Amor Fati

"You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you." -----Ray Bradbury-----

[writing-in-memories]

the sky is blue, i believe it is blue, i have witnessed it being blue for so long. i know in my heart it is blue. he tells me it is red. he tells me like i am stupid. how could i ever think it was blue when it is so clear that it is red. he reminds me of this each day. "the sky is red, you see it now right?" he tells me over and over. these are facts. he mentions it in passing conversations. "hey man, i went for the most beautiful ride the other day beneath the red sky." naturally. effortlessly. i start to question myself on why i ever thought it was blue; why i ever felt so strongly about it being blue when he has made it so clear that it is red. i must be wrong. i must retrain my mind. these are facts. the sky is red.

[writing-in-memories]

i am a carcass collecting bruises, putting bandaids on bullet holes and wondering why i have red stains on all my nightgowns. the last time i bled myself to sleep was five days ago.

i am an empty room; a foundation built but never furnished. there is a silhouette living inside my home; a shadow of a soul. even vacancy can look like happiness with a practiced mask.

you cannot search for your lighthouse in a home if the turmoil lives within its walls and sometimes rose coloured glasses paint such a pretty fiction that you find yourself living in their reverie, and not your own.

i daydream in echoes of the stories i tell myself to get by: the 'one days' and 'could bes' and 'if i had extra time' but there are no silver linings in giving everything if you reach the last chapter and the ink you have left for yourself is dry.

[writing-in-memories]

we are painting a counterfeit story in watercolor, blending shades of blue and purple, and pretending they are not the same as the bruises we leave in the wake of our encounters // we embroider memories, weaving them into beautiful tapestries we may never call our own // if vacancy is an empty street in the deepest canals of my heart, why is it that i always find a home with you in my dreams?

i have loved you loudly in whispers, but screaming becomes a mute force when your voice is plagued in fiction. when the truth you speak takes ownership in a heart outside your own.

how do you validate a hurt once you find out you are the villain?

[writing-in-memories]

cupid's arrow is directional, but our hands were never good with maps and we drew blood long before we conjured an escape plan. // the band aids they sell at the corner store were not marked for heartbreak, but we kept coming back after every bullet hole, like somehow the longer we bled, the longer we would know each other's hearts.

does my absence haunt you? can you feel my ghost in the wind on nights that were supposed to be ours?

a memory holds residence, even after the lease is up. sometimes i wonder if i will always know the aftertaste of you.

[writing-in-memories]

can you wish upon a star that isn't ready to fall yet?

tell me my iridescent love,

will you change your mind about me?

[writing-in-memories]

>> we love in different wavelengths. your heart beats in monochrome. i throw rainbows hoping their refractions could ever bend your path to me. >> i play back the memories on an old film reel, slowing the frames enough to hear your heartbeat. the credits are rolling before we have the chance to make the cut. >> you see, i have a habit of sinking my claws so far into fairytales that i forget to remember the ache underneath. it is the ache that lingers long after the movie ends. >> it can be hard to distinguish a play on words and the truth i often find nestled between red flags. you can make any lie sound like poetry if you try hard enough.

i am rambling again.

>> i hope these words find you in your brightest moments. i hope you are running free, tangled in so.much.love that you forget the pain you placed delicately on my shoulders to carry on without you. >> i tried so hard to be your golden angel. i wanted to shine so bright, you forgot there were other stars in our night sky; you forgot i wasn't the one guiding you home. >> instead, i build you a compass. i cheer you on from the sidelines. it feels like we are in this together, all smiles and adrenaline. i know she is waiting for you at the finish line. i know i am just a pit-stop, bandaging your bruises and sending you on your way. >> i am on my hands and knees paving the ground in front of you. you are practicing your takeoff [you beat a new record each time we run it through]. >> you don't turn around for one last glance. i don't shed a tear until you become a speck of dust on the horizon.

the flood comes after.

[writing-in-memories]

i hope i come across a warning before we reach our end. i hope there is a sign, a roadblock saying: NO WAIT. STOP HERE; no unauthorized personnel beyond this point. i hope there is a story to keep; pages that will hurt to read, sure, but ones i won't want to burn. i hope i remember the ache for all it was: everything.

[writing-in-memories]

there are pieces of you that still linger on my skin; tattoos that do not need ink to leave permanence. your body has become a second skin, leaving welts and bruises in the wake of its absence. [my arms come up empty most nights]

i see our false future just beyond the skyline. i live in all the words i swallow before they leave my tongue. you told me in a dream once that we exist at the end of a rainbow, and i have spent my days running towards our pot of gold, willing this fairytale to be real. [it cannot be a lie if we believe it]

i wander aimlessly for answers in a sea of misgivings. i am breathing slow, but i cannot find your heartbeat. i dance with your ghost in the living room; your phantom arms around my waist, lips pressed against my shoulder. we are making memories in smoke. the ashes will settle without reprieve. [what are almosts if not beautiful delusions]

i am screaming i love you with my eyes; the words lie trapped inside my mind. i rattle the cages. the chains lacerate my skin, but i have toyed too much with reality that she swallows my pleas without remorse. [borrowed time is not kindly forgiven]

she is calling you home; a siren song so deafening, it drowns out all my muted whispers. it does not matter what residence your name holds in my heart; i am chained to wishes, and she has laid claim on forever. [i will still be rooting for us, even in the end]

[writing-in-memories]

the speed of trust is only as fast as i can run from my truth, and i tend to see things at face value, failing to forge my way beneath the lies.

i am an imposter in a home built by my own hands, and i have made my heart a prisoner; my ribcage a jail cell for the love i wish i knew how to acquiesce in.

my shadow is nipping at my heels, willing me to love her as my own; but toxicity is easier than acceptance, and sometimes i don't realize i am masking the wounds with whiskey until i have finished the bottle, and the pain remains.

i wear the years on my sleeve; my story is still being written. i leave chapters unfinished to evade goodbyes, but i never asked to be collateral for my own loan on life.

i camouflage my insomnia with restful lies and pretend to coax the darkness into hibernation. but when the sun forgets me on her journey to the top of the sky, i will remember my scars in ink stains. spilling blood is a daring form of art.

[writing-in-memories]

you left acid marks on my skin. you didn't care which pieces of me you turned to ash. you never planned to keep the evidence anyway.

[writing-in-memories]

i wait for you between dreams. i struggle to find freedom amidst time's chokehold. what is permanence if not a promise that our days spent apart will always come up short? [we hunger for a life just beyond our reach.]

when you start in the wreckage it's harder to claw your way back to the things that should mean something; but how can we hold residence in a clandestine world that thrives only in the shadows? [i would live in the wastelands if it was the only place i could have you.]

we are making memories in the wind. we don't get to keep the butterflies. there is no concrete evidence we were ever here. [how close can we get before goodbye engulfs us in flames?]

you cannot recall a memory just to heal a wound, and i would carry the pain in my chest as a souvenir, before i ever gave myself license to forget you. the bruises will feel like poetry, maimed with your name; and i will hold space for you in the next life; [please find me there.]

[writing-in-memories]

but if we are to be a forest fire; if this unholy encounter is to end in flames, then i can only hope our colors will transcend the limitations this life has cast upon our clandestine souls. i hope the restitution of our blackened hearts brings us back together, if only for a moment.

[writing-in-memories]

we take time exploring skin; tracing soap suds across unmarked territories and sewing secrets into naked flesh. we lay claim to skins that don't belong to us and find solace in the stolen moments, however long they may last. we fold time into pockets we will never have the chance to unpack, and swallow the lies we tell ourselves to get by.

i know you will leave bruises in your wake. i know the third degree burns may never heal. your hands hold all the red flags, but i have built my heart on kerosene and if being doused in flames means i get to consume all of you, then i gladly rest my soul in ash.

sometimes it feels good to live inside your own ruin. a broken heart is still a beating one.

[writing-in-memories]

a call to arms

I wear my heart on my sleeve, spilling blood over all the places your name has taken shelter on my skin. We see tragedy on the horizon. We have laid the battlegrounds. So what is this if not a call to arms? Can we call this longing mourning if we have not traded heartbeats? We live on the fault lines. We walk barefoot through fields of shattered glass. You have not sought out exit signs, but you have already mapped out your goodbye. I see our silhouettes in monochrome. It feels like we are already a memory. I don't want to learn your aftertaste. I don't want to dance with your ghost.

~

I do not know if we can be golden, but I would like to say we chased the rainbow, even if we could not wait out the storm.

[writing-in-memories]

i have tried to learn new rhythms. i have tried to pull a little less hard on the strings. but there is a part of my heart that will only ever beat for you. i have allowed myself to live with this truth.

you wanted me to believe we could isolate the intimacy; to wrap bare skins in backseats like puzzle pieces, while devouring lips beneath a hungry kiss fairytales could only dream of. you wanted me to believe i made us up in my head; like we could be everything, but not forever. my tomorrow was always waiting for your maimed goodbye.

you can pretend to forget me. you can choose a safe haven in another's arms. but you can't unstitch the stories we wove beneath the tapestry of time. you can't erase the way your body used to come alive for me; the way we could map each other's skins with such precision that even if we ended up lost to the world, we always had a story in the rearview we could come back to.

please don't tell me you still have the key, when you never once thought about coming home. i will not stand in the ruins waiting for you.

i hope she loves you as fierce as these coastal winds. i hope she gets to hold all the good parts of you.

[writing-in-memories]

i turn away. i close the door. but i still hide a spare key under the welcome mat. i pretend to change the locks. i buy an alarm system for my heart. i encrypt it with your birthday. i say goodbye. i ask you never to return. but your lips are tattooed on my breasts and your smile is etched behind my eyelids and i would be lying if i said i don't miss the feeling of you inside me. i don't still think about your body. i don't think of your skin pressed tightly against mine. of your hands that always seemed to linger in the right places. i don't think about our tongues entwined in unspoken languages.

sometimes my bed feels like an echo. the sins we committed forever lie within the folds of time.

my favorite scars are branded with your name.

[writing-in-memories]

i still have all the bandaids. the blood stains start to look different as more time passes, but they never go away.

i carry the ache as a souvenir. i always have the map that leads back to you buried in my back pocket. i never pull it out. i have it memorized.

i try to erase the marks you left on me, but tattoos don't come off just because you ask them to. your lips left behind a new permanence i had never known.

i got tired of chasing ghosts down all the wrong avenues. i tell the wind that I don't miss you anymore. my shadow still looks for you in October's arms.

with every year that passes, your name feels less like a freight train and more like a postmark. a timestamp of a memory passed. a silhouette against an otherwise empty frame.