There'll be a moment when you realise you're 27 when yesterday you were just 17; and you wouldn't be able to tell how a decade passed away and your life got divided into before and afters. The fury of youth will subdue and nothing will really change but everything will feel different when you look at old photographs and blurry videos taken on cheap mobile phones. Scents will remind you of childhood and certain friends you don't talk to anymore, hangouts will become reunions and mom's burnt pie will become the best food you ever had. And I know on some days you won't be able to show anything of those 10 years but I hope you remember to breathe, and let go of the knot in your chest. I hope you go out in the sun and live a little, because tomorrow is 37.

“Everyone who terrifies you is sixty-five percent water. And everyone you love is made of stardust, and I know sometimes you cannot even breathe deeply, and the night sky is no home, and you have cried yourself to sleep enough times that you are down to your last two percent, but nothing is infinite, not even loss. You are made of the sea and the stars, and one day you are going to find yourself again.”

i keep my sadness like a lover i will hold until time no longer exists. today, i realized how sad i have been for the past months. today, i felt the weight of its existence in my chest, and i wonder how my ribs haven’t been broken yet. i can no longer remember the last time someone looked me in the eyes and told me ‘i know you’re not okay.’ and thank god. for years, i let everyone else believe that there is happiness that blooms in my fingertips. i carry my warmth like a badge that says ‘come over, you’re safe with me.’ for years, no one ever stopped and wondered how i can still smile this way. and i smile. and smile. and sometimes laugh. this is how i keep my sadness like lover i cannot speak of. a secret. a skeleton in my cupboard. it’s not because i don’t trust the ones i love or the people around me. it’s not because i feel like my sadness is a burden. 

“I used to see in colour but I slowly started building walls around myself and before I knew it, everything went black.”

“This is for the ones who stay up until the sun kisses the sky in the morning with fists closed and heart trembling in fear. For the people too afraid to go to sleep because the reasons for waking up might walk away when we’re far too deep in our slumber. For the ones who cried themselves to sleep last night and woke up without a single sunshine waiting on the windowpane. This is for the ones who fell in love with the boy on the sidelines; eyes following him while he makes his way to the one he claims to love. For everyone who fell out of love and found the ashes of their love scattered by the whisper of the wind. For the brave ones who never tire of taking that leap, that risk, that hand that offers to wipe the tears away. This is for the ones who got drunk because of the ghost of an ex-lover tasted very much like eight shots of tequila. For the ones who washed the same sheets three times in hopes that his scent will no longer linger in the home from all the love you have made. For the people who thought that a cup of black coffee is more than enough to take away the sweetness of his name. This is for everyone. Everything will be okay. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But someday it will be. Someday.”