It Always Came Down To This, Since The Very Beginning Of Time But If We Keep Wanting It, We're Told It's

“How long will it feel like burning, said the child trying to be kind.”

— Anne Carson, from Decreation; Lines.

what if, I'm always gonna stay this way? afraid of being someone's person

— Hanif Abdurraqib, from “They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us.”

ur early 20s are about being obsessed with kindness and mary oliver and seasonal fruits and recreating comfort foods you ate as a child and learning how to love and crying because you have no choice but to live the life before you and finding god on the bus back from the grocery store

Dear September,

I hope you will be kind, would you please leave the bad behind. Each month I ask the same, to others of a different name. But I have a feeling that you, september, will grant my request, just let this month be one of peace, one of the best, I'll figure out the rest.

Kind Regards, someone living life with hope and a tired heart.

There's distractions and then the feeling slipping in between your ribs, and it doesn't go away It doesn't seem to have a cause or an end so you just keep yourself busy enough Enough to ignore it and sometimes forget it exists, then everyone goes home and you go home and it slips right back in between your ribs like it never left because it never did. Because there's nothing wrong Not with anything surrounding you, it's something broken inside of you, But I've never known how to fix that and at this point I don't think I ever will.

I'm trying my best

Sorry to break it to you but you literally have to face your fears and slaughter them. Otherwise you will live a small life that you do not want. You literally have to view your biggest fears and attack them head on. You have to fall into the abyss to find your way out. The easy path does not exist. There is no get out of jail free card. You have to allow yourself to die a spiritual death over and over again in order to reinvent yourself into the person you are actually supposed to be. And you have to be painfully honest with yourself and the people around you. It’s horrible but it’s truly the only way.

The lights almost out now.

They say, "they want a lover." But I want something more than a lover. I want him in ways that make me feel weak, vulnerable, terrifying, possessive, and soft-hearted all at the same time. I want him to consume me, and I want to consume him. His entire world, his words, his thoughts, each and every breath that he takes with me. I want a lover that scares me to my core and rips me apart every night, only to be consumed by him in a way it feels like my entirety makes some sense. My existence should be threatened by him and possess him to explore me more and more and more until there's no more of us left within. I want to hold him in my arms and softly hum in his ears on days where the entire world is falling apart for him, where the existence seems to be denying us. I want him to love and love me and love me and love me until I feel like bitting him in the neck and leaving him breathless with all the tension between us. I want to see his soul and make him feel weak and strong both at the same time. And then when I leave him, I want him to crave for us like no other.