I want you to know me without ever hearing my name.

(it could happen you know.)

I want each of you to know I will always choose people over sleep, chocolate over vanilla, and honestly any road before treadmills.  I want you to believe me when I say that not-quite-18 doesn't mean I'm not ready for the East Coast and you can't wear high tops with shorts. Hear me when I say that I could make you a list of every swear word I've ever said and boy I've ever kissed but you can't convince me that open eyes see more than open hands. I know mountains are good for you and some memories look better on paper and words are for making people move.

And let me just say, 

Paris is for me.

And it didn't matter from which mouth they spilled, so long as the strung-together sentences glistened when they hit the air.

She watched 17 fade along with the hands that had shaped it, but she didn't mind all that much either.

Backyard volleyball courts and fushia nail polish and jeep rides have been stamped into the pages, but 18 calls for a new book and a new pen and a slightly new hand to pull it along. 

Cryptic poems and faded songs began to lose their pull, but U2 never will and neither will sunday socials or friendly wars that leave us wanting more.

(mama said to always leave them wanting more)

So here's to 17 and the last few weeks of it I've got. She's done me well, but 18's words will be even brighter.

Some see more and

Some want more and

Some feel more

And

Some just close their eyes.

And

The ones that close their eyes still seem to me like they're looking, because the sky isn't always blue and eyes don't always see but hearts will always sting so

Lock it.

Don't pretend you want to want

Because however numb you think you are

Very few know how to fall without ever hitting the ground.

Suede shoes that have been on first dates and goodbyes and danced more than one night away.

Initials on a chain from hands you wouldn't have expected.

Truths that sting from lips that only form words worth hearing.

And there's something symbolic about mixing up whose clothes are whose and which car you left your blanket in because maybe you found some people that are pieces of yourself and even if they don't believe in souls I sure do and everyone needs a few old souls and twisted souls and free souls around them.

So don't turn your windshield wipers on baby, let's just keep driving because no one cares as much as we think they do and summer only sticks around when our eyes are open.

I want to talk about mountains and kit-kats and road trips.

And perhaps this is terribly naive of me but I'm alright with that because, then again, I am naive.  And I have few precious months until naivety will be one more luxury I can't afford.

And every sabbath one more throws away their naivety and soon enough it'll just be he and I and her and she and are you going to let me drop every twist my mind takes on you or will I have to send those thoughts to Liberia and Japan, crossing my fingers they still have time for me? Because those are the boys that answered all my questions, even if they had no idea how to handle tears.

But I'd rather you know how to hold my words than wipe my tears.