imagineurwrld

[imagineurwrld]

– Rupi Kaur

[imagineurwrld]

"sensitive"

[written by j.s.]

you say i’m sensitive

and the very word

tinges itself with disdain

as if purposefully inflicted

as a will of poor fortune

i say i am receptive

keenly aware of the hidden 

insecurity laden within 

the accusations you turn to me

as a distraction from your own

negative association with emotion

what is it truly 

to be sensitive as defined by

your image of fragility

the irritation that easily inspires

with your swift judgment of my character?

the suffocation that entraps

a wandering soul seeking to break from

from years of being told what 

and how to feel?

the silent tears that slip

down flustered cheeks 

of pinched frustration

behind the door protective 

from your domineering gaze?

what is my sensitivity 

but a mere reflection of

another’s impact on 

my growing soul

you say i’m sensitive

as though it is an insult

as if the idea of sensitivity

inspires hate and resentment

not from the outside world

but from you

and suddenly

my harmony with how i feel

becomes a threat

to your lack of such

[imagineurwrld]

"words of a breakup"

the argument that makes a boy realize that his relationship is ending

[written by j.s.]

My heart stopped as the blood drained from my face and silence rang in my ears until they felt like they were going to burst. It felt as though I had been punched in the gut as all the oxygen flew from my chest with a single puff of air.

My body ached, my head throbbed, my eyes blurred over with the sea as I looked over her face. That beautiful, angelic face that I once thought could never do me any harm.

My brows drew together so tightly that it stung the skin on my forehead, but I was too distracted by my devastation to notice the physical pain then.

I watched the anger crumble from her face when the weight of what she had just said crushed in on her, the sharpness of the dagger she plunged into my abdomen sheathing back into her side from out of mine.

I was frozen, unsure of what to do or say, choking on the heartache that bubbled steadily within me. I wanted to cry, but I fought against it. Rather poorly, I’ll admit. The lump in my throat grew harder to swallow when her lips turned in a frown, one of remorse and love that always used to warm me with its presence.

She regretted it. I could tell, but it was too late. Now all I felt was the cold.

[imagineurwrld]

"a funny feeling"

the moment you realize that you have a crush

[written by j.s.]

Feelings come and go as quickly as the leaves fall from the trees in autumn, faster than birds fly from the intimidating rustle of trees signifying the presence of an unwelcome predator, and swifter than a human being can blink every second of every day. They are random, they are expected, they are unexpected. You think you can control them until you can’t. You think you can talk your way out of the pang in your heart each time your eyes catch a glimpse of their hair in the hallway until it begins to spiral out of control, beyond your control. You think you can stop it from blossoming before the words finally spill past your lips into a confirmation of the feelings that you have been dreading to speak into existence. It’s the vulnerability of it all, the shame, the fear, the hope, the giddiness, the regret, the disdain, that funny feeling. 

You don’t want to feel until you do. You don’t find comfort in the way your chest caves and your hands shiver at the thought of them with someone else, speaking civilly, smiling kindly, until it becomes comfortable. Until that flutter in your chest that rises the contents of your stomach to your throat becomes something you look forward to feeling. It’s a giddy feeling. It’s a frightening feeling. It’s a funny feeling.

You begin to notice things that you didn’t notice before. You begin to pay attention to their body language, to the curve in their brows, to the crease beneath their eyes each time they speak to you. You begin to seek their touch, their presence, their conversation even if it is just for a pitiful two to three seconds as you brush past each other in a crowded hallway. You begin to ponder their emotions, to believe that something inside you can spark some kind of telepathy that allows you to read their thoughts and deduce that they seek the same things from you that you do from them. You begin to overthink, to panic, to find them taking space in your dreams and waking up with a pit in your stomach that reminds you of the closeness that will only exist within your conjured realm of fantasy.

The dreams are the worst part.

They sneak up on you without warning, and there’s nothing to prepare you for the warmth that you feel ripped from your chest when you gain consciousness and revel in the fact that such a gloriously wonderful encounter could only happen within the confines of your own imagination. It hurts, it does. It hurts that your mind has the ability to tell you what you want without being aware of your own desires. It hurts to realize that what you truly, desperately want is something that will likely never come to you. And it happens again, and again, and again, until your heart can’t take the disappointment any longer. Until you force yourself to turn your head the other way when you catch a glimpse of their hair in the hallway, amid hundreds of other heads that seem to blur in their presence.

It’s such a strong feeling, once you admit that it is taking precedence over your thoughts. It’s one that grows stronger the more you open up and accept the emotion. It’s powerful, and it makes you smile. It makes you laugh. It makes you sad, because you care deeper for them than you realized before you submitted to the admittance. It’s not love. It’s not complicated or sophisticated, it’s just a funny feeling.

[imagineurwrld]

home

in which you are reunited with your boyfriend after months of being parted

You hold your breath as your house grows visible past the hill you run up, and then you stop once you reach the top. The vision before you is enough to make you freeze completely, blood pumping viciously and breath catching in your throat. The wind stills before brushing through your hair and clothes again.

His figure sits on your doorstep, a heavy-looking bag tossed to the side and his arms draped over his bent knees. His head is turned to the side, deep in thought as he seemingly waits for your arrival. You can tell he is tired from his travels just by glancing at his posture, the way he is slumped over, but his mannerisms shift completely when his head turns and his eyes land on you.

The moment your eyes meet, you know. You know that this nightmare is over, that you no longer have to dream of a love that felt so out of reach, that you no longer have to cry, that you no longer have to clean to distract yourself from the emptiness of your house, that you no longer have to force yourself out of bed and despise the image that stares back at you in the bathroom mirror because it is void of the image of him, arms wrapped around your waist and lips pressed to your ear.

You no longer have to wait, to fear, to miss. It is over. His eyes are as bright as the sun upon seeing you, and they shatter the glass wall that you had forced up. Those eyes that sparkle like a thousand rays of light, the eyes that reawaken you after having died along with his absence, those eyes that are home.

Admiration, fondness, desperation, exhaustion, warmth, and home. Those are his eyes, your home’s eyes.

You can not move until suddenly, you are. You race across the path, stumbling over your rapidly moving feet as he lifts himself from the staircase to hold out his arms and brace himself for impact. Your body collides with his, chest shoving into chest, and everything snaps into place like a missing piece fitting perfectly into a puzzle. 

You grip the rough fabric of his shirt, clinging onto any piece of his clothing you can touch, switching your arms from his upper back to his lower back to up again. One arm secures around your waist, while the other cradles your head to him.

For a moment, it does not feel real. You don't know how to begin to fathom the foreign yet achingly familiar feeling. His hands are calloused, hard, and coarse from work. His hold is strong and secure, and he feels slightly bulkier but he is the same. It is him, and you are crying before you can even comprehend it.

He lifts you up from the ground, screwing his eyes shut and tightening his lips to prevent the emotions that he had built up from spilling free, messily, simply from seeing your beautiful face after so, so long.

You are soft in his arms, pliant, gentle, just as you were when he left you six months ago. Your scent fills his nostrils, intoxicating him more than any perfume he’d bought for you in the past ever could. Your graceful arms clinging ungracefully to his back, sobs racking your chest as he holds you impossibly closer.

It is you. He is home. 

He sets you back down on your feet, pulling away just enough to take in your features. He soaks in the vision of you: your glossy eyes and trembling lips; the curve of your clenching jaw and the complexion of your skin flushed; your nose flaring as tears stick to your lashes, trickling down your cheeks and dribbling past your chin.

You are a lovely sight, an angel. You are his home, and he loves you so. His brows curl as he gazes at you afraid to blink and watch his dream disappear. 

Your head is swiftly pushed into his and lips smash together. You savor the taste that you have been deprived of for months. He is exhausted, he’d been traveling for hours, and he is dirty, but he doesn’t care. You don’t care. He is home, and home is the way your lips chase his each time they break apart to push back in.

He kisses you hard, he kisses you passionately, then slowly and tenderly. His brows knit together as your delicate hands ruffle through his hair. Tears mix into the taste of each other’s lips, but neither of you cares. How could you care? It doesn't matter. All that matters is this moment, this feeling, this cease of departure.

You pull away with a soft smack, pressing your foreheads together and staring into each other’s teary eyes. Your hands move to his face, tracing his skin and caressing the scars indented above his brow and on his chin.

He lets you, lashes fluttering against his cheek as he breathes you in and relishes this moment for all it is worth, his thumbs tracing the curve of your spine beneath the thin silk of your shirt.

A wobbly smile touches your lips as your eyes dart across his face, unsure of where to focus. A laugh, or a scoff maybe, falls past your lips, one of sheer passion and relief, before your teeth come down to bite the bottom one.

He smiles, tiredly. His heart pangs against his chest as your grin appears, the very grin he’d engraved into his brain to keep him going this past half a year. 

“Welcome home.”

Your phrase is a whisper, gone with the breeze that blows past. His smile widens somehow, and his eyes brighten as the reality sinks in. He breathes air through his nose in amused shock, shaking his head in disbelief at the fact that his wait is finally over. 

He is home, home with the heart he’d left behind, and he could have collapsed as reality sank in. 

He kisses you again and again, and lifts you up and kisses you even more until he cannot breathe.

written by Jaylin Smith

[imagineurwrld]

random words i like to use when writing about love

incandescent

irrevocably

ethereal

consuming

enchanting

encapsulation

captivating

helplessly

breathless

mind-numbing

intoxicating

aching

yearning

[imagineurwrld]

trying to write and finish something new but the unfinished fanfic from three years ago about a character you completely forgot about keeps calling your name

[imagineurwrld]

“poison”

notes from a woman afraid to love

Written by j.s.

A man’s worst crime is to love me. To break through the wall of brick that has been enforced to protect my venomous heart from itself and from others, to break through the wall that appears more formidable than it truly is. To see past the hardened exterior, past the strength and the skepticism. A man’s worst crime is to take my hand and lead me into a world free of stress, a world of happiness that will only ever be temporary.

The burden of perfection slips into the cracks of a wall built to keep it out, under management, under control. To be special is to be an image painted by a society that does not understand the inner turmoil that struggles to free itself. To be special is to be monitored, as a lioness monitors its cub before it can take so much as a step into the dirt and vine that litters the entrance of a seething jungle. What is good enough is no longer a choice but a standard to live by that rises and crashes down onto a soul, free, warm, bright, and drowns it in its tainted conceptions of what should and what should not be.

A poison festers within me, one that snaps and seeps into the veins of a person who mistakenly seeks my beauty. A warning, a plea that urges the other to turn away before it can get hurt is deafened by the euphoria of stumbling upon a love that I believed to be my own, and even my own heart grows ignorant to its own addresses as it melts pathetically.

A man’s worst crime is to love the unlovable, the sheltered, the venomous. To look into my eyes, to smile, to kiss, to hold, to sacrifice.

I am a flame that drags in a moth, a python that stalks an elk, the quicksand beneath unsuspecting feet because love is a true poison that I fail to have control over. For that I will never love again.

I am poison and I will never love again.

[imagineurwrld]

To grieve you like you are dead is to know that I truly love you.

“heartbreak”- j.s.

[imagineurwrld]

"muse."

[blurb written through the perspective of a stone bust: in which a sculpture admires the woman who paints it]

written by j.s.

I shiver under her gaze. It is intense, hard. Her eyes glimmer with frustration, passion, curiosity, an urge to see beneath the surface of my face and into my soul. She searches for my beauty as she attempts to recreate it with nothing but her visual perception and the long stem pinched between her bony fingers. 

I see hers clearly. Her beauty, that is.

I could watch her for hours, days, just as she does me. I could write a book about each eyelash that curls upward above her dark iris, sing a song about the magical way in which the sunlight touches her golden skin as it leaks through the window and onto her crouched figure, providing the only source of light she gives herself access to when she perches herself onto that small stool and stares. 

I wonder if her back aches. If her hands cramp up and neck seizes uncomfortably in its stretched, craned state. I wonder if when she retreats to bed each night, she winces in pain as she discovers cricks in her back that she struggles desperately to stretch away. I wonder if she suffers after she stares for hours, days, weeks. If she endures uncomfortable conditions to capture me on that canvas.

I would endure uncomfortable conditions to capture her. To take her place and watch. To place her before me and study her heavenly features.

She frustrates herself as an artist. Despite her omnipotent talent, her mind conjures horrible inaccuracies that send her jumping from her seat after tossing her wet brush angrily to the side, paint splattering the hardwood floors in the process. 

She would step away for only a few seconds at a time, running her ringed hands over her face with brief, hefty puffs of air. She’ll turn around to circle back again, switching her gaze between me and the canvas. I can see her thoughts spinning, working to relieve her mind of her short-lived stress. 

She sits back down, picks up the brush, and proceeds. Time and time again.

How much turmoil must I cause her brain each day, each hour, each week? How must I atone for my impact? I have no arms to embrace her with, no muscles to flash a comforting smile. My state restricts me from providing solace and relentlessly reminds me that I am nothing but stone in her way.

I fret over the irritation I arise until she settles back into her daze, gliding her orbs of chocolate brown over the structure of my crafted face.  I get lost in her gaze and forget that there was ever anything to fret over. 

This beauty goes uncaptured, left to roam free about the world without documentation, without study, without its image hanging high up on a gallery wall for others to admire. This beauty that sacrifices her own to study mine. She is flesh, and bone. Cinnamon and vanilla. Browns, yellows, reds, and creams, and I remain the same. Stiff, blank, still and emotionless. She calls my immoveable plainness beauty and desperately aims to recreate it, yet I know that if she were sitting before herself in my position, she’d finally recognize her own unfathomable artistry, and that my own could not even begin to compare.

The curve of her thick brows, the subconscious twitch of her nose, the gentle nudge of pearly teeth sinking into plush lips glossed with saliva, a result of constantly and anxiously wetting them with her tongue. The bump in the ridge of her rounded nose and the kind sharpness of her jaw that is emphasized each moment she turns to dip her brush into a cup of turpentine and oil. 

What incandescent, unfathomable, fascinating beauty. 

Beauty that belongs in the halls of the Louvre, expertly crafted by the hands of the greatest names known to art history. 

And even within the security of the walls of the most luxurious museum, locked behind the finest security and guarded by the finest men, no institute would be able to contain the unbridled, unfiltered artistry that is she. My muse.

[imagineurwrld]

"she had always hated him."

[a short fiction piece about heartbreak and tragedy: a journey through a woman's hatred for the man she loves]

By J.S.

It was quite typical of him to disappoint her, to send her heart into panic with the shock of his unexpected actions. To bring her to anguish, to tear her emotions apart bit by bit, piece by piece until nothing but hatred for him remained as it festered into something greater to replace the lightness of her heart that he had stripped from her. 

It was all he could do, all he knew how to do, and she should not have expected anything more from a man she constantly found to be the root of all her devastation. The only thing he had been consistently capable of doing was making her hate him, if not making her curse the very occurrence that brought the two of them together. 

She had always hated him, this they both knew for a fact. She hated the way his full lips had stretched to form an arrogant smile the first day she met him, and the glint of mischief that swirled through his chocolate brown eyes each time her displeasure unveiled itself in an unflattered expression. She hated the sound of his voice, sly and dripping with palpable egotism as he enthusiastically engaged with her disdain for his physical being. She hated how quickly he came up with comebacks against her petty insults, how his eyes creased with his satisfied grin whenever she failed to counter his verbal attack.

She could have gone on and on about the things she’d despised about him from day one, for the list grew the longer she knew him. She hated how he hunched over his desk and chewed on the nail of his thumb with his legs spread apart, his dark lushes fluttering against his skin with each focused blink as he stared down at a map of a newly discovered land he prepared to explore. She hated how he walked a few feet ahead of her each time they proceeded into the dangers of the outside world, his shoulders broad as he swung his sheathed weapon cheerfully within his tight grasp. She hated how he sat uncharacteristically still and patient whenever she disinfected a gash on his cheek hours after a mission, eyes glistening with the everpresent vanity that failed to dispel himself even when wounded. 

He worked so hard to keep his walls high and his facade of confidence unwavering, as if he were horrified to provide a glimpse of the vulnerabilities that lurked beneath it to the girl who hated him so. He was difficult to read in dire situations. His eyes would gloss over in the face of crisis yet his lips remained curved into a smirk as he thrusted himself forth, certainly uncertain. It was near impossible to pick apart his true insecurities, his emotions, his real identity, and that only made her hatred for him grow. 

He was nothing but a mystery to her. He always had been, and she hated him for it. She hated how he actively chose to be an insufferable individual.

She hated the way he hurt her. The manner in which her heart would ache before dropping to her toes each time he turned up at her door in the wee hours of the morning, rain pounding mercilessly around him as it soaked into his blood stained clothing. Hot red fluid would ooze from his side, his leg, or his nose as his bruised hand clutched immaturely at the leaking wound. He would muster up that same, stupid, ugly, beautiful smile despite his condition, as if to gloat at the fact that he was still alive for her to tend to. 

It was only in those moments, however, when she noticed his smirk failing to meet his eyes. His features would instantly tighten from his pain brought about by his wreckless need to prove himself strong, and her heart would plummet further if it were even possible. She would pull him into her cabin, guiding his stumbling body to the beaten sofa he’d plopped down upon on countless occasions. The red stains were there to prove it.

In the silence of his unspoken humility, the storm crowded in and the crackle of the fire occupied the empty space that resided as she patched him up, fingertips dancing with red and her hatred for him blossoming the further her concern spread. 

When he was not taking advantage of her medical duties and suppressed regard for his safety, he found more creative ways to fuel her hatred like a roaring flame with his misdirected charm. 

Companied by his air of conceit was a desire to be loved and a remarkable talent at doing so. He would flash an intoxicating grin at a local town girl, void of the underlying mockery his smiles always held for the woman who hated him. The town girl, like many others, would swoon, taken by his natural born charisma and take his hand, leading the two off to a bed to share.

His self-proclaimed enemy had approached his home more times than she was willing to admit as a stranger with wild hair and lazy eyes stepped through his door to leave. They’d walk past her smelling of him, adorned shamelessly in an article of his clothing. He’d wear a proud look as he leaned against his doorway watching as the blood began to boil beneath her skin. She had been too blinded by her heart’s rage to notice how he’d always force his nightly visitors to leave just as he would see her walking up his pathway from the window. 

She never admitted it, but it killed her to watch. It killed her to see him giving himself so freely to other people, while he gave her nothing but reasons to turn her head away. 

She knew well that she could never recall a moment in which he brought her peace. He persisted as the reason she cried, the reason her blood boiled, and the reason she could not love another human being. He was nothing but a pain to her existence, a sickness that she could not shake, a fatal addiction that she could not quit. For those reasons, she was convinced that bringing her disappointment and anguish had been his sole purpose in life, his only reason for being. 

So she shouldn’t have been surprised then, when her eyes glazed over his limp body in horror, how it had been tossed so carelessly to the side of the dirt road atop the blood soaked soil beneath him. 

She fell to her knees, crawling ungracefully to gather his fading warmth within her gasp. She clung to him tightly, her arms and fingers doused in the red she had grown so accustomed to seeing in far less quantities. Her trembling hand reached over the torn fabric of his shirt and cautiously grazed the singed skin surrounding the hole in his chest to analyze the severity of his wound. This was one she could not fix. 

His heartbeat was dreadfully slow. It dragged on at a snail’s pace, dulling with each faint beat in his pulse. His breaths were labored, gurgled with blood.

She shouldn’t have been surprised as she gazed down into his heavy eyes as they stared blankly up at her. She could see her reflection in the pools of his sunken irises, his chestnut hair matted against his forehead, mixed with sweat and congealed blood. Her vision blurred over with fat tears as her finger traced his damp face lightly, the tears that only he could manage to bring about. Her lips parted to speak, to ask a question, to verify his signs of improbable life with a verbal address, but nothing came of her parted lips. Her breath caught in her throat and the saliva in her mouth had run dry.

There were no words. No insults, no petty remarks, no declarations of hatred to spare. Only stunned silence.

She shouldn’t have been surprised when he used his last bit of energy to curl his cracked lips into a smile, only it had been different from the hundreds of other times he had snarkily grinned at her. 

This smile was soft, gentle, tender. A glimmer of acceptance wavered within his graying orbs as his smirk attempted to soothe any sorrows he had caused, though he was actively committing the very worst of them all in that moment. Blood stained teeth displayed themselves the wider he smiled, which did nothing to ease her alarm. 

Slowly, and almost cautiously, he raised his hand. She broke her eyes away from him hesitantly to catch the movement out of the corner of her panicked glance and watched as his trembling fingers hovered above her own where they lay on his upper chest before settling down upon her skin calmly.

She could have jumped at the delicate touch and how foreign it felt coming from him. A hefty breath of air was sucked sharply into her lungs as she watched him closely, begging him to hold on for just a little while longer. 

He said nothing. 

The light faded from his eyes and his chest fell beneath their palms with his final exhale. His smile never fell. 

She wavered over him for a moment, breath still in her throat as her eyes frantically darted across his face. The world went quiet. Time had frozen over and sound was nothing but a high pitched ringing in her ears. The air was hot around her flushed cheeks and she sat there, holding him, feeling him, but he was already gone. 

For a few seconds, there was nothing. Then suddenly, there was. A cry. A coarse, blood-curdling scream that ripped from her chest and filled the stagnant air with her torment.                                                                                  . 

Anguish was what he had always brought her, even in his final moments. And as her head sank to the crook of his neck, she knew that she would forever hate him for the way that he had made her feel, and the pain that he caused her.

[imagineurwrld]

Welcome

My name is Jay and I am a writer.

By that, I mean I turn immediately to books, to a Google Document, and to a paper in one of hundreds of journals I have opened and closed over the course of the past ten years to express unspoken turmoil and delight. The majority of my work remains unpublished, save from the lenghty fanfications that I started at fifteen years old and failed to conclude four years later. Despite so, I harbor a profound fascination of literature, like many who download and scroll through this very app. I seek pieces that will capture me, words that will move me and transport me to realities far from my own.

Like many, for me, writing is an escape. It is a breath of life into words that have the power to construct whatever the sheltered mind desires. Writing is the source of control for those lacking so in their realities. Writing is a place to explore, to form bridges between the real and the fantastical, it is a subconscious connection between foreign voices who share a common passion for art and communication. For me, writing is a beacon of hope, a spark of light in the dark, and an invisible string that ties broken hearts together.

I intend to mold this blog into an encapsulation of my mind's secrets through fiction and reflection, romance and horror, triumph and trial, through words on a page that you may happen to come across. I want to finally share with the world the thoughts that cross my mind consistently, and how they have metamorphosized into the blurbs that I intend to write here.

I hope to create a safe space for all those who fail to find words when the time calls for them. I hope to create a space where people can connect with my foreign world and link themselves to brief sections about heartbreak, happiness, action, fear, adventure, and raw rumination.

To be a writer is to be human, as we all are.

Welcome to my blog "A Literary World of Your Imagination." I hope you stay a while.

-j.s.