Men Hold Up A Baby Saved From A Pile Of Rubble. Damascus, Syria, 2014

“but what if i’m faking it?”

traumatic memories, especially traumatic memories from when you were a child, are notoriously difficult to access in their entirety. there are a lot of reasons for this- dissociation, injury, and memory deteriorating over time to name a few- and this can present a challenging question to survivors: how do i know i’m not lying?

people who are faking trauma or mental illness in general know they’re faking it. if you didn’t wake up one day and plan out what a fake traumatic memory you were going to have, and all the triggers you wanted to have, then you’re not faking. 

processing trauma memories is difficult and frightening and confusing, but you are not a liar or a faker.

“….” by Emily Byrnes

I write about love obsessively but how can I call myself a poet and not find a muse in our love? in your eyes? or in your kisses?

you, my love, are Michaelangelo’s david (your head turned to the sea and your eyes alive, god you are art in the skin of a man), Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa (the way your smile tells me things your words could never, the way I can’t help but stop and stare whenever your lips turn into a crescent moon), Van gogh’s sunflowers (blonde hair and green eyes, the colour palette of a man driven by the madness of love. you should sit in a gallery, honey. you’re the most beautiful thing these eyes ever laid on).

beings like you inspire the most wonderful art. and although i do not create the most beautiful words or the most stunning paintings, I am curled up in the corner thinking of you. and all my fingers can do is write. and write and write.

this is how Michaelangelo felt in the chapel, painting stories of god and trying to bring this divinity to the earth.

this is how da Vinci felt, drawing the smile of a woman he had only seen in passing. her beauty seared her into his brain, how could he not make art out of her face and call it a masterpiece?

and this is how Van Gogh felt, broken by the world but seeing all the wonder of nature in his lover’s eyes, deciding there are good things if only she exists.

you, my dear, are art. nothing less.

“I used to dislike being sensitive. I thought it made me weak. But take away that single trait, and you take away the very essence of who I am. You take away my conscience, my ability to empathize, my intuition, my creativity, my deep appreciation for the little things, my vivid inner life, my deep awareness of others’ pain, and my passion for it all.”

— (via purplebuddhaquotes)

trigger warning: self harm

it’s been a year since I last hurt myself, an addiction that took all my willpower to overcome. I know I can fashion words into something beautiful but there was nothing pretty about all that self-hatred, all that anger, loss and pain. all that pain coiled in my stomach, gnawing at me from the inside. there was absolutely nothing beautiful about scarring a body that works so hard to keep going. I can’t make this beautiful or romantic or wistful. but it’s over now. I can breathe. I just want to let that fact be.

sunshine lover. body shaped like the word devour and I’m hungry, so hungry. sunshine lover. come lay in the garrets of my heart. let me kiss your wrists. let me love you. let me take all of you for myself. won’t you come linger, love?

winter lover. I’ll never be your snow covered sweetheart, wrapped up in a white sheet. you’ve devoured every aching corner of my heart. winter lover. all my poetry and writing is yours, though I didn’t want them to be. winter lover. cut my wrists. staple them to a cross. I am nothing more than yours.

lavender kisses, sunshine eyes and tight hugs. heaven takes the shape of a boy with blonde hair, long legs and clumsy words. he’s got a smile as soft as his heart. smells like cinnamon and sugar. he’s so sweet in and out and i can’t think about him and not smile, can’t write about him without blushing. his name next to mine still makes my heart skip a beat.

calling your lover "my lover" is the most TENDER and SOFT and HOMOEROTIC thing you can call them and we should do that more often as a society

4:02am. we were always doomed weren’t we? on the drive home, listening to bottlemen and waiting for you to kiss me. you and me, always heading for a dead end we knew was just around the corner.

I lean my head back onto the passenger seat whilst your hands grip the steering wheel, close my eyes and imagine you above me spilling your soul onto my lips. waiting for you to pull over and kiss me. always waiting, waiting.

cheap wine doesn’t quite taste the same without you. and when you lean in, I taste it all on your breath. the sweet clouds of alcohol and teen romance and the inevitable loss that’ll come from this. a backseat romance that won’t survive the crash.

lips so hungry and dripping with want. can you feel the way my body pleads for your hands? can you feel the way my lips grow more desperate for you? can you feel my skin growing hot under your touch, like the friction of the tires as the car swerves and crashes into the end of a one-way street?

bottlemen doesn’t quite sound the same without you anymore and mostly, out of all the pain you caused me, I hate that you’ve made me hate my favourite band.

handing you an orange slice and saying here eat this, my love. the intimacy of the tiniest acts of love between us are deafening. you smile, mouthful of citrus saying thank you for the sweetness, honey. we say we love each other silently, in the small things and without even saying it.