i can feel it starting to happen again and the middle of my chest is on fire and all i want to do is resist. a constant flame that’s building and building and all i want is to push it back down and pretend that nothing’s happening. i trained myself not to feel for so long that i don’t even know how to handle myself. i can feel myself starting to trick every bone in my body and slip beneath the cracks and it’s killing me. i can feel it telling me to stop now before the real hurt happens and i hate that. i hate it. my head hates being scared and my heart hates the possibility of shattering even more. i’m the happiest i’ve been in such a long time and that is the scariest thing.
I want someone to make new memories with so I can stop dwelling on the old ones and even tricking myself into thinking that I still want them. I want to stop feeling so exhausted from all of this anguish that keeps lingering around my shoulder blades. I want to forget and I want to learn how to let someone else in. I want someone who sees that I’m broken and isn’t going to just try and patch things up nicely and pretend they don’t exist. I want someone to care more about being honest with me than just placating my feelings. I want someone to laugh with. I want someone I can talk about my day with and just go get food together. I want to be able to trust someone with my heart and know that they’ll cherish it. I want to stop crying over some asshole that never even deserved me in the first place. Mostly, I just want to feel love again.
It doesn’t make you weird or abnormal to want to be alone once in a while. It doesn’t make you strange if your heart swells up when you see the sunrise or a low and full moon. It doesn’t set you apart if your mind wanders off to the lives of strangers and what they ate for breakfast or how they’re going to pay their phone bill next month. It doesn’t make you creepy for being fascinated with how people use their hands and it doesn’t make you awkward for wanting to keep looking. It doesn’t mean you’re off kilter just because you get attached to things and it doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you when it takes you three years to let go. It doesn’t make you weak when the sound of a name can send you spiraling or a simple phrase makes your lip quiver. It doesn’t make you weird when a song makes you cry those deep heavy sobs no matter how many times you’ve listened to it. It doesn’t matter if you get flustered and overwhelmed or forget how to cope so you just start screaming. None of these things make you wrong, they make you human.
Once you wash away all of the fluff and surface dust, things become a lot more black and white. If you’re patient and you dig your way through the rubble, you begin to see the small pieces of human that were lost along the way. Beneath all the metal and clockwork, beneath all of the frustrations and tough exteriors, you find flesh. Flesh that’s real and fragile, flesh that’s been bruised and broken. Flesh that’s rough and calloused from being ripped at the seams and stitched back over because sometimes it’s just easier to hide the ugly parts than try to explain them. It’s easier to pretend that nothing ever happened because the minute you crack, the gates drown you in salt, and your flesh is raw and screaming and everything is smashing right up against you and it’s like it’s happening for the first time every time. It hurts and it hurts and it feels like forever and all you can do is let the waves take you. They toss you in and out and twist your heartstrings to a point where you just go limp and wait for low tide. But sometimes, and only sometimes, after the wounds have been flushed out and every grain of salt is gone, you remember what it’s like to feel real. You remember how to breathe and breathe full. You remember what it’s like to have flesh.
I need to start writing again.
Tomorrow will be kinderThe most relevant of all relevant songs right now. Played 400 times.
It’s true, I’ve seen it before
A brighter day is coming my way
Yes, tomorrow will be kinder
Today I’ve cried a many tear
And pain is in my heart
Around me lies a somber scene
I don’t know where to start
But I feel warmth on my skin
The stars have all aligned
The wind has blown, but now I know
That tomorrow will be kinder
We always tell each other to take things one day at a time and that the wounds heal as time passes but it never really feels that way. It’s like it gets worse and worse and all you can do is sob your heart out until you think there’s nothing left. You’re restless as hell and your eyes sting shut until the morning. The sun rises and for those first few seconds you’re fine. You think it’s all over but then you rub the sleep from your eyes and you breathe in a few times and it’s like everything crashes into you ten times harder and you remember. You remember that death has touched you, you remember that your mind is still shattered. You remember that things hurt. You look down and you see that the hole is still gaping in the middle of your chest and the entire world is caving into it. It’s like god turned the lights up and everything is harsh and bright in all the wrong places and your vision goes fuzzy. Small memories flash by that you never even thought twice about before but now you know you’ll never shake them and you can’t even make it four hours without collapsing. The sad songs are amplified and everything is just way too relevant. Your skin feels three sizes too small and you’re beginning to think that these holes are never going to heal themselves. Your body is drained and everything is way too close for comfort. Your thoughts go into overdrive and your voice shuts down and all you want is for the days to stop blending. All you want is for the pain to be over.
Once you wash away all of the fluff and surface dust, things become a lot more black and white. If you’re patient and you dig your way through the rubble, you begin to see the small pieces of human that were lost along the way. Beneath all the metal and clockwork, beneath all of the frustrations and tough exteriors, you find flesh. Flesh that’s real and fragile, flesh that’s been bruised and broken. Flesh that’s rough and calloused from being ripped at the seams and stitched back over because sometimes it’s just easier to hide the ugly parts than try to explain them. It’s easier to pretend that nothing ever happened because the minute you crack, the gates drown you in salt, and your flesh is raw and screaming and everything is smashing right up against you and it’s like it’s happening for the first time every time. It hurts and it hurts and it feels like forever and all you can do is let the waves take you. They toss you in and out and twist your heartstrings to a point where you just go limp and wait for low tide. But sometimes, and only sometimes, after the wounds have been flushed out and every grain of salt is gone, you remember what it’s like to feel real. You remember how to breathe and breathe full. You remember what it’s like to have flesh.
68/365
your secrets have been smudged beneath those bedroom eyes and your skin is screaming to release them with every restless night.
(Source: Flickr / melanie_bertelson)
65/365
2:55 AM
The light starts slowly on the tips of your fingers and works right down to your soul, pausing at the wrists and the elbows, slipping between the creases and stifling the shadows that have clouded your heart for so many moons. It smoothes over the edges and begins to make life bearable again. For weeks, you’ve been choking on the universe, and then it hits you and it creeps in the corners of your eyes and out through your mouth as you exhale every dark thing that has ever touched you and you smile because you’re finally breathing.
You build this sort of detachment from everything and you never let yourself get too close in fear of not being able to make the break when necessary. You keep your heart guarded because you don’t think you can handle feeling that broken ever again. You build up walls and you keep the people out that you need most because you hate feeling vulnerable. You hate showing that you’re human, that you’re fragile. You throw yourself into songs and the words of fiction and poetry and you immerse yourself in those feelings and memories even though you know that you should be learning to let go and move on. But then, for just the smallest of minutes you wonder ‘What if’. What if you could go back? What if you could just let yourself fall back into those old familiar dance moves that once kept your heart so warm? What if you could forgive the past and push it aside and try to make new things with old souls? What if you could feel whole again? You wear yourself out with what if’s until you can’t even think straight and your eyes are clouded with tears of last years faults and errors and you don’t even know what to do anymore. You know that those things aren’t good for you and that you need to keep those parts of your heart closed off because they’ll never be the same, but you can’t help but wonder and it twists your mind in circles and you’re exhausted. You’re exhausted from crying, you’re exhausted from thinking and speaking and yelling and hurting. You’re at the breaking point and all you want to do is be able to breathe again. You’re up countless nights overanalysing actions that shouldn’t even matter anymore. You grab onto new things even though you know your heart hasn’t recovered from the old ones and at this point you feel as if they never will. You tell yourself its okay and that you have the will to move on, but really, all you want is to feel alive again.
You build this sort of detachment from everything and you never let yourself get too close in fear of not being able to make the break when necessary. You keep your heart guarded because you don’t think you can handle feeling that broken ever again. You build up walls and you keep the people out that you need most because you hate feeling vulnerable. You hate showing that you’re human, that you’re fragile. You throw yourself into songs and the words of fiction and poetry and you immerse yourself in those feelings and memories even though you know that you should be learning to let go and move on. But then, for just the smallest of minutes you wonder ‘What if’. What if you could go back? What if you could just let yourself fall back into step of those old familiar dance moves that once kept your heart so warm? What if you could forgive the past and push it aside and try and make new things with old souls. What if you could feel whole again? You wear yourself out with what if’s until you can’t even think straight and your eyes are clouded with tears of last years faults and errors and you don’t even know what to do anymore. You know that those things aren’t good for you and that you need to keep those parts of your heart closed off because they’ll never be the same, but you can’t help but wonder and it twists your mind in circles and you’re exhausted. You’re exhausted from crying, you’re exhausted from thinking and speaking and yelling and hurting. You’re at the breaking point and all you want to do is be able to breathe again. You’re up countless nights overanalysing actions that shouldn’t even matter anymore. You grab onto new things even though you know your heart hasn’t recovered from the old ones and at this point you feel as if they never will. You tell yourself its okay and that you have the will to move on, but really, all you want is to feel alive again.
My heart has been shattered a third time, and possibly the worst. Two days is all it took for everything to turn around and then turn inside itself almost instantly. I knew that night didn’t mean we were back together, but things like that don’t just happen with friends. you don’t spend a night like that with me and then get a girlfriend two days later. Everyone warned me, but I wanted so badly to believe you. For three straight months you apologised, for three straight months you said you missed me, and for three straight months you said you wanted things back the way they were. For three straight months, I struggled with myself, and for three straight months it was a battle to be strong. You were the first boy I opened my heart up to, and you smashed it to pieces again and again and I didn’t even know that this kind of hurt existed. You say that you’re sorry and you say you don’t like seeing me this way, but you continue putting me through this. You screw things up and think that a single word can just brush all of it under the rug and we can be friends like nothing happened. For three straight months my body ached, and then for six straight hours everything felt right, and now I find myself on the floor in a heap, crying for what seems like the millionth time. A part of me will probably always love you, and as much as it kills me to admit it, I will cherish our time together forever and wish for it back for many months to come, but this marks the night that I am closing the door on this dark stage of my life. I don’t want this, but I need this. I need this with every fiber of my being. Goodbye, my almost lover.