soup for thoughts

and i begged them to let me.

my big eyes begged him to pity me,

and i think he

did.

we were running laps, sprinting and diving

through our gazes. through our stares.

through our, pleas.

he was a walking smile and i felt like a walking grimace but really we were both just teenagers trying to love and survive and in the end we had to choose one or the other and i don’t know if we made the same decision.

and i’ll never know. and i’m supposed to make peace with that. i’m meant to be healing and healed and moved on and

all of it. by now.

but it’s hard and feels impossible and

“what is grief? if not love persisting.”

i wasn’t even comfortable in my own skin, back then

so how could i possibly feel comfortable

lying next to him

how could i be expected to stay unaware of every goosebump he raised

and not criticize every blink of my eyes, every twitch of my face, every sentence that went on too long, took up too much of his (apparently) finite space and attention

i didn’t know how to live, how to let myself live,

or how to love, or how to let myself love

which wasn’t fair to him. or me. it wasn’t fun for me. to silently suffer when i knew there was no reason to feel anything other than grateful and loved.

i was a walking wound. and i think in some ways, in the very few ways i thought i understood him, i think he was too.

i wanted attention so badly

but i knew it was a sin to ask for it

so i suffered instead

and hoped that’d be enough penance

that it’d make up for my deep, dark,

need to be seen.

seen and,

loved

but memories of you, with you, always tended to shine through even in my deepest, darkest, scariest moments.

it’s not fair to put all this weight on you, but sometimes you were the only thing that could make me believe in happiness, or goodness, or

light

it’s not fair it’s not fair nothing is fair and nothing will be, and that’s not fair.

but this isn’t the spiraling ramblings of a girl near her end. i’m gaining confidence in my ability to live and to make a life worth living. i accept my ability to love and my ability to receive it, despite all the pain she [my love, my heart) has had to go through to arrive here, in this safety, finally at home in my chest.

i miss your house

more than any of mine

i feel like i grew up there and it still holds my heart

which doesn’t make sense,

and it won’t,

because i only had a year’s time to make the most of it

(or just about)

i could see the ends of time in your kitchen

they felt like they’d never end

and that was the first time i’d felt that,

moon songs make me think of old loves… recently passed

rest in peace, i have to let it rest.

i can visit the grave but

i have to stop dropping to my knees and

repeating the same, fruitless, prayer:

that it’ll come back to life,

come back to me,

reach through the dirt

and kiss my palms…

that even if that love became the beautiful undead…

i can’t let myself imagine that it’d feel the same.

my next, great love, is above ground.

i have to rise—

and turn my eyes—

to paint a picture, in your mind, with watercolor:

•summer 2019 was a summer of suffering and then a summer of escaping

-sunrise, but it’s 7am and it’s already too hot to breathe and the sun is too bright to see past-

•summer 2020 was a year of hiding and hardening and diving deep- but not always in the right direction

-deep midnight, you can see the stars but only as constellations, and you’re consumed by the darkness that they’re swimming in. you think that’s all there is, the stars are a mirage, but you still reach for them. maybe you’ll find them within yourself, maybe within another person..-

•summer 2021 has been. a summer of breaking open and growing and coming home. it’s been a summer of rest, almost. it’s been a summer of (reclaiming) me. for me. for once. :)

and that moon song, often

too often,

not often enough..

just the 2 of us, against the world

wait no, not against

actually truly living in the world for

the first time

(and the last time

since our last night climbing those exposed stairs

and

and falling in love.)

Because it's found in everything

It’s even found in the green of the grass

Or should i say, the greens of the grass. All the different shades. I’ve never understood how people can say “as green as grass” and move on, and be okay with it. Grass in the sun, grass in the shade, watered grass, grass desperately thirsty for rain, grass on a cloudy day. They all have their own color, their own narrative. No this isn’t symbolism or a metaphor, it’s just. Beautiful.

It could also be found in the way tree limbs reach towards the sky, into the sky, almost like they’re falling and their roots are the only thing keeping them from diving into the endless, light blue abyss. If you look for it, you could find it. I find it now, all the time, but not subconsciously. I’m fully aware of how stark and beautiful it is.

Anyone who says they’ve managed to become bored of the beauty of anything natural, must be lying to themselves. They must’ve just become bored of themselves, of their perception. You see, the thing is, one of the most beautiful aspects of nature is its ability to constantly change and be beautiful in all new ways. Every day. The direction leaves blow in the wind, how you can suddenly notice that the underside of those leaves is actually a much lighter color than you’d think, and how that’s strangely… pretty. And how, once you learn from an old man (who’s used to the countryside) that seeing the light side of the leaves is a tell tale sign of a storm, it’s even more beautiful. It sticks with you. With me. It sticks with *me*. 

I think that’s what’s beautiful about it. That it doesn’t just change in your mind (the place that warps every possible memory and image). It actually changes in reality as well. 

The contrast. That’s what makes it beautiful

Or the contradictions. Like the ones I make in this passage, saying one thing is the reason and then immediately disagreeing. But maybe that’s just because of the overlap. It’s not one, it’s not the other, it’s actually not any Thing.

I guess one could say that this is my take on Transcendentalism? Loving nature, looking inwards to the Self. Not sure, though.

Either way. Either way. Any way you look at it, it takes some shape, some sort of beauty. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and some people… lose their hold.

--

It’s in holding tea in your mouth for an extra beat before swallowing, allowing yourself to savor the flavors and the feeling of being refreshed. It’s found in the fact that this may not be an impactful moment to anyone else, but to me, to someone whose brain and body wouldn’t allow them simple joys for so long. It’s something else entirely. It’s the feeling of freedom after being locked in for too long, the feeling of spring after a long and cold winter. It’s the hint of cinnamon, the hint of ginger, the hint of joy in every taste bud. I used to curse my taste buds...

It’s balance. It’s all about balance. In a different way than you’d think. (and that’s all I’ll reveal on that topic…) 

What it’s *not* though, is the little itch in the back of my throat. The twitch in my eye. The fatigue throughout my veins and bones and thoughts. It’s not, that. It’s not the tears that won’t fall, but make sure their presence is known. Don’t worry, I’m fully aware. Of everything. I’m aware of everything, at all times, and it’s exhausting. Well, I can’t quite say everything, I only mean the things that fit on a scale from uncomfortable to terrible. I can’t quite grasp how to be aware of really really good things yet. That’s partially why I feel the need to document them, to make note of the tea that I drank and the grass that I noticed and the gum that I’m chewing. I know that I’ll forget. My brain is sticky like those fly traps, but happy things must have extra grease. Because only negative thoughts and memories ever seem to stick. And the good things that do, eventually rot over time. They become tainted, but who could blame them, after being surrounded by such negativity for so long. 

There is hope, though.

Light peeking through a cracked window.

Like the sunlight that streams through clouds, tree branches, and wooden floorboards. 

My brain is almost like a cat, in the way that it takes every chance it can to bask in those rare patches of warmth and light. 

i miss putting your hair into ponytails

at your behest

with your strawberry scrunchie, that matched the one on my wrist exactly.

the world can be bitter, and it can be so good

pretty skies...

that everyone talks about

that everyone knows

sunlight on slats of wooden flooring

the sounds of coffee brewing and spoons clanking

walking out the back door into a messy garden

and smelling grass and whatever my neighbors are grilling on any given summer evening

i wanna feel that comfort, that peace, that subtle joy

—

god, i crave it so badly..

i’ve never had it.

—

i want to create my own home.

cultivate that feeling, that space.

to say a word so many times that it

loses all meaning?

that’s how it feels,