Instead of crying at prom,
because you don’t have a date,
because you don’t have someone to put a corsage on you,
because you don’t have any romantic slow dance to remember when you’re older,
decide you never needed a date,
you never needed a corsage,
you never needed some silly slow dance from someone who isn’t going to be in your life ten years later,
will it really matter in the end?

we’re taught that once you fall in love,
it’s over,
that’s it,
happily ever after,
but I am telling you that you can make your own happily ever after.

fall in love with yourself,
count the freckles on your skin
and see how they can turn into your favorite constellations,
find the ocean in your eyes,
find the deep brown dirt that helps give life to gardens,
find emerald city right there, living outside of your pupils
fall in love with the way you tilt your head
and how you carry the weight on your shoulders.

don’t wait for someone else to admire these things about yourself,
you deserve to love the heart beating behind your rib cage,
and you deserve to love the image in the mirror,
you deserve to love your flawed self, with all of your imperfections,
fall in love with yourself,
make a home in your own heart,
stop waiting around for someone else to do it for you.

I first wrote about you on March twenty fifth,
but I feel like I have been writing about you my whole life,
in the margins of my school notebooks,
and on old church bulletins.
I think I even wrote about you when I wrote little reminders on my hands when I didn’t have any paper,
“bring your book to science tomorrow”
and when I signed my name,
it was always you.

I first heard your voice and knew your face back in October,
but I think I heard you in the birds chirping outside my window,
and saw you in the reflection of windows and mirrors and clear, clear water
I heard you in the catch of my mother’s voice when she talked about difficult things
and in the deep rumble in the thunder that accompanied my first hurricane
I saw you in the candles of my old birthday cakes and in the sun shining through my window,
in the world maps and the foreign train and the photographs of my favorite memories,
it was always you

I first embraced you almost two months ago,
but I think I embraced you long before I touched your back,
but when I embraced change
and the idea of love,
when I touched the face of the child who kissed my scars
and when I grazed the arm of the boy who didn’t want to say goodbye when I had to go home,
I embraced you when I embraced my dreams and got on a plane and a train and
I embraced you when I came home to a different home and collapsed on my bed from exhaustion,
it was always you.