BABYLON

laura, xxii. a girl with a story to tell. +main blog

[calumhoods]

I only ever write poetry when I’m bleeding out. There’s a knife lodged in my stomach as I feed you lies — it twists with every single one of them — and though I am trembling, I don’t think this would hurt more than the impersonal honesty you asked me for. Loves me, loves me not. What a tiring question. But “do I still love you” and “am I ready to tell the truth” and “could I survive alone”, those are open wounds in my soul. The knife belongs to me, as do the fingers holding it. The truth is: I could, but I wish I could give you a different answer. There was a time when I could not. I cannot remember it now. And darling, this is where the tragedy lies: I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to pretend.

L. H. | knifepoint

[calumhoods]

sometimes you ask for a signal and the universe pushes you off a cliff. you don’t fly, you fall—so you shatter.

L.H. | of laying in pieces

[calumhoods]

i would tell you i love you but there’s no point if you won’t believe it and if it’s no one’s fault but my own. it was never like this before but the words get caught in my throat and though i know them to be true they taste like deception in my mouth. i would call you love, but in a world of uncertainties, how do i say this without breaking anything else? i would take that all back if i could, but we can’t undo what we’ve done. and isn’t not being able to change the past what always hurt the most anyway?

if i could go back to that friday night i would’ve held on and held tight. i would’ve thought of fourteen days later and i would’ve let any semblance of anger go. if i could break myself down into a thousand million pieces and rearrange them all into some sort of person who deserves you, i would do that in a heartbeat. you gave yourself to me in ways i never expected anyone to, and i should’ve been able to do the same — but i guess i gave up too much of myself already to be willing to lose any more.

i remember telling myself a month ago i knew i would eventually break your heart, but i didn’t expect eventually to come so soon. part of me hoped this day wouldn’t ever come, because i would soon be in your arms and i would be safe. perhaps i should’ve known, back then with that pang of certainty, it was the time for me to go. why keep you tied to something i knew would hurt you? i was flying too high on wings made of hope and, just like icarus, i fell. i never wanted to leave.

was it selfish of me to stay? being loved like that is a breath of fresh air in a world made of smoke, and i didn’t want to lose you. and i love you, i love you so hard my bones ache and my heart drops in my chest, i love you so hard i can’t stop the tears from coming, but somehow i don’t feel like that’s good enough. the problem with me is that i’ve always wanted to be good enough. finally saying those words felt like giving you a way out, and it was always easier to picture you leaving than to leave myself.

there was a time when this pain was mine alone to bear, and i guess i’m not used to being listened to. when the only person i wanted to talk to was the person who made my heart heavy on my chest, i used to scream into a pillow and let the tears flow. i never talked about the feelings i wish i could not feel. i know i can talk to you now, and yet in my heart of hearts i don’t know how that would make anything better.

i can’t change what has already happened, and though you say nothing will change between us, everything between us has already changed. i am poison and my touch is ruin; neither of us is ready to admit it, but i think i might’ve ruined this too. i’m sorry for not giving you enough of my heart to hold. the last thing i wanted was to burden you with it. maybe thinking like that, especially when i had yours in my hands, was my great mistake after all.

— i thought my heart was stone but it was glass and it shattered. | L.H.

[calumhoods]

I loved, and I loved, (and you lost me.) and I guess it was only a matter of time and you don’t care or then maybe you do; because you vanished when you learned I (me and you) (us) wasn’t a possibility anymore. we were not meant to be; knowing that now doesn’t hurt anymore as it did when I first realized you would never be mine. but you were for a while mine to keep mine to lose mine to hold on to my first and the last time I will ever allow someone to treat me like that. if anyone had told me two years ago that winter would change my life forever I would’ve laughed in their faces. if anyone had told me one year ago our ending was not the end of the world (my world) and I would love again so soon I might’ve cried because I wouldn’t have believed them. you made me forever afraid of the cold (oh how you used to warm my nights and how I missed it when you were no longer there to help me stop shaking.) the coldest days of that year were the spring when you left. but I had new septembers, too. though it may have taken long, I finally learned how to let the Sun in again. I hated you for leaving for the longest time. but I guess what I really mean to say is thank you. I would’ve never found myself if you’d stayed.

the best thing you have ever done to me was run. (L.H.)

[calumhoods]

a message to my younger self:

darling, you deserve better. when you feel overlooked and judged, know you deserve more than just tears. you deserve someone who sees you, someone who appreciates you, and darling, no matter how much you wish to believe that, he’s not that someone.

darling, you’re not to blame. i know it feels safer to think so, because to love is to grieve what you’ve lost, but honey, you’ve grieved enough. and, if someone you’ve let in your house has demolished it brick by brick, slowly enough you haven’t noticed until you found yourself standing under the rain, that’s not your fault for trusting them.

darling, you are not stupid. you want to be loved, and if you can’t, then you at least wish to be wanted; and who can blame you for seeking him, if no one’s ever made you feel that way before? but that’s not love, darling, or desire. it is torture, and you don’t have to subject to it just because you feel like no one will ever want you again.

darling, you must stop chasing. you won’t retrieve what you had, and what you had wasn’t much to begin with. honey, he’s not worth your effort. he is not worth your time. the only thing you will get out of this deal is pain.

darling, oh, darling. i know you don’t believe it to be possible, but the thing you’re looking for, you’ll find it – it’ll be just around the corner just as soon as you leave your past behind. the love story you’ve always ached for, you’re going to live it. you will be loved and seen and understood. and i beg you, honey: once in your life, let go of your fears. they are out of place here.

darling, you will love him back, once you let yourself do it. it will be everything you’re hoping for. it’ll be your dreams come true and spat out into this world. you just have to let yourself believe.

darling, it’s not over yet. please don’t convince yourself otherwise.

— L.H. | let time heal you

[calumhoods]

my heart’s used to breaking, just not to letting go.

L.H. | i still want you

[calumhoods]

Even after all this time, you still want me on my knees for you: in love, and begging, and pleading for you to stay, and giving you more of my heart just so that you can destroy whatever's left of it. You want to take my affection, repay it with scorn, infect every part of me you haven't yet reached. You want to take the girl I am and turn me to an empty shell; to win me back just to leave me once more, alone and shaking when you're done. You want me to yield again, to give up, to give myself to you. But you have taken enough — you took and took and took until I had nothing left to give, and now, on the ashes of the person I used to be, I'm standing. I won't ever fall for you again.

L.H. | ascension

[calumhoods]

that’s the catch, isn’t it? the walls i put up have all crumbled down, but yours still remain unyielding.

L.H. | letters to someone i loved 

[calumhoods]

I remember nearly everything you’ve said to me. No matter how much I try to erase the memory of you, your words seem to be written on my brain in permanent ink; they refuse to fade, to wash out, to go away. They never let me forget. They haunt me and tease me and tear me apart, forcing me to wonder: did you ever really mean them? If they were only lies, then you have never loved me. If they were truthful, then you have stopped loving me long ago — and I can’t seem to decide what’s worse, if loss or if deception.  It hardly matters now: whatever the truth, you are still gone, but even then they will not let me sleep.   All I want is to forget, I tell them, to no avail. They keep running through my head, and they laugh at my despair.

L.H. | of the cruelty of words

[calumhoods]

“tell me that you’re sorry and maybe i can forgive you tell me that you’d give up entire worlds to run away with me say that nothing can stand between us; not distance, not time, not fear.  it scares me what i would do for you, even now. even after everything fell apart. (but did it, really?) i’d give up my entire world to run away with you; even though i don’t even know if you’d want me to.  tell me that you miss me just as terribly as i miss you even though we have been speaking everyday, consistently tell me that it hurt to lose me. tell me that you regret it.  and when you do, make it sound truthful, even if it isn’t. i think about you every hour of every day, and i dream about you every night. the memory of you and of simpler times brings tears to my eyes and i keep telling myself to ‘stop, this is stupid’, but stupid as it is, i cannot stop. you’re engraved on my skin, like a tattoo. some days i curse fate itself; why give me something so apparently true only to take it away from me again in the end? it’s as if the gods are spitting at my face and laughing; my tears are like wine in their lips.  we never touched – not once, not ever and still i can feel your hands all over me. your very life, your existence; it’s haunting. you run through my veins like blood.”

— L.H. | through my veins, like blood