abyss .

You asked me for my deepest darkest secret. A secret I'd told no other living soul. 

What I think you may not understand about secrets is that those type are not down in the depths without reason. They aren't there to whip out at cocktail parties or ballet lessons or even at 3AM in the bed of your best friend who you tell most-everything to. They are absent for a reason. 

I think when you asked for this secret you meant to ask for my vulnerability, but what you asked for is more than that, and you need to understand this. 

Because the kind you asked for is so ugly that you do not even tell it to yourself. It's something you know is there - you can feel the weight - but you cannot look it squarely in the face. That's why it's kept underneath. 

Someone somewhere once said ignorance is bliss and I believe them, because once you know the deepest darkest part of someone, you cannot forget. So I can tell you things I have told only five, two, even one other person, but don't you dare ask for more. 

You cannot handle dark and deep. This is what you need to understand.

S. 

{Photo: Elif Sanem Karakoc}

Poisoned ink.

as much as i can claim that it happened years ago (or yesterday), it hasn't. 
i guess, when i've truly purged you from my system, i'll know. 

it will be when i go to write and you are not the one that leaks out. 

S. 

{Photo via: We Heart It}

>>>

"I think we're just gonna have to be secretly in love with each other and leave it at that."

Margot Tenenbaum

{Photo: Vassilvasilic Flickr}

say sorry.

you spilled into my life and made a messy thing of my heart. 
and i don't quite know how to forgive you, 
because you ruined me
in an irrecoverable way. 

i have another boy i'm supposed to be writing about now, 
but he's not the one i keep finding fragments of, under my skin. 
and, still, he's never held me like you did. 
i don't think he can. 

i don't know how to forgive. 

S.

{Photo via: Tumblr} 

"What If -"

I told myself I wouldn't write about that night. And even when my mind flits over it, taunting me gently with delusions of grandeur -- placing emphasis on insignificance -- I am quick to correct it. To strip away any romanticising of the evening, and force it to remain as it was: Calm, natural, and - for what counts - meaningless.

 That human part of me longs to pick it apart. To piece together something from nothing, as the saying goes.

But if I know me, I know that the story I'd like to create is a little too enchanting; a difficult one to put down. I know this because I've already had to. Many times over. I spin an small parting word into a soliloquy, a comment into a ballad. I forget that the pair of us are strangers, really. And not good ones at that: continually running from the others life. Or was that only me? (No).

When I look back on the past year, I see how our lives were so shaped by our movements. I - we - could never stand stoic long enough to see anything beyond the moment. There was never time to allow things to unfold. That was our mistake. That - and my insufferable need to bar myself from saying, out loud, what I assumed you already knew. 

You asked a question, before I disappeared again - off to bask myself in the forgiving sun of Italy, and give my heart to France's charm. Almost rhetorical. But I knew it wasn't that. 

I answered wrong. 

In part, because I didn't understand your meaning when the words first broke the silence. But, I think more than that, because it didn't matter. It shouldn't have, anyways. But as it consumes me softly, day by day, I see that it must matter more to me than anything I've known before.

I wish I had been brave enough to let you see then what was inside my heart - 

and what was not. 

S. 

{Photo via: We Heart It}

Before - and the Aftermath.

I just realized it's going to kill me:
Everything that we are not, and will never be.

As much as I want to go back, I don't.

There are things that I wanted to leave and never have to see again.
There are feelings that I didn't want to resurrect from their long time grave.
There are situations that must be faced, that I can not even think on.

I know how this story is supposed to end.
And I'll let it - end, that is.
But let these words be mine
And let me say them how I choose:
With vehemence, or sorrow, or something deep and stronger still --
Something more than malice or heartache could hold.
-- The left over fire of a passionate soul:

I love you still. 

XXXX

I hope you're happy. 

You, with all the words off your chest. 

You, with a pair of ready arms to fall into. 

You, safe at a distance of a million miles away.

I hope you're glad I read what you wrote 

sitting in an overcrowded bus in a strange city; 

tired and alone. 

I hope it gives you joy to know that I was brought to tears 

amidst the strangers, the hard plastic chairs and the bright city lights. 

Surrounded so fully, and yet, more alone then I've ever been. 

Infuriated by your selfishness, your timing:

Everything you were and weren't and won't ever be to me.

I hope you find delight in the way you've played me so completely,

and the wicked way you reached to pull me back just as I let you go.

And I hope you are pleased to know that I don't care. 

I've ripped the blinders from my eyes and you don't own me anymore.

I do not love you still. 

S. 

{Photos via: Tumblr; We Heart It}

Silhouettes.

I've been living with the ghosts of all the things I've refused to say, shadows of lost possibility.

My remaining soul tries to fight against them - explaining that it is the curse of my humanity - pointing to another that has haunted me longer still: Fear. He, fixed fast upon my heart, won't let the words out.

I don't suppose these visitors care much. They're here to stay. Besides, what would be the use of winning this battle of reason? I've lost the war, my favor will never be regained, and that is why they haunt me.

But, truth be told, I'm not so sure I would want to be a part of something so terribly fragile; something so easily destroyed by swallowed words. Let these monsters taunt me; let them strip my heart of all it's substance, and let me claim the life of the tin man.

S. 

{Photo via: We Heart It}

Hidden Meaning.

All things are written in code, crafted by the masters of language. Everything that isn't - the few words of honest nature - get buried inside it all; making it more difficult to decipher anything real. It soon becomes a muddled stream of partially coherent verbs and nouns and adjectives. 

But what did you expect? 

That it would be simple?

Well it is. When you cut out the excess, bit by bit, you see what the puzzles always form to say. :

Everything. Means. Nothing.

I'm sorry this is not what you wanted.
But what did you expect?

S. 

{Photo: Flickr Frederica Erra}

What I've Become.

Please let me go as unscarred as possible.

I do want to see you. I do. With everything I'm made of, but I know that would damage me. Deeply. So I'm left to choose the weaker path, of running. Of hiding my weary, dirt-streaked, bruise-stained body behind lies of dead cell phone batteries and strict nightly curfews; I choose to never face you again.

And I like to tell myself I'm brave anyways. At least I'm escaping, I say. But it's no good. I know what a coward I am, and I despise my weaknesses.

I know if I saw you, one last time, just the two of us, it would all appear. A mess of confessions and confusions and anger and pain, and a horror worse still: desire.

So I will hide away until I can leave this place for always. This time I won't turn around; I won't stare back at you as drops race each other across the pane, wondering on what ifs; I will not ready myself for some glorious return. Because I know now that there will never be one. I won't think on your life, at all, any longer. I'm really leaving. 

I just have to make it out alive.

S.

{Photo via: We Heart It}

Promise.

Please don't see how broken I've become:
The way the words and lies have made me numb.

Please promise you won't look as closely as before.
You need not know me anymore.

[Yours always,]

S.

{Photo via: Favim}

So much to never say.

Your silence creates a loneliness inside of me that echoes. Deep and empty.
You really left me hanging, this time around. 

When it comes, I must die a bitter old woman - or sooner, a cynical young soul.
They can write books about the one who never loved. 

That's what they were told. 

I think I need to find some daylight - 

Before I fade. 

S.

{Photo by: Flickr Mischelle} 

This Fight.

I hope you never know how this feels.

I love you bigger than that.

S.

{Photo via: We Heart It}

What we won't speak of.

I would write my heart upon a page, if promised that you'd never see.

But no such promise will be made, so this remains in mystery. 

Don't ask me; I'll only lie. 

S.

{Photo via: We Heart It}

Everyone Is Leaving.

I could say something about the smallness and instability of life, but those words are all used up.

I don't understand why these things happen. I don't understand the significance of life. I have yet to determine why I'm here - why anyone's here - and then, all so suddenly, not.

Sometimes I see so much beauty in the day; sometimes I feel as though I'm getting a grasp on meaning and purpose.

Today is not like that. My heart hurts.

XXXX

I'm losing my faith. I can feel it escaping from me with each passing breath.

I've been thinking about human life. What if all we really are is a strange combination of atoms; a brilliant number of chemical reactions; a jumble of neurons, protons and electrons. What if that's all we are and nothing more.

What if they're right and we're meaningless and finite.

I still pray for comfort.

XXXX

I was so close to telling you everything. I haven't figured out if I'm thankful I didn't, or if it was the worst mistake I've made. 

Either way, it ends the same. Either way, we die: dirt and dust.

Sooner than we originally planned for, I think.

S.

--- Sorry, the world is dark today.

Your smile and my dress.

I saw us together and had to smile at

how happy we were and

how right we weren't and

how foolish everyone was
not to see as we did.

Love and friendship are not
as far as some imagine -

no, quite a bit further still.

S.

{Photo: We Heart It}

Brain Patterns.

Every now and again I think on you.

But it is only so much as a song in my head or a word on my tongue; and then it passes.

And that, I believe, is more than enough.

...Dead hearts are everywhere...

S.

{Photo: We Heart It}

What I Haven't Told You Yet.

You know, I don't like how transparent I am.

The way you know me better than I thought you could; better than I thought anyone could.

And I don't know how you do it. How you see me, and see through me. How you've picked up on the details. (How you'll know, word for word, what I'm talking about here.)

And part of me - a large part - can't stand it. It worries me and makes me feel unsafe, unsheltered. Like I am standing on a spit of sand in the middle of the ocean, at the mercy of the waves and wind and rain that are crashing and howling and beating in around me. Like I am about to be carried away into the deep and unforgiving sea of vulnerability. I don't like that.

But another part of me - and this part is very small - is getting used to the thought. Is considering jumping into the frigid and wild and overwhelming waters and seeing if I don't quite drown.

You make me nervous, I'm sure you know. You know everything, and everyday I am reminded of how little I know. I know nothing.

And we are so very far apart.

S.

{Photo: Theo Gosselin}

Untold Stories..

I'm beginning to think that what makes each person different from the next is the secret things. The untold stories. The emotions that can never be put into words. That life is just one valiant attempt to be understood, and get as many of those internal feelings out in the world. And that you become to others all that you can express, and to yourself all that you can't.

S