Soul Writers

The Life That Costs Everything. There are days when living comes easy. When the sun feels like a blessing and not just another morning you have to get through. When your feet move without thinking, when you find yourself smiling before you've even decided to be happy. And then there are days like this. Days when every breath feels like lifting a stone. When your hands are heavy not with surrender, but with the weight of everything you're still carrying. When the only reason you're still standing is because falling would feel too much like giving up. Those are the lives that matter. Not the ones that float. Not the ones that come free. The ones you have to fight for. The hard-fought ones. The been-through-hell ones. The ones you offer to the world with hands that are still shaking from the storm. You've wrestled with the dark. You've sat in rooms where hope felt like a rumor. You've carried grief in your chest like a second heartbeat, and still—still—you reached for light. Not because it was easy. Because the alternative was unthinkable. Living isn't pretty when it's real. It's scarred. It's honest. It's the sound of someone who has every reason to stop and keeps going anyway. So bring your storm-tossed self. Bring your torn-sail, story-to-tell life. Bring the one that cost you something. Because the world, the one that watched you wrestle, that sat with you in the dark, that never left even when you couldn't feel that world doesn't want your perfect life. It wants this. The hard-fought one. The one that comes from the place where your voice cracks and your hands tremble and you're not sure you believe in tomorrow but you face it anyway. That life? That one changes things. Not because it fixes everything. Because it proves something in you is still alive enough to try. And maybe—just maybe—that's what it means to be human. Not certainty. Not answers. Not the absence of pain. Just the stubborn, sacred choice to keep living until your soul catches up with the life you're building. So live it. The hard-fought one. The been-through-hell one. Live it until it becomes true. Or live it just because you need to say something in the direction of hope. Either way—live. Your life has already been witnessed. ✍ @LostBoy81

Shake and Cam Camus said one of the hardest hitting things in philosophy I think. He said, "The only serious question in philosophy is to commit suicide or not." Shakespeare, I believe, said his famous line, alluding to this point; "To be or not to be, that is the question!" Because I also believe that, determining whether any endeavor during being alive is worth it is determing an unshakeable truth about reality; you would have found the one Truth. Author: @virtualmatter

ገና በመጣ ቁጥር ስርጉድ ጉንጯን ነው ማስታውሰው።  She had a special fondness for gifts. It was never about how much they cost or what they were, it was the simple, profound joy of being remembered. Of knowing someone had carried her in their thoughts “ትሞት ኢኻ! Don’t even stress about it,” was her advice whenever she thought I was overanalyzing life. She hated death and oblivion; I guess that’s why she lived so vividly. And yes, she was a true polyglot. She’s the only person I ever happen to know crying simultaneously to Celine Dion’s French songs (ሴሊን ፍራንኮፎን እንደሆነች በሷ ነው ያወኩት), Astuka’s “ሰው መሆኔ” [that song, even the intro, used to send chills down my spine] and Abraham Afewerki’s guitar work. ጂጂ ወንድ ብትሆን ጉራማይሌ ብላ የምትዘፍነው ለሷ ነበር።  I was always torn between loving her dynamic mind and her extra-cute ጠይም ፊት. She felt like someone out of this epoch. She didn’t just lower her guard she dived fearlessly headfirst into life. Her  love wasn't done cautiously, waiting for people to prove themselves. She loved the way you love the night air ,deeply, instinctively, breathing it all in. ሰው እየጠበቀች አይደለም የምትወደው። ናይትሮውን ረግጣ ነው የምታፈቅረው። “ሴትዮ ትርፍ ልብ አለሽ?” Countless times, I nearly said it and stopped. She never tried to hide her love, not even a little. ያመጣሁላትን ቸኮላት ስትበላ ፣ አንገቷን ስትሳም ፣ የማያስቅ ቀልድ ጀምራ መሀል ላይ ስትስቅ ፣ ሲቃ ሲተናነቃት ፣ ከፀጉሯ ጋር ስትጫወት አቦ! ሁሉም መልኳ ያምር ነበር። And I ask you, my brother: what is the greatest gift a person has ever given you? As for me? I won’t pretend to be humble. I was given a whole, beautiful heart. But perhaps we should leave aside the story of what I did with it.... ኦሪዮ

Until the Bones Forget You kill yourself over and over again, hoping that next time, you won’t have to. That is not hope that is ritual. A slow extinguishing, a prayer for a different ending to a story you keep rewriting with the same bloody pen. You hate every piece of yourself, cut them out like paperwork neat, precise, administrative self-destruction. And what’s left is not a person, but shattered particles, a human constellation with no map, no myth, no north star. Just dust that remembers it was once a body. You live in the house of regret, furnished with “if only” and “I should have,” a museum of doors you cannot reopen. You pace its halls, trying to rehearse a past that won’t change, mouthing lines to ghosts who don’t listen. You wish for dreams you know will never happen not because you lack faith, but because you see them for what they are: metaphors, not realities. Beautiful, aching metaphors for a life you’re too afraid to live. You think too much. You build universes in your mind, design systems, laws, constellations, as if you could think your way into salvation. As if you were the savior of everything except yourself. You are lost. You think home is everywhere but inside your own heart, so you wander the world looking for a door that only opens from within. You thought you could handle the emptiness but it’s a divine duty, and you are only human. You are lost because your expectations are limited to your good deeds as if kindness were a currency to pay your way out of pain. As if the universe kept receipts. You are lost because now, after all the thinking, the cutting, the wishing, the killing you know nothing. The certainty of suffering has dissolved into the terror of not knowing. Of not even knowing what you do not know. So you are lost. So I am lost. Because now… I don’t know anything either. ••• ✍ @LostBoy81

I've never remembered the face of a man I've liked. Maybe the back of their head. The specific ways they walk. Their breathing patterns I sync myself to. But never the face. It's been said that to kill your victim, you ought to turn their face so as not to look directly into their eyes as the human face is structured in a way that generates empathy subconsciously. The face says "I am like you, spare me." The moment of hesitation in seeing familiarity serves as a solid defense for said victim. I'd like to think one relates to the other. The lack of faces and empathy. I feel as if a person's emotional hold tends to release the day you forget their face. So what would it imply if their face never registered? Sometimes the hands, maybe their tone of voice. But never the face.

I told you from the first though: all this is about her. This is about her, and I didn't even tell you who she is. Yeah. I won't tell you. By : ✍ @LostBoy81 Le me know if you want part - 2

About Her Love is something else. I mean, a lot of people say they have their definition for love, but it's hard to give just one definition or interpretation. It's something indescribable. It's a feeling, you know? You can't always say it, but you can feel it. Sometimes it feels like a song melody that plays round and round again and again. And with every repetition, there's always something new that adds up—a new music note, a new key you never knew existed. Like, "Where did this come from?" But still, it feels greater every day. It's hard to tell you about true love. I mean, what is true love? I don't even know what it is. I can't tell you; I can't even make you understand, you know? I mean, it's like quantum physics. You guys know about quantum physics? I mean, it's physics but without the major physics laws. Like, there's no time, no space, no gravity—just existence. Yeah, I know, how is that even possible, right? Some people call it God's physics. But it's true though; it's only existence. And there's an even more complex part of it called... Quantum Entanglement. It says that two or more particles become linked in such a way that the state of one instantly affects the state of the other, no matter how far apart they are, and at the exact same time. They can be billions, trillions, quadrillions of light-years apart. They could be a googol apart—a number that contains 10¹⁰⁰ zeros—or even a googolplex: 10^(10¹⁰⁰) zeros. They could be these numbers of universes apart and yet still be connected somehow. See? You can't separate them, no matter how you try. I'm not trying to teach you about quantum physics or quantum entanglement. I don't want to, and I don't even understand it either. You know, just like "true love." No matter how different you two are, or how you went in different ways, or how you haven't seen each other or contacted each other in so many years... there's still a feeling in you. You know that feeling? You remember it? The feeling from when you were together is still there, still hiding. But you already forgot about it, right? And you didn't even know how you forgot about it, either. But there's always something that triggers it, like a time bomb. It's triggered by seeing that person, or just the idea of that person crossing your mind. Or sometimes, there's nothing you can pinpoint that triggered it—only time. At that time, boom, suddenly that feeling strikes. You don't know how the other person is feeling, or if they're even dead or alive. You don't know a thing. And yet, somehow, the feelings come back. "That feeling." And suddenly your brain starts to trick you; you start to go back in time or even create scenarios in your head with that person. You still feel that unavoidable feeling of love. No matter how far, far away you are from them, you still want to make it right. You still want it to be that person. You still love them in a way you can't explain. It's like you're still connected, even if you didn't want to be. And something triggered that feeling that changed your state of mind, and you don't even know how, why, or even when. You can't know it, no matter how many times you ask yourself. You just feel it at that exact time. No answer. How or why or even when that feeling developed to be this strong after all you've been through, after all those years have passed. I don't even know what it is though. Is that even true love? Or is it something else beyond true love? I don't even know what "beyond true love" is, to be honest. But somehow, this is what I feel. This is how I feel about her. I wish she is still strong and living the happiest life. I wish her dreams came true. I wish she is NOT feeling the way I feel right now. Because this feeling isn't something like heaven; it feels more like hell, full of agony and pain. I hate this feeling so much, but it won't go away because I hate it.

I wasn't ready when I met you. But I couldn't let you go. With a single look, you brought down the walls I'd spent years building. So I gathered the broken pieces of my heart and stitched them back together, making room for you. I swept the dust of my life beneath the rug, locked my fears and old wounds in the closet, and pulled the best version of myself from the laundry basket, smoothing every wrinkle before I wore it just for you. But dust has a way of finding the light. Little by little, it slipped back into the open. The things I had hidden behind closed doors grew louder, stronger, harder to ignore. And when the polished version of me had worn thin, all that remained in the laundry was what I'd tried so hard to keep out of sight: old, crumpled, and unmistakably mine. Pretending wasn't enough. Every room I had closed off eventually found its way open. You wandered through the wreckage, and somewhere between the dust and the broken hinges, you decided this wasn't a place you could call home. - Belle

Phoenix They say every fire dies if you starve it long enough. They never met mine. Mine burned like Greek fire, feeding on everything meant to smother it. Time offered no relief. Distance only taught it to travel farther. Silence became another kind of fuel. Every unanswered prayer, every imagined future, every version of your name I whispered only widened the blaze. You never loved me. Not intentionally or with malice. You simply belonged to a horizon I could never reach. And still, my heart mistook the sun for something it could hold. I spent years trying to douse the flames. I buried them beneath reason. Flooded them with distractions. Named them obsession, grief, infatuation, anything but love. But Greek fire laughs at water. It burns upon the sea as if the waves themselves had sworn allegiance to it. So I surrendered. If loving you was the fire I had been given, then let it burn. Let it consume every illusion I ever built around who I thought I needed to be. Let it blacken my pride, my certainty, my desperate need to be chosen. Let it reduce every false hope to ash. And one day, maybe not next week, or next month or even next year, but definitely one day, I will rise from the ashes like the phoenix. - Belle

Rise and shine each day, Where sky are cloudy, There are cats that need to be attended, Dogs that need to be fed, Lawns that need some trimming, Buttons that need to be sewed, Not one job that is too big, B small things that are left unnoticed, Busy birds chirp all morning, And busy bee's buzz all day, As do I - a busy person fussing over a lot of nothings, And when the night is over, And I'm on my own, I find myself thinking, I find my curious mind wondering, Who is now left for me? Who's left in my life, That doesn't leave me questioning my worth? That doesn't make me wonder if I am enough? And I draw back to the emptiness of nothing, And I make blankets out of the dark, To make it feel like home, So I can wake up the next morning, Ready to shine my light gain, And if I don't , I'll stay a little bit longer under the duvets, Until my light starts flickering again. #Penny_for_your_thoughts ?

3 Ways / 1 Thing You feel 3 ways about 1 thing, how do you then feel? Confused? If you say that, then maybe you're a rough person. Maybe there's a name for it, or maybe it's nameless. It's maybe its own thing, like a tricolor color... It's a weird color. Maybe you can't imagine it the same way you can't imagine new colors? Either ways, Feel good Author: @virtualmatter

Excerpts from my journal(just come home) . . . Growing up in Ethiopia means losing all the women you love to their need for men. Being abandoned for dead for the flickering love of a man and maybes. Even the self proclaimed feminists uphold misogyny in the hopes that if they play their cards right that they might get a good man. Roughening up gentle patches because of the narrative that men love bitches. "The meanest woman you know has the most devoted husband". Utter bullshit. But. It's hope. And it looks pretty on you. I wish you were who you are. I wish your desire didn't outweigh human connection. I wish you knew that my embrace was warmer than any man's bed or your thoughts of a future. Even grown women believe that their miserable marriage is a misstep on their side. An inappropriate gamble on a man's behavior. That if you had played your cards right, if you were more coy, more secretive, more funny, more...but somehow you're too much? You project the game on your daughter, hoping and dreading she wins. Hoping so that you live vicariously through her and that all your efforts aren't for nothing. Dreading that if she does that means you didn't play good enough. You center love but love is everywhere. You just want to feel chosen. Feel like you have something to prove for your existence. I won't say decenter men, that has been said enough. Center belongingness, giddiness, joy, want, not necessity. An understanding that you'll choose yourself everytime. You are for you. We don't outsource self care/care for self here. I love you, come home. We can be girls together. . . .

“የማያውቁት ሀገር አይናፍቅም” (ራስን ስከሳ) I want to hold your hands in mine. I want to lick your lips and sing you songs I wrote in dreams. I want us. Heavens, I want us all the time. ግን ደሞ, I have seen impatience consume love like Greek fire. I have seen Orpheus curse Eurydice to a world he cannot travel to again. Where he will no longer be able to hold her, Where all he has is her smile etched onto the back of his eyes, Her laughter like a bow, wrapped around his spine, Where his ears shall forever seek but never will find. ስለቸኮለ ብቻ. Impatience, Too eager. Now an impregnable wall sits between him, and his eternity, Impatience did this, አይደብርም? See, እኔ, I will choose another route and be patient forever. ለ ዘ ለ አ ለ ም! I refuse myself his pain, I will not marry it willingly! ምን መሰለሽ? I will love you from afar until time takes you away from my unlearned fingers. I’ll pretend to be selfless, for fear’s sake, when all the while my unseen love lingers. በቅጡ ሳላውቅሽ እንዲ ከናፈቅሽኝ ያወኩሽ ቀን አይጣል! “ግደይኝ” ይመጣል. “ገለሽ በቀበርሽኝ!” But then again, You have such a pretty smile. I don’t mind having it etched on the back of my eyes, ለዘለአለም! እርጋታው ይደርሳል.

She walks in to the room, She need not ask where to sit. She walks as her dress flails around her feet, The folds trying their best not to get in her way. She smiles in the direction of the man she loves, The man who loves her back, Often in quiet ways but in ways no one can deny. She sits where she is wanted-expected-reserved. She sits with no questions asked. I watch her from the floor, Where my imagination placed me, The only place I know to look from. He doesn't smile upon her presence, nor does he move about. He sits there observing, taking in her warmth.  She is loved and she knows. She is wanted and she knows. She is the girl everybody envied and he knows. He would die for her if she asked and she knows. Yet she offers up her heart on a platter for him. It's what makes her a women of his choice. And it is his choice that completes her as a woman. #Penny_for_your_thoughts?

መኖር ገድል (1) ሕልም ነበረኝ የመጠቀ÷ ከኖርኩበት እጅግ የራቀ ተስፋ ነበር የሚመዘዝ ÷ ለደስታዬ የሚታዘዝ ውጤት ነበር÷ የሚጠበቅ በነገዬ የሚራቀቅ..... መኖር ሚሉት÷ አጉል ገድል ቀኔን ሰራው÷ በእሾህ ድልድል የልፋቴን÷ መች አገኘሁ የሃዘን ክራር ÷በእጄ ቃኘሁ የእንባ ብዛት÷ ላያሽረኝ መናገሬ ÷ላያደነኝ ብዙ ለፋሁ÷ ብዙ ደከምኩ በእንባ ፀበል÷ ልቤን አከምኩ ሃዘን ሆዴን÷ ገዝግዞታል መኖር ሸክም ÷አዝሎታል መውጣት መውረድ÷ አረገኝ ስል ደነዘዝኩኝ እስክበስል ጭንቀት ዜማ ÷እንባ ግጥም አዋዛሁት ÷በደስታ ጥም:: ዚታክ https://t.me/yegtmalem32

Chilling in the Chilly I go out and there's wind outside. To me it is tame, but others they are in dis-ease. Tonight, I welcome the cold, because it beats against me, and I need the beating. Tonight, I want to fight with the wind, I want to see what it's got. It started raining, almost as if to say, "You asked for it..." But I was chilling tho, I wasn't hostile or nothing. @virtualmatter

Tietle (A tie shaped like a turtle? I kid) How about if the world did it this way? Giving attention to things of huge import first and then once those are resolved, giving attention to trivial things? Or is it that one will never finish giving attention to important things cause they are so many, and be left with no time for the trivial things? Or is it that the trivial things aren't so trivial? That they are almost as important?

I can feel my heart beating on my skin I feel my ribs open like arms seeking your pretty name to hold within ፈራሁ ሲበዛ ወደድኩሽ መሰለኝ Mithril