Sadness is a bed I lay on whenever things get old. The shadow of me, someone who’s always been passionate about finding new places, familiar feelings, and nostalgic flashes, now watches with pure disappointment as things keep losing their magic. In recent days, no matter how much I walk around Chinatown, soaking up its noise, the smell of fresh coffee, and the hum of engines, longing for the comfort I once felt whenever sadness overcame my footsteps, it all feels old. I can’t listen to music, for it ends up being noise I cannot understand. I am no longer filling a void; I stand still in dread knowing, the void is filling me.

I wander the streets of Chinatown with a great echo in my chest, bringing injury to a place loud with peace, a hollow shell, desperately waiting to be filled. Six hours of endless walking, searching for the end point of my destination, seeking validation within the walls that raised me… and still, I am a broken prayer, a wingless bird without shelter. And so, I sleep endlessly, waiting for familiarity, waiting for emotion, waiting for my sadness and my joy to live in cohesion for I cannot have one without the other.

If you come back, if you decide to disturb my already disturbed depth, come back to me like a swan resting by my window. Come back to me like music and gentleness, something I have never known.
Come back like sugar that brings delight to my coffee, like flowers that bloom when the skies are dark, or like blackberries that ache to poison my bitter blood, beneath the present silver eye. And you may hold me under your knife and demand that I take a leap, though I bleed, I will stay.

Whatever you do, just come back home.

U.G.

Words will come, I will no longer be an empty shell, passion will find its way back to me.

for now I’ll learn to fall in love with new things until eventually, I’ll find my way back home.

- Ulia G.

I’m scared of crushing people with my feelings. It seems that though I have this armor of mine that protects me from theirs, are they safe from mine?

I constantly ask people if I ever overwhelm them, and luckily, they always say
“you don’t”
I just wish believing them was as easy as breathing, if only my mind and I could be civil and agree that everything is indeed fine, they don’t want me gone, with all the certainty that they carry in their pockets, “stay.” but sometimes I know I can be insufferable and I don’t know what to do about it.

Feelings find shelter in my chest, feelings are all I’ve ever known, who am I, if not made of feelings. I’m worried it will slowly start to suffocate people, so I silently **** myself trying to push them away, in the hopes of saving them from drowning.

People from the past are victims of my feelings being too much of a burden to carry, so they leave, or I leave? I never truly know.

If you hurt me, it’s fine, at least you’ll no longer bear with carrying what I have to give, what I can’t give, my mind, 9 missed calls, unsent letters and everything else that weighs on your shoulder. I however will sit here in silence, looking into familiarity, as time and time again, I have and always will be seeing this coming.

— Ulia G.

I am the physical form of the river that's made of tears, a narrow ocean that flows endlessly, searching and longing for someone who will never return.

If we are taller in other dimensions, I do hope it's not because we've grown up, l hope we're just big kids, never grown up
ones, our memories will last longer and the sun shines warmer, not a cold Monday morning but a loud and bright Friday night kind of life, In another dimension, I hope we take better care of ourselves.

— Ulia G.

With somber eyes, I stare at your photo, with the desperation of you moving, maybe if I look at it long enough, you’ll start moving, and I’ll see your face with a smile again, you’ll laugh and fix your hair, you’re alive again, but it doesn’t do anything, Looking at your photos doesn’t change the fact that your soul lies beneath, listening to the sound of your left behind vessel, you’re quiet, and I’m desperate to hear you.

I question on a daily; how can someone who’s so full of soul and noise be so quiet and still? It’s unreal, you are a face without eyes and a body without voice, once filled with life now occupied in void, coursing through the big wide open, filled with stars and the absence of light with no certain destination, with no intention of coming back home. as your body slowly disappears underground and the only thing left of you are your resting bones pervaded by memories, do know that I left a trail of flowers from your grave to the place you once called home. You can always find your way back.

— Ulia G.

I spent the Thursday afternoon, visualizing your hands under the sheets of the mattress on the floor, we could barely fit in, wondering how you’d look in this light, when the sun has come down, I would slowly have to endure your long talks about photography, sports and everything else I couldn’t understand, but who am I kidding, “endure” wouldn’t be the word. Admiring feels just right. hearing you speak about what you love has fueled me enough to live for another lifetime,

For a moment, I thought you were home, but there was this strange feeling where your corridors felt unfamiliar and your hallways have always left me cold, I thought I was your home, turns out I am only a hostel, a place where you hold on to, for when you can’t set your decisions straight.
I was a vision your heart made when you were half asleep, now that you’re awake and all the sleep has left your eyes, I am nothing but a dream you slowly forget as the day goes by.

Your soft whispers that go over my shoulders, still lingers and leaves a chill down my spine, my bones have never been so un-bodied, if only you knew how I would have given everything to live in a perfect world where I could have you as my always, but instead it took everything from me to accept you as my “what will never be.”

— Ulia G.

I am no more than a rotting body, borrowing time, buried beneath the flowerbeds of my hometown, carrying a bag of constant melancholy and an unending battle with the curse of yearning, like an infant carrying its own bottle, so heavy that though I soar the sky with wings, I am a flightless bird, dragging my feet, wishing to find destination in the vast open world of broken prayers and uncertainties.

I am a sick woman, pieces and parts, drowning in the fragments of my own head, my mind growing ever cloudier, never getting a chance at happiness, always paying its debt.

We’re born at night; my body is no stranger to the dark. I lie here, No more than my shirt holding me together as the floor and I bond in despair, here I bleed, hoping for a wake never to come.

— Ulia G.