to the men .

the inside of my cheeks
are raw
from biting them until they bleed

i know that you're just asking me to smile but

i would rather spit blood
into the bathroom sink
and wait for the
stinging to
subside

wait until my tongue
gets used to the walls of my mouth
again

wait while a new layer of skin grows back
stronger this time

than open myself up

for you.

S.

{Photo: Matt Fry Flickr}

my heart .

you died for real today, my ghost.

you've dropped into a pool of grief that has been building for some time and i'm not quite sure when the dam will break but the water is getting high.

when people ask who hurt me; who made me see the world differently and then left me alone to deal with the view, it was you. i don't tell them, but it was. you did it years ago and you did it today. you showed me how evil life can get, not out of cruelty and not to scare me, just to let me in.

i wish i showed you how far i let you in. you were allowed into places that no one else has come close to touching. i let you in without knowing, yet, that it is from the inside that a heart can be damaged.

i loved you first and i loved you deep.

deeper than i ever let you know and i'm sorry for that — but there are some places even words can't touch, and you lived there. you still do.

you fought and slayed your share of demons, Ben. i hope you've found the rest you always deserved.

love forever,

S.

{Photo: Anthony Delletiglie Flickr}

a farewell .

you left me sad
even though i told myself you wouldn't

i've still been fooling myself into believing that
none of this can touch me
but it does

i melted into you
and got used to the taste of my words
coming from your mouth

sometimes i think i wished you up
but i should have wished for longer

for the nights to go forever
and the mornings, stretched into eternity
a pot of coffee, fresh on the windowsill

you have a way of making me
completely terrified and completely comfortable

you're a walking paradox
and no matter how long i look
you still surprise me

we're robots, the two of us
only, i'm afraid you're better

because you left me sad
when i told myself you couldn't.

S. 

{Photo: Mondixneuf Flickr}

phantom limb .

i find loss comes the hardest when forgotten 
for a moment, for a time

and then i reach for where you ought to be
with words i ought to say and find you 

nowhere

i can't use fancy words to dress this up
i don't know how
i don't know how


i don't know how

S. 

{Photo: Viola Cangi Flickr}

not yet .

Perhaps some day I'll crawl back home,
beaten,
defeated.
But not as long as I can make stories
out of my heartbreak,
beauty out of my sorrow.

Sylvia Plath

{Photo: Tamara Lichtenstein Flickr} 

day fifty-three.

i've been a little lost. 

the loneliness is palpable in this city. i've brushed past him on subway 5, holding a briefcase but no expression. i've heard them on the street: whistling as the girls pass by. i've seen it in searching eyes, in forced smiles, in the cellphone that never gets put away. 

it's swallowing me. and it is dark and it is terrifying. and i can't quite stand to look it in the face because it is more than i am ready to feel. these are the things they should have prepared us for.

i am trying to find my way. 

S. 

{Photo: Margaret Durow Photography}

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} 

Constant state of leaving.

I wish I was around long enough to say how I feel.
I wish I could feel.

S.

{Photo: Julia Trotti Flickr}

Ruined.

I felt my heart break today. Crushed under the weight of a crippling disappointment - in myself. 
No. But not heartbreak, really. More like the feeling of a heart being suffocated. Slowing down. Fading. 
I don't know how I became this. I don't believe in me anymore. 

(I miss your arms today.) 

S.

{Photo: Flickr Adriano Sodré}

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}

Walk It Off.

I'm sorry for all the words unsaid. You mean more to me than the clumsiness of syllables and the harshness of my voice. You mean more to me than the truth.

The truth of us, the truth of her, the truth of how I feel regardless of the way things have been left.

I never wanted you to go, but I had to be the last to let you know.* 

S.

*Angus and Julia Stone

{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}

The Words On My Lips.

Written By: I Wrote This For You

And when we speak now, seldom as that is, the old language returns. I wonder if it makes old names make guest appearances in your mind. If you can feel the skin of my neck near yours one more time. Do you reach across the bed for a shape, no longer there. Do you remember it clearly or is it all just memories of memories. Is there still warmth from my fingers tracing the contours of your skin, left somewhere in your body. If you smell the smell of how I used to smell in a crowd, do you think of these things. Is something missing in everyone else's or someone new's voice. Will they never know quite how to laugh or breathe just behind your ear. Do they know what you look like when you want to leave a party, when you've had too much of people. Could they rebuild your body out of clay if they needed to, because they've touched it so many times. Does your back still arch the way it used to when I still kissed you. 

Does an old singer sing an old song on an old radio. 

Do the lyrics still shake your fucking soul. 

Did it sound like this?

You were everything I needed, and now all I need is for you to remember.

S. 

{Photo via: We Heart It}

The Broken Years.

I dare say I still reach for you through the empty spaces, just to see if you will answer. Of course, you never do. I don't know who to blame for that; or if blame is necessary.

I hardly trust myself to think on those days - irrelevant as they are - for fear that I will somehow alter the details. Dulling or skipping or smudging some small moment that meant something to me then. I don't want to lose it altogether, but the possibility of remembering it wrong seems a greater tragedy.

It isn't you anymore, though. I feel I should tell you this, so you know I'm not entirely lost. No. Not you, but rather, the comfort you brought. The illusion of safety I felt in your arms. The ease by which we existed together. 

It's difficult for me to find that here. By now, I'm nearly a full-time cynic, with little time to count my blessings, trust there's love, or hope for peace. Maybe 19 is too old to still hold on to magic - an age to stop waiting for that miracle, and instead, face the discordant song of reality: "You are alone; the strongest arms let go."

S.

{Photo: Flickr Kelley Smith}

Still turning.

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends 

Not with a bang but a whimper.

T.S. Eliot

{Photo via: Image Fave}

Parting Speech.

This is the end. We're over now.
Don't blame it on the girl I once was,
Because her promises were real --

For that part of me will always love that part of you.
Trapped in a time and place so far from where we're standing;
Buried in a history no one can take away,
And none can remake.

No. Blame it on the constant turning of the earth,
and the way my hand fits into another's.
Blame it on the freshly fallen snow,
And the human need
To be loved.

S.

{Photo by: Benj Haisch Photography}

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} 

Choose Love.

In light of this situation, in light of this life, I think it best that we stop and recall the words of Martin Luther King Jr.:

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral,

begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar,
but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.
Through violence you may murder the hater,
but you do not murder hate.
In fact, violence merely increases hate.
So it goes: Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

I see no good in wishing ill on someone, for that only traps us in our own cycle of hate and darkness. Remember that light and love are the only weapons we have to drive out the blackness that surrounds us; and indeed, that is what we should long for.

Choose love, dear friends, above hate or bitterness or anger. Choose it so that it can become part of your character. Choose it when you are wronged, and when it it the furthest from instinct. Choose it, because it is our only hope now: it is our doorway to forgiveness, and through that door we will find freedom and joy renewed.

I am sorry for everything that has happened; but remember that more pain will neither reverse nor erase the pain already felt. Remember that you have a choice, and then choose love.

S.

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.