get busy living

"i.
nostalgia smells like vanilla ice cream &
lost baby teeth & the first house you lived in &
band-aids & pinky swears & scraped knees &
fairy dust & your favourite english teacher
handing out gold stars like candy.
nostalgia is the dead thing that stays
dead. it resists resurrection.
it says: how do you save yourself
from the things you once were?
ii.
regret feels like tickets for missed trains &
secrets whispered when someone is asleep &
looks given when someone isn’t looking back &
snapped wishbones & grocery lists of could-have-beens &
attention paid to wrong things.
regret is more powerful than time.
it says: you silly girl. look what almost was
if you had only been brave enough.
iii.
shame looks like stretch marks &
broken glass & handprint-shaped bruises &
dirty sheets & lipstick stains & pills pills pills &
kryptonite in the shape
of someone you once recognised.
shame is the only lover that offers
the self-loathing to keep you both warm.
it says: i am your favourite bedfellow
and i will make sure you never forget.
iv.
love tastes like cotton candy &
diary entries & wasted hours &
there are small loves & forbidden loves &
waited-too-long loves & cruel loves &
i-want-you-but-you-want-someone-else loves.
love demands an audience when it walks in
or sleeps like a fairytale.
it says: i understand waiting. i understand
that sometimes, it takes a kiss
to save a life.
iv.
loneliness smells like empty restaurants &
hallways of strangers & untouched hands &
one thousand years without human contact &
birthdays spent alone & atrophying tongues &
long walks by very deep lakes.
loneliness never looks you in the eye.
it says: sometimes it takes
one kind of grief 
to understand another."

“the museum of sad things” // natalie wee
(via wondersmithinc)

(Source: natalieweepoetry, via lesbianmyth)