Language Is A Barrier

[soundsoftheoaktree]

We were talking about how we would divvy up the chores—hypothetically, of course—if ever we were to live under the same roof. I’d take the dusting, you’d do the dishes, and you said if I vacuumed, you’d to the laundry. You got quiet before you admitted, hesitantly, that you don’t separate colors. I giggled. I told you neither did I. “Except whites,” we both said quickly, simultaneously. “I love you,” I whispered for the first time, grinning into your shoulder.

Soundsoftheoaktree// how I told him

[blossomfully]

“Call me at 4am. Wake me up. I don’t care, I just want to hear your voice. Tell me about the bad dream you had, tell me why you can’t fall asleep. Tell me why you prefer to talk at night, or why the words only come spilling from your mouth when you think no one is listening. I am here. I will listen to you when your shoulders feel heavy; I will hear your words when you feel so crushingly small. I will sit with you in silence when you are slumped against your pillow. I know your sadness is not beautiful, I know it is overwhelming and destructive and ugly. I know you feel powerless and redundant. So call me at 4am. I prefer you over sleep any day. Don’t sit there on your own. Talk to me. I love you and I care.”

— S. Zhao (via blossomfully)

[coldfeetonthekitchenfloor]

His eyes are like the colour of a sunset through a glass of whiskey. But people are listening and so you keep it simple and say they are brown.

And you wonder why you have to tamper things down like too much of one sense is a bad thing, like it’s not more boring to un-feel.

[soundsoftheoaktree]

I should have knocked on your door. I shouldn’t have been texting you goodnight, one room away. I should have gotten down from the lofted bed in the next room and knocked on your door—in my grandmother’s sweatshirt and fuzzy socks, I should have knocked on your door and said, “Hi.” Then I might have said something like, “I love you,” but I could have said a million other things. I could have said, “LANY songs remind me of you,” or, “Did you know that it only took me half a tank of gas to make it all the way here from Kansas?” The point is I would have said something. I would have knocked on your door. I should have knocked.

soundsoftheoaktree// in October her Junior year

[yourhandwrittenletter]

“I’ve spent most of my life chasing the person I want to be. Because 20-year-old me will have better friends and 25-year-old me will land a killer job and 30-year-old me will be madly in love. And me 6 months from now will be skinnier and me a year from now will have more confidence and me some time from now will be better somehow. So much better. For years, this is what I thought. That if I could just wait it out, everything would get better. It took me a long time to realize that life doesn’t work that way. Older doesn’t mean happier or easier, and it certainly doesn’t mean better; it just means older. Life isn’t a well-plotted screenplay or a checklist or, God forbid, some waiting room. We have got to stop waiting. Because life isn’t about growing up to be all that we’ve ever wanted; it’s just about growing. It’s about love and change and crying yourself to sleep when it’s all too much. And working at a burger joint and kissing your best friend even though he might not like you back and calling your mom every Sunday because you miss her like hell. It’s fights and promotions and hospital visits. Hellos. Goodbyes. And then it’s this: another wedding of another one of your college friends, the third one this year, but this time you meet a groomsman who’s just as down on love and you dance all night. And this: he cries when you say “I do.” And this: a kid with your eyes and his dorky ears. Or maybe not. Maybe it’s this: you write everything, everywhere, all the time, even when the prettier kids make fun of you, and the short teacher with the big nose tells you it’s good. Really good. And this: you’re living in a shoebox, by the skin of your teeth, but there’s a bar across the street that lets you read your poetry, and every time you do, someone in the crowd finally knows what it feels like to be understood. And this: your words being published. Your words. Being bought by people who could be spending their money on anything at all. And you sit in your twin bed where you’ve written your entire novel, a dozen empty coffee mugs still dirty on the nightstand, and you scream until your lungs burn. It’s all of these things and good things and bad things and the raw realization that it doesn’t get better or worse, it just gets different. It just changes. Always, always changes. And somehow that makes it more wonderful. Because future you may have the friends and the boy and the job, but she didn’t get it by waiting around. She is a product of you. Right now, tomorrow, changing and growing every moment that follows. She is kind and breathing and beautiful. But she waits for the day she doesn’t have to worry about the bills, and she worries too often about what people think of her. She’s homesick for everything she used to have. She still doesn’t have it together. And maybe that’s what I’ve learned after all this time: nobody has it together. We’re all just here, floundering around in pursuit of being something more. Broken, thoughtful creatures with too much time on our hands, desperate for the companionship of someone who reminds us that we are not alone. We don’t have much of anything figured out. Maybe we never will. But more importantly, I think that’s how it’s supposed to be.”

— ramblings of an overthinker (via yourhandwrittenletter)

[yourhandwrittenletter]

“Watch how he treats waiters and speaks to his sister and acts when you win your third round of spit. Does he untangle Christmas lights with care? Fuck this. Hold that. Make sure you listen. When you’re late –overtired and dead in the eyes– watch him. Does he draw you close and talk you into slow dancing around your shoebox bedroom? Tell him a joke and wait for his lungs to bleed laughter. If they don’t, you should leave. Or stay and watch him cook dinner and fold laundry. Flip pancakes. Touch your underwear and sigh. Oh! Kids and dogs, too. Puppies, preferably. These are good indicators. Does he dip low to greet them? Small things might scare him, and if they do, you should leave. Or don’t. Or tiptoe around him until the tension erupts. Storm Warning. Code Red. Listen to him sing in the shower. Billy Joel. Elton John. Elvis, but only around Christmas time. Forgive, but don’t forget. And fuck. All the time. Don’t ever call it making love. That’s idiotic, and you know it. Do it in your childhood bed after your parents fall asleep. Just once and only for the adrenalin. A quickie. A never have I ever completed. Afterwards, tell him about the time you lost your virginity to James Nelson in the backseat of his mom’s mini van. Tell him you think you were too young, but mean you wish you could take it back, and let him see you bare for a moment. Let him kiss you hard like he’s trying to tell you something, but don’t make any assumptions. He could be too drunk, after all. He’s always too drunk. Have the kids talk, the marriage talk, the my side of the bed talk. If you survive all of this, you should stay. Unless you say, “We need to talk,” and he squirms. This is cruel, but ultimately effective. Or maybe try, “I love you.” This, I warn you, is even crueler. When he says it back, ask why, and listen as he hands you pebble after pebble of ego. Don’t be fooled. You can still leave. That’s still an option. Clothes thrown haphazardly into a suitcase- his or yours, you honestly can’t remember. You say you want more, and he asks of what. It’s ok not to know, but even if you do know, don’t you dare clue him in. For once in your life play hard to get. Watch him watch you half-way through the threshold of something brand new. Does he cry? Not now, necessarily, just ever. If he didn’t cry when you watched The Titanic, you should leave. Unless he’s crying now. Which he is. Holy shit. Unpack your bag slowly, sock by sock, and let yourself wonder if you’re making the right decision. Let your heart break a little for the other side of the coin. Does he care about people? Not just you, but people. Humanity. Peace on earth. But then, okay, does he care about you? Enough, I mean. Does he care about you enough? He’s here now, and he says your name like a prayer, like a curse, like a thing he thought he’d lost in the fire. And then he’s mad as hell. Wait for him to clench his fists and practice patience. Push his buttons if you like, but don’t expect him to play nice. Sleep on the couch, just for a night, and hold on tight when he carries you back to your bed, his bed, in the middle of the night. Don’t bring it up in the morning. He’ll just blame it on your sleepwalking, and that’ll spark another fight about nothing. And by nothing I mean everything. Watch him pour your coffee a week later and add two sugars and a cream, just how you like it. Does he still pray under his breath right before bed? Listen to the way he says, “Amen,” and compare it to the way he traces your brow when he thinks you’re still asleep. He’s too proud to act that way in front of his parents. Or anyone else, for that matter. Look through his drawers, top to bottom, and swallow the thrill that arises when you find the crumpled love note you once left on his desk at the job that he quit last year. Remember the way he used to call you darling. Mourn for a moment, only a moment, the way he used to be. And watch him that night, stroking the cat you couldn’t leave at the shelter, and let yourself wonder what life might be like without him. If the answer scares you or excites you or makes you tuck your feet up under your legs, stop. Breathe. He’s staring at you, waiting for answers. Scoot a little closer. You know what to do.”

— on falling in love and falling apart  (via yourhandwrittenletter)

[blossomfully]

What are your top 10 favorite quotes?

“Isn’t it pretty to think so?” - Ernest Hemingway

“She wasn’t doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together.” - J. D. Salinger

“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.” - A. A. Milne

“That’s the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty, even if they’re not much to look at, or even if they’re sort of stupid, you fall in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are. Girls. Jesus Christ. They can drive you crazy. They really can.” - J. D. Salinger

“He is mad about being small when you were big, but no, that’s not it, he is mad about being helpless when you were powerful, but no, not that either, he is mad about being contingent when you were necessary, not quite it… he is insane because when he loved you, you didn’t notice.” - Donald Barthelme

“I think you still love me, but we can’t escape the fact that I’m not enough for you. I knew this was going to happen. So I’m not blaming you for falling in love with another woman. I’m not angry, either. I should be, but I’m not. I just feel pain. A lot of pain. I thought I could imagine how much this would hurt, but I was wrong.” - Haruki Murakami

“So the darkness shall be the light and the stillness, the dancing.” - T. S. Eliot

“Because what’s worse than knowing you want something, besides knowing you can never have it?” - James Patterson

“Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.” - Henry Wadsworth

“People have forgotten this truth,” the fox said. “But you mustn’t forget it. You become responsible forever for what you’ve tamed. You’re responsible for your rose.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Here are a smattering of quotes off the top of my head :)

[xhammyfy]

[blossomfully]

“It was the way he looked at you - with so much understanding. It was the way that he knew what you were thinking before you said a thing. It was the way that silences were light, and feelings steady; the way that he laughed wholly, and the warmth it brought. It was his thoughtfulness, “I saw this and it reminded me of you” - and the way he wasn’t afraid to call you out on your bullshit. It was how he took your guardedness in both hands and said, “stop. I know you’re scared. I know, I get it and it’s okay.“ It was how he held you, not to control you but to let you know that he was there. How he never promised to love you forever, but every night promised to love you the next day. It was his compassion and the way that he loved without condition. It was the love he instilled in you, the affection and care that you never knew was possible. It was him, laid simple and bare. It was him.”

— Sue Zhao // “Love” 

[blossomfully]

“But what if you never got to kiss him? What if you never got to hold his hand? What if you never got to feel his arms around you, breathe in the air around him and feel his silence? How do you get over him then? What if you still have his laughter spilling out of your pockets, the sound of him saying your name ringing in your ears, wishing that he’d grab your arm when you were walking away, knowing that he never would? How do you get over someone who you never had? How do you forget things that never happened? Do you ever stop loving someone who never knew how you felt? Do you ever learn to forgive yourself for not telling them?”

— Questions // Sue Zhao

[blossomfully]

27/03/18

[blacksincity]

“i can write about you,

but i can’t make you love me. ”

via @blacksincity

[blossomfully]

“The thought of him with her - of them together - embedded in each other’s arms like two jigsaw pieces - tore through me. I couldn’t stand it. I wondered how he spoke to her; whether he was gentle like he was with me; whether he listened to her stories and committed them to memory; whether he danced with her in the middle of the street; whether he knew about her dreams. I wondered if he thought of her while grocery shopping; wrote her love letters; whether she inspired him; whether she brought out the best in him and challenged him. I wondered whether she was brave; kind; compassionate. I wondered whether she made him happy. But… then again it was none of my business - none of my business who he kissed, or held - or laughed with - or spun round in the streets - or woke up next too - or had feelings for - or made memories with - or loved. It was none of my business who he loved. And it killed me. It really did.”

— Sue Zhao

[salparadisewasmyfather]

Poetry did something to me. Now I can only fall in love with people I have no words for.

Nils Brandstädter (Journals - How it ripped out my heart)

[excerptsofstories]

She wrote love stories to hide the fact that she didn’t have one of her own.

Excerpt from a book I will never write #1350 // novaetic (via excerptsofstories)

[soundsoftheoaktree]

I sped up, hoping that he would see me--in my white car, windows down, blasting music, enjoying my existence. I wanted him to see my joy and maybe, just maybe start to feel the pinch of love I feel when I hold his cold hand--let me explain. I believe people are their most beautiful when they are simply happy; not elated or especially excited, but just that quiet midnight happiness that only that one song with the words you may not quite know and the fluid cold wind on your freckled cheeks can give you. I sped up and I looked over. I hoped to catch your eye, smile, and return to my off-key belting. But you didn't look. You just hit your steering wheel to the beat of whatever your song was. You looked goofy. You looked happy. That special kind of happy. And here I am, falling back in love with you and your dumb midnight happiness.

soundsoftheoaktree/ He drove a Ford too

[theons-deactivated20200725]

i was never alyssa’s protector. she was mine.