In Our Feelings
- eyeswidelove
- Feb 14, 2017
- 4 min read
A few words by women who have loved and felt love. Hand picked for this oh so special day.
Illustration by: Elliana Esquivel
"Moth" by Vanessa Rodriguez
From Vanessa's Facebook this afternoon... "I don't have a valentine this year but I wrote this about someone I was fond of last year and thought it'd be a nice sentiment to share on this day:
He was high, it was damp outside. Smoked cigarettes until my chest hurt.
Stayed out later than anticipated for his company. Plucked rosemary for me
to smell on his fingers, laughed at a dirty joke. Pamela came over, said he
was a lucky man to be sitting across from me. He shrugged awkwardly, I
shrugged awkwardly. He said he supposed he was. His enthusiasm for
storytelling was palpable. He described his screenplay, he read some of my
poetry. I peeled the label off my beer and placed it on his. We spoke about
finding a voice, about defining success. Bar owner told us about a man who
punched a girl the night before. She was sent to the hospital, he was never
caught. A bloody mess. The story heightens my paranoia but his presence
brings it back down. I'm scared of people. I watch the condensation from my
beer bottle create a thin puddle on my side of the table. I spread the water
around in circles. It's a nervous movement. My elbows get wet when I'm not
paying attention. He touches my arm in moments of excitement when he talks.
His eyes flash and I'm glad he's engaged. He was standing and now he's sitting.
He was teetering between coming and going but now he's here and he's looking
at me right in the eyes. He wants to hear what I have to say. He's participating
in this thing. He is present. The bar is packed with people but it's quiet outside.
I didn't expect to see him. I'm happy to have seen him. He buys me another
beer. He doesn't want to leave yet. That pleasantly surprises me. I stare at his
worn down sneakers as he reads something from my journal. I'm being very
vulnerable with him. I want to know what he thinks about everything. I try to
seem more casual than I am. This is a fleeting thing, but still. He is radiant and
I am a small moth clumsily bumping into his light."
"Undying Love" by Sarah
Taken from Sarah's Instagram
Know that I would still do it for you.
I still yearn the same cross for you.
I still yield the same signs for you.
Know that nothing has changed.
The stitches may have unraveled
Loose and unfitting
But I am still here.
Hanging not by your strings
But by my own.
I chose this,
I loved this
I never stopped.
I am still climbing
Reaching for your feet
As mine dangle
I choose this.
"Unlikely Pairing" by Lily
Taken from Lily's Instagram
"Wishing" by Courtney Paige
Taken from Courtney's Instagram
I awoke to find you looming over me. Your pale grey shadow cast upon my face as sunlight illuminated the negative space around you. It was nearly noon and I knew you'd be leaving soon, where to I had no idea, it was not my privilege to know. Parcels of dust and feathers flitted around you like fairies from the days of dragons. The air was temped and slightly damp as it tousled our hair from one position to the next with playful ease. The meadow was my favorite place to find you. A quiet utopia where effort met perfection in harmony, there I could see all of you in true form; no lies, no gimmicks, no fear. Just you, just me. As the sun rose higher in the sky your figure waned away in its rays. All that is left of you now is the scent of your presence; warm bourbon and ginger. Strands of copper hair have woven themselves into the fibers of a quilt upon which I lay, the same place where you first woke me with silken touch and fragile eyes. Return to the meadowlands I will with the smell of warm bourbon and ginger on my mind I'll find you. No matter how long the sun may hang in the sky, I'll find you with copper strands and a perfect flair.
Paired with the below image, of Hanna, taken by Tom Sawyer
Words By Hanna Yost Taken from Hanna's Instagram
A boy is laying his head on my chest. His grandmother has just died. I know nothing about death. 8 years later I still know nothing about death. No one close to me has died. Even my father, rotting with death from the inside out, given 6 months to live 6 years ago, has still not succumbed to death. Death is afraid of me. This boy gets closer to it than I ever seem to for all my trying, and he chooses to come to the house of a girl who knows nothing of death. For all my books, I know nothing. He puts his head on my chest, and every time I run my fingers through his hair, death gets a little smaller and love gets a little louder, and I think that's what the part about alleviating grief means in the definition of "console"--to actually make a room lighter, to make it less than all the heavy. To take the space death has occupied and replace it with something else--and death takes up so much space. People think it makes you empty, so they send food and flowers and a thousand unwanted things to clutter, but the closest I've been to death is by association, in that room, and it took up so much space there wasn't room for words. Not one word exchanged in hours. Just a head on my chest and my fingers in a boy's hair. Inconsolable, people say. I've thought a lot about what I would want when death finally catches up with my father, and every time I come back to a wordless room and a head on a chest and fingers in hair and death getting smaller and love getting louder.