tenth-of-july

[tenth-of-july]

"that july 9th, the beat of your heart"; I wonder if that even happened, the occurrence existing, your breathing I've heard closely. I recall now, in Julys, how raw and tender my heart was, being laid on my trembling fingers, knowing that it was going to be left decaying and buried in dirt.

I do remember before the 13th, the look on your face when I opened my mouth to reveal the incomprehensible— and how you made it coherent. The familiar softener infused in the fabric of your clothes, and the panic from your hand that held me through the crowd, were the closest comfort apart from home.

2 years— it is still there. In hindsight, it was going to be an annual event of the same songs, the same tears, on different jumbled dates because I had forced to forget and deceive myself to avoid unhinged rituals. I was not much for dancing around, but I made it look so easy it was stupid.

But I don’t worry that much anymore. When the sun shines and the day ends in a quiet 10 PM, I yearn for more than what could have happened. When I’m reminded of the weather and time, I bring an umbrella nevertheless, knowing that you will not be there.

(inspired by Taylor's Last Kiss. The song was on repeat, recalling a specific time in my life.)

[tenth-of-july]

[tenth-of-july]

practice what you preach, to want and hope for love is to keep your heart open, but for a moment there is a crack in my truth that I think love is stupid when it gets in the way. In movies, in songs, in medias I can and can't reach. It aches in a way I can't explain, that the thought of what gets me up in the morning is the very demise of my sentiments.

amo y quiero amor pero with uneven lines on the surface of a mirror separating what should and should not be seen—and it haunts me. That my fallacies have stripped me of what should have stayed intact with me a few months ago.

the fact that I think, sometimes, love is stupid, is like admitting that I am just as stupid as what I believe in. And maybe I am. I am utterly and devastatingly stupid. That to want and hope for love and to keep my heart open is what makes me stupid. And that I hate myself for even bringing up the thought.

my juxtapositions are held but hefty. I want to lie down and keep it close to my heart as I search for the voices that allow me to close my eyes. Forget I ever believed in either one.

[tenth-of-july]

two weeks ago I would have been fine with cutting my hair off and completely erasing myself from the bloody portrayal of who they knew me as. I had my perfect burial. I was going to let the strands soak in something darker but keep my youth aflame—familiar, but new. I wanted it in layers and keep the length: subtle but noticeable, new. There was going to be a curated funeral, with prayers and a covered up hole six feet under.

but when the contracts are read and signed, the truth cannot be bent. That either way, I still had to twist a part of me in two months. The hourglass is still there, reminding me of the time I have left with or without the colors or lengths of my hair.

two days ago I thought that instead of being buried, I was going to be incinerated. Long were the nights of crimson dreams and layered lengths. They want me to drown in what the earth has already given me behind the eye-catching facade. And I am afraid of being caught by time and surrendering in the name of change and the norm, left in a jar displayed for others to see.

the truth is, behind organization regulations and professional standards, the clock ticking 38 days behind me is what terrifies me the most: the thought of letting go of what I am and what I was once. My youth entwined with the past colors and length of my hair, my only reminder of the memories I've held onto. To sever my ties with it to conform to society's criterion, is an act of severing my ties with adolescence. I would hate to see me leave.

[tenth-of-july]

[tenth-of-july]

[tenth-of-july]

[tenth-of-july]

when they leave

1. The world does not revolve around me. It revolves away from me, out of sight, after it gets its presence known. I have learned that since I was eight. Time does not stop and neither do the people in the shape of your mother who leave with a suitcase to catch a flight. Like a 24-hour rotation, it will happen to me again. It is a cycle: holding my rage against the ephemeral. There is a certain tightness in my chest when I hear them bear the news and see them turn their back against me. There is nothing I can do. It is their decision and I am the bubble they have to burst located outside their own.

2. I am the garden where they plant their seeds, when the seasons change, so do the flowers and trees. The bees visit and pollinate, wafting through the air. They grow, rot, or wither and never linger. So when the plants grow old and their seeds are picked up by the wind, carrying them to the neighboring soils, I am left to wonder if the weeds and wildflowers will take over.

[tenth-of-july]

hangnails

[tenth-of-july]

norma is the latin word for carpenter's square

a word's etymology consists of your name and it has three sides, shaped like an "L", 90 degrees on both sides. In geometry, it is considered "normal"—it is 𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘵. Ironically, the definition is not far off from the way I remembered your existence. Your arms that held me at night, your lips that would curl upward at the sight of me, your voice that would soothe me to sleep, your perfume that you rarely used. Your presence was my norm, it was 𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘵. You became a routine that a 12-year old would attach to.

the warm waters of the beach would only reach up until my ankles and the old dog's barking is like a wave of laughter that glints in the crinkle of your eyes. You linger in hallways you've never been before, in birthday candles you never got to see me blow, and in the sliced cucumbers I can't eat with you anymore.

the purpose of a carpenter's square is to lay down the right angles. Who would have known that I would be one of those angles too? You lay me down one night beside you, decided I was all right, and let me close my eyes before I could even get to see yours close.

[tenth-of-july]

I love you where dimly lit streetlights and cold benches meet, in a dark alleyway no one wants to cross. I love you in turbulent winds and gray warning skies. I love you in dawns after turning off alarms and in dusks you do not witness after falling asleep on the drive home. I love you in languages I cannot speak and words I am unwilling to repeat.

When you ride the commute alone and watch the scenery out the window like a film reel, I love you a little bit more. In the salty tears when midnight strikes after the lights die out, I blame you a little less.

And when you dream of writing until the pen starts to bleed, you will know the love I hold for you in the letters you decide to keep.

[tenth-of-july]

lipstick stains mark the rims of my bottle, jackets are worn during spring clouds before april, and I sing secret songs when the moon is parallel to the ground.

the afternoon sun churns my flesh into butter, my fingers slip into squares of a confinement, and I think writing in journals would magically restore me.

inanimate objects talk to me at night, there's peace in bathroom stalls when there is no one in sight, and I stare at vehicles that move past the window where I sit.

there is warmth under a blanket, the interior of my head is a rose-colored labyrinth; and when I touch my skin, I know all of this has happened.

[tenth-of-july]

.ㅤthe goddess of time weeped over her reflection at the lonely sky, her tears plummeted between the clouds & caused a ripple in the heavens, forming the incandescent bodies that write the fate of humanity

[tenth-of-july]

life

It is so easy to grieve and stare at our tombstones because we were the closest feeling of real flesh with a functioning vessel and a beating heart.

I felt the most alive with you.

[tenth-of-july]

where dreams and silent prayers are weaved, rosemaries and wildflowers are picked. send me to ritual sites and carve divinity in the marrow of my bones. lay bare my ribcage and leave me out in the open, where the wind might carry my remains.

[tenth-of-july]

...

Skin so tender, wrapped around layers of flesh. Her voice calls a different name and it's someone I only know when alone. She speaks to me like every other person's dream. Bruised purple, it stings on the side of my throat. Was it really kissing when all I could taste was the need from her tongue?

[tenth-of-july]

a glutton for romance

I write, my fingers gripping tightly on the pen that was starting to look blurry through my glassy vision. It was incredibly frustrating to hear the constant scribbling and my head spilling out words that continue to clench around my chest. No matter how hard I put punctuation marks with every sentence or paragraph or phrase I put into the material, my fists do not stop contracting and the blood that runs through my body resumes to prickle my heart.

I write, still. Even as my chest started to rise and fall in an unusual pattern, hiccups that I force to swallow but end up choking on. I write despite not knowing if I had flooded the room or if I still had my grip on the words in the paper's lines.

It was not fair.

It was not fair that I kept waiting and waiting and waiting. They tell me the right person will come, but it has been years. When does the waiting stop? When will the yearning cease to exist? I am devastated and revolted by the thought that romance is the only quintessence that is keeping me alive. I wish I was a normal person.

I wish I only write so as not to compensate for what I don't possess.