chamomileteandpoetry

[chamomileteandpoetry]

I've decide to wear the pain like a badge of honour over my heart, something noble, something brave. I've pierced my heart with its pins, but it's a privilege to hurt. I don't know if there is another world after this one, if there is anything at all but I need to be precious to someone. Everyone can leave they get to, but I can't leave me even if I'd want to. For me to truly live, the answer is yes, I need to be more precious to myself than you.

—Camille Lee, Badge of honour

[chamomileteandpoetry]

I try not to fall in love. I really do, because I know that I'll think about them, those things that will make it hard to forget. The curve of his back, the outline of his hips, the way his necklace falls at the base of his neck, the way its only something I can admire when his back is turned, because he likes to tuck his necklaces inside his T-shirt, the matching bracelet hangs off his wrist and sparkles in the light the way his eyes do when morning comes the next day. I have his sleepy smile when I'm the first thing he sees as he opens his eyes, memorized, and his low playful drawl to"take a picture, it'll last longer," before he scoops me up in his arms with the strength of someone who had definitely-been-awake-for-a-while and I'll remember it all. These are the things, the things I'll think of when you're gone, so I try my best not to fall in love.

—Camille Lee, I'll remember everything

[chamomileteandpoetry]

He was the first guy, I tried the "talking stage" with. I told him slow, glacially slow, like a candle burning into the late hours of the night, but he didn't hear over his own wants, his own needs. It was part of the reason it was the end of our season, on his way out the door he broke my heart all over and I knew I dodged a bullet when his ego started talking. Suddenly, oh so suddenly, I wasn't worthy of someone like him. Suddenly my beauty was too little and there was something wrong with me, so much for "you're my ideal girl" because now apparently I "wasn't even that pretty" and my version of normal was a problem. The way I was, was a problem. You said if I'm not happy with you, I'll never find a boyfriend. At the mere age of twenty with so much life left to live ahead of me, did you really think that's what I'd believe? The audacity— to try to convince me I wasn't worth loving, if I didn't want to be with you. My only regret is I didn't laugh in your face, so much for the "talking stage."

—Camille Lee, you'll never find a boyfriend

[chamomileteandpoetry]

You and I were stranded. Trapped, in the school’s gymnasium. The rain was starting to coming down, it was pouring. There was this hummingbird rhythm in my chest, loud as drums, where you and I lie, side by side, in dark blue skirts and white school shirts, on worn gym mats. The sound compelling, if I let it. Supposedly my feelings lie on some sort of spectrum? All I know is you and I, no matter what, aren't clear cut. I fantasize, or do I fetishize? I'm hoping you don’t realize, I want to kiss between your eyes, and that mine linger on your thighs. Echoes in a empty colosseum, ourselves as our own audience and with no one to witness it. I’m too young to know what I want, young and confused, in a "phase I'll grow out of eventually." Does it mean anything? If your hands linger on my waist? You make a mistake in your haste, kiss the corner of my lips instead of my cheek, before you leave. You giggle, because what else could it possibly mean? 

—Camille Lee, her

[chamomileteandpoetry]

She's sickenly sweet like honey with her crooked teeth, her breath smells like candy and her pretty stray eyelash, decorates her cheeks. She's a Venus fly trap. She's got stickers in her hair, glitter on her face and paint on her shoes. She gives her heart away like she has nothing to lose. She's the kind to make wishes on dandelions and to believe that when the stars align she can communicate with the divine in her dreams. We drove out to a field, laid under her "special tree" and watched the tall grass sway in the sunlight. It was something out of a movie. Do I want to be her or do I want to be with her? I couldn't pull it apart without leaving behind spider webs of her and I, traces of each other, like perfume clinging to a sweater I haven't worn in months. She's like a dream.

—Camille Lee, dream girl

[chamomileteandpoetry]

You have a beautiful talent for writing. May you always continue to write so passionately and may you continue writing in that beautiful manner that somehow never ceases to leave me in awe. Love life and ascend dear friend! Rooting for you and wishing you all the best, dearest Camille.

Oh my gosh🥺 <3 this was so incredibly sweet of you to say🤧 thank you anon 💞 that was beautiful, I'm honoured🥺 I'll come back to read your kind words every time I feel doubt towards my ability to write. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, I'll cherish your words always and wishing you all the best as well. —Camille Lee 🎀

[chamomileteandpoetry]

I'm not religious but I prayed for this, I begged the sky, I pleaded with the earth, the dirt under my fingers, fistfuls in each hand, the grass beneath my feet and the rocks scraping my knees. I implored the planet, the cosmos and the isolating, quiet of the pitch-black backdrop of the abyss, of the universe, of the stars and all that exists far beyond my reach. please, please send me the one, the perfect one, the destined one, my other half, my soulmate, the one to complete me. I don't believe in love at first sight but I still wish to be loved unabashedly. I stumble in my prayer, does such a person even exist? am I incomplete?

—Camille Lee

[chamomileteandpoetry]

I'm terrified one day I'll look around and realize for all my platonic love, it isn't enough. For all my friends have paired off like Noah's ark, all over again, one by one, I am but the exception. The lonely outlier, the undesirable creature, alone in the raging storm of living. The one to throw overboard to make space, the easiest at least, because they know there's no one here to miss me. I watch as they gaze into the eyes of their lovers with all the romance I've longed for, talking of the new world and the "rest of their lives together" I'm sick to my stomach but I pass it off as the back and forth rocking of the ark, sea sickness— I send a silent prayer to the sky or to God or to whoever will listen to me I can't possibly be fated to live out my days alone, right?

—Camille Lee

[chamomileteandpoetry]

Even if you were hanging off the edge of a cliff, with a white knuckle grip and only me to save you, I will never forgive you. I'd pry each one of your fingers off, the dying olive branch you clung to and I'll never forgive you. The asteroid will hit, wipe out everyone on earth, leaving us as it's last wanderers. The sky will open up and the waves will rise to devour us. The gods from the heavens above will rage and swallow whole this desolate planet. I'd sit next to you through it all, maybe hold your hand as the world ends and I still will never forgive you.

—Camille Lee, I will never forgive you

[chamomileteandpoetry]

An old sparkly journal is buried at the bottom of a weathered and worn, old cardboard box. Every other page has an "I ♡ Alex" written in pink ink on it. That girl used count every hand-holding, shoulder-touch, head-pat her first real crush ever gave her and wrote it all down. "He held my hand and rest his head on my shoulder." Fast forward three years and I started a new school, I'm fifteen years old and I reminisce fondly over my younger self's crush, at a party. Everyone around me mistakes my smile as lingering feelings for him, after all, I wasn't very subtle with my feelings back then. They just don't know. Now with older eyes to look back with, I realized something. I was always made of love. Love was never something I had to look for outside of me, it was always within me, I just didn't know it. I am love and love was always made of me.

—Camille Lee, love is what I was always made of

[chamomileteandpoetry]

You're too soft, the world will easily devour you whole. You've got no sharp teeth. All dull and rounded, blunt at the edges. You've got no claws, you've got no teeth, no nails to tear into skin. You're just too soft for this world and the wolves will come to eat you alive. They will feast on your soft bits, gobble you and forget your bones where they lay. You're sobbing and no one will listen, but it is said you deserve what's coming. With torn flesh between their teeth and blood spraying from their mouths, they will ask, why didn't you harden when you know you're just too soft for this world?

—Camille Lee, too soft

[chamomileteandpoetry]

do you think you can write something using the words iridescent💎 or fractal~🌈✨?" 👀

I closed my eyes as I felt the warm water on my skin, cascading through my hair, down my neck and down my back. I run my palms over my damp hair and I open my eyes to see the way the sunlight catches the water from the showerhead, through the bathroom window. I smile as I think to myself it looks like a mini waterfall, magical, ethereal and otherworldly. Like little tiny fairies should be fluttering around the water that seems to sparkle at this time of day. Iridescent shampoo bubbles dance off the tiled walls and pop. In the stillness and silence, I remember living isn't only in the grand, but also in the quietness of a bath after a long hard day.

—Camille Lee, iridescent shampoo bubbles

[chamomileteandpoetry]

Why can't I just be agreeable? I don't want to cause anymore trouble. I don't want to fight this early in the day, I don't to fight, it's too late at night. I've always been this way, it's innate, but I don't choose to be the wave, you need to swim against. I'm so young, I'm so naive, I'm so scared I'll live a life where I'm not happy. I wonder if being authentic and true to me is supposed to feel this heavy.

—Camille Lee, I don't want to fight

[chamomileteandpoetry]

I'm a long way from the girl who sat under the mango tree, in the back of the school and listen to cars passing by on the highway after school. She would close her eyes and pretend the sound of the cars on the road were the sound of waves crashing on the shoreline. She had the wildest and most vivid imagination. I look at her now in photos and memories, and I realize, I'm not that kid anymore, I'm not. The magic of the world isn't held in my eyes anymore.

—Camille Lee, 4:30 p.m.

[chamomileteandpoetry]

I’ve still got dance moves, like a friend I no longer talk to. Someone I’ve lost contact with, someone I’ve missed, someone I’ve contemplated reaching out to, to ask “How are you?” but I haven’t found the courage. When there’s a new season of  Bongou Stray Dogs, and she isn’t someone I can just call anymore, what do I do? When my brother is excited about the new Sonic the hedgehog movie, are you too? After all this time, I’ve written so many letters in my mind to tell you I’d still want you to be my friend but would you like to be mine? 

—Camille Lee, "I miss you" excerpt taken from the "Letters I never sent" poetry collection.

read full poem here.

[chamomileteandpoetry]

I’ve still got dance moves, like a friend I no longer talk to. Someone I’ve lost contact with, someone I’ve missed, someone I’ve contemplated reaching out to, to ask “How are you?” but I haven’t found the courage. When there’s a new season of  Bongou Stray Dogs, and she isn’t someone I can just call anymore, what do I do? When my brother is excited about the new Sonic the hedgehog movie, are you too? After all this time, I’ve written so many letters in my mind to tell you I’d still want you to be my friend but would you like to be mine? 

How are things at that art school you got into? Did you make new friends who have the same beliefs as you? I know that’s what inadvertently divided us, and from what I heard you have someone who you can confide in and trust— to hold the same values as you. I just wish you were a little greedy and held on to both what you believed in and me too and I just wish I was a little rude, rude enough to ask you, even after everything, “Do you want to still be my friend too?”

—Camille Lee, "I miss you" excerpt taken from the "Letters I never sent" poetry collection.

[chamomileteandpoetry]

I think I’ve always been afraid to grow up. 

When the teacher asked, “Who wants to stay in eight years old forever?” my little hand was the only one to shoot up, with all the excitement and innocence of a newborn seedling first entering the world, laid in wet paper towels in a plastic cup for a science project. This is the first time this little seedling properly greets the sun, except it never saw the sun.

The class spelling chart blocked out all the light and the seedling only knew the dark.

I was the only one to raise my hand  and just as quickly as it went up, it went right back down before the classroom erupted in laughter. 

—Camille Lee, I think I've always been afraid to grow up