waking up to a quiet light, a gauzy mist floating just above the head. the eyes open and the world suddenly transforms after one two three blinks. the twitter of birds, the flutter of lawn mowers, the hum of distant cars.

then silence.

you close your eyes, you squeeze, and you try, you try so so hard. but you can’t. and you are left alone with the company of a single torturing thought — “why?”

the dull ache when tears can no longer come out. i miss you and i hate how life has to move on without you. rest in peace, my beautiful mum. i have and will always be thankful for your love.

my first step is no longer an accidental skip. i can feel the fairytales waltzing away from me, hiding in the residues of reality that have infiltrated every aspect of my life. no matter how many falling leaves i catch, 11:11’s i glance at, water fountains i pass, shooting stars i witness… i cannot bring myself to make a wish because i stopped believing in all that i wished for. every night the shutters of my eyes lock tight and i silently pray that my rib cages are enough to protect the beating organ within from the perilous vulnerability of dreams.

^{“my stupid brain is constantly talking me out of happiness. i can’t listen to anything else, my mind is too loud.”
“get a microphone. hold it up to your heart. it will be louder.”}

won’t you please hold it up for me, against my chest, let me feel the vibrations of every syncopated pulse, hold it up for me, against my chest, let me feel like i exist again.

there she goes again. girl of spring, hiding herself in the depths of summer. (it’s a lifelong game of hide and seek.)

my space exploration

remember when we spent days in the bookstore reading tales about dinosaurs and astronauts? when we took blurry pictures of us leaning against the wooden shelves? when the only thing that made me sad was that you have never read the stories of the hungry caterpillar? we read to each other, sitting on top of the universe - lost in space, lost in time, lost in the world. i don’t want to be anchored! i don’t want gravity!

so don’t hold me back with insecurities, with cautiousness, with reluctance to express feelings. because i’m floating on. i’m going to trace andromeda’s edges and watch supernovae lightyears away and shower in meteor dust and fall in love with the man on the moon. sans you. sans you, sans you, sans you.

my winter, my summer: it’s friday night and i am crumbling crumbling crumbling and all i want to do is brush my teeth next to someone and make toothpaste mustaches because that’s my favorite thing to do.

At night, when the city is sleeping and you are lying still in bed, eyes wide open, do you feel alone too?

i still hope for snow every winter. peter told me he didn’t know that snowflakes existed and i thought about how magical it must be to finally believe in something so beautiful.

i have always believed in love for the people around me and love for the world, but i never believed in love for myself. not until the first time i held someone’s hand. it was after school in the empty hallway during sunset when my hands were too cold to bear. i believed it again when i had my first kiss. it was under a ladder in the literature section of the bookstore where i showed you all my favorite stories. i believed for the last time when i went home and smiled into my pillows, wrapped in blankets. it was when you told me you love me.

_{(please let it snow this winter.)}

i need to believe in a beautiful world.

i can’t even fall in like

Yesterday I fell in love with the smell of gladiolas filling the empty spaces of my home,
the way the aroma was captured in the corners, wedged between the neglected dusts of our lives

And the day before that I fell in love with the memory of your violin playing Massenet,
the way your face cringed with each vibrato, vulnerable to every note that arrives

everyday it is something different:
crackling roasted chestnuts, the feeling of sleeplessness at 3am, intertwined fingers and legs, your blue lips from too much candy, smells of spicy lattes, ticklish whispers, melting marshmallows, desert thunderstorms, noisy quietness underwater .. dandelion wishes and cupid’s bows and your arms and grace notes and unexpected messages and cinnamon breath and your eyelashes and remembering and forgetting and everything in the world and i can’t stop myself.

i have been in the mood for falling in love. and yet.