high hopes

If I were to forget myself tomorrow, I hope the memory loss is so complete that I won’t be able to recognize the years on a person’s body - how it makes their hands feel, not soft but of interrupting ridges; how age is a visible ripple prolonged by time. I hope to never remember origins, to wake up in a place where I won’t recognize the one taking care of me is near death. Whether Death is taking him or if he is to act as a liaison for it, I just pray that there won’t be an inbred voice hissing, “This is not right.” 

It’s the only way, I imagine, that even evil can be pure. 

1:21 am  •  4 May 2013  •  2 notes

Only the gory bits. The dismembered limbs and segments of your body that remain in pieces, totally incomplete. Those are the parts of you that I love, like poloraid photographs shot aimlessly in the dark. Where I see your white nape, like the trunk emerging with leaves as a tree with brown leaves. Your hands, boney, veiled and hard, tapping against the keys of a piano or a wooden floor, make music more lovely than the sound of your voice. The expanse of your arms and the negative space around them controls my focus. I do everything in my power to memorize frozen images of you. To keep the separate, away from being whole.

2:12 am  •  26 April 2013  •  5 notes

under renovation, restricted access

He had followed her through a pitiful self-invitation and wondered why he was feeling like an outsider. It was her, Charlie and me, he thought, in that sentence itself, there was a conjunction and a dog in between them. Where did this idea come from? He trailed behind her as they hiked up a hill, wandering off path and into disrupted fields. She spoke to Charlie softly, whispering as if they were the only two there. And they kept going up hill, over rocky mountains and hills, but he couldn’t interrupt her. He felt like an intruder, and he continued to feel so as they reached the cliff, where his girlfriend paused, and without a word to him began screaming until her throat was raw.

The thought to ask her came to him on a morning like this:

She was slipping on a pair of raggedly sweats that did not flatter the legs he loved so much, the ones that made him feel proud whenever she wore skirts, but by the time she threw on her high school pullover, he found himself wondering why his girlfriend didn’t have better taste in workout clothes. He lifted himself up and watched as she bent down to release Charlie from his crate.

“Oh, you’re up early,” she turned around, a slight blush coating her cheeks as he watched her tug at the hem of her grey pullover. She kept her head down, retreating into the shape of a ball as she mumbled, mostly to Charlie, “We’re going for a run.”

He squinted at his phone. The light on the screen was brighter and bluer than the sky outside. “Jesus, it’s five in the morning… Come back to bed.”

Charlie was scraping at the door with urgency as his girlfriend chewed her lip. He noticed how big and bright her eyes were without makeup, and realized then that by the time he got out of bed she was usually already dolled up for the day. Right now, she looked younger, like a child who had gotten caught watching Saturday morning cartoons.

A piercing bark came from the ball of fur, and his girlfriend smiled weakly. “It’s alright, I’m up already. And he needs to pee.” She quickly crossed the room to kiss him on the cheek. “I’ll be back soon, okay?”

He slid back into the bed, nodding as she jogged out of the room, Charlie rushing right behind her with a happy tail. Parts of the bed, like where her body was, was still warm, and he settled onto her side, falling asleep while waiting for her to come back.

12:23 am  •  14 March 2013  •  1 note

cycle, repeat until dry.

Jamie woke up early in the morning, the same way she always did, with her glasses on her face and her laptop on her chest, which was not the way she slept. She could’ve sworn she had taken her glasses off, and left her laptop underneath her bed, but the bright flashes of online shopping under the private sessions of Safari, and a fully charged battery said otherwise. Without giving much thought, she swept everything off her body, adding it to the clusterfuck of washed and unwashed laundry under her blankets. 

She got ready the same way she always did: Brushing her teeth, washing her face and debating whether or not she had enough time to take a shower. By the time her debate was over, she decided there wasn’t enough time and so she sprinkled some baby powder in her hair, dusting it around until her hair was no longer grey. And she finished this ritual the same way she always did, wondering why the bags under her eyes were so grey when she had been sleeping so much. 

Jamie had an app for that. To keep track of her sleeping pattern. Every night around 10pm she would activate the app, turn her phone face down on the bed and crawl under the covers, shivering underneath all the dirty and clean clothes until she finally passed out from exhaustion and the cold. The app was supposed to graph the quality of her sleep. The more blue, the more REM sleep, the more green and orange, the more she was awake or in light sleep. And normally she would’ve been ecstatic to see chunks of blue, but normally she woke up with her glasses on her face and her laptop on her chest.

After her manager commented on her dismal appearance, Jamie found an online Yahoo answer that suggested recording her sleep. So that night, Jamie dug out an old webcam, and sat cross legged on the floor for hours, reading the manual and troubleshooting the damn thing until it was way past her usual hour of sleep.

Her eyes kept drifting shut, not in a heavy lidded sense, but in an overwhelming trance-like state where deep breaths unlocked a strange feeling of comfort that settled from her head to the soles of her feet. She let her eyes close for a second when her laptop let out a sharp “ping!”

Ping.

Ping.

Ping. Ping. Ping. Ping. Ping.

The sound continued incessantly, sometimes merging as one rapid chorus, as Jamie slowly made her way towards the offending machine. She rubbed her eyes, squinting past the bright screen to see flashes of conversations popping up. The ringing kept going, and the popups would flicker in time with the sound, expanding across her screen faster than her laptop could register them. It wasn’t until a good minute later that everything settled down, and when it did, Jamie found herself looking at her reflection on a webcam with a live stream of lewd messages underneath, telling her they were ready to “fill her” loneliness.

8:50 pm  •  26 February 2013  •  4 notes

The part you are now reading is not a fictionalized event of my assumptions.

my father’s reading room

I led him, not by the hand as I imagined so many times that I would’ve, but by putting one foot forward and keeping as closely ahead of him as possible. I knew I was beyond nervous - any girl would’ve been - in such a tiny corridor coated in a warm amber glow, the idea of getting caught made my breath shallow and loud, like a tornado blowing through my already asthmatic prone respiratory system. My hands shook so much that the candle flickered and the wax kept threatening to spill over my skeletal hands. I felt his body come in, blocking the wind, and suddenly I became so hyper aware that I eventually just held my breath and charged ahead. I must’ve been too fast because he cried, “Hey, wait up!”

“Sh!” I hissed harshly. Although my voice was naturally much softer than Tony’s, the sharp look on my face must’ve got to him because for a second his eyes were frozen and so blue and then they quickly mellowed into the beginnings of a smile. He was grinning widely, and I felt like the greatest treasure in the world, greater than what we were about to discover. I couldn’t help my squeaky protest, “What…” 

“Nothing. Keep going.”

He gave me a little push at the small of my back. I still remember how his hand felt against my body. Even though I’m not much of a rock, and I’m definitely not a pushover, there was something in the way Tony spoke and the way he paid attention to me, that made my breaths shallow. His presence was like warm hands working at drying clay, bringing my voice back to malleable material.

We eventually got to my father’s reading room without making too much noise. I blew out the candle before opening the door, a crack just enough for me to slip inside without making the floors creak. Despite Tony’s thin frame, he was caused the wood to groan with hunger. Even on his tip toes, I thought the room was going to bottom out and fall through.

As soon as the door closed, I whispered, “Help me find the light switch, it’s along the wall, near the door.. somewhere.” I started gliding my hands along the door frame, giving the wall a thorough feel-up when I found the switch and flipped it up. The brightness shot through the dark and blinded me for a second before my eyes readjusted themselves. That’s when I saw something even more beautiful than the sight of books and collected dust. It was the sight of someone else enjoying it, in awe of it… the sight of someone who made me breathless falling in love with the sight of the things I loved too.

3:11 am  •  20 February 2013  •  2 notes

Two years, almost three. Things aren’t that much different with how I feel, except I’m starting to understand what you’ve done to me and more. And more, as time goes, you somehow get closer and closer like cold fire - a cold burn that stings and leaves red welts. Like the effects of long overdue poison, where the pain swallows me as deep as loneliness. Or it could be an aphrodisiac at the prospect of it happening all over again. Or more accurately, like the growth of a tree - where suddenly, two years later, almost three, - you have taken root so deeply, that every fruit I’ve eaten has been bitter in comparison. It’s like I’m chasing apples when what I want are strawberries - and the apples, they are never sweet.

Not unless they can taste of you, which they never do.

11:44 pm  •  24 January 2013  •  8 notes

a jar

In my mind, I think: “I am a cucumber. I am a cucumber. I am a cucumber.” A cucumber in a jar, soaked in vinegar as my wrinkly skin presses against the glass, watching the green residue float about. I didn’t know, I think as I watch the world outside live carefree, bruised and battered, their skin imperfect with scratches and scars. I didn’t know it’d be worse to stay inside, a preserved virgin, an uptight, stiff prick. Opening the jar took more strength than I thought, maybe it was the rust, maybe it was time, or maybe I was a weakling. As the scent of pickled vinegar hit my nose, I looked at the disappearing expiry date and figured the pickles were still good. Except they weren’t. They were tangy, sour and salty, making me thirsty for something more refreshing, and making me sad. 

1:38 am  •  28 November 2012  •  2 notes

even though

I was on a pseudo-date, a meeting under the pretense of friendship, masking the scarred loneliness that had been digging at my lungs ever since I realized how much time passed since I had last been loved. When he sipped, I thought of you in your drunken slumber, your drunken slur, hand on my shoulder and how you were too afraid to kiss me so I got a hug. He was speaking about the music he was writing, and I mentioned how I had a friend who was now on tour, traveling the world and playing music to thousands of people. He said that was cool, but didn’t indulge in my desire to talk about you more. He talked about how he loved cats, and I told him the story of how you and your mother captured and domesticated strays as a hobby. “I can’t top that,” he replied, chuckling awkwardly after I agreed. Somehow I managed to maintain a conversation, even though you came up at the end of every sentence, masked as different friends, acquaintances, or colleagues. Like a choked up afterthought that had been wanting to get out all night. And as we parted ways, without much of an effort to exchange numbers, I realized I had forgotten his name. I had been thinking of you the whole time. I had been drinking with my memories.

6:40 am  •  21 November 2012  •  11 notes

favourite thing to do

His favourite thing to do was burn dandelions. It was like burning wishes, a firecracker sensation without the sound, because when all your hopes and dreams fail, you won’t even notice. At least not until it’s too late and there’s not even a seed of hope left to grow weeds with. 

(Source: we-came-sleeping, via junecar)

7:50 am  •  26 October 2012  •  43 notes

white blank page

I am just thinking of you and the things I could make you do. I have a white blank page that’s for me to use. I could rewrite our story. I could. But the right letter combination won’t come to me. All I have about us is a white blank page. 

11:28 pm  •  12 October 2012  •  2 notes

we need to talk. 

We need to talk about that last night we met and why these feelings still churn in my stomach like separation anxiety, which is like the thought of being left alone on an island of strangers, of potential cannibals, of not knowing whether or not I prefer to live on without you… or just die.

We need to talk about how it’s colder during the nights like I’m in a glass cage of ghosts, how I find it hard to breathe when I think of you, like there are rocks in my lungs, weighing them down, weighing my chest down and I have to straighten my back in order to breathe.

We need to talk about my drinking problem, about when I caved in to buying my own bottle of liquor on our first year anniversary of my first kiss, and how come I only remember you when I am sad or in a haze. We need to talk about how every man I come across is a sliver in comparison to you, and how every girl you encounter feels like a monument compared to me. How you were the first to make me feel beautiful without making me feel uncomfortable. And how every guy after you who that reads this will think it’s about him; how you’ll never know that these words are about you. 

But before we talk about how we need to talk, when we meet for the first time again, we need to talk about how we don’t talk at all. 

5:12 am  •  8 October 2012  •  9 notes

Your happiness and your future do not go hand in hand, but your sadness and your past will wrap their arms around each other like lovers you remember.

7:12 am  •  28 September 2012  •  30 notes

once upon a time

“He caught this girl masturbating at church. She was wearing oversized grey sweats and a huge red hoodie, a combination that made her look wider than she really was. There was an abyss between them, and the glazed look on her eye told him that he was barely in the corner of her eye, even though he sat right next to her with a head of fire.

In the middle of service, she gave an exhilarating sigh that he was sure only he caught. As her hand barely withdrew, he invaded her line of sight and whispered in her ear, “I know what you’re doing.” And started to pray for her, not invasively, not pretentious, but earnestly like he was praying for the hole in his heart to be fixed.” 

6:32 am  •  25 September 2012  •  6 notes

between two people

I whisper in his ear while he’s sleeping, and just in case he can hear me, I let the words blow over like a warm summer breeze. It tickles him and he shifts slightly - away, the direction I note as the one we’ll eventually take from each other. I lay back down and try to go back to sleep, but there’s a reason my eyes opened in the middle of the night. Even after exhausting, obligatory-I-love-you-sex, done to make him happy, done in hopes that we would sleep securely entangled in each other, like padlocked gate, I couldn’t sleep. 

“I can’t make the people around you happy,” I had said. And the words are still echoing in my head after the secret confession. They are louder in the dead of the night, where I can hear my own ears ringing. Sitting up, feeling the bed shift and force gravity to pull him towards me, and looking at the sleeping boy, I suddenly realize who I felt like. What I felt like since I saw his sister giggle at the mention of another girl’s name.  

I felt like a mistress. A prostitute. A girl on the side, destined to make a boy learn what it’s like to be living, to teach him what it means to be happy before he matures. The kind of girl that wouldn’t make his friends and sister jump up and down to welcome into their circle. I would always be the outsider in a wallflower relationship. I am the kind of girl that parents would say, “Not exactly marriage material, but if you love her.” The same kind of girl who moved like the waves, crashing and retreating at her own pace and so unfit for forever.

When I was younger, romantics taught me that love is just between two people. I look down and smooth my hand over the wrinkled bedsheets that lie in between us. I hit a spring and the bed whines, reminding the sleeping boy where I am on the bed. He doesn’t need to look, he simply reaches and finds me like it’s second nature and pulls me close. As I lie down, he pulls me as close as he can, so there is nothing between us, not even the sheets. I feel his warm, soft body rest against me, and I push back into the cave of comfort when there’s a pressure against my lower back. On any other day, it would’ve been funny, but tonight, the feeling of his soft dick only makes me feel somewhat sad.

7:07 am  •  12 September 2012  •  18 notes

different expressions of affection at 3am

i love you

i love u

i luv u

i luv you

i ♥ u

i ♡ u

i <3 you

i <3 u

 you, u 

you.

that is all.

10:39 am  •  9 September 2012  •  2 notes