Different Love Languages:

“….” by Emily Byrnes

“In a shaky voice, he said: bring me back to you, or bring me back to myself. don’t leave me standing in between.”

he sighs and whispers that he loves me.

every single wave in the river stopped to watch me blush and crashed again when he leaned in to kiss me. rippled once his lips met mine.

the deep blue reflects onto the sky, the mirror of my soul. I’m ready to drown in this moment. drown in him. our love washes over our names written in the sand

how you move me like the moon moves the waves. how you leave me breathless, like I’ve swam too far from the surface, lost in the blue of your eyes. how the riverbed of my heart crumbles when you touch me.

Artist Luo Li Rong

Rihanna arrives to the Guggenheim Museum to celebrate her new self-titled book in New York City (October 11, 2019)

my hair was wet and tangled, my clothes stuck to me like a second skin. your hands were reaching for me, desperate and frantic. but we’re laughing and splashing. you had dared me to jump into the lake and I had said, yes I’ll do it even if I can’t swim. what’s youth without a little death anyway? what’s life if we don’t test it’s limits? the lake was so cold but I loved feeling your body pull me from it. I loved knowing you’d always save me. I coughed and spluttered in between the giggles, shivering and shocked. you ask me if it hurts. it still does, my brown eyed boy. it still does.

and I think it always will.

“Don’t talk to me, please don’t talk to me. My words in the dream are like Hamlet’s ghost, the prophecy spurts old blood, one hundred Ophelias of thought have died. Don’t talk to me, please don’t talk to me.”

— Moikom Zeqo, from ‘Don’t Talk to Me’, I Don’t Believe in Ghosts: Poems from ‘Meduza’ (trans. Wayne Miller)

I write so much about ugly past relationships but you, you were something entirely different. what role I did I play in our pathetic little love scene, honey? was I the main love interest, or just an extra in your miserable play?

all those bus rides at night, sharing earphones and listening to pop punk, my head on your shoulder whilst I ignored the missed calls from my parents. it was so naive, all of it. so empty. the fairytale with a thousand plot holes: the unavailable prince, midnight but still in tattered boots and ripped jeans, no fireworks, no true love’s kiss. just pain. just so much pain.

you were so shallow and insincere, talking about some girl whilst your hand was on my knee. kissing me in the back so your friends wouldn’t see, saying that she was boring and I was just, so different. I knew it was just a line, a lie, but god, was I willing to play the role of the girl who’d change you.

all those nights spent holding your hair back as you threw up vodka and pills. all those days spent lying in the sun as you came down, trying to convince you that life was worth living. all those aching, violent emotions and clenched fists. no softness. a love like sandpaper, a love like drowning, a love like violence.

tousling my hair and spinning like a ballerina, dizzy and worn out but used to the merry go round. a puppet to play with when you grew bored. your manic pixie dream girl, directing your love story. your manic pixie dream girl, teaching you how to live. your manic pixie dream girl, banished from your life as soon as you didn’t need her.

I don’t believe that the love between eva and I is coincidence. in this big, big universe, we happened to be in the same classroom. she was the first person to teach me that I did not need to change in order to be loved and is quite literally the definition of a boundless, unconditional love. I’m very lucky. I think some sort of divine power sent her to me. how her smile still calms me, a year later. how beautiful and brimming with life she is. thank you evka. I’m not sure you’ll ever read this but you have my heart.

Let it Snow (2019)