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“You are the silence in between what I thought and what I said”— Florence Welch
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Synthetica, Metric (Acoustic) -
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AMOS: I think the first time I ever saw that effect that Taylor had on people [was when] we were actually out to eat in an Applebee’s, or...
jesus christ lol scott and i could not stop laughing at this part
(via sarcasmandstardust)
did you know lightweight hiking boots are basically tennis shoes but heavier?
and that moisture wicking rain jackets come with little zippers under the armpits?
I LEARNED ENTIRELY TOO MUCH MORE THAN I WANTED TO ABOUT OUTDOORSY STUFF TODAY
now sleeping through mother’s day lol
so lucky to have really good guy friends who will never be anything more but still manage to make “just friends” super fun and exciting and fulfilling. i wouldn’t trade them for the most perfect boyfriend in the universe.
once i was kissed at a weezer concert. somewhere in beverly hills, the sun was still slowly dipping down, but on the east coast it’d already begun raining stars and i felt my heart falling towards the earth right there along with them. i felt his hands grip my waist and move up, too quickly, too scary, getting too dangerous, in a crowd that was so chill no one noticed the two of us getting hot. his heat was that of sexuality, animal desire and lust, and mine was more the burning shame of succumbing to his touches while unable to stop either him or myself. i did have enough sense to take it to his car, but i took my sweater off, lost in his hungry lips. “if you want to destroy my sweater..” i thought, and then immediately after: “i want you to.” but it was untouched, not a single thread unraveled, and i remembered it at the last minute, saving it from the obscurity of his backseat before i met up with my friends post-concert. i knew my face was flushed and my hair was a haystack, but they said nothing, and i looked down at my feet.
once i fell in love at a jimmy eat world concert. we made eye contact from a distance of a dozen fans and he carefully made his way over to me. he stood beside me, talking only during the quiet intervals between songs, and mumbling even then. he had a theory that music was a kind of hypnosis, and that’s why it had such a strong emotional pull, that’s why it could tug at the hem of your weak spots and leave you naked in public. we went on a few dates after that, spaced sporadically apart because he lived so far from me, and it was hard to let myself believe he was real. he could’ve been anyone, anyone can show up like that, anyone can fit snugly into the persona you’ve invented and the soulmate you’ve been waiting for. the last time i saw him, i sipped my coffee hesitantly, marveling at how quickly some things lost their warmth. he held his cigarette between his fingers like he ached to get rid of it immediately after lighting, and i understood. he left behind a mixtape that i tucked into a box and shoved in my closet, somewhere between photographs of a strawberry-filled summer and thoughts of connecting the dots, tracing the freckles on each other’s arms until we had committed our bodies to memory - but i didn’t want to love a body, i had made that mistake before and now i wanted to love a soul.
for a while i loved my own. i treated it to ice cream and challenged it with cynical novels and sad foreign films. i picked up yoga to stretch it, zumba to strengthen it, and running to make it last longer. then i picked up performing my own songs, and that’s what did it. it was ethereal, ephemeral, but as close as i could get to feeling free. until once, when i had my heart broken at my own concert. there was a guy i’d always waited for, someone i had kept in the back of my mind, patiently and privately entertaining the notion that he would weave his way back into my life and lead me into his, like following ariadne’s thread out of the maze of inevitable loneliness. i saw him in the middle of a song, a pretty brunette girl on his shoulders and his arms wrapped around the graceful woman in front of him. i don’t know if you can hear a heart break. i don’t know if you can sense the musician fall apart right there on the stage. i don’t know that if either of those things were true, we’d know, or if we’d just assume it were part of the performance and be moved by how real it seemed. for me though, my world stopped for a minute. my escape, my out, my salvation, had turned its back on me and pushed me to seeing him so happy and so complete without me. i crumbled before the microphone, before hundreds of people who just wanted to sing along with me, before the man i had wanted to love for the rest of my life.
once, in the comfort of my own empty apartment, i gave up on music. i didn’t need the radio, or my old cds, or the mixtapes or records or pages upon pages of words, all of which i threw in the trash. i didn’t need anything. once was more than enough.
don’t think you have me fooled.
you know i’m still here. i can hear you tell your friends, “i threw everything he gave me away,” with your lip bitten to keep yourself from telling them more. i can imagine them squinting their eyes, surveying the room for any signs that you’re lying. when you have them convinced, they drop off the chocolate milkshake and leave.
but i know better. it is very dark and quiet in here, as well as inexplicably uncomfortable; i am constantly being prodded by sequins from the shirt your crazy aunt gave you for your birthday a year ago. everything here smells like shame and abandonment, and the air is thick and muggy with all the emotions you’ve trapped. it’s hard to breathe, but even more difficult to retain his smell. i’m trying for you, though. my sleeves hold tight to his cologne and sweat and tears. i have memories of him sewn into every delicate stitch, which i dutifully protect from moths and other creatures bent on unraveling them.
when their footsteps are long gone, and the tears have stopped rolling down your soft skin, i stay still and patient. it isn’t long before i feel the floor beneath me moving quickly, i am finally freed from those damn pearls or beads or whatever poking my sides, and i glow in the warm light of your bedroom. your fingers grip me much more tightly than they ever have before, though, as you hurriedly slip me over your head. my fabric dries your tears as i fall down, clinging to you – though not in as many places as i was accustomed to before i was yours. it seems you always forget that he was bigger than you; he had those muscles you loved to rest your head against and the strong arms to pull you closer to his body when you were cold, so i do not fit you as snugly as those t-shirts that you are prone to wear can fit you.
i don’t think you mind, except that it makes you lonely. when you lay back on your bed, pressing me into you, i can feel the disappointment in all the empty space between your skin and me. it makes me feel horrible, as if i’ve let you down. then you breathe in the scent of my previous owner, and i am proud to still have the power to make your heart beat like that against me. i am happy when you curl into a ball and cry into your pillow, because you inevitably wipe your moist eyes on my sleeves. you stretch my material over your knees, letting me cover you as much as i can. i will protect you, i promise.
but then you bring my sleeve to your mouth and bite hard, freeing one arm that way and ripping me viciously from the other. i am brushing past your hair too quickly to catch all the tears, and when you ball me up into your small hands and scream, there is not enough of me to completely muffle your sobs. suddenly i am flying across your room. i hit your dresser hard and slide down, back into the drawer in which you’ve kept me hidden for exactly seventy-two days as of today. maybe you don’t know that i know the significance of that number, but it happens to be the exact number of times you wore me in his presence. it is the number that documents how many times his face lit up to see you wearing his sweatshirt, knowing that you are his and he is yours and neither of you are scared to show it. it is the number of times i have felt worthwhile and happy. i can’t help but think that you feel the same way, even if you don’t know the number.
so i am petrified when you stomp over to my hiding place and pick me up as carefully as if i were trash. before i know it, we are standing outside your garage, and i am dangling over your trashcan, and i can feel the battle you must be fighting within yourself. i hear you whisper, “everything,” like now that you’ve told your friends, you are obligated to make it a truth.
but i’m your friend, too. i was what you buried your face in when he talked of letting you see other people before you settled down with him. he was wearing me when you argued with him about something stupid because you didn’t have the courage to argue with him about if he really loved you; you punched me when you pounded your fists uselessly at his chest. we were the united front when you told him you were done with him, when you debated taking me off just to throw me at his dumb, hurt face, when you had to pull over on the drive back home and take me off, but you buckled the seatbelt around me in the passenger seat. if you throw me away, i’ll have to forget all of that. i’ll have to forget how i fit around you and the warmth i feel when you hug him. just because you don’t love him anymore doesn’t mean you can’t still love me.
when i have finally given up and accepted that you need to go through with this, you surprise me by pulling me close to you tenderly. you have a funny look on your face, as if you’ve never seen me before, and i am instantly pricked by pain, but the pricking is replaced by tickling as your hand slips inside me and i am dizzy as you turn me inside out. i can hardly think with my whole world so disoriented, so i focus on your face. your eyes are tearing up again, but i have no time to see why before i am turning once more, my sleeves being pulled outward and your soft fingers massaging out my wrinkles. when i have regained my senses, i am sad to be back in the secret drawer but so pleased that you’ve kept me. i shift around, trying to get comfortable. this time, the poking seems to be coming from inside me. it is a tag that i had never noticed before, for it fits me so nicely, like your hands in his. and written in his clumsy, boyish handwriting is your name, a comma, and i love you
forever.
successfully taught my parents how to skype
.. oh boy lolololol
fell asleep on the bus. i don’t know where i am or where i’m going. my voice is too far gone to ask the driver, and there’s nobody else here besides a pink teddy bear some child must’ve accidentally left behind. i wish i could find him or her and return it. it’s funny how as children, we miss anything and everything that is different about our lives. when we grow up, it gets much easier to discard things, places, even people.
guess that’s what accounts for my current situation. he never said a word about leaving. i didn’t ask, so he didn’t tell. yeah, we were in love, but we were best friends. it was more than that, even, because he was the only person i let inside me – figuratively, like there was a secret zipper running down my back. he pulled me apart and explored all my darkest places and he knew what made me me and i couldn’t get enough of it. i wished he lived inside my head so i didn’t even have to talk to him. i wished he knew what i was thinking before i could mess it up with words.
one of the windows on the bus must be open. how didn’t i notice that? i can feel the wind when it lifts what little hair i saved. i cut most of it off. it was nothing dramatic; i just told the hairdresser that i wanted it short. she told me to close my eyes, but i peeked. i watched big, ugly clumps land on the floor and my chair, and i pretended they were falling from me ripping my hair out. i ended up with a sort of severed pixie cut.
it was so hot when i left tennessee. i remember that, at least. there were no clouds in the sky, but it was still as humid as the air after a heavy summer rain – and sunny, mocking me. it made the spaces between my fingers sweat, and gave my shoulders the pinkish glow of new sunburn. maybe the warmth is what made me so sleepy. my first half-conscious thought before totally waking up was that now my eyes were sweating, too. the skin beneath them was moist and swollen. i had been crying in my sleep.
i lay my head on the back of the seat in front of me, over folded arms. the driver notices and stops the bus. he doesn’t say anything, and i am incapable of doing such a thing, so i just stand up to leave. i remember the teddy bear and pick it up with two fingers, like a used tissue. then i place it in my seat, and i step off the bus.
the air here smells like the city, but i feel like i’m nowhere. the moon is just beginning to fade away, so it must be early morning, which explains the lack of noise or any sound at all. i’m just really sleepy. can i just sleep the rest of my life away?
something moves lightly and quickly against the inside of my pocket. for a second, i hope it’s a butterfly. i pull out my phone instead. one new text message. it’s from trevor. he asks if i’m high, and at first i am unsure of the answer. my fingers fumble over the tiny buttons when i attempt to press ‘reply’, and i end up looking at the previous message. i must have sent him one when i was sleeping.
i don’t know how many girls you fooled before. i don’t know how long it took those girls to realize you weren’t coming back, but i knew it right away, trevor; i woke up and i couldn’t breathe, like you’d stolen not only my heart but my lungs just to guarantee that i couldn’t live without you. i can live without you, trevor, i just really don’t want to. just come back, okay? just hold me and let my organs go back to where they belong.
i feel so weak, reading it. it makes me angry.
no, no i’m not high. i’m pretty low right now, actually, and i wouldn’t mind being eight feet under or so. no, more like eight thousand feet, as far away from you as possible, and where you can never find me, especially when you start to miss me.
my whole body turns red from being so inexplicably mad at him, except for my shoulders, which are still pink. pink like my nails were painted, the first time i met him. pink like my face when he’d say something provocative and i couldn’t keep from blushing. pink like my tongue, like my gums, like my lips, like the kisses he could never get enough of.
pink like the pregnancy test. pink like the clothes and furniture and paint we’d bought for our baby girl.
pink like the faces of our friends, embarrassed when they’d ask how my pregnancy was going. it went, i’d say. it went away. now trevor, too.
and i dream and see and live in pink.
(via send-a-smile)
(via jennifersbody)
