hush

My mouth tasted like screaming. Everything was silent but I could still feel the hum of the scream on my teeth and in my fillings. The darkness I woke up to was hollow and foreign although I could smell my bedding surrounding me. I stared into the black and waited to feel settled in my own flesh again.

I tried to remember the last time I felt settled in my skin. Remembered childhoods spent skipping through sprinklers in tiny bikinis and never sparing a thought about if my stomach was sticking out. Popping a blood blister in my palm while on the monkey bars, blood pouring down to my elbow until it stained the teal dress I was wearing. I remembered trying to find my mom in the crowd of people at the park, blood drifting further down from my hand and no one coming to help me. It was the first time I felt alone and vulnerable.

I felt it again as I sat in my bed, blood peeking through the center of my lip where I'd peeled the skin while I slept again. I gripped the edges of my blanket and licked the blood off slowly, letting the taste of copper replace the taste of screaming. I'd hoped I'd only screamed in my dream and not in real life. Then again, nobody was dashing into my room to hold me this time either.

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but I'm hoping at the gates, they'll tell me that you're mine

It's at that horrible point where I sit awake at five in the morning in complete darkness, save for the laptop screen, and see your face painted inside every song I listen to. I squeeze my eyes as tight as possible until spiders made of fractured light are crawling in the darker space behind my eyelids. This is the horrible point where I flirt with regretting all that I said and wanting desperately to say more. I'm trying to recapture that moment that was so the same three years ago while lying to myself about nothing having changed at all. I'd gladly say it all again. I hope you'd listen again and maybe let me hug you longer this time. But then again, I think I was the one who pulled away first. I should have breathed you in for as long as I could. Because now I'm breathless, but in the worst way possible. Everything is muddled at five in the morning.

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tunnel lined with yellow lights on a dark night

I'm in need of some energy, loves. I'm entering the world of winter doldrums that always comes this time of year. It's been grey and cold for far too long. I guess I mean that personally as well as weather-wise. Rough few weeks here. I don't know.

How are you all? I feel sad and calm all at once. I am still loving school beyond words. All it is is words. I feel most alive when I'm in my classes, imprinting each and every word I hear onto my flesh and learning from my teachers and those around me. Sometimes I walk around campus and just feel myself smiling at the level of disbelief of actually being here. It still surprises me sometimes. I like catching myself smiling when I'm alone. My resting smiling face is my aunt's face and that makes me happy. We have the same lips and the same heart. I guess I've been sad since she left, in a way. She lives so deliberately and it's good for me to be around that, especially when winter starts sucking on my jugular.

This post of Shawnee's was really beautiful. Her photos are always a breath of fresh air to me. That girl is amazing. I love the sentiment of the post. Be refreshed, be natural, be you. For the past little bit I was sort of slipping away or letting myself be dimmed. I don't know what was doing it per se but I was feeling so stifled. Stupid inversion in my city is starting to cloud my head. But I want to live deliberately and for myself. I want to read and write and study. I want to inspire and be inspired. I want to talk with all of you and read your words and make my own. I want to go to brunch with my friends on Sundays.

I want to make it through the rest of winter.

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music ramble

Tonight at the Imagine Dragons concert (!!!) the lead singer finished his opening song then said this:

"Are you ready to let go tonight, Utah? Are you ready to completely let go?"

My heart was already spinning and somersaulting because of this guy's rippling biceps and the pounding drum beat but then he won my heart over entirely. Yes, sir, I was ready to let go. I danced, I screamed, I cried, I lived. I felt so incredibly rejuvenated and so centered and complete.

I love watching live music because you can see the melodies flowing out of the musicians mouths and fingertips. I love seeing someone living their dreams. There is always one moment where they look so completely overwhelmed and where the good artists are genuinely so grateful that they have this amazing opportunity to inspire and connect with so many.

I know it's cliche but music truly is one of the most incredibly powerful forces on this Earth. It's so healing and connecting. I love seeing people get carried away in music, whether they are the listeners or the performers. These guys let themselves go. They let themselves dance around the stage and bounce with their guitars. Dan, the lead singer, got on his knees to beat a drum. He threw his head back and screamed. He even put his shirt in his mouth while he played, biting down hard because he couldn't contain his passion. (ALSO SIDE NOTE... neither could I. Good lord this man is unreal. Just... I want to wrap my body around his bicep. It's not weird.)

After the show as I was driving to IHOP with Niki, I thought about how powerful music really is. How that moment when the entire arena was dark except for the starbursts of cell phone light sprang up in the blackness will shine in my heart forever. About how bland life would be without those certain songs there to make sense of everything. About how there are times that the only way you can get a message across is to shove headphones in someone's ears and say "just listen to this. It's every single thing I am feeling."

Tonight after the show I felt such peace and such a creative jolt as well. During the show too. I felt stronger and confident. Radiant. I feel at peace with myself now. It's been a journey this week, as you all know. I feel like I've walked a thousand miles in a matter of days. I guess traumas will do that to you, you know? I feel like if a love of my doesn't work out, yeah it will suck but I will heal. I am a great person with so much to give. And you know what? I have music to keep me company and heal me and propel me.

Ever have those experience when you've heard a song a billion times but then you hear it one night and it's like hearing it for the first time? The words take new shape. They lift your heart up for examination and hold it out to you. That was tonight. You change, sometimes without even knowing it, and suddenly a song sticks out to you. A few words change everything.

This was a ramble of a post, but it's also 4 in the morning. Share some of your favorite music with me, lovelies :) I'd love to listen. I always want to be inspired.

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