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I knew this love of mine was tired. Not the kind of tired that sleeps, but the kind that floats, listless and unmoored, like a feather dislodged in a storm. It drifted upward, aimless, circling, caught in the breath of things that once felt steady: laughter, warmth, the scent of jasmine from my grandmotherās porch before the war of illness took her away. Joyful people are rarely light. The ones who care the most often carry the heaviest sorrow, but they smile, because someone has to.
I understood this, too late, maybe, as the weight settled on my back like wet wool. I stood by the grave, the earth soft beneath me, and felt my heels sink into the mud. Ruined, cheap patent leather borrowed from my mother, now darkened with soil. She should have been angry. On any other day, she might have been. But not this time.
There was no room for anger. Only silence, shared between women who have known the quiet violence of duty.
I understood this, too late, maybe, as the weight settled on my back like wet wool. I stood by the grave, the earth soft beneath me, and felt my heels sink into the mud. Ruined, cheap patent leather borrowed from my mother, now darkened with soil. She should have been angry. On any other day, she might have been. But not this time.
There was no room for anger. Only silence, shared between women who have known the quiet violence of duty.
1d ago
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I hang your jackets in my closet like trophies, or maybe like warnings. I donāt know which. I donāt wear them. Itās far too hot ā sticky, oppressive heat that clings to the skin like regret ā but I keep them there, row by row, like memory has a dress code. The scent is gone now. That clean, clove-sweet sharpness you always carried. Still, I walk past them every day. I make myself look.
Itās supposed to mean something. All of this. I keep telling myself Iām meant for something bigger ā to make a name for myself, they always say ā but what name? The one I was given, or the one Iāll have to carve out with blood and trembling hands? Fifty-five years. Fifty-five steps to the top of the hill, up to that damn library where Iāve been meaning to go. Where I keep meaning to go.
And yet. I donāt move.
My legs work. I know they do. They carried me through worse things ā war zones of the heart, ancestral curses, kitchens full of shattered plates. But I still canāt make them climb. I donāt know if that makes me weak or merciful. I donāt know if itās sabotage or a mercy I donāt deserve.
A dog that weeps after it kills is still a killer. A dog that weeps is still a dog.
Your guilt wonāt make you holy. Your regret wonāt make you clean.
So I ask: when you see a butterfly land on lavender ā that momentary grace, delicate and impossible ā do you still spell my name in your head, as if that might bring me back? As if I ever left?
Itās supposed to mean something. All of this. I keep telling myself Iām meant for something bigger ā to make a name for myself, they always say ā but what name? The one I was given, or the one Iāll have to carve out with blood and trembling hands? Fifty-five years. Fifty-five steps to the top of the hill, up to that damn library where Iāve been meaning to go. Where I keep meaning to go.
And yet. I donāt move.
My legs work. I know they do. They carried me through worse things ā war zones of the heart, ancestral curses, kitchens full of shattered plates. But I still canāt make them climb. I donāt know if that makes me weak or merciful. I donāt know if itās sabotage or a mercy I donāt deserve.
A dog that weeps after it kills is still a killer. A dog that weeps is still a dog.
Your guilt wonāt make you holy. Your regret wonāt make you clean.
So I ask: when you see a butterfly land on lavender ā that momentary grace, delicate and impossible ā do you still spell my name in your head, as if that might bring me back? As if I ever left?
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š«there's no standard treatment for a broken heart. i sigh quietly to myself, thinking iāll actually find an answer on how to heal a broken heart on google
it all began five years ago, when i finally started spending time with himāthe boy who seemed to shine a little brighter than the rest. he was the kindest, the prettiest, the one who made my heart feel lighter just by existing. and he wanted to be my friend. how could i not fall?
kept the friendship up for a couple of years and my crush for him grew even stronger. sometimes he would come up in my dreams and then i would try to summon fate itselfāmanifesting, wishing, aching for him to love me back. because, as every girl knows, there is always a phase where we believe the universe listens. and so, i rinsed and repeated, hoping one day, he would look at me the way I looked at him
when we messaged or meet up, he felt like my twin flame. a connection so deep, so natural, that i convinced myself he must feel it too. he understood me, and i understood him
but i never felt that he liked me as much as i liked him.
and then, it endedānot with a dramatic farewell, not with a grand confession, but with silence. I ruined it in my own quiet way: fading out, withdrawing, blocking him, letting the messages go unanswered. I stopped reaching out, and so did he. it was as if we had been a story left unfinished, pages ripped from the book before the final chapter could be written
it has been four months since we last spoke. and now, he has a girlfriend. may I addāthroughout our years of friendship, he never had one. situationships, yes, but never something real. yet, here she is. not me.
the day I found out, it struck me in a way I hadnāt expected. I had let him slip from my thoughts, let weeks pass without missing him āuntil I saw what I had once longed for, in the hands of someone else. I hadnāt realized I was still holding onto the dream until it shattered before me.
now, my mind drifts to what could have been. I picture myself in her place, feel the ghost of a life that was never mine.Ā would he have loved me, if I had held on? if I had tried? was I ever good enough for him? wasnāt I pretty enough for himā¦? whyā¦ herā¦ notā¦ meā¦?
time is meant to heal. i know this. but this wound runs deep. losing someone you once felt connected to in the deepest corners of your soul is a quiet kind of grief, the kind that doesnāt announce itself loudly but lingers in the spaces between thoughts. my heart feels heavy, my soul even heavier
but today, i miss him more than usually. iāve fallen to deep, so now every time i think of him, i will miss him deeply.
it all began five years ago, when i finally started spending time with himāthe boy who seemed to shine a little brighter than the rest. he was the kindest, the prettiest, the one who made my heart feel lighter just by existing. and he wanted to be my friend. how could i not fall?
kept the friendship up for a couple of years and my crush for him grew even stronger. sometimes he would come up in my dreams and then i would try to summon fate itselfāmanifesting, wishing, aching for him to love me back. because, as every girl knows, there is always a phase where we believe the universe listens. and so, i rinsed and repeated, hoping one day, he would look at me the way I looked at him
when we messaged or meet up, he felt like my twin flame. a connection so deep, so natural, that i convinced myself he must feel it too. he understood me, and i understood him
but i never felt that he liked me as much as i liked him.
and then, it endedānot with a dramatic farewell, not with a grand confession, but with silence. I ruined it in my own quiet way: fading out, withdrawing, blocking him, letting the messages go unanswered. I stopped reaching out, and so did he. it was as if we had been a story left unfinished, pages ripped from the book before the final chapter could be written
it has been four months since we last spoke. and now, he has a girlfriend. may I addāthroughout our years of friendship, he never had one. situationships, yes, but never something real. yet, here she is. not me.
the day I found out, it struck me in a way I hadnāt expected. I had let him slip from my thoughts, let weeks pass without missing him āuntil I saw what I had once longed for, in the hands of someone else. I hadnāt realized I was still holding onto the dream until it shattered before me.
now, my mind drifts to what could have been. I picture myself in her place, feel the ghost of a life that was never mine.Ā would he have loved me, if I had held on? if I had tried? was I ever good enough for him? wasnāt I pretty enough for himā¦? whyā¦ herā¦ notā¦ meā¦?
time is meant to heal. i know this. but this wound runs deep. losing someone you once felt connected to in the deepest corners of your soul is a quiet kind of grief, the kind that doesnāt announce itself loudly but lingers in the spaces between thoughts. my heart feels heavy, my soul even heavier
but today, i miss him more than usually. iāve fallen to deep, so now every time i think of him, i will miss him deeply.
Feb 28, 2025
Rec
āTo exist in this body is war,ā she whispered, her voice so soft it nearly escaped me, as if she recoiled from the weight of the words that had slipped past her lips.
āEvery day, I am dissected as if I am the anomaly in this world, not the systems they built upon the backs of those who came before,ā she chuckled, as if this truth ā this burden ā had been her constant companion.
āLooking at her then, perhaps truly seeing her for the first time, the enormity of it struck me. Somewhere between then and now, lifeās weariness had etched itself onto her face. Lines I had once interpreted as joy and laughter now seemed more like scars, healed over with a stubborn refusal to be erased, a silent declaration: āThis will not break me.ā And for a fleeting moment, I had believed it. But now, beneath the willow, where sunlight once filtered through the leaves in a warm embrace, a sense of her depleted fight hung heavy in the air. The light itself felt different now, thin and frail, mirroring how all the blood she had shed seemed to have cost her more than if she had never bled at allā¦.
After the Fire, We Remain,Ā page 30Ā ā P.N.G
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For a man who follows his heart can never be weak. Thatās what I used to believe, once, before the bodies piled up like autumn leaves, and belief curdled into something thinner than blood.
I caught the whistle player once, a man stitched together by calluses and riddles. His tune wasnāt music; it was a wound dressed in melody. It scraped something raw inside me. A song of mystery, yes, but also of cruelty, a tune without mercy. When I asked him how he knew such things, he only laughed. Said the desert had taught him.
Said that Mother Gaia, if she ever existed, didnāt whisper. She screamed. Through the grains of sand, she dragged him down, ankle-first, bone-deep, until he touched her molten heart. Said he came back remade, not better, just aware.
"Men," he spat, as if the word itself offended him, "have always been the destroyers."
Not gods. Not fate. Not even history. Men.
And I realized then: this isn't about nations or borders or wars. Itās about the individual. The one who chooses to light the match. The one who watches the blaze.
It is the gender.
It is the myth we wrote in our own image, thinking ourselves gods, when all we ever were, are, was ruin.
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I unblocked him today. Stupid, really. A gesture that meant nothing and everything at onceāflick of a finger, avalanche of consequence. I donāt love him. I know this the way I know fire burns and poison kills. But there was a time I did. Or at least, I believed I did, which might be the same thing.
And now, in the pit of night, he comes back. Not in memory, which I could handle. In dreams. Those cursed, wretched dreams where love feels like a trick played on me by some malevolent god. We are soft together, whole together. It feels real. Worse: it feels good. I wake up gagging on it. That intimacy, that false safety. My brain taunts me with what could have been, and I canāt even scream back.
So I dissociate. Thatās the clinical word for it. But really, I haunt myself. I float through the day like a ghost freshly exhumed, skin buzzing with sleep that clings to my body like mold. Am I still dreaming? Has waking up ever felt this fake?
I ask myself: Do I still love him? Then a worse question: Did I ever? And the worst of all: Did I make it up, the whole damn thing?
Because if I didāif I built it all out of nothing, like straw houses and paper peopleāthen maybe I am what he always said I was. A liar. A little girl who makes up stories and calls it truth. My fatherās daughter.
And thatās the most disgusting thing of all.
And now, in the pit of night, he comes back. Not in memory, which I could handle. In dreams. Those cursed, wretched dreams where love feels like a trick played on me by some malevolent god. We are soft together, whole together. It feels real. Worse: it feels good. I wake up gagging on it. That intimacy, that false safety. My brain taunts me with what could have been, and I canāt even scream back.
So I dissociate. Thatās the clinical word for it. But really, I haunt myself. I float through the day like a ghost freshly exhumed, skin buzzing with sleep that clings to my body like mold. Am I still dreaming? Has waking up ever felt this fake?
I ask myself: Do I still love him? Then a worse question: Did I ever? And the worst of all: Did I make it up, the whole damn thing?
Because if I didāif I built it all out of nothing, like straw houses and paper peopleāthen maybe I am what he always said I was. A liar. A little girl who makes up stories and calls it truth. My fatherās daughter.
And thatās the most disgusting thing of all.
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Thereās no one in the streets. No sun. Just air that tastes like glass, clear but not clean, and buildings that loom without casting shadows. Everything feels like itās been stripped of texture. Like I could reach out and touch the world, and my hand would just go through it. No resistance. No weight.
Sex happens like clockwork. Mechanical. A function of survival, maybe. Like brushing teeth. I push it down every time, bury it under work, under errands, under excuses. I used to feel something, I think. A long time ago. Now itās just static. Daily static. I donāt know if Iām asexual or just broken in some mundane, irreversible way. It speaks for itself, the silence of it. And that silence is loud.
It gets tiring, pretending that the distance is choice and not corrosion. That Iām not constantly eroding into something less than what I was. That Iām not grieving someone whoās still here.
Sometimes I wonder if Iām smarter than everyone else. Not in the way of grades or degrees, but in the way of rot, like Iāve stared too long into the abyss and memorized its language. Nihilism like a second skin. Maybe I make people feel stupid, or maybe they are. I donāt know. I just know Iāve learned how to weaponize detachment. How to turn thinking too much into a shield.
But thereās no comfort in being clever when everything feels invisible.
Sex happens like clockwork. Mechanical. A function of survival, maybe. Like brushing teeth. I push it down every time, bury it under work, under errands, under excuses. I used to feel something, I think. A long time ago. Now itās just static. Daily static. I donāt know if Iām asexual or just broken in some mundane, irreversible way. It speaks for itself, the silence of it. And that silence is loud.
It gets tiring, pretending that the distance is choice and not corrosion. That Iām not constantly eroding into something less than what I was. That Iām not grieving someone whoās still here.
Sometimes I wonder if Iām smarter than everyone else. Not in the way of grades or degrees, but in the way of rot, like Iāve stared too long into the abyss and memorized its language. Nihilism like a second skin. Maybe I make people feel stupid, or maybe they are. I donāt know. I just know Iāve learned how to weaponize detachment. How to turn thinking too much into a shield.
But thereās no comfort in being clever when everything feels invisible.