This year was a lot. I think everyone can agree on that. Throughout the months of 2016, I have been using my amateur-level writing skills to capture moments I would otherwise forget the details about. In times of struggle and pure joy, I reach for a paper and pen or my phone and jot down the lines as they come. All of these are unedited and as they are. I find my cute little pieces of work better that way. Here’s a glance into my year, through poetry:

Winter.

Rainwater dripping

From a rooftop’s edge,

The gentle glow

Of a handcrafted lamp,

Classical music swaying

From the room across.

Fingers and palms kissing

Between gingerbread dough,

The smell of an open oven,

Sipping peppermint tea

And listening to the pages turn.

Winter 2.

I like you better

In the winter.

You make me feel

Like spring.

Don’t go falling through

Autumn now

Not till we see green.

Spring.

I heard the words “I love you” from the hall

They pulsed through the walls

And against my bedsheets where

I just lay listening.

The entire skeleton of our room

Inhaled the voice and left it

Long whispered in my mind.

Such permanent and powerful words,

Not even intended for I.

Spring 2.

I miss you.

Which is weird, since I don’t know

Who 'you' is.

I miss the you that isn’t you when

You feel the most like you.

I miss the you that leaves traces of you

On the future you that only you

Are blind to.

I miss the you who is you when

You is nothing left.

I know none of this makes sense. I can’t make sense of it either.

Just like you.

Spring 3.

It collapsed inward,

like loose soil falling

Into the arms of gravity.

Tumbling, rough and strong,

Until it met me, waiting

with eyes of fleeing sunsets,

with nights bleeding the

edges of swollen seas.

Breathe, he said

With breath stolen from me.

---

Summer.

Life is intoxicating

People are drugs

This I have learned.

Fall.

There is magic in Bellingham.

It sits in the bellies of our hearts.

This is barely a handful of what I have, but most are too personal or long to share. I’m ready for 2017, and what it will do to push me to reach for a pen.