Sometimes I Forget How To Exist When I'm Not Being Perceived. How Should I Be? How Should I Hold Myself?

sometimes i forget how to exist when i'm not being perceived. how should i be? how should i hold myself?

i actually don't know if i loved you. i think i might have loved how much you loved me.

i didn't mean to overthink things. i just make up stories sometimes, like how amazing you are in my head. those thoughts aren't always good thoughts. those thoughts aren't always good thoughts.

you left your things here and i hold them sometimes.

if you called me i would still pick up. but i don't think i could love you. not how you want me to at least.

so how do i love? you will ask, but i don't have an answer so i will take you to a field on a warm spring day where the bees dance over the flowers in bloom.

how do i hold you? you will ask, but i don't have an answer so i will take you to an empty coop and show you how to hold an egg without breaking it.

how shall i talk with you? you will ask, but i don't have an answer so i sit with you in a quiet church where the bells are singing to us.

how do i fix myself? you will ask, but i don't have an answer so i cut off my hands and let you wear them until they are bruised and broken.

how do you love me? you will ask me on a quiet night. look. i will say. look at all i do. this time i have an answer, but i mustn't tell you yet. instead i will show you the sky and the ocean, how the meeting on the horizon is brisk and sweet in the evenings. how the clouds gather in unison. how to love someone that might not deserve it. the answer is i will teach you what i know of love, what i know of holding and caring, while also knowing it will not be used on me.

but i mustn't tell you that, because you will not believe me when i say that my love supersedes even me.

“well i feel to young to hold on, and i’m much too old to break free and run, too deaf, dumb and blind to see the damage i’ve done. sweet lover, you should’ve come over. oh, love and i waited for you”

lover you should’ve come over by jeff buckley

but what if i’m eighty-five and still thinking about this? what if i am still remembering the pleats under your eyes? the fine slopes of hair on the nape of your neck— wringing me to ashes. what then? what do i do with the knowing? ask this, as if it is not my confession: i will know you until i cannot know anything else. what a silly thing, to confess indirectly. whispering, in the margins: are you understanding me? i am saying i love you. i am saying i loved you then and love you now. still, you.

i can't seem to do anything right so leave me. no please. save me the leaving I hate that part most. i'm messy work. i don't love properly, i either swallow it whole. or can't stomach it. they both hurt. everything hurts.

this isn't my first time loving... but i haven't learnt anything it seems. i’m still messy work. you can't save me... no matter how much i wish you could.

“you make love like a woman, yes, you do. then you ache like a woman, yes, you do. but you break like a little girl.”

just like a women - live at sin-é, new york, ny - july/august 1993 by jeff buckley