You Say You Can't Understand. You Say How Can I Be Ok, Walking Around With This Brave Face, But If I

She's sickenly sweet like honey with her crooked teeth, her breath smells like candy and her pretty stray eyelash, decorates her cheeks. She's a Venus fly trap. She's got stickers in her hair, glitter on her face and paint on her shoes. She gives her heart away like she has nothing to lose. She's the kind to make wishes on dandelions and to believe that when the stars align she can communicate with the divine in her dreams. We drove out to a field, laid under her "special tree" and watched the tall grass sway in the sunlight. It was something out of a movie. Do I want to be her or do I want to be with her? I couldn't pull it apart without leaving behind spider webs of her and I, traces of each other, like perfume clinging to a sweater I haven't worn in months. She's like a dream.

—Camille Lee, dream girl

Love is the one who holds the ladder when I climb up to change the curtains. Love is the one that insists "let me do it, it's dangerous." but love is afraid of heights and holds the ladder with a white knuckle grip, despite the fall only being three feet deep. "It's still a long way to fall." Love is knowing I must be the one to change the curtains no matter what love says because love is still deathly afraid of heights, and love is mine to protect as much as I am theirs.

— Camille Lee, love is the one who holds the ladder

How long must one pay until they've atoned for their mistakes? Am I branded somewhere, is it written on my face, big and bold what I've done? Has it fused and become a part of me? Will I need to gnaw it off like a limb, since it's etched into my skin, to be rid of it? How long do I carry these chains until I've paid for my sins? My bones are weary, surely after all this time, you'll have mercy.

— Camille Lee, do I have your permission to forgive myself?

When you know yourself you know life ⋆⋅♡⋅⋆

He was the first guy, I tried the "talking stage" with. I told him slow, glacially slow, like a candle burning into the late hours of the night, but he didn't hear over his own wants, his own needs. It was part of the reason it was the end of our season, on his way out the door he broke my heart all over and I knew I dodged a bullet when his ego started talking. Suddenly, oh so suddenly, I wasn't worthy of someone like him. Suddenly my beauty was too little and there was something wrong with me, so much for "you're my ideal girl" because now apparently I "wasn't even that pretty" and my version of normal was a problem. The way I was, was a problem. You said if I'm not happy with you, I'll never find a boyfriend. At the mere age of twenty with so much life left to live ahead of me, did you really think that's what I'd believe? The audacity— to try to convince me I wasn't worth loving, if I didn't want to be with you. My only regret is I didn't laugh in your face, so much for the "talking stage."

—Camille Lee, you'll never find a boyfriend

I'm a long way from the girl who sat under the mango tree, in the back of the school and listen to cars passing by on the highway after school. She would close her eyes and pretend the sound of the cars on the road were the sound of waves crashing on the shoreline. She had the wildest and most vivid imagination. I look at her now in photos and memories, and I realize, I'm not that kid anymore, I'm not. The magic of the world isn't held in my eyes anymore.

—Camille Lee, 4:30 p.m.

I've desired this 'strength' they've talked of all my life, too weak to cope, too fragile to hold my own and so sensitive. Versatility was something elusive to me and I can't find it in me to truly focus on what's happening around me, like watching a movie. Dazed, stumbling through a haze, going through the motions, ignoring the commotion taking place outside of my own destruction. Why wasn't I born with one of those 'strong personalities' my mother spoke of? Can't I create it from scratch? Kneed it like dough, bake it like cake, mold it from clay, carve it into and out of stone. Were some of you just born at home in your own skin? You look down your nose most assuredly, constantly at me, yet I still look for your empathy and understanding foolishly, hoping one day you'd finally see me.

—Camille Lee, strong personalities

I'm not religious but I prayed for this, I begged the sky, I pleaded with the earth, the dirt under my fingers, fistfuls in each hand, the grass beneath my feet and the rocks scraping my knees. I implored the planet, the cosmos and the isolating, quiet of the pitch-black backdrop of the abyss, of the universe, of the stars and all that exists far beyond my reach. please, please send me the one, the perfect one, the destined one, my other half, my soulmate, the one to complete me. I don't believe in love at first sight but I still wish to be loved unabashedly. I stumble in my prayer, does such a person even exist? am I incomplete?

—Camille Lee

We were made for connection, us, it's what makes us human. The crook of my shoulder is a resting place for your weary head, your hand fits snug in mine and it might seem silly to say but we fit together like puzzle pieces when we cuddle, arms around my waist, you're fast asleep while I admire the details of your face. Falling into you would be easy— so easy, it would be like breathing. Therefore I think I deserve some credit, for resisting your outstretched hand, even when you look so kind, I still have no clue if its genuine, but you look so inviting under these lights.

—Camille Lee, falling into you