nad

Writer/Dreamer. Self proclaimed hopeless romantic. Just looking for a place to dump my little thoughts and stories

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I am 17 and for once I want to be held like I never was as a child

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planning to start a proper blog off of tumblr if anyone wants to check it out. it's gonna feature some of the posts already on here but majority of my long-form-esque posts will be moved to there from now on. just drabbles and shit here

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Stuck at 17

I wonder how many times I hear the phrase “grow up” before it stops causing me tears and anxiety; before it finally starts to fuel me with the initiative to take control of my life. I wonder how many car rides full of criticism with me at the wheel before I stop shaking when I press the gas pedal and instead begin to rule the road. I wonder how many reminders of unattainable scholarships and pressing college applications before my chest stops feeling heavy and my throat begins to breathe easy again. I wonder how many cries of adulthood will pass before I wake up to reality from my dreams of childhood.

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Musings of a growing hopeless romantic (I think my mind still hasn't unlearned the thought of loving you)

Can you be lovesick without being in love? No object of your infatuation or desire begging to take up half your day and all of your mind. Simply full of the feeling itself; giddy laughter, butterflies and smiles as wide as two oceans. Are those not the signs of lovesickness and delusion? Are those not the signs that scream at you when you meet a face too pretty to leave alone?

It's been nine months and I still get lovesick sometimes. On early mornings when the sunrise paints the sky in glorious oranges and pink hues. On Sundays when the days are empty and stretch long into the nights, cold air and the occasional hobby to keep you company. On rainy evenings with curtains billowing in the wind, memories of an unfulfilled future filling me along with my tea.

Then again, I think perhaps this isn't lovesickness; if the butterflies lead to nausea and the thought of laughing drains a hole in my heart. Because lovesickness isn't supposed to leave you empty, crying into a half-drunk glass on Friday nights. It isn't meant to sap away your energy and leave you, begging, wondering if you could ever be loved in that way.

At least I don't think so.

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Feelings of inadequacy and average-ness

More often than I'd ever admit, I've wondered what the world would be like without me. If for a day, I slept through the sunrise and continued to slumber till the next morning; if for a blip in a moment I ceased to exist; would the world know then? Would it feel the absence of just another one of its background characters disappearing? Or would it shrug me off, left untouched and unchanged by my erasure? Would my friends worry? Would my phone blow up with questioning texts and concerned voicemails? Or would it remain silent, no earthquake or grand tsunami to rock the world of those who were a part of my life? These thoughts sit snuggly at the back of my mind, playing patty cake with the whispers of self doubt and inadequacy until my brain inevitably exhausts itself of reality and falls back into the trenches of imaginary danger. Would it matter, if I left? Do I matter in this moment at all, simply existing without consequence or impact on the world? Because as much as they'd like to tell me otherwise, I know I am nothing special. None of the pretty eyes or natural knack for excelling that my sister has, no innate talent that could convince me otherwise. I have lived a painfully average life and I am destined for painfully average things. I have always been that extra in everyone else's story, an empty face, a passing hi to the people who's footsteps seem to shake the universe.

So yeah, I've wondered once or twice and twenty other times if the world would miss me the few seconds I lived to say goodbye.

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The Assumption of Absence : a possible explanation

Forever is a word that people use much too often, much too easily. Do they mean it? Best friend forever, I'll love you forever. It's an unquantifiable amount of time, an infinite possibility— a nonexistent promise begging the gods to spare us more time than we deserve.

So perhaps that's why melancholy has been plaguing my thoughts as of late. Forever is an empty promise made by hopeful people; greedy for company, for conversation, for time. Constantly, more time we ask, when we know the world isn't that kind. When we know we could be here one moment and gone the next.

Perhaps that's why sadness has weighed me down these past few days. Forever, no matter how we say it, is numbered. Perhaps knowing that eventually, no matter what I say or hope or pray or do, eventually, you will become nothing more than a memory. Our time together will end. Our jokes will go stale, our eyes will no longer meet, our insanity together will cease. No more teasing, no more laughs, no more coffee whether Starbucks or tinned.

It's the anticipation of loss. The preparation of letting you go. Even when there's been no indication of leaving, no indication of us falling apart. I miss you even when there's nothing to be missed. There is longing even when you're sat here next to me. Anxiety where there is nothing to be anxious about. Terrified of losing something I shouldn't be scared of losing.

Does melancholy like this exist? Or am I just coming up with explanations; excuses to avoid facing my unnamed sorrow? Someday, five years from now, the thought of us will remain nothing more than a distant memory. Nothing more than echoes of laughter in an empty hallway and half written poems of your eyes and your smile. Does that allow me this feeling of melancholy? Or am I just selfish for wanting you to remain here with me forever?

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Love, Perhaps

It’s a strange thing, isn’t it? Thinking you’ve fallen for someone? Getting confused and terrified, excited at the same time at the possibility of something more. I thought rejection would hurt a lot more, I thought it would hurt like the movies. With screams and crying in the middle of the night, depression, not being able to function without who you thought was your true love. I didn’t think it would be relief, or a blip in the moment, slight disappointment that this person doesn’t see you the same way you see them. And then, nothing. Just friendship and finally not having to care. Relief. 

But I could still list all the ways I love you. The way you laugh, how you squeeze your eyes shut and barely any sound comes out, the way your hair sits in the morning, your jokes and conversations, your respect for my space. You make me want to say thank you a million times over instead of sorry. You make me want to shout at the top of my lungs as we fight over coins or when I insist on paying for that one canned drink of yours. It’s like having a brother, a little bit. Some company, a friend who I can rely on truly. Not to say other people haven’t been there for me in the past. They have. But I haven’t been loved back so easily and unconditionally as this. I’ve never felt like someone genuinely enjoys my company, like someone’s eyes would search for me in a room, like someone would wait for me to hop on the train before they leave. Perhaps there is no difference and this is all in my head, but still, I love you, wholeheartedly, fiercely and with all of me. So what if it isn’t romantic? I don’t need kisses and presents and I love yous to burn the world down for you. I don’t need hugs and special gestures and late night texts to know I would gladly fight hundreds to defend you. Platonic or romantic, I love you. And it’s nice feeling like you love me too.

Perhaps you won’t ever understand what it means when you pass me a couple of coins, or why I smile so brightly when I meet your gaze. Why I cry when you say thank you or when you give something in return for buying you a drink (even if it is 20 cents). Perhaps I am a little broken, a little sore around the edges. Perhaps that’s why every little gesture makes me euphoric. It’s how I show my love, how I used to treat my friends and how I still do. So for you to do the same, to reciprocate in my own language of care and compassion and understanding, it means the whole world. It means everything to me. So thank you, thank you for all the little things, all the big things, thank you for understanding and thank you for accepting. Thank you for everything.

I love you, I love you, I love you. And I hope that you know that I love you. Because people like you and me, as I like to believe, we don’t get as much love as we need. We starve for company, companionship, understanding and support. And please, please know that I am here for you. I am here, willingly, unconditionally, without doubt and without fail. I will love you today, tomorrow, five years from now. I will love you when we grow old, when we grow apart, I would like to love you when the world ends and when the afterlife begins.

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“I do not know anything of love, but heartache is a a friend as old and weathered as time”

–they say write what you know // i will not pretend to know what love is

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Is the guilt of disliking someone ever discussed? The weight that sits on you chest as you laugh along, faking interest and exerting pitying kindness through every exhale and unreciprocated hug. I wish you disliked me. Truly, I do. I wish you poked holes through my stories and called me out on my bullshit lies. Instead you laugh heartily, telling me stories of weekends I'd never lived through, muttering thank yous and I love yous as you thread your fingers through my reluctant hands.

–i hesitate to tell you what goes on in my head not because the though of you leaving scares me, but because the thought of you despising me scares me more than loneliness ever could

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i wonder if it was you who made me unpleasant or if meeting you had unleashed all the terrible things already in me out into the world

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Sometimes I write the most profound shit to ever flash by my mind in a state I can only describe as manic-hormonal-mood-swing-witch mode. And sometimes I write tacky bullshit that you cannot pay me to read again. It’s a delicate balance

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"I do not think I can love you." The phrase sits heavy on my chest as we sit at our usual table; chatting, laughing, drinking coffee and exchanging niceties. I hate coffee, I think as the words morph into a million different excuses —none of which I could possibly say. "I do not think I can love you sincerely, if at all." It flashes again through my thoughts as we make small talk. And suddenly our relationship disintegrates. And suddenly all I can think of is the betrayal that would be in your eyes. "Was any of it real?" you will inevitably ask. "I do not think I ever loved you" I will reply. It would be the first truths I’ve told you in months. You will cry, I imagine. Ugly and snotty and full of devastation as I pack up and begin to leave, intending to never sit here again. But this reality only exists in my head, in my writing, in my eyes on tiring days. So I sit again with you today, holding a fork in one hand and my sanity in the other as we speak; hoping you will one day realise all of this on your own. –breakfast with you is eating guilt on toast

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Some things are better left unsaid. Like the way I can’t think of coffee without thinking of you. Like the way it’s taste— milky, bitter, just the right notes of sweet— seem to carry the outline of your idiotic smile, the forgiving shape of your eyes. The way walking past a brewery makes my chest ache; with anxiety, longing. The way the smell of roasted beans makes me sick to my stomach despite my want to drink coffee. Bitter. Sweet. Like the way your laugh used to sound when I cracked stupid jokes. Like the broken stares we used to hold from across the room. Like your presence, bittersweet and as addictive as caffeine. I loved coffee. But I suppose I loved you more.

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I wish I wrote with indifference. With interest instead of emotion. But instead tears pour out of every crevice of my heart and sorrow sighs while longing sits heavy, unmoving from my chest. Stagnant happiness tugs at my sleeve, begging to be picked up as my thoughts flow from mind to ink to paper as long and as constant as the nile. But again and again, it is you. My constant is you and sadness and madness and terrible insanity. You are what I write again and again, over and over, each new poem an echo of the one before. An echo of the despair in my chest, the scream of desperation from every hole in my heart.

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sometimes, only sometimes, I greatly overestimate my ability to deal with people.

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With you, love is coffee and rain. Love is eclipse mints and keychain capybaras and childish jabs at the back of class and laughing at the air. With you, love seems so maddeningly simple, I wish it were true

–love is,

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It happened so quickly yet so gradually I found myself gasping for air in mid autumn, fallen to my knees. People pass, unfazed by the girl fighting for her life ’neath a dying tree.

–it’s not a panic attack, i just forgot how to breathe