Writers & Lovers

by Lily King

I don’t write because I think I have something to say. I write because if I don’t, everything feels even worse.

I look into my eyes, but they aren’t really mine, not the eyes I used to have. They’re the eyes of someone very tired and very sad, and once I see them I feel even sadder and then I see that sadness, that compassion, for the sadness in my eyes, and I see the water rising in them. I’m both the sad person and the person wanting to comfort the sad person. And then I feel sad for that person who has so much compassion because she’s clearly been through the same thing, too. And the cycle keeps repeating.

Speechless. Absolutely speechless

The plants all seem satisfied, thriving, and it makes you feel that way, too, or at least

that thriving is a possibility.

It was strong, whatever was between us, thick, like the wet air and the smell of every green thing ready to bloom. Maybe it was just spring. Maybe that’s all it was.

He kissed where I was touching, just below my collarbone, in that place where all my feelings got caught.

This is the most beautiful thing anyone has ever written

He said we’d have to find a way into each other’s lives. He did not say how.

‘I’m usually better at protecting myself from this kind of thing.’ ‘From heartbreak?’ ‘Yeah.’ My throat is closing. ‘I can usually get out of the way before it hits me straight on.’ ‘That’s not really heartbreak then, is it?’

THATS NOT REALLY HEARTBREAK THEN, IS IT??

‘You can’t really love from inside a big thick shell.’

The hardest thing about writing is getting in every day, breaking through the membrane. The second-hardest thing is getting out. Sometimes I sink down too deep and come up too fast.

but it scared me, the idea that this professional might go in and find that other person inside me, the person who was feeling all the things I did not let myself feel.

LIKE ARE YOU KIDDING??? Yeah. YUP

I have a problem with that sometimes, getting attached.

me fucking too

You don’t realize how much effort you’ve put into covering things up until you try to dig them out.

me dealing with my trauma in therapy

as if to say I’ll put this down on the page but it’s not what I really mean because what I really mean cannot be put into words.

SONGWRITING FEELS LIKE THIS SOMETIMES. ANY WRITING. we write to preserve memories, forget them, cope with them- but sometimes words are simply not enough

It’s like not being able to catch my breath except that I can’t catch any part of me.

There’s some thin covering over me that hides it all.

I feel this way a lot about chronic pain. If only people could see it

I remember the feeling I had, the thrill of it, but I don’t remember many of the words.

Now I understand it’s how boys are raised to think, how they are lured into adulthood. I’ve met ambitious women, driven women, but no woman has ever told me that greatness was her destiny.

I’m like a bag of panic held in by a thin sac of skin.

My throat has seized up, and I’m sipping small bits of air. I have a lot of crying in me, but not a tear comes out. I’m just trying to breathe. It’s starting again, that need to somehow get out of my body. My heart is hammering so fast it feels like one long beat on the verge of bursting. Death, or something bigger and much less peaceful, feels so close, just over my shoulder.

The way she writes about anxiety and panic in this book make me feel seen like never before

All that love has to go somewhere.’

But where does it go

didn’t know you could blow an interview by feeling too at ease. I didn’t know that was a danger.

MY JAW DROPPED READING THIS I FELT LIKE I WAS REALIZING THINGS ™️

I wonder if there is some part of me now that wants to die, wants to hoist the white flag and admit defeat. What if my body is done trying to make things work? What if it doesn’t want what I want?

What if this is all the life I get?

My disappearance from this earth won’t make much of a ripple. But I beg anyway.

It’s so much easier to cry when there are arms around you.

😭😭😭😭😭

God, I like myself when I’m with you.’ ‘I’m not sure that’s being in love with me, Oscar. That’s being in love with you.’

GET HIMMMMMM

And I don’t think you’re in love with him. You just needed to play out an old attraction.’

For a moment all my bees have turned to honey.

MY HEART MELTED FOR HER READING THIS!! SHES TRYING TRYING TRYING AND FINALLY FINDS PEACE