Every-perfect-summer

“It is so much safer not to feel, not to let the world touch me.”

— Sylvia Plath

So I attach myself to people who are not those who are long gone or those who were never here and I listen to bands whose members are dead and movies that no one else watched and I talk to characters from books and stories and tell of my sorrows to the words for they don’t come to me telling me to be someone I’m not expecting me to do things I’m not capable of

this unexplainable urge for a life i've never had, will never have. for a life so far from mine, it doesn't even know i exist. and yet, the yearning. oh the yearning, what do i do with it?

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.

'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 9

9:43 p. m.

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)

day 14

11:11 p. m.

the words escape me tonight. stranger reading this, won't you forgive me tonight? i have no words for you. but do you even listen? do you even read?

i feel like radio... except radio had someone listening to them. radio had frances and february and thousands listening to them. who do i have? does my voice even exist?

day 2

9:19 a. m.

one of these days, you're gonna get used to being the last to walk up those stairs at night and the first to walk down them in the morning. that weird morning haze won't look so unfamiliar to your eyes. that first buzz of electricity won't sound so ominous. you won't need to blast lorde at full volume to drown out the silence. but not today. not so soon.

maybe being strong is all about pretending. i can't think of it otherwise. how else do they hold each other up? how else do i look you in the eye and tell you it'll be alright?

reminder to self: just accept that alarms aren't for you. and maybe... just maybe, crying to lorde isn't such a bad idea.

day 19

9:58 p. m.

this ends for us today, stranger. for i loved you, but i hated this too.

you came back today. you asked if i forgot to laugh while you were away. maybe i did. but i won't tell you. you asked how long it's been since you left and i pretended i hadn't been counting each day, writing out all these days to make their passing a little more bearable. but you're here now. it's going to be okay.

to the stranger reading this, i'm glad you were here. glad i wasn't alone. but here is where we part. for now.

goodbye