When you were 7, you had two words carved into your soul.

The first, was different.

And maybe now it would have made you bitter, but all it did then was make you kind. (Because no one ever understood you because you were different, so you decided to do your best to understand everyone else instead.)

The second word, worthless.

And you never quite managed to believe otherwise.

When you were 10, it was the first time you couldn't sleep. So from March til June of the following year, you went to sleep between 8 and 11 at night, woke up at 2am almost without fail, imagining the ground shaking all around you. Somehow, it slipped your mind to tell anyone else.

Around 12, you started crying yourself to sleep, and around 13 it became a daily occurrence.

At 14, you started losing vision. Started having moments when your head would spin, and everything around you would fade out to black for five to ten seconds at a time. And when it upped to twenty, you learned to walk through it, to study your surroundings always so you could act normal when it hit. But the first one that terrified you properly was when it lasted a full five minutes: when your vision went completely black and the sound around you dimmed and you felt yourself swaying back and forth without control. A year and a half after the first happening, yet you didn't tell a soul.

At 14, also, you slipped and fell on stairs at a far-away summer camp, sprained your ankle badly enough you could only just barely walk a week after when it was over, and it took you a month to be able to imitate running. You winced and gasped your painful way through 9th grade Phys-Ed, but you never did tell anyone.

When you were 15, though, you did something consciously idiotic, albeit innocent at the time.

When you were 15 trapped between two Phys-Ed credits that most often occurred directly after your lunch period, you decided to stop eating lunch. Not completely, not then, just with that particular happenstance, and certainly not on weekends. But by the time summer came and your parents worked to avoid each other (and you, by association) you'd cut breakfast to coffee or tea (depending on which parent) and actual food to just supper. And when school came back in the fall, just looking at the food made you feel nauseous, much less eating it, so you didn't. And you didn't. And you didn't. Just coffee in the morning. Just supper in the evening. Just enough to sufficiently fake normality.

When you were 16, you went back to not sleeping, except not sleeping meant not sleeping, just an hour or two from 4 or 5am if you were lucky. And the few days you perhaps would have slept were exchanged for purposefulall nighters, studying advanced subjects into oblivion without making heads nor tails.

When you were 16, your hands and body started shaking, at random intervals you had no control over.

When you were 16, you started being unable to hide your overwhelming sadness.

And at 16, with great frequency, you utilized your ability to lie astonishingly well.

Days before you turned 17, your parents sat you down, and asked if anything was wrong, and 'are you sure you're really eating enough?'

You barely flinched, only almost wanted to scoff and say, 'really, now you think something might be wrong with me?' You lied, instead. Completely and utterly with minimal hesitation. They don't ask again.

You start to realize things, after that.

How you used to just flinch away from hugs, because you weren't used to them, initially, yes, but also because you thought you didn't deserve the feeling of being held and safe.

How you purposely kept biting your lip until it became a habit because you wanted to make it bleed.

How when you tapped rhythms out with pencils on your hand, the led end was always the one scraping against it, not the harmless side of the eraser.

How when ice results from snowfall, you walk on the more dangerous path, dare yourself to slip and fall and get hurt.

How you spent parts of December and January sans a coat, in place of borrowing one from several willing parties.

How you went out in thunderstorms, "forgetting" umbrella and hood alike. Came back drenched to the core.

How all these self-destructive tendencies have piled up around you.

And you don't quite even want to stop them.

falling in love is easy.
effortless, even.
(unaware until you’ve already fallen)

staying in love is conscious
(because at some point or another, you notice it, and it either takes your breath away in awe, or it sends ice down your spine-
and you run, run fast.)

once you let yourself fall,
Completely-
then your heart is no longer yours.

(it can be a wonderful thing, two pieces of two hearts,
given away freely and replacing the other,
healing rather than harming, uniting.)

the thing about the ones
who don’t love you back, is that
you give your whole heart away,
and they slowly crush it
in return;
you do not see it until only pieces remain-
(after all, you were in love.)

the thing about the ones who
don’t love you back,
is that then, it becomes your fault -
(because who would have ever chosen to love you in the first place?)

but it’s going to take you years
to realize that it isn’t on you,
as you assemble back the broken pieces,
try to breathe with just half a soul,
start to learn that you deserve just as much love as you give.

it’s going to take time,
because now you’re afraid
that this is the story with everyone -
(you’re not sure you could survive this again)

the thing about the ones who
don’t love you back,
is that they break you.

you trust them, and their charade is flawless.
(Of course they love you,
of course this is mutual) of course
this is all your fault.

And this, it is all your failings, all the ways you cannot hide:

Biting your lip to stop tears until that stops working, then using it to block frowns in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent the former;

Blinking too fast to stop tears, and realizing, then, that you can allow your eyes to fill up with water, and so long as they don’t fall -
no one will notice.

Breathing desperately through your nose or not at all, to pretend the panic doesn’t exist, so it can consume you later, alone and vulnerable and afraid, rocking back and forth on various surfaces of floor. (Because you have convinced yourself it is your curse to bear alone, because bringing people pain for when they help you is not your idea of giving back to the world - (and the world owes you nothing, and if it did, it would not be this.)

Basking - or at least, accepting, compliments of others, in order to detach yourself from them more completely - (because the best way to hide is to make them believe you’ve gotten better, to make their worry dissipate and turn to some other better-deserving cause, for them not to realize this precarious state, because you are still only half way on the wagon, because without them you are far more likely to fall off - but these are not the things you want them to understand, you who are burden enough already, arguments aside, and know it.)

And because you keep secrets.
Theirs, and everyone else’s, and your own.
(Once, it was the weight of being all of their confidants that crushed you - now it is being your own.)

You can lie.
Not callously, not yet -
but you have gone beyond necessity,
have gone past only lies which could be considered kind.

And you have gone beyond feeling,
beyond the always soul-crushing guilt;
beyond the point where you have an intact fear of death;
beyond the point of being selfless,
of accepting help from others only when they genuinely want to,
and only when you desperately need it.

And what might terrify you,
  (other than the discovery of this)
  (other than them leaving)
is that they think you are still good.
still kind, still nice, still theirs
(and you are utterly petrified, of hurting them to save yourself.)

Because the nice ones flow under the radar, and the kind ones have the most power. And the difference, between you, and them, is that they do not know it, like you didn’t know it, and now you do - and here you are, using it to your own advantage. And by the time their belief no longer blinds them to your failings -
by then, it will be far too late.

You switched countries the first time when you were 3.
Stayed in one place 14 and a half years,
then switched from living on one continent and visiting another,
to just staying on one (other) continent,
and flip-flopping between two countries.

The Gross Total: 3 continents;
4 countries (lived), 14 countries (visited);
3 languages, 5 schools;
10 places of living (house, home, apartment - pick a word you like.)

*And you're one of the lucky ones.

tell your friends you love them today.

It is so strange (beautiful)
to rediscover
all the reasons
you fell in love with her
in the first place


(and realize they're all still true.)

And if you are to love,
Love as the moon loves.
It doesn't steal the night,
It only unveils the beauty of the dark.

And if you are to love,
Love as the rain loves.
It doesn't wet the bodies,
It only washes the sad dirt of the souls.

And if you are to love,
Love as the wind loves.
It doesn't drift away,
It only cleanse you to the core by invading through each pore.

And if you are to love,
Love as the sun loves.
It doesn't radiates heat,
It only pours its warmth on you to enlighten your way.

And if you are to love,
Love as the star loves.
It doesn't delightfully twinkles,
It only reminds you that not even death can separate two hearts.

And so forth,
if you are to love
Love as the whole universe
& not just a part of it.