an anthology from the things left unsaid.

"I want to write a novel about Silence . . . the things people don't say." virginia woolf

                                                                                                     
i. I'm always drawing parallels 

between all the things I'm not 

and all the things you are.

darling, i’m a paradox, 
more in love with the idea of love than being in love

i'm a hurricane,
with a trail of shipwrecks left in my wake 

and you're metaphors that I can't seem to draw out. 

ii. i kept that text you sent me at fourth of july
and i was tempted to text you on new years
just to let you know i was thinking of you 
(and all of the things that might have been). 

iii. people have always told me that 

your heart is where your mind lingers 

during the 5 o’ clock dinner-making 

or the 2 o’ clock morning insomnia attacks. 

i never believed them until  

you started wandering into my dreams. 

iv. i like how we were awkward words toppling ungracefully 
one over the other.

you reminded me that real life didn’t always taste of poetry 

rather it was glances sifting crowded places, 

clutching, grasping onto familiar faces 

blunt remarks and mumbled “i’m sorry’s” 

learning. always learning. 

and feeling the moment's weight of being 

completely and incandescently happy.

v. darling, i'm at the crossroads

of heart and logic.
don't you realize

you're giving me reasons to smile,

you're giving a wanderer a reason to stop running,

you're giving a sojourner a reason to stay? 

i'm beginning to see you in my future

and that's the most dangerous thing of them all. 

vi. i’m learning to be patient with myself. 

because i strive to be lionhearted but 

most of my attempts end with a tangled mess 

of emotions and wondering where that leaves us. 

vii. 11 months. 
i saw you for the first time in eleven months:
you were taller. i was older. you were surer. 
i was bolder. 
when i left eleven months prior, 
i had convinced myself that we were all in love
with people we shouldn't be. and leave it at that.
when i saw you, i remember dancing our impossibles
and twirling our improbables.  
i guess i never stopped, long after the music had. 

viii. i keep chasing people away because i can never accept 

that we were meant to be happy. 
and maybe i blame it on my wandering heart, 

i'm always restless, and too flighty to be understood. 

there are stories on the tip of my tongue that i haven’t lived out yet, 

so for now, i'm taking too many naps

to keep sleep at bay for those midnight epiphanies. 

i leave cups half full of coffee and tea around the house, 

and my parents say i’m absent-minded. 

(but i think it's only because i’m thinking of you). 

a graveyard of my meandering, incoherent thoughts
on the ones i have loved.
xx 

"grace is not tame."

Grace is wild. Grace unsettles everything. Grace overflows the banks.
Grace messes up your hair. Grace is not tame.

// doug wilson // 

anytime you're gonna grow, you're gonna lose something. you're losing what you're hanging onto to keep safe. you're losing habits that you're comfortable with, you're losing familiarity. 

james hillman 

if you took note of her subtleties, she wrote those words on every action of what she was slowly but surely becoming. you'd think change would still scare her, after all the tsunamis that ripped through the currents of her heart over the years and all the people who navigated away from her depths over the course of time. she was losing familiarity—yes, but she was becoming more of the person she never dreamed of meeting. 

her laugh got louder. her lips were tinted redder. her heart was sewn onto her shoulder if she couldn’t find sleeves to wear. 

she flung open the windows at night to hear the crickets chirp and feel the cool evening breeze lull her to sleep. there were ink stains imprinted permanently on the palms of her hands from all the words she couldn’t stay up long enough to write down but wished to remember. 
her past was a picture of the grace that had tangled itself in between the broken memories of the nights full of tears and loneliness. after all, the cracks were the only way the light could get in. 
she was learning to receive the blessings of staying — that the people worth loving and the adventures worth undertaking were always going to frighten her a little. but if joy was a fight, it was time to stand still. 
feeling so passionately had always been a blessing...and a curse. 
and it made her wonder: if one felt pain just as deeply, how would one feel happiness? 
xx 

portraits by the lovely anna filly photography.
the words that shake me to tears || by || hannah brencher // & // amy metien
please listen || brokenness aside // picture of grace // alive

we are here, love. x

you kept all the things i threw away
holding on to memories of you and me
we're just a box of souvenirs...
panic cord // gabrielle aplin 

i. and it really comes down to this: 

zesty laughter 

stifling more than conviviality; 

glances 

stolen across busy tables, 

point a to point b 

was a clear shot through crowded hallways

and shoulders brushing 

the world by. 

ii. some relationships weren’t made for the movie screens. 

ours was made up of sarcasm and Skype dates,
sporadic text messages,
and once-a-week phone call conversations
over rain and the irony of life. 

some are made up of hearts being strung over static lines

making up for humid evenings spent on porch swings.

ours was a gentle rain, swelling into a hurricane. 

iii. maybe we were just a collection of mementos:

ticket stubs, a napkin traced with lipstick,

programs from attending recitals.

maybe we were just hasty hello's & elongated goodbye's.

when you asked me what we were 

i just know we are here, love. 
x || o