play pretend

I had to sleep with you every night so I wouldn’t be alone with my thoughts

Together, we would pretend
to be happy, fun, and deep
until your breath softened and I knew you were asleep

Your life felt so happy, so calm
I kept myself too busy to think for too long

Maybe it was real
to some degree
but we had no real responsibility

Our love was summer camp
Pretend playing the people we wanted to be
It wasn’t reality

but you really did love me

If I had asked, would you have stayed with me?

//

I can’t see you being in my life again
but I’m so grateful you were then

post-call from Recoleta

you said you loved me because we were about to hang up and it was something you felt like you should do. because we always do. 

whether or not it felt true

I know you still meant it

because of words exchanged
ages ago, what feels like so far away

that’s why they say it’s hard
that’s why they call it faith

I tell myself that I just have to breathe
& that I believe 
that you’re not gonna leave

isn’t it wild how the hardest thing 
is just trusting 
that you love me, no matter what 
whether or not I think deserve your love

// what’s love gotta do with it, when I don’t love myself?

 

fear

“I’d spent my life believing that people were, at heart, kind and good. This is what the world had shown me. But I couldn’t find anything good about my captors. If humans could be this monstrous, maybe I’d had everything wrong. If this was the world, I didn’t want to live in it. That was the scariest and most disabling thought of all.”

– Amanda Lindhout, A House in the Sky.

You asked me what I was afraid of
I said I didn’t know
because I was afraid of answering

afraid of feeling my own fear
because I am scared, and that scares me

I’m so scared that everything I hold to be real isn’t true. I’m scared that people aren’t fundamentally good. I’m scared that we have no purpose and no importance. I’m scared that it’s all an illusion created by chemical pathways and it will mean nothing at the end. I’m scared of being alone and having nothing to do, nowhere to go, no one. I’m scared that nothing I do really matters. I’m scared that I’m not special, that nothing I feel is real or unique or important, it’s all just evolution and flawed perception. I’m scared that I’m not good enough. That none of it matters, not even love.

All of my beliefs are made to counteract my fear. I tell myself that these fears aren’t real, that love is, because I think maybe, even if it’s not true, it can help to get me through.

So I’ve built up these complex logical systems, optimistic justifications for every doubt I think about
created so many little reasons why we do matter, why good is real, how reality is whatever I choose to believe.

if I really believed it, maybe I wouldn’t have to convince myself

post-call from Costa Rica

the way you talk when you’re vulnerable is full of pauses. you’re holding back so you don’t hurt. you say “I” and then you give a half laugh, your breath gets caught in your throat because you’re close to crying but you don’t want to let yourself, you second-guess yourself but you’re going to say it anyway – whatever it is. you’re so mad, you miss me, you’re sad or insecure or lost and don’t know how or what to do. because I hurt you

moments – untitled 2

Vancouver, May 2016:

a late spring night,
watching the city lights
reflect on the water
discovering
a tall dark stranger
$2 soft-serve from McDonald’s for dinner

his kiss tastes like vanilla

Once I get home,
I’m watching my phone
waiting
refreshing
waiting

alone

nothing.

once again, it meant nothing

I roll over in my borrowed bed
Book a bus ticket for this weekend instead

What does it matter?
This isn’t my home
I set off to the next place
alone

Light 3 – Sun

January 2018 – Costa Rica

The light disappeared slowly, then all at once over the horizon. It was like in the middle of the day when all I wanted was for the sun to go away because it was too strong and I didn’t want to burn but then it was gone

and I’m only left with stars

well, the fluorescent lights that replace them in the city night
that I thought were so pretty from afar
but they aren’t warm like you are

Light 2 – Fire

July 2017 – California

Some things are better from afar
So they can’t hurt you where you are
Fire, stars
My love, romanticized for my art

These things that seem to burn so bright, oh-so warm & full of light
Might just be more than you bargained for

To add another log
You stuck your hand in the flame
I had to be gone
You had me to blame

You burned yourself trying to keep us alight
While my flame had moved on to greener pastures last night

//

God, I wish I believed you when you told me this was my home

moments – rainy mornings

20 april 2018

I love rainy mornings
the kind where I can stay under covers
singing softly
about sweet things

If you were here,
I would nestle my head on your shoulder
we’d speak softly
about sweet things
in that place between sleeping and waking
where your breath is so peaceful
and the world is so silent
that I’m finally calm
so safe in your arms

But until then, I’ll write
soft words
about you
the sweetest thing of all

//

“I wanna know,
have you ever seen the rain?”

post-call from Panama

I, 12:15 AM, 6 February 2018:

Your hair sticks up & your eyes shine green w love & respect & admiration, so softly looking at me
and it’s so powerful. you have no idea how it feels to be looked at so lovingly, how it makes me want to be. I know you would do anything for me, you see & you love so very deeply

and I feel so warm and safe under your gaze, though I know you’re miles away. it’s the most spectacular thing, the best part of my life, still, to this day

II, 1:38 AM, 9 February, 2018:

because I never could have imagined this to be late night talks with the best of me.

talking through insecurities at midnight, cracking jokes during the daylight; spitting rhymes instead of goodbyes and your beautiful green/blue eyes transmitted thru low quality wifi.

I never could have imagined how happy this makes me feel, how what we have is still so wonderful and real. you’re still here, with me, regardless of the geography.

There are never words enough
but you will always be, my love

//

that’s the way every day goes, every time we have no control
If the sky is pink + white, everything will turn out alright
It’s the same way you showed me (shooowed me)
You showed me love
Glory from above

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moments – tropical blue

January 2018 – Jarabacoa, Dominican Republic

//
mopeds move between lanes without lines, broken aluminum buildings & fallen signs

Frank Ocean plays through Lenny’s uncle’s beat-up truck
a manual drive

We’re old friends reminiscing in new places
about moving and staying and leaving and playing and falling in love, right?

we’re similar in that way

both silently missing the ones we thought we had to leave
hoping they’ll keep a place for us
kind of weird because
kind of we were lovers
but we were never real enough to be in love

even now

surrounded by gentle mountains, blue-grey twilit clouds and telephone wires. palm trees wave their large green leaves as the wind picks up

the water is so heavy in the air, pressing down on my chest. music and memories of you filter in through the open windows

humidity accumulating in the corners of my eyes

but I don’t want to tell him how much I miss you
I can barely bear to tell myself

the city of eternal spring passes
blue & white
like the flowers on my sundress

but darker now
through the rainclouds

still too scared to speak my thoughts
maybe that’s why it feels so good to hear them sung