Sometimes, I just like to sit in my car for twenty minutes. Sometimes, I like to blast sad songs that make me feel something, because I can’t handle the robotics of it all. Sometimes, I just need to see the moon. To know that it’s still up there, because everything else always ends up leaving you. Sometimes, I need human touch and sometimes, I just need total solitude. Sometimes, I need nothing and want everything. Sometimes, I feel like screaming and just going limp to it all and most of the time, I’m just exhausted. Sometimes, I just need a minute. Sometimes, I just need to breathe.
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.
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.
Twenty has arrived, but the taste of nineteen still lingers and the world is insistent on never leaving my shoulders. The first of the seventh peels back a new layer of skin, exposing more and more of my soul each year and I’m not sure how to deal with that sometimes. I’ve been running for miles and my legs are tired. My eyes are tired and swollen and the pit of my stomach is tired of trying to stay strong but somehow always coming up short. I can delete the songs and destroy the photos but I know they’ll never fully leave me. I need this year to be filled with fresh winds and new directions because I don’t think I can take it anymore. Nineteen shattered my insides and Twenty is working its hardest to glue them back together, but nothing like this is ever easy.
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.
It’s weird, growing up. Your bones grow and your skin stretches to close the gaps and your heart takes a beating. The things around you begin to morph and those old familiar smells are pressed between the pages of your childhood where they become distant memories for you to casually flip through. You stick things on shelves and hide them in corners and everything just seems so foreign. Your thoughts develop and you begin to have opinions apart from the ones your parents had for you. You see and feel things differently and you become attached and detached from the ones you love and you fuck up beautifully. You learn from things and you build new parts of your soul to bandage the old ones. Your hands become calloused and weathered from clenching the necks of your demons and you find peace in the oceans. People fade away as the others burn brighter and somewhere along the way, the sky opens up, and you feel it all in the center of your chest.
Day Twenty: Handwrite a letter to someone
For most of the day, I’m fine. I keep you locked away in the far corners of my mind and it’s like we never even existed. For the most part, I am over you. And I’m doing my best to move on, because you already have. But it’s in those dark, quiet hours when the rest of the world falls asleep, that my heart always finds you, and I wonder if these things will ever fully fade.
I love waking up early. The rest of the town is still dreaming and it’s like the world is mine for a few hours. The soft morning light creeps in and the earth’s wet blanket is still coating every blade of grass and the birds are stretching their tiny little vocal chords and everything is in sync. The sun is still wiping the dust from its eyes, and the moon is slowly getting ready for bed, and it’s just me and my coffee and my playlist of songs that are light and ethereal. The old couch that sits in our backyard is my safe place and I sit and I smile in the mist of the morning.
We were born to have the wind run its fingers through our hair and we were born to feel its arms all around us. We were born to run wild and we were born to be free. We were born to kiss the sun and shake the earth. We were born to overcome obstacles and to experience pain to make us stronger. We were born to see miracles and perform them and we were born to change each others lives. We were born to love and to hate and to shout and to cry. We were born to laugh and to smile so wide our cheeks would start hurting and we were born to have small moments with single serving friends. We were born to pick ourselves up and breathe when it feels impossible. We were born to interact and we were all born to collide.
I myself, am filled with flaws and imperfections. My fingers are crooked and my freckles are everywhere. My knees are knobby, my stomach hangs out, and one boob is bigger than the other. My hair falls out, I bite my nails until they bleed, and my ears are too big for my head. I’m impatient and impulsive and I say the wrong things. My heart has been bruised and yet I still hope for the best in people. I neglect the ones I need most and I get overwhelmed and I shout and I cry. I make mistakes repeatedly and I’m always apologising. I have my ugly moments, but I love with my whole heart and there’s a passion inside of me that I will keep burning until my last days. I am human, and I am vulnerable, and despite my imperfections, I am beautiful.