• dame
• I'll say!
• swell
• you don't say?

words (not mine)

• "it's not your fault or my fault," i'll say, "it's the cosmos that stuck us together. chance. serendipity. physics, if you want to think of it that way. so don't feel as if i were a mistake, that would break my heart entirely."
• no, i won't say this, but the first words, the first entry, the first step, is always the hardest
• "you'll believe anything... and you'll fall for anyone"
• "that's not exactly true, only you"
• if eyes could reflect the sort of colors in which you see the world, it'd be such a delight for mine to look upon yours. i don't know what color they would be, but they would be warm, and they would invite me in, heat my body with good feelings, and say pleasantly, "welcome to the warmest corner of my world, you can stay forever if you like."
• you make me all wilty with love
• there's a fluidity here that keeps me at ease, something that shushes my clumsiness to nonexistence, that takes each embarrassed stutter with a warm hold and vanquishes it from notice, that takes any tension and turns it to warm water awaiting me to dive in, unabashed, honest, okay. you're smooth, and not in the way that makes me happy to be scared to put my hand in yours, but in the way that soothes the rough edges, murmurs at the edge of my ears, makes me unafraid to live life with eyes closed. warm. i always come back to that; your warmth. your easy smile, the tip of your cigarette, your skin tone, your torso that burns with heat, warmth.
• you're the warm little center of the earth that everyone crowds around, in hopes that one day you'll save them. i'm sorry that i'm there too, stretching out my hands with all the others, all too greedily. if there's anyone out there in this sad, wet world, that can stop me from being cold, it's you.
• a strawberry for the love you make me feel, a blueberry for all the sadness you've induced, a raspberry for the words you've stolen from me, a blackberry for all the times i've never wanted to speak to you, and a promise to do it all over again. one more time, with a feeling.
• a recorder of your achievements, your growths, your ambitions. counting the girls you've loved before me, after me, and during me, counting the times you've made my heart skip a beat, counting the tears that glide gracefully from lash to cheek, counting the knicks and scarring on your skin, counting all the "fuck"s and "shit"s and "i'm sorry"s, counting the days i don't love you, counting the days i do love you, counting all the days in between. tallying up your life before me, steadily proving that you exist with numbers i've never really liked but always trusted.
• i didn't used to be someone worth waiting for, am i now?
• somewhere in the back of my mind i've created someone that loves me. that sits down, takes my hand softly, laughs and says, "your cheeks are so pink today, you look so lively, someone must have kissed you so hard with strawberry lips they bruised your cheek" and i'd look on embarrassed, fidgety and anxious with those feelings no one ever really gets used to, and stutter out, "you noticed, thank you." eyes well up with tears, i laugh to push them out onto the cliff of my eyelashes, let them become pools in that awkward fold created by the deep circles beneath my eyes and wipe them away easily, naturally, even. i'll look up brightly, ask if you know that one feeling you get when you speak of something you thought you'd laid to rest long ago--feelings, aching grief, guilt tattooed upon your nail beds--in conversation during a perfectly nice moment among friends, you know the ones, all ha-ha, laugh-y laugh-y, all light-heartedness, bubbles, yeah, like carbonated water, and all of a sudden, you tear up, you're talking like an idiot, all smiles, with this trail of tears going down one side of your face "which side?" the left of course, the left means pain every time, "ah, i see" and anyways, you keep talking, because you're dumb, you're denying how much you hurt, and the tears keep falling, and no one's laughing anymore, or at least not those in front of you, and the room begins to quiet down, and you're a big tangly, goopy mess, crying for real now, actually heaving (can you believe it?), and people are hesitating towards you, not touching you, but lingering uncertain with their arms outstretched, and you laugh because you don't know what to do, you don't know how you ended up on the floor, you don't know what happened. you laugh. it hurts. you cry some more. someone brave enough touches your back, the hand is not strong, it shakes, they move it in circles as if drawing some witch's symbol to cure you, it feels nice, you're embarrassed, they help you to your feet, you smile and your lips crack and bleed, you whisper thank you and excuse yourself to the bathroom, you sit in their tub--not clean of course--and sob for a while. someone knocks maybe, not always, but you spend a good amount of time crying, feeling pathetic, wondering what happened, questioning yourself "i thought i was over it?", resting your head back and taking deep breaths. your face is messy and red and swollen, like someone might have punched you, but not hard enough to be terribly painful. you take some toilet paper to your swelling eyes, you draw breaths as if you've just drowned, stare hard into the collapsing structure in the mirror, whose stability sailed off a little ago with the departing of some new trauma that passes quickly physically but never really in any sphere else. you're so dumb. you sit around for twenty more minutes until your face resembles a person you make yourself up to be every morning, dry heave a little, focus on not thinking. you think of the color white, flowers, the smell of grass, a baby's smile, these great but empty things, take another deep breath, unlock the door, find that no one had been outside waiting, and show yourself out and try to keep quiet and deflect the sorry glances of people you know as a person knows as a background character in the grand scope of their life. no lead roles in these parts. you blend. you smile so weakly that no one wants to speak with you. they talk to you so softly amidst the loudness that sticks to the walls, and you want to scream, but you look at the floor, you nod, and soon everyone forgets it even happens, even you.
• so, has that ever happened to you?
• "never, you sound crazy"
• yeah, that's what i thought too.
• hey, if i lay next to you just like this, and you outstretch your fingers just like this, and you reach over without a stutter, you see these fingers here (i would touch your index, middle, and ring fingers to my lips and curl your pinky back down softly, like the slow descent of someone lazily rolling a window down) they would connect to the small constellation around my neck, i don't know what it makes--an acute triangle? no, no, one side is definitely obtuse, maybe a little dipper--isn't that nice? it's so nice, that your arms are the perfect length for this, don't you think?
• i can stand on the tops of your feet and we can spread ourselves out and compare each other, limb for limb, inch for inch, and be amazed at how, even if your arms are longer, i will always find a way to stretch my hand enough to put them in yours. (only sweet things now, please, please.)
• try as i might, no one could ever possibly replace you and the words extracted from sugar that you've sprinkled upon me, my skin rough and sweet with them, my throat hurt with perpetual thirst, rooted from want of you. you've ruined me, i think, but it's okay. some day i will return the favor, too.
• what's the use of honesty when all it ever does is make you frown and make your skin crawl
• "baby, baby, please, i feel the urgent need to apologize"
• there's a world away from here without me in it, and if i close my eyes and shut them tight, i can see the outlines of you standing alone there at the edge of it
• hands around face, chin on pink palms lined with purpose, slender fingers snow white and neatly defined in teeny knobs, finger nails bare aside from this peculiar shine, full lips the color of roses, "how much do you love me?"
• "so much"
• "so so much?"
• "so, so, so much"
• "well i guess that's okay" she says, with her hair, shining and black and smooth and so immaculate, curving perfectly around her face, a natural picture frame, the ends grazing her knuckles. there is no love in her eyes, but it exists painfully in his.
• "i will never get tired of taking pictures of you," says he, and his eyes say the same, his camera clicks in confirmation, she blinks afterwards, she frowns
• "when's the last time you've done something useful?" not curious, cruel
• "i captured you in ink with a plastic knife on a postcard from someone i love"
• "aren't you scared that one day i'll tire of you?"
• "yes."
• "let's hope that's not soon." she grabs his hand. it's warm.
• he flinches. he smiles. he thinks, one day, she'll hurt me. she laughs as if she heard, his smile does not falter.
• you may love others, but you will always treat me sweeter
• things i tell myself when you can be so terribly mean to me, honey can choke you if you have too much of it, that type of mean
• listen, to her you are flowers accepted thanklessly from obligation, set in an old jar next to the window sill. she watches you decay each day from a distance, approaching perchance for the slightest stroke of a petal, an adjustment of your stems, the tilt of an empty head. to me you are a potted plant hurled from said windowsill when the person she loves more says something that hurts her. i will pick you up, i will place you where you belong and nurture, not hinder, your growth. i will not let your leaves brown, i will not drown you with love or in inescapable oceans where you do not belong; i will leave you content, i will treat you now and then, i will help you along and keep you rooted in a place where you can still wildly thrive. you will be damaged for a while, you will wither at times, because even i can't mind you all the time, but i promise you, i will keep you as mine and do what i can to watch you grow, grow, grow, and be the first to tell you, "hello, it's nice to finally meet you," when you finally bloom.
• (2/17) you're so funny, the way you sit next to me naturally even though we've never really held each other with our eyes, because you know i would never move away from you when you're craving warmth.
• (2/18) she says sweet words like "i love everything about you" even though they have no spark, no trademark, no trace of her and only her in them, but she has earnestness, she has honesty, and everyone always says that that should count for something, right? he thinks this as he shrugs atlas shoulders, as he scratches a softened skull hidden in a forest of honeyed curls, as he thinks of someone sharper. yeah, okay, he thinks as she pulls closer and likes the way she feels, how nice, how sweet, she thinks as he lends himself to her, his body softening with awareness of hers. alright, that's nice, they think, and melt mindlessly, i could do this, it shouldn't make me lonely like it has before.
• his mother told him never to settle, his father told him to look for a lover who could enthrall him; her mother said to stop falling in love with every boy she would ever meet, her father pretended it couldn't happen.
• the boy looks at her at night and whispers into her spine, we are empty, we are not happy, but we are okay. the girl lays her head on his stomach in the morning and kisses his skin, she mutters sweet things that she's heard but never really truly felt, all devoid of meaning. neither of them hear one another, but they do not care to know otherwise. it never really mattered to them if their feelings met each other, they were, and have always been, satisfied with a stalemate.
• (2/20) honey bunny, what am i supposed to do with all the other girls that love you too? do i pretend that i don't sink you soft and quiet in my heart, or that i treasure each word you've given, likely those you've spoken to others with mild customizations, and keep it written in a place that you can not destroy? do i actualize their feelings and push you farther, do i feign ignorance and hold you tighter?
• let's be honest here, what's so great about star-crossed "lovers" that could never really reach each other? we're dangling our hearts bound with leather, studs, steel. i'm actual, but i'm not sure about you. that rosy dream is turning grey again, but now i'm not sure if i want you to enchant me once more.
• it's hard to love someone like you, who attracts the brightest, the most genuine, who has stacks of gems that adore you and wish themselves a part of your skin, to draw your blood and connect it to theirs, to accentuate your beauty and make you happy with the particular way they--and only they--shine. i praise myself for knowing, but shame myself for continuing as if no one else should ever have existed but you. i let eyelash meet eyelash and wonder if i've made the right choice, the one where i decided that i would never once stopping myself from loving you. under summer skies painted so heart hurtingly in hues of pinks and purples and blues, i'll begin to know the truth.
• in the company of friends who wonder your secrets, it's difficult to let this pool out elsewhere. i'm sorry.
• if only i could love everyone the way i love you, so pure and sweet and nonexpectant, never hungry, always content, filled endlessly with admiration and devotion, never thinking for reciprocation; i could be so honest and happy and free. i hope in may i can tell you the extent of my appreciation, i can convey your irrefutable importance to me. it's been three years since i took your voice and made it something i hear more constantly than my own, and even that time is a short expanse of what others must have, but even still, i feel no hint of incompetence when it comes to loving you, and when i do tell you, i can't deny that i hope you grin your wolf's grin and feel happiness brought on by me, too. i love you so simply and plainly that it fills me endlessly, though far from painfully. i am struck with wonder of you, and if one day you'll look and see me singing easily with you, smiling at familiar motions, you rocking back and forth, closing your eyes when you say certain words, brain activity rushing and rapid and witty and whole, then that, i think, is enough for me. three years is nothing, but comfort is something, and if i could take your hand in mine again, your hand so soft and firm with lines boasting talent and grace, that is all that i would want to communicate with my touch. just an urging, gracious, terribly full and tearful "thank you".
• a natural affinity for a boy with a month for a name and eyebags worse than my own, who is insightful, clear(ly clouded), who would make life so easy and laughs just the way that i like, all "hahaha-hA" in quick succession, the last syllable higher than the rest, yeah, i like all the surface things about you, let me know you more, let me sink into you, wear that jacket that i like, trace the ink on your skin. i like you more than i should, though that's always the case, and i flip through the calendar and peek around corners wondering when it is we'll meet again, formally this time.
• (2/27) someone to meet me with arms outstretched, who will use their nimble fingers to straighten out my little, messy back hairs and kiss me always and never mess up my eyebrows, call me "bunny" and "petal" and "sweetie pateetie", dance silly, and make birds that soar with the shadows from their hands. someone who will tame me, whose flower i will always be.
• late at night when the room is yellow lit and the windows portray the dusting of stars in the sky, i'll tell this someone all these nice things about them, and i'll ask, "am i selfish to want to destroy every little thing that has ever hurt you?" and they will hold my cheek and say, "yes" and smile into my skin.
• it's a far off dream that's not too unconvincing, i'm stacking up my hopes around the idea of you (with me)
• i keep calling you babe because i've got bob dylan in mind whenever i see you. on the parchment of your skin is a folk song waiting to be written, all twangy and longing and sad.
• with lines like we're all lonely here, babe, so stay here with me if you don't mind. we could spend the night together babe, if you don't feel anymore like running away. and i'll make you close your eyes and shut 'em tight, and i won't be sad if you don't have anything to say, (you never were much for comforting words anyway). i promise you babe, somehow, some way, it'll be alright.
• "you see," she says this quite clearly as she reaches out to smooth a lock of curls behind his porcelain ear, her cigarette burning temporal in the midst of the lack of moonlight, her thoughtlessness almost catching his skin on fire, "the real reason i like you is because you make me feel real."
• (2/28) on days where you practice your underwater breathing in the insufferable warmth of the bathtub, forget to stifle your cries, can't get your eyes to unred or unpuff or unfill with tears, remember love with every aspect of your conscious mind and the stories and actualities that love has brought on that you carry upon you like a curse. love love, aspire to feel love, become acquainted with love, dance with love's feet beneath yours, guiding each step with grace and ease. love will make you better, and if you don't believe it, close your eyes and breathe it til you truly feel it--it's a tiny being with its own heartbeat and degrees of being, something to warm your core at night, lightly leaden your eyelids, add sheen to your hair, softness to your expression, support your smile. think of cross continental lovers who meet in california and tell each other things you've told him, the woman you know who chants her dead husband's name like a protective charm, the white haired and hand holding, the youthful and awkwardly passionate that tangle their still growing limbs. if you let yourself forget these things, there will be nothing left to keep you going. chin up and remember that the blood that courses through every pathway of your body was made from love, even if it was accidental, even if it had an expiration date, and that there's someone out there willing to infuse their love with yours.
• (2/29) "why do you like me as much as you do? i'm tired of you telling me you love me all the time, trying to communicate something hidden and vast to me in these hesitant touches, these long winded glances. i am a terrible man, i drink myself content and cowardly each night, i find solace in outward abrasiveness, i nurse the bottle more often than i nurse myself, why do you insist on loving me so dumbly, on hearing my babble, fearing my tears?"
• "you are too magnetic, with a depth that is not quite an abyss but still far from shallow, multilayered but impeccably fragile like you're made of mica. i am charmed by your imperfections, your too hairy body, the paleness of your toes, the tiny, skinny, lanky frame, the rick rack of teeth, the grecian features, the unmanageable hair. things like this happen with such nonchalance, a tilted head and an inquisitive look, and i apologize that i love the way your dimpled back looks in the moon light, for the heaviness i place on things you view casually, my sentiment. to love you is inevitable, to stop would be impossible, and to deny me would be immoral. please, be sweet to me, my drunken deer, even in a pool of your own blood i'd hold you dear."
• (3/1) gradually reaching a place of easiness with the change in month, the seasons, the very air around me. my restlessness is beginning to cease and my deep intrigue for the world--often left untapped, for fear of stumbling, falling, losing the placement i've so fought to establish on ground already shaky and precarious--is beginning to bloom with the flowers. this spring i will have roses for eyes so i can be the only girl you've ever loved, breathe the air of lighter places, and get closer to that ideal of happiness that i hold so dear.
• (3/3) i guess growing older means choosing the people who would be best for you instead of the one you love the most.
• i don't ever want to grow older, not when my love for you could expand past this dimension into the next and even scorch the sun
• but i will, i've decided, i suppose i never was a woman of passion, i'm so passive to the extent that i sacrifice my own well being if it helps everyone else along, floating easily on a conscious full of "i guess"es and sighs that never change the world
• (3/15) there is nothing more illuminating nor fulfilling than that self assured feeling, knowing that every little worry is easily falling into place without effort or a fingertip push in the right direction. i am contentedly talking walks with Fortune, exchanging hopes and dreams, smiling lots, dancing pleased around her wake. this is progression, these wide grins, the softness of my shoulders, how easy it is to close my eyes at night, no gritted teeth or fingers pained with tension from always, always reaching. no regressing this time, these steps and opportunities for greatness shall not be for naught--my aim will be to create, to touch, to feel and have all my intentions felt, shed tears of empathy, blaze ahead without fear of failure.
• the future was scary, is scary, isn't it? it's the source of all your headaches. but this, this is really it, you inhaling sharply the cutting cold air and devouring the newly curved horizon that is set by an older sun that takes you in gently: this is really happening. prepare yourself, get comfortable, don't look at your feet as you explore places new, don't shy away from eyes large from excitement of potential! yes, potential! and so much of it and at such a large magnitude; and yes, do what you do best, love uselessly, love endlessly. your life has not played out so wonderfully for you to refrain from loving. it is what got you here in the first place. it is what will keep the world spinning, long after you are ash and your energy is expelled to the world around you, to witness all those that will come after you. it is in the physics of everything, just like how these physics will dictate the momentum in which you forge ahead manically, incredibly recklessly with no fear of acceleration. go on, please, there is nothing to stop you, not anymore. go.
• (3/19) someone to tell me i'm little when i want to be little, littler than miniature china, littler than the pea beneath the princess' bed, little enough to drown in a puddle. someone to tell me i'm big when i want to be big, tells me i'm bigger than all the mountains and that i use telephone wires as jump ropes and use the clouds to craft my clothing. someone who is like warm, warm soup with a bit of a biting spice on a cold day, gentle enough to not burn my throat, forceful enough to overtake me like a wave knocking me from my feet and delivering me safely to shore. a strong back, an unconscious reach of spindly fingertips to my neck, to the smooth hairs that lay there, to the soft skin of my back, all without knowing, just with caring. someone with a personality so soft no one would be surprised to see your heart filled with the softest, fuzziest coat too much like the insides of your favorite sweater. someone with a grin so sweet my teeth start to ache, with ears shaped like it is a shell through which you can hear the sea. someone who can complete these lists, that arise each month with my new cycle of dreaming, and improve them tenfold with their very being. the cycle is slowly churning again, turned to "gentle/slow", left to air dry over bath tubs still wet from recent use. yes, yes, one day, one day. to be in haste would be a great disservice to you and i know that all too well.
• (3/25) "you've always been so incredibly far away from me, even when i've reached out and tried to keep you close. you seep over me like honey but when i try to taste you i get nothing but air."
• yes, yes, god, i'm sorry, i'm sorry. i know.
• (3/27) all i need is for you to promise me to show me your sea, whose quiet depth i have only let lap at my toes, and take care not to keep me so long that no one recognizes me when i return even if by then i am just diminished to ash
• what's the use if you don't love me the most?
• you have this way of spoiling me then make me feel young and stupid and selfish. i am five and staring at saddle shoes, i am flushed with ravenous, hungry feelings that consume, i am lost, let me hold your sleeve and slide my thumb across the shine of your shirt's button to keep myself at ease
• i'm tired and you put me to bed. tuck me into the parentheses of your arms and litter my skin with kisses until i finally reach a peace where no, i do not feel like crying.
• (3/28) this feeling of smallness that i cannot escape is perhaps what crushes me so completely, knowing that i feel a need to be validated by you. i don't even care if i have any worth to you, really it's just a matter of me desperately wanting to know what goes on in that beautiful little head of yours with thoughts that are streaked with yellows and pinks, purples and blues, that very human curiosity to know too much, to be in anguish of knowing too little, to want to absolutely devour everything--especially the thoughts--of the person you love. i present myself at you as if i'm wounded, even though i know too well that your state is far worse than mine and for what reason? i don't know i don't know i've been asking too many questions, i've been breathing in the demons in pandora's pretty little box, i've been tapping my foot restlessly in anticipation of --what? who? there's a sickness, a tumult, this bubbling of chaos in my blood and i'm not sure if should be concerned anymore, i'm just sick
• (4/1) i just want to give you all the love you deserve, even if i'm not the only girl you think of right as you give yourself to sleep
• (4/5) i'm more like california, we should be a little more idaho
• to be idaho is to be held, to be protected in a safe place where no one wants to hurt you, to be california means preparing to drown and pull away right when the time is tough enough, sinking off large and lonely but insistent anyway. i don't know if i'll ever get to idaho, not like this.
• (4/7) "i'm hungry for a hand, a mouth, a body. a love i wouldn't have to carry."
• (4/9) you are a childish adventure whose trails i've walked upon far too often, far too far, and far too long. my feet are blistered from my trek, my throat dry from lack of water, i am tired and i cannot deny it any longer. you were so good to me; when i was young i fell very much in love, but my bones begin to ache when i'm near you, my eyes suddenly fill with stubborn tears, carrying messages like "i'm done, i'm done, i'm done", and you should know all these things, hear all my deep, tugging sighs as you watch and let gravity keep me to you. you were an observer of my explorations, i began to get familiar. soon i never got lost in the tangle of your deepest thickets, i skipped over the skeletons you left hidden underground while humming an upbeat tune, i held my breath as i walked on the floors of your oceans, i did not shiver or experience an inkling of fear when the sun danced and switched places with the moon. i know you, and i know you well, and you know my adventures better than anybody. you know that the fires have all been burnt out, forts dismantled, sleeping bags rolled up tight. this is it, the long haul, the long drive home. goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. i'm so very sure that there will be times that my back will feel tickled when it recalls laying on your meadows, or my hair will smell like all the flowers that would bloom, but my sense of adventure has dimmed, and i will no longer be spending time on that beaten track with you anymore.
• (4/18) moony, honey, bunny, sugar, i keep these names dropped into the curves of my ear and let them ring in my head all day, a reminder of a love far better than what is implied by a silver ring on my third favorite finger
• (4/26) sometimes i look at you and wonder if you could ever like a silly girl like me, who only loves rappers with gold teeth and bad tattoos and boys who love girls who think carrying around a bouquet of flowers is a bother.
• just so you know, i would carry flowers from you--weeds even--the whole day through, ceasing only to stick them in the nicest vase in a place where strangers can come and see it.
• (4/29) beneath the table i feel you playing with your knife, grating and plastic, painted black with india ink that marks pages thick with effort and honesty, illustrated primarily with feelings and sentiment. i'd love to see you bloom, like the rare flowers of the cactus you tend to so eagerly and earnestly. you are soft, but thrillingly bright enough to warm without contact. i'm interested, what can i say?
• (5/1) on the second day of may, i will sing your name into my pillow with the overwhelming joy of seeing you again
• (5/5) as much as i like that shirt of yours with the rip in just the right place, i like when you wear the smile i gave you even more.
• (5/12) in a sunlit place with a woman with pale arms, rough skin and a particular way about her that you just can't quit, i see you being taken far, far away from me, despite that confidence i had in my reach.
• (5/16) i am okay because it does not hurt to love you anymore. in fact, it feels so far away it tastes like the bitter end of a sweet dream, a box of chocolates stuffed with wrappers, that taste in your mouth when you wake up from what seems like a long, long sleep.
• an idea, huh? i guess, maybe, yeah, that was it, that was you, the bloom that kept me going but was threaded together with false faith
• i think all i ever really needed to shake you from the pores of my skin and the valves of my heart was to find someone to love fully and purely, without that pain that tugged on the hem of my skirt before it sunk its claws into my thigh and drew my blood in an effort to express what you thought was love. you dragged me down with you, we sunk eagerly together, but somewhere along the way we separated, and very easily, without a second thought. i bear no scar, no mark that would link you to me, and now i am racing towards someone who will never really love me, but will greet me each time he sees me with his arms open, with a readiness to hold me, with my hand in his as i try to think of something to say that can touch him in the way i so easily could you. he's very far away from me too, yes, but never in the way that it hurt; something concrete that i can hold onto, that won't haunt me with possibility. yeah. i'm okay. we're okay. it's fine.
• (5/21) the looseness of your clothes, the hardness of your gaze and those long limbs that you know exactly what to do with. oh god, you're good. i will not forget you or what we could be in the summer heat, i sincerely promise you that.
• (5/25) how can i tell you in a nice way that i am not okay with loving you?
• (5/31) yesterday i looked you square in the eye and knew that yes, you were a stranger, and all those years of feeling hurt by you, from childhood to the newest sprout of adulthood, was silly. i have accomplished an amazing amount myself, all without your presence, all without you ever supporting me, and i am proud. i have created mountains as you watched from far, far away, with news only being relayed through the coldness the written word can encompass. i owe these four years to no one but myself, and i am easily strolling towards a future where i will, one day, hopefully, owe nothing to anybody and stand on my own, separate from the rest (where you like me best).
• (6/2) sitting on the smooth black interior of a friend's car, i have found peace in melting into a person that has finally become comfortable, that can nest in confidence amidst things that once seemed uneasy.
• "my, my, how you've grown!" -- an ongoing set of interactions between the me that was gnarled with useless branches twined with fray scarves to excuses and the me that has hollowed out and grown, seeking things to add the sheen positivity brings to the skin
• (6/18) "there's no place in between for us to meet"
• she was a fruit, ripe for plucking and rinsing beneath the smooth coolness of water, ready for purification and sacrifice of her wholeness so you may sink your teeth into the softness of her skin and the sweetness of her insides. her softness was attributed to a comforting fuzz, she was firm and round and a bit imperfect, but similar to what she should be, and just right in the palm of your hand. she had a distinct scent that lingered in the spaces between your fingers that you would recall long after you destroyed her, she glowed with bright colors that enticed and committed herself into your memory. she was eager and she was willing, she offered no rebuttal or intent to hurt your poor, bandaged, beating heart. when you took her, it was casual, it was only intentional in the way that you wanted something like her and yes, she would do just fine, and she did not mind. you settled down with her and took everything from her, her soft fuzz to your cracking lips, her skin and fillings becoming disfigured in the canals of your teeth and spit and she disappeared like a magic trick, over and over and over until she was gone completely. and you stood up, you dusted off your pants, you threw what you did not desire of her away and continued on, not bothered, not concerned, perfectly unchanged. because even if she was the object of a low level of desire before, that wonderful little fruit had no power to change you.
• (6/25) in june you chipped your tooth on a cherry pit, with your skin sticky from heat i do not know. in june i spent my time falling in love with the idea of falling in love with him then.
• (7/2) "in love you have loosened yourself like sea water: / I can scarcely measure the sky’s most spacious eyes / and I lean down to your mouth to kiss the earth."
• (7/3) the most selfish thing i'm willing to admit is my hatred of seeing you sad but the trace of death i cannot stand that i feel when you are happy
• i will always bite the inside of my lips in bitterness that i never could really make you smile, even if you said i occupied a space in your heart others could not reach, it must have vanished, as i have purposely done.
• "this was a choice, it was never a mistake"
• (7/7) was it my purity that turned you rotten? the girlish way that i surround myself only with things that made it seem as if someone loves me? the ring silver and glittering on a suggestive finger, the notes i carry in my bags, the trinkets i display, my unabashed, proud love of love, the sleepiness of my eyes half-closed in comfort and no longer searching. it might've killed your spirit that i so adored, wanted to hold and encase in honey and hardened amber, and if that really is so, i could never express how sorry i am.
• (8/3) if you were to come to me like you did in my dream, all nervous in my presence despite your usual collected facade, a quick but bright smile on your eternally youthful face, and a "hey moony" spoken from slightly dry lips, i think it would be that kind of spell that can cast a useless, endless devotion from me to you. if only you knew.
• (8/11) i would like to
• rub your white seashell ear with the pads of my thumb
• have your hands at my sides, teaching me how to move in that impeccably precise way of yours, with such fluidity and purpose, and make you proud when i get it right
• antagonize and collect your smiles for windy days that make me frown
• kiss your cheek soft with youthful glow
• listen to your drawly sort of voice that was very light, very unburdened like the way you made me feel
• lay next to you sleeping, tap the tempo of your breaths on my pillow
• eat pho with you in a tiny little restaurant, talk about lots of things we never got around to, measure our worth
• tell you how radiant you truly are
• instead i will
• see him and think of you with regret
• always look for proof of your existence in a frantic rush to remember things that i buried beneath the more frequent. you are no longer frequent, not even a plateau--you have deceased.
• smile sadly when i think of you
• never hear your voice shape my name again
• (8/18) it was his breath that she was truly devoted to, a miraculous thing that tied her to him. it was as if each exhale cast a spell that made her love deeper, that crafted a bond that did not exist with words. when he was near, she heard them, when he was far, she imagined them, and as she watched his chest rise and fall she only grew more certain that each breath was meant for her. in each of them, she made out her name, calling to her, confirming her, welcoming her upon sight or remembrance, as if she were ever forgotten long enough to be truly remembered. she heard each soft syllable casting her likeness, posing as a cool greeting, swelling to encase her in its familiar warmth, sometimes wet with tears. yes, it was his breath that kept her to him; how could she ever leave someone whose very being depended on her, who made him happy, whose absence and her name in his breath, without his helping it, would throw him into an inescapable recollection of what was lost, and consequently, a constant sadness? she stayed steady, she paid close attention to his breathing patterns, which were constant until he suddenly became conscious of them and adjusted them, and listened to his breaths, making out her name until she was overcome with the genuine desire to commit to him.