The world is full of assholes. What are you doing to make sure you’re not one of them? // What if someone you never met, someone you never saw, someone you never knew, was the only someone for you Sleepless in Seattle

(BEGGINERS 2010 - FILM)

It took me a long time to realize that distance can ruin even the best of intentions.

Human reason can excuse any evil; that is why it’s so important that we don’t rely on it.

I think I might always be in some kind of love with you.

You’ve been silent your whole life. You were silent when we met, silent when you suffered. Silent when life kept hitting you. I was like that too, a little. But not like you. You are a stillness. And I tried to move you. It didn’t work. But that doesn’t mean you didn’t move me. I heard everything you didn’t say. I heard it so loudly that I couldn’t shut it off. Your silence, I hear it so loudly.

m awful about your name. I still jump when I hear it. I still feel it rattling somewhere in my stomach. I think I’m jealous of anyone that gets to say it because it’s not my right anymore. Years from now I’ll be standing in a supermarket and someone will casually brush past me, your name falling from their mouth like confetti. I’ll drop everything that I’m holding. My knees will wobble in the way they only did when I was with you. Years from now I’ll still remember how your name tasted in my mouth and I’ll have to start missing you all over again.

When you find your reason for living, hold onto it. Never let it go. Even if it means burning other bridges along the way.

Get out of bed, make a hot drink and go outside. You owe yourself that much. Maybe you still cry in far too many public bathrooms, but I swear, you stay a few seconds less every time. Smile at strangers if it’s all you can do, know that life doesn’t start when the sun rises or the credits roll but when you decide it’s time to go after what you deserve, and you deserve everything because we are alive both only once and a million times every day and every minute is something new to learn and someone new to love, and if it all crashes and burns as it so often does cling on to hope through it all and don’t ever ever ever let it go. Start your life again whenever you need to. Repeat after me: it is not yet the end. It is not yet the end. It is not yet the end.

We’re both looking at the same moon, in the same world. We’re connected to reality by the same line. All I have to do is quietly draw it towards me.

Because it’s only concrete and cars,
It’s only sirens and missing stars,
It’s only whiskey and disregard
In the smallest hours here, when I feel alone.

One.
You see her for the first time and she’ll walk right past you like you are a crack in the wall and she is a skyscraper with her head so high in the air and when you can’t sleep you’ll think about the way her eyes strayed into yours for a moment too long before breaking away and disappearing into the crowd of people.
Two.
She’ll look both ways before telling you she loves you under her breath and when she hugs you her eyes scan the empty room as if the walls had eyes and ears and mouths that could give you away.
Three.
When she’s curled up on your lap shaking with mismatched breaths you’ll wonder how someone who looked like she carried mountains on her shoulders could crumble so easily in your arms like the tornado in her mind finally hit her and knocked her off her feet.
Four.
In half-light she’ll run her fingers over your arms like she is reading words carved into your skin, binding them together into the perfect metaphor and you’ll hear it playback in your head at 4am when your head runs wild with thoughts of her.
Five.
You’ll find a safe haven on rooftops and abandoned rooms where she’ll set fire to your insides with hushed breaths between kisses planted perfectly on your lips and make you wonder how dangerous it is to play with wild flames while your body is made of paper.
Six.
You’ll stare God right in the eye and tell him that if loving her was a sin then you want no place in heaven with him because the way her lips fit perfectly on your neck is a type of paradise you’ll never forget.

The six stages of falling in love with her. // by rb 

10:13 AM26,047 NOTES

I really like you but you are an ocean and I’m just a more impressive ocean with cooler and stronger sharks

I haven’t lived. I’ve died a few times.

Everybody’s hell is different. It’s not all fire and pain. The real hell is your life gone wrong.

Sometimes words come out of me and I don’t know where they come from or why. They’re like falling stars tumbling through the universe; bright, burning things that can’t be stopped.

We are so used to releasing words, we don’t know what to do with them if they stay. No matter how many times we let them go, they come back. The words that matter always stay.

Beauty is not long hair, skinny legs, tanned skin or perfect teeth. Believe me. Beauty is the face of who cried and now smiles, beauty is the scar on your knee since you fell when you were a kid, beauty is the circles when love doesn’t let you sleep, beauty is the expression on the face when the alarm rings in the morning, it’s the melted makeup when you have a shower, it’s the laughter when you make a joke you’re the only one who can understand, beauty is meeting his gaze and stopping understanding, beauty is your gaze when you see him, it’s when you cry for all you paranoias, beauty is the lines marked by time. Beauty is what we feel in the inside which also shows outside us. Beauty is the marks the life leaves on us, all the kicks and the caresses the memories leave us. Beauty is letting yourself live.

Like an unprotected photograph
some friendships fade.
People grow apart, lose touch,
want different things.
Dreams, woven together,
unravel.

swim against the tide till until our every bone is broken

Everyone changes so slowly, they don’t even know that they have.

And everyone likes to pretend that things are just the same yet they look at you like you could bring something back that’s supposed to already be here.

But home is a time. Not just a place.

_{"In the middle of most nights, when I can’t sleep… I still replay you."}

When was the first time you understood the depth of the word “goodbye?”

1. I find little parts of you in everyone. I met a boy yesterday, his name starts with a J, like yours, and the girl I sit next to in English class has a chipped tooth like the one hidden in the back of your mouth and the little kid I saw in the park today kinda laughs like you.

2. I heard drowning was a peaceful way to die but thoughts of you have been twisting around my ankles and pulling me under and holy fuck I can’t breathe. Water is slipping into my throat and my eyes burn. Everything hurts. I’m gonna snap in half. My mother finds me thrashing around in bed screaming your name. Drowning is messy.

3. I asked you for a pack of matches to light my cigarette but my skin caught on fire and you watched me burn myself to the ground. You could’ve put me out. Why didn’t you just fucking put me out?

4. I guess I don’t know what I was expecting. I know that life isn’t like the movies, I know you’re not going to follow me to the train station and stop me from leaving or climb in through my window in the middle of the night, I didn’t want you to kiss me in the rain, I just didn’t think you’d watch me slip through your fingers like I was nothing but someone to fall asleep next to when you were lonely.

5. You were never really into football or anything, your favorite sport was breaking my heart

You could rattle the stars,” she whispered. “You could do anything, if only you dared. And deep down, you know it, too. That’s what scares you most.

You have such a February face,

So full of frost, of storm, and cloudiness.

Girls who run with the wolves aren’t here for boys to love.

Everyone needs a place. It shouldn’t be inside of someone else.

…and you drink a little too much and try a little too hard. And you go home to a cold bed and think, ‘That was fine’. And your life is a long line of fine.

It’s weird to feel like you miss someone you’re not even sure you know.

Some people say that the best stories have no words. It is true that words drop away, and that the important things are often left unsaid. The important things are learned in faces, in gestures, not in our locked tongues. The true things are too big or too small, or in any case is always the wrong size to fit in the template called language.

She was desperate and she was choosy at the same time and, in a way, beautiful, but she didn’t have quite enough going for her to become what she imagined herself to be.

What’s the kindest thing you almost did? Is your fear of insomnia stronger than your fear of what awoke you? Are bonsai cruel? Do you love what you love, or just the feeling? Your earliest memories: do you look though your young eyes, or look at your young self? Which feels worse: to know that there are people who do more with less talent, or that there are people with more talent? Do you walk on moving walkways? Should it make any difference that you knew it was wrong as you were doing it? Would you trade actual intelligence for the perception of being smarter? Why does it bother you when someone at the next table is having a conversation on a cell phone? How many years of your life would you trade for the greatest month of your life? What would you tell your father, if it were possible? Which is changing faster, your body, or your mind? Is it cruel to tell an old person his prognosis? Are you in any way angry at your phone? When you pass a storefront, do you look at what’s inside, look at your reflection, or neither? Is there anything you would die for if no one could ever know you died for it? If you could be assured that money wouldn’t make you any small bit happier, would you still want more money? What has been irrevocably spoiled for you? If your deepest secret became public, would you be forgiven? Is your best friend your kindest friend? Is it any way cruel to give a dog a name? Is there anything you feel a need to confess? You know it’s a “murder of crows” and a “wake of buzzards” but it’s a what of ravens, again? What is it about death that you’re afraid of? How does it make you feel to know that it’s an “unkindness of ravens”?

We love you, we do. But there’s this space between us, always this space between us. We’re stuck in our skins and singing, and no one really knows how long it will take for the sound to reach you.

So, maybe we’re the
generation of the selfie,
but we’re also the generation
that grew up in a tainted,
Photoshopped world
with every impossible beauty standard
shoved down our throat
through a tube
because eating has become
a guilty pleasure
and condemning beauty ideals
won’t go straight to our thighs.
And if, by chance,
we are able to destroy the
demons that you’ve planted
inside of us with your
constant advertisements and rules
that play behind our eyelids and
take root in our brains,
then let us take our fucking pictures
and capture that moment when
we felt beautiful because all this world
has taught us is that
our beauty is the greatest
measure of our worth.
Scoff at our phones all you like,
these delicate extensions of
our fingers, but know that
through this technology
that you couldn’t even
begin to understand,
we have smudged the entire
world with our fingerprints.
We are the generation of knowledge,
and we are learning more than
any that came before us.
So, frown at my typing fingers;
I am using them to grasp power
by the throat.
Try to invalidate us,
but we’ve heard our
parents talking about
the world’s crashing and burning
since we had sprung from the womb.
We know you’ve fucked up,
and we’re angry about it-
the kind of anger that
fuels knowledge,
that I feel in my veins every time
I read the news from my phone
before school,
that sticks in my throat like honey
in a debate;
the kind of anger that simmers,
that sharpens teeth into daggers,
that makes this generation more dangerous
than you could have ever imagined.
We are the generation of change,
and goddammit, we’re coming.

Emily Palermo, An Open Letter to the Men Who Told Me to Stay Out of Adult

she’s too good for me, she’s too good for anyone

I think I fall in love a little bit with anyone who shows me their soul. This world is so guarded and fearful. I appreciate rawness so much.

Emery Allen

In any case you mustn’t confuse a single failure with a final defeat.

The girl in the mirror wasn’t who I wanted to be and her life wasn’t the one I wanted to have.

And you make jokes because you’re afraid to take anything seriously. Because if you take things seriously, they matter.

we’ll be given the world in the right time

but we made our own and left it empty

I will turn myself into a gun, because I’m hungry and hollow and just want something to call my own.

The sun is perfect and you woke this morning. You have enough language in your mouth to be understood. You have a name, and someone wants to call it. Five fingers on your hand and someone wants to hold it. If we just start there, every beautiful thing that has and will ever exist is possible. If we start there, everything, for a moment, is right in the world

List of incredibly hot things to say during sex:

• GONDOR CALLS FOR AID
• BLESS US AND SPLASH US PRECIOUS
• THEY’RE TAKING THE HOBBITS TO ISENGARD
• MUSTER THE ROHIRRIM
• RELEASE THE RIVER
• ISILDUR

We ruined ourselves—I have never honestly thought that we ruined each other.

I wasn’t thinking about thresholds,
how often we cross without knowing,
doors opening and closing
without a creak or click as the latch catches
and we wonder what side we are on now.

I stopped telling myself that I’m lost. 
I’m not.
I’m on a road with no destination, I’m just driving with hope that I’ll find a place that I like and I’ll stay there.
I’m not lost, I’m on my way.

Isn’t it weird how people change and grow apart and stop talking and then one day you see this person who you swore you were going to be friends with forever and you can barely think of a thing to say and then it finally hits you that somewhere along the way your friendship dimmed and you will probably never be close to that person again. I think that’s one of the saddest things I’ve come to terms with lately.

Memories are worse than bullets.

We should be able to kill ourselves in our heads and then be reborn. To be able to talk, look at each other, be together as if we never met before. If my mother and I were strangers, I’m sure we’d get along.

writing formal emails should be labeled as a form of torture

I liked the idea—that we left pieces of ourselves everywhere we went, coloring all our important places.

You have kindness in your voice.. I did not expect that.

That was all part of giving someone a piece of your heart; they ended up taking a whole chunk of your mind and reserving it all for themselves.

I am worried we’ve run out of words, and am hoping she is just saving them for later.

That conversation we were always on the edge

of having, runs on in my head.

The world can be a lot bet­ter than we set­tle for. All you have to do is ask.

It’s easy to forget things you don’t need anymore.

I thought, possibly, that what I really needed was to go where nobody knew me and start over again, with none of my previous decisions, conversations, or expectations coming with me.

We both have war inside us. Sometimes it keeps us alive. Sometimes it threatens to destroy us.

I almost thanked you for 
teaching me something about survival
back there,
but then I remembered 
that the ocean never 
handed me the gift of swimming.

I gave it to myself.

Every word has consequences. Every silence, too.

who knows if I stand a chance?

but I’m trying anyhow

Why did you stop emailing me?"
“Because it wasn’t enough.

Last Night (2011)

Sometimes I wonder why words can’t actually make us bleed.

 It’s just so out of control. Life, I mean. The way it flies off in all these different directions without your permission.

Words have always swirled around me like snowflakes―each one delicate and different, each one melting untouched in my hands.

So here I am. This is as good as it gets. Take it or leave it.

I have infinite tenderness for you, and I will my whole life…

Hold onto your voice. Hold onto your breath. Don’t make a noise, don’t leave the room until I come back from the dead for you. I will come back from the dead for you. This could be a city. This could be a graveyard. This could be the basket of a big balloon. Leave the lights on. Leave a trail of letters like those little knots of bread we used to dream about. We used to dream about them. We used to do a lot of things. Put your hand to the knob, your mouth to the hand, pick up the bread and devour it. I’m in the hallway again, I’m in the hallway. The radio’s playing my favorite song. Leave the lights on. Keep talking. I’ll keep walking toward the sound of your voice.

But, like ivy, we grow where there is room for us.

It is the destiny of stars to collapse.

“

loving him was
morning cigarette burns against your thighs softened by rough kisses, mismatched into the curve of your hips like an ancient statue, as if all he ever saw you as was broken and forgotten.

loving him was
empty love letters chained to your ankles, dragging you down with bittersweet words whenever you pulled yourself back up again only to fall into his embrace.

loving him was
drunk late night kisses knowing he does not love you, kisses inconsistent in the way they’d land on your lips like all he ever wanted to do was wash the poison out of his mouth and into your bloodstream.

loving him was
hands hanging against your ribs holding you in place while his eyes danced around your skin like a wandering ghost, never settling into the irises of your eyes like he always knew he was going to leave you.

”

maybe it’s because
the first time I kissed you we were at a sleepover and we were surrounded by friends and I tasted the entire universe in the way your lips pressed against mine and you pulled away and said ‘that felt weird’.

maybe it’s because
you haven’t changed the way you look at me since then but I can’t stop my eyes from drowning in the oceans behind yours and you know that I’ve never been a strong swimmer.

maybe it’s because
I stopped going to Sunday church so I wouldn’t bump into you singing hymns to a religion you don’t really believe in, I’ve never been good at lying to myself like you were.

maybe it’s because
we were 7 when you taught me how to tie my shoelaces into a butterfly knot but you never taught me how to untie the knots my stomach forms whenever your hand grazes mine.

maybe it’s because
I go through my days with my body dragging behind yours like my heart somehow chained itself to your touch and you pull and tug at my heartstrings whenever you smile my direction.

maybe it’s because
we’ve been best friends for 6 years and I can never kiss you again because you would never feel half of what I felt at the contact of your lips.

”

One.
You see her for the first time and she’ll walk right past you like you are a crack in the wall and she is a skyscraper with her head so high in the air and when you can’t sleep you’ll think about the way her eyes strayed into yours for a moment too long before breaking away and disappearing into the crowd of people.
Two.
She’ll look both ways before telling you she loves you under her breath and when she hugs you her eyes scan the empty room as if the walls had eyes and ears and mouths that could give you away.
Three.
When she’s curled up on your lap shaking with mismatched breaths you’ll wonder how someone who looked like she carried mountains on her shoulders could crumble so easily in your arms like the tornado in her mind finally hit her and knocked her off her feet.
Four.
In half-light she’ll run her fingers over your arms like she is reading words carved into your skin, binding them together into the perfect metaphor and you’ll hear it playback in your head at 4am when your head runs wild with thoughts of her.
Five.
You’ll find a safe haven on rooftops and abandoned rooms where she’ll set fire to your insides with hushed breaths between kisses planted perfectly on your lips and make you wonder how dangerous it is to play with wild flames while your body is made of paper.
Six.
You’ll stare God right in the eye and tell him that if loving her was a sin then you want no place in heaven with him because the way her lips fit perfectly on your neck is a type of paradise you’ll never forget.
”

— The six stages of falling in love with her. 

Your lips only ever find
their way to mine with liquor
hanging on your tongue and
creating poison between your teeth.

And you only ever utter the words
to tell me I’m beautiful when your
eyes hide behind layers of intoxication
blinding your vision.

And your touch has only ever caressed my back
with shaky hands and heavy grips
where my body slips between
the grasp of your frail arms like water.

And you only ever find your way to my arms
when your fragile legs can no longer
bare to carry your body anymore
and you need someone to hold you up again.

i. my skin burns where you’ve
touched it I’ve taken five
showers in the same day
I still can’t wash you off my body.
ii. smoke from your cigarettes
hangs into my clothes no
amount of detergent makes
it smell any less haunting.
iii. your voice is on repeat
in my head why did you feed
me promises you never
even tried to keep?
iv. I am choking on your
nicotine breath I can
taste it whenever I try to
fall asleep in someone else’s arms.
v. I can’t write about you anymore
every word that comes out is
blood in my throat
I cannot swallow you down.
”

— Secret: I can’t forget him, I don’t think I ever will.

“

Dear boy who’s never looked twice at me;
I’ve memorized the way your arm
drapes loosely around my body when
you hug me and it doesn’t compare
to the way I’d let my hands
hold onto your shoulders so tightly.

Dear boy who’s never looked twice at me;
I realized that your eyes don’t
light up at the sight of me,
I am overshadowed by your glow
please notice how I never
meet your gaze with the same
confidence.

Dear boy who’s never looked twice at me;
My presence and absence both
mean nothing to you
I am a ghost in your city of souls
please don’t let me die out
this way.

We need to stop
holding on to this.
All that we are doing
is kindling the fire
that has no purpose,
no one to keep warm.
We do this to ourselves,
you know. Throwing 
words that are soaked
in cruelty at each other
in order to cope 
with the feeling of loss.
But I am ready to accept
that what we had was
never meant to be.
And I think it’s time
that you accept that too.

You can continue trying
to convince yourself
that it’s you that I am
writing about, or that it’s
the thought of you that
keeps me up at night.
But I have not dreamed
about you in months,
or have woken up every
morning with your face
in my mind. I let the fire
of your memory subside
when I finally realized
that this thing we had,
this forced kind of love
that we had created, only
felt real when we both had
nothing else to look forward to.

I always thought
that they were wrong
when they said
that it wasn’t always
going to be easy.

And when you lose her 
because you were the one 
who stopped searching for her 
in the first place, don’t expect 
her to one day follow the path 
back to your arms.
She’s looking for something too.
So don’t be surprised 
when she finds someone
who will never lose her
from their sight.
She has always been looking
for a place to call home,
and she has always wanted
the light in someones eyes
to help guide her there.

Remember me as the woman
who loved you with every inch
of her fragile body. Take those
memories of when we were
happy and replace them with
the times when you thought 
that this would never be 
enough to keep you coming
back. Remember me as the
woman who would have drained
herself of her own happiness
just to fill you up with something
other than loneliness. I hope
you remember me as the woman
who would have given you
light over any amount of darkness.
Because I know that I will
always remember you like this.

The first time someone breaks your heart, you will feel like it’s the end. Your hands may bruise from holding on to something that just wants to be let go, so do your skin a favor and release. One day, you will look back on the first time you felt empty and you won’t be able to understand how you were ever able to fall so low, so fast.

The second time someone tries to break your heart, you will be more prepared. It’s going to hurt, but you’ll remember that you survived, and that thought alone will help with some of the pain of trusting someone with your heart again.

The third time, when someone tries to break your heart, they won’t even be able to reach for it. You’ve been ready for this. Your heart has been blocked off by caution tape, and it has never again tied around it twice, so not even you can get to it.

And when you fall in love, for real this time, your heart will have already broken out of its own safety net. Before your mind can tell your heart that it’s okay to be vulnerable again, your heart will have already softened itself. Your heart knows all the tricks now. It will know the sincerity in someone’s voice and this time, it will not be fooled by the word love. So trust what your heart is telling you when it’s telling you that it’s going to be okay. Listen to the experience of its words and let it surrender. It needs your hands to set it free. Your heart has been damaged before, but hell, it will never let itself fall in the palms of someone who’s only intention is to be able to say that it was able to break the unbreakable.

Your presence is still lingering.
I’ve tried writing you out of my
head and my heart but all that
seems to do is make your memory
more visible, more alive. You are
still here with me somehow.
I see you everywhere, I see you
in every new face that I try to 
replace yours with. There is no
use in forcing myself to forget
about you. No amount of new
lovers and warming words will
ever be able to erase you.

I needed you
and you left me.

I missed you
and you forgot me.

I loved you
and you hurt me.

I fixed you
and you ruined me.

Today I cried, because I'm not your friend anymore. Maybe I never was.

 I will remember your small room, the feel of you, the light in the window, your records, your books, our morning coffee, our noons, our nights, our bodies spilled together, sleeping, the tiny flowing currents, immediate and forever. Your leg, my leg, your arm, my arm, your smile and the warmth of you who made me laugh again. " 

— Charles Bukowski, Raw With Love

" I want a tattoo of the first morning we woke up together. I want the memory to hurt. " 

— Clementine von Radics

You think you know someone. But mostly you just know what you want to know.

I want to know you. You seem like someone worth knowing. Every day I feel like I’m surrounded by people with hard edges and sour faces but I get the sense that you’re different. Too often people seem to think that they have the answers to everything. Their faces are trapped in permascowls and they can’t be bothered with anything besides their own narcissism. You aren’t like that. You still ask questions. You’re still looking for the answers.

Sometimes he tried too hard to make sense of the world, to figure out why people were bad to each other so often.

She is not “my girl.”
She belongs to herself, and to all of the world. And I am blessed, for with all her freedom, she still comes back to me, moment-to-moment, day-by-day, and night-by-night.
How much more blessed can I be?

Avraham Chaim, Thoughts after The Alchemist

All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist.

It was nice―in the dark and the quiet…and her eyes looking back, like there was something in me worth seeing.

The fragility of crystal is not a weakness but a fineness.

I had my chance, and sometimes in life, there are no second chances. You look at what you have, not what you miss, and you move forward.

That’s what was great about him. He tried. Not many do.

Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

Wounds are like water set to boil—they heal best left unwatched.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been with somebody that I felt totally at ease with.

I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go.

Langston Hughes

People
are not
rain
or
snow
or autumn
leaves;

they
do not
look
beautiful
when
they
fall

Somewhere, someone knows the words to the songs you sing.

Sometimes, something is everything and nothing at the same time. But at any given point, it is still something.

Some people will
turn to you,
to your body,
as a map
to find their
way home.

They will dive
into your river
and swim
through your
currents,
and you may
feel obliged
to ensure
their safe passage.

Do not allow
them to pass
so easily.

Until one fears
the risk of drowning
he shall never know
the beauty in the
wrath of the storm.

Memory traces you back
to the moment of its birth:
the sideways glances
and flyaway hair,
ceaseless laughter,
the accidental touch.

My skin still remembers you.

You held out two glasses,
one in each hand, and
told me to pick my poison.
The problem is
I picked you,
but neither of your hands
were free for me to take.

The easiest part
of being human
is losing our
humanity

I am taken by the
coming and going
of things; of people,
of each breath,
the rise and the fall,
the push and pull,
the cars rushing steadily by,
the hellos and farewells,
and every moment
spent in between
the beginning and the end,
each definitively marked
like a set of quotation marks

I wonder why arrivals never hurt,
I wonder why departures always do

There is nothing wrong
with being watercolour,
but imagine all the other surfaces
you could paint yourself on
if you only dared to be acrylic

Sometimes your hands
will burn after touching someone
and still smell like fire for days.

Sometimes your skin
will burn when they touch you,
and you will see the smoke
follow you for miles.

Some days you will be the match,
some days the fire,

one day the ashes.

I am learning
to rid of the toxins
in my lungs;

I have breathed
you in so much
and so often
that oxygen
feels foreign.

I wanted to write you
a letter in a language
even I don’t understand,
hoping that you would
know all the same
and I realized
that there is an entire
complex array
of emotions
that I feel for you
and now I wonder
if you will ever
fully understand
how I feel
whenever I think
that I should
one day have to
wake up alone

Sometimes I wonder
if you still think of me
as you stretch
into a new day
and rub the sleep
from your tired eyes

I wonder if you
still have the time
to wonder
about me too

I am afraid
to fall asleep
knowing
I’ll wake up alone

There are some
who drown
in shallow waters,
and others
who float in the sea

If I can promise you nothing
I will give you everything

The same 
forces that 
bring two 
people together 
are the same 
ones that 
pull them apart.

I caught the last act
of our story
from a safe distance
so as not to disturb your

performance. 

I’ve made my mistakes,
but you’ll make mine twice.

He kissed her. Without warning, without permission. Without even deciding to do it, but simply because he couldn’t have done anything else. He needed that breath she was holding. It belonged to him, and he wanted it back.

I know how miserable you must be, and I would give ten years of my life to be there to kiss your sweet lips good night.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald, First Blood 

In completion

i.

The story of our lives
is told in monuments
and precious artifacts
frozen in time and sealed
behind glass showcases
We glorify the “then,” as
ordinary as it may have been,
through ostentatious assumptions
which lead to only more questions
that will never be fully clarified

ii.

The story of our lives
began in what we now
only have of broken
pottery and ruins of
ancient art and architecture
We study them in hopes
to capture and surpass
their aesthetic charm,
only to disregard and
neglect the methods
which led to their
ultimate destruction

iii.

his story
became
history

iv.

Those fragments
which remain are
only those that
resisted being
reduced to the dust
blown in the wind,
we breath.

v.

The story of our lives
is written in stone,
brick, mortar; a few
history textbooks
and a blog page;

vi.

chalk
on the
side
walk

vii.

smoke
stone
brick
mortar

viii.

The story
of our lives
begins, and
ends here

Ask me when 
the sun sets and 
I will tell you that 
it has not risen 
ever since the day 
it lost all reason to

Lips are 
my favorite thing. 
Soft, pillowed lips, 
preferably pursed and 
sweetly stained with 
a dewdrop of sugared saliva,

preferably yours.

You were the moon of my existence; your moods dictated the tides of my heart.

Take off your glasses;

                      it is easier to live

when this world is blurred.

Searching

I search for your face
in crowds of people, places
I go, everywhere.

There are certain kisses I will always remember. Sometimes it’s because of the place or condition or time. That kiss on the second floor of the bookshop, across from the corner with Brecht and Beaumarchais, behind the shelf lined with Chaucer and Milton and against the shelf bearing Voltaire, it felt like I hadn’t kissed you in years. I will always remember that kiss like a farmer remembers the first rainfall after a long drought. 

"Why is it called morning?"

"Because it’s a verb."

"That doesn’t make sense."

"It makes perfect sense. It’s a malaprop for the term of grieving for one’s loss."

"You mean mourning?"

"Yes. Think about it. The sun has chased the moon all night, and every time it comes close the moon gets away. The sun is in constant mourning. So it’s called morning."

"Oh."

"Yes. It’s eleven at night right now. But it’s morning for me."

"But we’re in the same time zone."

"Yes. And I miss you.

Then to have seen much and to have nothing is to have rich eyes and poor hands.

Had you written about me,
and if I were the one kissing you,
there isn’t a doubt in my mind
that I would feel the same.

you can only write your best when you’ve felt the worst

Until you get comfortable with being alone, you’ll never know if you’re choosing someone out of love or loneliness.

We don’t mean 
to hurt each other 
but we do. 
and perhaps 
no matter how 
right we are for 
each other, 
we’ll always be a little 
too wrong.

One friend with whom you have a lot in common is better than three with whom you struggle to find things to talk about.

Mindy Kaling

Here is the simple truth about people: Love the ones you want to keep.

It wasn’t until 
I was out of my mind
that I noticed 
the angry people spoke
with their hands,
the happy people spoke
with their eyes,
and the sad people
never spoke
at all.

Do you ever look at someone and think,
if there were more of them in the world
we’d be a lot better off? 

I wish there was more of you in the world.
I wish there was more of you with me.

We want all the love a person has and don’t even know how to give ours.

there was a reason
I collided into you

The way he kissed me felt like a brand. Like he was tattooing himself under my skin.

Someone once said
when two people are in love
they create a third being

and that when it’s over and done,
the third is left to wander.

What if someone you never met, someone you never saw, someone you never knew, was the only someone for you

Sleepless in Seattle

What she really craved was a connection. That feeling you got when you knew you were supposed to be with someone.

J. Sterling, In Dreams

He saw her before he saw anything else in the room.

http://38.media.tumblr.com/edaf3019718e431a38d474ee985c0dbb/tumblr_n2fzyo2HSf1qhh1ddo3_400.jpg

It was too much work to remember things you might not have again, and so one by one they opened up their hands and let them go.

It’s about misunderstandings between people and places, being disconnected and looking for moments of connection. There are so many moments in life when people don’t say what they mean, when they are just missing each other, waiting to run into each other in a hallway.

Monsters are tragic beings; they are born too tall, too strong, too heavy, they are not evil by choice. That is their tragedy

How odd, I can have all this inside me 
and to you it’s just words.

he would always be living her life backwards, she realized, trying to regain something perfect that she’d lost.

Elizabeth Hay, Late Nights on Air

Words, you see,” he said, looking at me again, “allow us to make permanent what is essentially transient. Turn a world filled with injustice and hurt into a place that is beautiful and lyrical.

The mistakes I’ve made are dead to me. But I can’t take back the things I never did.

I know how difficult it can be when the image you’ve had of something doesn’t match its reality; when the friend beside you turns into a monster.

_{ear Catherine, I’ve been sitting here thinking about all the things I wanted to apologize to you for. All the pain we caused each other. Everything I put on you. Everything I needed you to be or needed you to say. I’m sorry for that. I’ll always love you ‘cause we grew up together and you helped make me who I am. I just wanted you to know there will be a piece of you in me always, and I’m grateful for that. Whatever someone you become, and wherever you are in the world, I’m sending you love. You’re my friend to the end. Love, Theodore.}

_Send.

All of us are lonely at some point or another, no matter how many people surround us. And then, we meet someone who seems to understand. She smiles, and for a moment the loneliness disappears.

To my daughter I will say,
‘See your beauty
without a compliment
or a mirror.’

are you gonna kiss me or do i have to lie to my diary

We’re living in an era where capturing moments using our phones is more important than actually living these moments with whoever is beside us.

I’ve stopped being sorry for all my soft. I won’t apologize because I miss you, or because I said it, or because I text you first, or again. I think everyone spends too much time trying to close themselves off. I don’t want to be cool or indifferent, I want to be honest.

It is better to be alone, she figures, than to be with someone who can’t see who you are.

I sometimes wonder what you’re thinking of me, then I remember that you’re probably wondering what I think of you, which makes me wonder if any of us ever think of ourselves.

Or if we think of nothing else.

1. There’s a reason schools teach Shakespeare; you make your own life, it’s not written in the stars, waiting to start until you find that person with the perfect smile

2. People are a hell of a lot smarter than you think. Shut your mouth, stop thinking you know everything, and listen.

3. Getting close and being vulnerable is scary as hell, But you know what else it is? Worth it.

4. Reason really is the doctor to love.

5. The moment you feel your happiness being dictated by another person, take a break from them.

6. Take a step back and look around, you have more friends than you think.

7. Growing up is going to happen and it’s going to be tough. Just stay close to those around you, you’re all in it together.

8. If you’re still checking their Facebook/Instagram/tumblr, you’re never going to get over them.

9. Everything seems worse in the morning. Don’t fall for it, it’s deceiving.

10. No need to be so intense all the time. People get tired of swimming in the deep end, sometimes they need a break in the shallow part of the pool.

11. Stop avoiding everything. Get out of bed, get dressed, go to school, go to work. It sucks at first but it’s part of the healing process.

12. If the person makes you feel like shit and you still go back to them, it’s an abusive relationship.

13. Headphones are great, but listen to music aloud every once in a while. Sometimes you need to scream a song so everyone can hear you.

14. Boundaries are a must.

15. You can be a caring person, but you need to be happy with yourself before you try to make others happy.

16. Try and understand other’s intentions and situation before you get angry with them.

17. Tough love is necessary sometimes.

18. You can’t fix people no matter how hard you try. Get this engrained in your mind.

19. Surround yourself with people who will love and support you.

20. Loneliness is lethal and makes you have a distorted view of things.

21. No one hates you more than you hate yourself. Stop being your own enemy.

22. Someone can only hurt your feelings if you allow them to.

23. Getting your shit back in order is five times as hard as it is to mess it all up.

24. Listen to your parent’s advice.

25. Be open to anything and everything. Life isn’t fun when you’re a closed book.

26. Talking about your problems is great, but there comes a point when talking about it becomes dwelling on the past and it drains everyone around you. Know when you’ve hit this point.

27. A lot of people don’t like their shit showing. More people than you know are going through hard times.

28. Distract yourself.

29. Don’t be so easily swayed, a lot of claims out there are not true.

30. Some seasons of your life are harder than others. This too shall pass.

I hope you meet someone who wants to experience you and not just see you by their eyes. Someone who doesn’t only want to have sex with you but moves their fingers over your body like trying to find a city on a world map and mark their favourite destinations. Someone who wants to experience you like a masterpiece. Whenever we observe a masterpiece we get the urge to touch it and most of the time we do, involuntarily, because it’s so perfect that we not only want to see it with our eyes and forget its details later on because I read somewhere that every time you recall a memory your brain edits it bit by bit so we long to experience it so that each part which contributes to its perfection stays with us after all how scary it would be to forget how perfect you felt. So I hope someone experiences you like a summer breeze stroking your hair, like the warmth of bonfire on a chilly winter night, like the taste of that traditional homemade dish by a mother for her children who’s taste forever lingers in their mouth. I hope you find someone who justifies in treating you like the perfect art you are.

I wonder how much we don‘t see. How much of our lives we witness and accept as truth when the rest of the iceberg—the heaviest, bulkiest part—is buried and invisible.

 tell my piano the things I used to tell you.

Just because you have stopped sinking doesn’t mean you’re not still underwater.

Time heals all wounds. And if it doesn’t, you name them something other than wounds and agree to let them stay.

Because this is the only way to change.
To want. To ask.
To be an unlocked house
in a neighborhood of robbers.
Palms open, Arms extended. Voice unshaking.
Broadening yourself like a target to say
“Aim. Shoot. I am ready. 
I invite hope in

I know failure may follow.”

I missed him. Love, I realized, was something your spine memorized. There was nothing you could do about that

Just because you’d left something behind didn’t mean that it had gone anywhere.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what people deserve from other people, like, whether they deserve to know if you have feelings for them, or if you’ve been friends for years, whether they deserve to be the one you go to when you need to talk to someone, or whether they deserve to know what your home life is like, or whether they deserve to know how fucked up you really are.

We have this notion that, at some point, people earn access to these parts of us. But at what point? At what point do we feel like we owe them? This kind of thought process has always troubled me because I’m naturally a very private person, and sometimes I don’t feel like I owe anybody anything. If I choose them, I choose them because I want to, not because they deserve to be chosen.

I think at some point we need to stop expecting people to give pieces of themselves. Those precious pieces may be all they have left, they may be the bones holding them together. And you are not entitled to that, not one bit. You only deserve what you’re given.

❝ It was always her. Every “you” that has ever crept into my writing has held a trace of her. Every thought that I could one day find someone who so easily slipped into the gaps between my fingers, every time I caught myself with a hunger wanting more, more depth, more words, more contact. It all began and ended with her. ❞

9. Describe your perfect mate

She’s intelligent, independent, and strong. She has an affection for books. She has a depth to her. She’ll tell me when I mess up. She’ll understand that sometimes I need time to think and sometimes I need to be pushed (gently) into experiences. We’ll be able to sit in silence and hold hands with interlocking fingers and, god, I’ll be able to talk to her because it seems like I can’t do that with anyone except a few. I honestly believe if people just talked to each other, we’d all be better off. Most of all, we’ll be comfortable with each other. Everything begins and ends with being able to be yourself with someone.

Nothing kills a conversation faster than I’m fine, and some nights I wonder how many deaths we’re responsible for. 

How many words have you spoken in your life?
How many did you mean?

How many did you understand?

What I want is for the two of us to meet somewhere by chance one day, like, passing on the street, or getting on the same bus.

Haruki Murakami, 1Q84

I loved voices, I always had. Words held meaning, but voices held emotion.

it hurts when I talk to you, it hurts when I don’t

And if we won’t burn together,
I’ll burn alone.

What if, in another universe, I deserve you?

Because you could have loved me forever. And maybe in another universe, I let you.

Forgive me, I was lonely so I chose you.

Warsan Shire

I know there’ll come a time again, when everything will fit right in and I won’t have to see your face in strangers on the street.

Ingrid Michaelson

And I never wanna lose you
But I feel that this closeness will tear us apart

My voice is like a rumour. I’m not sure if it came out or not, or if it is true.

And he didn’t really know where he was going, but he did know he was going somewhere, because you really have to go somewhere, don’t you?

When I first met you, I felt a kind of contradiction in you. You’re seeking something, but at the same time, you are running away from it.

If I had a chance with him, I missed it. No, I didn’t miss it. I threw it away.

And they told you it was written in the stars
But you’ve never had a chance to look that far

Better to be at the bottom of a ladder you want to climb than in the middle of some ladder you don’t, right?

It was strange how your brain could know what your heart refused to accept.

You confuse what’s important with what’s impressive.

If there is any possible consolation in the tragedy of losing someone we love very much, it’s the necessary hope that perhaps it was for the best.

Loneliness is a kind of winter. And you drag me, kicking and screaming, into some kind of bright summer.

We meet. We always meet, somehow we’re always thrown together, no matter where I go, no matter how I try to distance myself from you. It never matters.

People shout when they don’t have the vocabulary to whisper.

sooner or later we must try 
living

We will meet again in better times.

i miss the two people we were together

I thought he should have realized sooner that important people don’t show up very often, and you should hold on to them when they do. Maybe I was smarter than he was all along, because that was something I’d always known.

How can you just forget a person completely until the moment you see his face again?

I don’t like you. Sometimes I think I live for you.

I didn’t know how to say goodbye. Words were stupid. They said so little. Yet they opened up holes you could fall into and never climb out of again.

But people do things to survive, and then after they survive, they can’t live with what they’ve done.

It’s all very simple. But maybe because it’s so simple, it’s also hard.

There’s a kindness in your smile 
Please forgive me I can’t help but stop and stare 
We can walk for miles and miles 
I know you’ll get me there
Take me home with you tonight 
I’m not gonna make it down this lonely street 
Take me home with you tonight 
I’m not gonna make it on my own two feet 
Now the early morning sun 
Is burning holes right through the mask I wore all night 
Can I take your hand and run 
I’ll follow you for life

In the wrong light anyone can look like a darkness.

Even if I now saw you only once, I would long for you through worlds, worlds, worlds.

The brightest flame casts the darkest shadow.

I try not to live in the past but sometimes the past lives in me.

It took me a long time not to judge myself through someone else’s eyes.

…because people who talk about their dreams are actually trying to tell you things about themselves they’d never admit in normal conversation. It’s a way for people to be honest without telling the truth.

Too late, I found you can’t wait to become perfect, you got to go out and fall down and get up with everybody else.

I hope you fall in love with a man with good music taste and a jawline stronger than your wifi connection

There are stars in your dark side brighter than the sun.

Im not allowed outside after dark because i outshine all the stars and the moon so baby sea turtles always end up flocking to me

You see all I need is a whisper in a world that only shouts.

Passenger

I’m sorry that
I only called after
drinking six cups of coffee,
but something about shaking
always reminds me of you.

i have the stupidest crushes ever it’s like i’m begging to get hurt and disappointed

Language always betrays us, tells the truth when we want to lie, and dissolves into formlessness when we would most like to be precise.

I don’t know. I just feel stuck, like I’m afraid to take any steps, in case they’re the wrong ones.

Love is like the rain. It comes in a drizzle sometimes. Then it starts pouring and if you’re not careful it will drown you

But if these years have taught me anything it is this: you can never run away. Not ever. The only way out is in.