preserved memories still have scents that linger.

i hope you still have your compressed petals.

[compressedflowerpetals]

take me back to yesterday when you were just a healed white scar, the kind that i could proudly show people and explain with this elaborate backstory. it was just a brush by something sharp and suddenly i can’t get it to heal up. i’ve tried stopping the blood with a tourniquet, but it appears that i’ll need one for my whole body for me to ever fully heal.

i still need healing. stephanie ying.

[compressedflowerpetals]

how could a temporary presence leave such a permanent mark?

ten word story #61. stephanie ying.

[compressedflowerpetals]

you think you meant so much to him until he abruptly decides that you no longer fit into his world anymore. all the places you went together, like hiking up to a cliff that overlooks the town and carving your initials into the rock with his hand-me-down pocket knife. you went there a month after he shut you out and your initials are illegible now. you decide to order takeout from the restaurant that you used to go to each week. they recognize your number and voice instantly. without having to place your order, they were already jotting it down. but you had to stop them, cross out his and change yours to pork and rice instead of the noodles for a change. as you pick it up, you see him through the window with a brunette sitting across from him.

an excerpt of the breakup process. stephanie ying.

[compressedflowerpetals]

i saw you during your brightest days and darkest nights, but it‘s always my foolish heart that keeps you in your golden hour.

my favorite time. stephanie ying.

[compressedflowerpetals]

i wonder if she’ll have the same shade of blue-grey eyes as you or if she’ll share your meekness, which will cause her to blend in with the crowd. little does she know that she’ll create a storm in her lover’s world, just as you had in mine. she’ll get left behind, then be the one to stand out for someone like me to notice her. i wonder if he’ll share your head full of curls or if he’ll share the dust of freckles that trail below your eyes. he always sports the messy look, a true depiction of the type of destruction he’ll cause. it’s an aftermath i still don’t know how to clean up. i noticed how they stood out as i tried to brush away the tears that mimicked mine as we parted. either way, i won’t ever know about the way you laugh or the stories that will be passed down. i wonder what kind of picture they’ll paint of me someday to you. i hope it’s the kind of light that we all know i deserve to be in. i hope you won’t repeat those same mistakes, but if you do, please learn how to deal with them better than those before you.

you’ll be a be a good dad. stephanie ying.

[compressedflowerpetals]

i don’t ever want to see him again. i hope we never cross paths again in this small town that we’ve grown up in. even in ten years, i don’t want to see him. my mind tricks me enough that i see him in everyone i encounter. it still hurts and it’s been years since i last spoke to him. i still hear his voice and it’s another needle to my heart.

i still love yout though. stephanie ying. (via compressedflowerpetals)

[compressedflowerpetals]

i don’t know how to remember someone else. the sound of his voice, i was too distracted by an old song that i played in my teenage years. the the bridge of his nose, was it pointed or sloped at the bottom? i can’t remember a face i’ve been sitting across for six hours, but i can remember yours, the one that abruptly left me without a goodbye many months ago.  i remember your chuckle, the one you release with a tight lipped grin because you hated how your teeth showed. i remember the shade of your eyes: pools of dark blue-grey that blended better than any painter’s hand.

i always remember you. stephanie ying. (via compressedflowerpetals)

[compressedflowerpetals]

“do you ever talk about me to people?” he asked after a month has passed of us getting reacquainted with one another. i think of the beginning, when all my conversations were about him. everyone knows the story. well, the one i tell them. sometimes i think i’ve told it so much that it seems too good of a story to be mine. after a while, i could tell that they were tired of hearing about him, so i stopped mentioning him. “i used to, but then i realized that no matter how much i talked about you, tried to dissect each memory and find the problem, you weren’t coming back that way. the real question is, did you ever talk well about me after it all happened?” i think back to every post, they were all about her, all the songs played as in memory of her, of us. it was as if the universe was mocking me for letting life split us up so easily. “not at first. then, i realized i shouldn’t have shot the blame toward you. it took three months for it to dawn on me that i was too selfish to try to fix what happened with us. i wish we could go back, maybe things would have turned out different.” looking into his blue-grey eyes made her realize how different things have changed.

one conversation would have changed this all. stephanie ying. (via compressedflowerpetals)

[compressedflowerpetals]

“i don’t know how i feel about you anymore.” he said with pain in his voice as he tried to release nightmares that he could not contain. “don’t you know i would change it all if i could?” she yelled with tears in her eyes as she tried to empty the memory that haunted her for years.

but i know i can’t. stephanie ying. (via compressedflowerpetals)

even now, i hope you never hear these words from the one you love.

[compressedflowerpetals]

i should have told him when i had the numerous opportunities to come clean; we should have gotten one another mad, and allow the shameful, ugly side to be seen. we should have not hid behind our phones to spew the feelings we had to our faces; instead, we left them to fend all alone. they were lapped up in our head races by the muted tongues with a head start. i thought we would be running to the finish, not live in the same world that tore us apart. his presence was not supposed to diminish from mine; yet life never let’s me have a say. we are just her pawns to cast out to play.

we should have done more. stephanie ying.  (via compressedflowerpetals)

[compressedflowerpetals]

if last night was like the movies, we would have ran into one another. you, holding her hand in yours, and me, alongside a best friend. an awkward silence, fake conversation, and that would be it. i would have heard from you, like an old flame to spark again. but i sat in the stands, while you strolled with her. i promise, i thought i had moved on already.

it was not like the movies. stephanie y. moore. (via compressedflowerpetals)

[compressedflowerpetals]

5.8.20.

hiya, long time no talk for a personal update. 

how are you doing, really? i won’t bore you with what’s been up with me the last two years. life has kicked me around since i made a personal updated and, honestly, i don’t know what i’m doing. i don’t know if the same people are even using tumblr as much as they used to, if they’ve even noticed, but i hope this platform hasn’t died for poetry. 

i’ve neglected this writing space for so long because i’ve taken my writing to instagram if you’re interested in following. the posts are probably more appealing to see than the standard block of text on here. i’m also going to start fun monthly prompts if you’re a writer; i would love you to participate in them and stir some creativity within yourself!

don’t give up on me here just yet. i’m going to start writing and posting more on here, or at least try to. they’ll be mostly repeated from instagram. on occasion, i’ll post more personal pieces since this account is still under the radar than on insta, so those will be a treat every now and then.

if you’re still reading this post, you are rad. i would love for you to like or react to this post if you’re still following along with me after all these years. it would make my heart happy because this space means so much more to me than any platform since i’ve always been myself on here.

this pandemic was one of the last things i expected to happen in my lifetime. although i can’t offer any significant relief, know that you are always welcome to direct message me if you need someone to talk to or just need to vent about anything and everything that’s going on this world. it’s so screwed up. i absolutely love connecting with people and hearing their story because they’re all important.

dm me if:

your heart is heavy

you need a friend

you need advice

life is being ugh to you

you are curious about life

tell me something positive that you’re happy about

all confidential and judgement-free. 

wherever you are, whatever state you’re mentally and physically in, i wish you well and lots of love. 

[compressedflowerpetals]

“you know, we ended up as a bunch of unanswered questions. you know how much i hate those; too bad we didn’t bother answering them, huh?”

— still unanswered. stephanie ying.

[compressedflowerpetals]

“i doubt you’ve kept any item that relates back to when you and i were together. i’d like to believe it’s within an arms reach of where you lie awake at night; loosely placed in a drawer beside your bed. to roll a ring back and forth between your fingers when you peer through the window and see all the stars we once gazed up at together. i’d like to believe you still have it hidden - in a place where she can’t find it. maybe sometimes you do think about me.”

— i kept us. stephanie ying.

[compressedflowerpetals]

““i’d prove it to you, you know?” i say as i have prepared all i’d say to him if i got another chance with him. “i’d prove i’m not that naive and reckless seventeen-year-old girl who shattered you. i’d prove that you are it for me, i don’t want or even think about anyone else. it’s you. it’ll always be you.’ “why didn’t you realize this, back then? it would have saved us from a lot of things.” ‘i think we were supposed to break up, then find one another again once life has tested us physically and emotionally. we wouldn’t be the people we are shaped to be today. either you or i would have torn the other down in the process of our self discovery. so, things may have change between us, but i am still crazy and stupidly in love with you.“”

— give me the chance to prove it. stephanie ying.

[compressedflowerpetals]

“you owe me an explanation, some type of closure after all we’ve put one another through. i’ll never love another like you. would you be glad to hear how you’ve ruined me?”

— explaining yourself. stephanie ying.

[compressedflowerpetals]

the ball dropped, i guess that was our cue.

our cue. stephanie ying.