Inside My Heart

I was taught to always be kind.

It came naturally at a young age for me. It started with something my mom said.

I could not have been more than five when she said it, “Kayla, remember, you must always smile at strangers, even if they don’t smile back. You never know what your smile could be capable of. It could change someone’s entire day. It could make someone who was feeling really sad feel happy.” At five, I did not know the power my smile had. At five, I did not know what suicide or depression was. At five, I did not know what it felt to be lonely. What I did know was that I wanted to be just like my mom and she always smiled at strangers.

It was not for many years after that I truly understood what my smile was capable of or what a few kind words could do or what sticking up for someone who felt voiceless did. Now I know.

Modestly, I asked for stories from friends, family, old classmates, and strangers. I asked them to tell me about a time I did something that influenced their lives. Some I remember doing vividly and others are a distant memory.

I wanted to share them with you.

I wanted to share that by doing SOMETHING, anything, for someone else you could leave an everlasting impression.

“You promised me that I’d be ok after the first year of my mom’s passing. I’ll never forget it. You were right and now I always tell people exactly what you told me. Believe it or not your words helped me get through that first year” – Another motherless daughter

“Nothing really specific, but I think you are truly an inspiration to many, like myself, simply just by watching you rise from the unspeakable pain of losing your Mom and go on to live your best life. You put your whole heart and soul into everything you do and that is as inspirational as it gets! God Bless you always!” – A former classmate of my moms

“When you lost your mom. My heart broke for you and your family. I prayed you would be able to ..there are no right words to say about moving on or it gets better because you never do not does it get better. What you did was embrace your mother’s beautiful heart and shined. You have kept her memory alive in so many wonderful heartwarming ways. When I lost my mom, I did not think I could go on. Never thought I would breathe again. Than I would see your posts. Your strength is beyond anyone I know. Your heart is one of the most beautiful I know. I am rambling. On my darkest days when I just did not want to go on I would see your posts. And they would make me smile. Made me see threw all the pain happiness can be there. You Kayla are an angel.” – An old friend of my mothers

“Even though I don’t see you..I feel as if you have been a part of my world for a very long time. Through your own loss of a parent, you managed to comfort me in the loss of my stepfather and my Mom. You are nothing short of amazing. I never had a daughter of my own, but I could only hope that if I did, she would be as sweet, kind, caring, compassionate, beautiful, smart…as you are. I could go on and on. Thank you for your kindness and love.” – A friend of my family

“Hey Kayla saw your post the other day, I felt obligated to message you. There was a time in high school when Krassowski who was a good friend of mine passed away. I was pretty upset in class-I wanna say it was health-but someone in that class was running their mouth about it and you saw I was upset. From what I remember you basically told the guy running his mouth to shut up and put him in his place pretty good and were super comforting to me afterwards even though we were strangers. For some reason that situation has stuck with me. I’m not usually one to respond or socialize with people over social media but it seemed ironic and I’m glad I could get to thank you for it.” – An old classmate from high school that I thought I was invisible to

“You’re the only other person who really seemed to get what I was dealing with” – Another motherless daughter

“Hey this definitely is out of the blue but I wanted to thank you. You are an absolutely amazing human being, we haven’t talked in a while but the positivity you give to this world is absolutely amazing and I just wanted you to know that; also congrats on the golden retriever! I grew up with them and am beyond jealous! Happy New Year to you and your family!” – An old classmate

“I don’t know where to begin on how you impacted me. For starters your strength and how well you embrace you’re life after everything you’ve been through. My mom has MS and she has been getting worse over the years and I know in the back of my head I won’t have too much longer with her. Seeing the way you talk about your mom is truly inspiring and I can only hope to be half as brave as you when that time comes. You also helped me through everything with loosing ****. My life had completely turned upside down and you reminded me that although it was tough, change could be good and I would get through it. And I did. I’m happier now than I have been in a long time. I’ve met someone amazing and I’m even working on a friendship with ****. So thank you for being the amazing, strong, and selfless person you are.” – An ex of a family member

“Kayla was an amazing friend to me all throughout college, and she was one of my very first college roommates and friends. Kayla not only had a huge impact on my life, but I would say that she actually saved my life in many ways when I was only 19 years old. I was trapped in a physically and emotionally abuse relationship. My ex boyfriend and I lived on our own in an apartment about 10-15 minutes away from Kayla’s home. Kayla and I grew really close our sophomore year of college, especially when I moved so close to her house. I actually fled from the apartment after being attacked for the last time, and I went right to Kayla’s house. Brenda and Kayla took me in right away, and gave me more support than I could have ever wished for. Kayla sat with me, cried with me and listened to me for hours. Brenda and Kayla gave me nothing but kind words, sound advice and shoulders to cry on. I literally had no where to go when I left that apartment, being that I was 3 hours from my family home. I don’t know if I would have ever been able to leave that abusive unhealthy relationship If I didn’t have Kayla as my friend at that point in my life. The love and support that I was given by Kayla and her mom is something that I will be forever grateful for. They helped me in becoming the strong independent woman I am today.” – An old college roommate and good friend 

Now I know not everyone was raised with love.
I know some parents put too much pressure on you.
I know some parents did not care at all.
I know some people grew up without parents.
I know some parents abused you.
I know some parents neglected you.
I know there are days when you physically cannot smile.
I know there are days when the world is too dark.
I know there are days when you are the one who needs the smile or the kindness.

Nevertheless, I am asking you to smile anyway.
I am asking you to take the same advice my mother gave 5 year old me and do something with it.
I am asking you to use this year as the platform to change the world around you.
I am asking you to do better than your parents did for you.
I am asking you to do better than the people who abused you or neglected you.
I am asking you to be someone worth remembering when the inevitable happens.
I am asking you to be kind.

Kindness.
Kindness is everything.

“I need more.” It sounds dirty coming from the mouth of someone you give everything to.

It is not you I need more from, it’s life. You’re just being fucked in the process.

How do I tell you I know I’m destined for greater things without making you feel like you are not one of them? Because you are.

I crave the lights on the Eiffel Tower and gondola rides in Venice. Driving over the Golden Gate Bridge, walking in the warm California sand, seeing Settle from the Space needle, hiking the mountains of Alaska, and swimming in the crystal waters of Bora Bora.

I feel weighted down. Heavy. Suffocating under things that will never be if I remain complacent. It is not you. It is the thought of not seeing the world.

Two dark little hands and feet, bloody in Uganda. I want to teach them things. English. How not everyone in this world is going to hurt them.

I feel guilty for the way I feel. I am blessed. You have given me all I ever thought I wanted. That is how life works right? Get what you want but always crave more.

I was born to be better than this. To do more than this. Can you see that? I am not running away from you. I am running towards what I was destined to do. Be greater. Do more. Be better.

It is not fair to you, I know.

You will never feel adequate standing next to these big dreams of mine.

I am not comparing you to the world. That is what you must understand.

I am changing the world, for you. I am changing my world to be better for you.

Don’t be sad. I am evolving. I know you fell in love with the caterpillar but I promise you will learn to love the butterfly. Vibrant. Full of life. Enlightened.

Just hold on. More does not mean you are less.

I’ll lay you down on a piece of paper, let the pen softly dance across your skin. Before you know it you’re covered in black ink like silk. Inch by inch they’ll read you, running their dirty fingers down your spine. Your beauty will haunt them, tantalize them, and tempt them. Let it. No matter how hard they try to pollute you, your ink will stay perfectly imbedded into your skin like tattoos. They’ll pick at you and try to reveal those layers underneath but they’ll never hit the surface, there’s just too much you hide. They’ll realize they could never really hold you in their hands, only in their hearts; you’ll stay with them long after you’re gone never truly being able to forget. You will finally make them believe in something that is bigger than themselves. You will make a connection with them far deeper than any human touch could. You embody such a beauty that they’ll try to tear you apart but never being able to because you’re now burned into their mind like cobwebs in glass. They’ll love you more than they’ll ever let on because who is going to admit that words on a piece of paper are the only god damn thing that makes them feel alive.

“I’ll never let a man be the best thing to ever happen to me” said my 20 year old self after my heart had just been demolished by a boy. But this isn’t about him, it is about you. But whole heartedly I believed myself. Between Beyonce’s single ladies and my own self destruction I tricked myself into believing I will put myself first, always, no matter what and I will never love a man so much that he has any power over me. Then there was you. You saved me in ways that you know and some you never will. As clique as this sounds, and believe me I know it does, you make me the best version of myself. I am healthier when I am with you. I am happier. There are parts of me that are ugly and shameful, parts that I have successfully hidden from the world but chose not to hide from you and you have loved me regardless. There are things that made me nervous to tell you but decided to anyway and you have loved me through them. There are things i have not yet told you because the time wasn’t right, but someday I will. Stay patient with me. You know I’ve always only known a love that was fleeting; you are kind when my anxiety shakes me up and down then spits me back out at you covered in self doubt and hatred. You wipe them off of me slowly and reassure me that it is all in my head. You never make me feel bad. There are times you should of left me but didn’t, you just sat there and took whatever I threw at you: nasty words, screaming, bullshit, shit that doesn’t even matter now you sat there and you eat every word. You didn’t leave. No matter how good you think I am, I always think you’re better. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me because you fill me. I am complete when I am with you. The darkness doesn’t swallow me whole anymore; you fight it off with your sword and shield. I don’t remember the last time I cried alone because you refuse to do anything but sit there and hold me when I do. I will never understand how someone like you was made for someone like me but you are. Every inch of you fits perfectly into every inch of me. You are stitched and stapled into every pore in my body and for the first time, in a long time I feel home.

Daddy issues. What a compassionate term for such a tragic event. How is a 20 year old girl supposed to handle abandonment? I often imagine never having a father at all must be easier than having one who chose to leave me. I also imagine having a father stripped from you by death is easier than by choice. So tell me, how do you live with abandonment? How do you push your life forward knowing the man who makes up half of you wanted to leave you? How he can walk away and not even look back. Someone tell me what that would do to you. Imagine the most brutal thing you could go through and needing to have your father there and thats the time he decides to leave. I wonder if it’s because every time he looked at me he saw my mother staring back at him. I wonder if looking at me he saw all the failures he didn’t have time to fix because death took her before he could. I wonder who I would be today if he left when I was born instead of when I was a struggling 20 year old woman. I wonder if he would of still walked away if he would of know the damage it would of done. I wonder if he still would of walked away if he would of known I stay up late at night shaking at the image of everyone I know leaving me. If my own father doesn’t love me, who will? If the man who taught me how to ride a bike, change a tire, kickstart a quad, cast a line could so easily abandon me then why would anyone else want to stay? I wonder if he would of still walked away if he would of know. Sometimes I think about what I would do if he came back. Would I so easily accept his apology just so I don’t have this hole in my heart? Or would I shove his own medicine down his throat and walk away when he needs me the most. Being the daughter to my father was a part of my identity and now that I am fatherless I often wonder who that part of me really is now. How unloveable I must feel right? How utterly abandoned I am. I wonder if he knows. I carry so much of who he is inside me and it kills me. He is the worst parts of me and even though he has left me those parts have not. Even though he rid himself of me I cannot ride myself of him because I am made of him. I am half him. I wonder if he knows. I wonder if all the men in this world who decide to bring life to children know what their selfishness does to our innocent hearts.

I don’t tell you how important you are as much as I should

but I’d walk to the end of the earth for you if my little feet could

And I want you to know that you’re a hero to that city you protect

but you’re just as much of a hero to the girl waiting at home for a peck

And if a kiss could tell it all I would never stop painting them on your lips

and if a touch could tell it all I would glue your hands to my hips

If pages could tell everything I feel I’d fill a shelf with books

and I’d tell you that since the first time you kissed me I’ve been on a hook

If music helped you understand I would play every instrument there is

and if there was a test for your love I would pass every quiz

But all I have are the words I worked my entire life to learn

and this fire inside my heart that is sure to always burn

With a lot of love and a little magic this is sure to last forever

because living a life without you is something I could do never

Thank you for all you do as an officer and as my man

and thank you for finding me and completing her plan

If I would of known then what I know now I wouldn’t of waited so long, or been so hesitant, or ignored your calls. Something told me to take a chance. Something told me to drive to Queens on a Tuesday night during rush hour. Something told me the 2 hours of traffic would only be a distant memory one day…. that’s true now. You said you were waiting outside by your jeep. I walked down Ditmars Blv. not knowing what I’d find at the end of the road. I can tell you one thing I knew for sure I never expected to find my future lit up by the FDR bridge and the NYC skyline but there you were. My heart beat a little faster when you said hello. You talked and I listened as I looked up at the lights shining from the city that never sleeps. We went inside. You knew what you were doing but I did not. You thought if you impressed me enough I might give you a shot so you dressed me in all your NYPD gear and for the first time in a long time I felt like that little girl playing dress up. For the first time in a long time I was something other than a motherless daughter. You walked across the room to me with this look in your eyes, a look I really never seen before. At first glance it was of hunger, of need, but now that I look back it was of necessity, it was of love. You kissed me and after those 10 seconds I knew you were the man I was going to spend the rest of my life being a better woman for. I didn’t want to leave but it was getting late and it didn’t help when you begged me not to go. You walked me out and picked me up and sat me on the hood of my car and kissed me again. My words fail me here because what I felt I could never write. Words couldn’t do justice for you here. What I have felt in the last 10 months is the greatest gift you could ever give me. You brought an often too dim world for me back to life and I will forever be grateful to you for that.

I have him because I waited. I never settled. There were nights that the loneliness crept up on me so fast that it sucked the air out of my lungs and I’ll admit I reached for my phone just to feel the warmth of another body but I always put it back down. There were days I didn’t even want to move out of bed and I sat on the floor of my shower and let the water burn me as the thought of not being able to love ever again haunted me. There were nights I ended up wasted at bars with a man feeding me drinks and it would of been so easy for him to take me home but I always ended up makeupless in a cutoff t-shirt alone in my own bed. I dated all different kinds of men for all different reasons: one because he was nice and I thought that was the answer, another because he was easy on the eyes, and another because he read books and could talk to me about Wordsworth. I broke all of their hearts for no good reason at all other than I knew they weren’t the one. I never settled. When I lost my mom I knew that I had to enter that raging sea alone but I’d be lying if I said crawling back into the arms of someone familiar didn’t cross my mind a time or two when my world was falling apart. I never did. I built myself back up without the love of a man. I stood on the foundation of NOTHING. There was absolutely nothing left after my mom died and I built myself back up. Every inch of who I am was constructed by me. I learned to know I could survive the darkest, wildest storms without that kind of love. I learned to love me. That is why I have him. I never needed him and that is why I have him. I never went out searching for him. I didn’t wish for his love on shooting stars or dandelion peddles. I bettered myself as a woman and when I was ready, when I was the best I could be, there he was. And with a little bit of luck and a little light from Heaven he found me. And my life will never be the same.

Sleepy time kiss, duty calls

5:02am I’m staring at the walls

teeth brushed, you left the bed cold

I’m waiting here for you to hold

Save the world, I’ll save your seat

in this place our bodies create heat

sleepy time kiss, I’ll wait right here

drinking tea to help my fears

you’re out dreaming in this big bad world

i’m here remembering how my toes curled

sleepy time kiss, it’s 5:31am

you’re out the door as late as you can

Don’t want to leave, don’t want you to go

but duty calls, I just ask you to go slow

Dear Forever Hand,

I may be the one that writes and the one that paints

I am also the one who draws so I shouldn’t have a complaint

They call me the dominant, the reason everything gets done

but you’re the hand that has it all, the proof that you’re the one

A big beautiful diamond, center carat cushion cut

the promise that he’ll love you forever with no room to rebut

You’re the hand people want to see, the hand that they touch

everything that I can do now doesn’t seem like very much

I create words and art but your hand reveals true beauty

a life with a man who made protecting you his most devoted duty

I know I shouldn’t be jealous, we come from the same beating heart

we’re both vital to her fairytale life so lets promise to never part