Total pages in book: 9
Estimated words: 9848 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 49(@200wpm)___ 39(@250wpm)___ 33(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 9848 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 49(@200wpm)___ 39(@250wpm)___ 33(@300wpm)
the way your face looks
as light plays with shadow from
the fire you built for us.
These things are what are worth millions.
These simple pleasures are what make me rich.
— K
No one talks about the pause. The period from when someone passes away to the actual funeral. When your emotions are a wave of ups and downs. When you’re snappy at stupid things, and can’t focus, and can’t sleep or eat. You’re sad but also numb. You try to go on like everything’s normal when truly nothing is the same.
Then it’s the night before:
Reality sets in, and you’re left with a heavy heart that’s exhausted from a week of unsteady turmoil. That heavy heart is trying to remember how to beat correctly again, and you kind of figure that the beats will always be a little uneven because they are missing a very important person who used to control them.
The interlude of loss feels empty.
Yet somehow, it’s heavy, too.
— B
Why do they call it heartache?
As if that pain is just a sort of buzz under the skin,
as if it can be forgotten about, with a little effort,
as if it can be masked by a pill
or a drink
or a softly spoken “there there.”
As if that pain doesn’t shred you into meaty, blood-soaked ribbons.
As if it doesn’t steal every new breath, leaving you in a constant state of suffocation.
As if anything can help it, or dull it,
other than Time,
our slowest, least empathetic friend.
— K
I’ll melt into you as you caress the loudest parts of my anxiety.
When I say I’m too much, you’ll hold me tighter.
When I say you’re better without me, you’ll pull me in closer.
When I say I love you, you’ll say, “I love you more.”
And I’ll say, “I love you more than your more.”
And that’s what love is to me.
More, more, more…
— B
My favorite romance is the one
where the girls and the boys
grow into women and men
who hurt each other incessantly until they all have similar battle wounds.
And then
only then
do they open their arms to each other
and say “you have earned me now,
and I have earned you.”
And they embrace,
falling into love
for as much time as they
can steal
before the earth realizes
and wraps them in her embrace, too,
pulling them down,
scars and all,
until they’re one with the soil that grew them.
— K
There are crumbs at the bottom of the cookie jar,
and you feed them to me as if they are whole pieces.
Little bits of chocolate chips, little bites of oatmeal.
Little pieces of your love that you try to convince me is enough.
Still, I starve.
— B
I do not love you anymore
but I still think of you
when the moon and the clouds
dance the same way they did
that night you kissed me
for the first time
outside that bar.
I don’t love you anymore,
but I still think of you,
and smile.
— K
You asked me to follow you down the unpaved road.
You told me it would be adventurous.
“Trust me,” you whispered. “Let me lead,” you begged.
I followed.
I waited.
I stood by your side.
I bent to you and allowed you the space to lead.
Then, you drove us to the ditch.
We crashed.
We fought.
We screamed.
We cried.
Somehow, you blamed me for not being the independent woman you needed me to be.
— B
I’ve found that loving myself
isn’t as easy as commanding it so.
I cannot just say it aloud,
or tell a friend,
or boast it in a social media caption.
Much like a marriage,
I am in a constant commitment to
that sad eyed
critical
girl in the mirror.
I must love her not just on her best days
but on her worst.
I must tell her she is not a failure.
She is not behind.
She is not fat or old or
washed up
or played out.
Loving that girl is the hardest thing I do each
morning,
but my favorite item ticked off the list
each night.
— K
The deranged wolf howls at the moon as if it’s crying to be heard.
The broken me screams at you as if I’m begging to be seen.
The wild beast within me pleads for your attention.
— B
Your journey is yours and yours alone.
Do not compare yourself to the
lion, who rules a kingdom,
or the fire, who burns a shining light,
or the hawk, who flies free,
or the wise oak, standing tall in her fortress.
Walk in your own shoes
and inhale the beauty
that you are the only one who will ever live
these beautiful highs
and these gut wrenching lows.
Your journey is yours and yours alone.
— K
And I hope they remember me as a blessing to their life that was solely passing through. Something that wasn’t meant for forever, yet still mattered.
— B
I am both
ecstatically married to my life of
routine and health and stability
as I am passionately devoted
to the idea of
abandoning it all
in the name
of adventure.
— K
I slowly unpeel you from the corners of my life where you once so comfortably lived.
Clicking to unfollow on every social platform.
Blocking your number.
Deleting your face from my camera roll.
Each peel slices into my heart as the broken pieces shatter a little more.