Wisdom of Words

“Memory is a wonderful thing if you don’t have to deal with the past.”

“Does love always bring pain? My heart should not hurt, when I am loving you.”

“You’ve never heard my voicemail because I always answered your calls, so you don’t know that I changed my voicemail in June. You don’t know that I no longer smell like strawberries, I smell like vanilla now. And you don’t know that I no longer have that cat that liked you so much. You don’t know that my taste in music has changed yet again. And you don’t know that I still keep one picture of us on my phone so when I get lonely I can remember what it was like to be smiling that genuinely. You don’t know cause you’re no longer here.”

“Go to sleep, my love. Go to sleep, hold me. It’s just a fearful dream.”

I can feel my hips on top of yours on my little couch begging for you to stay. You close your eyes – in ecstasy or pain I never know – and you put your hands around my waist to pull me closer. I touch my forehead to yours and you kiss the tears off my cheeks, running your hands up and down my body. My chest touches yours and you take off your glasses before you kiss me. Gently at first, then tongues and hair everywhere, hands pulling our faces together. There is no space between us and yet we fight as if there is, pulling grasping, hugging, embracing to lessen the differences between our skin.

“there are these particular fragments of my life that I keep going back to. I just can’t seem to let go. I only seem to be able to dwell in my past every second my mind isn’t busy; on my way to the bus stop, sitting on the train, walking through the city. I just keep constantly thinking about places that are left in the past. when I’m walking to the bus stop, I’m imagining the one I used to walk to years ago and when walking across this city, I’m fantasizing about the one I used to live in ages ago. I just miss how my life used to be and it hurts because I know for sure that I’m never going to be able to live another second of it.”

“i used to hold myself together. tie my arms around my core because i knew if i stopped hugging myself, all of my broken pieces would fall apart. then you came along, told me to loosen my grip; my nails were clenching onto my skin so violently my arms started to bleed. you told me to open up my arms. you told me you wouldn’t hug me (God knows i hate physical contact with strangers); instead, you wanted me to tell you about every single one of the pieces that make me up. so, i sat on the floor, untied my arms and i finally let go. i let go of the past, the hurting, the guilt. and you stood by me along every single step of this difficult path. you listened. and for that, i thank you”

“I want to know you whether you’re afraid of sharks or spiders death or love. I want to know if it’s grammatical errors that drive you crazy or the people correcting them, if you’re more comfortable shaking sand out of your hair or snow, if you prefer coffee or tea, bars or board game nights. I want to know which of your friends you’ve cried in front of, if you’ve ever laughed chocolate milk out of your nose, or kissed someone you didn’t love. I want to know you the you beneath the layer of small talk always kept shined and smudgeless I’m just hoping one day you’ll invite me in.”

The thing about love is that it doesn’t have a ceiling. You can love someone with all your heart and there will still be room for more love. That’s the difference between old couples and the new ones. As you get used to a person, you learn to love everything about them- their hair, their smile, their awkward glances, their way of saying “Hi”, their kindness, their arrogance- everything becomes something to cherish. I have been with my lover for a long time now and I still find a new reason to love him more.

Picture this: You are sitting at a table in a cafe and it’s fall, the leaves outside are falling, you are wearing a cozy sweater. A half full latte is on your right, and you are reading a good book. Acoustic music is in your ears, and you nibble on cinnamon almond butter toast. You are alone, but you are okay. You are alright. You are content. You finally realized that the key to being happy, is to be okay that things aren’t okay. Life is hard, but it is good too.

My grandmother has carried her mother’s rage In her bones, Ever since she was a girl. My mother has carried her mother’s rage In her hands, Ever since she was a girl. I have carried my mother’s rage In my heart, Ever since I was a girl. We are bound by the trauma of those that have lived long before us. And, even though we promise not to, We pass that rage onto those who will live long after us. That is womanhood.

i. the way he never tolerates his friends disrespecting you, the way he’s just as affectionate in front of his boys as he is in private. ii. he always holds your hand in public and it’s not possession, it’s partnership. you ask him about it once, the way his hands always seem to find some place on the most innocent parts of your body. and he shrugs, “i like the feeling of being close to you.” he says it simply like it means nothing at all. you smile for the rest of the day. iii. he couldn’t afford to buy you anything expensive for your birthday because you’re both young and broke and trying to carve out some space in the world big enough for the two of you to exist without being crushed. but he cooked you breakfast and sang happy birthday, loud and off key, to anyone who would listen and danced you drunk under fairy lights in the courtyard. and when he dipped you down so that the only things you could see were him and the moon, he buried his face in your neck. said your name very quietly against your skin, held you for a beat longer and a degree tighter than usual until your name was something else on his lips. iv. he does the dishes because he knows you hate the way the dishwater feels against your skin. v. when you brought him home for the first time, he was nervous. all words tripping over each other and your mother’s favorite flowers spilling from his hands and more ‘yes ma'am’s’ than a southern boy at his favorite grandmother’s house. he slept in the cold basement that your dad hadn't gotten around to insulating yet even though your parents said he could sleep on your floor. “i want them to trust me,” he said, “i want them to know i would never take advantage of their kindness. or of you.” vi. that week that you could barely get out of bed because you were so sick, he watered that little plant on your windowsill at work without telling you.  vii. he paints the nails on your left hand and replaces your sodas with water and keeps a spare hair tie in his wallet and remembers your best friend’s birthday and slips granola bars into your purse on the days he knows you’ll forget to eat lunch. viii. when you argue, he doesn’t raise his voice. he says sorry when he’s wrong and it sounds like an apology, not an excuse. he forgives you for the little things. for the big ones too.