The Shore

The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.

Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don’t try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It’s the one and only thing you have to offer.

I think I could remember your love in a thousand different ways. I always start with remembering you as pain. I always have that initial drop-gut feeling, where I remember sobbing into pillow sheets, sobbing into your old t-shirts, sobbing into the phone. But after? I remember our love in light. I remember guilty teasing and lips that brushed and your hand in mine. I remember our love in the steady beat of your heart under my ear. Your shampoo smell in my clothes. I think the crinkles you get by your eyes when you smile are imprinted into the back of my brain. I remember our love as heat, as skimming fingertips and whispering “I love you’s" into your throat and your palm and your mouth. I remember our love like as if it was tattooed into my skin. I hope you remember our love in light. I hope you don’t remember me in drunken voicemails and angry words thrown at closed doors or in the taste of another girl’s mouth. I hope you remember me in light the way I remember you in sunshine. I know that I loved you with a fire in my heart that needed to announce its love to every inch of your skin, but maybe I’ve always been burned out.

“Don’t try to make life a mathematics problem with yourself in the center and everything coming out equal. When you’re good, bad things can still happen. And if you’re bad, you can still be lucky.”

You’re going to cry, and you’re going to hurt. You’re going to wonder, and you’re probably going to blunder. You’re going to question and plead, asking “Why me?!” But in the end, you’re going to breathe. So breathe and breathe until you have gotten the ache out; breathe and breathe until you have forgotten the hurt. You will be different, but you will be better, whether it was from a broken heart or the loss of a dream. You’re still alive, and you’re getting much better.