efflorescent

No flowers grow here. Nothing of beauty grows here. There are only cracks in between ribs and bones that ache to feel. Here, only empty words and sorrow linger. There is no life in this shell.

[whitepaperlyrics]

The Cars - Just What I Needed

Handwritten by our contributor Amy

[whitepaperlyrics]

Hollywood Undead- Rain

[whitepaperlyrics]

Sanctuary - Paradise Fears

[whitepaperlyrics]

Blink 182 - I Miss You

Introducing Crystal to our blog, one of two new contributors starting next Monday. Keep an eye out for her posts!

[whitepaperlyrics]

Jessie Ware - Running

Handwritten by our contributor Yi Hui

[whitepaperlyrics]

Birdy - Not About Angels

[whitepaperlyrics]

The Head And The Heart - Ghosts

Handwritten by our contributor Kailey

[the-taintedtruth]

In this day and age, you have to stick up for yourself and what you believe in. If you don’t, you’ll be buried. Don’t ever get buried, darling.

Advice from my 84-year-old grandmother (via the-taintedtruth)

[icantfeelyou-blog]

"No matter how wide you stretch your fingers, your hands will always be too small to catch all the pain you want to heal. Believe me, I’ve tried."

[whitepaperlyrics]

Cassadee Pope - 11

Handwritten by our contributor Yi Hui

[whitepaperlyrics]

Linkin Park - Leave Out All The Rest

Handwritten by our contributor Yi Hui

[whitepaperlyrics]

Regina Spektor - Eet

Handwritten by our contributor Kailey

[lxcaos]

Her Name is Loneliness

She has a tongue and a mouth, but hardly ever speaks. When she does though, I wish she hadn’t instead. Her tongue is sharp and her intentions are a blur. I don’t know if it’s out of love or out of hate. She has a heart and a mind, but never feels. She has thoughts, but they’re always lost midway – or maybe that’s what she’d like me to think – at least to me.

Her movements are quiet and so is her visitation. Her arrival is subtle, but when she is here, there’s a lingering; it’s stagnant.

Some days, she goes. Long periods of time mark her absence, but for sure, she always comes. She always returns, just as stagnant as ever. She doesn’t grow, she just is. She only lingers.

She’s here, but her presence is one that’s barely felt. Some days, I don’t know if having her around is a good thing or if it’s the other way around. Sometimes, I have to carry her around, till the weight of her is crushing me, pressing down on me so hard that I fall, I collapse.

I need someone, anyone – anybody who can help me with her because I don’t think I can live like this any longer. It’s gotten so bad that I don’t know who’s worse anymore, is it her or is it me? All I know is I won’t survive this; I won’t survive her.

At night, I drown her in alcohol; muffle her sounds with the loud pulsing beat of the dance floor’s music; I try to lose her in the crowd and I try to fill her space up with different bodies. None of them ever encompass the vastness of what she’s taken up inside of me. In the morning, I’m back and so is she, more silent than ever. The silence is deafening, the stillness maddening and I don’t know which is worse, the emptiness in the room that lingers between us or hers.

It is just this, this static in the middle of time that lingers, just as she does.

I want to eradicate her from me, to tear her limbs – her entanglements – that attach themselves to the core of me. I can’t remember, though, a time before her and as much as I try, I can’t seem to envision one after her. As much as I want to be rid of her, maybe I don’t.

[unbearablysharp]

You are nothing like your mother and other lies you tell yourself

It’s okay to start drinking gin at 11am if the sun is shining. Warm skin secrets mean nothing if they’re whispered sideways. Sadness can sometimes be sexy. Her bare legs aren’t burnt into your memory. The bikini Snapchats you send each other don’t mean anything.

Summer is your favourite season. You like the taste of lychee. You still believe in God sometimes. There’s validity in rhymes.  

It’s only possible to want one person at once. You don’t remember the way he smells. You can get drunk enough to forget how bad you feel. The way she touched you wasn’t real. You’re miserable because you’re a poet. You will amount to more than this.

This city isn’t as bad as it sometimes seems. You will feel better if you just learn to breathe. Overseas isn’t all that far away & you were always meant to live in London anyway.

He thinks about you too.

It’s okay to disappear from friendships like a magic trick. Pull happiness out of a hat. Delight the audience with your illusions. Tell yourself there is more to life than this.

You’re not embarrassed about working in retail. One day you will write a novel. Critics will call it “raw, witty, readable,” & “an outstanding debut”. You’ll laugh at those who laughed at you.

You’re not in love with the way he says your name. You’re not in love with the idea of fame. You’re not in love with the curve of her hips. You can’t remember the first time you kissed.

You believe in everlasting love. You believe that being alive is enough. 

[go-book-yourself]

“Tampon commercial, detergent commercial, maxi pad commercial, windex commercial - you’d think all women do is clean and bleed.”

Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

[inkskinned]

that’s the way it was, you know? we’d lie in bed and stare at the ceiling and say, “if i go in tomorrow i will kill myself” and mean it all the way and then when the morning came, we’d get out of bed and sling backpacks over our shoulders. maybe that’s the reason everyone thought we were faking it: because we were so damn awful at going through with it. god, how many of my friends ended up underground. humans remember pain in odd ways. i know when you died i clutched my chest and howled for hours. it still hurts, but not as bad as it used to. i always think, “i’ve lived through this enough times that i’ll be alright the next time,” but i don’t think we ever really learn how to be alright at all. and you hurt and you wake up and you remember the pain from last night in an odd way and you say to yourself, well, okay, i can handle today, it’s a wound but it’s healing. and then at night you say, no more of this ever again. and the cycle starts over again. god, but did i live for the weekends. what a waste of life that is: hating five out of seven days. what were they even supposed to be teaching us, because all i learned is that you can be bone-crushingly tired and so sad that the smallest things make you cry and you will still be able to put both feet on the floor the next day. i guess it taught me i could survive anything, but it wasn’t a lesson i think they kept in the curriculum. were we supposed to be so young and already know so much about sorrow? god, these quiet mornings. i hate remembering. i hate being.

(i’m sad, but i’m staying, and so should you) // r.i.d

[onlydoll]

A woman who says “No thanks, I’ll sleep on the floor”; a woman who freezes up and tenses at your touch; a woman who says “I really don’t want to” and “We really shouldn’t” and “We can’t” and “Please at least wear a condom” is not saying yes to you, and if you would like to pretend that that is unclear, you are a liar, you are being disingenuous, you are lying and you know it.

Mallory Ortberg, "What counts?"