words are the only thing that heal me

"I hope you know you don't have to do anything to be loved properly. You don't have to act a certain way, or look like someone you aren't. I believe that if you have to change yourself to be loved, it isn't real love after all. So don't cling to it. You can be you, and be loved for exactly that. Be vulnerable, let yourself fall in love, be broken by it. But never stay somewhere where the condition of stability is change. That isn't love."

"I feel like I owe myself something. Like I have a debt I've never paid for, or a favor I never fulfilled. Like I have been here for me, but I'm not finished yet. There's still more to do. I don't know what it is, but I know there's more. It's like I spent so many hours hating myself, that the love needed to make up for that is never ending. I feel like I owe myself something. I haven't figured out what, yet. But I can feel it in my bones, I deserve it. So I'll wait until I do figure it out. Someday I'll settle the score, for good."

"They don't really talk. To each other, or to us. See, as a family, we never really talked. So when I married a man who also was unable to talk to me, I didn't recognize the danger in that. I never felt the danger at all. Until rather than speaking to me in words and sentences, he spoke to me in empty dark eyes, and a rough touch, in order to convey the words he couldn't say. We didn't really talk. I try to do my best to not be like him, and them. But I'm still learning. How to speak what's on my mind without burying it, how to tell the honest truth whether it hurts someone else or not. I'm still learning. But I like to think that talking sometimes, whether it makes sense or not. Is improvement. It is isn't it? To try to speak even when your tongue is caught up in a mess. Even when your thoughts say things that scare you, it's improvement right? To talk anyway? I like to think so. See, we never really talked. So I'm still learning how to. Forgive me, I'm still learning."

"There is no cliffhanger to this chapter. Just a period. An ending of one moment and, with the turn of a page, a sudden shift into the next. So many pieces of the story foreshadowed that it would end here. I guess skimming the pages really doesn't give you the entire story. Every word carries weight. Next time maybe you'll read them all. Or maybe you won't."

"Before love was slammed doors and blank stares, it was constant laughter and a loving gaze. One doesn't just change into the other overnight. It happens almost in passing, a snide remark here, a lonely 'goodnight' before rolling over to opposite edges of the bed there. And before you know it, you no longer recognize the person standing in front of you. Sitting next to them is no longer the most comfortable seat in the room. The room gains a sort of peace when their footsteps fade from earshot. In passing the person you once loved more than life becomes a person you have never met before. It's funny isn't it? How we can experience all of that, and still have hope that the next love won't leave us broken."

“My own company isn’t comforting. I think I hate that the most.”

"I'm scared to continue growing, because what if I keep outgrowing the people that I love?"

"Every time I drink I think only of you."

“We talked like two lovers who would, but never were. Never would be. It felt like two lovers falling in love would, but never will. Never could be.”

"It wasn't until you came along, that I understood this one trivial thing; true love should never be out to hurt you, and if on accident it does, should always be followed by an I'm sorry, an I love you, or let's fix this."

“You made me soup that day. I laid wrapped in a hoodie and a blanket, still shivering. I found the smallest words falling from my lips, ‘Soup sounds good,’ and you simply made it for me. I didn’t even have to ask.”

"I don't think you understand. I didn't want to leave. I didn't want to at first. Before I felt depleted, abandoned, and ignored, I didn't want to leave. I had it all - the family, the home, the dog. I wanted it to work. But you gave me no choice. Because at the end of the day, even on the good days, there was no chance that the bad days could ever truly be erased. And there was always a lingering fear that they were lurking around the corner."

“No one else has to believe that what happened to you, happened to you, for it to be true.”

"Never take the ability to feel things for granted. Don't shade yourself from the sun or shield yourself from the cold. Let the rain form oceans on your skin, and the snow melt cold against your tongue. Feel every single chance you get. Roll the windows down and let the winter air pierce through your warmth. Feeling things is good. You don't know how good it is to feel until you don't anymore."

"I always believed a love as gentle as the one I've found, existed. But I never imagined that it would find me so soon. I thought that it would take lonely years, hopeless tears to find it. But turns out, it found me instead. Healing me deeper with each soft touch."

"You kissed me on the front swing, my mom and dad inside. You told me that you loved me, but we laughed and rolled our eyes. Now you're everything I'll ever need but I'm scared to call you mine. Because if you ever choose to leave, I'll probably lose my mind."

“When my hands shake and my words run away with my thoughts, you ask how you can fix it. But the truth is you can’t fix something that was broken when you bought it.” - i now know i was never broken after all