know you

I want-
To get to know you
I want to know not just your first name
But your whole name
Middle if you have one and last
Because that all ties into your past
I want to know what the meaning is according to baby name books
And then I want to know what it means to you
Namesakes are important and I want to make sure you hear yours every time my mouth discloses it as though it is dipped in gold and taste like honey

I want to get to know you
I want to know your family
The love you learned from your mother or didn’t
About the hero your father was to you
Or wasn’t
I want to know why
What type of soil is your family tree planted in
Is it rich or is it dry
Are there fallen leaves from extended branches that have fallen in you
Did the seasons change so rapidly
That now that inconsistency is warped inside of you

I'm not trying to be nosey
I just want to get to know you
Understand what you’ve been through but mostly see where you’re going
Walk on the side of you on these paths you are taking
And hold your hand when your knees start shaking

I want to get to know you
Understand what makes tears fall from your eyes
Of which the color I have memorized down to every pigment
Every shade change when the sun hits them
I want to know what makes you angry
What makes you tick
And then
I want to make you feel those emotions
Even though I don’t mean it
I want to get to know you
Know your favorites
What makes your insides feel like summer time
That lives between your heart in the midst of the bones of your ribcage
I want to know your dislikes
The things that you despise
What makes you shiver and Goosebumps appear up your spine
I want to get to know you so I can make you mine
Close my eyes as if I were blind
And know where every mole dimple freckle
Or imperfection you hate is placed
And my hand will know when yours is around
Like a familiar song that plays in the background
Of our story
That intertwines the way our fingers do
The rhythm of your breath will become so much a second nature to my own
And even though I will know it
Like I know my own your touch will still give me butterflies
I want to get to know you
So ill start
My name is Arielle
And I really do like long walks in the park

Woman Hands

I am the oldest of five
Which is my ticket to act younger than my current age
So that I never lose sight
Of the youth like fervor that will forever pump
Through my veins even while rocking in rocking chairs

I am the oldest of five
Which my ticket to act younger than my current age
So that means playing sneak behind your unaware sister and cover her eyes is okay
That is until everytime right away she knows that its you
So you ask her through laughs
“What? How did you know?”
And she responds with the same joy and says,
“Its because you’re the only one of us who has woman hands.”
Woman hands…
I assume that means hands that belong to a woman but I apologize if the girlish grin and one dimple reflection confuses me
Because well woman hands must belong to a woman
And that just cant be me

Because woman hands belong to those whose days consist of nothing for themselves
But every hour dedicated to every one else
Woman hands have held and let go of children as the youth of their fingertips leave with them
And woman hands have experienced first off what it means to love
What it means to feel two lives in sync as one
Woman hands have held onto dreams that were stronger than her clutch
No, see woman hands they cant be mind
That’s way too much
Because woman hands have wiped away more tears of others and have placed them neatly in treasure boxes next to her collected memories
Woman hands know a strength that reaches past gender and what a heavy burden really means because they’ve been weighed down by so many times

And so I state that Woman hands cant possibly belong to a twenty year old who still lives road trips for no reason
And the smell of cookies baked into early mornings that still feel like night
Memories being rewound and woven into blankets in quiet evenings
Woman hands are given by experience
Women hands are been there seen that
Lived there ate that
Cried then over that
Woman hands are soft like mothers
Strong like the paw of a lioness
And come in shades of color that make up the one they belong to
Woman hands are a privilege in which I guess I’ve been given
So come on woman hands, we’ve still got some livin’

To Every Person Who ever told me I was Beautiful

Thank you
For being the knights in shining armor that swept me away from my negative mindsets
For being the quiet hand on my shoulder that told me that fingers down throats
Were one…two many lies I was way too willing to accept
For being the frogs I didn’t have to kiss
In order to receive a happily ever after for myself
Thank you for being the mirror on the wall
Who did not feed me false hopes
But truth that I could swallow even though I was hesitant

To every person who ever told me I was beautiful
Even my parents
Although I assumed it was your job to hand me compliments on gold platters
Just so that I could get through a day dressed in everything baggy
So no Barbie could stiffly point out the flaws that already screamed at me from the top of every curve
Thank you for teaching me that beautiful comes from the heart that beats underneath the extra skin and the passion that swims around it stretching to my fingertips, which touch lives
And ripples into another young woman who fights her own demons of negative mindsets
Two fingered trolls that ask for two worded eight letter passwords
Starting with YOUR and ending in SOUL

To every person who ever told me I was beautiful
To which I responded with a quiet and unbelieving
Awh, thanks
I wasn’t being sarcastic when I said it
I meant it with every glance I couldn’t give you after receiving the compliment
I had continuously refused
Know that it was because of your
“You are beautiful” that I can look in the mirror and not turn away as if the face weren’t even my own
Thank you for planting seeds that are now rooted in my being
And creating in me a queen who doesn’t need the idea of a king
To define her allure
Thank you for the bridge built on positivity that I could cross ignoring two fingered trolls asking what the password is
To every person who ever told me I was beautiful,
I thank you
With every right-sided dimple
Un-moisturized hand
Hip handle
I thank you

Trust.

Hi…my name is Arielle

And I have a problem with trust

Its not that I cant do it

In fact I just do it way too much

Vulnerability at its finest

Write it on a billboard

Graffiti in red to resemble the cuts of invasion that rip into it

And the wound grows deep

wrenching open everything I thought I was hiding

So I’ve cried tears of defeat that mold slowly into sobs of helplessness

In psalms it is written that joy comes in the morning

But my sorrow must of forgotten it’s a new day because its reminisce of last night still hangs above me

And I know

I know… I serve a God

Who has split open seas and washed it over enemies

Who has covered human flesh from burning furnaces

But for me personally

It’s hard to trust a being I can’t see physically even though its clear how present he is in absolutely everything

Id rather fall backwards into arms that I can feel

Than dive head first into the security of a God who gets questioned if he’s even real

See I can handle this I can do it all myself

I don’t need your help

I will pick up my own broke pieces of insecurities

And glue them back together with my little bit of sanity

Why can’t you just make yourself present to me?

I don’t know what you want from me

Do you want me on my knees?

Do I need to cry tears of Father please?

Take this cup from me

I have given you my incessant need for planning

God this is your year just direct me

Is my plead but occasionally I think I can take the lead

Possibly pilot my life as if I have the right coordination’s

Eventually it just becomes an equation with no solution

Look at this disaster

I'm surrounded in my own pollution

And so I start to lose sight of what trust even means

I can easily define trusting in man made things

A chair

A home

The bed where I lay my head

And God made human beings

My family

My friends

The ones who were supposed to love me but ultimately took my trust

Placed in their back pocket

And sat down on bus stops

My heart stays placed on my shoulders

But my trust I have in open hands like silver platters

I slowly had to learn that not everyone would hold my heart in their hands

Carry it with them through all ends and treat it like the source of life that sustains me as if it is only my lungs that I need to breath

And then it comes down to trust in the creator

Mother Theresa once said

“I know God will not give me anything I can't handle.

 I just wish He didn't trust me so much.”

I know what she means

This hold i'm in financially

God I know you’ll provide

Eventually

But i'm standing here so helplessly

Deaths and surgeries in my family

Why am I not there physically? This path you’ve placed me on separately

I just sometimes need it to coincide with the latest happenings

However answers are not something you owe me

Or anything at all

For you’ve already paid the price for every fall

So I turn my eyes to the one who ultimately sustains me

Ill lean on you comfortably like I rest on the roots of willow trees

Not really… but unlike dying greenery I know you will never leave me

Nor forsake me says Hebrews 13

And ultimately through this trust I place in your hands

You make promises unwavering to forever love me

What great symphonies that play quietly in the background

Of the fact that the creator of this universe values our insignificant human trust

 So if i must I hand it to you on silver platters

Placing my hands in my lap

Eyes closed

In you my trust is placed

For im sure that is its rightful place

Brace yourself March 2011

Brace yourself
This may sound...psychotic
Maybe even deranged And definately random
But..What if i said...that i loved you?
What if i said ive known you for so long
Heard your name over and over again like a droned out song
And yet my heart still feels like its been electrocuted
whenever it FINALLY registers in my fantasy consumed membrane
What if i said...that i loved you?
I know that sometimes this can be confused teenagers thinking their in love listening to taylor swift as blues
But really having no clue what its like to love you
Love you as in remember when we were young...
well younger than 19
And everyone held hands as if they really knew what it means
Because i want nothing more than for these crevices to be filled with your fingertips
Love you as in i can close my eyes and remember almost ever conversation we've ever had
and they sound even sweeter because maybe they are conversations that we really never had
Love you as in if you walked through those doors and stared me down
i would say yes before your knee had a chance to touch the ground
What if i said i loved you
And i know I know this is absurd
but i take in your every facebook status as if your updating your life with me
Whats on your mind?
Oh just how i know well never be
My friends think im insane, how do you expect him to love you back if he doesnt feel the same?
My excuse is just maybe your afraid
Afraid like i am because these walls built around my heart are going to take more than a chisel or kryptonite
But i will let you be my night in shining armor
Come and rescue me from this love that's starting to drown me
Suffocation from my own messed up fantasies
All im asking is for you to love me
Prove my ideals of men wrong because even if they claim to sing the songs of psalms
Their minds still seek to hurt me
Love me
be my harmony to my melody
My spiral to my notebook
My light to my candle
The laughter to my happiness
If you're a bird then I'm a bird
And baby if you jump then i jump
and i know. This is crazy But what if i said i loved you.
i want to fill a mental scrapbook of every time you've made the smile that appears on my face
i dont want to miss any moment that ever made you proud
and i want catching me to be your proudest
i want to be the girl where your mother whispers
thats her.
across the table as she smiles at me and tells me call me....
what if i said i want to grow old with you
i'm talking big empty house
somewhere in the south
porch swings
retirement and lemonade
where even the rustle of age that has flown through my face will not stop you from saying
i love you
you are the harmony to my melody
 light to my candle
laughter to my happiness
brace yourself.

I will wait (not really complete just some ramblings) May 2011

The thought of intimacy terrifies me
The idea that someone else beside myself will see me at the most
Vulnerable point a person can reach
Makes my insides turn

Were talking heart on your sleeve
Take as you please or leave it
Because I myself couldn’t even touch it kind of thing
And I can say that these thoughts are flowing freely now that the emotional trigger has been pulled
Thus I hold myself closer because in my reality I am my own weapon holder
Thus I hold myself closer because in this reality I am my own worst enemy

See, I have this misconception that vulnerability is weakness but in sincerity
At its best it can be the most powerful strength
So, This is why I wait
Because I can depend on my God when it feelings like i'm falling
Stronger than kryptonite and my hopeless romantic view of a superman cartoon
He is the great I am
On him I stand

I place this vulnerability to rest in his arms protected from my own nuclear bombs
So in him these fears of intimacy lay until the day
He allows me to give a piece or all of this heart away
To the man after his own heart
And though it may seem that really this silver band on this ring finger is a sign for security
This is a promise my heart and soul have made
With the validation of the most high king
Because I refuse to keep placing my heart in the hands of a man who doesn’t know a weed from a rose
I will not keep placing valuable memories in the minds of the ones who despise my God
No longer will I dream of kissing lips that quote their own lyrics instead of scripture
So I will wait
For the man who holds me but holds his Jesus Closer
I will wait for my night sporting the shining armor of Christ
I will wait

Wonderful

Psalm 139:14 says
“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made,
Your works are wonderful
I know that full well.”

Something must be wrong because I just can’t seem to make this stick
If I told you I believed this every second of every day
I would be lying
If I told you I believed this the majority of the time
I would be lying
But if I told you this sometimes
I just struggle with these words
I would be telling you the absolute truth
Mirror Mirror on the wall that’s the fairest of them all
Not me

And sometimes my mind beats hard with these fatalistic thoughts
The idea that I could be beautiful was a foreign concept
In fact the very idea of it made me cringe
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made

I’d believe this…but then I would be Attempting to accept a reality I didn’t believe was my own
so I clung to my own negativity because I found warmth in these fabricated ideas of appearance
 if I was skinny or maybe if I was lighter
 sometimes I just felt like these distorted thoughts would never stop choking me

Even those rare precious moments where I caught the attention of a gentlemen
And he happened to slip the  (B.E.A.U.T.I.F.U.L) 9-letter word

All I could keep telling myself is he’s just lying to me
how could I be everything he says he sees in me
when mirror reflections of repulsive stare back at me
so the idea that they're all the same
or they just want to play games consumed me
and yet those sweet nothings that he whispered to me seem to contradict my own sanity

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made
But it’s so much easier to say than to actually live that way
To post on facebook statuses and tell the girl to your side she is exactly what you wont believe for yourself
See, I used to think that big girls couldn’t be cute
That cute was for the dainty
The small pixie like girls who practically dance when they walk
And the attention of all the talk was them
And so I thought if I didn’t have so much curve maybe if my thighs didn’t rub because that’s not attractive
Or if my arms didn’t do that swinging thing every freaking time I moved them
Slowly I had to learn
That despite what the media shoved down our sensitive throats
Curves
Are
Beautiful
Everyone somewhere has beauty tucked within them weather its coated in lies that you feed yourself
Or sucked between the negatives verbalities that are daily thrown at you

I just have to say this, is to all the women who don’t think they're beautiful
Weather it be because you’re thick
Or you’re thin
Or your hair is blonde or brown

I’ve been there
Sometimes I’m still there
But instead of my prayers being God if you could just…
I turn these adjustments into assertions

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made
And one day these words will be my anthem
Ringing out every false thought

Because one day you will send me a man consumed with the flow of my words
And the depth of my passions
And not the sway of my hips
Or the way I move my lips
And even before then I will be convinced that I am beautiful
And I will know without a doubt and believe without question
With every bone and every curve
That I am beautiful

“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made,
Your works are wonderful
I know that full well.”
Psalm 139:14