Life When Living Awake

Introduction • Author's Note

My poetry still isn't poetry. 

And my life still isn't perfect. 

But time has passed, 

And alas, 

Everything is different. 

. . . 

Pages go on being pages, and my words go on being not-quite-poetry. I'm still not a poet, I'm still just a young adult rambling, I'm still ranting and rejoicing and musing and pondering. I'm still me, through and through, and my life is still mine, the good parts along with the undesirable ones. 

Much of everything looks, on the surface, to be much the same. To me, it isn't at all. To me, everything is different. One thing, one person changed my life forever. He said he loved me and suddenly the world was viewed as if through rose-colored glasses. Nothing is perfect, but my life can be seen in pink, and that's the difference après lui, as I first thought to call this collection. 

But Après Lui wouldn't quite fit. Because he took away the parts of me that I loved the most, and if the story ended après lui, it would be a tragic tale indeed. Life goes on after loss and after heartbreak. The dark days are hard indeed, but slowly, healing happens. And we wake up to realize that joy doesn't depend on a person and that adventures still await us. We wake up to realize that the best chapters of our stories haven't been lived yet. We wake up to grab onto life and savor every moment because we hold it much more loosely, but appreciate it much more dearly. We wake up to look at ourselves and look at our lives and make everything out of them that we can. We wake up to live again, to learn again, to try again, to love again. 

This collection is not to inspire the same effect in your life. It's to give you a window into mine, just like A Book of Rhyme, Rhythm, and Time did. This is the next chapter of my lyrical journal. This is diving back into my head, all my held-in conversations, my hopes or thoughts, my ambitions or feelings at any given moment. This is different from where A Book of Rhyme, Rhythm, and Time left off. This is more than a year later. This is a heartbreak later. This is a healing later. This is several new beginnings later. This is life when I'm living it on purpose, or life when I'm living it awake.