words-by-ann

[words-by-ann]

Glennon Doyle, Untamed

[words-by-ann]

A friend once told me that the secret to finding love was not to actually look for it, but to heal the things that were preventing you from seeing and receiving it. I think the biggest one of all is, “What will having this love fix?” What will having this person next to me make me feel better about? What do I need them to tell me? What do I need them to prove? Who do I need them to look great in front of? What purpose do they serve for my ego?

[words-by-ann]

ill say this once and only once

i’ll paralyse you and blame you for not running away. and i’ll cut myself by accident and scream at you even though you made me a sheath. i turn into my father every opportunity i get, and ill blame that on you too. i don’t know what to do with myself, because i fear to even imagine what would happen if i blame myself for one more thing. sometimes, more often than i’d like to admit, i wonder for hours if i would’ve turned out better if i never met him, before the guilt suffocates me into sleep. i am a mosaic of the worst parts of my bloodline. every organ in my body has breathed the oxygen carried by the very thing that makes me theirs. i also wonder if i bleed myself dry, will i be lighter? will i be better? let’s not bring my mother into this too, because i cry when i think of her. they say i resemble her uncannily. i think the only thing we share is her sadness. i’m sorry but you’re in the wrong. that’s the only way things will be right.

[words-by-ann]

Clarice Lispector, A Breath of Life

[words-by-ann]

in retrospect, i was just insane

“Your love is a disaster.”

For you I’d walk into the sea and scoop the reflection of the moon with my bare hands. The most it’d do is distort it. I’d also try to bottle sunlight. Or even lightning (though I’m rather frightened of it). But my jar would forever stay empty. I’d even try to count the number of leaves the tree outside your window bears. I’d never get the correct answer. Desperation and determination, though honourable, fall helpless against the laws of nature- just like how your love does. You claw and scrape every day at the walls you’ve been building since you were six when your mother told you that you’d never amount to anything. Though you sound overtly curt when you mouth the eight letters that coalesce into the three words I see it in your eyes- the subtle ‘please, know that I mean it’ sparkle. Anyone else would have missed it. You ice my bruises while you look into the distance and stitch my wounds with a straight face. You give me so much but take back just enough to leave me questioning. Then you give again, just enough to abate the questioning… then you take it away again… but I know you. More than you’d ever think I do. Your love is a disaster- because it is everything that is against your nature. You’re fire, and love is a can of gasoline.

-by ann

prompt by @angelealowes on instagram :)

[words-by-ann]

ME

‘so what are you like?’

i tried to explain to you / that something as truculent as i am by nature / cannot be simplified / into mere words /

i destroy the stories / of people in my way / and curse the monuments / my ancestors have built / i smoke a cigarette / as i watch everything BURN /

you may reduce your being / into simple expressions / such as ‘i like Rembrandt’s work’ / and ‘i dislike wine’ /

but i will look at / and through you / and you will understand /

that you will never like / or dislike / anything more than ME.

[words-by-ann]

drunk text me

and tell me how much i remind you

of apricot skies

and the damp woods

tell me how much you wish i was there

so my neck could cradle your head

tell me that you want to spend every sunrise and sunset with me for the rest of this life

and the next

and the next

tell me that you smell my perfume

while walking home

because going home reminds you of being with home

and i’m home.

-by ann

prompt by @angelealowes on instagram

[words-by-ann]

“Let’s call a spade a spade.”

you laid your cards out on the table

a smirk on your face.

i had a flush in my hands too

the victory of the royal against a straight

if i was fast and sly enough,

could my ace of hearts cut your throat?

or would i fail miserably,

before you call this game grandiose?

you said your favourite suit is the spades

“it looks like a blade wedged into a heart”

you also said that poker was just a game

ace, two, three, four, five- all in hearts.

-by ann

[words-by-ann]

“The Sky was Grey but It Felt Like Heaven”

we danced in the rain like the rulers of thunderstorms and watched the shadows of our silhouettes being cast onto the ground when lightning struck. you asked me ‘are you cold?’ and i said ‘yeah, but you’re holding me so i’m fine’. but you gave me your jacket anyway because you know that i would do anything for you so you pay for that guilt by doing the same for me. i turned back as we ran for home and watched how our footprints in the rain settled back into traceless nothings- as if we were never there, as if that moment wasn’t unraveling. your favourite colour is blue so i always thought that sapphire skies were the closest things to heaven i’d ever see. i guess i was wrong because heaven is black, purple, yellow, and every shade of grey the sky was that evening. heaven is every hue of you.

-by ann

prompt by @angelealowes on instagram

[words-by-ann]

“Graveyard Heart”

i close my eyes and i’m back there

walking the pasture where once was bare

graveyard heart;

my sacred lair

tombstones carved of marble and granite

underneath each lies unspeakable sights

rotten and decayed,

but still fighting for light

the heart can forget but it can never erase

my dear, walk through the nebulous haze

past the oak tree

you’ll think you’re lost, but don’t be fazed

for the graveyard heart

has no end, nor start.

-by ann

prompt by @angelealowes on instagram

[words-by-ann]

“What a Lovely Mess”

Today I woke up in your arms. I could feel the heat in the crevices of our tangled bodies and how my shirt was stuck to your skin. My hair is tangled from tossing and turning last night before you firmly locked me into a position of reassurance and warmth with your right arm. I drifted off into sleep and a pretty dream so seamlessly that it made me question if my doctor was wrong about my insomnia. Sunlight was creeping in through the gaps between your window and your grey blinds. I could feel your breath on the back of my neck. It’s in moments like this when I find a crack in my godlike impression of you to remind myself that you are human- because you’re so perfect most of the time that I can’t believe that you are not only real, but made of flesh and bone and a beating heart, like me.

I could lay here, exactly like this, forever, I thought. So we’d never exhange words and therefore hurt, so we’d never misinterpret our good intentions for malicious ones. So we’d never have to have our worlds clash and for war to commence- only for my army to fall and my throne to be demolished. So I’d never doubt our love, at all.

-by ann

prompt by @angelealowes on instagram

[words-by-ann]

“Sincerely, Yours”

Dear

To you,

Hey

Why bother greeting you? You are a piece of my mind and heart and soul always, embedded into my skin and bones. Why greet when we never bade farewell?

You may always be a fraction of me, but am I of you? You could lie through your teeth and tell me that I am- that I am more than just a part of you. So I’ll never know. You’ve always been good with words- but only to destruct and obliterate everything that is not pretty in your eyes.

But even if I’m not, I hope you know that I will be a part of everything around you. I am the grey sky. The rain that falls from the grey sky and dampens your shirt. The dampened shirt you take off the second you reach home. The wooden floor of your bedroom. The springs in your mattress. And the right side of your pillow. I soaked it in tears twice and you’ll your mother will never be able to wash that away.

You will know one day that it is not a privilege to own me- but rather to be owned by me. Because to own me is equivalent to counting the strands of auburn hair on your head, and to be owned by me is to lie in a bed of flowers I’ve planted and groomed. Just for you.

Sincerely,

YOURS

Me

-by ann

prompt by @angelealowes on instagram

[words-by-ann]

“Never Knew a Heart Could Break Itself.”

I never had a reason to be cautious with my heart. It hid in a sanctuary made of layers of skin and flesh, and was locked into safety by the ribcage.

I grew up thinking and believing that hurt came from everywhere but within. From being ungainly while handling a stalk of rose, from not looking at where to place my foot while I’m walking down a flight of stairs.

What I didn’t know was that the heart isn’t just an organ- it is an entity of its own. We disregard its omnipresent, vital role in our existence that we forget that we have no power over it. We forget that it’s more than just ritual beating and blood pumping. It craves what it cannot have and feeds on hatred and anger until it consumes you, so you and it morph into one. Then your thoughts and limbs and everything in between aren’t yours anymore- they’re now half shared by the heart, until its seemingly insatiable thirst for destruction is satisfied, and everything falls back into our equilibrium of self-delusion of control and of being just the soul.

I first learnt of this when I realised that it wasn’t me who was ripping my vocal chords apart by shrieking and yelling when my mother donated all of my favourite books. I didn’t want to throw a tantrum, but it did.

After years of this (we may share this habit now), I was exhausted of being reminded that I am naught but a slave to this perpetual loop of waiting for the heart to conquer, so I locked it in a box forged of dissociation, detachment, and avoidance and swallowed the key in the hopes that even if it shakes with fury or shreds into pieces of loathing, it will never again be one with me.

Then eventually it broke under its own power, and all that is left of it is its mechanism and none of its purpose.

I became a half-empty shell, with rationality and no emotion. No sentiment. No warmth.

I wish someone had told me this.

-by ann

prompt by @angelealowes on instagram

[words-by-ann]

BLUE

last tuesday you gave me flowers

it was pouring and zephyrs were shrieking

today they still sit in an old vase on my shelf

wasting away like everything else

i didn’t want the piece i had of you to die

so i painted the flowers on paper

so they wouldnt become victims of time

but i couldn’t get any of the colours right

you question the ways of my sick mind

but how could the healthy understand?

you live in colour and you’re made of all sorts of hues

and i only know blue

-by ann

[words-by-ann]

“Your love is a disaster.”

For you I’d walk into the sea and scoop the reflection of the moon with my bare hands. The most it’d do is distort it. I’d also try to bottle sunlight. Or even lightning (though I’m rather frightened of it). But my jar would forever stay empty. I’d even try to count the number of leaves the tree outside your window bears. I’d never get the correct answer. Desperation and determination, though honourable, fall helpless against the laws of nature- just like how your love does. You claw and scrape every day at the walls you’ve been building since you were six when your mother told you that you’d never amount to anything. Though you sound overtly curt when you mouth the eight letters that coalesce into the three words I see it in your eyes- the subtle ‘please, know that I mean it’ sparkle. Anyone else would have missed it. You ice my bruises while you look into the distance and stitch my wounds with a straight face. You give me so much but take back just enough to leave me questioning. Then you give again, just enough to abate the questioning… then you take it away again… but I know you. More than you’d ever think I do. Your love is a disaster- because it is everything that is against your nature. You’re fire, and love is a can of gasoline.

-by ann

prompt by @angelealowes on instagram :)

[words-by-ann]

this poem has been engraved into my soul ever since i’d first read it. 🖤

[words-by-ann]

“That’s the sad part.”

i picked prompt seven not only because it’s my favourite number but also because its yours too. coincidentally, it’s sad. how fitting.

sometimes i wish i didn’t have what i wanted. now we’re tethered together by red strings of obligations and responsibilities, and i cannot simplify my disappointment in my selfish self into words. some things should just be left wanted, and not pursued, i realised. there is an exhilaration, a melancholic beauty in longing. that was what i was drunk on. i was so caught up in the wind of wanting you, that i had mistaken it for the truth.

but the truth is that i am weak for elusiveness and not for attainment. i, for some sickening reason, enjoy desperation that will bring me to my knees until they’re red from weight and friction before aging into purple bruises. i enjoy scarcely getting a small taste or a brief whiff of what it’d be like to be yours. i enjoy looking subtly over my shoulder under the pretense of looking for something when i’m actually studying you. it keeps you on the very tip of your toes, doesn’t it? you know this just as well as i do.

during that ephemeral frame of time when we still only belonged to ourselves, the candour of our feelings was palpable. it drove me insane that you drew a line, and it drove you insane because you thought i couldn’t be tamed. i wish we stayed there. the line you drew is what kept you there- you didn’t want to leave because the heart wants what it cannot have. and you were right, i cannot be tamed by something as boring as a person (no matter what kind you are). now you have stomped past the line and all over me, and i have escaped and ran away.

sometimes while i’m thinking about this, i look over to you to find my reflection painted across your face- because you’re thinking the same thing too. that maybe what we have has peaked before it does for most people. that’s the sad part.

-by ann

prompt by: @angelealowes on instagram