huminightingale

[huminightingale]

'home'

one day i will meet someone who will make me feel that profound feeling of being home and we will be laying on our bed, giggling and murmuring sweet nothings to each other. the world will not matter and it'll be our own haven, bubble-wrapped by the moon hanging aloft the sky, watching and stage lighting towards our little beautiful story. my favorite flowers will be growing in our garden and his laugh will echo through the walls and pierce straight into my heart. things will be fine and i will be home.

‎

[huminightingale]

my ache so profound, love beseeches me to embrace it.

[huminightingale]

'love'

love ─ love is so many things, amongst a few of which i prefer. love to me is looking at the moon for hours, waiting patiently for it to greet me by the window. love to me is when the moon hangs brightest in the sky, reflecting the fading hues of the sun. love to me is dragging the first person i see just to share this beautiful sight, although my heart begs for this view to be, just for us.

to quietly remind someone how much you love them — how hard they’ve worked, even if you don’t know the details of their day — and to wish them a soft, undisturbed sleep, is love to me. to sit with that first sip of warm coffee, brewed not just for taste but intention, to look at the sky and let apricity dissolve every creeping doubt or fear — that too, is love. to remember what another might forget, to hold it gently in your hands like a secret only you noticed — and then offer it back, like a small, quiet gift — that’s love. to catch the way their eyes crinkle before a smile forms.

love is holding their clammy hands, tucked under linens too warm for the season, lying face to face, murmuring about the nothings in between. love is selfishly hugging them for just a second longer, finding home in the scent of their skin, nuzzling into the crook of their neck, and wondering how a moment like this could stay etched in memory — a soft place to return to when everything else feels empty.

love is watching the one you love from afar like a monument, like a favorite movie playing. watching them clutch their stomach, toppling over from laughing too hard — and feeling the soft ache in your chest, the quiet urge to say it, to let it fall into the air like breath. but the moment passes. because sometimes the words i love you weigh heavier than silence.

for some, i love yous feel like treasure stored beneath the ribs, waiting for the right moment to be offered — words imagined for nights and days on end. for others, it’s the only form of affection they know how to give, unsure whether it’ll ever be enough.

love is so many things. love is so much. it’s everywhere. it’s a contradiction, it’s intuitive, it’s being here for them always. it’s loving someone simply for being. it’s in the form of hugs, in the form of late-night songs written with the bittersweet taste of coffee still clinging to the tongue, in the form of their name scribbled in sand, in snow, on fogged-up glass — anything and everything that carries their name in the smallest way and chants like a hymn. it’s a form so unbreakable, oh so sweet, and so, so beautiful.

love is found in the tiniest things — like writing on a colourful sticky note when no one expects it. in letting someone eat the last bite of your favorite bar of chocolate. in waiting until they take the first bite before you do. in just watching them sleep like it’s the most sacred thing in the world.

or it’s in things as grand as buying them the ring they’ve been eyeing for months. or letting them have the necklace that you love so much because perhaps, just perhaps, watching it now on their neck looks like a mural of your love. or holding hands with such reverence that your bones might find home in their embrace. or even when it aches — the kind of ache that sits quiet in the chest — but if it means getting to see that smile again, eyes turned crescent, toes tucked under to match your height… that might just be the sweetest way to lose a damn life.

-

and maybe, just maybe, love is writing all of this down because there’s no other way to hold it.

[huminightingale]

[huminightingale]

'in the place time forgot'

‎i miss the drawer that held old newspapers, corners curled and pages yellowed as though they had been untouched while time fed. the linen closet with bedsheets stacked like soft memories. the cabinet filled with dog-eared notebooks, stickers saved for  special occasions, dried pen and half-used erasers. the clay castle adorned with sky-blue beads, dulled by dust and lustreless, in a compartment beside it. and a huge grey tv with lost remote, buttons worn from trying.

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‎i think about the glitter pens i didn't got to use. the water gun i was supposed to play with my brother, on summer vacation. the doctor toy kit i never got to unwrap. my journal entry from last year. the painting i drew of the sky, years ago.

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‎i ache for the abandoned pieces of mine, untouched. for the promises cracked, in a quiet unnoticed way.

‎for the soft ruins of a childhood sealed away in cupboards and corners.

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‎i ache, and i ache, and i ache —

‎for the heart i won’t return to, and the hollow it still echoes.

‎

[huminightingale]

I miss you in quiet ways—in skipped songs, in sunsets that don’t feel right, in jokes I can't tell anyone else.

[huminightingale]

Strict parents don't raise obedient kids. They raise kids who cower if they're met with a harsh glare while doing dishes, who recognize them by the sound of their footsteps and get panic attacks over every slammed door. They raise kids who become numb when screamed at, who flinch at loud voices or breaking utensils. They don't raise bright students; they raise kids who freak out over getting a 90+ score, knowing the consequences at home will be terrifying. They raise perfectionists who are so afraid to mess up that their hands start shaking. They raise survivors.

-vesper

[huminightingale]

'mosaic of me'

‎i tear my flesh for your fingers to invade.

‎you laugh at the absurdity of my ache.

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‎i unclasp my chest, rib by rib, for my heart to take.

‎‎you laugh at how fiercely i give.

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‎i unpiece myself limb by limb, vessel by vessel, in front of you, for you to take.

‎‎you stitch them back, and laugh at the intangiblity of my state.

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‎i gather the pieces of me, the mosaic of my heart and the broken rumbles of my haze.

‎‎you laugh, still, at how undone i let myself break.

‎

[huminightingale]

How do you heal when the damage feels like home?

[huminightingale]

"The Whistler," Mary Oliver

All of a sudden she began to whistle. By all of a sudden I mean that for more than thirty years she had not whistled. It was thrilling. At first I wondered, who was in the house, what stranger? I was upstairs reading, and she was downstairs. As from the throat of a wild and cheerful bird, not caught but visiting, the sounds war- bled and slid and doubled back and larked and soared.

Finally I said, Is that you? Is that you whistling? Yes, she said. I used to whistle, a long time ago. Now I see I can still whistle. And cadence after cadence she strolled through the house, whistling.

I know her so well, I think. I thought. Elbow and an- kle. Mood and desire. Anguish and frolic. Anger too. And the devotions. And for all that, do we even begin to know each other? Who is this I’ve been living with for thirty years?

This clear, dark, lovely whistler?

[huminightingale]

'14 may'

‎i think of you with tears in my eyes, and i wonder  —

‎when did i go from missing you fondly to miss you this achingly?

‎there's a chasm in my heart

‎that nothing in this world can fit but you.

‎there's a quiet rumbling ach in my heart that never settles.

‎and it brews inside me each day,

‎little by little.

‎until its all i know.

[huminightingale]

The realization that the bond between you and your parents is beyond repair has to be one of the most heartbreaking feelings. It's as if you've known me my entire life, but still, you never really tried to know me – to understand me in a way that would make me feel seen and not alone or scared to share things with you. What changed when I grew up a bit? Was I no longer your kid, someone you cherished only when I couldn't express where it hurt, so I'd tell you it did, and that was enough? You've turned me into this wounded creature whose ears still ring with the insults you've fed me. But God knows I still tried to be the perfect child you could be proud of and appreciate. Yet the wall between us had grown too strong, and the bonds we once had seemed blurred. All I could do was sit and watch as I was always the one trying to fix things, and never the other way around.

-vesper

[huminightingale]

' 29 April '

you think after all this time you should get used to it. the soft dull ache. the letting go and being left behind. the sweet recounted memories and the bitter taste of goodbyes.

‎but the shards of abandonce still prickle and leave the heart messier than before.

‎—

‎and yet, through this wake the low hum of smiles and quiet nostalgia drapes the lull of a heartache goodbye.

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[huminightingale]

'abandoned hillhouse'

‎i still carry the ruins of your name. and though its unsalvageable now, my heart can't bring itself to remember you in a bitter way. it cradles some sweet memories beneath which satiate the monster inside.

i think of you and only your warmth greets me, but the ghost of you smothers away the fire in my chest. i think of you but maybe you don't and lately so, i've come to feel settled with the ruins of your absence — this hollow cavity beneath

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— ‎cradled still by the trembling shape of my palm.

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[huminightingale]

I cried while writing about you in my diary, you weren't supposed to leave so abruptly, so soon. Was I that easy to let go of? That easy to forget? I still mention you in my prayers, still care about your well-being, wonder if you ever think of me. The lights are off, my pen has run out of ink, but I'll continue to write about the pain you made me feel until my hands hurt, until there's no love left in me for you, until I've engraved the depth of my agony on this paper and erased every fragment of you from my memories. In the darkness, I'll scribble out the memories of your touch, the echoes of your voice, and the shadows of what we once shared. Perhaps then, I'll find silence, and the weight of your absence will finally lift and stop haunting me with the possibilities of what we could have been.

-vesper

[huminightingale]

'mirage of you‎'

but sometimes when the absence of you is louder than the silence itself. all i want to see is the mirage of you.

‎beyond the deserts, in the reflections of the sea, and in mirror i look back into. even for a moment, i want to salvage how beautifully God sculpted you.

‎

[huminightingale]

'candy‎'

if i knew there would be a last time to everything, i would lick the last candy wrapper offered to me just to get that lingering taste to nostalgia and warm memories. i would cycle through the streets hoping to get a glimpse of sunlight again. i would collect flowers and stones from the places i love, as a keepsake. i would play with the toys a little longer before they inevitably got lost. i would trace back the tracks i once passed and chase the sunset to my childhood goodbye.