Oh, Remembered Flames.

universallink:

This is my 17 year old sister, Amanda. Today she’s happy, and in a healthy relationship with her boyfriend of 10 months. 2 years ago, however, she was in a relationship with an older guy who would abuse, stalk, and try to rape her. She struggled with self harm and depression because of it. This is her story. 

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Universal Link: Dear whoever is reading this, I don’t know what you’re going through....

Who wants to help promote the non-profit organization I'm trying to start?

Here Goes Nothing. Here Goes Everything.: People always comment on how it’s so unusual to see young people stand...

it never is.

‘i’m old,’ he whispered; he flicked his cigarette to the ground and stamped it out with a rhythm that matched nicely with the tempo of his voice, ‘certainly too old for this shit.’ he looked up at me for the first time. ‘what’s your name?’  i smiled a bit. ‘i’m too young for names.’ he nodded, but i thought i detected a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his cracked lips. ‘fair enough.’ his eyes scanned mine for a moment longer, but then they skipped to the river, and you could tell he didn’t know if i was lying, and you could tell he didn’t care. he took a few marked steps forward, and i followed. ‘if you wouldn’t mind,’ i started, but he cut me off with a deep chuckle. ‘i’m too old for even that, sweetheart.’ ‘too old to mind?’ i paused, ‘why that’s nonsense.’ this time his lips did form a crooked smile of sorts. ‘says the girl too young for names.’ i nodded. ‘fair enough.’ i looked at the scar on his right cheek, and felt a tingling in my left. i lifted a hand to trace the soft tissue. ‘what’s your name?’ he opened his lips to answer, but before he could speak, i added, ‘if you’re not too old for them.’ he cocked an eyebrow in a boyish manner no old man could fake. ‘jacob.’ i paused. ‘elaine.’ ‘elaine, elaine, elaine,’ he sang, ‘the girl too young for names.’ i frowned and he hesitated. ‘i like it.’ ‘oh so you’re not too old for good taste?’ he met my nervous eyes easily. ‘i’m not too old for anything, really.’ ‘oh.’ i pushed some dirt around with  my shoes. ‘you’re quieter than i expected.’ ‘you don’t know me, how can you expect anything at all?’ he frowned, ‘well you wanted to ask me something, didn’t you?’ i stopped. ‘i asked you something, didn’t i?’ ‘my name?’ he scoffed, ‘that’s hardly a question.’ ‘it’s written with a question mark.’ ‘so is this?’ i frowned because he was playing some sort of game i couldn’t follow, let alone win. ‘how’d you get that scar? ‘

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i have the urge to fill 
every crevice of
your soul
with every memory of 
my heart
and every memory of 
your heart
with every crevice of 
my soul,
and i think that i could
if i was a poet
and knew how to paint
emotions with the palette 
of my thoughts,
but i am not a writer of
any kind 
and words do not spill out
of my fingertips
like red wine 
from a bottle we could open 
on our very first date,
and so instead 
i’ll just say hi
and hope that you like 
the sound of 
my voice.  

and every time you kiss me, i swear i can taste your soul on my tongue, and it’s like heaven’s whispering into my own contented heart in a voice that sounds an awful lot like yours when you say my name, and i wonder how someone as beautiful and angelic as you can exist in a form so human, and how your lips can feel so real against mine all the while your aura, as it swims through me, seems to be anything but, so lovely it exists in a color i cannot name, for it is a color i do not know and have never, before, tasted. i want to kiss you forever, and know, always, that your soul is sweet. for it is when it begins to taste bitter, that i’ll realize our mouths should part. 

and there’s something a little sour about your heartbeat, and the way it pulses a little thickly in my presence, as if intoxicated and drunk off a liquor it was too weak to hold—spluttering, it’d regurgitate, Shakespeare, if it could, whisper, “what’s in a name?” as if to satisfy my craving for poetry, although, in it’s drunken haze, ‘to be or no to be’ would be a better question to press against my tongue and hope to make an impression, i can swallow. i need to slide down my esophagus something to make me whole, and if it tastes like roses, i’ll still proclaim it a medicine of sorts—an elixir of life, or an elixir of death if healing me means stopping that retched pulsing which drums in my ear to a beat i’ve forgotten how to understand. my heart beats thin, but i have loved you always. 

and i looked him in the eyes and asked,”do you think i’m beautiful?”
he looked back and said, “no.” 
and it wasn’t one of those fairy-tale-endings where he followed his answer with something like, “i  know  you are,” or anything of the sort. 
he just didn’t find me beautiful. 
“you’re pretty, sure,” he said, “but your soul is too empty. you can’t love what isn’t there, my dear.” 
and i knew that he was wrong because if i didn’t have a soul, i couldn’t hurt so much, i couldn’t cry. 
and i knew that he was right because it did. i did. 

and i’m collecting all of your words and your mannerisms and storing them in a glass jar named “i love you” that’s as tall as that first rose you gave me, and as the “darling“‘s and the “You’re special“‘s and the “You mean the world to me“‘s pile up with the light caresses and the intense stares and the soft kisses, I know that you’re closer to loving me than you were before, even if you’ll never say it because strong emotions are not your forte, and the way they feel rolling off of your tongue is almost too bitter to stand. And you may think this is strange, but i’m not even worried because somehow I feel like the heat of our relationship will eventually sweat the words right out of you, and until then, i’ll just breathe easy (sleep easy) knowing that next to my bed is a jar full of pieces of your soul that you’ve given me (and no one else), and i’ll sweetly whisper “I love you” into them before I close my eyes, hoping that you’ll feel the warm vibrations of my voice deep in your chest and breathe easy (sleep easy) knowing I’m there and that I love you, even if you don’t yet love me. That’s all, I think, it means to be in love—that contentedness with knowing someone feels for you, even if what they feel is not enough, because with them even insufficient amounts of emotion are more sufficient than they ever needed to be, and so those beautifully sufficient phrases are almost too much to bear as you spin them around in your head like little ballerinas when you doubt that you’re enough and realize that, with him, that’ll never be true. I don’t know what goes through your head late at night when you’re alone and the stars decide you should think of me, but I know that those same stars are singing me to sleep, and I hope that my dreams will, thus, be projections of your heart, and that maybe, “I love you” will slip quietly from within it in a whisper softer than the lullaby of the stars and fill that glass jar up just a little bit more so that when I awake, I’ll remember like a lost memory, the hum of your words in my ear, and know—although perhaps not why—that the warm vibrations of my voice reached your soul and moved you to such an extent, you felt compelled to reach back. And it’s in these silent exchanges that our love will be defined.  

and i shudder against
the air,
cold and frigid,
like the coat of
sadness
you wear over  your
heart.
i know you are just
keeping it warm,
protecting what’s left
from the air,
so chilly,
icy,
it kills.
they don’t understand,
though.
they think you are
too sad
to even have a heart.
they think it’s been frozen,
shattered,
gone.
i’m sorry.
for your heart is the warmest
i know,
and I’m out here
freezing. 

listen.
the flutters of my heart,
they speak your name,
breathy syllables
between trembling 
wings
ignite a sea
beneath 
my skin, 
and the waves
dissolve
my control, 
like sand, 
like sugar,
so sweet,
those syllables
drown,
and suddenly,
that voice
is the taste of your
tongue, 
the softness 
of your touch, 
and the flutters of my heart,
they beat your pulse, 
and our bodies
respond,
a rhythm, 
a song, 
that can’t be sung,
your name
is gone. 
their voices,
silenced. 
i am ignited.  

a heartbeat, 
yours, 
a stutter, 
your lips—
they can’t seem 
to find anything
other 
than mine, 
the words, 
they’re mine, 
for yours
have gone, 
i took them, 
they say. 
who says? 
your heart? 
it speaks
in rhythms
that match 
your words, 
the ones that
have escaped
in the way 
you hope
i never will.
and i hear them, 
strong and 
desperate
through the skin
hugging
your chest,
and i feel them, 
i see them, 
these mannerisms,
your touch,
i know who you are, 
who we are, 
when we are
together. 
your eyes
whisper poetry,
intensities,
intangible—
these emotions, 
these unspoken things, 
but i feel them
when i touch you, 
your skin
against mine, 
it’s right. 
it’s alright. 
and i know this
when i see your eyes
and they see mine—
they see me, 
because there’s something there
in your perception,
in our connection,
that comforts my every
worry,
my every care, 
because you care,
because you’re there,
because you don’t stare 
at me,
or through me,
but into me, 
and you just see
everything—
who i am, 
and you crave it, 
and i need that,
because i crave it too, 
i crave you. 
and it’s never enough,
but i need that too,
like i need you,
like i hope you need me. 
and when you pull me closer
when i’m already close,
as if it’s not enough,
i think that you do,
and in that instant,
i feel wonderful.
because you’re wonderful
because we’re wonderful
together.
and it terrifies me
—your eyes
in all their intensity,
and the thoughts 
i can’t read,
and your smiles,
how adorable,
when i’ve done something cute,
and your words,
mostly your words,
and your heartbeat,
your heartbeat 
most of all,
and all that it does to me,
these butterflies,
these endless smiles,
i’m afraid. 
i’m afraid it’s undeserved,
un-returned.
and that emotions will fade,
and that heart beats will change,
and that there will be endings
to these beginnings
and i’m just so scared,
but i don’t even care. 
because i want this. 
i crave this. 
and for as long as i can have this, 
i’ll save this.
and it’ll be enough. 
even though it will never
be enough. 
not with you. 
never with you.