#inkstay

a year ago, i would have died for certain people.. a year later, most of them are dead to me.

Are you living or are you just jumping from one obsession to the other to run away from yourself?

Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.

look, love is not something we wind up, something we set or control. love is just like art: a force that comes into our lives without any rules, expectations or limitations. love like art, must always be free.

we’re sitting on a balcony on a summer night, and you’re trying to light a cigarette despite the breeze. i cup the flame and in that moment, you look more vulnerable than i’ve ever seen you. 

you blink away tears, pick up a bottle to take a swig and hand it to me, let your body slide onto the ground and ask me to join you. place your head on my shoulder and ask me why we can’t just be happy like this. just the two of us running wild around the city.

you hum that line about party girls never getting hurt. it’s the closest i’ve ever felt to you. it’s also the furthest i’ve ever felt from you. i almost open my mouth, almost tell you how i nearly died the last time i was in your room, almost tell you about how i nearly gave up on my life on your birthday. 

but this friendship feels like a blood pact, one that i signed when i was somebody else. a version of myself that i stepped out of when i started to suffocate. when words started to slip out from underneath my fingernails, from the laughter lines on my face, from within my rib-cage.

there was no more space for the version of me that was too messy too intense too real too much. party girls walk barefoot on glass and do not flinch, and i think i was tired of the bleeding. 

you entwine your pinky with mine and make me promise that i’ll save my last dance for you. just for the night, i do.

they say love in an acceptable form of insanity but i am tired of losing my mind for you. 

tired of waiting in the rain for you. 

tired of walking through traffic blindly and laughing laughing laughing because my heart is stuck in my throat and i’m trying to get it out. 

tired of sitting on bathroom floors trying to convince myself not to call you, of trying to find pieces of myself after i gave you everything. 

i think i pricked myself on the edges of my smile, on the memory of a kiss, on all the shitty poems i wrote for you.

i don’t want to dance by myself and still feel your hands around my waist. i want to tear down every monument to us, i want to be too sharp for this tenderness, they always said softness never suited me anyway. 

i would rather be stumbling in stilettos than tripping over your promises. i wanna taste whiskey instead of your name on the tip on my tongue, wanna bite down on ice and bite back my words, 

they used to call me ice queen for a reason, honey, and i am tired of letting you melt me down.

for the hours spent getting ready before a party / best friend holding my face to the light trying to perfect my liner / tripping over our feet trying to get into our jeans / complaining about how our clothes look better on each other / shimmying to a rap song / using a tequila bottle as a mic and rapping the chorus perfectly / it is so easy to roll your eyes at the makeover montage in movies / at this glossy version of girlhood / laughing off the spilled nail-polish and smudged lipstick / but there’s something healing about the experience / something calming about having a formula for dealing with heartbreak

today, i am ready to bear this all-or-nothing love. 

i’m ready to close my eyes and plunge into the world, to wander into tiny restaurants and hitchhike and sing on top of hills like a fucking cliché. 

i’m ready to believe in kindness and safety in vulnerability. 

there will be no hurt, no curling inwards, no bitter taste of regret on my tongue. just reaching outwards, giving everything this body can contain and knowing there’s something out there in return. 

believing that if i offer my hands, palms facing upwards, no daggers up my sleeve, maybe i can hold something beautiful in them. 

just for today, i am ready to let myself feel this ridiculous. ready to hold hope in my mouth, to flash my teeth while grinning and let you see it. 

i wish you lazy days full of dancing to your favorite songs with no noise complaints from the neighbours.

i wish lots of cheesecake for you. and sliding on floors in fuzzy socks. hugs that last longer than 15 seconds and aren’t awkward. quiet hours spent in a tiny café. books that have notes hidden from previous owners within the pages.

flowers. sunflowers to match your ridiculously sunny disposition.

i wish you empty seats on the bus. a perfect apple in the grocery store. running into puppies every time you take a walk around the neighbourhood.

good hair days and good lighting to match. opportunities to make puns that are so bad they’re good. rainy days when you want to jump in puddles.

i wish you happy tears. so much that joy that you almost can’t believe it

today, i wake up wearing an old band t-shirt and i’m sixteen again / pulling jumper sleeves over my palms / keeping my eyes on my feet / earphones in / willing myself invisible / refusing to step out of changing rooms in anything that clings to my skin / flinching from mirrors and cameras / nobody wants to stay too long at the beginning of a cinderella story / before the lenses and makeup and hair-flipping confidence / before the boys who call you a frigid bitch for expressing an opinion start to slide into your DMs / saying “hey, you seem cool, i’d love to hear you talk about feminism.” / but they’d love get you drunk first / love to get funny girl / cool girl / beer-pong and dancing on tables and witty comebacks / always-slipping-out-of-your-hands / let’s-tame-this-shrew-wild-girl / like yeah give this girl a stage but stop her if she makes you uncomfortable / we like a damsel-in-distress, big-blinking-eyes-trophy-wife / not the girl who stood in between her best friend and the ones who mocked her for her body / not the girl with bloodied lips instead of red lipstick / grinning, saying, “you’re going to have to go through me.” / nobody likes an ugly girl with a mouth full of words / so you learn to swallow them / be prettier, shinier, smoother / show them a piece of glass instead of dagger / lie in wait to turn the tables because you still remember / what it’s like to be sixteen and forced to look at your body as a liability / what it’s like to be sixteen and told your anger is embarrassing / just another teenage phase

i stepped on my own throat trying to keep the words in / trying to keep everyone happy / my best friend tells me i need to apologize to my own body / i am sorry / for the bruises / for the bitten tongue / for the bleeding lips / for folding myself small enough to fit into everyone’s expectations / for keeping my voice locked up in pandora’s box / for being embarrassed by own emotions / for saying that my poetry is too intense for public consumption / for likening myself to atlas and still being ready to carry another / the route to forgiving yourself is never easy when you’ve learned to dance on eggshells / where one small mistake leaves the loudest echo / see, everyone preaches self-love but they never mention forgiveness / they talk of bath bombs and ice-cream but never how to wake up and be ready to face yourself / the ugly human mess of it all / how to uncurl your fists to find something left in your hands after you left all the crumbs behind you / how to access the words you’ve repeated to everyone else and make them sound true to you / how to paint your skies and not despair when you’ve run out of golden hues / how to say, “okay. this is less than perfect. but i’ll work with it.”

i always bring a knife to the gunfight, maybe this time i’ll switch it up. 

bring flowers instead. wear a backless dress instead of body-armor. tie a ribbon around my neck so i can pretend it’s an act of intimacy when you touch my neck. 

if you want to see my teeth, there’s enough bite in my kisses. i’m no good at fighting but i can love you till you’re breathless. are you brave enough to look at all this longing? stand in front of the light without covering your eyes? 

if you’re going to rip my heart out, you might just burn your hands while you’re at it. 

ciara, i couldn’t keep juggling knives because i kept nicking my fingers, kept bleeding over your pretty white floors. i think i’m better at catching bullets between my teeth but you think there’s something impersonal about guns. besides, you can’t risk losing an assistant, those are hard to come by. 

you could saw me in half if you wanted to. i promise i’d lay there and smile at the audience, wink at them like they’re in on the secret. like they can feel your fingers on the back of their heads, gently holding them in place as your other hand presses down. 

i’d disappear with a snap of your fingers, reappear when you want me to. stand on the other side of a mirror and place my hands against the glass, until you deem me worthy of being pulled onto the stage with you. 

i’ll levitate, graze the ceiling with the tips of my fingers as if searching for the sun. i’d turn insubstantial if it means you’ll just look at me. 

ciara, i could try my best to be the perfect illusion for you. 

i don’t know a lot about love, but i knew i loved you from the moment i started checking your horoscope before mine.

When they ask why you stayed, you think about all the other women who did.

The ones who keep smiling with split lips. The ones who grew up thinking that if they just loved the beast hard enough, he’d become a prince.

And god, wasn’t there something in him that struck you as worth saving.

Like when you slammed the door shut between the two of you, and he knocked on it and asked you to come out and see the sun set. Held your hand when you gave it to him. Kissed the knuckles you’d bit down on hoping to stifle sobs.

Or when you told him you never wanted to talk to him again, and he showed up with flowers outside your window.

And hadn’t you grown up thinking this was what love was? Being chased by somebody who was convinced you were perfect for each other? That all you had to do was brush the ugliness under the carpet to have a happy ending.

He tells you that there is nobody else in the world who would believe in him, and you believe this too. Just because it means he needs you. Even if he doesn’t tell you. You’re the girl whose arms he comes running back to at the end of it all, and that’s what they said romance was all about. Somebody whose arms feel like home. Where you stay, even if the house starts burning and he’s the one who lit the match.

He holds you in his arms as you sway amongst the flames, strokes your hair and tells you it will all be alright. You rest your head on his shoulder, listen to his voice like it is your favorite lullaby. It’s what calmed you down when you were a child. You’d like to think he’s here to rescue you from the monsters but somewhere along the way, you realized that maybe his arms are more cage than means of escape.

The narrative isn’t perfect that way, so you try your best to play your part. Play the right song, wear the right dress, laugh the right way. Keep your hands around him and your eyes on the window.

You waited for the story to change.

you’re always giving your love out at street corners and still have more than enough to share. i ask you how you lug around that stupid kind of love. you tell me it’s as easy as turning cartwheels, which means only easy for those who’ve practiced.

the singer croons about being everything her lover dreads as you spin me around on the dance-floor. 

i want to laugh because i do know what it feels like to terrify. 

to be the phantom under your floor, to leave you with widened eyes and a sinking feeling in your chest.

to leave a messy heart on your doorstep, like the carcass of a small animal your cat dragged in. like some kind of disgusting gift you accept with a grimace and throw out with the trash, with the wilting flowers and painstakingly picked-out pretty words. 

come on, darling, let me slide off this mask.

this smile is chipping and i’m leaving behind paint flecks like breadcrumbs.

will you follow me into the woods? 

let me place my fingers on the side of your face, make you stare at what is awful. 

does this scare you?

do you love this?

does it scare you that you know you do?

it is so easy, to make a monster out of somebody who is ugly.

girl goes to rock show / bows her head / raises her arms / whispers lyrics under her breath / sways back and forth in rapture / a stage is all an angry girl can pray to / a godless girl / a tired girl who will go out fighting / dance past the knives flung at her / dance on the edge with bleeding feet / dance with smoke in her lungs / throwing back her hair / grinning the smile of somebody who’s bitten off more than she can chew / knowing she’d rather grit her teeth / bite her lips / keep it in rather than spitting it out / girl in a stand-off / her back to the wall / says “bring it on” / jumps and is suspended in the air for a moment / flying for a moment / lights shining off her / like someone stepping out of the pages of a comic book / invincible / unbroken / free

* serendipity *

unexpectedly,

your heart found my own

breathing life into every fiber

pulling me into you

my soul kissing yours

the entire universe was placed on pause

just so the stars

could bring your love to me

we don’t need to know why, do we?

somewhere between the water and the dry land, there is a pulse which echoes you and I.

even if a thousand years of separation would pass, I would still feel you.

cradling fate, embracing destiny

you, you’re my favorite everything

© ScriptedSilence. All rights reserved

* one more day *

I do not know how you pull me in, you just do.

so much myself with you, my soul aches

swallowing me like honey

slow with intent

savoring euphoria upon the tongue

painting stars upon my skin

a constant flow spilling into the heart

deeper and deeper than the day before

transcending all reason, distance and time

staining my insides.

burning you across my rib-cage. leaving you as a masterpiece buried in my bones. tattooed into my skeleton

strawberries and cream coated sunset

echoing intense craving of silent thunder

overpowering red ripples of fear and unknown lightning strikes

we are embers of the same fire, we are rain droplets in the same wave

my love will breathe into you until the end of time,

and still…one more day

© ScriptedSilence. All rights reserved

* first breath *

you’re my first breath in the morning,

eyes still closed

I hear you

your whispered words stroke my soul

arms fully wrapped

holding me tight

now,

a bit tighter

tracing goosebump stars upon my heart

skin-excite

please, don’t stop

nuzzle my neck, bite my shoulder

watch as your name falls from my lips

my tongue trailing the length of you

kissing you until every secret is scattered upon your flesh

piece by piece

you’ve awakened my dead portions

consistently painting each layer with your beauty and tenderness

Instinctively,

falling into you deeper and deeper

like an effortless intake of breath

your passion and intensity

dance

under my skin

reminding my heart

it is so full of you,

so full

I can no longer call it my own

© ScriptedSilence. All rights reserved

I like it when someone shows you how much they adore you. Yes, you may have told me before but I would always love to listen to it from you that I’m yours and you care about me. I like it when you don’t just say it but when you make me feel it too. Today, I loved it when you said we didn’t talk much all day and so you wanted to talk before you fall asleep. I liked it when you asked me if you should call me and you asked me thrice. The repetition is nice. You finally called. I didn’t answer because I was crying. You called again and I picked up. I had to smile and wipe those tears because your voice finally reached my ears.

I needed it today- to know that I matter, and someone waits to spend time with me. I forget that I deserve love. Please never stop reminding me.

@sparkandashes

words laden with emotions,
too heavy to spill;
heavier to consume,
yet i carry the storm
and silence- i choose.
@sparkandashes

It’s a scary night…
no, there aren’t ghosts around.
You’re not here, and the darkness
of your absence surrounds.

@sparkandashes