I am no poet if

you cease to be my poem.

And I am no singer,

if you cease to be my song.

This is why I

carry your memory,

in the hollows of my bones,

where blooming flowers grow.

Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

yet all these words

always lead me back to you.

(A.)

Time and time again I find myself awed by the strength and resilience woven in between the fabric of human frailty. I will only say that despite the crashing waves and turbulent storms you somehow manage to stay afloat, stubborn will against suffocating tragedy. 

Life is fickle, fragile, incomprehensible and unexpected. Perhaps it is loss and the hope that things will be okay in the end that keep us going, perchance to dream. You exemplify this, paragraphs, cut-outs, memories, photographs dotting both your invisible and visible walls.

“You and me, daddy. That time you brought me along with you on your adventures, and now it’s my turn to bring you with me on mine.”

I insist that it is the imprint of those left behind that impact us the most, and even through the gaping emptiness of it all, there is love seeping through the cracks in your frame. 

Love cannot swim.

I know this because I am drowning.

My heart is an anchor in the sea that is you, waves crashing to the beat of your voice. You are in the water, murky blue and green in the colours of our memories, in the sea foam forming bubbles that pop and echo your laughter, your songs, your warmth.

Three years, and they say time heals all wounds. I refuse this, because in you, the sea only grows deeper; heart suffocating in wounds unhealed, stories untold.

It’s not that Derek likes Stiles or anything, because even if Stiles does smell like warmth, home and the crackles of fire with hot chocolate in winter, Stiles is Stiles and Derek is Derek and there is absolutely no such thing as Stiles and Derek. It’s just that Derek doesn’t like feeling second best to anything - especially homework and tests and school - and not because of anything else. Really.

(aka the story where Derek is really sorta awkward/cute/in denial, Stiles is a bloody tease and curly fries bring them together.)

A/N: first sterek/fanfiction in years! #accomplished

Love.

I want to feel it on my fingertips, feel it blossom under my skin and burst into sparks that ignite static in the air. I want it to envelop me, overcoming fears and doubts - to watch as it puts a spring in my step, a melody in my ears and overwhelm my heart. I want it the way that we need air, every breath influencing all my actions and thoughts.

How it must feel like, to be entirely sated with a being simply for existing. The ways they move or laugh or smile, the tiniest freckle on their cheek to the barely hidden mole on the back of their wrist. The rise of their chest with every inhale and the accompanying fall with every exhale.

I forget how long it has been since the feeling has come and gone, staying only to consume everything I am and leaving the shell of a ghost behind.

To all those in love, you don’t know how lucky you are.

Sometimes I find myself picking apart flowers in my head, pulling petal upon petal and watching them dissolve into nothing. There is a beauty in broken things, how once destroyed there is an inner peace and loveliness in the simplicity of it all - no grandeur or great wall of lies to cover everything up.

Today it begins again, and as I pluck the remaining few petals I recall every happy memory you gave me, every promise and comfort that you swore in the early hours of the morning or at the silent hours of the night; all the times I believed that you would never, ever leave me.

He loves me.

Then I recall the uglier memories, where all the walls are broken down and photographs burnt. You, who I trusted in dearly beyond any capacity that words could measure tore at my trust and withered all my love down into nothing.

He loves me not.

I still believe that I loved you once, and you did too.

He loves me.

But the last petal falls, and it is now too late for anything to be saved.

He loves me not.

Winter is announced yearly here with the arrival of rain; relentless storms that paint the sky with streaks of lightning and loud cracks of thunder. I say relentless because every storm in December reminds me of two years ago, you and that quiet staircase in the dark where the tiles were uneven and a faded red.

“There’s no need to be afraid, I’m here and you’re going to be okay.”

“…Promise?”

“Promise.”

I have since forgotten of the number of broken promises and memories that have shattered and fallen apart. They are countless and all the fingers and toes in the world will still not be enough for anyone to point out every single lie, every single sham.

There are no more tears and regrets left, but if you return assuming that I am still the same girl you rescued so many storms ago, think again. You forget that I am as strong as I am fragile, and all the songs in the world you can sing will never replace the hope I once held in you.

I am the product of a love story across 13,107 kilometers, the result of young love and a rebellious streak that runs within my veins. I am the child of two homes otherwise 2581 kilometers apart and if numbers fail to measure distances, remember that I am both here, there and everywhere.

“I graduated a year earlier than your father in college and flew back home. But I couldn’t stand being away from him. Everyone told me otherwise, but I saved up all my money and went back to America just to be with him. Your grandparents were furious, but I didn’t care. I had to do it.”

“…Why?”

“I missed him too much, and even though he often pissed me off it had to be done. When you’re young, you’ll do crazy things when you’re in love. That’s how it is, because if you truly love someone, you’re going to be willing to put up with whatever bullshit they throw at you.”

My mother is now a woman of forty five with the wisdom of those who live to be a hundred. She has often told me of the way love should be felt, with clammy palms and rapid heartbeats. The way pulses should flutter upon sight and daydreams never end. That love should be crazy, foolish, reckless but never regrettable. 

I never understood any of this until I met you.

You, who ignites the fire to destroy but calms the tempest. You, who promises always and forever despite my doubts. You, who has seen me at my worst but still chooses to stay. You, who I want to leave but never do because I cannot bear leaving. 

You, because out of all these distances that created me, helped me meet you 0 miles apart in thoughts and reality.

“But what is an art exam like?”

What is an art exam like? It is the monotonous whirring of the fans above and the periodic soft snores from my right. The smell of my markers and the squeak they occasionally make as they touch the paper. The furious scribbling of colour pencils from the figure in the front and the slouching one in the corner that never seems to move. The near silent one behind and the sound of the blinds constantly hitting each other. The noise of the room and the silence that lingers after every sound. The cold of the air-con and the warmth from the streaming rays of sunlight through the window. The blank stares at empty canvases devoid of inspiration and the joyful smiles on completing the final piece.

Oh, only if they knew the beauty of art exams. They are like long-winded plays with ten acts and a grand finale but no encore. They are everything like flowers blooming in spring and the dead trees in winter. They are stories that you want to read but never want to finish. They are everything I love and everything I don’t want. They are a contrast in opinion and companions to the very end.

But no matter what I say, I know they will never understand.

“It is better than any exam you will ever take.”