The world is a mess. Agree or Disagree?
Poverty.
AIDS.
Hunger.
War.
So what else is new?
What if there was an unexpected solution that could turn this sinking ship around?
Would you even know it if you saw it?
It’s not the internet.
It’s not science.
It’s not the government.
It’s not money.
It’s…a girl.
Imagine a girl living in poverty.
No, go ahead. Really.
Imagine her.
Girl, baby, husband, hunger, HIV.
Now, pretend you can fix this picture.
Girl.
Ok. Now she has a chance.
Let’s put her in a school uniform
And see her get a loan to buy a cow
And use her profits from the milk to help her family.
Pretty soon, her cow becomes a herd.
And she become the business owner
Who brings clean water to the village
Which makes the men respect her good sense
And invite her to the village council
Where she convinces everyone
That all girls are
Valuable.

www.thegirleffect.org

Have you ever...

Been in love?
Fallen in love?
Known the difference?

Felt like dying?
Felt alive?
Felt both?

Been happy?
Been sad?
Been neither?

Starved?
Become Homeless?
Been alone?

Been under the gun?
Hidden your halo and wings?
Been proven it was real?

Been in a car crash?
Died?
Survived Hell?

Felt the relief of drugs?
Felt the relief of cutting?
Felt the relief of letting go?

Been strong?
Been weak?
Been yourself?

Loved?
Hated?
Fogave?

Childhood Memories.

This is my own memory. The first time my parents fought to the point of breaking things. The first time I realized that I had a sheltered life. The first time the real world came to life for me.

The little girl cowered in a corner as her father stormed past and slammed his fist onto the counter top in the kitchen,"What the hell! You know nothing about this family!"
"What're you talking about? I have been keeping this family together and alive for years," her mother hollered back as the little girl began to cry, moving from her corner of protection to the other room, finding shelter under a desk. Her puppy joined her and hid in the little girls protecting arms.
"I have been holding this family together! You have never been around!"
"Hahahahahahha! All you do is sit on your ass and drink all day! You can't even hold a job!"
The little girl retreats further underneath the table as both adults move into the room, continuing to fight. Her father pounds her first onto the table, making a splintering crack. The little girl continues to protect her puppy and cries silently. Both adults move out of the room, following one another until they end up upstairs. The little girl continues to hear them as she crawls from underneath the table, kisses her puppy and places it in the dog crate. She stares at her school bag and looks at the clock, thinking. She looks out the window and sees her bus buddy outside waiting, seeing her, he waves. She grabs her bag and rushes out the door, continuing to cry.

What if I sat beside you and took the edge of the pain? What if I took some of it just so you could feel that tiny bit better?
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Everyone has scars, emotionally and physically. Scars show what we’ve been through. What we’ve experienced. What hell has happened to us. Some of us flaunt them. Some of us hide them until someone asks to show them. Some of us will never show them.
Everyone has scars, emotionally and physically. Scars show that we’ve made it this far. What we’ve survived through. What hell we’ve defeated. That that wound has healed and we’re still here. That we never gave up.
___________________________________
God is a verb, not a noun.
___________________________________

The strength…
To love
To smile
To have hope
To never give up
To live
To be happy
To feel
To give up
To care
To be there, even when no one wants you
To be lonely
To have fun
To be serious
To be yourself

The weakness…
To love
To frown
To give in
To let go
To be yourself
To hide
To see through the lies
To fall in love
To be in love
To love another person
To fall apart
To change for another person
To not share yourself to the world
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How did you ever find me?
How did you ever take that piece of my heart?
How did you make me cry?
How did you make me crumble?
How did you make me smile?

What made you choose me?
What made my heart melt?
What made you the one I think about?
What happened between us?
What is happening to me?

Why me?
Why did this happen?
Why am I this way?
Why do I feel this way?
Why does my heart race when I talk to you?

Am I happy?
Am I dying?
Am I living?
Am I going insane?
Am I in love with you?

Balance.

The month of October is filled with chilly nights, beautiful sunrises and the changing colors of leaves. The unexpected arrival of snow gave me a shock to the system. Season's are changing, which means time is speeding past. The leave are still orange and red, and the sky is raining frozen water. I think the season's are clashing, and we're right in the middle of it.
________________________________________

The balance between physical and emotional attraction has to be right on the edge of being perfect. Nothings ever perfect so the relationship can never be. The hope that it might be perfect is there but it will never happen. Something will always get in the way, but that's okay, since nothings ever perfect.
________________________________________

If you've met me before this summer and looked at me now, you'd think I had a twin. Before this summer, I was the most selfish person you could ever meet. I was pampered in every aspect of my life. I thought the world was about being the best and highest at everything. But, no. Reality smacked me in the face this summer. Of all the shit I have been through, this summer was the worst but the most exciting. To sum it up, I changed. A lot. I became caring, loving and fun. I don't like to be serious anymore because sometimes it adds the frustration to life that people don't need. Sometimes my old self shines through little cracks, but that's it.
_________________________________________

A voice grumbles, with a hidden whimper, as the voice grows louder out of the darkness. A black figure appears and laughs loudly. A girl stands there, staring with a terrified look. She has the strength to refrain from flinching, but also the weakness not to looks at the black silhouettes face. The black figure walks a circle around her, running it's eyes up and down her body. The girl stares straight ahead, waiting for the blows to start. The figure stops to the side of her and caresses her face with a rough hand. The girl cringes as the silhouette drops it's hand to it's side and move sin front of her, revealing the bleeding slashes on her ruined cheek. The figure laughs as the girl starts crying. She falls to her knees and hides her bleeding face with her hands. The figure kicks her sharply in the ribs, making her fall sideways. The girl stretches out her body, revealing the now bleeding slash through her shirt. The black figure drags it's nails down her back, cutting her open deeply. The girls whimpers and screams,"Stop! Just stop! I am sick of getting torn apart!" The black figure bends over her and quickly kicks her in the side of the head before it disappears back into the darkness. The girl watches the silhouette disappear, and then she cries harder before she disappears herself.

How can we ever know love?

Let's take a chance
Let's fall in love

Let's be together
Let's kiss each other

Let's walk in the streets
Until dawn bites dusk

Watch the shooting stars
Give it our all

Let's take a chance
Let's fall in love
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I've never been in love. I've been so close, said those words, but never given my whole heart to someone. I can give my heart to complete strangers but not to someone I trust. My heart is made from the thinnest paper and get poked, ripped and crushed everyday. My heart is gone by the end of the day but is rebuilt overnight. Every night, I feel like dying. But, I don't. I will never. I pick myself up and continue with a smile on my face. People say I'm strong. I don't think so. It's just.. I care for everyone I meet. I can care about you until my heart is about to burst, but loving is a different story. My past has affected my future of being able to fall in love... I have faith that someday, someone can change this. I feel it, this feeling of hope.
_________________________________

The compact car hums down the highway, letting fresh new cars pass by. The boy, driving, has a short hairstyle with sandy brown hair and sad golden eyes. The boy glances to his right at a girl staring out the side passenger window. The reaches over carefully with his right hand, intertwining his fingers with hers. The girl, styling a short razor blade hair cut and dull eyes, is startled and slowly turns her face toward him, showing her bruised cheek and neck. He stares at her cheek and cringes when she stares blankly into his eyes, as he glances from her to the road,"I'm sorry. I know I can change. Please, have faith in me." A shy smile is drawn upon the girl's face as she leans over and kisses his cheek,"I promise to never give up on you. I love you." The boy's left hand grips tight on the steering wheel, turning his knuckles white,"You know how I feel about those words." The girl's smile is replaced by a terrified expression as the boy swiftly removes his hand from hers and slaps the girl, adding dark red scratches onto the bruised cheek.

Colors..

There's a girl in this world who cannot remember how to feel emotions correctly. Her memories have been swiped from her mind and this makes her not able to remember her emotions or how she felt in the past. Emotions are based by how we felt from past times, so if we cannot remember, how can we recall that feeling? This girl is unique. She'll stare off into space for hours trying to figure out how she is feeling. This girl also has bipolar disorder. A very serious one. Her world is doused with color. It'll flash one or two or three colors at once. Or it'll be one and then change, confusing her to no end. When she feels something, she connects it to the color she is seeing. Right now, she is seeing gray. Seeing gray can be bad.. But with this color she tries to remember and connect it with other small times she has seen gray before. Gray is when her dog died or when someone keeps walking in and out of her life. Can you figure it out? She can't. All she has is her colors, crayons and notebook. Her room has a space reserved for notebooks with just crayon scribbles filling them. These are her 'journals'. She has dates on the pages to see what she 'felt' that day. Would you like to color with me?

Emotions.. The base of yourself..

Have you ever felt..
Like you could soar above the clouds...
But knew you would crash later?

Have you ever felt...
Like you could live forever...
But die inside from the immense pain?

Have you ever felt...
Like you could love someone forever...
But never see them?

Have you ever felt...
Speechless...
But have a thousand thoughts you want to say?

Have you ever felt...
Like you could love someone you hate...
But hate someone you love?

Have you ever felt...
That you could be me...
But not be yourself?
______________________________________________________________

A girl, with razor blade hair and tired brown eyes, sits on a sagging red porch steps in front of a small white bright house. This girl glances around the darkened area, slowly turning her face upwards the full moon. The moonlight brightens her face, revealing her bruised swollen eye and blood covered face. Her bright white shirt, stained at the collar, is a bright crimson red. Her mangled face shows no emotions except a cringe as she lightly places her hands on either side of her broken nose. The midnight silence is filled with a crunch of bone against bone and a muffled scream. The girl slowly lifts her head and tugs at a white bandanna hanging out of her jean pocket. She smirks as she wraps the bandanna onto her forehead and tiredly ties a knot to secure it at the base of her head. The girl carefully swipes her hand across her blood-drenched lip and harshly cringes again. She looks back up at the full moon as tears run silently down her broken face. The girl timidly stands from the depressed porch steps and whispers a husky, "Thanks you," as she walks across the slick perfect driveway, treading towards the trees, swallowing up her broken and bruised self.

For her.

This is for her, the girl who makes my day, every day. The one who sends a smile onto my lips when she rushes past or bounces into a room. She gives me hope. Love. Understanding. She's incredible and spectacular in her ways. The way she grins when you talk to her is..just..amazing. I can't describe it in words. My heart leaps when she talks to me or looks into my eyes. Those eyes inspire me to do great things. That girl inspires me to live, even if she doesn't believe it herself. The way her tongue presses against her teeth when she smiles is adorable and a wonderful cute moment. She's beautiful in my eyes. She always will be too. Nothing could ever change that. This girl... She is spectacular. My stomach becomes filled with butterflies when I'm around her and half the time, I'm speechless.
Have you ever felt like this before? This feeling that your heart wants to burst with joy? The feeling that whenever a certain person steps into a room, you want to melt into one happy foolishly grinning puddle? I have this feeling everyday.. And I absolutely love it.

Another story.

The wind was screaming in her face as she walked along the shore, stepping lightly from the sharp shards of stone and glass. She glances about from one side of the shore to the other. Her eyes catch a slumped rock under a looming willow tree, guarding the rock with it's leafy tassels. The girl, dressed in a worn tan sundress with bright sunshine hair and hopeful gray eyes, slowly treads toward the rock, twirling every other step or so. When she arrives under the great tree, the girl runs her hand across the rough sandpaper surface and grins. She sets herself onto the rock and waits, continuing to grin, as a boy silhouette, outlined by the sunset, slowly strides toward her.

Love. The connection between two people. Hate is love, but to a different degree. Don't underestimate anything in your life. It may just surprise you.