more than just words

Genre: Romance /Coming of Age /Drama Reading age: 18+ Rating: 7/10 You’ll like this if you’ve watched or read End of the F***ing World, It’s Kind of a Funny Story or anything which blends love and mental health. One of my favourite booktokkers always raves about this book, and as it’s black history month, it felt wrong not to read a book by a black author… so I picked up Seven Days in June by Tia Williams. The first thing that must be mentioned is that this story should be plastered with trigger warnings - self harm, substance abuse, suicide, sexual abuse, physical harm, death. You name it, the book has it - which I wasn’t too keen on, I know real life can be shit but I do feel like the story could have been just as powerful without so many different types of traumatic experiences. It almost diminishes the individual experiences in isolation and makes it seem like they must have a culmination of trauma to be worthy of our empathy. That being said it was really well written, very poetic

one day I got tired of complaining then my heart stopped aching to be loved and desired by you my attachment disintegrated as our dreams went up in flames a future cremated a present in purgatory and you did not even notice that your world was crumbling too preoccupied to have me on your mind you never saw it coming and it was happening right in front of you you ignored the signs and continued to take me for a ride but your ride has an end your vehicle only has space for one an incomplete journey caused by a dead end and instead of turning around it is time for me to get off no longer a passenger taken for granted by you

the thought of an existence without you  would shatter me into a million pieces  a million pieces which would solely exist to destroy the world for unravelling the threads that hold my heart together and fracturing my only chance at happiness you ignite the world i live in with you my faith in humanity is restored no longer a shadow of myself defying my instincts to reveal only the parts of me which people imagine to be true to the world you are formidable to me you are the world you make me believe in love