onehundredstormwarnings

[onehundredstormwarnings]

“The first boy who loves you wears floods because he can’t afford a new pair of jeans. He can’t look you in the eye. Not until he asks you out your sophomore year. Sweaty palms. A crack in his voice. Don’t say no. I know you want to. I know your friends are snickering about it in some corner. But I also know that you like the way he is kind and gentle and quite. Even if you won’t admit it. Even if you introduce him to your parents as a friend for the first five months of your relationship. He is real, and he is here, and he is asking you to dinner from behind a greasy mop of hair. Yes, you say. You’ll go. The first boy who loves you picks you up late in a car with chipped paint, but apologies fall off his tongue like rain from the sky. Genuine apologies. He takes you to a place way off the grid. Some total dive. You order the pasta carbonara, and he smiles with all of his teeth when you tell him it’s the best damn food you’ve ever had. He says sweet things. Funny things. You forget that he’s weirdo boy. Lonely boy. Sad boy. When he says he likes you, has liked you for years now, you tell him you might be starting to feel the same way. Might. But when he kisses you, just barely fucking kisses you, your insides scream at the sudden rightness. The first boy who loves you asks you why you never talk about your family, and you tell him all of the gory details. The fighting. The drinking. The divorce. And he holds you until you forget where your limbs end and his begin. Eventually, into the skin of your neck, he tells you that he loves you. You don’t say it back, but you pull him close. You lose your shirt somehow. And then the rest of your clothes. And then your mind. It’s painful and awkward and wonderful before it becomes something more. Much more. And when you let yourself relax, arching into his touch, it’s very nearly everything. But the first boy who loves you will not be the last boy who loves you. And he is not an idiot. The first boy who loves you will not let you push him aside when you need space. He will not let you break without trying to fit you back into place like a puzzle. And when everything falls apart, he is the only thing you know how to destroy. The boy with bright eyes and bad hair and the strongest arms will stay by your side through anything. But when you ask him to leave, rip his hands from your waist and edge him towards the door, he will go. Even though you wish he wouldn’t. Even though you don’t know why you’re doing this. He will go. Because the first boy who loves you is kind and gentle and quite, but he is not an idiot. When you look back at him, sweaty palms, a nervous crack in his voice, you will still remember everything. He called you sweetheart. And babe when he was angry. And your full name when he was feeling especially affectionate. And even though it’s over, even though other boys have loved you, the first boy who loved you will be the only boy who holds your heart in his hands, feels it beat and breath without possession or power but a reverence you still struggle to understand, and then places it back into your chest and whispers, “Live.””

—

a messy letter to the boy who will never know how much I loved him. (via yourhandwrittenletter)

Reading through old writing because even when it feels like everything has changed, I recognize myself here. Shuffled somewhere between the words I wrote years ago. God, I love it.

[onehundredstormwarnings]

“I used to make you promise you’d tell your kids about me one day, and you’d roll your eyes and tell me to fuck off, but what you really wanted to say was, “Why do you always do this?” "This?“ I’d tilt my head like I didn’t already know. And you’d say, “Yeah, this. You find little ways to remind me you don’t plan on sticking around.” On days like that, I’d kiss you just to shut you up, and you’d let me. You always let me. Teeth and tongue frantic to translate nothing into something. Somewhere in the middle of it all, a whisper against the skin of my thigh: “I’ll take what I can get.” Translation: you’re on thin ice. And on days like that, I’d drag you to the car and drive until the sun set on some town we’d never heard of. Pull off the road and fool around like teenagers tip-toeing at the edges of adulthood. We’d eat at whatever mom n’ pop shop we could find, and on the way back, we’d sing old Frankie Valli songs, hitting notes only dogs could hear, laughing so hard I could hardly control the wheel. You’d say, “God, I love this,” only “this” would sound a whole lot like “you.” And on days like that, I’d pick a fight for no reason. A comment about that Halloween party two years ago was usually a good start. Your mother, if I was feeling particularly cruel. Sometimes you’d fall into the trap, and then you’d say something horrible enough to allow me to leave for the night. Hook, line, sinker. But then, oh God, then there were the times you knew me too well. Hands in my hair. On my back. Tracing the line of my spine. You’d say, “Just stop. Stop being afraid of this.” And on days like that, I loved you. I’d make coffee and eggs the next morning and scoff when you asked what I’d done with your girlfriend. We’d eat in bed bare naked and watch the morning news, ragging on the rigid politicians for building such a broken world. Inevitably, we’d trade hypotheticals. What if we were in charge. What if we knew a damn thing about anything. What if we could make this last. Later, you’d drag me close, my ear to the thump of your heart. The sound like a song playing in the apartment upstairs. If you make good on your promise, I hope you tell them about days like that. Every laugh and sigh and long night of too much wine. I hope they listen with wide eyes. Your eyes. Or hers, I guess. It doesn’t really matter. Here’s what matters: that you tell them about this. That even if we don’t end up together, I still have a place in your story.”

—

[onehundredstormwarnings]

Okay.

Nog ñ glas wyn

Ekt nog om te sê.

Jys much dudw. Jy stap in ñ vertrek in en jy maak hom vol. Ekt nooit genoeg plek nie. En as ek indruk dan voel ek klein.

Jy laat my klein voel.

Jy steel my lig, jy wil nie dans nie. Maar jy kry in die aande vir my water en jy kalmeer my angsaanvalle.

Hierdie is nie juis poetic nie is dit.

Ek warry nie.

My hart is vol.

My hart is seer.

[onehundredstormwarnings]

these are just the ups and downs right? we’ll get over this right? you won’t be mean to me forever right?

[onehundredstormwarnings]

Why do you make me so sad...

[onehundredstormwarnings]

I call bullshit.

Jy lewe in ñ fantasy.

Of ñ once upon a time.

Either way, fok jou

That love does not only come once. It comes when you are thirteen and sixteen and again when you are straight out of school because boys find it amusing to break things that looks pretty. Take it apart and then try to put it back together the way they think it should look like, and by the time you are twenty-one you have been reassembled and twisted and parts of you are missing and you do not recognize the girl standing in the mirror... She does not look like the thirteen year old you once knew. The love you thought was love comes a bunch of times, but the love that is love, the 3AM kitchen dances and lost looks and warm butterflies, that love comes, and unlike the one's before, that love stays.

[onehundredstormwarnings]

Dooswyn

Ek sit en versuip myself alweer in soet rooi bokswyn. Ek voel nie soet nie, en die boks het net nog 3 druppels oor.

Ek sondig.

Ek trou.

O fok ek trou oor 3 maande.

Hy gaan ñ goeie pa maak. Dis tog al wat saak maak.

Ek verstaan hoekom sy ma haarself minder nugter hou as dronk. Vandag, hier, nou, meer as ooit.

Is jy teveel van jou pa?

Ek hoop nie so nie.

Ek het jou lief.

[onehundredstormwarnings]

glenn dean, landscapes of the west / user @petrichara

[onehundredstormwarnings]

will i always be this angry?

[onehundredstormwarnings]

Ekhet jou al begin rou toe ons nog saam was.

Ek het langs jou gelê en gehuil asof ons klaar totsien gesê het.

Ek het 4 maande terug besef dat man-wees, eintlik man wees beteken.

Besef dat ek regtig moet ophou smeek vir liefde.

Is ek dan so min werd.

Of hou ek net vas aan jou beter kant voor die duiwel voor my staan en sê, "I told you so."

En wat maak ek sonder jou? Ek weet nie hoe om sonder jou te lewe nie.

Sal ek ooit huil as jy eendag sê dit is klaar. Of sal ek sug van verligting en my kat in ñ tas gooi.

Ek weet nie. Miskien is hierdie net ñ stupid pleit vir hulp en môre aand lê ek weer teen hom opgekrul.

Maar vanaand, vanaand, "Voel ek nie vreeslik baie vir jou nie."

[onehundredstormwarnings]

i dont want to lose you

I just want,

I want you to love me better

More

Harder.

[onehundredstormwarnings]

Dit voel asof ek al jare agter jou vlerke wegkruip. Asof jy agter my gesit het in graad 2 en my vlegsels getrek het omdat ek nie vir jou wou kyk nie. Asof hoërskool ñ leun was en ek elke dag saam met jou op die trappe van meneer Conradie se klas weggekruip het. Dit voel asof ek saam jou op my matriekafskeid gedans het en jy jou baadjie vir my gegee het toe dit koud raak. Asof ek na skool maarnet ñ bietjie vergeet het van jou. En toe stap jy weer terug.

Maar in realiteit, in realitiet is dit nou eers ñ jaar. Ñ jaar van vashou en stry en lief hê. En dit is so lekker om jou lief te hê.

Miskien was dit in my vorige lewe. Miskien het ek jou daar geken.

[onehundredstormwarnings]

To my daughter I will say:

Do not leave for as long as you're with me I will keep you safe.

But if you do - To my daughter I will say: do not ever feel it necessary to prove your worth, do not look for it at the bottom of a bottle with burnt lungs because even though your friends will high five you, you will not be able to stand, and

When the boy with the dark eyes but bright smile spots you- run, do not follow him, do not get into the car, do not laugh- run away.

But if you don't- To my daughter I will say: run to me after. We will not call, we will not cry. I will remind you of your strength and how you got my eyes - You will not cry.

And if you do- To my daughter I will say: It is time for a new beginning, for the bottles are empty and the cigarettes are finished and your boy is gone.

Only then will I realise that what my mother should have said to me- My daughter: Do not make the same mistakes I did. See your beauty without his compliments and your worth while watching him leave- or this will be our cycle.

[onehundredstormwarnings]

That love does not only come once. It comes when you are thirteen and sixteen and again when you are straight out of school because boys find it amusing to break things that looks pretty. Take it apart and then try to put it back together the way they think it should look like, and by the time you are twenty-one you have been reassembled and twisted and parts of you are missing and you do not recognize the girl standing in the mirror... She does not look like the thirteen year old you once knew. The love you thought was love comes a bunch of times, but the love that is love, the 3AM kitchen dances and lost looks and warm butterflies, that love comes, and unlike the one's before, that love stays.

[onehundredstormwarnings]

The difference between being loved and being fucked,,

I can't remember how the first one feels.

[onehundredstormwarnings]

I take it back, I did not deserve a second chance... and you, even less so.

Everyone. EVERYONE. Every single person on this entire earth deserves a second chance.

[onehundredstormwarnings]

“Give your daughters difficult names. Give your daughters names that command the full use of tongue. My name makes you want to tell me the truth. My name doesn’t allow me to trust anyone that cannot pronounce it right.”

— Warsan Shire