Posted on

i want to know you…

I want to know what kind of man you are beneath the surface.

I want to understand what makes your heart beat faster and what you love. What makes you mad, and why it has that power over you.

I want to learn if your anger is hot and quick like mine, or a lingering coldness that freezes those who invoke your wrath. Do you forgive them when the red mist subsides, or do you hold a grudge through all of eternity?

I wish I could know how you see me through those quiet eyes of yours. I want you to tell me if you long to stroke my hair as we drift off to sleep, or if it’s my curves that your hands ache for. I wonder if you would message me goodnight before bed, so that I would never close my eyes without knowing that I was loved. Perhaps you would expect my heart to know that already, simply by the way your face lights up at the sight of mine.

What do you dream of when you close your eyes? Do you sleep peacefully until the light dapples your skin through the blinds, or do the tigers prowl around your head, leaving you shivering in fear in the darkness?

When you are lonely, do you ever think about my smile, or the way that I always know how to still the demons that scream inside you? I wonder if I am still vivid in your awareness, or a distant memory now; a spectre bathed in the gentle lustre of nostalgia.

Do you chase sunsets or sunrises? I love both. Does the promise of a shimmering new dawn appeal to you more than the glow of another day closing in a riot of colour? I wonder where peace finds you. Will you drink hot tea with me as the sun blazes through the horizon, reminding us of the fleeting nature of this life? I think I would like that.

I want to learn if you prefer the bright crackle of a burning log fire, snuggled up in blankets against the cold, or the way that the sun plays upon warm limbs, making them glow golden in the afternoon light. Is it summer that brings a smile to those lips I covet, or would you rather turn your face up to taste the snowflakes as they fall?

I watch to see if you curse the fact that you cannot get to work in the snow, or if you roll up your sleeves joyfully to build a snowman. And if you do, I notice whether you give him a stone mouth so that he might smile upon the children that wave as they pass him by.

Do you ever fantasise about losing yourself, out there, in the world? Do you seek the quiet solitude of a wooden log cabin on the edge of a lake, or do you prefer the lights and glamour of cocktail dresses in a fancy room full of raucous laughter?Where do you want to go? What do you want to see?

Do you hear it when adventure calls out your name and more importantly, do you answer?

I want to know where you hide, when the world becomes too much to bear.

Where do you take your freedom?

Is there space for another in your haven, or can I follow you only so far, then settle patiently to await your return to me; the reunion all the sweeter for your absence.

See, I wanna know if you have hurt people. Did their tears rain on your heart, each drop a sharp stinging torment? I try to imagine if you wear a mask of hardness in the face of another’s pain, or if you are gentle as you ask for forgiveness. Do you bleed through another’s wounds? Can you?

Tell me how you have broken someone you loved, and whether you were able to fix them again. Did they love you still when the pieces were put back together? What horrors live in the bleakest corners of your soul? What do you think about when you go there?

I want to know the very worst of you.

Share with me the music that plays in your heart, and whether you dance to the beat of your own drum. Show me the colour of your love. If you could splash its brightness onto a waiting canvas, would it burn with passionate reds and oranges, or would it run still and strong in a cool turquoise calm?

Tell me if you kiss softly, your lips singing mine a gentle lullaby, or whether they would rage intently, scorching new pathways to my heart with a desire that refuses be stilled. I want to feel it either way.

Show me if you want a sweet girl, or a dirty one. Or a little of each. What makes you cry out in ecstasy? Is it a woman that makes you laugh until your stomach hurts, or one whose beauty takes your breath away with a single look? Do you look for the quirky ones, perhaps? The ones who are too easily overlooked, the hidden treasures?

Tell me, would you risk it all for love? Would you fight for what you truly want, or would you let it slip away into nothing, never knowing what might have been, because you never told her that your heart beat only for her? Did you ever realise she was waiting for you to fight for her? Will you watch someone else love her because you were too afraid to be vulnerable with her?

Will you settle for next best, the girl you could maybe grow to love someday, instead of the one that haunts your thoughts today? Is that enough for you? Maybe it is. Could you live with yourself knowing that she got away?

Tell me about a time that you cried until you couldn’t breathe anymore. Or where you lived through a day where you prayed for the sweet release of death. Did you make it through? I have been there. Has your heart been broken into a million tiny pieces and, if it has, has it made you hard? Or are you are still open to the beauty that the world holds for you?

Show me your pain and I will show you mine. I hope it does not scare you. It has helped me to grow.

I want to know if you talk to the glittering stars above us, and which one is special to you. What do you think happens when we die? Do we join their shining ranks in heaven or is there nothing left for us? Are you afraid of death? I am. Will you hold my hand if I leave you first? If you whisper to me that love knows no boundaries, not even death, will you mean it?

Tell me about your childhood. I want to know the way your mother’s hair smelled when you crawled exhausted into her lap, and the way your bedroom looked when you were 10. Did your father cry when you curled a tiny fist around his finger for the very first time? I bet he did. I want to know all the people that you have loved throughout your life, so that I might love them through you and with you.

Do you write? Do you draw? I want to know whether you ache to capture my face with your pencil, preserving the wonder that lingers softly there. Do you like to express yourself through words, or action best? Will your hands illustrate your story as you speak and will I know that you are lying from the way your lips tremble gently as the words tumble guiltily from them?

What is your favourite book? Explain to me why it enraptures you so. Please? It tells me a lot about you. I love the way people cry when their favourite character breaks their heart, as though they are an old friend to be adored. Who is yours? I will seek them out and befriend them to understand why they have moved you so much.

Lend me your secrets. I’ll keep them safe and I’ll return them when my picture of you is complete. Whisper into my ear so that only us two may share them. Do you believe in magic? I do, now that I have met you.

Tell me your story, for it might well become part of my story. Let me in. Let me see you. All of you.

I want to know you.

— JoJo Rowden —

Posted on

on lies, secrets, and silence…

An honorable human relationship — that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word “love” — is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other.

It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation.

It is important to do this because in doing so we do justice to our own complexity.

It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us.

— Adrienne Rich —

Posted on

too often in life…

The real damage is done by those millions who want to ‘survive.’ The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don’t want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes.

Those who won’t take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don’t like to make waves-or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honour, truth, and principles are only literature.

Those who live small, mate small, die small. It’s the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you’ll keep it under control. If you don’t make any noise, the bogeyman won’t find you. But it’s all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what?

Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn.

— Sophie Scholl —

Posted on

this is how you lose her…

This is how you lose her.

You lose her when you forget to remember the little things that mean the world to her: the sincerity in a stranger’s voice during a trip to the grocery store, the delight of finding something lost or forgotten like a sticker from when she was five, the selflessness of a child giving a part of his meal to another, the scent of new books in the store, the surprise short but honest notes she tucks in her journal and others you could only see if you look closely.

You must remember when she forgets.

You lose her when you don’t notice that she notices everything about you: your use of the proper punctuation that tells her continuation rather than finality, your silence when you’re about to ask a question but you think anything you’re about to say to her would be silly, your mindless humming when it is too quiet, your handwriting when you sign your name in blank sheets of paper, your muted laughter when you are trying to be polite, and more and more of what you are, which you don’t even know about yourself, because she pays attention.

She remembers when you forget.

You lose her for every second you make her feel less and less of the beauty that she is. When you make her feel that she is replaceable. She wants to feel cherished. When you make her feel that you are fleeting. She wants you to stay. When you make her feel inadequate. She wants to know that she is enough and she does not need to change for you, nor for anyone else because she is she and she is beautiful, kind and good.

You must learn her.

You must know the reason why she is silent. You must trace her weakest spots. You must write to her. You must remind her that you are there. You must know how long it takes for her to give up. You must be there to hold her when she is about to.

You must love her because many have tried and failed. And she wants to know that she is worthy to be loved, that she is worthy to be kept.

And, this is how you keep her.

— Junot Díaz —