Feeling like the ultimate nerd niche right now. I’m studying information science, specifically cataloguing, while in a library. Immersive experience. Like a 4D movie.
I watched her naked legs. I watched her mouth curves as she talk. I watched her cheek, burried in the pillow. I watched the skin on her eyelids, crumble under her dreams. I watched her, touched by the sunrise. I watched her hair, struck by the sunset. I watched the brown in her hair, become ginger in certain angles. I watched her hands, moving with grace. I watched her nails, round like pearls. I watched her legs, shivering of cold. I watched her neck, as the veins pumped blood to her mind.
I knew you for many years, but I never thought you’re such a beautiful painting.
Your laugh was a beautiful painting.
It died. It died brutally. Suddenly. I couldn’t even grasp in silent sadness. It’s been all stolen. It left me naked. Bruised.
My hands, shaking. My eyes, tore apart.
How can a painting shatter it’s admirer? How can a painting find pleasure in pain? How can one simply become something new, under the heavy point of remembering?
“You are loved”. You were loved. You were loved with my eyes, studying every inch of skin you have. You were loved, trying to get you imprinted into my mind, fiber by fiber. You were loved, only so, one day, the one you will love will treat you like I did.
“You are loved”, because this world made you doubt yourself. You must love yourself, only so you will treat your lover the opposite of how you treated me. You must love to kiss your bruises, only so the embrace of this world to give you the most authentic and pure experiences.
You are loved, writer. I am love. As I had the courage to open up myself completely to my friend, my dearest friend, only to become her lover. I am love, as I embraced the unknown for her and grew gentle petals in the places I couldn’t trust within myself. I am love, for I exposed everything I am to my friend. She were loved, as I watched her laugh, her image vividly changing to hers when we were teenagers and we didn’t love each other.
“You are loved”, because I never loved you as a lover, entirely. “You are loved”, because I knew this was temporary. “You are loved”, because I knew you deserved better for you and I deserved myself in the end. We both were loved, but we couldn’t love each other this way.
These last years passed, rolling like tears down my cheeks. With deep interlude, only by my part. I’ve been alone inside myself. I felt shutted down. I felt stuck and I hated it. I felt like no good, beautiful thing can help me. Discovering myself and the pain, I screamed inside myself in words you never heard. Sleeping soundly next to me, I cried for many nights. The pain I carry in trauma is not yours, nor is mine, yours.
The last thing I wanted is for you to lose yourself, but I lost myself helping you.
I hope you are loved, my dear friend, because I’ll never love you again. I hope you sit in the darkness, acknowledging the damage you’ve done. I hope you forgive yourself for it and forgive me for wanting to get closer to you. I felt unwanted and I most probably was, only to get embraced and loved. I felt warmth. I felt intimacy. I felt safe with you. I felt love. I felt I can build a family, but how can I build something with someone that talks about my personal problems with other people for conversation? How can I build anything with someone that lied to my face? Who’s been using me to fuel forced emotions? How can I lay for the last time on that bed, knowing that you do it for your own self worth? How can you do that? As my friend, not as my lover, how can you do that to your friend?
How can anyone do that, after I confessed how my body crumbles when I find myself naked in the shower? How to burry myself and die, right then and there, only so I get the punishment? Only so I get kicked out for not obeying?
I were alone all of the time, trying to make yourself, love yourself. I shred my skin, only to find myself more powerful after this. Knowing what I want. Knowing what I feel like and what I allow and don’t allow in.
My friends departure like frozen islands far away from me. A touch of warmth in the North is the opposite of something life bringing. My friend, among my other friends. My dear friend, taking out frustration, gathered from low self love. My friend, they are your friends. Friends don’t judge other friends. My friend, I’ve been your friend, above being a lover. My friend, I wouldn’t mind you ranting, but that was plain, hurtful thoughts. I wonder, do they even think about it while you smile along in pictures with them? Do they know how harshly you criticized their way of being?
I found peace on the blink of going insane. My body left me at times falling randomly, collapsing. My body hurt, my soul crushed. My other friends, holding me so tight, a faint felt like a prolongued hug. It kept me awake at night, how and if you know what you did. How and if you’re proud of yourself about it. How and if you soundly sleep at night, knowing what you think and how you judge your close ones. I am sorry I got so close, only to hear you say them. I am sorry, I only wanted to expand my knowledge with you and you with me. I am sorry I’ve been there and that I was your public, in the intimacy of our space. I did not want to see this face of yours.
I knew pain in my life. I kept writing about it. Expressed it. Treat it. I did everything I could do, without harming people or things. Nobody is responsible for my pain, only I. All of these, all of my pain, exposed to you, explained to you, only so you can understand me better, not hit me inside of it, with what information you gathered. These are called “backst@bbers” and it’s better to keep them a band name, not an action.
I truly hope you are loved, that you start loving yourself, before anyone gets this version of you, in terms of intimacy. I hope this experience changed you for the better and I hope your destructive behaviours change into productive, kind worded ones. I hope truth will live inside of you, that love engages with you from all the rightful places. I hope that hate will disappear and that your knowledge will expand, before you make another inteligent one feel like they’re worthless. I hope you find your tribe and your lover that you won’t keep under the carpet as a “friend”. I hope you engage in healthy behaviours, any kind of behaviours. I hope for peace.
Peace, love, communication and effort are the point. If not, then goodbye.
Liv Tyler photographed by Pierre Bailly in the 90s. (She’s listening to Fake Plastic Trees by Radiohead btw, otherwise she wouldn’t give that heartbreaking glare to the sky)
