J With Love

“Waiting is a sign of true love and patience. Anyone can say “I love you”, but not everyone can wait and prove it’s true.”

“Never apologize for how you feel. No one can control how they feel. The sun doesn’t apologize for being the sun. The rain doesn’t say sorry for falling. Feelings just are.”

“Accept how you feel but don’t let feelings rule you. You are in control. You are not their slave.”

“Don’t believe everything you hear. There are always three sides to a story. Yours, theirs and the truth.”

“Staying quiet doesn’t mean I have nothing to say, it means I don’t think you’re ready to hear my thoughts.”

“Some steps need to be taken alone. It’s the only way to really figure out where you need to go and who you need to be.”

“If you can’t do anything about it then let it go. Don’t be a prisoner to things you can’t change.”

Listen, I love you. It's that clear, that simple. And I know sometimes I can be a disappointment, that I rarely know what I want or think before I act, but you should know that in half a lifetime of spectacular messes, you are the very first thing that's felt right.

“Promise me not to hide yourself when you’re in pain, it’s unfair that we laughed together but you cried alone”

“I like it when it rains hard. It sounds like white noise everywhere, which is like silence but not empty.”

“The people who believe they’ll be happy if they go and live somewhere else … learn it doesn’t work that way. Wherever you go, you take yourself with you.”

“I think you lost all interest in this world. You were disappointed and discouraged, and lost interest in everything. So you abandoned your physical body. You went to a world apart and you’re living a different kind of life there. In a world inside you.”

““The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.””

“And here you are, twenty-one, twenty-three, twenty-sixsevennine, a two before your age and a zero in your mind. Grown, they say, but growing you are. Adult, they warn you, act like it, but you just learned how to become a catastrophe and now you don’t know whether you’re a bonfire, the roar of a hurricane or the sobbing of the sea at night. You’re so painfully young and the world thinks you old over the fear nesting where feathers were supposed to sprout by now. It hurts, love. I know it does. Everything’s so large and ancient and full of years, or it’s younger and glinting with more ferocity already than you think you could ever be. And you feel like your era has passed, mouth purple from biting into the air that is all breath and no answers, but listen. There’s no path. There’s no siren when you stop to reach for the petals of a flower you’ve been looking for since you were a child. There’s no punishment for a pen in your shy fingers and paper that was crafted just to hear your words. There are so many lovers waiting for you, lovers made of flesh and bones or ink or music. There are entire continents of dust waiting to be left in your wake, and it doesn’t care what you’re coming for. It just knows that one day, one day, it gets to rise around your steps. You’re so lonely that it tears you apart, and you’re so painfully young and afraid but love, you are only just growing. The stars are lovely tonight, don’t you think? You’ll make it. There’s enough time to come.”

“the first time i fall for you, i am seven. i see the punch coming too late to stop it, but i can keep you out of the way. i can let it hit my shoulder. i can be the one who falls on the scratchy pavement. i wish my knuckles weren’t so bloody, but your lips are split and your nose is bleeding, and you are still smiling at me, so it doesn’t matter, really. the second time i fall for you, i am sixteen. i see the heartache coming too late to stop it, but i can keep you out of the way. i can let it hit me in the gut. i can be the one who falls with my heart in my throat. i wish my blood wasn’t beating so hot, but your eyes are warm and bright and happy, and you are still laughing with me, so it doesn’t matter, really. the last time i fall for you, i am twenty-three. i see the shot coming too late to stop it, but i can keep you out of the way. i can let it hit the shield in my hands. i can be the one who falls out the broken train. i wish your fingers didn’t wrap so easy round a trigger but my fingers are calloused in all the wrong places, and you are still reaching for me, so it doesn’t matter, really. it feels just the same every time– slow, sudden, breathtaking: all i can hear is my pulse screaming in my ears all i can see is your eyes as they watch me all i can do is close my eyes and hope the landing won’t hurt as much as they say”

Where Should I Be at 23?

˝He couldn’t understand how he had failed to see them before. Old age, he thought; he would soon be twenty-three.˝