(x) Ok but the burnt-edged white flag in the background? The drums? the army vibes? The way it's like its the end of a war and a military funeral and also surrender - but not to him, but rather a surrender and death to a belief system? The way she ends up crumpled up on the cold hard ground? and then she gets up and goes onstage feeling "naked" and powers through i can do it with a broken heart - this is a story of RESILIENCE, ICDIWABH is a story of PRIDE, if you can get on stage after this kind of death to your soul and everything you believed to be true, you really ARE the shit!
your phone is still saved in my car's bluetooth memory and my phone still has nick's speakers system saved and every time i switch my pillowcases i do it the way regina taught dominic who taught me how to do it too.
i still flinch because of how [ ] hurt me yeah but a few weeks ago alex and i sat on their floor and talked about how i am able to touch the people i love now, when four years ago i couldn't stand any human contact at all, horrified by the way it made my skin crawl
i didn't remember about the trip we took once up into the rivers and mountains, how you'd been there too, wading deep in the water, how i gave you a rock after. i was scrolling in my instagram history trying to find something else completely and then all the sun of the day came back, how you and me and crisco and maddie all howled songs in the car the whole ride home, my foot to the floorboards, absolutely speeding. i take a lot of pictures because my brain barely holds my own name (it's like the scene in spongebob all the time up there, i tell ziara, because i talk on the phone now, a lot, the way you taught me to enjoy) and the pictures are really good because they're filled with my friends and my activities and the light in my life and the pictures are also really bad because sometimes i am reminded that i used to be horribly in love with you, the kind of love that blots out the sun and moon, no matter how many times other people said she's not good for you
so i go through my memories carefully like stepping through a blackberry bush because i don't know if im embarrassed or hurt but it doesn't feel good and my spotify still has the playlist saved from your birthday party like four years ago and google maps still remembers alison's old address on melrose street even though she moved like forever ago and in my notes app i have like 106 non sequiturs i can no longer parse but they must have been important enough to write down so i don't delete them just-in-case their meanings reveal themselves like fog parting over the bluegreen hills
the birds are singing and i know how to identify a robin because of edie and i know how to make a souffle set properly because molly showed me, her hair untangling from her high bun, gentle and pretty; and i know how to bake because my mama taught me and i had forgotten i wrote you a love poem but then onedrive says today in your memories
From when your Brooklyn broke my skin and bones
I’m a soldier who’s returning half her weight
And did the twin flame bruise paint you blue?
Just between us, did the love affair maim you too?