Plant A Seed, Drop A Secret In The Soil, Name Her After Someone You Love.

lavender kisses, sunshine eyes and tight hugs. heaven takes the shape of a boy with blonde hair, long legs and clumsy words. he’s got a smile as soft as his heart. smells like cinnamon and sugar. he’s so sweet in and out and i can’t think about him and not smile, can’t write about him without blushing. his name next to mine still makes my heart skip a beat.

I can’t wait to hug you and see you again. I miss you.

coffee, the sunrise and the buildings awash in the light of a new morning all around me. how lovely is it to be alive. to experience all this busyness and splendour. how the clouds whisper good morning and the heavens themselves shine through each crack in the sky. how the sun calls my body to wake. how the birds tell me today is a new day and aren’t there just endless possibilities. the promise of a new sunrise makes me so glad I’m still alive.

Hozier, ‘Cherry Wine’

[Text ID: “I’m all but washed In the tide of her breathing.”]

Forough Farrokhzad, from Another Birth: Selected Poems of F. F.; “In The Dark,”

Leonard Cohen, from Parasites of Heaven

My name is I LOVE YOU and all of this is so new and bright. How lovely it is to have you, sunshine, after all this rain! Heaven lies at your feet and the sunrise breaks in your eyes. You are hot flashes and lightning. How the warmth in your palms cuts down my mountain of empty. How I call this love. How I call this wanting. 

My name is HOT, my name is SEXY, my name is I-REALLY-WANT-FUCK-YOU and that’s a compliment, right? You wrap your arms around my waist and murmur it under your breath. I let your maggot-filled observations wriggle into the blackening wound in my chest. Call it healing, call it medicine, and call it I’m-going-to-be-okay. My name is GIRLFRIEND now, my name is SWEETNESS, and my name is PERFECT. 

My name is BABY and I am lying on the floor. The pain, the bloodstains and the harsh light, your body over mine and my name is NO. My name is STOP. My name is PLEASE SLOW DOWN. My name is I JUST WANTED A HUG. I am a shell of whatever I used to be- nothing more, nothing less. Let this be a funeral for whatever innocence I had left. Let this be my goodbye, my I-swear-I’ll-be-fine. 

My name is blood and pain and baby-let’s-never-talk-about-this-again.

My name is N****. My name is BLACK. My name is AFRICAN and I flinch at your awful words. Your father will never know my name, and your mother will never judge me over dinner. I am dirt. I will never be your perfect, goodly, godly girl. I am too brown to really mean anything. There are no riches here. Nothing grows here. The earth is hungry here. 

My name is DAMAGED GOODS and I wonder how you could ever love a girl like me. You say it over the phone, your tongue lashing from between your teeth. I listen for the love in your voice like a paramedic listens for breath. I hear nothing. It is dead. My name is UNLOVABLE. My name is WHY DO YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO DO THIS. All that blood pumping and rushing in my veins are only my own. 

My name is I AM SORRY. All those apologies spill over the floor like an overturned drink. You watch me clean it all up, Mary Magdalene at your feet. Retribution for whatever sin I take on next. 

My name is CRAZY. Everything is my fault and none of it is yours. I agree, my lungs bloodletting as I wonder how you are so perfect. I betrayed my own body, my own soul for this and for you. Lover, call this a suicide. Watch how I gag on all this blame, and choke. Watch me and grin. My name is GOOD GIRL. My name is I FORGIVE YOU. My name is OBEDIENCE. My name is I LOVE YOU LIKE THIS.

I learn to be frightened of you like plants learn to be frightened of gravel. My name is STUPID and WOMEN LIKE YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR PLACE. My name is SHUT UP. My name is DECLINED CALLS. My name is I DON’T LOVE YOU ANYMORE. 

My name is IT WILL GET BETTER but I face the wall with my music turned up high, the rotting memories crawling up my throat like spiders. I still see you in the corner of my eye. 

My name is ___________________________________

I can’t remember who I was before this

I can’t remember who I was before you.

I loved you and then I didn’t and then I realised how wrong we were. I realised that your hands had not been welcome here and that even when I locked the door, you found a way to kick it open. I loved you and then I didn’t and then I realised I never knew what love was. all those terrifying memories that still feel too close and raw. memories that don’t feel like they belong to me. my therapist calls it abuse and I still don’t know if it actually was or if I’m just crazy and emotional like you said I was. I loved you and then I didn’t and then I was too sad to remember that my body isn’t a graveyard and things will be okay and I’ll never forget you or the things you did but I will move on. all those mornings spent in tears, the heart palpitations that were too urgent to feel like butterflies. your knuckles and the dark and then blinding light and then I have to explain away the bruises again to my mother. I loved you and you said you did too but you don’t hurt the ones you love. you don’t hurt the ones you love. I still loved you even when you did and I still don’t know if it was my fault or not.

I cup my hands around all the sweet things in the world to try and taste some form of optimism, some form of “it’ll be okay”. I’ve been feeling low and bogged down by all the hatred in the news. These days it feels like all the sweetness falls right between my fingertips, like sand. The world is such an overwhelming, cruel place that it’s awfully hard to remember the good things. The love, laughter and tiny mementos of goodness in everyday life fades under the screech of death, hate and pain. please hug your lover tighter today. please call your mother and believe her when she says it’ll all be alright. please remember that beautiful things still exist, even when the world is anything but.