The Problem With Butterflies

It's funny how one song could make you miss a person so badly that you end up getting your phone and texting him.

It's funny how one song could stir so much emotion in you that you end up curling up in bed and looking at the window as your mind wanders into the deepest, darkest part of your soul where memories that you've tried hard to forget are stored.

It's funny how one song could make you question everything that has happened...make you second guess the decisions you have recently made...make you re-evaluate your life.

Is it really funny though? Is it really such a ridiculous idea or are you just trying to find humor in this tragedy to dilute its adverse effects?

You know the truth. You know that giving into the temptation of rekindling a love lost (even if it's only in your mind) is a masochistic act;

It's painful.

It's unforgivable.

It's morbid.

When you re-open that little box where you stored him and his memories, you lose all rational thought and self-control. You let yourself do things that you know won't benefit you in any kind of way.

You are perfectly aware of its repercussions and yet you still deliberately subject yourself to it. Your personal commandments of "you shouldn't-s" suddenly ticks itself with a glaring red ink of failure.

You know you shouldn't allow yourself to get sucked into this bottomless pit of what ifs and what could've beens for the second time around.

You know you shouldn't, at all costs, let those memories of warm sunny days and green luscious leaves, of bright smiles and stress-relieving conversations, bomb a hole into the heart that you've worked so hard on repairing.

You know you shouldn't let your heart skip a beat at the mere mention of his name, or the scent of his perfume, or worse, the sight of his face.

You know you shouldn't, but you still do.

You still feel the violent thumping in your heart, the chills down your spine, and the flutters of butterflies in your stomach.

And that's where the hardest dilemma comes in.

Those things should not be there anymore, and yet you still experience them in every molecule of your body.

There should not be any palpitations and irregular heart beats.

There should not be any current of electricity flowing through your veins.

There should not be butterflies.

Not anymore.

They should've been exterminated a long time ago together with the dreams and hopes that came with loving him.

They should've decayed with the papers filled with his words, elegantly brought to life by his stubby script.

They should've left the minute he walked out of your life.

They should've died.

They should've, and yet they didn't.

The problem with butterflies is that they never leave once they hatch and find solace in the depths of your being.

They act as constant reminders of what you thought you had, what you almost had, and what you never had.

They won't leave.They never will.

They will torture you till your dying breath.

They will make their presence felt whenever you see the spot where he left you, or when you pass by your usual table at the library.

The butterflies will throw away your desire for closure and instead replace it with a longing for a relapse.

And you, yes you. You will enjoy every bitter-sweet moment of it.

You will laugh and cry about the heartaches and the heartbreaks, but you will never give-up on him.

You'll let yourself lose a lifetime of sanity in exchange for even just two nights of bliss.

Because the problem with butterflies is you really don't want to get rid of it because at the back of your mind, you know it's never going to be just a casual set-up.

You can never, ever swallow the idea of you and him as just friends.

Spilled Ink

I want a tattoo.

I want ink to trace patterns on my skin.

I want to feel the needle pierce every inch of naked flesh that longs to feel excruciating pain until it becomes numb.

I want to be marked by art; be a blank canvas,an untouched block of marble,a clean slate that will be used as a medium to immortalize poetry and sketches.

I want to be filled with unconventional beauty. Something that not all people could understand and appreciate, but will cause someone's breath to hitch with it's perfection.

I want a tattoo not because I'm a rebel, a juvenile, or a villain, but because I am a wanderer, a believer of magic and immortality.

I am a girl who wants a tattoo.

I am an intelligent, perfectly rational and independent girl who wants something that is taboo.

Now tell me, am I crazy?

What You Need To Know About People Who Find Solace in Reading and Writing

                Thought Catalog has been my sanctuary for the past couple of months. I have spent countless hours browsing through its pages, reading articles and compositions written by complete strangers who for some reason, I find a connection with. It's a wonderful feeling to have someone who lives half-way across the globe empathize with you; to know that there's someone out there who has felt the way you've felt and can fully understand where you're coming from gives a sense of relief. 

But the best part of it is you don't even have to say anything after that. Sure, you can sob and do some wall-wailing after that heart-clenching read, but no one is obliging you to pat that person on the back and offer words of wisdom.

You get to be that person's person even if you don't know each other.

You allow him/her to just write out his/her thoughts while s/he allows you to dwell on his/her words.

This is actually a gift that not everyone appreciates because they fail to understand the beauty silence can make between two people. Not everyone understands that sometimes, not exchanging words at all and just being there weighs more than any inspirational words quoted from the most brilliant philosophers of the world.

It's quite hard really, to tell another person about the sentiments you have about everything and anything in your life. It's hard to speak your mind especially when you have critics lurking around you 24/7,

waiting to murder any seedling of thought that springs out from your mouth. It doesn't matter what type of relationship you have with your shrink, your siblings, or even your best friend. You can never truly open yourself up to anyone because you fear rejection and judgment.

Not everyone can practice the act of listening. Most people think that whenever you go to them to talk, they have the obligation to offer advice and to console you. But the truth is, you just want someone to hear you out. You just want someone to act as a vessel for your overflowing emotions because you can't keep it anymore.

But most people are natural talkers. They just love talking and acting like geniuses who have the solution to all your problems (if there are even problems to begin with). They act like they're all rational and logical, and they just make you feel like one big blob of uncontrolled emotions. 

This is why you feel threatened whenever another person offers to have a talk with you. Your inner voice screams at you to just pass on the opportunity to speak-out because you know nothing good will ever come out of it.

So you just stay silent.

You pretend like you're totally fine just to get everyone off your back.

You choose to keep it all in yourself even if you already feel like exploding on the inside.

It's normal.

I completely get you.

I think that it is natural for a person to choose to stay mum than to try and cultivate any idea of his through interaction with his fellow human beings. I, for one, just choose to read my curiosity away instead of asking other people. It's not because I'm anti-social or introverted (okay, somehow I am but only a tiny bit), or even proud, but because I'm afraid of being branded as 'stupid', 'uncultured', or 'naive'. I know it sounds really unfair and quite defensive of me to think that way, but I'm speaking through experiences I've had the last 18 years. 

People just like pouncing on the opportunity to degraded someone just to make themselves feel better in their own skin. They try to compensate for their short-comings by trampling on others' feelings.

Don't get me wrong. This is not some kind of anti-thesis about the saying "no man is an island", or the concept of mutualism and teamwork and sharing ideas or what have you. I am just trying to give an explanation why there are people like me who find solace in reading and writing, and why people shouldn't fault us for being this way.

We are not nerds, noobs, retards, depressed, lonely or conceited assholes. We're just people who are sick and tired of constantly feeling useless and irrelevant.

 So if you really want us to drop our books, stop writing in our journals and just talk, then you should start to learn how to listen.

She Knows How I Feel (thought catalog article)

Tell Me How To Stop Loving You

Ashley Sarel

     I was always conscious of how the fleeting moments we shared fit together like a story. Foreshadowing, symbols, motifs and metaphors wove together all too convincingly, forming the silhouette of what I wanted to believe. I wanted to believe we were meant for each other, that our love was preordained and my only role was to tread the pre-carved path to my destiny.

It was unusual how I’d dream of you one night and the next day you’d reach out to me after months of silence. It was as though my unconscious mind could sense ripples in the fabric of reality; the waves of anticipation would reach me before you did.

The story was rich with irony. So many nights were wasted dwelling on all of my shortcomings that prevented me from being with you. I should’ve focused on my work but I couldn’t. Irony resurfaced as you told me to think of a boy; surely my heart had been broken before? I laughed because if I hadn’t I would’ve cried and wouldn’t have been able to stop, the proximity of the truth was overwhelming.

I remember seizing moments to make cryptic comments about you ruining my life. I complained because ever since you told me your Converse rubbed your toes, my perfectly fitting shoes began to rub mine. ‘You’re ruining my life…’ I moaned as you laughed at my predicament. I hastily said was kidding because I immediately regretted the excess of truth I’d just poured into our conversation.

I remember the Freudian slips when you weren’t around. Your name fell through my fingers like electricity as I typed. Your name fell from my mouth even when you were the last thing on my mind.

I remember so much. I remember how I could feel the potential energy lurking in the pauses in our conversations. I remember the way I could only look you in the eye for the briefest of moments because I was scared you’d see through me if you looked long enough. I remember the time you called me smart and my inability to form words in response. I remember how I played the piano for you on an autumn day it felt like the start of something. I can remember how it felt to be seduced into giving up my former self by the spell of elated feelings you had me under.

It doesn’t matter how much I remember though, I don’t remember enough because you’re not here; not even in my memories anymore, not really. You’re slipping. I’m in love with a silhouette now because I can’t remember the exact shade of your eyes and I don’t remember what it sounds like when you laugh. You’ve become the blurry picture, the grains blown away by time, that we’d admired on the wall of an art gallery. I still love you but I don’t know who or what it is I’m in love with anymore. It’s all lost in a haze. I’m aimlessly searching, trying to fill the spaces you left.

Newton’s first law of motion states that ‘An object in motion stays in motion …unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.’ I’m stuck in the inertia of loving you. It’s been so long that I’ve forgotten who I was beforehand. I need a force to initiate movement in a new direction but I can’t find it within myself. I don’t know what more I can do. Time after time I’ve sought closure within myself but I still think of you whenever I shouldn’t and my brain only thrives off of my cries for silence.

I got too hung up on the idea of us being a story. The problem with stories is they demand an ending; a lesson, closure, solution, anything to justify the means. Without an ending it’s infuriating for the reader because the journey seems redundant, no matter how extraordinary it was.

How can I alone produce an ending that somehow justifies the intensity of everything I’ve felt and been for such a significant amount of time?

I need to move but I can’t, and I’m running out of time. I’m running out of myself. Guilt runs through my veins like ice when I listen to the music you like because I feel like I’ve stolen a part of you and kept it for myself. I hate myself a little more each time I check your profile just to remind myself you weren’t a dream. Time and time again I’ve tried to find a way to accept that I was only a whisper in your life when you were a symphony in mine.

Sometimes, the most obvious answers are the most difficult to find. The amount of ‘I’ in this story outweighs the amount of ‘you’. This love was never truly about you; your role in it was passive. My mind wove all the pieces together to form a beautiful story charged with possibility, passion and hope. The pieces were real enough, this wasn’t a work of fiction entirely. But the truths were woven into a lie. Lies can be beautiful, hideous or tragic and they can flourish in the absence of truth. But that’s the thing, truth will always obliterate the lie. Like light into darkness, the truth and the lie cannot coexist and the truth is going to win. I knew in my heart that we were a lie and it killed me every time I dared look.

I won’t let the shadows and lies, no matter how beautiful the patterns they’ve forged are, manipulate me anymore. I’ll stop counting the days since you said you’d talk later. I’ll stop checking your profile. I’ll stop trying to pinpoint the exact moment where I messed up my chances. These movements are small but I can feel my trajectory changing, subtly, I’m moving at a different angle now. Every moment that passes I’m further from how I was and I know that somehow, maybe not yet, I’m on my way to being okay. I might not be powerful, but it’s enough because the force came from within me. Not from you, not from anywhere else. I’m moving somewhere else now, of my own accord. I’m terrified but I’m not going back. 

The Original Article

Excerpts from Date A Girl Who Loves Solitude

Date A Girl Who Loves Solitude