Hey guys, I've moved to www.thegraceinmonsters.wordpress.com!

The new site has got me all excited to post again hehe, it's a nice feeling. I'm going to categorize my posts under poetry and personal so stuff's about to get more organised. See you guys there and thanks for all the love :)

on a scale of 1 to 10 how much does it hurt?

She says,

Smile more

He says,

Look you got to freak out a little less

And I wait

They say if you're quiet enough,

You start to hear your own voice

I can't decide if that's a good thing

He picks me up and I dumb myself down

Rinses me down while I size myself up

Width is still one word I can't say without biting my tongue too much at the end

Workout plan + some advice

Hey guys, gonna post my fitness regime/workout plan here to clear the repeating questions on ask.fm.

If you're wondering about the success rates of it so far, I can't give you a good answer because I've been doing it for a little over a year and it's not like i'm damn shredded now or anything. But it's managed to help me increase my metabolism by loads such that I can do very little cardio and gorge(as seen on my insta) and maintain my size, thanks to weight training. It's just a guideline, add and leave out exercises to your suiting. Cheers!

Just a little legend,

No. of sets x no. of reps

E.g. 5 x 5

Leg day:

5 x 5 barbell back squat(plus 1 warm up set) I suggest y'all push yourselves for this one since it's only 5 reps per set, go for a heavy weight 

5 x 5 conventional deadlift 

3 x 25 weighted lunges(you can either hold dumbbells/plates or place a barbell on your back like how you would do for a squat) 

1 x 25 lunges(without any weight and do it straight after your last set of weighted lunges) 

And that's it for leg day! It seems short but trust me it will kill you if you go hard. You can add in some abs at the end but I don't do that.

Back and shoulders:

4 x 5 conventional deadlift (optional, because this routine is pretty packed so if I did legs a day before I'll omit this exercise)

4 x 8-12 Shoulder press

4 x 8-12 T-bar row

4 x 8-12 upright cable row and cable front raises, SUPERSET(which means you do each set of exercises back to back with no rest in between)

4 x 8-12 seated cable row

4 x 8-12 lateral raises

4 x 8-12 lat pulldown

Arms and chest day:(nowadays I don't train arms because I'm really pressed for time, and usually when you do back, it really works your biceps, and when you do shoulders it works your triceps. As for chest.. I don't really like to train it haha)

4 x 8-10 flat bench press 

4 x 8-12 cable crossovers 

4 x 8-10 close grip bench press/skull crushers 

4 x 8-12 EZ-bar curls/dumbbell curls

4 x 8-12 cable tricep pressdown 

4 x 8-12 hammer curls

4 x 8-10 cable tricep extention(with rope attachment)

Now that we've cleared strength training, for cardio I'll usually try to squeeze in one session a week, usually before leg day because after leg day I really don't wanna move...

I do high intensity interval training(HIIT) and I usually do a tabata style workout from fitnessblender on YouTube! Basically it changes every week, I'll usually search for one that is 20-22min long max, because I 've read in most places that that's the optimum length. Also, if you keep increasing the duration of it, your body's gonna get used to it and it won't be so effective so you should start at 15 and slowly(VERY) move up to 20. 

Alternatively, you can do sprints, but I prefer something I can do my room so HIIT is always my option. 

When time allows me, I'll go for yoga once a week to just take my mind off all the things I have to do, and just devote an hour and a half to practice.

So yeah guys, here you go. You don't have to do everything at once, just start slow :) including exercise in your life doesn't have to take a whole lot of time, as you can see. To all of you who tell yourself you'll only follow the cardio part of my routine cause that's how you'll burn fat, I urge y'all to do some research on the benefits of weight lifting for losing fat in the long run. Cardio may help you lose fat fast but weights will help keep the fat off! Sure at first you may appear a little bigger because muscles are growing underneath your fat but you'll soon shed those fats off, and ultimately, it's a strong and functional body we're looking for, not a 'skinny-fat' one.

Peace!

“If you find yourself asking, “Am I really a writer? Am I really an artist?” chances are you are. The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death.”

Steven Pressfield (via roguepostits)

Crispy realization

 I want to unravel in a place like this, our little bed and breakfast is probably down the street on the right. And oh, when we finally get there after a bottle of beer we don't even finish. Wooden steps, splintering and fraying at their edges. Slight musk of old tapestry. Maybe the floral wallpaper's peeling back to reveal its underside. So what if it's the colour of dried out lemons, or if it isn't sticky anymore. I'll leave a note to myself at that exact moment to remember,

remember how we were all once glassy-eyed with a lust for life. And we lose that brilliance bit by boring bit, day by desolate day, but there's still enough to keep these four walls up.

"Stacks" is playing and behind his hazy falsetto we are tumbling over each other's feet, trying to be quiet but the god damn floorboards creak so loud they're competing with my heartbeat in my ears, and fuck, I think it is the sound of my coming undone. I know you'd pull me back together in the morning, not to completion, but to the slightest state of disarray so I am frazzled, heavy-handed, till I find my way back to you again. 

we don't speak in the same tongue

He is so gentle, sometimes I wonder if
he keeps his resolve within clenched
fists he doesn't own
they knock against his teeth sometimes,
how dare he

when the only time I'd go that far is when his jaw points the way
to another all consuming kiss.

I drop hints around his potty mouth,
the feral way I know how, with nicks and tiny licks I show him
possession without manipulation,
oh, the only time I will pin him down is so
every
part
of our bodies can lie in perfect alignment
while your pen is ready to stab him in the flesh,
mine is ready to paint him in the light of day
because,
metaphors jump across the page to coat him in layers of Gold Ochre,
Terre Verte,
Scarlet Lake is the colour of his ears when he laughs at his own bad jokes
But you,
you only know rage the darkest shade of carmine,
call me belligerent but I'm not the one battling my pride

one day I hope you'll find the time
to pull apart your pre-
conceived notions and stubborn skin
the one you wear like chain-mail and brigandine
until then, this is one war I cannot win.

I walk and you are with me

That day in particular 

I remember it was unbelievably hot

I almost swatted a fly against my ear

And my skin was the kind of dry every scratch marred me with chalk white lines on my calves

I was thinking about the wet centre of your mouth 

And that my favourite kind of poetry centered on a reckless coming undone where the only shred of control was the hesitation before the searing rip of buttons

I kicked a can and it rolled with an almost sensual tinkling as it hit a lamppost a tock

Tick, tick, tick,

Plastic buttons fall

to the floor rolling off in different directions 

You, on the other hand,

The perfect epitome of purposeful you sank the only southern way you know how to

And I grip the table's edge

Knuckles white

Lights dancing in my vision even whiter 

Oh, how this body only knows rhythm when it is fed to me through your lips

How the only time I am moved is when you wreak havoc on my nervous system

There are whole nations in your chest cavity 

Where I am stumbling blind quite honestly 

what the young teaches the younger

Who are we kidding
when we place a bottle to our lips and
try to call it a marriage of some sort
the last thing I remember
a straw between my teeth then
your ear in its place
fast forward to me counting the steps to your door
1, 2, 3.. 6.. 14..25
I was barely 13 before I was taught love was a call to arms,
not a veritable verb
you told me it was good enough
holding it in my palm
and really I should've known
when every attempt at romance was nothing above a whisper
how I was your best kept secret at 15


at 19, I still unravel under the influence
my cup is empty from the nights I gave you so much it
tumbled
into the morning after but all that was left to grab at was
your hair on my pillow,
you were spontaneous like that, weren't you?
and I,
hey, why won't you just lighten up?
You fancied flight and I only wanted the pebbles
crushed beneath my plimsolls
telling me all I ever needed to know,
that
the smallest only get stifled more
and before I knew it
I was a crushed up beer can,
insides still wet god damn it
coursing real liquid in real time
just
so
I could live to love you
and you tell me, sobriety hurts
like I'm only beautiful when I'm a blur
oh sweetheart,
if only you knew how pretty your eyes were
before they rolled to the back of your head,
and sweetheart,
I hope you make it home tonight.

and that home,
is you retching on the floor,
on your knees because that's where you liked me best.

2 thoughts to keep me by his side

1. Patience. Everything is a test, a waiting game. When he places a tentative hand on my thigh, his thumb circles slower than the slowest clock that ticks when we are together, waiting out. When all my goosebumps rise

in added friction, like open mouths surfacing for air under the influence of chlorine induced stupors, 

when, 

the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention, like soldiers in neat rows, awaiting nightfall and cursing the dawn..

It is only a question of time before he consumes me at this unearthly hour 

he

is predatory but he does not know it, I am a helpless fawn in his clutches, but I love it none the less.

2. There is a darker place than being in a shellscrape, somewhere filthier than a latrine. I must always remember he who lights paper lanterns along the trenches of my heart, setting himself ablaze when they are fanned to forest fires. 

He,

who hacks at the dense foliage surrounding my stubborn vessel, thick from years of love without warmth other than from a throbbing muscle in hand.

With a jackknife of genteel grunts and tender ministrations, leaves, they fall at his feet, like the articles of clothing that get caught in our toes. 

Leaves, they fall to signify change, but now also to testify to how some things will never. 

I must remember how colliding into him, his desire a matador crashing against the surface of my sternum, birthed enough light to phase out this temporary darkness. 

I must remember the badge he wears proud, he pins it right above his heart, 

I'll always be waiting, embroidered and emboldened.

no, I don't like to share

I don't know what I'd do with this blog if you ever leave

I just picked up the smell of your inclination on my bolster and

Before I know it I'll taste you in my sleep
God, I'm tired, I'm so worn out from a rest without escapism
I need a life with lucidity
Please, not a love with certain vacancies
I need more permanence than dime sized bruises on my hipbones
We grow entirely new cells in 7 years and hell,
I just read somewhere you'll have new lungs in 6 weeks,
New tastebuds in 10 days,

Fuck, when I have you all to myself at last are you even you anymore?

Are you even mine anymore?

So, leave the guarding to the dogs and the loving to the lost,
he's mine.

Tell me you don't, tell me you do

Love me not because it's convenient

Love me not because you think it will save you 

Love me not because you value presence above companionship

Worse still, contact above conversation

Love me because every time we kiss

I am paying disservice to your teeth

Obsessed with your lip between mine

Love me not because I fit in the coffin you bought her

Sometimes I taste splinters on my tongue from the hole she tore through with her fist

Love me not because I'm good with words

For I can only write free-verse

Love me because I can but I can't stop stuttering when I try to tell you 

How I get dizzy when your breath tunnels through my ear like incense into my nose

Love me because I was a lifeless drone until you walked into my life, 

Your pulse my metronome 

Love me not because I fit in your hands 

Love me because I don't

I never will

Love me because you've never loved the feeling of something slipping between your fingers, ever, until now.

The cracks in his palm give me just enough room to slip into them

Waist deep

Sandwiched between hot flesh 

And oxygenated blood

From all the breaths he stole from my lungs

We love with open mouths and open limbs

What we do is more than just a fist slamming against a palm

It is not dirt I gather under my fingernails

But the primal way we learnt to stake our claim 

I am digging into muscle

You are drilling into bone

You and I, we're cars speeding towards each other

And you kiss me as we collide

“At 19, I read a sentence that re-terraformed my head: “The level of matter in the universe has been constant since the Big Bang.”
In all the aeons we have lost nothing, we have gained nothing - not a speck, not a grain, not a breath. The universe is simply a sealed, twisting kaleidoscope that has reordered itself a trillion trillion trillion times over.
Each baby, then, is a unique collision - a cocktail, a remix - of all that has come before: made from molecules of Napoleon and stardust and comets and whale tooth; colloidal mercury and Cleopatra’s breath: and with the same darkness that is between the stars between, and inside, our own atoms.
 When you know this, you suddenly see the crowded top deck of the bus, in the rain, as a miracle: this collection of people is by way of a starburst constellation. Families are bright, irregular-shaped nebulae. Finding a person you love is like galaxies colliding. We are all peculiar, unrepeatable, perambulating micro-universes - we have never been before and we will never be again. Oh God, the sheer exuberant, unlikely fact of our existences. The honour of being alive. They will never be able to make you again. Don’t you dare waste a second of it thinking something better will happen when it ends. Don’t you dare.”

Caitlin Moran

The Three Things I Discovered This Week And Will Always Remember

1. Be thankful for the two people who gave you life. Your bones are the very product of their union, your breath a reminder they succeeded. Your body is a map of cells, your moral compass; inherited. Till this day, true north is a sharp point of a finger in your direction, saying no to a tattoo, but swallow your pride although it is really just the DNA you share and be grateful. You never know relief like the kind that washes over you when you're safe within the confines of your father's car, succumbing to slumber as you lie slumped, cheek pressed against a seatbelt, drool staining the herringbone webbing a muddy brown. He insisted he send you despite being 8 in the morning on a Saturday; mind you, his only day to sleep in. And mind you, trains begin operations at 6am where you live. Some days, you'll lose patience at your mother for the gravel in her voice. You've barely said four words and the asphalt is bitter on your tongue. Swallow it nonetheless, because she is always trying. Always trying to look past her daughter's insistence on spending a night at a club in the midst of people who are really just buzzed-out boys but they're a pack of wolves to her, always trying to look past her husband's inability to maintain a proper conversation, always trying to lend a spark to a burnt-out flame of a 30 year old marriage. And we all try to a certain extent and then we fail. In that event, stroke her hair and hold her as she shakes. She was the one who taught you that even the strongest fall sometimes. She was the one who taught you how to walk in the highest stilettos and then over all the men who tried to wrench you to your knees, but if you looked closely, there were tears in her eyes as she spoke.

2. Always remember that friends aren't only your friends when you're hanging out with them. If you have time to think of a way to squeeze your daily and not to mention trivial woes into a 140-character tweet, you have more than enough to drop a quick text to an old friend, or even one you caught up with last week. Friends are more than just faces to crowd your timeline with. Friends are your lifeline. When was the last time you said how are you? and meant it, when it wasn't just a prelude to your onslaught of complaints about your life and problems. Friends form a support system, not an assembly line. They listen and they say some of the smartest things sometimes. They're not just there to inhale all your dirty carbon dioxide. Today's weather is partly cloudy with an air of fake camaraderie.

3. Keep in mind that nothing lasts forever. Forever is the 21st century form of pixie dust which is really just gold glitter. It's pretty when it's dancing in the air, just an idea bouncing around in our heads, and then it settles and it gets all over our hair, in our eyes, matted on our fingertips. You really don't want anything to last forever, anyone with sparkle in their samosa would tell you that. Nights when you find yourself in pugilistic position from the scathing words of somebody, balling your fingers into tight fists because then, only then could you hide the trembling, remember that the fire subsides in the end. Ash can only harm what was once ash for so long. Whatever conspires between two people, the searing heat of two tongues swirling together, under or above the influence, the whiskey wears off eventually. Live in the moment. Each goodbye is only a means to a new hello. Tell your lover you don't love him forever, you love him for as long as it is possible. For as long as you are able to have it course through your veins for what it is. That is the longest forever you could ever give somebody. Just make sure it isn't to somebody hell-bent on reducing a heartfelt declaration to an ily, just make sure you remember you cannot measure every life-altering phenomenon against a scale of 1 to infinity.

"Leonardo's Mona Lisa is just a thousand thousand smears of paint. Michelangelo's David is just a million hits with a hammer. We're all of us a million bits put together the right way."

Diary by Chuck Palahniuk

“Ten Women I Have Been Warned Against Becoming:

1. The Girl Who Takes Up Too Much Space, always, her shoulders too wide in stairwells, her hips too big in doorways, her voice too loud in classes. This woman does not understand the art of crumbling, of curling herself tight like the spiral of a fern, soft, delicate, unwilling to reach out the ivy of her fingers to grasp onto what should rightfully be hers. This is a beast, an elephant, a moving mountain and she is capable of flattening you, she is capable of ruining you, she is capable of making you feel as small and insignificant in her life as she is supposed to be. You are this woman’s footnote to history, you are her side note in song lyrics, you are constantly interrupted by her with a witty joke you wish you thought of. I asked what the problem was with being a steamroller instead of a sunflower and I was laughed down.

2. The Beautiful One, the long hair or the slim waist or the pretty eyes or the lips like bowstrings. This woman looks good in everything because she’s confident in whatever you put her in. She’ll cut her hair short on you no matter how you like it, she’ll wear high heels and step on your opinions, she’ll look hot as hell no matter what size she is. See, the reason you can’t trust her is because women like this don’t need your permission, they’ll do as they please and get away with it. They’ll say no to you, over and over. Teach your daughters that beautiful means dangerous, teach them to distrust women who love themselves. Equate beautiful with vapid, equate pretty with stupid, take their power from them. Say they’re vain for their makeup, refuse to see them without it. These women are snakes, they are serpents. I said maybe the problem lies with you being unable to control yourself and was told to get off my pedestal.

3. A Bitch. Women are supposed to be ladies in the street but will tear skin under sheets. I’m told: Never raise your voice. Speak gently. Submit. Hold your opinion against your lips and when you admit to it, make sure it comes out as a butterfly wing suggestion. Don’t disagree. Don’t undermine someone else’s authority, regardless of whether or not they deserve your respect. Someone touches you, just move away from them. Don’t hit. Don’t talk back. Be like the ruins of Rome, only beautiful if you can’t hear your quiet death.

4. The Needy One. I have heard how others spit when they talk about how she gave you everything and you shoved it back down her throat until she choked on it, until she came back crawling and asked you what she did, until her palms and knees were scraped for want of just a little affection - never be this woman, I’m told, because she’s a joke and the joke is that she dared to have more emotion than you did. The truth is, I’m told, the one who cares less in a partnership is the one who wins. I didn’t know this was a competition.

5. The Cock Tease, certified stripper, how dare that girl look like that and not want me to sleep with her. Lust is always personified as a lady in red with a dress slit up her thigh. Lust is sinful because it’s power, it’s not asking for attention - it’s demanding it. I’m told she is the worst kind of woman, that looking good is supposed to be some kind of shame on her kin. I’m told not to leave the house in such a short skirt, not with a shirt so low, not with a lace back, not with high heels, not dressed like that. My lipstick can’t be too red, my hair can’t be too mussed, I can’t just “turn someone on like that and then leave them wanting.” I mentioned that instant gratification actually ruins our psyche and was told that being led on was “exhausting.” I said that there was a difference between purposefully tricking someone into liking you and just being attractive or friendly. I was told there’s also a difference between coffee and tea but both result in caffeine. I said, “I’ve been turned on in class by the girls I talk to but I didn’t expect anything from them,” and they said, “It’s different, you’re not a man,” but couldn’t explain where that difference was.

6. A Slut, obviously ruined by another person’s touch. It doesn’t matter how many people she’s actually been with, it’s all about the rumors she carries with her. Easy. Harlot. You’ll still try to get with her, you’ll still take her into your bed and kiss her and say things you don’t mean - but you’ll defame her name when you talk to your buddies. My father used to say “A slut is fine for the night, but the virgin is who you take home and marry.” Maybe he didn’t know he was teaching his daughter to hate her sexuality. Maybe he didn’t know that every time she’d be kissed, her whole system would shake until she felt ready to combust, shame and self-hatred shivering against her spine. Maybe he didn’t know she’d disconnect emotions and sex because he always told her, “Boys are different, they won’t care about you.” Nobody said to her that it was okay to experiment. See, the funny thing is, I’m a dancer so I know exactly where my center of gravity is. I know how hard I’ll fall in each direction. Yet out of fear of getting hurt, I won’t let a single person inside of my bed.

7. The Soulmate. Never love romance more than you love being cynical. Never show weakness, never like pink, never think maybe you might find someone nice and settle down with them. Someone will find you, I was told, And if you’re lucky, he’ll put up with you when you start getting old. Never be the woman who believes in happily ever after, never be dumb enough to think maybe someone could love you after all of your mistakes. It has nothing to do with whether or not a family is important to you and you’re in a good place where a relationship would make your life better - you’re not a princess. You don’t get married, you settle.

8. The Girl With Strength, who can outrun everyone and who is stronger than her boyfriend. “See the thing about boys,” says my daddy, “Is that you have to let them win.” I sat at home and read stories about Artemis and wanted to become the huntress, too. I wanted to howl at the moon, I wanted to slay the beasts that bested me, I wanted to rule my kingdom with bloody fists. But girls are never athletes, never supposed to be “built,” regardless of the fact civilizations were constructed on our spines and we made homes in war by the steel of our ribs. Never be strong. We are supposed to wilt.

9. The Lady CEO: because if you choose work over family, are you really a girl? How dare you fight your way to the top through every pair of eyes that bore through your blouse, through every meeting where you were hushed by the sound of someone else talking, through every time someone called you “sweetie,” how dare you yearn for something. Is your husband the stay-at-home one? I can’t imagine how that is going. He’s not a real man, after all. I don’t give it long before the divorce. How dare you decide you’re happy being single. Don’t you know you’re supposed to bear children. Where is your honor? Where is your wisdom? Who cares if you are the leader, the best suited for your position, the quickest-thinking, the one who makes the hardest clients come back again. Don’t you see? Across history, women have been terrible at success. They always lose their man in the end. (When I said, “I would rather be a famous author than a mediocre mother,” I was told, “No, don’t worry, you’ll be a fine mommy.”)

10. THE GIRL I AM: FIRECRACKER AND DON’T YOU FUCKING FORGET IT I’LL RIP YOU TO SHREDS AND I WON’T FUCKING REGRET IT I’M NOT YOUR PRETTY GIRL I’M NOT YOUR ANYTHING I’M PERFECT, MOTHERFUCKER, AND I’M NOT GOING TO GIVE UP WHAT I’M DOING. I DON’T WANT TO BE “LADYLIKE” THAT LITERALLY MEANS NOTHING I’M NOT GOING TO STOP STANDING UP AND DEMANDING WHAT’S COMING TO ME. I’M GONNA BE SOMEBODY. I’M GONNA MAKE THEM REMEMBER ME. I REFUSE TO BE OVERSHADOWED IN HISTORY. I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU WERE TRYING TO CREATE BUT YOU MADE ME A DRAGON YOU PUT ME IN THE FIRE AND WHEN I STOPPED BURNING I LEARNED HOW TO GLOW DON’T THINK YOU CAN STOP ME YOU CAN’T TAME A TORNADO.”

In respectful response to a poem tilted, “Ten men women have warned me against becoming." /// r.i.d 

So today somebody thought it would be hilarious to joke that my boyfriend got hit by a vehicle in camp.

I don't usually write about the monumental occasions where you are having a pretty shite day and you're stuck in bed with a leaking nose and phlegm bouncing up and down your oesophagus and somebody decides to shovel you a mountain of dirt for lunch. This case is an all-star; congratulations on winning yourself a place on my blog. I don't know what you were thinking(trust me I wish I did) and I've done my fair share of stupid things but this takes the fucking cake. I guess it's pretty admirable how you manage to laugh off an event like this and play the game where I'm the one who can't take a joke. Sure, joking about your friend getting into an accident's a winner for sure. You know, I would never think you were the kind of person to pull off something like that, once again you get plus points for originality aside from those you scored for your stinking courage. I hope I don't have to face you again, but I know too well I'm too soft to bloody hold on to a grudge but I hope this is an exception. I said "it's okay." and I never wanted to bite my tongue so bad for telling such a lie.

Don't worry, pretty sure I'll continue to cry for the rest of the day as penance. If only I could stop trembling, and resorting to tears every time I think about it. If only that wasn't every second of every minute.

Thank you so much for ruining my day.

My head won't let me rest

I was digging into my pockets for loose change

Could've sworn my fingers brushed against your million-dollar smile

I can't get rid of you can I?

Like static in a snowstorm 

A heated cellphone against my ear

Hearth in the dead of winter 

You left your incandescence in every crease in my bedsheets

And now I can't fall asleep

I couldn't blame you, for

No flower could sleep through the sun

Sometimes I miss you like all the stars I never got to watch with you that night 

All at once, and then none at all

State of longing and then void of feeling

I am flaunting fluctuations more than the weather 

I am wearing thin 

Firm feet

I have a feeling we spend a fraction of our lives settling. I have a feeling that fraction is a good 7/8. I know dust often has no choice, but we are so much more than particulate in nature. I need to know you won't blow me away because I was ruining the gleam on your new shiny toy. Maybe there is a certain serenity in an unperturbed state. Like how we both lie in the same bed, aware of our silence but neither of us feels inclined to break it. But sometimes I wish I could wrench you out of your hibernation and tell you, don't take me for granted. My mother still tells me she loves me although it is her 19th year in doing so. Maybe 20 years down the road you won't even remember my name, and come 50, I won't remember my own. But until then, let's not rest on our laurels. By 80, let's wear toothless grins like badges of honor to show how our teeth eventually gave way to the words we never held back. I'll be the raw dust filtering through your pores, you'll be the sunlight that I somersault in.

Preach

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I'm sorry

"// Grow // 

Emotions drive into my heart

My mind has shifted 

To a dark place

A big green eyed monster

Awaits me 

It's not easy being you

I hate things that I can't foresee

I breathe things that I can't achieve 

You don't know the things 

Inside me

They grow 

They grow

Deeper and lethal

Like a disease that infects my soul

But you don't know these thoughts 

I harbour

I don't want you to reassure me

Don't tell me you're mine forever

But acknowledge the pain you've caused

And forget about it in the morning

I know this will never stop

Because this disease grows

It grows 

It grows

As we grow older

Deeper and lethal

It infects my soul

But I'll learn to control it

For you i'll conquer these demons

Abolish them from my kingdom

Leaving only you in the wreckage

Waiting for me to grow together"

As those words unravelled it occurred to me how in your silence, I often fail to dig deeper. I don't stop to think enough, about just how careful I am to be with your heart. But, believe me when I say it is my most prized possession. I'm a fuck-up, I'll admit, I'm muddle-headed and sometimes I forget how fragile you actually are. I hate how I can't say no to people, how I may give other guys the wrong impression while I remain, completely unaware.

I'm sorry.

I would struggle to trust myself too, and maybe it's too much to ask, but, please don't doubt me. You may think I'm out there, my heart misplaced and mind in disarray letting thoughts of you float in and out while I drown myself in the company of others but you're all I think about. I don't think of being with anyone else, yet alone think of another's arms replacing yours? I wouldn't have it. Tell me you wouldn't too. I don't mind your rage just tell me it is fueled by a heinous love for me, because I never wanted to be possessed by anyone as much as I do you. I know no felony like that time you ripped my heart from its cage and it's never functioned the same again, you told me you couldn't open up to me again. It's okay if you hate me for awhile, it's what I deserve, but please, be the one to kiss me goodnight and may the knuckles that collide with the wall be the same ones that brush my cheek as you lie beneath me. Hate me for a minute and then spend an entire lifetime loving me, I wouldn't mind. I'd want that, I'd love that.

Please just listen to me when I say fuck the rest of the world, because all that has to matter is you and me. In lecture halls, holding my hand under a textbook, we couldn't give a shit about anything else, could we? It doesn't have to change, sweetheart. I loved you then and I love you now. No amount of bad faith could make me falter. 

Tonight I am more in love than I have ever been

I want to say it feels more than I could ever feel

it might be a longshot but it feels too good

too good to care that idealism favours the young

i am listening to songs that seep into our pores

as we sink into each other,

that watch us as we lose ourselves

in each other's hair and i find yet another reason to stay

i want you to touch me until i have a shot at your perfection

i want you

thumbs pressing against my sides,

our hipbones brushing and

our demons kissing in the dark

Conversations at dinner

"Why don't you write a book?"

I tell him I am no good at commiting to a character and

My attention span has a knack for waning 

I don't tell him he is the exception 

"You're really good at analogies."

He tells me and his lips part as if

To slip another compliment but he reaches for his glass 

He thinks I have a way with words

But his tongue could do so much better than mine

 I could never write a book without writing about him; how when he stretches his eyes are tight creases like crows' feet,

How he always closes his eyes for so long before and after a kiss

How do I tell him I am really only good at loving? 

in contrast

I made a deal with God the other day

My right cheek squashed against the nape of your neck

I swore I'd turn the other but I didn't want you to stir

Our bodies were touching,
thermal equilibrium

but I felt a steady heat starting from the tips of my toes to the ends of my hair

it was beyond any science
I dare say you are a work of art

you hate it when I stiffen as you start to talk about Him
and you meander on while I sit
struck with rigor mortis
is that look supposed to be love?
because I sense only judgement
your mouth a thin line
and mine a minefield
if I say the wrong thing again
will you hold us both through the wreckage?
plot twist: you left me to die, amassed with sins
while you buried your own in weed and tobacco

I smile as he softly snores and I allow
myself to drown in soliloquies
he loves me so much better 

Past, present and ?

I've been thinking about fame. When the world is so stirred about trivial facts about you. Like, will there be a day I reach a stature so revered that there'll be a tumblr post of a picture of me, in greyscale, my smile a blur and my teeth the whitest in the plethora of greys. Its caption would read: she used to feel so small when she had a job at a cafe and so many 30 somethings would treat her without the slightest respect because of her youth which they either conceived with envy or didn't need to take seriously. Or maybe a torn out page from a love letter I wrote you would surface on the internet, the piece of paper raw on it's edges like a country on a map. The rougher it was torn the more people would subscribe to it, deeming it gold even if you and I had a perfectly ordinary love. This; if only somebody felt that way about me or I could read this letter over and over pretending it was addressed to me, would they say?

I've been wondering if my love was something people would feel privileged to have, cause lately I've been feeling like giving it is the only thing I'm good at. Maybe that'll explain why the only redeemable material I've come up with revolves around love. Love, you, lack of it, lack of you.

I hope you think I'm good at it.

I'm just always so afraid of living a life without building a name for myself. I don't want to be on billboards or have tens of thousands of likes on my photos. I just want to be remembered, even if it's by only one person. To matter. If writing ever takes off for me, I just want it to be known that I was never of any real talent or ambition. I'm still so lost everyday. Maybe when I become somebody with a considerable amount of popularity I'll find myself, but I'm pretty sure everybody struggles to get out of bed some mornings and most of our pillows soak up lost dreams. I really don't know what this post is for and about anymore I'm just so anxious about my future which is banking on a results slip and I just want to make a living from selling people words, I promise I'm good at keeping them and perhaps even better at writing them but that is all. 

THIS

“Too many young girls don’t know how to act when someone’s being inappropriate with them. They giggle or they try to brush it off. Don’t do that. Tell them to go fuck themselves - be a bitch. If someone’s being disrespectful to you, be disrespectful right back. Show them the same amount of respect that they show you.”

Wise words from my mom (via fleurlungs)

I need to learn this.

Haze of Gold

“In the 1960’s, the Italians called


the rising sun, a Haze of Gold.


They would climb upon their roof and talk about 
how the sun died every night,


only to be resurrected in the morning


just so they could see a glimpse of new life. 

you see, Sarah, I knew the boys we dated 
were bad ideas. I knew it from the very beginning,


and I think you did, too. 

We died 
every night to ourselves only to be rebirthed


out of their hearts, 

out of their failing kidneys, and out of their
weary bones - to become who they wanted us to be.


we died every night, dreaming of the horrors of what 
goodbye would mean for us, of what being alone would feel like,
but, 

come morning, we were alive again.


We were kissing with mouths open and 
painting Mona Lisa on the underside of their thighs. 


Come morning, they were playing symphonies on our 
ribs, as if our beauty was something they had to bring


out of us. 

Come morning, they were attaching strings


to our veins and arteries so they could control the way


we danced when we saw them. 

They wanted us to be fluid and containable objects they could love but place on their shelves when 
they were done with us.

Sarah, I am not saying we were fools, but we were 
very foolish for loving boys who only knew how to love us with 
their tongues. 

But we are not broken.


We stopped dying for them a long time ago
 and only allowed ourselves to be baptized in the 
beauty of every goodbye we never wanted,


but perpetually craved. 

The Haze of Gold has long since died out
and the dreams of new life and gazing of the setting sun
 has long since been forgotten,
 but NASA still sees a grey veil above 
the Po River Valley of Italy and sometimes, 
I think, we still want to be loved in
 all the wrong ways.”

Amanda Helm, Haze of Gold

Your ears feel like the cold steel tabletops I wipe to wile away the time when you're away

I swear I didn't mean to sound so sad

If I went to bed maybe I'd kiss you again

If I went to bed maybe I'd get creases on my skin 

Just so you could iron them out with your tongue

I tried to find you in the smoke of cigarettes I never lit

I was left gasping for air

Clutching my throat and all that was left of us 

once i was

Can't get this song out of my head. Show was pretty awesome to me. I don't know anything about the Buckleys except for Hallelujah, and maybe I should be ashamed of myself. But maybe I do now.

Once I was a soldier
And I fought on foreign sands for you
Once I was a hunter
And I brought home fresh meat for you
Once I was a lover
And I searched behind your eyes for you
And soon there'll be another
To tell you I was just a lie

And sometimes I wonder
Just for awhile
Will you remember me?

And though you have forgotten
All of our rubbish dreams
I find myself searching
Through the ashes of our ruins
For the days when we smiled
And the hours that ran wild
With the magic of our eyes
And the silence of our words

And sometimes I wonder
Just for awhile
Will you remember me?

Perf

The acrimony

If one day we part, if it happens at all

If they ask why

Tell them it's because

I could never learn how to stop giving

You were you.

And that is all. 

It takes me forever to fall asleep these days. I keep telling myself I can't revolve my entire life around one hour in a day. I tell myself I can't be selfish, I tell myself I should. I wait around all day for his name on my screen and it's borderline ridiculous, but I don't ever stop. I don't ever stop picking up before it's even had the chance to ring once. 

It's selfish but I want, I need more. I need more than phone calls that can last between a minute to thirty. I inwardly flinch at the pitch he drops to when he tell me he loves me, or at the silence when he doesn't until I do. People are nearby, and maybe it makes him uncomfortable.

I make excuses for him.

I tell myself it's really hard being in his place. 

I want to tell him everything, the stories I keep behind my teeth that just about fall out if not for me clenching them so hard because I should listen to him talk about his day first. Most times, they never see the light of day. I want to hear his stories, I love the excitement in his voice as he tells them, but I want to tell mine too. I want to go to bed feeling reassured and loved, but I only feel empty. Empty because everyday I'm collecting experiences I can't share and they're shaping me into someone he may not know anymore. This love is far from dead but I need to feel it, not assume it's there because I shouldn't dare to doubt it. He tells me he loves me everyday, but I've never felt more alone.

Bad faith

I love how you slip into silence

Like one would into a cashmere sweater

Languidly, almost dragging out the seconds of non-friction

Because it's always loose lips and white noise with me

Too much static, only to get lost in the airwaves from time to time

I love your stubby fingers for their strong hold on beliefs, for

Mine are long but crooked and bent

In more ways than one 

Almost everything slips between them.

I love your lips,

the parentheses of your smile.

What they lack in width they make up in height of the words you speak

Vowels seem taller than they normally should,

Especially those in my name.

Mine are too full, and I bite them

too often as if it were penance for how empty I am inside.

I love your teeth for what they promise, that I could induce happiness even if I may never conduct it

I love them, even if they might draw blood.

I love you, even if you might walk away.

science-fact

For 2 years, I had memorized the principle of superposition. That when two waves intersect in a medium, the resultant amplitude would be the vector sum of the individual amplitudes at that point. With that I learnt that there would be days where the lightness of your being would pile high on my shoulders, and yet a certain buoyancy could be felt in my footsteps. A kiss would threaten to lift me off the ground. Days where the two of us coalesced.

A constructive interference. 

Lessons on neutrality taught me that there would be days where we’d liken our relationship; the mutual pairing we called love, to a barren ocean, not a single ship or light in sight to guide us home.  We’d walk, the distance between our elbows growing with our weariness. I’d open my mouth to speak, only for a weak sigh to escape before I purse it shut. A dark fringe in our interference pattern. 
A destructive interference.

I was pushed onto a track, they called it the road to success. Perhaps they used the name of science in vain, because it legitimized this form of bribery, and switched pennies with university places. So while I stood there, mixing chemicals and anticipating precipitation, I thought about how if I could somehow process the look on your face; as you walked towards me that twelfth night on Emerald Hill and captured my face in your hands, into photographic evidence would they believe I discovered love? Because, you can’t time the exact moment you brush fingers with somebody and realize the faceless person your dreams wrap around was them. I could describe the spike in temperature when you’re mere inches away as an exothermic reaction, but I could never soak up the angry words you sputter at me with litmus paper and call them acidic.

I don’t need a margin before I begin writing the steps to exploring every crevice your body promises. I don’t need evidence of your affliction marring my neck and hips to make me feel wanted. I don’t need the toxic mix of chemicals to make me crave you, and perhaps someday try to forget you. I don’t need an explanation for how the planets behind your closed lids came to be. I want to draw the tiny feathers on your lips, colour in the veins running through your wrists and paint your sunkissed locks of brown, but I was never taught how to. I want to write about you, down to the littlest detail in flowery language and see if it’d score me an A. But I couldn’t. And there I was, just a science kid, and so were you. And just like that,

we superposed.

I must have woken up at least a dozen times,
those instances layered with our goodbyes,
as I dreamt about them at least eight more times
but as soon as you left I fell into the deepest slumber in the past few weeks
maybe not as sound as in your arms but
better than that night I spent contemplating the weight of the world on the frame
I wished I could call tiny
I dreamt about a girl, who
would spend subway rides observing people and writing their stories,
there was that subservient-looking office worker in a chiffon dress and white patent heels,
who she imagined to be returning home to a middle-aged insurance agent and a single child
on some days when, her skirt kept riding up or,
she felt her top stretched too tight over her abdomen,
the girl would take the middle seat
the only one that wouldn't allow her the sight of her reflection
on other days, she'd stand
her crooked frame leaning against the glass panel;
the only thing separating her from an absolute stranger,
it made her think about how that stranger could be;
her future boss, her arch enemy, a shoulder to cry on
one Saturday evening when love decides to let you down and familiarity settles into
an unmistakable fog in the air
This girl I dreamt about,
was as much me as I was her.