Meant for the city

"So you're somebody now

But what's a somebody in a nobody town

I don't think you even know it" - Professional, The Weeknd

I just got back from the capital. It's weird how you can go somewhere for just a few days and it feels like an entirely different world. And then you come back home, and everything is... still. Like nothing changed except me.

The city was alive. Like, really alive. Neon signs flickering, streets buzzing even at midnight, people rushing around like they have somewhere important to be. And me? I felt like I belonged there. Like I was a part of something bigger. I remember standing on a bridge, the lights reflecting off the water, and thinking: This is what it feels like to be infinite.

Now I'm back home. Everyone here keeps asking how my trip was, and I just smile and say it was fun. But it was more than fun. It was like breathing fresh air after being underwater for too long. And now? It feels like I'm holding my breath again. My mom, the only person I travelled with, is also different. That sparkle, that lust for life I get when I travel, it's gone as soon as the train or plane stops.

Food doesn't taste right anymore. Again. My appetite is completely gone, and I can go days without any food. But I have to eat a bit with my family. Sorry, I wasn't going to bring up struggles here... But how do you explain that your soul feels... homesick? For a place that isn’t even technically your home?

I know people say you should appreciate what you have, and I'm trying. Really. But it just feels like the smaller the place, the smaller I feel. Like I’m shrinking back into this version of me that doesn’t fit anymore. 

Maybe this is just a phase. Maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow and the sky will seem bluer and I’ll laugh at something stupid and forget how heavy my chest feels. Or maybe not. Maybe this is what growing up is: realizing the world is huge and beautiful, and you’re stuck in one little corner of it.

Either way, I can’t stop thinking about the city. How the streets hummed like a song I didn’t know I knew all the words to. And how now, everything feels too quiet. Too slow.

I miss it. I miss her — the girl I was when I was there. Love, Lenna

In Summation

An excerpt from a poem by Taylor Swift on April 19, 2024

“In summation, it was not a love affair!”

I screamed while bringing my fists to my coffee ringed desk

It was a mutual manic phase.

It was self harm.

It was house and then cardiac arrest.

A smirk creeps onto this poet’s face

Because it’s the worst men that I write best.

And so I enter into evidence

My tarnished coat of arms

My muses, acquired like bruises

My talismans and charms

The tick, tick, tick of love bombs

My veins of pitch black ink

All’s fair in love and poetry

Sincerely,

The Chairman

of The Tortured Poets Department

Roots

Dear reader, it's now been a year since The Silence In Chaos was posted. "Time, the elusive creature that slips through our fingers like grains of sand. A month can feel like an eternity, or it can vanish in the blink of an eye." I wrote, because I was more poetic back then. But now suddenly I'm writing in a completely different way. Well, I'm a completely different person, but I miss being poetic. Let me twirl back into my old roots for a moment.

Fifteen drifts away like smoke from a candle, curling into the past, lost in the air. A year of love, of aching, of midnight tears and golden mornings. A year of learning to carry my own heart, even when it felt too heavy.

Now, sixteen glows on the horizon, honey-dipped and untouchable. Sweet, like the first inhale of spring air after a cold winter. Sharp, like the burn of starlight when you stare too long. It comes in waves, in whispered promises, in the quiet understanding that this, too, will be another year I will one day say goodbye to.

The Weeknd’s voice slips through my headphones, velvet and electric. His words, a slow drip of neon sin and longing, melt into my bloodstream. Lana Del Rey hums through my bones, her voice the sound of cigarette smoke in an empty parking lot, of roses crushed beneath high heels. They take me higher than I’ve ever been, higher than I will ever be. Their music is my heroin—intoxicating, dizzying, beautiful. It makes the world feel cinematic, like I am not just living, but existing in an eternal, golden hour.

I want sixteen to be just that—golden, endless, radiant. I want rooftop sunsets and 2 a.m. car rides. I want nights that feel like forever, where the moon hums secrets only I can hear. I want to feel everything, to itaste life like a peach in the heat of summer, sticky and sweet.

Fifteen, you were beautiful and brutal, a dream and a lesson. Sixteen, be kind to me. Be wild. Be free. Be everything. Yours truly, Lenna ❤