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i want my words to eat away at the surface, to break the flesh, to shatter the bones. I want my words to make other squirm, to push them to scratch their arms and heads, to swallow the lump in their throats. I want my words to slap their faces, to open their eyes, to make them look in the shadows for the part of themselves that eagerly awaits to be discovered. I want my words to tame and I want them to wreak a havoc. I want my words to mean something, to do something, to not be written in vain.

We always seek others' approval to shape our own idenitites, as if we're never meant to exist outside their opinions, we can't survive without their validations, as we are we are nothing without them, and that always leave us in a state of anxiety, at the mercy of a never ending sense of lack and inferiorty, but isn't what we seek is always something that it is within us? Isn't it what we admire about the other is dormant in our own selves, in a need of a push of wake up , of self-confidence to shine? We look at the mirror, and we tell ourselves that we are not enough, that there must be something fundementaly wrong with it, drowning in shame, burdened by guilt, berating our reflections for never getting it right, for never being perfect as if all we're meant to be is that. Colour you patient with others, but never with oneself. We land a hand, and we understand, and we go the extra mile for those we love, and yet we never feel like it's enough, we never extend that empathy to ourselves. We see the glass half empty, and draw the cutrains, locked up in our misery, an iron grip around our hearts letting the reign of terrors write the self-fullfilling prophecy of who we are, and it's because we're too focused on our shortcomings. We look at the shadows in our caves, and we think that's what our life is, it's history repeating itself, it's the unbreakable cycle of a scar never forgotten, of a wound that never stops throbbing. "It is". "It is". "It is", but "never was", "never again", "not the same". We don't like ourselves, and we don't believe that we can make it so we never take a moment to come home, to let light in, to appreciate what we have, and maybe it's because we were never taught to. We were never told what that means in any way, ignorant we are of what makes us, stuck we'll ever be in our pasts so we name it selflishness when it's compassion, we frame it as coldness when it's vulenrability and like parrots we regurgutate what's told to us, in moments of weakness, in moments of bravado, we play the role assigned to us, no questions asked, no objections to make, and we wait for our doom. Same story, never different ending. And we know it, because what it's thought isn't the same as what's real, what's felt, and it's a war between the heart and the mind. Isn't ? We're too lost to recognise them; the inner voices, the outer onces, when one starts and one one ends. They blur and deceive, they make of us a version painted in red and blue, and we never loved those, and we hate who we think we are, yet we're too scared to become who we want to be because even if it's tearing us apart, it's comfort, it's home, it's a confirmation of everything we scorn ourselves for; Selfish, self-absorbed, uncaring, unloved, not enough, stupid, worthless, ungrateful, mediocre, and all of it because we never run the show, we just sit there and watch.

Well, I'm not a poet. I'm just a woman. I like the colour Lilac and I wear my initial, a necklace around my neck, and yet I want nothing more than to wear yours. I tell my journals all my secrets plathianly and take too many pictures of the moon. I'm not a poet. I'm just a woman. I write love letters to myself, to my friends. I write letters I'll never send, words I'd never utter, seeking a closure I might never have. I wear my heart on my sleeve yet I never let people in so I cry on my birthday, and I cry in front of the mirror, and even myself to sleep then pretend that it never happens. I sing my heart out to Taylor Swift dolling up, in the kitchen at 2 a.m because I love myself and everything for a second there feels okay . I'm not a poet. I'm just a woman. A foolish one at that, the Bridge Jones kind. I feel pretty wearing dresses and called love. I pet stray cats and I'm obsessed with butterflies, and one day I'll be finally choosen, one day I'll be liked just as I am, and he'll go on his knee and love me through actions as much as through words. I'm not a poet. I'm just a woman. I bake my stress away, and watch romcoms, thinking one day I'll get to live my own. I look my friends in the eye, and I order the same food all the time and I giggle and grin like a lunatic reading love confessions, and I wonder when will it be my time to be the exception? because well,I'm not a poet. I'm just a woman.

Grief is white frames and hallway pictures. It is screaming matches during car drives. It is ugly sobbing in the bathroom floor and a stutter, I here now and then at the mention of your name. Grief is mute, it is voiceless, it is a goodbye to unconditional love, and a welcome to an infinite yearning to reunite with you. Grief is a lump in my throat, it's a stain I'll never get off. It's "bite the inside of your mouth and never cry", it's "you're not allowed to prove them wrong." Grief is a thrice a week visit to a place I only knew as a child and a cat I now and then get to pet. Grief is a house key and no off days. It's praying to god to end it one day, and to ease it all the next. Grief is nightmares. It's sleepless nights. It's "Too young" and "too soon". It's looking the other way in the face of mourning and leaving the body for the sake of the heart. Grief is cold hugs and empty words. It is "was". It is "did". It is "used to say". It is the present, it is the future. It is a reality I can neither grasp nor embrace. And Grief has no rules, it has no deadlines. It is relentless. It is infinite. Grief is "you never coming back". It is "you will never be there". Grief is " I'm yet to come to terms with that."

I tell myself to snap out of it, to embrace the truth, to believe in seasonal people; the ones that are meant there for you for sometime, to appreciate and love but never get stuck on or with. I tell mysef to take the lesson, to announce defeat, to welcome the heartbreak, the disappointment, the hurt and just get along with it, but there are days where I can't breathe without thinking of you, I can't do anything without dreaming of doing it with you. I tremble of the thought of you finding someone else. I shiver at the thought of me being with someone else. Is our love meant to be that short lived? What do you think of us now? How is life treating you? Do you miss me? Did you finally realise that you never loved me? Am I the one? Do you dislike me? Do you think we're not meant to be? Do you think I'm way too delusional to even think we are? But that I have to let go, right? I have to put my big girl shoes on, and stop wallowing in it; The failure, the brokeness, the savior complex, the karma, the could've's. I have to set myself free, from us, from you, from the potential and see us for what what we really were. I have to, but if there were a moment when you could just let me into that head of yours. Would you tell me? What do you think of us?