door.
"Ali are you okay?"
I'm never okay.
"Yes mom, I'm fine."

I shut my eyes and despised the need that was inside my chest. I could just imagine what I looked like. My eyelashes clumped together because of the wet mascara. My short sausage legs appearing larger than normal because of the pastel rose printed pants I was wearing. A young adult clinging to a childhood notion of companionship.

I shook my head as I reopened my eyes. I reached for the pillows I tore out of place and returned them to their home.

I crawled onto my bed still holding onto my bear. All I wanted was your tender and strong hand to stroke my back and ask what I was thinking of. I wanted you to brush my hair away from my face. I wanted you to kiss my head and tell me I'd be okay. I wanted your hands to be on me, comforting me, instead of mine trying to comfort a lifeless teddy bear. 

Yours until the pigs fly,
Alessondra Marie