Day 15

something something going through the streets of the town my mother grew up in. she grew up here. she was a child here. i am no longer a child. time passes so quickly. stuck in the traffic here, time doesn't seem to be passing at all. i hope the journey takes forever. i hope we never reach. it won't be the same as last time. this town was never mine so why does it still feel like home. one day, I'll come here for the last time. how will i gather everything in my little suitcase? all that sweetness, it turns sour when you take it back.

i would like to live a small life with a small love. which is not to say it will be less. it will be all that we need. nothing too big for the world to see, just ours. no grand promises of forever. but holding you through the night will be enough.

day 1

8:44 a. m.

for all they say about death, about pain, time seems to move relatively fast when you're not paying attention to it. the last conversations, the last pictures... what to do with them now? now, when this pain doesn't even make sense.

reminder to self: playing lorde on repeat only makes you cry in your coffee and crying gives you a headache. don't do that. also next time, try more than 10 alarms in a row. that might help.

day 5

6:49 p. m.

maybe it really is that easy to get over stuff. or maybe it's just doing everything you can so you don't have to think about it. denial. ignorance. or pain. who knows which one is better. i don't want to find out that answer.

day 16

10:40 p. m.

songs from a time forgotten. my poems in a language you'll never understand. our fingers never touch. there was a promise once. of a day meant to be spent together. a promise to never let go. maybe you gave it to someone else. maybe you always knew i was going to break it.

(and yes, i do remember another promise. to myself. to never spend any more of my words on you. i try. but maybe that's how i keep all my promises)

'i would like to step out of my heart

and go walking beneath the enormous sky

i would like to pray'

i have been strangers with my words for a while now. my words, the ones that helped me let go of my pain, helped me breathe. but some things you can't let go of. you can only bury them so deep in that you won't ever have to think about them again.

some days, i think i would be alright if everyone i've ever loved, ever held close to my heart would leave me. i tell myself it wouldn't hurt. that it would be for the best. some days, i forget how my heart feels everything too much, how it can't help but hurt.

i look back at the past few months and i try to detach myself from the pain, the grief. i would go for days and weeks without thinking about it, without shedding a tear. until one day, a random thought, a reminder, a realization. they're gone. and it would hit all over again. a blinding pain that leaves me gasping for breath.

when i was a child, i would pray to god to take my pain away. it didn't make sense for me to have to feel all that. god never did, and i am no longer a child. i haven't prayed in a very long time, it makes me angry.

when grief comes knocking at my door, i turn the volume up and pretend i don't hear. i pretend it's fine until the walls start to crumble around me and grief barges in through the broken door. it holds my face in it's hands, looks into the eyes that refuse to shed it's tears and tells me, "it won't be the end of the world if you feel"

maybe not the world, but it would be my end. for how will i ever stop, once i start?

day 17

11:11 p. m.

i can almost feel it coming... but not now. not yet. i can't... talk about it. i won't.

but sending out these words feels good. keeping them in between the pages suffocates them. but there's something cathartic about sending them out into the world and knowing they're gonna be invisible. i just hope it's enough.

day 10

10:59 p. m.

my hearts yearns for something it has never had. something it's not even sure exists. it searches and searches. in songs in languages it doesn't yet know and in people's last words. in stories written ages ago. in sunsets and stars long dead. i don't know what it wishes for. perhaps a way out of this world. dear heart, where would you like to go? dear heart, will you be happy there?

24 september

3 years and i forget your voice and i forget the date and i forget what it was like to be fed by your hand and why do i only have one picture to remember what you looked like? maybe i'm an awful person and i don't deserve this grief but i remember the house and i remember how you smelled and i remember what your hand felt like on mine. and i'm sorry i forgot.

so many homes, so many goodbyes. where do i stay. where do i leave. i leave and i long. i run away until the road ends and then some more. too long, too far. i never want to leave anywhere. and then, everywhere. but is it really a tragedy, to have so much to love. so much to lose.