Thelinguisticpoet - The Linguistic Poet

I read somewhere that, "through pretence you can make people stay, but you can't keep them", and ever since I can't help but wonder if every bit of me has been a lie to him... Yes, I love books, and stories and songs that says a million things inbetween, I love that the discussions never needed a topic, I love talking about philosophy and spirituality because he understands more about it than I do. But that's just it, I've been talking and keeping his attention because I don't want him to leave. Because if he left, then I'd have nothing left to hold onto. Because I'm afraid that there will be a hole in my heart where he used to reside.

I can appreciate the art darling, but it was more for you and about you than myself or anywhere between the lines of us. I love fiction and fairytales, I love stories that give me a break from reality, where for a short while I can be someone else and feel a million things without being apologetic about it all the time. I love songs that mean something than the ones that say too much just to fill the run time. I love movies that are romantic, I love stargazing, I love the mornings just a little before dawn where the whole world lays silently waiting for the Sun to rise to name a brand new day, in those moments, I feel life for everything that it is. But, whenever I am with you since the thought, I can't help but believe a little that somewhere inbetween I must have lied or been something else, for you've stayed this long and you never, truly stay. So I have to let you go because I can't keep up this pretence and feeling of uneasiness that I'm playing you a tune I never quite liked myself...

© Raina Rose.

I used to listen to songs when chatting with friends, sometimes the songs are on repeat and then I start associating those songs with them. Everytime the songs come on, I naturally think about them and the conversations we've had. And then one day, he left. I listened to a variety of songs from plenty of my playlists that I started losing my mind when each one came on. I deleted them all, even the ones I've loved as much as him. It was better this way, because when the songs come on and he's not there, I don't know what to do with all the useless tunes, words and melodies that rise within me. What do I do with all the love and songs left inside of me that once used to belong to us?

© Raina Rose.

"It was an extremely normal day and I decided to ruin it by walking down his street. The sun was setting and I could see the lights turned on in his room. I sat by the pavement across his house and drifted into another world. I was sad, I felt empty since he left but seeing him every now and then bought back memories that made me smile in pain. How do I not glisten beneath the sun, my very own sunshine. I heard he was alone again, I didn't want a relationship, let alone one with a broken heart. I just needed to steal another glance to paint a picture of love, or what it meant to be loved. My eyes were heavy but little did I know the day had barely begun..."

© Raina Rose.

There is a silence in me these days. The voice I once used to hear on repeat has ceased to exist. She seems to have disappeared. I don't know if I miss her but there is a void where she used to be. I can't specify what it is exactly that I've lost but I've gained something else in return, silence.

© Raina Rose.

It's a choice to be in love, as it is to be hurt by the ones we love. It's often those we love, that hurt us the most, because we've given them the ability to do so. We let them have special places in our hearts, prioritise them, their needs and wants, maybe get a little addicted to their company with more time and similar routines and let ourselves merge as though the process often completes us and makes us whole. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. But it is a choice, all of it is. And as much as it hurts, that's the beauty in love, to choose to be vulnerable with the ones we love, to give them the ability to see us whole, to see us naked, for all that we are, the flaws and beauty, saints and sinners. We choose to be in love knowing it might just wreck havoc before it's all over. We choose love over and over again, because despite the pain, there is beauty in vulnerability, there is beauty in being hurt by love, by the ones we love. This was our choice, to love and to hurt.

© Raina Rose.

He loves similar and the simplest of things that I've loved my whole life. He sees the very same moon and stars that I gaze upon every night, have we been living under the same sky all these years without realizing? I've been talking to the moon, perhaps, he was there too...

© Raina Rose.

How I wish we didn’t part ways. You remain completely intact in my memories and sometimes I wish I could forget you, because it is impossible to think of you without feeling all the pain that came along with the love I once felt for you, and perhaps still do. All it took was one night, a mere six hours and I knew I’d never be the same again but I lost you as soon as I found you. It’s like feeling beautiful and complete one moment and then completely broken and lost the next. How I wish we didn’t part ways because now every time I think of you, I cry without feeling sad, I wince in a pain I do not feel and there is this emptiness in me and I feel so numb, engulfed in the darkness. Your name on my lips feels wrong, your messages don't make me smile like they used to before, your gifts seem like they were sent to me by mistake and everything keeps trying to undo itself while still being a part of me. Like they want to be set free, as though we don’t belong together anymore. Now, it feels like I have to let go even when I don’t completely want to. I fell in love and there wasn't an alternative, you walked away and I didn’t have a say, now all that’s left with me wants to quit and I won’t be holding them back either...

© Raina Rose.

I am happy I say, then I say it louder and happily to those around me in hopes that perhaps if I could convince them that I am, then maybe I will be too. I do it often, then I realize that everytime I hear the word happy my heart sinks, at how I'm making myself believe an emotion that I do not truly feel. Just for a brief second, my heart falls into my stomach before coming back up again with a smile. There, happy.

© Raina Rose.

The thing most heartbreaking about it all is falling in love again. It's insanity wanting to repeat the process, taking chances and trying all over again despite the failures and pain, now that, that has to be heartbreaking. To think you've dealt with the worst thrown at you and to crawl back out from under the sheets, with wounds only healing, barely being held by stitches you made half awake in pain, maybe drunk. Why would you want to do it all over again?

To be brave enough to put your heart back out on the line 'cause the last hit and run didn't kill you. Yet. To start a conversation with men who could care less but of course, you manage to convince yourself otherwise in the name of hope these days. To drive yourelf crazy whenever they don't respond or when you get stood up or when you make a comment and that worked before but didn't now and you look stupid for trying. When you do your best to really just be loved but God, they make it so hard.

You get a little more mad each day. Waking up, thinking that the day ahead will hurt less than the day before but we both know that, that statement dissolves away everytime you see him around the corner, creeping into your thoughts and mind with things and words and places that remind you of him. You lose pieces of yourself over time each day and you can barely hold it all together, but you still try anyways.

Then, one day, God gets tired of playing with you so he sends someone your way and just for a bit it seems okay. You don't lose your mind, you start trusting him (because loving wasn't enough) and you tell him things that made you sad, that hurt you, you speak of your demons and pain, not to garner sympathy but in hopes he understands better, in hopes that he will know better. Eventually, you lose track of time and the days drift by and all you do is smile and fill your days with his presence. Slowly, you start falling in love again and when you're completely losing yourself for him, he pulls back without hesitation and now, you're falling, unbound when you should have been held. By the time you realize that you're broken, he's gone, God's laughing and you're back to square one with nothing left but a bleeding mess we call heart, a broken one in fact. Too broken this time around.

So no, the worst always comes after the heartbreak. To be brave enough to try and fail again and maybe there's a beauty in that but it is insanity, really; doing the same things over and over again all while expecting different outcomes. It is heartbreaking. Love is heartbreaking...

© Raina Rose.

Monday, you promised you'd come home, the door was left open.

Tuesday, a little late but I thought I could wait.

Wednesday, I went through the laundry to find your clothes, hoping they still smelled like you.

Thursday, tasted a lot like you when I emptied the bottle of bourbon.

Friday, I was sober enough to think again but you were still missing.

Saturday, I got a call asking if I'd written the eulogy.

Sunday, I realized you were never coming home again...

© Raina Rose.