Brookelyn Bennett

When you’re sad, just drink until your thighs go numb. So you don’t feel the vibration from your phone.

For years mental health professionals taught people that they could be psychologically healthy without social support, that ‘unless you love yourself, no one else will love you’ …The truth is, you cannot love yourself unless you have been loved and are loved. The capacity to love cannot be built in isolation.

When I love you, I really fucking love you. There are no in betweens. I don’t know what grey is. My love is black and white.

To whoever falls in love with me, I promise to fall so insanely hard for you. I promise to love you top to bottom, inside and out. I promise listen to you and care for you greater than anyone ever has. I promise to be the shoulder you cry on and the person to make you laugh. I promise to lift you up on days you feel you can’t get out of bed. And if you still can’t get out of bed I will lay with you. I promise to do everything in my power to make sure you don’t ever doubt my love for you. I just ask for a few things in return. Be patient with me. I’m a little hard to handle sometimes and I apologize in advance. Sometimes I just get sad and I don’t know why. Just hold me and tell me you love me, I’ll come back around I promise. I can be needy so please don’t leave me hanging for hours because I’ll wonder if I said or did anything wrong. Just let me know you’ll be busy and I’ll be perfectly okay. I get anxious. A lot. A majority of the time I don’t know why so please understand that. Listen to me. If you show me you listen I swear it’ll only make me fall for you even more. I’m not the easiest person to be with but I love harder than anyone I’ve ever come across.

What’s the worst decision you made while you were drunk?

Indifference is the temporary death of a writer.

Truth is truth, one, alone; it has no sides, no paths; all paths do not lead to truth. There is no path to truth, it must come to you. Truth can come to you only when your mind and heart are simple, clear, and there is love in your heart; not if your heart is filled with the things of the mind. When there is love in your heart, you do not talk about organizing for brotherhood; you do not talk about belief, you do not talk about division or the powers that create division, you need not seek reconciliation. Then you are a simple human being without a label, without a country. This means that you must strip yourself of all those things and allow truth to come into being; and it can only come when the mind is empty, when the mind ceases to create. Then it will come without your invitation. Then it will come as swiftly as the wind and unbeknown. It comes obscurely, not when you are watching, wanting. It is there as sudden as sunlight, as pure as the night; but to receive it, the heart must be full and the mind empty. Now you have the mind full and your heart empty.

if you are going to cry today, cry now. sit here, read this piece and weep with me. tell me why your heart hurts so much today. tell me, is it a broken one? a shattered one? a soft one growing hard? are you afraid of what your heart will do? let me take your hands into mine, let me tell you that it is okay. that you are okay. that even if you do not feel okay, you will be okay. tell me what weighs on you, tell me what drags your soul through the muck. let me carry your burdens for a moment, let me reassure you as i do. perhaps i can make you feel better, even if only for a second, i will try. baby, let the tears come, for every tear you hold back is a problem you won’t let go.  so take a minute, take as long as you need, cry with me.  let the hardness melt away for just a second,  your softness looks exquisite on you. you are okay. if not now, soon. give me your hand, i promise i’ll be gentle. i promise you are not alone. and now- you and i, we will take this next step together. we are going to make sure that today, you make a small step forward. on three, okay? one, two, three. there you go! i am so, so proud of you.