Every-perfect-summer

it's been a while since you left

well, two months, five days, seven hours and thirty-five minutes to be exact

it takes one minute for your heart to stop beating in the absence of oxygen

another six for all you cells to degenerate

after that, even your brain gives up on you

and you die

i don't know what my brain is waiting for

'you suffocate me', your note said

'i'm suffocating here', i wanted to tell you

but you never stayed long enough

now i don't know how to tell you this

but for the past six months, you've been my only reason to smile

and this might seem like poetry to you

but i'm not feeling beautiful

if you look into that gratitude jar

you'll find it full of your name

so i'm sorry if my love suffocated you

but please come back

i need to breath now

home really is the strangest of all places. you only ever seem to have one as a child. older, and you wish to run away. the first place you wish to run away from, no matter how much you proclaim to love it. it is only when you do leave, when you need a home thr most, that it ceases to be home anymore. it is only when you yearn for it more than anything you have ever yearned for, that you cannot recognize it anymore. you wish for home, but home doesn't feel like home anymore. you wish for your mother's arms, but she is not the mother you grew up with. or maybe she is and you simply do not recognize her anymore. when you go back, you run away again. and again, and again, and again. running away and away and away. towards home. wherever it may be.

something something going through the streets of the town my mother grew up in. she grew up here. she was a child here. i am no longer a child. time passes so quickly. stuck in the traffic here, time doesn't seem to be passing at all. i hope the journey takes forever. i hope we never reach. it won't be the same as last time. this town was never mine so why does it still feel like home. one day, I'll come here for the last time. how will i gather everything in my little suitcase? all that sweetness, it turns sour when you take it back.

day 2

9:19 a. m.

one of these days, you're gonna get used to being the last to walk up those stairs at night and the first to walk down them in the morning. that weird morning haze won't look so unfamiliar to your eyes. that first buzz of electricity won't sound so ominous. you won't need to blast lorde at full volume to drown out the silence. but not today. not so soon.

maybe being strong is all about pretending. i can't think of it otherwise. how else do they hold each other up? how else do i look you in the eye and tell you it'll be alright?

reminder to self: just accept that alarms aren't for you. and maybe... just maybe, crying to lorde isn't such a bad idea.

day 17

11:11 p. m.

i can almost feel it coming... but not now. not yet. i can't... talk about it. i won't.

but sending out these words feels good. keeping them in between the pages suffocates them. but there's something cathartic about sending them out into the world and knowing they're gonna be invisible. i just hope it's enough.

day 7

10:40 p. m.

it's october now. don't you remember the poems? don't you remember the quotes? you can't be sad in october. it's for happiness and sunshine and smiles. but here's the longing, the missing. a thousand miles made of pain.

maybe one day the world won't hurt so much. maybe one day these words won't be a way to make sense out of all this. maybe one day.

i hope i stay for that day.

day 9

9:43 p. m.

what do i do with all this untouched grief. it grows stale in my mouth.

what do i do with all this unpromised love. no one told me how to hold it without bruising.

it gets difficult to breath again. everyone is so far away. and i'm afraid. afraid that even if i do find the words to ask for help somehow, they won't hear me. afraid that even if i do start screaming, they won't know it's me. everyone is so far away and a part of me tells me it's for the best but gods, do i wish someone would hold me while my heart breaks.

day 6

12:05 p. m.

where do all these tears come from. where do they keep coming from. don't you see i have else to do? don't you see nobody has the time to be in pain?