lets use our eyes as cameras

“I like you, but I just don’t want a relationship right now”

I love being horribly straightforward. I love sending reckless text messages (because how reckless can a form of digitized communication be?) and telling people I love them and telling people they are absolutely magical humans and I cannot believe they really exist. I love saying, Kiss me harder, and You’re a good person, and, You brighten my day. I live my life as straight-forward as possible. Because one day, I might get hit by a bus. Maybe it’s weird. Maybe it’s scary. Maybe it seems downright impossible to just be—to just let people know you want them, need them, feel like, in this very moment, you will die if you do not see them, hold them, touch them in some way whether its your feet on their thighs on the couch or your tongue in their mouth or your heart in their hands. But there is nothing more beautiful than being desperate. And there is nothing more risky than pretending not to care. We are young and we are human and we are beautiful and we are not as in control as we think we are. We never know who needs us back. We never know the magic that can arise between ourselves and other humans. We never know when the bus is coming.

If you want to be happy, you have to be happy on purpose. When you wake up, you can’t just wait to see what kind of day you’ll have. You have to decide what kind of day you’ll have.

Before I fall in love again 1. I want us to be friends. Which means, I want to be able to eat my favourite cheese crust pizza with you, while having cheese all over my face and even in my hair, without feeling embarrassed or concerned about it. I want to be comfortable with you, I want to be okay about being messy, irritating, embarrassing, disgusting, petty while with you. Because I will be petty when I see my ex best friend post a happy picture and I will be messy during my finals and I will be embarrassing when I meet your parents for I suck at meeting parents. I want to be okay with being the way I am and the only way to be okay is to know that you’re okay with me being things other than beautiful, graceful and composed at all times. 2. I want to be able to have long and passionate conversations with you not just about existential things but also about what went wrong in the ending of that book and how kids are affected by media and how tomato basil combination always works. I want to have conversations where we may not always have the same views but our fundamental values always fall in place. I want to talk to you about the beauty of the stars but I also want to talk to you about the disgusting mentality behind certain societal norms. 3. I want to see how consistent your actions are with your words. I don’t want to fall for love letters or poems, for sweet Instagram captions or long birthday texts, I want to fall in love with you showing up on time and keeping your promises. 4. I want to take it slow. I want our story to work out in years, not months. I want to respect time and space this time. 5. I want to make sure I am not seeking love from you for the lack of love I have for myself. I want to make sure you aren’t a void I am filling in, you are not an alternative to the things I can’t give myself. I want to make sure you are not doing the same. 6. I want to work out with my insecurities and fears from the past. I don’t want to project them on you, I don’t want to subject you to the doubts, suspicion and anger I carry from the people I have known in the past. 7. Before I fall in love again, I want to make a mattress with you. Of understanding and respect and trust. So when we fall, it doesn’t hurt.

my mom told me.. “a person who values you, wouldn’t ever put themselves in a position to lose you.” and that really hit deep.

My mother always told me, that women were created to part seas, to break ground and to put the sparking night sky to shame. Don’t you ever allow yourself to belong to another person. Don’t you ever quit being the sun for fear of shining too bright and don’t you ever reduce your galaxy to merely a constellation. My darling, be far too busy being a force of nature, a child of the universe and a storm of a girl. Women like you were meant to conquer mountains, Not to be pretty.

They say that if a writer falls in love with you, you’ll never die. But no one talks about what happens when you break a writer’s heart. How this gift of immortality becomes their curse. How they keep you alive in their poetry even while it kills them. How they recreate the crime scene on paper. Words spread out like map coordinates Looking for where things went wrong. Writing down the word ‘forever’ and Wondering how those three syllables sounded like an eternity when you said it. Every poem they write is a sketch of your face; as if their pen only knows how to make posters of the people they miss; each full stop a reminder of your freckles; each semicolon an image of your sideways smile and the dimple under your cheek. Every poem is just ‘I still love you’ written in code. Every poem is a letter unsent; because if hearts were mailboxes you wouldn’t have one. Every poem is an attempt to soothe the ache in their left chest; to let inked words bleed instead; to shrink the memories into sentences. Every poem is the Heimlich maneuver; so they write until the words locked in their throats fly out like freed birds and bruised lungs can finally taste oxygen again. Every poem is a paper boat called acceptance. Every poem including this one.

I think that’s what happens when you’ve lived a lonely childhood. You get too attached to people as you get older, in the hope that they’ll give you the care and love that you missed out on and never leave you.