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[writingsandsuch]

what does it mean to be a writer?

well, the obvious answer anyone would give would be to write. it’s what i always thought of as the answer too, and i felt this uneasiness and guilt if i’d gone more than a few weeks or months without writing. could i really call myself that? a writer? let alone a good one?

the title itself is daunting, demanding. it asks for so much, asks for it to be proven and verified, right there in the moment you choose it as yours. it can’t be a baseless statement, there has to be something tangible to back it up. like okay, you’re a writer? so write. you’re a comedian? so tell me a joke. you’re a runner? so run.

it’s funny how the more i tried to fit into the writer stereotype the further away i grew from it.

most days the writings would come to me, a sentence or a moment i’d notice on the many walks i needed to clear my head. it’d repeat in my head, over and over. it’d burn into my eyelids if i closed them for too long. it’d inch and crawl up my arms, and i’d grow restless. fingers tapping, thoughts racing. and there it was. this incessant need to create something, anything.

and it didn’t matter what it was. i’d see a child smile, and want to write about childhood and how it feels so close yet so far and so fleeting, and how i feel like that same child every single day. i’d see a tree and think of the time i went camping as a teenager and was so lonely and sad. i’d think about when i looked up at the sky and saw how the stars and trees hugged each other, each one beginning where the other would end, and how i wanted to write about it that night all those years ago before i even knew what it was to really write. i felt that same itching then, too. the same burning of the eyelids and the wanting to without knowing the what.

my therapist said i’m much more in tune with my emotions than most. when she said that it all made sense, why i notice moments and why they strike me so deeply to the point of wanting to, to the point of needing to put pen to paper and create.

i remember when i first discovered i like writing.

it felt so easy. i’d start off with that first sentence. the one that would be burned into my eyelids. then, came the movement, the fingers moving at rapid speed, the tingling. it felt real and electric, like i’d discovered something that didn’t yet have its own name. i was so sure of it, whatever it was. so sure it could take me places. so sure i could build wondrous worlds and tell tales of faraway lands and it would all be beautiful. it would all be real, and it would all be mine. and no one could take that from me.

but with age comes doubt, and with doubt comes fear. i fear calling myself a writer, fear telling others how much i crave finding words to describe those moments that strike me. fear how much feelings i held, so much so that they’d fill me up so intensely to the point that i had to write them down. i didn’t have a choice.

to me, that’s what it is to be a writer. it’s to feel, and wonder, and want so much. more than you ever thought possible. to be a writer is to keep all those recollections of moments and emotions and fragments in time. to be a writer is to remember the smells, the facial expressions, the winding roads and the feeling of the air rushing through your fingers. it’s to feel and to want and to ache.

to be a writer is to hold these moments close, whether in the form of a poem or a sentence or a story, they’re all there. they’re all tangible and all real and all written on whatever page you could find closest.

so yeah, i do feel. and i do crave and want. and i write.

sometimes, all the time, or somewhere in between.

i write.

[writingsandsuch]

when i was a little girl, the world was in black and white.

sweet or sour, friends or foes, happiness or sadness, good days or bad days. and i could pluck each situation or thing or person and put them in one category in my mind. nothing was muddled or confusing or needed much explanation, if any at all.

the world was good to me, and i loved it for that. days were honey golden sweet, nights quiet and wondrous and a deep, beautiful blue.

i’m still young, but older now. nothing makes sense, not nearly the way it did to me before. i thought i knew myself better than anyone, thought i had fixed dreams and desires and passions. thought i could tap into these dreams and passions and simply and beautifully breathe them into fruition. but between the gloomy days and long, sleepless nights they got lost along the way.

and so i wake up one day realizing i’ve gone, somehow, some way. i’m still me, but much more filtered. much more anxious and much less sure of which situation or thing or person belonged in which category. it’s this incessant self doubt but also lack of sense of self, being so outside of myself yet also too tucked within.

i’m still young, but older now.

bits and pieces of that little girl is still there. the one that loved bright purple and the taste of cinnamon. the one that hated the cold and cried and cried when the world seemed so much so.

days rush on and on, some speckled with that hopeful little girl and others this more cynical, darker, less present me. but most are a constant back and forth between the two. i’ve gotten better, but still have no sense of balance or in between.

it’s frustrating how scary change is. frustrating how everything good hinges on the need for change and how stagnancy can be so debilitating and boring, but comfortable. this lack of knowing, who i am or what i want or why i want what i want. instead focusing on others and what they eat or how they walk or look or dress.

i’m still young, but older now.

and nothing makes sense, not nearly the way it did to me before. i’m not sure when it will or if it ever will. and it’s that not knowing how many more times i’ll lose myself to find myself to lose myself again, and which choice, ultimately, i may decide on.

[writingsandsuch]

Realignment

“The cost of daydreaming is always this moment of return, the realignment with what had been before, but now seemed a little worse.”

I think about that quote quite often. I think about what it means for me, think about how it makes me feel. It’s a life long story told in a few words.

The realignment.

That moment where the madding crowd dwindles, stutters, fizzles out, before the rooms completely empty. That moment where the applause drifts into a distant mumble. That moment where you’ve taken yourself off the stage and returned to who you were before. I’d dreaded this moment before, was always afraid of it creeping up on me. Always afraid of returning to who I really am.

What I realized, though, is life often goes like that. Where you have those big, grand moments. Where the stars shine a little brighter, where the champagne sparkles and swishes a little prettier, where you laugh a little louder.

Moments where it feels as though everything around you is perfect, where the world is your oyster, where you could simply just stretch your hand out, reach for the stars, and grab one in your hand.

The stars always shine at first. Always glimmer and beam, but they also always die out. But I’ve began to find solace in the return, comfort in knowing that I will come home to myself. Every single time.

So it goes like this. You have those moments. You drink in every second, let it run down your throat like ice water on a sweltering summer day.

And then you wake up the next morning, and you eat your breakfast, peach jam on wheat. You wear your clothes, the simple ones, the ones easy for you to lounge at home in. You do all the mundane things you’ve always been doing. As though the stars weren’t in your grasp just moments ago.

That was what the last year was to me. This fantasy world I’d built up for myself. One where none of my problems really mattered, one where I put the entire world in someone else’s hands. One where I placed importance only in moments that were shared with others, and never in ones where I was there for myself.

One day I’d looked in the mirror and I saw myself for the first time. I mean really saw myself. And it wasn’t when I had all those distractions around me. It wasn’t when I had stars glimmering in my hands, or gold drenched on my fingertips. It wasn’t with the big crowds with smiling faces, with the fancy clothes and obnoxiously bright confetti and drunken blissful naivety.

It was just me.

The girl with the plain brown eyes and peach jam toast.

[writingsandsuch]

Introspection.

"Freedom is walking to where your heart desires without being questioned about it." -Unknown

I cried in therapy today. And a lot, too. It was surreal the way I felt those twelve years of emotions well up inside me, surreal the way I felt them bubble and fester and rush out all at once in the form of silent, hot, wet streams. It was so fast and all encompassing that I had no choice but to let it consume me.

I've always hated crying in front of people, and yet I've never been able to have enough control to not do it either. Whether I was happy, sad, angry, or some indistinguishable mix of all three, I've always had way more emotion inside me than I knew how to handle.

She'd said something to me so gut-wrenching and real. And true.

The thing about truth is its way of seeping into your bones. You'll know it when you hear it, and you'll feel its fiery sword stabbing and twisting exactly where it hurts.

She'd said I do not know how good it is I have it. I talk of goals and of achievements as if I do not have any. When I spoke, she listened. She listened to me speak of all my felt insecurities and shortcomings and "can't do's" and "haven't done's" with my legs and fingers shaking. Intently, she waited for me to finish. And then there it was. That fiery sword.

"Here's what I didn't hear you say," she replied, "Do you know how much you've actually done? How much you've achieved? How ahead you are of other 23, or 20-somethings in general?"

I'd gone silent. What could I really say? That incessant feeling of being trapped, or not being or doing or saying enough, all of it was fake. My reality was so far gone because of this belief I've accomplished nothing, that I have no self-restraint, no strength or will. And here she was, saying I've already done all it is I need to do. But what it is that I want?

I've had this freedom all along, but I still box myself in that same old bird cage. Still make myself believe nothing's changed, still make myself believe I haven't improved, that I can't do this, I'll never be that.

I still truly, honestly believe that this is the life I've made for myself and that there's no way out. Still believed that there were happy people and then there was me, and that the two could and would never converge.

God, it seems so ridiculous writing this out, but these are really, truly my thoughts.

"What I would have done if I knew what I know now at 23," she'd said. "The sky is the limit for you." I sighed, more tears came. She smiled. "It really is."

Even now, writing out what she said to me still feels so striking. These cyclical thoughts of downplaying my accomplishments and giving myself the same conditional love I received growing up, it's making me stand in my own way.

There's this whole life for myself just waiting for me outside of the weight on the scale and the anxious thoughts and the self-hatred. I really, truly want to release and forgive and realize that I quite literally am not under anyone's control anymore.

I can do, be, wear, go, feel, see, experience, internalize, expel whatever and whoever, whenever I want.

"The tears," she'd said. "What are they for?" But I hadn't known how to respond in the moment.

I realize now that those tears were grief. They were introspection. They were the realization that I'm so fucking tired of standing in the way of my own happiness.

[writingsandsuch]

thoughts.

my thoughts used to tuck me in at night.

they’d wrap around me, warm and sweet and reminiscent of all things good. my imagination would run wild, i’d dream of faraway lands and lush gardens and flowers smiling in the wind. i’d dream, always, asleep or awake or somewhere in between until i fell into one state or the other.

it was never a problem for me, really. the emotions i’d feel came naturally and easily and softly. i’d sink sometimes, sure. but with a soft landing, always.

it’s an emotion i took for granted at the time. being able to feel safe in my own head. being able to sit in dark, still silence and not even notice. i was too preoccupied with these thoughts, dancing and dreaming and swaying between the warm salty tides.

my thoughts used to make me feel. and i mean really, really feel. i was so outside of myself that i could be any person on any given day held together by nothing but merely this coalition of strings, loosely woven between and within these abundant and infinite worlds.

whichever world i chose to be in that day was all mine, and it’d linger in and out of my thoughts until night time. in the same dark, quiet stillness is where these characters would shine their brightest. and so, i’d dream. of ancient towns that no longer exist, of airy croissants and gooey blueberry jam and a boy with rosy cheeks and a sultry gaze. i’d remember these dreams, fall into them, and keep them with me for nights that would follow, for however long i wished to cling to that world.

i miss this way of living, of dreaming, of wanting all that was not mine, and letting them go all the same. it seemed i was less scared to ask for these things. wanting, wishing, waning and waxing and in awe of all the wondrous ways to exist in this world and the next.

[writingsandsuch]

01.08.2024

It's a Monday evening in January and I can't stop thinking.

I haven't stopped, really, at least not since the new year. It's this odd feelings of wanting nothing more except change. Any change. And yet things staying exactly the same as before.

I think about how I can't stop thinking, mostly. Among other things. I think about how all I ever do is wish for useless shit. And how with each wish I wholeheartedly believe that it'll change me. And it never does. At least, not for long. I still remain the same. Anxious, sad, wishful of whatever it is I didn't have at the moment. Envious of whatever it was that I had just wished away.

And so I go on like this. In this limbo of everything that never was.

Most days are spent aimlessly in my apartment. It's easier when it's raining, because I then at least know there is some reason for the weakness, the melancholy, the tears.

I saw a message I had sent to my best friend four years ago. I'd asked her, "do you ever feel like you're wasting your youth away?" and proceeded to wistfully dream how I wish I had just about everything I have as I am currently writing this. Four years later, the wishes have changed, but I still carry the same sadness. Same tears. Same feeling of wasting away my youth on depression.

Perhaps four years from now, when my wishes are different and my envy lies with the life I have now, I'll at least have some sort of familiar feeling. This deja vu, this final knowing and acceptance of the more things will change, the more I will stay the same.

[writingsandsuch]

12.7.23 - 5:28pm

I think I’ve come to find as I’ve gotten older that it’s possible to be surrounded by others and still feel so so lonely.

Most of the time I feel there is nothing worse than being alone. Nothing worse than waking up to an empty bed, or empty house, empty anything. I’ve always felt there needed to be somebody, anybody, whenever and whoever and wherever I was.

It didn’t matter if they were kind, it didn’t matter if they cared what I had to say or thought or felt. Didn’t matter if they respected me or loved me. They just needed to be there.

And even if they were these things, no difference was made. I was still lonely.

I’d always appreciated the sound of life around me. Whether it’s cars passing down the street outside, or distant voices floating from through the walls and ceilings. I just couldn’t bear absolute silence, or the feeling that someone wasn’t there within arms reach.

I’ve always felt insecure by the notion that I do not know how to take care of myself.

Why should it be others telling me how and when to smile or laugh? Why should it be others telling me what or where to eat, what to wear and if I looked nice? Why couldn’t I do these things for myself and for the sake of no one else but myself? It’s exhausting.

But even now, at a time in my life where I have all the freedom to choose who I give my time to and how, I still stick myself in similar situations and with people with similar tendencies as those I was so intent on running away from growing up. I couldn’t wait to be this shining, glowing, completely independent beautiful grown girl. I couldn’t wait to have autonomy, couldn’t wait to decide who to hangout with and where to go based on how I felt that day.

And now that I have all these choices, I choose wrong. I choose trauma, I choose the same old with the same people.

I stopped writing for a while because I didn’t think I’d know what to say. I couldn’t explain to myself why I felt so lonely and so low when this was supposed to be the time in my life I worked so hard to get to. None of it made sense.

I was embarrassed and ashamed that I worked for everything my childhood self wanted. For the job, the apartment, the city, the clothes, the hair. Everything I wanted, I worked for and I got. And it still wasn’t enough.

I’m still that same scared and lonely little girl with swollen eyes and tear struck cheeks. That same scared and lonely little girl with so many questions and so little answers.

That same scared and lonely little girl with hopes too big and reality too small.

[writingsandsuch]

Threshold.

“Let someone love you just the way you are - as flawed as you might be, as unattractive as you sometimes feel, and as unaccomplished as you think you are. To believe you must hide of all the parts of you that are broken, out of fear that someone else is incapable of loving what is less than perfect, is to believe that sunlight is incapable of entering a broken window and illuminating a dark room.”

— Marc Hack

I’m not sure what it is. Not sure when it began, where it ended, or where it will go. I just know it’s inescapable and confusing. This feeling of wanting to change something, anything, everything. Simultaneously and suddenly and with so much vitriol that it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

It’s that sickness of living in the same way, always, someway. Days blending in and out and intricately intertwined in the worst way possible. Too much of yesterday takes up today, and much of today takes up tomorrow. Each day is never truly its own, but instead ripples and reflections and remnants of what was there the morning before.

I’m not sure what it is.

I just know it’s here, and it’s inescapable and confusing. I feel it everywhere now, the edges of my fingertips and at the nerves in my toes. And so here I stand, with all this baggage and sorrow. Ready to cast it away, as if it were nothing.

It’s funny how moments can feel so different from one another. One second, in a melancholic daze. And the next, being swayed by the soft breeze of the calming waves. Storms never last forever, yes. But I feel it now, whatever it is. Some odd sensation that, storms come as they may, they will no longer make me go back to that place.

And so I stand here now, at the threshold. Between present and future, staring at everything I’ve never had. It’s scary, peaceful, an enigmatic representation of knowing nothing, and feeling all.

Whatever it was, wherever it is, wherever it’s going, it can’t hurt me now. 

Not anymore.

[writingsandsuch]

September Blues

I’ve been feeling quite strange for a while now.

Strangeness translates into discomfort, and the discomfort translates into dysphoria. But most of all, above all, I’ve been feeling lonely.

I haven’t been alone. At least, not really. I have steady, easy, morning conversations in the living room with my roommate. Afternoons are spent at work, evenings either spent in class or with my boyfriend. I am rarely alone. And yet, loneliness is constant, present, and increasingly occupying every inch of my thoughts.

It’s been hard to gather what I want to say, or phrase things how I want them to be phrased. I’ve grown quiet, impatient, yearning for something much more than I have, and yet plagued with this dilemma of not knowing what that thing is.

It seems as if I’ve lost myself, completely. I do not know what I enjoy, and I no longer enjoy the things I used to. I am stagnant, and yet the days and weeks are moving faster around me than what it felt like before.

Out of all these things, I am deeply, deeply, sad.

It’s September and I am lonely. It’s September and I am sad. It’s September and evening time, breeze cooling my skin every so often as I look out at the stretch of trees before me.

I am sitting on my balcony, accompanied by yet another five dollar glass of red wine from the clearance section, and my cat. She’s distracted by the bugs and cobwebs, and yet seems to look at me every couple of moments as if she can sense the sadness within me. I smile at her, softly. She stares at me, knowingly. And returns to her cobweb and bug hunt. And so I return to my thoughts.

I am not sure when this shift of strangeness begun. At one point, it felt like I knew everything there was to know about myself.

I knew how to make myself smile, knew how to make myself laugh. I knew what foods I liked, where I liked to go. I knew what clothes to buy for myself, and I knew how to wear them and when to wear them and who to wear them with. I knew my curves, my scent, the way my ribs would feel against my fingertips as I soothed over them in the cool of the night. I knew myself very well, extremely well, and in ways I yearn to know now.

This introspection has been a theme in my mind as of the last few days. This lack of knowing. This naivety when it comes to the subject of myself. It’s embarrassing almost, how little I have come to feel self-connection as I’ve grown older. Was it the stress? Was it the pressure? Or was it simply self abandonment in the futile pursuit of the approval of others?

Whatever it was, it has turned me into this jumbled mess of emotions and anxious ticks, having no clue where I stood in my own life.

I used to have dreams, feel every moment of my life so deeply and so innately that it was no question what I wanted at any point in time. I loved sunsets and summer nights. I loved the bright oranges of the leaves in mid-October. I loved earl gray tea and thick, cable knit sweaters. I loved candles and pumpkin pie and the smell of coffee in the morning. It was in these moments I felt comforted by the slow ease of the dwindling afternoons, and the somber yet peaceful evenings. My life felt like my own, and my desires and dreams felt woven deep within me.

And now, I feel none of these things.

Here I am at a time in my life where I can have all these things, more even. And yet, I am stagnant. And yet, I am lonely.

And yet, I am blue.

[writingsandsuch]

The Subtle Art of Kissing

“No, I don’t think I will kiss you, although you need kissing, badly. That’s what’s wrong with you. You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how.” — Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind

And so it begins like this.

Always, with hesitation. A glare that lingers just one moment over a second. Eyes on eyes, then on the nose, then lastly, the lips.

Always, always, lips.

And so it happens like this, this dance. Eyes moving between these islands, just barely escaping the notice of its subject. And so it continues. Eyes, nose, lips, until finally, they see. They’ve noticed.

And so you meet their eyes again, but this time it feels strange. As though they know something. They twinkle this time, too. They look beautiful and deep and raven with immutable emotion.

Yet still, your gaze is beckoned back to the lips.

They, too, look different this time. They are tilted upwards, towards heaven, towards light. And now, towards you.

And so your lips are, at one moment, yours. Yours and hungry and desperate.

And the next, theirs. Theirs and warm and swimming amongst the waves of their lips.

And so begins the push and pull. The milliseconds that pass where they pull away feeling so cold and dark and bleak. The milliseconds of anticipation of them coming back towards yours. The hitch of breath as they once again pull you into them. And lastly, the moments where they return feeling like wondrous bouts of incomprehensible technicolor.

And when all is said and done, you are left with nothing to do but taste but the subtle taste of them on your tongue. You are left with nothing to do but feel the subtle feeling of the tingle and the buzz, resting just above the surface of your face and mouth.

You are left with nothing to do but revel upon the subtle art of kissing.

[writingsandsuch]

Sinking Sand

Some days are better than others. Some days it’s a quiet presence, just barely residing in the back of your mind. Some days it’s just a faint heavy feeling in your chest, or feeling slightly deenergized. Other days you just talk less, or eat less, or feel less alert.

But others are unrelenting.

Every movement you attempt to make, every word you attempt to speak, every coherent thought you attempt to have is deemed futile. Instead is that heavy, unmissable, big black looming swirl of sadness ravishing its way throughout your system.

And there’s nothing out there, no remedy or rhyme or reason that can save you from it. Music sounds dull and boring, conversations seem draining and drag on, friends seem distant and inaccessible. Even a lover can only bring small doses of short lived joy before the feelings and the thoughts and the dread creeps its way back in.

Life seems like an endless string of pointless and energy consuming happenings, each piling onto you one by one, brick by brick, until it spills out from you in hot anxious tears in the spaces between the quiet, soft afternoons. In the randomest of moments, when you’re heating your tea or eating your toast.

It’s not in the dramatic moments, not when you’re laying in bed. Not when you’re in class or walking around or doing homework. It’s in the quiet, still ones. The moments where the windows open, letting in the gentle, slightly crisp breeze. Ones where the romantic rays of golden honey sunshine splashes throughout your room, or where you’re watching the dust particles dance through the silent, still air. One second, you’re fine, and the next, the tears are pooling around the base of your chin, soaking and swimming in the fibers of your denim clad legs.

It’s these moments where the storm begins.

A storm. That’s what it feels like. Like unrelenting waves crashing over you, drowning you repeatedly. Lungs gasping for air, burning in your chest, eyes wild and sorrowful and sad. Water fills you up, makes you heavy, pulls you in like vines, more rapidly the more you try and fight.

Like sinking sand.

[writingsandsuch]

10.25.21

I wish for a world in which the sun’s rays shine just for me. 

Every morning I’ll wake up surrounded in silk sheets, melting and bleeding through my fingertips. Every morning the sun will fling itself over the horizon, and so I’ll have another day. And each day will be sweet, warm, filled with beauty and smiles and thick, oozing honey gliding down my skin. 

Everything will glow, no opportunity will seem out of reach. It’ll all be there, in front of me and waiting for me to take. Clothes will feel soft and tender against my skin. Each fiber will feel like it was woven together just for me. 

I’d be surrounded by beauty, always. The city will glisten like glass, visible just outside my window. 

And I’d feel beautiful, too.

Feel soft and warm and inviting to anyone that came close. Everything would finally feel like my own. My body, my hair, my clothes, my space. Music would once again be present in my life. All different kinds, with genres from every part of the world. Beautiful and harmonious and written just for me.

Food would smell sweet, and taste even sweeter. Tomatoes on vines, crisp and red and fruitiously mine.

My lips would be kissed, and often, and by someone who knows how. 

I do not know where this world exists. All I know is I dream of it, always. Needily and vividly and attentively. I wish for it to be mine. 

[writingsandsuch]

When you think of the life that you want, what do you see?

I’ve been asking myself this question often recently. It seems I’ve let my dreams escape me somehow, treating life as though it’s something I have to withstand rather than a gift.

I cant remember the last time I truly felt like this. I cant remember the last time I’d looked at life and treated it like a journey, a burning inferno filled with sparks of what could be and what may come.

There was a point in time where everything seemed so clear and so promising. Like I could simply reach out and grab every little possibility I’d dreamt up for myself the night before.

It’s strange, sometimes. How quickly things can change.

Everything is so disjointed now. A discombobulated mess of lines and vines once harmoniously intertwined, now bearing thorns and becoming horribly tangled.

Everything is so disjointed now. My hands do not seem to recognize my face. My legs seem disconnected, moving where it they ought to go and not where they desire.

One eye looks inward, focused on my racing, fragmented thoughts. Another looks outward and upward, towards the sky and cotton candy clouds it one day dreams to touch. Nothing connects, and so I no longer know where the bad thoughts end and I begin.

And that’s when the question started to creep its way into my mind. When all is said and done, when I lay my eyes to rest and let out my final breaths, what would I want to look back on?

I think of many things, but these come to mind the most:

Laughter. The ugly, boisterous, obnoxious kind. Beautiful flower fields, sweet smells, warm evenings and cold mornings. Violin strings, lots of them, playing beautiful harmonies. Tears. Lots of them, of joy and of sadness and of everything in between.

And most of all, love. In all forms. For others, for myself, for the universe that brings me the warm sun and the somber moon and the raging seas.

That’s what I’d want to see.

[writingsandsuch]

woke up crying on a rainy day

the room was cold and the bed was warm. it was dark, quiet. cars passing outside were the only reminder that there was still life to be lived beyond the walls of this apartment.

i woke up with the feeling of the storm raging inside me. the same one that was present the night before. it’s been that way these days, the sadness is no longer remedied by a nights sleep.

i long for worlds far from where i am, crave to live a life that’s nothing close to the one i was given. it feels like agony having to carry around the restless thoughts and the heavy sadness. and i’m reminded of this burden every day that i have to live.

and so when the next day comes, and i open my eyes, and i am reminded of my reality,

the tears follow, always.

[writingsandsuch]

Love in a Quiet Room

So it begins like this.

A quiet night, grasshoppers humming in the distance. Muffled voices of the neighbors, the occasional sound of the sheets ruffling filling the air.

The room feels airy, light. The smell is sweet and gentle and woven with the promise of all things good that this life has to offer. All is calm.

Fingers brushing against fingers. Circling forward, then backward, then forward once more. I think about it now, the infinity of universes, biomes, galaxies, all coinciding into one beautiful moment. It was just me and him, the world turning in the space between my eyes and his.

My lips were mine one moment, and then they were his. A sigh soft enough for only me to hear escaped his lungs. His hands guided me inwards, as the moon beckons the sea towards her. His eyes twinkled as he looked into mine, nebulas splattered across his irises, stars forming and bursting whenever he graced me with his smile.

I understood now why lovers would weep at the thought of losing even one day out of the week of seeing each other. Because you miss it all. You miss stars, the moon, the bursting technicolor, lips telling the stories that the eyes told long before.

You miss the push and the pull and the beauty of love existing in a quiet room.

Words are merely a superfluous medium to attempt to catch it all. To have somewhere tangible for the memories to live.

To remember fingers brushing against the hairs of my arms. To remember the sound of his voice in my neck, his cocoa butter curls on my chest, his love rooting and sprouting and blossoming in the spaces between my bones.

It always begins slow. Always begins with a quiet room. But the moment untangles into something so much more, something so beautiful and awe-striking. Something you couldn’t give a name for even if you tried.

And so I write to remember. And our moment, our golden moment, is able to spill onto these pages.

Blossoming and shining, butterflies frantically fluttering from its chrysalis at the start of Spring.

[writingsandsuch]

Conditional.

It’s been a while since I’ve written. I wish I could say I’ve had this amazing, life altering epiphany. That I’ve found the secret to eternal life, found my purpose, been given an abundance of wisdom and been kissed by the lips of Aphrodite herself. 

The more things seem to change, the more they stay the same. My hairs gotten longer, I’m starting to laugh just a little bit more than I used to. I think I’m falling in love, too. Whenever I see him, my eyes sparkle and I feel warm. I smile when I hear his voice, always. He smells sweet and sugary and warm, and when he kisses me it feels like there’s a big, fat balloon swelling in my chest, like I could float away any second.

He kissed me the other day. “I’m falling,” I said. He looked at me, lips red and cocked into a half smile. He leaned in, lips brushing against mine. “Don’t worry,” he said, tightening his grip on me.

“I got you.”

I dream of him often, among other things. I dream of happiness, of peace, of quenching the thirst of my restless inner child. I dream of love. In all forms. Mostly, though, for myself. I’ve realize the love I have for myself is very conditional. In my eyes, although I know not scientifically possible, I can be skinny and worthy of love one day, and an unlovable beast the next. It’s very volatile, unpredictable, contingent on a mere gust of wind just a little too strong.

Conditional. 

I’m yearning to break the cycle. Summer’s coming, flowers are in bloom. Nights are warm, quiet, safe. The dreams are becoming louder now. And maybe now, I can look at myself with softer eyes. Maybe now I can forgive my past mistakes. Maybe now I can separate myself from this cold, contractual love.

Summer’s here now. I long to feel warmth.

[writingsandsuch]

Apr 29th. 11:41pm.

I feel like I’m crumbling. 

I feel like I’m standing in quicksand, limbs flailing and eyes wide, breaths shallow. I am left with nothing but the quiet moments that pass, the faint thrumming and humming of the seconds that march by. And me, there, in the midst of it all. In the eye of the storm, sails violently flapping in the sorrow struck winds.

It’s ceaseless and incessant and annoyingly draining. The good times seem out of reach, and the pain feels unmistakably and relentlessly present.

And so I sink more and more, breaths much more scattered. 

Limbs disappearing one by one.