When Taylor Swift Said “everybody Wants You Everybody Wonders What It Would Be Like To Love You”

My first heartbreak

“If you love a flower, don’t pick it. Because if you pick it up it dies and it ceases to be what you love. So if you love a flower, let it be. Love is not about possession. Love is about appreciation.”

— Osho

you and i, we share the same color palette.

There's a sort of goodbye that comes with 17.

All questions of 'who do you want to be when you grow up' turn to 'who are you becoming now?' 17 is young, 17 is old. It's everything you wanted. It's everything you despised. It's messy and ruthless and full of grief at times. And 17 is scary as hell because now you know that you finally have to say goodbye to childhood.

-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The Flesh I Burned (source)

it's a different kind of intimacy when you can tell that someone isn't feeling well while they're doing everything to hide their sadness. they become so familiar, you know their inside so well that their pain is seen by you, and most importantly safe with you

This is why it hurts the way it hurts. You have too many words in your head. There are too many ways to describe the way you feel. You will never have the luxury of a dull ache. You must suffer through the intricacy of feeling too much.

- Iain Thomas, I Wrote This For You and Only You

As I kid, I wanted to be a savior, trailblazer, the prophecy child. I wanted a big life, with ups and ups like the breasts of mountains and lows like the depths of valleys full of forgotten debris. I was convinced the great flood was knocking at my door, beckoning me to become someone bigger. A juvenile fantasy, a hazy dream.

I'm 19 now. It's not a grand big life, I'm no hero. I love my friends and sunday mornings. I like cats and strawberries. No flood, no rapture, no calamity- just quiet weekdays and sleepy weekends. But oh my days, I am full, finally.

-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The Flesh I Burned

"Was he your soulmate?"

She stared at me for a while, then smiled.

"That's just a word." She laughs.

"I think we loved each other with the kind of love that lasts lifetimes. But I loved many people with different kinds of love that would last lifetimes. We had our time and we lived a beautiful life. Is that enough to become a soulmate? I don't know.

"I guess that's it. You love someone in the moment, and you make more of them and then you hope those moments will last forever, knowing that they won't. So you gather those moments in your memory, hold them close and cherish them and make new ones."

-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The Flesh I Burned

(source)

— Speaking Tree, Joy Harjo

[text ID: I carry a yearning I cannot bear alone in the dark—]

I say I'm okay and I am okay.. but some evenings I barely move from the chair and some mornings I skip breakfast and don't open your texts. I say I'm okay and I am okay but some nights my hands shake when I think of getting up the next morning.

-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from Elle took a knife and carved her thighs