Rebellious.

“i don’t know what they thought i was capable of;

“I give myself permission to be and that is all that matters.”

“I. I hate dreaming about you. the next day, I am all shaking hands. yes, still. in my dreams, I either forgive you or scream. either way, I wake up tired. II. I will always lie about the worst things - the text I wasn’t supposed to see but did/ how I still let you sleep in my bed afterwards/ how the next day, it rained and rained and we thought it was for us. III. we loved each other until we didn’t. there is no way to turn this into poetry.”

“a corner of my reckless heart will always reach for you. I don’t want to think about what this says about me.”

“I'm sorry about the way love can fail us. I’m sorry about the way I failed us. the truth is this: love is something that must be tended to. turn your eyes for a moment and it drowns in the very water which one sustained it”

“…but it’s not easy being quiet and good, it’s like hanging on to the edge of a bridge when you’ve already fallen over; you don’t seem to be moving, just dangling there, and yet it is taking all your strength.”

“may I never lose that terror that keeps me brave”

“if I knew an easier way to exist, I would choose that. people say ‘this is making you stronger’ like I wanted another reason to stay awake at night. like I wanted another ruler to measure my survival by. someone who loves me asks what’s wrong and if I were braver, I would say this: I am scared you will leave if I tell you how much hurt I’m carrying- there are softer people to love. I am afraid of the day you figure this out.”

“I. I am ashamed of what we made of each other. in a different world, our younger selves are ignoring the warnings because feeling love for the first time feels so important that it’s okay if it hurts. II. there are still things I can’t admit. there are still things I can’t believe I did to make you love me. III. there is nothing about me that resembles the girl you first met. this is both a tragedy and a relief.”

“you should be angrier, but you’re not. in this situation, people expect you to scream or throw something but mostly you’re just crying at stoplights with the windows rolled up. you are supposed to feel something sharp, something you can use as a tool, but you just ache which is no use at all. years after the fact, you still find yourself feeling sick when you realize all that is left of you and the person you loved are rotting apologies thrown across state lines. there was a better way for this to end but you can’t change the story or explain it away. mostly, it comes down to this: there are things that grow with water and there are things that drown. in this story, he is the water and depending on the day, you can either breathe or you can’t.”

“maybe these bodies were meant for these scars. maybe these hearts were meant to shatter from the first golden moment. maybe it was always going to be this way & all this fighting against it is for nothing.”

“It would be a shame to look back on this and (out of bitterness) not call it love.”

“I have been the villain before but I have never written about it. I have said I was sorry so many times but only meant it once. I have never been comfortable with blame so I throw it into the air like confetti. When it all lands in my hands, I demand a redo. There is not much left to say. I was a silly girl playing with sugar cookie hearts. I had no idea how they would crumble on my tongue.”