If No One Heard It, Did It Happen?

If no one heard it, did it happen?

If a person cannot leave a mark, do they exist?

(The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab)

Proof of my existence:

I am my unmade bed

My week old unfolded laundry that was Fresh once

I am the disappointment in my mothers eyes

And the scars I have left on lovers and strangers

I am my clothes I have donated

And my compilation of pintrest boards the innocent scroller will accidentally stumble across

I am the the jokes I penciled into the walls of my middle school bathroom stall

I am the dust I leave behind

Dead skin cells, reminder that they were living once

I was living once

I had once had the pleasure of laying my palm against the surface of something tangible and it felt the contact as much as I did

I am the peices of myself I have left scattered in the people I have let hold me

Long enough for parts of me to become caught under their fingernails and in their eyelashes

I am not my mistakes

But I am their consequences

I am shrapnel scars left by the promises I shattered

I am the pastries I have bought

My coin accumulating into something greater than it once was

And in that small way I make someone's dream a reality

And in that small way I am immortalized

I am the corners of novel pages I have folded

And the sentences I have left highlighted and the notes I have scrawled in its margins

I am the half finished stories I wrote in the 6th grade

I am my poetry

And the things I have discarded

I am my clouded breath dancing on the cold wind momentarily before dissipating

As it becomes one with the ether forever adrift

And in that small way I am immortalized

I am my embarrassing childhood photographs

I am the energy you spent on me and the time you wasted on us

I am the things I have created but perhaps more the absence left in the wake of the things I have destroyed

I am the stains I have left and the sins I have committed

Out of spite, out of desperation, frivolously or unwittingly.

I am the way my name burns yours tounge when your mouth tries to wrap itself around its pronunciation and the scalding memories

I am

I was

here.

the song of achilles is a story about the heartbreak that happens once in a lifetime, the heartbreak that kills you and drives you mad, the heartbreak you wish you'll never experience, the heartbreak that tears you apart until you lose yourself.

circe is a story about the heartbreak that you endure every single day, the heartbreak that consumes you from within, the heartbreak you know you can never escape from, the heartbreak that is so much a part of you that you don't even know yourself without it.

im sorry guys i just finished reading these two in a week and now idk what to do w my life thanks

I think if I have to come undone for someone, I would rather it be you.

Which is to say, I would prefer it to be you. Which is to say, I would like to unravel, and I would like it to be at by your hand. Which is to say, I would like to earn the honour of being loved by you. That I would like to have the pleasure of loving you unconditionally.

Because I think that if I were to give you my heart, you would treat it kindly. That if I were to show you my scars, you would memorize their pattern. That if I were to bear my soul to you, you would bear yours to me. I would like to love you and be loved by you, if you think you wouldn’t mind it. 

Because I know you will always offer me the hot water for my shower first. And even if I never take you up on it, I know you will. I want that with you.

I would like cabinets over flowing with tupperware and glass jars and old ice cream containers in the fridge filled with your mint chutney. I want bookshelves crowded more with your hand bound make-shift notebooks than novels. I want to grumble about stolen covers as I wake chilled in the morning and laugh it off clinging to you for warmth instead.

I want sunlight filtering in through our curtains on Saturday morning to dust your lashes and cheeks and still being allowed to be the one to wake you. I want to watch you dance with a broom across the living room (as I wipe down the kitchen counters) singing to a song from a musical I haven’t listened to but have become familiar with through moments like these. I want you to try to teach me how to cook and not mind when I mess up the soup I attempt to make you when you fall sick. I want to be there when you are sick. 

I want to be allowed to care for you. I want to do so many loads of laundry together we forget who’s pjs belong to who. I want to stop caring about what belongs to who with you. I want to feel you slip into bed next to me at 3 am still scented with your favourite take out I left on the table for you because I knew you would be home late. I want that with you.

I want to memorize your favorite take out order and how you like your tea. I want to memorize at least 75% of your playlist. I want to be allowed to hold you when no one else is. I dont care if I’m always your plus one but I want to be the first person you call when the night is over. Your tipsy phone call filled with soft smiles and hiccups. I want to be the person you come home to. I want you to be the person I come home to.

I want to let you convince me that we should get a cat. Even though I have never owned a pet in my life. I want to realize it has grown on me as we both hold fast to your pillow in bed while you are away because it smells like you. 

I would like to be allowed to miss you, in a gentle aching kind of way. The kind tinged with the reassurance that you will be coming home to me, eventually. 

I don’t care what the books say. I want to hold your hand until the butterflies migrate out of us and we watch them flutter along the ceiling dancing with ribbons of sunlight. I want to know you until your presence evokes nothing but peace. I want to find peace with you. Which is to say, I would like to, if it is all the same to you. 

Yesterday we spent the afternoon together again. While sitting in the sun searching for a conversation worth having, I consider asking you if you think you would survive the apocalypse. But I know you will ask me the same question in return. And I know I would not survive. If the zombies or meteors or sickness or end came for me, I would not be able to run. I would probably face my end thinking of my mother and scared. I am not good at survival. I am not good at staying away from the things that can kill me. I am not good at hunting for food, but I am good at sitting still and letting myself be devoured. I am not good and filtering water, I always seem to have a knack for swallowing the most obvious poisons, mostly because I am always thirsty. Always insatiable. I am not good at healing. And no one will have time to wait for me to stop picking at my scabs and writing poetry in my own blood until I decide I deserve to heal. I am no good at taking what I need or fighting to live. But I think if the apocalypse or the end or the sickness or the meteor or the zombies came for us right now, you and me, in the afternoon sun, I think I would survive a moment. I think you would take my by the arms and shake me until I realized I had to move, I have to keep going, because you are not leaving me and to stay means your demise too. I imagine you tugging me along to safety. I think of you keeping me alive and I do not know why. Or why I am thinking of this. I think of you saying my name. I think of how safe its pronounication feels on your tongue. I think of you not leaving me behind. I think of your hand in mine and the end coming for us and I am not afraid. Because for some reason I am safe here and know I will always be.

Is it safe where you are?

In another universe the sky is always pink and I didn't give up on you, in another universe I'm a better person and magic is real and in an another one we still walk around the streets at late night holding hands and in another, we are together

Your wife changes her hair color every season and her personality adjusts slightly. You’re secretly only in love with Autumn wife. She just came home sporting her Winter color.