#96 || Say Yes To Heaven

Oh no, did I not write last year? It seems I began writing this entry on the 20th of August 2024 at 07:52 but where was I then? Maybe exactly where I am now but everything is completely different. I feel compelled to get a few last words in before the end of 2025, because my heart feels so full and fluttery at the same time but for reasons unlike ever before. Once upon a time I used to wish on any star for everything I have now. So what else is left to wish for other than things that are just so worldly and temporary? Am I allowed to ask for more of what I already have?

Since I last wrote here, the world has changed and sometimes I long for a taste of my old self, a waist disappearing inside a denim waistband, space in my queen bed at night, girl dinners on the sofa and sunrise yoga not having to tiptoe out the door. But if I can remind myself that life is not the chapter I am living in this moment but it's not never going to come again. When she's old enough to understand I want to tell my daughter that when you wish for something you need to include the details, be specific and tell God about every hair on their head and every ray of sunshine and twinkle in the ocean because you may end up with everything you ever wanted but it might not be exactly how you imagined it. What did I used to say? Nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it.

I find myself seeking nostalgia wherever I can, whether it's a playlist from 2018 or writing in a blog I haven't touched in over 2 years. Sometimes it's just remembering people when I have a moment to myself, remembering all the experiences I ever had and remembering that there are so many more to come. 

2026 Wishlist 

1. Find my pink again
2. Fall pregnant (again)
3. Create beautiful memories with my sweet little family
4. Learn how to balance my hormones and feel my best
5. Be brave (for her).

They're my dream come true.

See you in the new year, with so much love,

Afifa x

#95 || MY LOVE MINE ALL MINE ALL MINE ALL MINE MY LOVE

I feel like I am going around in circles in this life, but this time, in my 34th year, I want the dive down into the darkness to be for the last time. Maybe the way that worked for awhile isn't the answer anymore, maybe the answer is to surrender to the half of my new reality that scares me. Maybe it's about letting the inner child that I have protected for so long, grow up and embrace the plummet of this low so that I can ricochet and experience a high unlike any other.

If I can remember the highs of this year, the takeoffs and landings, the reunions and the re-living of moments I didn't think I would ever have again. The wines and the wisdom, the cups of tea and the walks along the beach, falling asleep with my hands in his and the first kiss after midnight by the water in winter - maybe it offsets the self-deprecation that I didn't think I would ever feel again. The repetitive moments of despair and confusion and sadness and despondence, I have never felt as stupid as I do right now. Age doesn't seem to have brought upon any perception, only this superfluous ache in my bottom lung. How do I turn this around?

Hope exists in that this time next year will be strikingly different to this moment right here, right now. If I close my eyes, I can almost feel my fingertips rest on all that it is in my dreams, all that I think I deserve to wish for in this lifetime. If I strip it all down, it's more simple than I could ever imagine. Why do I always feel the need to over-complicate things? 

The love exists in those that stayed, the light shines in the sun and the stars every day and the ocean under the clouds. Look at the sky (no, but really - look again!), that is for you.

Happy birthday Afifa-in-the-sky, you'll be okay. 

 

Love always,

moi. X

#94 || Weird Goodbyes (feat. Bon Iver)

It’s always  circular, these funks. But this recent orbit has taken longer than before, maybe that is why this dip back into depression has taken me by surprise. The wretched insecurity has been hiding in the tension gathered at the base of my neck, between my shoulders and in my hips.  It is all too rare that I marvel at how far I have come, but simultaneously I feel so heartbroken that there is still where I go when I have nowhere left. I go through waves of pride at my perseverance but the more I learn about the world and all of its complexities, I feel ashamed at how I have over-decorated my heartache. But the one thing that is lurking at the back of my mind is how maybe I am assimilating to those around me, it frightens me more than anything. The thought of being boring absolutely petrifies me. I feel like I am disappearing but not how I ever imagined that I would. As I grow older, the more people I meet and stories I hear, I realise how unimpressive I am. Is the answer to accept that fact or to try and change it? The problem right now is that what I want doesn’t align with what I think I should want, so there is always this underlying sense of guilt accompanying me wherever I go and this apologetic feeling for existing and being the way that I am. I’m sorry that I am too quiet, too brash, too dull, too particular. If you could only see inside my head, if you knew how hard I try every single day – I promise I wish I wasn’t this way. How do I stop feeling like I am deceiving the world about the kind of person I truly am?

 

Yet, in my heart of hearts I still believe that this year is going to be extraordinary. In many ways, it already has been. The places I’ve gone and the places I still have yet to go, the one magic moment that I am manifesting that will surmount anything that has ever happened to me, that moment is still waiting to transpire. So if the inability to like myself is truly the only thing that is irking me at the moment, I do want to celebrate all the other hurdles that I have overcome. I had the enormous privilege of reuniting with some kindred spirits earlier this year and creating memories that a year or so ago I thought would never be possible, I visited and re-visited cities that I thought I never would and plan on wanderlusting a whole lot more. The freedom of my life right now is something I don’t want to seem ungrateful for, because even though half a life-time ago I thought I would be somewhere and someone totally different to where and who I am now, it is still for the better and for that, I am so thankful. 

 You are who you choose to be, Afifa-in-the-sky.

#93 || Starry Haze, Crystal Ball

'Take-Off And Landing'

 

Perhaps my grad dip was a big effing waste of time, because I don’t love airplanes anymore. The static, the humming, the sound of wind being mechanically propelled into the atmosphere and wheels thumping against the tarmac are all associated with the souls that abandoned me. I don’t think I think about them individually as often as I used to, over time they’ve merged into an achy blur but it still stings the inner corners of my eyeballs when I let my mind wonder why. Why wasn’t I worthy of rememberance? That feeling of feeling so loved and then it all disappearing in an instant - the epitome of too good to be true. Nothing lasts forever. I used to dream of a heart this hard but now I’m scared it will never be soft again. “I love you” doesn’t sound the same leaving my lips as it did before. It is still sincere but I don’t feel it like I did before, I don’t feel the circumference of my heart tugging in every corner, I don’t feel desperate, and I can’t imagine ever feeling like that again.

My life up until now was derived by daydreams that I turned into reality all by myself, and as spectacular as that sounds, it has been at the cost of a lot of sadness and disappointment. But acknowledging this gives me confidence in plotting my next chapter, because I’ve always made it happen and that is what is so special about me, that is my superpower. I create my own current, I am in control even when it seems like I’m not and I am an entity entirely on my own.

While my heart is hard, it can feel warm and I think a lot of things do make me feel warm, which is equally incredible. It’s the momentary love, free from promise and chagrin, free from betrayal. It is the unspoken I-love-you’s, it’s the ease and comfort of coming home to wash the day away and wake up in my cloud-like bedroom as a new little baby bird.

Did this even make any sense? Watch this space.

XOXO, Afifa

#92 || Emergence-Sea

emergence | ɪˈməːdʒ(ə)ns |
noun [mass noun]
1 the process of becoming visible after being concealed: I misjudged the timing of my emergence.

The ladies in the office tell me about their daughters. As they speak my fingernails press into my palms and I hold my breath, wondering if this is the moment I will be made for the fraud that I am. A quasi-adult smearing concealer on her face with her fingers, before standing in front of her wardrobe trying to figure out what people wear to work on a Monday morning. As they speak of electives and hormones and evening spats before bed, an ache twinges in my heart when I remember being in the thick of adolescence, a phase I’ve never quite managed to escape. Teenage insecurities seem to have followed me into my thirties, finding any excuse to regress to the sullen, solemn little girl and on the bad days, it’s the only thing I feel like I have the potential to be. I murmur my sympathy as I remember my youth, a sentence made unbearable by none-other than myself.

I could describe it like a tamper, depressing my core beliefs into a compact sliver. Every feeling that somehow had to become a secret, simmering at the tip of my tongue, sometimes spilling out under the stars, encouraged by sips of red wine. I don’t remember any instance where I haven’t regretted unlocking the chains of my inner-self, I recall fragments of my heart left woven in the forgotten memories of souls I was foolish enough to believe were kindred. After all these years, I don’t think such a thing exists, I feel condemned to an archive of aquaintances. For the rest of my life.

2022 feels unimpressive, yet I have found this rhythm that is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. It might be my own taste of adulthood :: bills, car keys and wilting leaves of basil in the refridgerator beside cartons of vanilla oat milk and pears that I bought in June. I fall asleep with the television on, the flickering of light from the living room lulling me to dreamtime next to a cold cup of herbal tea. I didn’t think I’d be so lonely all these years later, I thought it was just a phase.

[ i can't believe i haven't written here in over a year. updates: i don't really think about her too much anymore, not like that. i don't really think about anybody very much. REMINDER: everybody leaves, without exception. don't ever forget that, afifa-in-the-sky!!! ]

XX

#91 || Au Revoir, Pinot Noir

 
 And To Those I Love, Thanks For Sticking Around ;; 

 

It is surreal to think of how much metamorphosis has taken place in the last year or so [exclusive of the obvious]. One year later my heart feels more calloused than it ever has, transfigured by the severity and disregard of the actions and events that transpired, I didn’t know that places so dark and desperate even existed, ready to welcome lost souls into the alcoves of hopelessness. There lies the kind of loneliness that chills your bones, it’s the solitude that keeps your heart beating slow and steady in the moonlight but fast and rapid during the moments you hear the echoes of the declarations of love and longing that were all just lies and falsehoods in the end. At the worst of times I can’t imagine ever giving anybody the key to my heart ever again, but at the best of times there are moments where you are able to forget how they made you feel. Eventually you start believing that you are the way people treat you, that you are ordinary and forgettable no matter how strong and tenacious you are. It’s not about entitlement but it’s about believing at the bottom of your heart that you’re more deserving of how you feel right now.

I miss you every day but if you only knew how much it hurts and how I don't think I have felt as happy as one year ago today when you were in the passenger seat next to me, assuring me this wouldn't be the last time I saw you ["it's not goodbye, it's i'll see you soon"]. I realise now that even in those moments of complete and utter gratitude that I was able to feel loved and important and alive, that it may have been possible to feel even more grateful and savour the present until there was absolutely no more ecstasy left in that very second. To lose it all at once, it’s such an incredible sensation that I think is all too common in this era where everything and everyone is dispensable.

At the end of this chapter, I’m not leaving you behind in the memories of what happened but out of the one last shred of respect I have for myself, I think I need to relinquish the sympathy and fret of how I never want anybody to feel as sad as I have and as I do, and remember that this separation was your choice. I don’t believe that physical absence should engender amnesia because I treasure each and every single soul I have ever met, I cherish your existence and the beating of your heart and the love you bring to this world. At this moment, I know there is love and hope in the sunsets and sunrises, from my mother and my father and my sisters, from my beloved friends across the ocean and the songs and films that articulate what we’re all too ashamed to share. There is no animosity, only amity that for now will rest in the dormant chambers of my head and my heart. I hope one day that I will understand why it had to hurt so much and I hope that I will never make anybody feel this way.

 

 [ au revoir (for now), A xo ]

#90 || “And when nobody wakes you up in the morning, and when nobody waits for you at night, and when you can do whatever you want. What do you call it, freedom or loneliness?”

 

Perhaps it was from May until maybe even the other day, I woke up in this nightmarish haze where it didn't seem real that everything had disappeared. People fear the prospect of abandonment and rejection but to experience it in the abundance that I did last year -- that unexpected and maybe self-inflicted loss was unlike anything I could have ever imagined was possible. Then the sensation suddenly became an addiction ;; I found myself reaching out to those who I knew didn't want to remember I existed, to hurt my heart with the feeling of being forgotten, over and over again. Like some kind of quasi-defense mechanism, it became easier to anticipate heartache and prompt it, than to even hope for the best.

I'm learning every day that the unconditional love that exists in songs and films and storybooks is more rare than I ever thought, it may even be endangered. We live in a world that is constantly manufacturing copies and concepts that make individuals less unique and less accommodating to uniqueness and singularity unless it acts in their favour. We're all so desperate to make an impression and to be loved that anything is better than something special, and that doesn't even count the irrational infatuation that we can't let go of despite all logic and common sense.

There is a fine balance that can exist but it doesn't, not right now. Loyalty and security and love mean next to nothing if there isn't anything to gain from it. We all feel so personally attacked by something so boundless and immeasurable and unforgiving and undiscriminating. Maybe it's ego or maybe we're frightened. In this moment, all I know is that it's okay to change your mind and your opinion and everything you are if you believe your actions are right and kind and won't break anybody's heart without reason.

 

That's all. Love (if it even exists anymore), A. xo

 

#89 || THE LOVERS, THE DREAMERS & ME

ATTN: ALL OF THOSE I'VE LOVED BEFORE

 

Do you remember the days when the love was so bountiful it could substitute sleep? Do you remember when the waking moments were the real dreams? I suppose just like any other storybook, when the pages start to become blank and you may or may not have had closure or the happy-ending that you wanted, maybe you'll miss the heroine for a minute or two but life doesn't wait for the perpetually confused.

Perhaps it contradicts logic to miss somebody who doesn't exist, who won't be there and who doesn't care. It wasn't self-respect, reassurance or pride that [will] helped me let you go, but copious amounts of time and continual signs from you indicating my insignificant existence in your world. Lately, I focus too much on the time until or the time since, that I can't seem to find the time now. I feel like I'm stuck in-between where I want to be and where I could be and maybe even where I should be. Sometimes my dreams are the wildest. I forget that dreams are impossible and they don't come true. Fairytales don't exist, you said. But who knows, you lied about everything else. It's okay though, because I can't make somebody love me and everybody loves so differently but it's just when I see the love exchanged between others, so organically and infinite, that's the love I want to want to give [... and receive]. I want it all most of the time not just sometimes and even if it had to be sometimes, then it needs to be fucking golden.

One year and a month ago I remember that despite losing just about everything, I felt so loved. Now one year and a month later, I have replaced everything I lost and more but in the process, I lost the love. The loneliness now seems beyond repair, I couldn't possibly accept love even if you begged and professed it from the rooftop because I'm that ugly on the inside. Just ask anybody who ever stopped wanting to be my friend. What do you do when you yourself are the toxic one? [ Tip: Hide away from the world and don't let anybody see what you're really like. ]

KISSES, 

A XO

 

P.S. Fuck you all anyway.

 

#88 || The World Is Mine by Samm Henshaw

This year has really taught me how to put myself in other people's shoes to generate a level of love and patience from places I didn't even know existed, in an abundance that I didn't know was possible. I've learned that a place exists between happy and sad. Over the last few months I've learned a lot about the limbo you can create when you're too afraid to let yourself feel disappointed. Because that's the compromise that comes with empathy;; it's the balance between hypocrisy and understanding.

When the pressure becomes overwhelming, I run to that place. I am my own best friend, I am the voice of reason, I am my own shoulder to cry on, But there's a catch ;; I find myself afraid of the goodness and the kindness of others, because I am terrified of situations where I can't control what happens. I know that this year has presented challenges that have nearly crossed the boundaries of what can be managed, and what can be survived. I know that places nobody should ever have to visit have been overwhelmed and crowded by undeserving individuals and if I could stand guard of the gate to those dark realms and forbid all from entering - I would.

If you can only believe that those who disappoint you did so in ignorance and oblivion, and that the souls you let into your life mean no malice, then that's one enormous step. The next baby step is to know that you're allowed to feel the way you feel about everything, that you can't control how you feel but you can control how you react. It's not your fault you want more, it's not your fault you had hopes higher than reality, and it's not your fault that you feel disillusioned when it feels like you're the only one missing out on the greenest-grass-fairytale-magic-miracle that everybody on the other side of the rainbow seems to have. The heartache will always be there, but if you place every foot in front of the other with your own purpose and intention, then that's all I can ask of you today.

Tomorrow ;; is a whole other story.
You really never know what tomorrow might bring, so don't write it off just yet and be prepared for everything.

[ ^^ Dear A, this is a little reminder for your every day. Love, A x ]     

"Where do you go when you go quiet?"

#87 || :: death bed ( coffee for your head ) ::

It feels like it's all evolving ; my-self and my alter-ego. For the first time in my life I feel like a solid single entity, I feel like I can truly co-exist with all of my thoughts.  to all the lovers in my heart, I still adore you to the (full) moon and back and a billion times over but right here in this moment, I think I will keep all the love locked up inside my heart and in my head. There is gold in this silence, I promise. I just need a minute (or a million) to collect and consolidate these notions and possibilities of my interconnectedness with the rest of the world and how I can make it work. I have always preferred solitude over superficiality and magic over mediocre. I would rather have nothing than normal and that's on me. Lately I have learned to shift the blame into oblivion, it's nobody's fault if I over-love and over-feel and under-everything else to balance it all out. not everybody is entitled to a happy ending and I have come to terms with a potential future full of uncertainty and heartache and misunderstanding. It's okay, I pinky swear. We'll all be okay.

Maybe I will look forever for a rabbit hole, maybe my auto-response to confusion will be to refrain from it all :: from physical and emotional nutriment, does that make any sense? It is so difficult to imagine that I deserve love and nourishment like the rest of the world. I think that's why I do it :: the only reaction is to abstain and avoid. so I don't feel any antipathy for your confusion or avoidance because it's on me. I will carry that forever - but you know, all I really want for you to remember me by, is that you felt entirely comfortable saying anything in the world in my presence, knowing that I would never -in a hundred thousand years- judge you or anybody else for feeling, for being, for wanting, for needing, for thinking, for remembering or for forgetting. I love you so much.



xo, A.
   


"Are we all designed to be confined?
Organise our lives and lose the key
Our faces all resemble dying roses
We've got to break it before it breaks us." - Metric

#86 || [ glitt3r in the $ky, glitter in 0ur eyes ]

Here we all still are, just post-    une nouvelle lune. What an interesting mars / mois, the nostalgia has been          w i l d    as of late. It's like a montage of carefully-curated memories flicker at the forefront of my mind, in combination with some incredible stills of what is yet to come. I am waiting (im)patiently for compassion to trump complacency (!), I am waiting for a stroke of luck and for a dream to come true. The method and meaning of everything seems to rear its little daisy-head through the     fog and haze     of the stress and anxiety and denial of everything that is happening all around us. The fear of it all reminds me of the same moon we see at night, it's the same     sun and moon     that orbit around this planet that we all share altogether.     

The contrast of every day, the            distance            so surreal it almost seems metaphorical? And I wonder why this was meant to be, because that seems important. The delicate balance of resistance and community and sacrifice and compromise and discomfort ::     I am  fearful of the fear, because when it felt like it was just me, it seemed like the entire weight of the world and now it's the world, it's the terror multiplied by seven point something billion and, no pun intended, it feels impossible to breathe under the immensity of everything.     outside,         You could cut the air, the tension is unreal. 

                 " But whatever , let's get lost on mars... " - Dula Peeps

With love, A. x

#85 || WITH NOTHING HOLDING ME,I HANG LIKE A STAR.

~ ~ ~

For ever and forever and ever I have been drawn to the sea ;; it's something about the childish wonder of the water on the horizon. I liken the excitement of that initial regard of the ocean -- through the windscreen of the car -- along with rollercoasters and birthdays and seeing somebody you love after a very very very long time. The last few months and maybe most likely many more to come :: are re-defining me. There are no lack of lessons, lately - every other day I feel the earth being pulled out from underneath me and I wish I could bring myself to write without romanticising everything, but it's a guilty pleasure. The comfort I have in creating hyper-verbose sentences with too many adjectives and alliteration and not enough punctuation is one of the few joys in one of the greyest summers I have ever seen. 

Where do free spirits fit, in the intricate puzzle of society? Is it realism and the rigidity that bind us to these invisible rules of normality? With little else to lose, it is the intangible that seems to propel my physical and emotional reactions - which thereby has created a newfound empathy from deep within my heart. Because the truth outweighs the facts :: the undeniable calm I feel in your presence that makes me curiously blind to everything and everybody around us. But as real as the calm, I sense the disparity between us. And inside that difference is an unmistakable distance :: there is a very real divergence that simultaneously breaks my heart and has made me realise that the underlying complication has nothing to do with you and maybe everything to do with me.

It is the seemingly infinite disappointment that I think may one day get the better of me. Latterly, the layers of (my)self are stripped away and I am terrified of what may remain at the core when I have nothing left to lose. Every time I think I can't possibly feel more naked than I do in that moment, something happens. I wonder, at the end of everything, what else is there? 

There are moments where the descent down-the-rabbit-hole seems to lull and I am suspended in the air. In those instances, I can see fragments of the future and I can see myself exactly where I am :: I am a tangle of introspection and I am all alone, I have everything and nothing but the frightening secret is, I don't need anything or anybody. Truly, it might not seem scary on the outside but inside I am absolutely terrified. All. The. Time.

The fear is in the moment when I realised that was little comfort left in y o u. Because even the most gentle of reminders would instinctively present itself as a harsh slap-in-the-face that I am never going to be half of a whole. The gratitude, the stars and the fortune of the smallest pleasures :: their memory is fading faster than the speed of sound. I see you and I see headlights and explosions, I have a sip of wine, a cigarette, and feel my heart splitting at the seams. I catch my own gaze in a mirrored reflection and I wish I didn't have to be any-body or any-thing any-where any-more.

                                                                             Yours Sincerely, A.

#84 || "You are what you love, not who loves you back."

my baby versace-on-the-floor, versace-in-the-sky, c'est pour toi ♡.
 

Once upon a time, secrets were the propellant to my existence. I believed that enigma and mystery would make me magnetic and then I wondered why I felt so lonely. One of the most significant alterations I made to my mindset was to never underestimate the power of communication and honesty and diplomacy. It is in my innate nature to withdraw, to resent and encourage indifference. But the moment I became the individual who would initiate and wait for a response than expect a prompt from the other, my life became considerably more interesting.

I think I forget that in this very moment, I am the most evolved that I have ever been before. Even if for every three steps forward it seems I take four steps back, even if I find myself weeping over the same woes time and time again, even if one time out of ten I forget to bite my tongue and recklessly release all sorts of cruelties and criticisms to the hearts that can't handle it ::: it doesn't mean this life was all for nothing, it doesn't mean I am the incompetent pond scum that I think I am. Remember that this life is a ride not a race; it is a crusade not a contest and you have your whole life to make your dreams come true.

The moment you leave your doom to destiny, you've already lost ( but not forever, everything can be transitory! ). We are the world we want to live in and we are the love that makes magic transpire. The moment you are blindsided to the soul behind the (re-)actions that broke your heart and would keep you awake at night, the moment you forget the innate good in the greater number of human beans coexisting on this planet, the moment you rank your own woes and worries ahead of others, it becomes all too  easy to fall down a rabbit hole.    

You are allowed to feel however you do and you need not apologise for something mattering more than you believe it should. The intangibility of feelings and emotions and thoughts are just as valid as the tangibility of scars and destruction and devastation. So, be the friend you wish you had and overlove how you overthink and be kind. You'll feel so much better, I pinky swear.

love always,

Afifa.

#83 || TO THE MOON AND NEVER BACK

( you are all the colours in one, at full brightness )

Trust Disregard the darkness inside you and the loss of innocence without losing your purity. It might seem ingenuous to let yourself believe you are more intuitive than you tell yourself you are, but I promise it's okay and it might even probably be real. Sometimes the un-happy-ending you envisaged is inevitable, just like you knew it would be, but it's never the end until it's the end. And you'll know. Nobody, no-one ever deserves to be situated in the shadows and for all the heavy-heart-ache, I would never wish a reciprocation upon anybody   I don't understand why the overwhelming gratitude comes in waves, why can't it be a constant? But then I've always believed that emotions ebb and flow for perspective, so that you can appreciate the disparity for all that it's worth, for the dull ache, for the thrill and to not forget what it's like to want to keep going when you want to give up.

The same goes for hope, the hope that my mother tells me not to lose but it doesn't seem as simple as ironing on a transfer label with "if found, please return to my full name here>" on it like we used to. But lately I feel calm in the waiting and even more calm in the unknown, because you can manipulate the future and fashion anything you like. The details in the exterior, the particulars of your environment aren't anything if you aren't a dream from within - and you are already everything that you love. 

Love, A x

P.S. \\ I think you bring out the realest real inside of me, the child, the candour, the coy and the calm. The latter is something novel. Sometimes it's the stormy sea in calm but that seems to be what you surrender when you want to experience something a little more acute than ordinary. //

#82 || { IT TAKES AN OCEAN NOT TO BREAK }

LE DÉBUT.

Three decades later and there is a strange serenity in the air. Perhaps this is the calm before the storm, the ebb before the flow, the waning of the moon. I still bite my tongue in an attempt to quell the blood boiling within my veins when nothing is as perfect as I can imagine it. I still dare myself with the challenge to keep my secrets safe. I never used to believe in keeping secrets, and perhaps that still remains true, but sometimes the shame of my own recurring woes gets overwhelming and I can't bear the thought of being a burden. I am guilty of disguising my disgrace as drollness, perhaps it's often easier to make a joke of one's misfortune rather than confess that you care too much. When there was no way to confirm the acknowledgment of a transmission or trace the timestamps of your interactions - was that medieval love? It might be archaic but I wish I could elect a love stripped bare of read receipts, twin (plus some) ticks in between comebacks and beaucoup conversations giddy as if you are one too many red wines deep but you are not even.

In contrast, I foolishly urge myself towards an idyllic solitude, if such a thing exists. I move through moments of placing a lone wolf atop a pedestal and imagine myself as a superextraordinary superhuman unencumbered by mortal demands and desires. Sometimes all the memories, great and grand and small but significant, flood back in succession and I wish I never knew anybody or anyone ever so that nothing had to matter so much that it seemed like everything all at once.

And at the end of the day, I don't know what lesson I have learned here, other than the art of perseverance and patience in combination with the essence of empathy and sometimes even a touch of indifference. I wish some things didn't seem so important. Some sentiments seem like they're balanced at the end of the world, they're feelings so magnificent it feels like life or death.

LA FIN.

DEAR UNIVERSE,

RIGHT NOW, I FEEL LIKE A PRODUCT OF PERSUASION.  ONCE UPON A TIME I WAS THE SPIRIT BIRD IMPELLING THE LIFELESS TO LIVE BUT TODAY, IN THIS INSTANT, I FEEL VOID OF INSPIRATION. THE VAST DEPTH OF THE OCEAN, THE RIPPLE EFFECT, THE IMPACT OF MISJUDGEMENT, THE TRANSIENT CHAGRIN THAT IS SIMULTANEOUSLY INFINITE: SOMETIMES I WONDER HOW IMBALANCED I MAY HAVE BEEN AT SOME POINT IN THIS LIFE OR IN THE PAST, TO BE ON SUCH A CONSISTENT COURSE OF DESCENT. 

TO LIVE FOREVER IN THE WAITING, TO FOREVER HOLD ON TO INTANGIBLE HOPE AND TRUST THE TIMING OF LIFE, DO YOU PINKY SWEAR THAT ONE DAY IT'LL ALL BE WORTH IT? I DREAM OF A SINGLE MOMENT OF CLARITY, A BRIEF INTERMISSION WHEN THE SECOND-HAND STOPS AND I REALISE THAT THIS IS THE LIFE I ONCE PRAYED FOR, I DREAM OF A DREAM COME TRUE.

 THE SINGLE THING I AM CERTAIN OF IN THIS UNPREDICTABLE EXISTENCE, I HAVE BEEN BLESSED AS A RARA AVIS; A WONDER, A RARE BIRD, AN ANOMALY. FOR EVERY METAPHORICAL MINUTE IN THE GUTTER, FOR EVERY HEARTACHE OVER EVERY LOSS, EVEN WHEN I THINK I COULDN'T POSSIBLY COPE WITH ANOTHER:

 I AM THE SUNSHINE. 

DEAR UNIVERSE, FUCK YOU.

Yours sin-cereal-ly,

A.

#81 || "And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so? I did. And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth."

O.  09.19
Soon, it will feel like you were a dream (or a ~sometimes nightmare~). I wouldn't pinky swear on it, but time does cure ~most~ heartaches and will crush the lust into dust one day at a time. Because I truly believe, that in several seconds or perhaps several seasons, I might forget how wretched it was when it felt like I was losing everything I loved. Again. The penetrating fear of cherished comfort dissipating into a void of nothing, back to my default equilibrium of indifference and impassivity - perhaps metaphorically for one last blurry recollection of red wine and cigarettes and wishing the night would never end. For it was, and always is absolutely perfect, just as you are - flaws, fractures and all.

La Science des rêves (The Science of Sleep)

• Stéphanie: So I get it, so you don’t want to be my friend anymore?
• Stephane: No! I don’t want to be your friend anymore! I don’t want to be your friend anymore! Do I have to nail it on your door? “I don’t want to be your friend.”
• Stéphanie: No, you can’t, you can’t stop being my friend. It’s not something people can decide.
• Stephane: Oh yeah, they can. People have an argument and they stop talking to each other.
• Stéphanie: Okay, then let’s have a date or something and we can talk about things if that’s what you want.
• Stephane: What’s the point? you’ll just want me as your friend and then you’ll have a really nice boyfriend and that will kill me.

-O. 08.09
Once upon a time, when I was a little girl, my mother told me she didn't believe in pride, that it manufactured ego and arrogance and you could only ever be ~happy~ for somebody but never proud of or praised for anything, ever. With that fostering came a heightened sense of place and belonging, in every state and circumstance that I would find myself situated in. In the thick of a crowd or even when I'm all alone, I feel the weight and presence of my being in the air, my aura and energy pulsating through and out of my fingertips back into the earth. I try not to take anything for granted, the ecstasy is emphasised and it seems consecutively I am trying to exercise complete and utter gratitude for the moment, impress every detail to my memory and clasp my arms around that very instant and never let go. Once upon a time I used to think that the chance of one rhapsodic moment was a privilege that wasn't to be taken for granted, but now I want more, I want that magic to be part of my every day. Is that too much to ask?

I. 10.19

Let's start this moment on a rooftop bar in Los Angeles with wet hair, truffles fries and a glass of wine. The appreciation for everything, the every day love, the kindness and the compassion, it comes in waves and I am so utterly ashamed at its whimsy and my inability to recognise your benevolence all the time, at every moment or every day. I am so, so, so lucky - and perhaps for every time my heart feels like it's shattering into a zillion pieces, I am blessed with an instant so inexpressibly extraordinary I wish I could melt into the moment and become one with the magic. When we were flying down the freeway en route to Milwaukee, the best pumpkin spice lattes in the world and the biggest bottle of red wine you ever did see, sharing cheesecake with iced lattes, watching the sun rise and set on the rooftop and when the climax of a song strikes you right in the centre of your heart. Maybe it will only ever be the little moments that hold it all together, whilst they simultaneously threaten to make it all fall apart at any moment. I don't know if it's because often I don't feel like I really belong anywhere, that I feel both at home and displaced just about everywhere.

home is where i feel the every day love
home is where my sister is
home is where the sun shines
home is where i can see the sea
home is in your voice
home is when i miss you

"Love is so short, forgetting is so long."

I'll see you on the other side of the rainbow. Love, A x