Unkept Promises

dear A,

i finished reading The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo,

and cried about you.

you were my cecilia.

not just when we were kids,

but when the world got darker and we did too.

you were laughter through broken windows,

soft hands when everything else was sharp.

and i lost you.

or maybe you lost yourself first.

i left because i couldn’t follow you

where the darkness took you.

but god, i loved you.

still do, in the quiet places

where no one can see.

and now you’re speaking again.

a voice i thought i’d only keep in memory.

but nothing will give us back who we were.

and i carry that loss like a secret.

Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus

Your hologram stumbled into my apartment. Hands in the hair of somebody in darkness named Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus, and I just watched it happen. As the decade would play us for fools, and you saw my bones out with somebody new, who seemed like he would've bullied you in school. And you just watched it happen. If you want to break my cold, cold heart, just say, 'I loved you the way that you were'. If you want to tear my world apart, just say you've always wondered.

You said some things that I can't unabsorb. You turned me into an idea of sorts. You needed me but you needed drugs more, and I couldn't watch it happen. I changed into goddesses, villains and fools. Changed plans and lovers and outfits and rules, all to outrun my desertion of you. And you just watched it. If you want to break my cold, cold heart, just say, 'I loved you the way that you were'. If you want to tear my world apart, just say you've always wondered.

If the glint in my eye traced the depths of your sigh down that passage in time, back to the moment I crashed into you, like so many wrecks do. Too impaired by my youth to know what to do. So if I sell my apartment and you have some kids with an internet starlet, will that make your memory fade from this scarlet maroon like it never happened? Could it be enough to just float in your orbit? Can we watch our phantoms like watching wild horses? Cooler in theory but not if you force it to be, it just didn't happen. So if you want to break my cold, cold heart, say you loved me. And if you want to tear my world apart, say you'll always wonder. Cause I wonder... Will I always, will I always wonder?

White Heels

Cairo Sweet: No excuses made for your choices, for they are yours alone.

🍼 ☁️ 🐇

Beatrice June Harker: Teenage girls are dangerous, Jonathan. They're full of emotional violence and vituperation.

Sixteen, No Doubt

I turn sixteen in three days, so I am listening to songs about being sixteen! Just like how I listened to "Fifteen" by Taylor Swift all the time last year, I found "Sixteen" by No Doubt this year, which I love. Here are some parts of it:

"These children, they're not really bad most of them. They're just products of rotten neighborhoods and bad family situations"

You're only sixteen, try to cross the line. But your little wings are intertwined. Well, you're only sixteen, and you're such a tease, and there's nothing you do that can really please. You know you can't forsake it!
So sit back and take it.

You see you're just not ripe, so don't try and fight that. You're only sixteen, you wanna catch a peek. But they look at you like you're such a freak. Well you're only sixteen with a lot to say, ut they won't give you the time of day.

Valerie

 

Where I Am From

I don’t talk about where I’m from on this blog. Not because I’m ashamed, but because the world sometimes is too eager to define you before you have the chance to do it yourself. But today I’ll make an exception. Not to tell you its name, but to make you understand me better.

It’s the kind of place where winter comes early and leaves late. People here don’t speak unless they mean it. There’s a silence that isn’t empty, but full of thought, of watching, of understanding. We don’t waste words, maybe because the landscape speaks for us. Mountains rise like the backs of sleeping gods, and the forests are so dense you could get lost for days and not mind. The winters are long, but they aren’t bleak. There’s a beauty in the way frost patterns bloom across glass, like tiny silver ferns, and how the world is quieted under the weight of snow. I remember waking up to windows covered in lacework frost, my breath fogging the glass as I traced patterns with my fingertips. I remember the northern lights splintering across the sky, green and violet veins streaking through the stars, dancing like they were alive.

And then there’s the language, soft and rough at the same time. It’s not the whispered Russian I keep just for me and old friends, but another one. One that tastes like wind and fire, like the crackle of ice beneath your feet. I grew up with its rhythms, the way it lingers on certain words like it’s savoring them.

I’ve always known that my view of the world isn’t the only one. I grew up with one house that is "home", and two houses that we can decide to stay in during the holidays (when we don't travel abroad). I go to private schools where the walls are white and the ceilings stretched high. I’m blonde like my family, with blue-green eyes that match my father’s, but I’ve always carried something else too, something quiet and tucked away. I hold onto it because it reminds me that privilege isn’t the same as permanence, and that where you come from is more than just where you live. It’s what you carry with you, even in silence.

Sometimes, I think not saying its name is my way of keeping it close. If I name it, it belongs to everyone. If I don’t, it’s still mine, still untouched by expectations or assumptions. It’s just home. My home. And that’s enough for me.

Salamander

I went to a party

I came in hot

Made decisions beforehand

My mind made up

Things that would make me happy

To do them or not

Each option weighed carefully

A plan for each thought

And then I walked through the door past the open concept

    And saw Violet bent backwards over the grass

        Seven years old with dandelions grasped tightly in her hand

    Arched like a bridge in a fallen handstand

Grinning wildly like a madman

With the exuberance that only doing nothing can bring

Waiting for the fireworks to begin

        And in that moment I decided to do nothing about everything

- Lana Del Rey