Creative Writing, Dating/Relationships, Poetry

Poetry: Suppose

Suppose we never met.
Suppose we never dove into love.
Suppose you weren’t at the bar
to catch me as I fell down.
Suppose we never kissed.
Suppose we never felt the fireworks.
Suppose I wasn’t there to fill
the void she left inside of you.
Suppose we never lied.
Suppose we never said goodbye.
Suppose we never did
get it quite right.

Creative Writing, Dating/Relationships, Poetry

Poetry: Gatekeeper

I know there are times you don’t see me,

times when we are apart and I am so far

from you that I don’t cross your mind.

Those are the times the gates fly open

and you round up the cattle to keep

you company in the empty field.

You tell yourself it’s innocent,

I know you do, that it’s all in good fun.

It’s a game with no rules

but everyone, including me, know

when it’s played. I fear these times

the most. It feels like my heart

is buried under stone after stone,

a weight so heavy I begin to choke.

You know nothing of that though.

It is a concern I keep to myself,

in my locket that I guard better

then I am able to guard my heart

from you and your field that feeds

plenty when I am away. I wonder

how long it takes for something

to remind you of me, if it happens

at all. Does it take minutes or hours

or even days? Maybe you don’t think

of me the whole time I am away

for I am not there to keep them at bay

and you are too weak in the knees

not to fall at the feet of these sheep

and ask them to play with a big bad wolf.

Articles about relationships, Dating/Relationships, list

Dating: The Wrong Times To Say ‘I love you’ for the First Time

While there is never really a right time to say, “I love you” for the first time, there will always be a few wrong times. These are a few of them:

 

  1. When you have just met this person and are still unsure of their name. Worse yet, when this person is still a complete stranger.
  2. At any point during the first date.
  3. In the midst of an argument. It doesn’t matter if you’re bickering about the laundry or fighting about finding out your lover ate the last piece of cake without taking your hanger into consideration. During an argument is not the right time for the first I love you, no matter how much you mean it.
  4. When you are found hiding outside of their window.
  5. When you are saying it just to say it or merely because you think it’s trendy to be in love. Living a line is not trendy.
  6. After you sat back and watched them fall madly in love with someone else.
  7. After being caught cheating or lying, no matter what the degree.
  8. When you stand them up on a date.
  9. After somebody else has just told you that they love the same person. You want your words to be unprompted and if you use this time to say, “I love you” for the first time, it might get brushed off as a mere echo of another’s words.
  10. When you are on your way to or from a strip club or similar venue.
  11. Via text from across the room.
  12. Via text from the bathroom.
  13. When they are getting married to another person. Let’s all have some tact. Figure your feelings out before it’s too late.
  14. When you’ve professed your romantic love to ten other people that day.
  15. When you are not 100% sure that you mean it.

 

Ultimately, number 15 has got to be the deciding factor. Saying, “I love you” to someone will always be the wrong thing to do regardless of time, place, medium, etc. if you don’t mean it. Love comes from the heart and so should the words.

Articles about relationships, Creative Writing, Dating/Relationships

Dating: Love Will Knock You Down

One day you will kiss the wrong person hello because you are eager not to feel alone. The kiss will be plastic and there will be no spark but you will stay anyway. A hand held remains warm for a while, even if there is no fire. You are tired of being cold.

Love Will Knock You DownOriginal Image from flickr

One day you will fall for the wrong line because you are a lover of words that weave their way through your soul and make themselves at home in your heart. You collect these words in clips and phrases so they fit into your memories until they have grown sour with time. You will try to tear them out of your past and out of your mind but you cannot keep them from their home. This is something you will learn to understand because you know words are more than “just words”: they are moments and ideas that expressed something you thought would never be captured, and yet there it was. Hold onto that even if it hurts.

One day you will leave the “right one” for the wrong reasons. You will wake every day wishing you could take it all back, but what’s done is done. Find comfort in the fact that there will be a time you will leave the “wrong one” for the right reasons.

One day you will hold back an apology you should have said. This will be the apology that floats like a tumbleweed through your body, resurfacing when you let your mind wander back to all the times you could have said those words but bit your tongue with pride instead. Learn to say sorry; learn to set yourself free.

One day you will promise someone a premature “I love you” because you want so badly for that to be true. However, love cannot be forced. You can make yourself say the words but you cannot make your heart feel something it does not. One day you will figure that out, but not before somebody gets hurt.

One day you will bleed from pain caused by someone you care for. May the offense be little or large, your blood will spill the same way tears fall: slowly at first and then faster and faster until there is nothing left for you to offer. From the middle of the pool you will cry out, but no one will hear you. There you will sit until you learn to stand on your own two feet once more. When you stand again you are strong, but not immune.

Use that strength to start over.

{{Originally published at Thought Catalog.}}

sad love quotes

Articles about relationships, Creative Writing, Dating/Relationships

Dating: What The Person You Deserve Is Like

You deserve love and security, a combination that warms the core of your heart. You deserve knowledge that the person you are with wants to be there and, more importantly, won’t run away when times get tough. This is someone that will stay by your side, fight your fights right there with you because they know you would do the same for them.

The Person You Deser(1)

You deserve someone who laughs at your jokes and smiles at the mere sight of you smiling. This smile will be genuine, not fake, and you will feel butterflies when you see it and your smile will grow until your cheeks can no longer take it.

You deserve someone who brings you coffee in the morning because they know the addiction is real. You deserve breakfast in bed, flowers “just because,” and hugs that feel like you are at home.

You deserve hands that only reach for you. They may be dry, cracked, calloused, perfectly manicured, or a complete mess, but they know you, your hands, and your body. They don’t reach away to know more.

“We are a species that needs and wants

You deserve someone who doesn’t make you cry, at least on purpose, because you are human and you feel deeply and love passionately, and when one teardrop falls there may be a thousand more, but you are not alone. Even though they hurt you, they hold you until the shaking stops, wiping away your tears and kissing your damp cheeks although you whisper for them to stop. They will say sorry and you will feign being mad until you both give in to happiness again because you know anger is a state the two of you cannot remain in.

You deserve someone who takes responsibility for their mistakes and who apologizes for the times they unintentionally hurt you because you would do the same for them. You deserve someone who can forgive as you do, even if neither of you can completely forget.

You deserve someone whose touch feels like fireworks across your skin, whose eyes always look for yours when they enter a room, and whose heart never yearns for the attention of another.

You deserve trust that may waver but never entirely falter. It will look nothing like control. It will look like freedom but with your best friend by your side holding your hand. There will be moments of jealousy, but these will be outweighed by smiles, laughter, trust, and love.

You deserve back rubs for no reason, dinner you don’t have to make alone, a hand to hold, a heart to feel, and a person who cannot imagine life without you in it.

You deserve security just as much as you deserve spontaneity. You will be comfortable but not so settled down that stubborn roots no longer give you the nutrients you need to grow. This person you are with will try the things you enjoy and you will try the things they do as well. You will find new things to do and new places to go because you both love to share these sorts of moments together.

What the Person You Deserve is Like

You deserve someone who pushes you to be better, to seek out the best opportunities for you even if the next step is terrifying for you both.

You deserve chocolate when you are cranky, a partner to indulge in your guilty television pleasures, and someone who tries to kiss you even though they just watched you puke up breakfast, lunch, and dinner. This is the person who laughs when you correct their grammar instead of getting mad, the one who knows they had better text you back, and the person who understands that you will not always have your “A game” out on display.

You deserve someone who wants to be better for you, someone who strives to be better for you, but, most importantly, you deserve someone who wants to be better for themselves. This is the type of person who will grow alongside of you and never dream of holding you back.

You deserve someone who is looking at the big picture in life, and that picture has you in it.

You deserve someone who continues looking forward, someone who doesn’t stop constantly to look at the past. They may not like everything about who you were before, but they love who you have become. They know not to let your past trip them up for too long. You both came into the relationship with baggage that slowly unpacked itself and, even though it would be easy enough to pack up your things and go back to your respective homes, you both stay.

deserve

You deserve someone who loves you as much as you love them, a life that is so beautiful that you cannot tell if you are awake or still in bed dreaming, and someone who doesn’t so much as put one foot out the door because they know you are not the person to walk away from. This will be the person who sticks around through thick and thin because they want to, not because they have to.

You deserve all of this and so much more, and you deserve it for a lifetime.

 

Originally published at Thought Catalog.