cliowo

[cliowo]

I never see you coming, the same way deer always seem surprised to be caught in my headlight. But that has always been how it is with you, sneaking up unnoticed on me before the pounce-

And the sky explodes into colour. People make up words for things they do not understand, but I have not yet found a word in any language to describe you. I hold my breath in an attempt to lengthen time, and the gold touches your skin. Like this hour. You are not mine to keep. But oh, yes, you are beautiful. It is in your nature to lie, and it is in mine to believe you. I kneel before the altar and let your fingers baptise mine. I could no more hold on to golden hour than I can hold on to you. You tell me I am your most precious treasure, and I tell you that you are my favourite enigma. Your laugh is a piece I am all too familiar with but cannot stop listening to. It is not a compliment. You smile that smile full of wicked teeth and silken tongue. You say you like the way the light plays with my hair at this hour. I know I'll never be able to remember you outside of this hour.

[cliowo]

Tried to draw my hampter.. I dont think i did him justice HAHA am not an artist fr

[cliowo]

Having anxiety is so embarrassing.

It's asking about February availabilities when it's only the middle of December. It's the double, triple, quadruple rehearsal of your order before you step up to the cashier even though you know they aren't paid enough to judge you. It's the constant need for reassurance and then feeling mortified for asking for it.

It shouldn't be this difficult to go about life. It isn't as though you aren't trying to overcome it. Imitating people's calm, confident stride has become second nature by now. You can almost believe that you've got it all under control.

But the mosquitoes and bees are still there in your ears. They're buzzing and whispering and murmuring all at once and they're getting so loud it's a miracle nobody else can hear them yet. Experience has taught you that you can't listen to them, or at least not while you're in public. That path leads to a meltdown which leads to public humiliation which leads to not being able to showyourfaceinpublicforthenextfiveyears-

"Wanna hang out tomorrow? We could meet at 10am at the train station."

The persistent hum of the insects in your ear.

"Sure. Hopefully I'm not late!"

Your friend laughs.

"What are you talking about? You're never late."

[cliowo]

“Are you still into me?”

You ask, and I'm at a loss for words again. Because no, I am not "into you." You are neither my saviour nor my life's purpose, and you are not the perfect unblemished person of my prideful veneration. You are my anchor when I'm stranded in the middle of the sea, but you are also a hurricane, making me question my centre of gravity on the earth’s spinning axis. You are the bullet I hope will never be used, and I am the sword you aim at your own heart. But I know you, too. If I put it to you this way, perhaps you'll only glean the surface of what I'm trying to say. I know you would spend the rest of your life learning to read between my lines, but I am capable of learning too. So I'll put it to you in a way you understand best, and lean in close to kiss you.

[cliowo]

No matter how hard you try to be good, you are a sinner. You save a cat with one hand and drown a person with the other. It should not be this difficult to be good. But every time you are pushed, you shove back. You shove back because you know there is no one who would fight for you.

You want to be good.

You watch all the other humans smile their pretty little smiles and help you pick up your fallen coins. Your first instinct is to snatch it back. The world gives nothing and takes everything, and you, had only one choice. If kindness is not given then you take it, take back everything you were denied. It is how you have survived, and what you must continue to do to keep surviving. On occasion, you try to remember to say your “please” and “thank you”s, but they always arrive too late, the words clunky and foreign on your tongue. How do people whisper sweet nothings? To say something and not mean it, to offer you a hand then stab you in the back?

No, perhaps you do not want to be good.

You want to be loved, and it is the one thing you never seem to be able to get hold of. Another day passes with a bank full of numbers and an empty heart. There can only be one explanation. You are a sinner. The alternative is too painful to consider.

[cliowo]

My love poems always end wrong. That is to say, there is a tragedy in each of them. That is to say, you're braver than I am.

We met in the same school we once spent our time trading secrets behind sticky hands, the bottle of orange juice warming under our sun. You were with someone new, young and a little unsure of themself; but I liked them. I liked them for the way they looked at you with a mixture of amusement and affection, for their gentle hands and for the way they painted the smile on your lips. You say they have never thought of themself as an artist, but that is because they do not know you as well as I do. They are not your typical kind of artist. Bad artists imitate, good ones immortalise, and the best ones inspire. They inspired the hope in you, and for that they are an artist. And you, for daring to give love another chance, are a fighter.

You make me want to write a happy ending for you. Maybe this time, I'll be able to write one.

[cliowo]

So you would die for me. Now live for me.

Yes, so I know you would die for me. But would you live for me? Would you stay and hold my hand through all the famines and hardships, apathy and misery? I would never doubt the strength of your love; I'm just saying that perhaps sometimes, we become so wrapped up in dying we forget about living. I'm just saying, in this version of the story, we both live to see the ending of Oedipus’ story. I want to watch a million sunsets and sunrises with you. Will you stay? Will you stay to share a thousand joys and griefs with me? Please stay. I know we could have made a beautiful tragedy. But my love, if you stayed, perhaps we would have created a wonderful mess of cookie dough together. Perhaps we could have cried over taxes together. Perhaps we would be an insubstantial spark, a flint vanishing into the dark. But we would have had our say. We would have taken on all the struggles the world gave us, and say,

“Look. Look here, now. You didn't ruin us. Or perhaps you did, but you will never stop us. You cannot tame my spirit, you will not break my heart.”

[cliowo]

"My heart beats with thunder and lightning, and I know it's weak, but it's the one I gave you."

I don't think I'll ever get over this book

[cliowo]

are you lonely?

Most of the time I'm okay ^^ it just likes to visit me at weird hours in the morning... dont trust your after 10pm thoughts amiright😂💀

Thanks for the ask!

[cliowo]

It's only years later when you realise being locked in a car on Christmas feels the same as coming home to a dining table with frozen food. And maybe you switch on the lights and put on music and scented candles; maybe you heat up the food and hum along to the tune. But it's still just you and this empty apartment that you love and maybe secretly hate but it's still home and you try to be grateful.

You really do.

Living in a shoebox is better than living under a bridge and you're healthy and what else can one ask for, really. And sure, maybe it's not the sort of home you could invite friends over with its mismatched furniture and fraying rugs, but it's yours and you fought to keep it - you have to love it, it's yours. The food is warm now and even tastes better than it looks, which is nice! Great, even.

But you're still thinking of that night they forgot and left you in the car with only the fairy lights for company. You remember wondering if it would still feel this way if you could somehow survive swallowing them in handfuls. Stomach and heart satiated, at last. Would it still feel this way? Would falling through the cracks feel less like being abandoned and more like something you choose?

[cliowo]

Absquatulate slang.

(Verb): To leave suddenly, without saying goodbye

I miss you before you're even gone. I love you and it becomes my fault. When you're beside me all I can think about is losing. In every universe there is a version of us playing cards. Every hand we're dealt leads us back to the same conclusion. It is always your name I call into the dark. You turn around, and all of a sudden you're Orpheus and I'm Eurydice. I miss you more than I miss living. Look at me. It is not possible to live without saying goodbye. You are going to forgive me tomorrow. I spent much of my life learning we do not exist within right and wrong. Now I'll spend the rest of it learning how to say goodbye.

[cliowo]

"Whales. When they die, they turn to the sun. And your hair color. Sunset - color. So when I throw the harpoon, Whales turn to you."

THIS IS BEAUTIFUL???😭🫶 apparently its from limbus company and I'm so tempted to pick it up rn

[cliowo]

My toxic trait is I'd rather deal with the pain or black out from it before I'll swallow painkillers🤡 that shit's nasty

[cliowo]

You taught me how to read and spell and write and somehow I'm supposed to pretend you didn't teach me everything that I know. How to write a letter without thinking about you. And maybe I'm just too sentimental for my own good. But you once told me how it was your great grandmother who nudged you to first pick up a pen. Her hands on your hands on my hands. How do I forget that I loved you?

[cliowo]

You said you didn't remember it when I asked you, but when you were younger - maybe seven or eight, I found you sitting on the kitchen floor. There was flour everywhere, coating the cabinets, tabletops, floor. The result of a baking experiment gone wrong. You started crying as soon as you saw me, afraid of a scolding, perhaps. It wasn't hard to guess what had happened - the bowl you had used to hold the flour had been too small.

“Why didn't you use a bigger bowl?”

“It was the only bowl I could reach.”

You sniffled, rubbing your eyes.

It wasn't deja vu, exactly, but there was something about the scene that reminded me of myself.

You were there, too, when I dropped the porcelain bowl on the floor. Of course, it had shattered. You had cried with me, though I doubt you'd have remembered it either.

“It's okay. Next time, we'll do it together.”

“You're not angry? I made a mess.”

No, little one, you hadn’t.

You weren't the one that broke the bowl.

I was.

[cliowo]

Good morning! I’m salty.

I think we, as a general community, need to start taking this little moment more seriously.

This, right here? This is asking for consent. It’s a legal necessity, yes, but it is also you, the reader, actively consenting to see adult content; and in doing so, saying that you are of an age to see it, and that you’re emotionally capable of handling it.

You find the content you find behind this warning disgusting, horrifying, upsetting, triggering? You consented. You said you could handle it, and you were able to back out at any time. You take responsibility for yourself when you click through this, and so long as the creator used warnings and tags correctly, you bear full responsibility for its impact on you.

“Children are going to lie about their age” is probably true, but that’s the problem of them and the people who are responsible for them, not the people that they lie to.

If you’re not prepared to see adult content, created by and for adults, don’t fucking click through this. And if you do, for all that’s holy, don’t blame anyone else for it.

[cliowo]

I love you like breathing. Like a need, like it's natural, because I don't know any other way to live. It would not be accurate to call you my oxygen, but to forget how to use my nose, my lungs, is the same as dying.

I love you like a hurricane. All destruction and stolen lives suctioned in in a whirl of dry leaves and uprooted homes. In my hunger I forget to ask for permission, I forget you belonged to you first.

I love you like rain in the desert. Too much, too little, too late. All because I never learnt how to live in moderation. In my wake you'll find the blood trail, new watering holes, yes, and equal praise and curse for my presence. Listen to them well; not all of them are right, but not all of them are wrong too.