I read somewhere that the act of peeling oranges for someone is considered love. I found it stupid.

Then one day, I was home after a tiring day and there were oranges sitting on the counter. I knew they had to be eaten that day, a day later, they’d be rotten.

I was just too tired.

I completed my chores, and the oranges were still there, colourful and nudging, hoping I’d pick them up.

I walked past, and found my bed. My head comfortably rested on the pillows.

Those damn oranges.

I got up, sat on the counter and peeled them grudgingly. As I ate in silence, I understood what they meant. It was love alright, not peeling oranges but being taken care of.

“I want to take my heart off my sleeve, it has grown too heavy.”

-m.n.

"My mind wants to be at peace, my heart to be loved, and my body to be at rest."

"Does it hurt?"

"I'll be okay."

"That isn't what I asked."

She started walking away from him, and there was a brief look of desperation on his face. "Wait," he called out, hoping she would stay for just a bit longer. "Don't go." She turned around and hesitated, before saying, "It's over. You can tell me a thousand lies. You can say that you've never met anyone like me before. You can laugh at all my jokes and stare at me like I'm the only woman in the world. You can tell me that it's always been me. But at the end of the day, she's the one you go home to. And I finally understand that that's never going to change."

Excerpt from a book I will never write #1425

“I watch him, and I think, he could be my soulmate.

But I hold myself back, I hold myself steady and let myself wonder if one day we will look back and laugh at our story. If one day we will be drinking coffee in the morning and talk about when we were young and dumb. He will tell me how much harder I made it for us, and I will shrug my shoulders and apologize for my stubbornness. And we will laugh and we will be together in the end.

And then I look down, and look back up to see him staring at me.”

- n.c. // and I hold myself back

for someone who loves words, i find it difficult to put my thoughts together. i have so much to say but the alphabets seem to stay alphabets alone—no phrase expressed, no sentence constructed. i wanted it to be coherent. i wanted it to be in-depth. i wanted it to be meaningful yet noncomplex. i want the words to linger and not just touch. stuck and not just hit. absorbed and not just flipped over. however, for someone who loves words, i cannot identify the right words to utter. it feels like no term can justify the feeling i wanted to memorialize. no idiom is that deep. no speech is that articulate. it is like there are not enough words in this world to seize the emotions i bear. though i love words, i am afraid i cannot find the words that are worthy to depict my experiences. with that, i am also afraid that such experiences will remain as memories in my mind—most likely to be forgotten and left behind.

I read somewhere that even though the poetry written during the Romantic period was filled with wonder, hope, mysticism and fancy, the poets themselves were cynics. They were mostly dejected (you cannot mention Romantic era and not offer a nod to Coleridge) and pessimistic. What cruel irony. Maybe that's why, I am so good at writing romance. I don't know it. I am terrifyingly good at portraying feelings I've never felt. I could describe in perfect detail, someone from their paramour's perspective like it were me. I breathe words. I am not good at many things, but words are my forte. I never fall short and I always know what to say. It's saddening how I can wax poetic and not mean a single thing. But sometimes, rarely, mind; I wish for the contrary. For a while, I'd like to be speechless. To care so much, I wouldn't know what to say. And to not care at all, about having to say something.

Who would I be if I didn't know exactly what to say to get you to love me?

But oh, what if you loved me without me having made you?

I’m past fleeting love. I want something serious. The ‘“I want you to be my safety and I’ll be your peace type of love.” A love where we fight for each other - not with each other. A love built on comfort, honesty, reassurance, and consistency. One where holding each other makes the good better and the bad easier. I want the forever type of love with you.

Excerpt from a book I’ll never write

I want you to want me, damn the consequences.

Sometimes, it is rather better not to look back, because I can no longer see you, nor feel you inside my heart, knowing that my heart only beats for nothing and no one, that it is only a physiological function, rather than, beating for someone like you and make me feel sad about things. And sometimes, I wonder, looking at the night sky, and realize that this is the only way— to close my eyes and reimagine you once more and let it go, to let you go, letting the wind take you and far from my sight.

— Chuck Akot, Niente e nessuno

We are out in the lands of magic, there is nothing you cannot be. Walk around the soft grass and write stories about the lakes, use your wings that have remained hidden for so long, and fly away to heights that cannot weigh you down. You are meant for musings, you are meant to be kissed like a photograph found after ages. You deserve slow dances, you deserve smiles, you deserve to be heard and felt. You deserve to be like a music album where the lyrics are nothing but snippets from your life. You deserve to live your dreams, the same dreams that keep you going. You are a dream, please be around dreamers.

-trustonlystars | Jannie F

The clock has only helped me dull. Colorful thoughts once filled my skull. But now I'm boring, cut & dry. Bring me back, before I die.

One minute you’re 16 thinking that this is the end of your life because you think you can’t deal with what you’re going through right now. Then the next thing you know, you’re almost in your mid-twenties, having the time of your life, living when you thought you’d be dead by now. You never thought you would come this far, but you did. And if no one has told you yet, I’m so proud of you.

Excerpts from a book I will never write #1445

I know my love and it’s worth. I know who I am, and I know I am good and a privilege to know. I will not make the same mistakes of trusting blindly after being hurt one too many times. I will never be convinced that I am poison again, and I never thought you would be the one to try and convince me of that. I know when it’s time to go and I know when I go, I will leave my absence and that will never fade.

- n.c. // i would have loved you forever and i hope you know what you have given up in your choice to hurt me.