With tears in my eyes, I begged you to stay

I'm Jess. 22. I write. I feel. I feel too much. I fall in love with sweet-talk and boys with kind smiles. original writing

[hellomyoldheart-x]

💔

Sometimes my only friends are a pen and a razor blade One helps me heal and one rips me wide open again Both leave me bleeding My body is a graveyard of every single time I have been done wrong I can tell you each scar and where it originated What thought drove me to cut myself open for another person and why Why do I always hurt myself over other people? This was a contest I never signed up to judge but that everyone loves to enter I have a sign around my neck that says please break my heart, please lie to me, please betray my trust Make me fall for you especially when you aren't willing to catch me Make my heart race even when you will not be waiting at the finish line because you already have your first place prize I am so used to being a substitute that I will never know what it feels like to have the real thing I will always be sweet n low in a cane sugar world I am an acquired taste that no one ever gets used to I am not the first choice. I am only good enough when the real thing is not available I never proved myself worthy to be the queen of any kingdom except sorrow And this sadness is a volatile king He is unpredictable but at least he always chooses me And I guess that's the most telling thing of all I am so willing to put up with being treated terribly because it is attention and I will convince myself that even the worst things that someone does to me show that they care Even when they don't Especially when they don't.

[moonspilling-in]

[hellomyoldheart-x]

I wish my past was easier to swallow. It is a bitter pill, and I doubt I will ever find anyone willing to accept it.

I was 10 the first time my body was trespassed upon. Hands in places they didn’t belong, lips where they shouldn’t be. A 10 year old should not have to feel that amount of shame. She would continue molesting me until I was 13 years old. My mom never believes me when I tell her and I spend the rest of my adolescence carrying immense guilt with me. I was 11 when a boy forced me into a bathroom and ripped my shirt open. It was not my fault I had developed early, but in that moment, he made me feel like I should have tried harder to be like everyone else. Even as tears streamed down my cheeks, he smiled and groped what was not his. He works at a grocery store I go to all the time and seeing him still makes me sick. I was 14 when a boy two grades above me forced me into a closet and forced himself on me. My best friend at the time would go around our school later on and tell everyone that I was a whore.  I learned early on that my body did not belong to me. For a long time I was convinced that I deserved it. That maybe if I just did something different, acted better, it wouldn’t have happened to me.

No one ever told me it wasn’t my fault.

But it wasn’t my fault. It was not my fault that those people could not comprehend the word no, it was not my fault that they took tears as silent compliance.

This constant barrage of assault against my body was not my fault.  Some days, I am still affected by these moments in my life. But I refuse to carry shame for them anymore.

[winteerie-deactivated20150123]

my hobbies include having coffee and mental breakdowns

[afadthatlastsforever]

One day, whether you are 14, 28  or 65 you will stumble upon someone who will start a fire in you that cannot die. However, the saddest, most awful truth you will ever come to find–– is they are not always with whom we spend our lives.

Beau Taplin, The Awful Truth (via tywin)

[violettarainbow]

[idkcake]

[thedarklordkeisha]

Calvin is the most relatable protagonist in the history of anything.

[hellomyoldheart-x]

Middle child syndrome.

My mother is an alcoholic and my father traveled a lot for work. He died when I was young and his ghost still haunts my mother everyday. She has said on more than one occasion that she would give anything in this world to join him, that looking at my brothers and I is just too painful most days because we remind her of the most precious thing she has ever lost.

My mom was married by 16, so when I was 16 and nowhere close to accomplishing that goal, I felt like a failure. Growing up, I felt invisible. The only time I got any attention was when I was crying, and I never learned how to turn that off. As I grew, I became a leaky faucet. It may not always be running, but you can never turn it off. I am always half okay and half near tears.

I was born sandwiched in between two brothers, so not only was I the middle child, I am the only girl. I was supposed to be the princess, I was supposed to be my mother’s best friend and her mini-me. I may look like her, and I will begrudgingly admit we are very similar, but I am her worst enemy.

I am stubborn like my father, and I call her out when she is wrong. He never let her slide for anything, and I refused to let that die with him. I am emotional and she often calls me hysterical. I cannot help that I feel so much that sometimes it spills out of me with reckless abandon. 

I started drinking heavily when I was 20. The first time I had sex, I did not want to have sex. I was too stoned to stop him, and I still think of that night often. I started to consume more and more alcohol to forget about my own ghosts. I would stay out and too late with people who didn’t care about my well-being and would just cheer me for taking my 15th shot. They were so impressed with my ability to finish off an entire bottle of rum by myself that they didn’t dare ask how empty I was to be able to do so. 

My mom and I got along when I drank. All I ever wanted was her approval and I finally had it. I finally did something right.

I tried killing myself on the eve of my 22nd birthday. Handfuls of pills were going to take me away from my own secret hell and I would have been free. But I lived. 

Middle children are prone to depression but are said to have better immune systems than their older siblings. So physically, I am healthier but mentally I am a wreck. I own up to that.

And maybe I’ll always feel invisible. Maybe I’ll never have something that is entirely mine. Maybe not.`

[hellomyoldheart-x]

Comparison is the thief of joy.

I wonder how beautiful she is to you. How every touch or glance from her may leave you trembling.  I want to hear how she says your name and if it makes your heart break.

I don’t want to make your heart break. 

I want to make it beat, fast and slow; in quick succession and in soft, contented beats. I want to know how funny you think I am at 3 AM and you’re tired and a little drunk and all you want to do is sleep. I will talk your ear off and hope you still find me worth having in the morning.

I want to hold your hand. Entwine my fingers in yours and just be. Be able to tell when you are getting anxious and rub my other hand up and down your arm. I am here, I am here, I am here with you. And I know right now that it feels like everything all at once, but you are here too. And you are going to make it through this moment.

This moment. The one where I am looking at you through hazy, half-lidded eyes and I can’t stop grinning. The moment where you kiss me and my heart flutters like it hasn’t in a really long time and it hits me. Reality hits me and I am left wondering in the morning if you meant it. 

Did you mean it? Did you mean the way you leaned in and kissed me, an arm still wrapped around my waist? Or was it all just liquid courage?

What does it all mean? What am I?

Imagine this. Front row at a concert, feeling the bass and treble and every last note as it travels through your body. Your heart beats in your chest like it’s gonna break clean through. 

That’s the way my heart beats when I’m with you.

And I don’t really know what this is. I don’t know if you’re ever gonna kiss me again. But I just want to say this:

Thank you. For showing me that I still have a working heart underneath all this scar tissue. I have been burned more times than I can count and I have always been afraid that I am cold; unfeeling, broken.

But it still works. It’s still beating. And I feel so much.

[hellomyoldheart-x]

I’m not asking if you can live without me. Because honestly, I already know the answer. Of course you can.

I’m asking if you can live with me, even when I am the hardest person in the world to be with. Because I am. Some days I am impossible to want to care about and my heavy weighs me down until I feel like I am sinking.

Like a ship with a hole clean through; broken

I think I was born this way, with a heart just a little bit broken. It has never been fully healed because I am a creature of habit and I just want to know that I am worth loving. 

Most days I do not feel like I am worth loving. That dealing with me and my moods are more trouble than they are worth and being with anyone else would be easier than being with me. 

I didn’t choose to be this way. A little too emotional at all the wrong times, anxious and worried when nothing is wrong, an expert at overanalyzing every last moment and every single word I’ve ever said. 

I cringe when I look at myself in the mirror sometimes and pull at my face, wondering how anyone will ever look at me and think I am beautiful. I realize it sounds so silly when I say it aloud, but no one believes me when I say I am doing my best.

Because I am doing my best. 

[hellomyoldheart-x]

Heavy and Light.

Heavy like the elephant in the room. It is hanging over our heads like a thought bubble. But we don’t dare speak it into existence. 

Light. So free I feel like I may float into the air like a balloon. My body does not belong to me in this moment. Heavy. Jake is not here to see this. He is not here to know that life can be so beautiful. The dark consumed his sweet heart and he has been gone too long. I miss him every day. Light. I meet the people that have inspired me to write, to live, to survive. I could not have asked for anything more. This adventure has taken me light years from where I ever thought I might be.  Heavy. There are words we don’t say because they hurt. There are things that we don’t feel because we still have fleshy, pink scars from the last time we got too close. 

Light. Please remember this night when your heavy becomes too much. You have lived better and brighter days than this. You will see it through to the other side. I know you can.

It starts with a seed. It starts with a smile. It starts with a conversation, about life and loss. But most importantly, hope.

I don’t ever want to give the impression that existing, surviving, living will be easy. I am not here to mislead you. 

Some days, getting out of bed is all you can muster out of your weary bones. Give yourself gold stars for every day you can pull yourself out of bed and into the kitchen for a bite to eat. Read the book. Watch the movie that you know will make you cry. Drink too many cups of coffee and laugh even when it hurts.

Because even when life is hard, it can be so incredible. It will teach you more than you ever wanted to know in some pretty painful ways. But it will always, always, always, be worth it.

[hellomyoldheart-x]

Your story is important.

We are all museums. These long standing walls holding up and showing off our history. We are the curators of our memories and the keepers of our hearts. When someone is reckless with your heart, you assume a new position. You become a custodian; cleaning up the mess that they’ve left in their wake.   You are an expert in restoration, filling in the cracks of your broken heart with a little hope and some elbow grease. One day you will find someone that realizes the value of what is in front of them and they will not be so careless. 

We are all half-built homes. Looking for support beams and sources of light in other people. We don’t always check the beams before hand. Some people will not be able to carry our weight, to bear the burdens we keep curled up in the emptiest parts of ourselves.  Sometimes people will not be the light to you, they will be the lamp shade. They will only ever hinder your ability to shine. 

We are all just stories, looking for a place where we might fit.  We try to settle in as a chapter in someone else’s book.  We don’t realize that we ourselves are entire novels Just because someone doesn’t want to open us up and read the contents doesn’t make it any less important. 

It is always important. It will always matter.  Every last word.

[hellomyoldheart-x]

It’s not the alcohol, it’s me.

Like the twist of a cap, the alcohol opens me up. I am unabridged, unbridled; I can’t seem to plug the dam.

I pour out my past like a fine wine, except that none of this has gotten better with time. The longer that this goes on, the more rotten that it becomes. 

I often see myself as a drawing, some kind of work in progress. You don’t have to look very closely to see every smudged of erased ink.

It’s hard to assign worth to myself.  The only time I am of worth to anyone else is when I’m naked. If I’m not good for that, then what the hell am I good for?

My early adult life was a litany of bad decisions influenced by the presence of alcohol. Of other people who meant no good for me.

I like to think that I make better decisions now.

[hellomyoldheart-x]

The Orlando air hangs thick above you, wrapping its fingers around throat. It knocks you off your feet. How can one place be so hot? So humid? But so beautiful.

He asks the same of you. How can one woman be so much all at once? Why can’t you just make up your damn mind?

My stubborn rears its ugly head like a bull in a china shop that just doesn’t know when to leave. My emotional pours out of me like a broken faucet; you don’t know where it comes from but it’s just a constant nowadays. You are used to the noise. My depression is the house fire, the natural disaster, the man-made bomb. It comes in so many different forms that you cannot predict when it will hit next.

Starving yourself has never been romantic, it has just made it harder to eat a meal without feeling guilty. Cutting yourself is not cute, the water from the shower stings every time and the cuts itch more than they don’t. Mood swings are not pretty. I have lost friends because they cannot handle “my crazy”.

My crazy. My mental illness. My entire life has left me stuck with “my crazy”. At least everyone else can leave when they get tired of it.

[hellomyoldheart-x]

I don’t mean to be harsh, but this is my heart. And you are being careless.

I am paralyzed by you. The side effects you have on my mind, body, and soul are dire and I’m not quite sure if I’m going to survive. There is no cure for this, no antidote for me to find. I am nowhere near an ocean and I am sinking, drowning in this unrequited love.

I don’t know if I can adequately describe this pain, but I can try, my love. My body engulfed in flames, standing in a room amidst all of my dearest. No one moves to put me out, they simply stand and stare. “Isn’t this what you wanted? What did you expect, you silly girl?”

You took a paperweight made of every excuse of how much you didn’t want to or didn’t mean to hurt me and tied it to my chest. It is heavy, it is so heavy and it will not come loose. I cannot break free.

I didn’t notice the knife at first; I was drunk off of your charisma and every broken promise. I am well-versed in making up excuses for you, the rosiest of hues has always covered every last blemish.

From the moment we met, I suppose it was kind of like star crossed lovers. Doomed from the start or something to that effect. I was doomed from the start. You have always had the most beautiful heart, the most enchanting spirit and I was not prepared. I didn’t think you would be this important to me, but it became apparent all too quickly. I ran toward it, I accepted it. You ran from it.

It makes sense. You were in a near decade long relationship at the time. But I fell absolutely head first, feet over every other awkward limb, heart too big for my body in love with you. I knew from the moment we kissed.

God, I still feel the butterflies in my stomach. But now, they are not kind. They are crashing against every inch of me fighting to escape. They are fighting to get out.

I am in love with you. I dare you to call me naive, to call me stupid. Hell, I dare you to be honest with me. Because sometimes it feels like you’re reading me a story and leaving out the best parts. It feels like you don’t tell me things to spare my feelings. And I just want people to stop sparing my feelings.

Just tell me the truth.

[westheritage]

Lindsay Thomson is an unbelievably talented writer, photographer and interdisciplinary artist based in Philadelphia and today, we’re honored to add a small edition of 7 screen-prints she produced onto our online store. “I Am Going” was printed on Rives BFK and each one is signed and editions by @lindsayhthomson herself!

Shop art + prints | westheritage.net

[hellomyoldheart-x]

It all leads up to this.

It has been countless days, many months, endless hours and minutes that felt more like years. It honestly felt like the day was never going to come. Or if it did, it would arrive and it would go without much thought. If I'm telling the truth, I didn't expect to ever get to wrap my arms around you. I never thought I would have the chance to caress your face or tell you just how lovely you truly are. You are so hard on yourself, you don't see yourself the way that I see you. We are not perfect people, we have made many mistakes along the way. I am so proud of you for who you are in spite of your mistakes. I admire your heart and your ability to be so vulnerable in a world that tells you to be just about anything else. You have the most incredible soul I have ever come in contact with. I can't seem to say this because I don't want to make you feel any worse than the way things in your life already are. I don't say it because I expect anything or expect it to be said back. But I love you. I really do. You are the greatest blessing to ever walk into my life and I am so grateful for you. So thankful to feel so deeply understood. Thank you for the person you are. Never let anyone change you. You are one in a lifetime.