the j line

from here to you

[profeminist]

“When I was in college, a teacher once said that all women live by a ‘rape schedule.’ I was baffled by the term, but as she went on to explain, I got really freaked out. Because I realized that I knew exactly what she was talking about. And you do too. Because of their constant fear of rape (conscious or not), women do things throughout the day to protect themselves. Whether it’s carrying our keys in our hands as we walk home, locking our car doors as soon as we get in, or not walking down certain streets, we take precautions. While taking precautions is certainly not a bad idea, the fact that certain things women do are so ingrained into our daily routines is truly disturbing. It’s essentially like living in a prison - all the time. We can’t assume that we’re safe anywhere: not on the streets, not in our homes. And we’re so used to feeling unsafe that we don’t even see that there’s something seriously fucked up about it.”

— Jessica Valenti, Full Frontal Feminism (via candacebanning)

[langleavpoetry]

[quotespile]

“I keep thinking about this river somewhere, with the water moving really fast. And these two people in the water, trying to hold onto each other, holding on as hard as they can, but in the end it’s just too much. The current’s too strong. They’ve got to let go, drift apart.”

— Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

[langleavpoetry]

[weltraum-kartoffel]

[the-j-line]

And after all these months I still love you in the quiet-- 

Up til 2:30 am murmuring to each other, musing about what the future will be for us. Wondering how long we’ll spend apart, preparing ourselves for what we’ll have to do to make this work. Marveling at how this became something beyond what either of us expected. We’re madly in love, is how you put it, and I never expected words like that could feel so true. 

You tell me it’ll sound crazy, ask-- what if we got married after four years and spent some time together before continuing on with our lives? And it’s clear that you are all in for us-- say you’ve already decided I’m the only one for you, that you couldn’t ask for more. 

And between all these words, a comfortable silence. Bleary and soft and drifting away. 

[langleavpoetry]

[bled]

It’s a miracle we ever met by Hallie Bateman

[psychedelicfelon]

Most important lesson I learned in the past year is, don’t let anyone turn you cruel. No matter how badly you wanna give the world a taste of its own bitter medicine. It’s never worth losing yourself over.

[the-j-line]

What was it like, being 18 and in love?

1. 

It was lying down on the damp dock beside you that one July night, taking your left hand in my right. A million stars spattering the sky above us, and golden lodge lights reflected in the still lake water. Murmuring things about triangles and curvature and star colors as you counted all the shooting stars you could and wished on them that we’d get to do this again. Acoustic guitar drifting over from our friends as you kissed me, and kissed me again. And above us-- the stars.

2. 

It was stumbling out the door into the parking lot with your arms wrapped around me from behind, after the night we hadn’t slept. Sharing the same blanket as we wove over to the highway shoulder; sitting down half asleep and kissing each other wobbly as we waited for the sun to rise. Your lips on my neck. My bare legs in the cold. The sun brushing the tips of the mountains with gold as the birds woke and began to sing. Murmuring to one another until you fell against me in exhaustion. 

3. 

It was comfort, it was sadness. It was wandering the park just content being with each other, but minds already on the miles of distance to come with September. Wondering what we’d fight about and how we might end. Preparing ourselves to wait years before we’d be together for good. Your hair shorter than the last time I ran my hand through it; your mouth gentle and soft on mine. I stood on my tiptoes to hold you closer, pressed against you. Almost fell asleep on a bench, your hand in mine. 

It was clutching summer tight in both hands, and feeling it unwind and slip out of my grasp anyway-- and with it, the promise of you. 

[the-j-line]

Maybe this love we told ourselves was sanded smooth beyond reproach is beginning to crack in the cold-- beginning to splinter. Maybe I am insisting on holding it with both hands anyway. Maybe it will take me years to pull the slivers out. Or maybe I never will. Maybe I’ll leave them in, let skin grow over, let these broken pieces of us become a part of who I am. And I’ll pick at them just to see myself bleed, as a vivid reminder to myself of how we ended.

@the-j-line

[the-j-line]

We don't speak with words.  We speak with a gentle brushing of shoulders, a look across the room, a door opened, a smile as we pass each other, a racing heart as I hear you coming up the driveway. There is power in silence, and while we don't say a word, we both know we only want each other.

Pillow Thoughts, Courtney Peppernell 

[sixwordssayitall]

“I wrote about you all the time to try to make the world understand what I saw when I looked at you. Over the years, though, I have realized no one will ever understand. Despite my best efforts at storytelling, I will never be able to put you into words.”

— @sixwordssayitall

[sixwordssayitall]

IG: sixwordssayitall

[olearypoetry]

[ninasdrafts]

i look at you and it hurts. i look at you and there are a million things to say but none of them seems right. none of them seems fair. listen, i’ve had this conversation in my head countless times and there is no polite way to say it. there is no gentle way to break a heart. it’s not like ripping off a bandaid - the faster you remove it, the less pain you’ll be in. there is no slow way to break a heart, no quick way and no easy way. but i don’t tell you this because i guess you know. somehow, we all know. and yet. listen, i say, but no words come out and now your eyes are on me. your pale blue eyes staring at me, taking me in, turning glassy when i finally say that i can’t. i can’t i can’t i can’t i can’t do this. and i want to explain why but i watch your face fall and the corners of your mouth turn down and you ask me why. because. because i’m not feeling the same way. because i enjoy spending time with you and i like you but not like this. not like you like me. because i don’t like you enough to put my heart on the line and to open up again and i’m so scared of getting hurt. it’s not enough. i keep telling you i’m sorry and i sound like a broken record but you’re not speaking and i don’t know what else to say. we’re both caught up in our own thoughts, you in your spiral of terror, me in my spiral of guilt. your mouth doesn’t move but your eyes scream at me to not say it, to swallow the next words, but i say them anyway: can we still be friends? can we not make this awkward? can we still talk like we used to? i hate myself for breaking you this way, i hate myself for wanting to keep you around when you know you can never touch me like this again, never say the wrong words at the wrong time. things will never be the same and i know. but i don’t want you to leave me. i know you could, and i know it’s your right to get up and go, but i hope you won’t. i hope you know that i’m not breaking your heart out of spite or because i find joy in it. i just can’t do it. i can’t stay when i don’t feel the same. i can’t pretend and lie through my teeth. i can’t risk it all when i’m not even sure i want to. when the fear sits on my shoulder, claws digging into my skin, every time you take my hand. every time you say my name. and i hope you understand that there’s not only pain in being heartbroken, there’s also pain in being a heartbreaker.

how to be a heartbreaker / n.j. (via ninasdrafts)

[lazyyogi]

I’m so excited for summer thunderstorms you don’t even know

[coffeeandleatherboundbooks]

A bulletpoint list of things I want to say to you -

I miss you.

I will always miss you.

You’re still the only one I want to talk to about most things and the only one who understands. But it’s kind of hard to tell things to people who aren’t there anymore.

I guess the fact I’m writing this and will never send it shows how not-over-you I am but I also guess that you already know that too.

I see beautiful bits of you everywhere and in everyone, and it’s like seeing home when you’re in a different country because you feel so fucking far away -

Sometimes that makes me want to cry because I want to put all of those pieces together and sew them up and hold you but I lost that chance the day you decided you didn’t need me anymore.

I’ve never really been sure where it went wrong. One moment we were inseparable and the next I was oceans away.

Once you asked me what made me need you. I still don’t know the answer. I still need you.

People tell you you grow from pain but that’s a lie. You grow from accepting that life is bullshit but you’re better than that. And I’ve been trying to tell myself for years now that I can do this; I will make my own happiness; I will be whole again. I will not let myself regret these years because of you.

More than anything, I hope you’re happy.

Love, Jessie.

- j.f // I still sleep with my window open - maybe my dreams will still make their way to you across the world.