Left empty.

Void: Where I am, gasping for air.

An empty space, a vacuum. Unoccupied, empty. Its exactly where I am now, gasping for air. In between a state of complete and utter emptiness and drastic aggressive silence. Voided, left empty. I gasp. Memories vigorously evoked, a series of dusty events. Empty, being unwillingly led down an old path, a complete void. I don’t want to go there. I close my eyes shut, imagine flowers I say. Remember the find-it-in-your-heart-to-forgive me bouquet. It erased everything, it made you happy.  Imagine her voice, tossing your entire world into her lap, I gasp. It made you happy. Imagine the shore, your big curls, tiny toes and the tingle of salt water. It made you happy. Imagine her scent, the way only she smells on a fine Friday afternoon. I take a deep breath; inhale the nothingness in the air. She made you happy. I picture all that and many more. Accompanied by so many familiar emotions, awakened. I didn’t resist, I gasped for the very last time. Moments evoked merely by memory, none by reality. In reality, I was here, in the void, left empty. The memories are inexistent in realities like mine, disowned, forcefully detached like they never were true. Maybe in another life, imaginary perhaps, it can’t be, it can’t be real. It can’t even be called a simple recollection of the past.

 It wasn’t, it can't be, was it? 

Loss of precious little things.

Worth (n): 

An amount of something that has a specified value, that lasts for a specified length of time.

Usefulness, or importance.

Some things are worth more than others. Some people are too. No, not that way. Never materialistically, at least not here. Every “thing” here is of sentimental value, I’m speaking of that kind of importance, the important kind, the only kind that matters, the kind you can tell apart from all the other "things", an element that makes “things” stand out. It shows, most times its more obvious than ever, your worth. Most evident, in little "things" that are always meant for you. Directly. Individually. Only for you.

Things I would do, the times I would tell you, the other times I would put effort just to show you. You see?

Living in a messy world of mixed values and things of little-to-no sentimental importance. It’s a challenge for some to tell the difference, simple distinction, the ability to call something that of great sentimental value. Once you start paying attention to the little things, it gets clearer. It either exists or it doesn’t. It is either solely meant for you or just another common, overdone, constantly occurring gesture tossed in every other direction. 

That simple betrayal nips at my heart. It may not be considered betrayal at all. Just another gesture I thought much of and dismissed because of the absence of great sentimental value.

Look closely. Don't be tricked.

Your white things and I.

A tulip, a letter and a kiss planted on my cheek. Three things I am weak against. Three things I almost love as much as I love you. It's white, my favorite. The envelope is a square, almost see-through and I could see a paper folded perfectly. Neatly tied to that single stem. It's white too. You do it gracefully, effortless. It almost tricks me and on a different day I would've fell for it. You, the envelope, the tulip and the kiss. It says something else, it means something I feel it. Tell your eyes that. Let them know, convince them. You trick me. And if it wasn't what I know it is, I would've sighed in relief, stood on my toes reached out to thanked you for it the way you deserve. 

Why can't I open it until your gone? Until you give me your back walk away from me. 

Wouldn't it be late to read when you're long gone? That's what you want? Reading your words on paper, alone? I remember your handwriting in blue ink, my first letter. And the way you stood watching me closely, as I read every other letter that ever came after...

"For you, for the love of ink on paper." 

Your white things. The tulip shaking in my hands, I can barely keep hold of it. It's slipping through my fingers. The fragile beautiful white thing. I shake, I tighten my grip. Too fragile that it feels like breaking. It blurs. I can barely see you standing before me. They stream down my face. I look down to my feet. It didn't move you. It is that bad.

That sidewalk. You wore a white shirt, complementing your arms, making me feel safe. We were walking side by side, shoulder to shoulder or more like my head almost to your arms, clinging to you. You were talking nonstop and you never talk nonstop. That's what I do, you listen to me endlessly. You started stealing my role. I liked that. You looked down at me, that calm but loud voice in my ear, the sound of you that only I bring out.. 

"I could go on and tell you anything." 

Right there and then, I could see it in your eyes, you opened up to me like a eagle ready to fly, ready to soar so high in my sky. One that I owned and my eagle was barely visible from the ground. Mighty. 

What are you trying to say. Why don't you say it to me?

Mixed signals.

Burned that bridge in haste. Impulsively. As fast as I could. At that very moment, it seemed like the only rational thing to do. Its time to declare war my head told me and I just couldn't find it in my heart to make room for the benefit of the doubt.  Its the last place I want to be. You weren't there anyway. Why does every word I write to you still sting so deeply, taste so bitter. I feel it, right here, in the middle, my heart. Overtaken by the intensity of that feeling.  Heavy emotions, you always let them intervene it makes me feel weighed down. The anchor, yours. Stop dragging me down, thats not what you do. You lift me up. You confuse me. I told you, I only see the good in you. But lets get real, I always saw the best in you. Come closer. Now go away. Stop misreading the signals.. Go away.

The capacity to accept delay.

You told me not to worry. Wait and see. Things fall into place. I believe every word you said so I waited. Like I always do. Your wink, a mentors pat on the back. You trained me, oh so perfectly. To wait. To wait for every piece of the puzzle to fit together. To wait for things to fall into place. The way they should be, you said. You see I waited, just like you asked me to. You see, I waited .. a little longer than you asked me to. Always remember, the rule of the two extremes you said. Letting go and holding on and you told me all about the very fine line that separates them. You said both need patience and I knew even then I still had to wait. Do you remember? I was unable to see where I stood, on which side of the two extremes. How did I get there? Blinded. Distracted. Alone. 

I was too busy waiting.. Waiting like you taught me to, waiting .. for you. 

The Bloom and Fall.

One day I was by the window. Looking out. I wanted to be there, by the beach. Feeding my heart with the sound of the waves. I longed to hear that beautiful sound. I closed my eyes. Imagined the soothing sound of the big blue sea, as the waves hugged the shore. Serenity. The feeling of being infinite. Free. Tranquil. I still wait, as flowers wait for May. Dreading the wait, as leaves dread fall. How can something so beautiful, be this ugly? Suddenly that day passed, nothing changed and that year went right by.

Burgundy and defeat.

I'd say, I'm numb. I would say it over and over again. I am not. I feel it. Stronger than ever. Feelings flare up. I barely hear my own voice. I would say I've never been in a situation more painful, but I have and I felt it then as I feel it now. Emotions, are terrorist. They win. 

It is this time of year, July, the tricky part of July, that manages to always takes revenge. Different ways, the very same result. Defeat. 

Emotions can control every single fiber of us, like puppets on a string. Life makes a complete joke out of everything. What good does wishful thinking ever do? 

Dots.

Some cultures speak through silence, and learn through listening. However, the society and culture we live in speaks the language of rumours, false assumptions and accusations, fiction and a little spicing things up.  I wouldn't say we learn through listening, because we rarely do. We feed on the things we hear, and so badly want to believe. By that we start catagorizing other people as, the enemy. Simply because the only rational, sane, normal thing to do is judge. Putting each and every little detail that is none of our business, under a microscope. One with a broken lens, one that only shows us what we want to see, the art of make believe. Only reflects on who we are. At some point in your life, you realize that you are above certain things and that is exactly why you lose the urge to act upon them. Only because, they don't matter to you. I was raised by parents who taught me to always raise above. Remember, everything that is far from the truth, past on by little minds is merely a reflection of the person who started them. Exactly why I decided to raise above, sit back and watch the world connect the dots on its own. 

Lace and sunlight.

White. Peonies. Sunlight. And maybe lace. Clarity. Compromises. Gold in the air. Plenty of beauty in simplicity. The smell of freshly cut grass. I vividly remember the streets we were walking, the patch of that sidewalk, mid-summer day, laughter, giggles and happiness. I can still see the brightness the dark grey cement brought to my blue shoes. The contradiction. And that wasn't all there was more to that day and all the other days than just that. But everything else after is a blur. Faded, mostly gone. Usually, the question is, why do we only remember bitterness? In the face of what truly matters, we seek refuge in what makes more sense to pride and less sense to compassion. Remember, what made us happy then? That trademark twinkle in your eyes? Remember, how only the little beautiful things matter? Remember, when it was us against the world, hand in hand? Remember, why we stick together? Remember, where we had the time of our lives? Because I do. How can I forget. It brings back, all the joy and laughter and I feel it as I recall how you and I were the center of our little universe. Back when my circle only fit two feet. Ours. 


If your past was in a glass house. Would you be looking in or looking out?

Cliche

Forgiveness. You forgive, for your sake. Forgiveness, serves you more than the person that wronged you or vice versa. In the long run, this is for you, for me, for us. Every one of us has been betrayed and hurt at some point. Feeling hurt is completely and utterly a normal part of being a human being. You see pain can linger and stay for a long time, more than it should. Paying its unwelcomed visits every now and then constantly reminding you of every single brutal memory. Dragging mind numbing, inevitable feelings. I am one of those girls that wish they could magically change the past, change what has been done to me, change what I may have done to others. Change every little thing that fills me up with deep seated resentment or remorse. Right all the wrongs. I think we spend too much time feeling guilty and resentful, focussing on things we can't change rather than what we actually can change. Stuck in the past, constantly pressing rewind. As human beings, we want to forget, we want to erase, we want to get past everything turbo speed. Thing is, you can't simply forget if you can't accept, or forgive. Forgiveness needs effort, patience, time and practice. The trick is to write about forgiveness like I know how, as if I mastered the art of acceptance and forgiveness. Smart? The sad truth is you'd be very wrong to think, that it worked. As I sit and try to convince myself with words that are written by me to me. As much as I just made it sound simple and easy, forgiveness is not anywhere close to practical. And as much I'd love to be the bigger person, today I choose not to be.

Shut.

I've been out of words, out of feelings, out of everything I was so full of or thought I was. I'd love to say, I've been in a bubble, as much as it sounds like sweet isolation or blissful ignorance, its much more dreamy than being where I am. Trapped. Anxious. Uneasy. More claustrophobic than ever.

The ruins of us.

When you stop thinking about it, when it stops crossing your mind, when your mind stops chewing on it over and over again is when you know it doesn't matter to you, for real. As long as you repeat the oh so famous I-don't-care, you still do. Truth is when you stop saying I don't care is when you really don't. Thinking about it now, I never thought I'd be here, indifferent. I never thought It wouldn't matter to me anymore. I don't seem to recognize the me that doesn't miss it, that doesn't think about it. I don't know what went wrong, but something did. That something that went wrong inside me, is what saved me. I stopped being in denial, that thing they call acceptance started to bloom.

It was like living in a house where the roof has fallen off and looking up everyday and smiling, being all Pollyanna about it. I don't care, I just don't care. What they're calling a wreck, is my home. What they don't like is what I built brick by brick over such a long time and I can't afford to lose it, lose what I've built so far for a little desturction. I can't let all the beautiful memories go to waste, its who I am, its all that we are. Invincible, irreplaceable. No, the roof is not a sign, and no it is not crumbling down. It wont kill me, it can't kill me, its whats keeping me alive. Living around all this is the reason I wake up in the morning. There isn't anywhere like this anyway, I'd trade the entire world for this. It may not be what it once was, but its our place. 

Truth is, the helplessness it made me feel broke my heart. It was a mess that I couldn't stop, It drowned me in deep denial. I didn't like living in a roofless house, I didn't like the sun, I didn't like the exposure. I felt unsafe, unprotected. It didn't look like something that belongs to me, it didn't feel like something that once belonged to me. I looked up, like every other morning, and asked myself "Is it worth it?" 

And it was more crushing than courageous to finally realize, it isn't. It wasn't worth it, it wasn't worth holding onto. There was no room for false hope or denial, no room for sweeping issues under the rug no more. That sad grey morning, I moved out.

The battle of the greatest powers.

The feeling, the ache right in the middle of your chest. A physical sensation of your insides shattering to a million little pieces, a broken heart or so they say. In our minds, the problem is always our hearts. A battle of right and wrong. A battle of power, of unconsciousness, of control. They trick you, you find yourself unconsciously giving in to their hidden powers. Follow your heart they say. Then again, be smart use your mind, because hearts make fools out of us and the mind knows whats best for you. Being smart, is always associated with using your head. That is where we are wrong. It is not the heart thats the problem, in fact it is our mind. Our mind is what keeps on relentlessly going over things, over and over and over again. Our mind is what keeps us restless, sleepless.. 

Literary the heart, the actual heart, does not get hurt. In fact, it does not feel anything. We cling to ideas, we create problems that only exist in our head. Mainly because most of the time, we want things to be different, we expect them to be different, most importantly we spend so much time thinking of what ifs. What if, this that and the other. What if things were actually different. In our minds we do not accept things or people the way they are. We constantly have the urge to try to change things, change people, change reactions, change feelings, change situations. The mind is persistent, insistent, impatient.  The power of a persistent mind is larger, than the power of a thousand hearts. It just can't let it go, can it? 

Que sera, sera.

Once upon a time, there was a girl. Always calm. Always quiet. A creature of many faces, she would be ugly and unpleasant at times. Too much to take, too much to handle. A mess. And at other times she was mind blowingly beautiful. Perfect, just what everyone needed. Left a lingering smile on faces. Thing is, that poor girl was usually mistrusted, misjudged and always misunderstood. They didn't trust that all she wanted was the best, their best. They didn't know that she had their bestest interest at heart. They didn't believe in her. They wouldn't. They just couldn't give up their power, their will, to a little girl. How could they give in? Noway.
She wasn't anyone's favorite. Regardless, she kept on happening, showing up. A little creep, they said. Scaring everyone around her off. And that didn't feel good, it worried her. It made her feel very much neglected.
So she prayed, every night for that one day, that one day she would finally prove herself right. Waiting patiently for them to see things through her glasses. They may not be rose colored, they may not colored at all. But they were just right. No illusions. No lies. Just the way everything should be.

Her name is Fate and Fate is coming.

The memory.

I sat there. Helpless. As the tears ran down my face and my heart swelled with feelings of nostalgia. A feeling I don't know too well, one that held me down. Like an anchor pulling me down to the very bottom. Into a deep dark blue sea. That's exactly when I realized I wasn't going to break my own heart, little by little, it was already slowly getting broken. I sat there. Thinking of how something that only exists in one's mind, a thought a memory, is what can and what does shatter you into a million little pieces.

A fortunate accident.

"Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion, it is not the desire to mate every second minute of the day, it is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every cranny of your body. No, don’t blush, I am telling you some truths. That is just being “in love”, which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.” 

-Louis de Bernières, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin

Meet me, halfway.

In my world, everything turns out just the way I imagine it to be. A carbon copy of the picture in my head. But we are not in my world. And time has shown me that, what is in mine is not in yours. Different worlds are inexistent to each other. So, I went back home, to my world and packed my bags. I'm not quite sure if I'm ready to leave. To leave everything I believed in for so long, behind. Permanently. For good. Maybe not, not just yet, and maybe I wouldn't ever be. But the time has come. I have no choice, I've got to leave. Something is waiting to meet me on the other side, Reality. 

Perfect flaws.

Ever since you received that phone call, all you think about is.. what to say. Jotted down on a piece of paper are your answers to all the "tell me about yourself." "what can you do that anyone else can't?" "why should we hire you?" questions. You think of every possible positive thing you could say about yourself. Carefully choosing only the concinving and powerful words, the "right" things to say.

Of course completely oblivious to the fact that the golden question is.. 

What is your biggest flaw?

So you sat there, stunned. The voice in your head is confused, puzzled. Your facial expression goes blank. What? Me? Talking about my flaws? No. That isn't happening. Even if we both know (the annoying voice in my head and I)  I'm not anywhere close to perfect, in fact I'm far from that. But no, no one gets to hear it from me. I need to be  perfect for this, I can't just admit to my oh so many flaws. 

Right there and then, I said.. 

Well here we go.. For starters, I'm arrogant. Just the way I've always been, too proud with an ego too big to carry around. I'm paranoid. I tend to make up stories and never-ending scenarios in my head, all of which I end up believing myself. I may have the all put together image, truth is I am a little too crazy in the head. The voice in my head and I don't talk much, but when we do, there is always someone around to listen. That doesn't always go so well. I don't know what I want. I suffer from a chronic disease called, uncertainty. That is slowly eating me up inside. I am very much of a perfectionist, that it kills me, let alone is slowly killing everyone around me. They hate me for that. I forgive but I don't forget, I never forget. As much as I seem careless, a B- would really upset me so much. I'm pathetically emotional. Too sensitive for my own good. I constantly worry too much that I may not live up to my very own expectations, most of the time I'm too hard on myself. 

Hired? Maybe, maybe not.

Point is.. That is all of which, make me who I am.

Take a moment, be grateful for your flaws.

Not quite alright.

Looking around I wonder if everyone has everything figured out. If they know what they want and what they're doing. If they are privileged enough to feel satisfied and certain. Uncertainty I think is the hardest sufferings of all. Being uncertain, confused, stuck.. lost.

As human beings, we base our judgments solely on appearance. Therefore, based on mere appearance, on how we judge a person according to how they look and act, we decide that everyone out there doesn't know how it feels like to go through whatever it is we are going through. Our brain automatically decides that we are the only ones that have known distress, misfortune and heartbreak. Only human nature. Truth is, it is an illusion our minds create, in which everyone is living content, carefree and fulfilled. An illusion which only makes you feel much more devastated because in your little bubble, you are alone.

Have hope.

Hope.. comes in many forms. Hope hides behind that prayer to God before bed, behind that coin that is tossed in a fountain, behind that wish upon a shooting star, behind that eye shut tight as you blow your 21st birthday candles. Sometimes hope is just a thought, a state of mind. Like hope for better possibilities. A new job, a new car, a baby or better health. And sometimes hope is bought in little moisturizer jars, eye creams and so on.

That thought reminds me of a face moisturizer I bought a very long time ago thats called Hope in a Jar by Philosophy. Not only is the name so catchy, but the description also said "Where there is hope there can be faith, where there is faith miracles can occur." Unfortunately, that little jar disappointed me, it was too greasy, smelled funny and it was definitely overrated. Regardless of all the good reviews I read, (let alone the name itself that gave me hope) I was disappointed.

If you take a moment to think about it, you never do anything without it. Hope is just there, always, regardless of how much or how little it may be. The only reason I think you could have a little to no hope in a certain something is due to past high expectations that led to disappointments. Still, I'd have to admit that even after heartbreak, too much expectations and disappointment there is always hope. When chances are closest to zero, when you hit rock bottom, when you've got nothing at all, hope is all you have. For it is the push, the power, the willingness.

“When you have lost hope, you have lost everything. And when you think all is lost, when all is dire and bleak, there is always hope.”

- Pittacus Lore, I am Number Four.