until the poets run out of things to write

i am so much older now.
i am glad of you. i am glad i know you, i am glad i care about you and i'm glad i respect you.
i'm glad that you know me, that you respect me and i'm glad that you are glad.
because i don't respect anyone in the same way i respect you, i don't think i ever have in quite the same way and i doubt i ever will.
thank you for being who you are and how you are because i have come to realize that i couldn't nor wouldn't have you any other way. i was younger once and i used to make everyone another way because it was easier to see them my way then to see them as who they were. and when they weren't that way, it was really easy to become bitter and resent them for making me feel that way. some people are very guarded people and there are many different ways to guard yourself and it is very foolish to assume that someone isn't. everyone has their way. their way of speaking and walking and interacting and letting you know that they care about you and sometimes it takes a while to recognize but that doesn't make it any less valuable than if they spit it out on day one.
but make sure they know.
because everyone needs that reassurance.
and you are making sure i know in your way.
and i am glad to say that i know that, that i can finally see it. i know your way.
it makes me very happy because it's where i've always wanted to be.

don't ever make a guy or girl unintentionally make you bitter.
do you know what that does to a person? it's unfair. because why would you willingly and openly care about someone if you know they were trying to make you bitter? no one you can truly care about would ever make you feel that way on purpose. do you see what i'm saying? we usually do it to ourselves. it's easy to let that sit in there and stew into angst and bitterness because it's so much easier and more satisfying to feel shitty than to try and make yourself feel good. its easier to resolve feeling that way to someone making us feel that way when in actuality they have no idea how we're feeling in the first place because, for whatever reason, we did not tell them.
this is going to sound very feminine (surprise! i'm a woman) and i don't mean to imply that we must talk about our feelings all the time but there is no valid excuse to not tell someone how to feel about them if you care about them at all in any sense of the word, even if you think they are really great or maybe just a little odd and especially if you are making them unintentionally make you bitter. how old you are, where you're at, how articulate you are, fear of consequence and how much time you have or don't have are just shitty excuses for rationalization. and its a shitty thing to do to yourself and to other people.

i'm not that girl, so don't make me that girl.