
1
Let me wake up next to you, have coffee in the morning and wander through the city with your hand in mine, and I'll be happy for the rest of my fucked up little life.Charlotte Eriksson
2
So for now, I will miss you like I’ll never see you again, And the next time I see you, I will kiss you like I’ll never kiss you again, And when I fall asleep beside you I will fall asleep as if I’ll never wake up again, because I don’t know if I will. I don’t know if I will.- I Will Love You Like The World Is EndingCharlotte Eriksson
3
I haven’t been very impressed lately. By people, or places, or the way someone said he loved me and then slowly changed his mind.Charlotte Eriksson
4
So I am not a broken heart. I am not the weight I lost or miles or ran and I am not the way I slept on my doorstep under the bare sky in smell of tears and whiskey because my apartment was empty and if I were to be this empty I wanted something solid to sleep on. Like concrete. I am not this year and I am not your fault. I am muscles building cells, a little every day, because they broke that day, but bones are stronger once they heal and I am smiling to the bus driver and replacing my groceries once a week and I am not sitting for hours in the shower anymore. I am the way a life unfolds and bloom and seasons come and go and I am the way the spring always finds a way to turn even the coldest winter into a field of green and flowers and new life. I am not your fault. .Charlotte Eriksson
5
There’s something about arriving in new cities, wandering empty streets with no destination. I will never lose the love for the arriving, but I'm born to leave.Charlotte Eriksson
6
But I was youngand didn’t know betterand someone should have told me to capture every secondevery kiss & every night Because now I’m sitting here alone and it’s getting really hard to breath because tears are growing in my throat and they want to break out, but there are peoplewatchingand I just want to be somewhere silentsomewhere still But still I don’t want to be alone because I’m scared and lonelyand I don’t understand Because I was alone my whole life My whole life I was so damn lonely and I was content with thatbecause I liked myself and my own company and I didn’t need anyone I thought But then there was you ...So, someone should have told me that love is for those few brave who can handle the unbearable emptiness, the unbearable guilt and lack of oneself, Because I lost myself to someone I loveand I might get myself back one daybut it will take time, it will take time. This is gonna take some time. I wish someone would have told me this. Someone should have told me this. .Charlotte Eriksson

7
I am not a broken heart. I am not collarbones or drunken letters never sent. I am not the way I leave or left or didn’t know how to handle anything, at any time, and I am not your fault.Charlotte Eriksson
8
I thought that if I owned nothing, had nothing, was nothing, I would have nothing left to lose, and I wouldn't be scared anymore. Because my whole life I’ve been so damn scared. Scared to live because I was scared to die. But at the same I was so scared of living, so I wanted to die. Or maybe so scared of dying that I refused to live. You don't have to be afraid to fall, when you're already on the ground. You don't have to be scared to lose someone, when there's no one around to lose. .Charlotte Eriksson
9
You need to belong to yourself, and let others belong to themselves too. You need to be free and detached from things and your surroundings. You need to build your home in your own simple existence, not in friends, lovers, your career or material belongings, because these are things you will lose one day.Charlotte Eriksson
10
You were the hardest year of my life and I’ve never been so happy. What does that say about me?Charlotte Eriksson
11
I know there are days when even one single positive thought feels like too much effort, but you must develop an unconditional love for life. You must never lose your childish curiosity for the possibilities in every single day. Who you can be, what you can see, what you can feel and where it can lead you. Be in love with your life, everything about it. The sadness and the joys, the struggles and the lessons, your flaws and strengths, what you lose and what you gain.Charlotte Eriksson

12
You smoked another cigarette and we shared another coffee and it was just another morning that made me realise that this is all it takes to be happy.Charlotte Eriksson
13
Yesterday it was sun outside. The sky was blue and people were lying under blooming cherry trees in the park. It was Friday, so records were released, that people have been working on for years. Friends around me find success and level up, do fancy photo shoots and get featured on big, white, movie screens. There were parties and lovers, hand in hand, laughing perfectly loud, but I walked numbly through the park, round and round, 40 times for 4 hoursjust wanting to make it through the day. There's a weight that inhabits my chest some times. Like a lock in my throat, making it hard to breathe. A little less air got throughand the sky was so blue I couldn’t look at it because it made me sad, swelling tears in my eyes and they dripped quietly on the floor as I got on with my day. I tried to keep my focus, ticked off the to-do list, did my chores. Packed orders, wrote emails, paid bills and rewrote stories, but the panic kept growing, exploding in my chest. Tears falling on the desktick tick tickme not making a soundand some days I just don't know what to do. Where to go or who to see and I try to be gentle, soft and kind, but anxiety eats you up and I just want to be fine. This is not beautiful. This is not useful. You can not do anything with it and it tries to control you, throw you off your balance and lovely waysbut you can not let it. I cleaned up. Took myself for a walk. Tried to keep my eyes on the sky. Stayed away from the alcohol, stayed away from the destructive tools we learn to use. the smoking and the starving, the running, the madness, thinking it will help but it only feeds the fireand I don't want to hurt myself anymore. I made it through and today I woke up, lighter and proud because I'm still here. There are flowers growing outside my window. The coffee is warm, the air is pure. In a few hours I'll be on a train on my way to sing for people who invited me to come, to sing, for them. My own songs, that I created. Me–little me. From nowhere at all. And I have people around that I like and can laugh with, and it's spring again. It will always be spring again. And there will always be a new day.Charlotte Eriksson
14
It's the smell of him in the bathroom, all I need to get ready for the day. Watching him get dressed, and the sound in the kitchen; a slow hum of a song and his movements, picking things to eat. The way I could observe him, for hours, just go on with his day — or as he sleeps — simply breathing in and out, in and out, and it's like the hymn that sings me to peace. I know the world is still out there and I know I'm not yet friendly to its pace, but as long as I know him with me, here, there, somewhere — us — I know I have a chance. .Charlotte Eriksson
15
Take a shower, wash off the day. Drink a glass of water. Make the room dark. Lie down and close your eyes. Notice the silence. Notice your heart. Still beating. Still fighting. You made it, after all. You made it, another day. And you can make it one more. You’re doing just fine.Charlotte Eriksson
16
So I was a stone in the sea. Gravity gave up on keeping me above the surface. I did not try to swim and so I sank to the bottom with no will to turn back. ”I’m tired, ” I told him. ”I’m done”. But he wouldn’t let me and he held me up even on his hardest days and he was a lighthouse when all I saw was darkness.Charlotte Eriksson
17
I am not a Sunday morning inside four wallswith clean bloodand organized drawers. I am the hurricane setting fire to the forestsat night when no one else is aliveor awakehowever you choose to see itand I live in my own flamessometimes burning too bright and too wildto make things lastor handlemyself or anyone elseand so I run.run run runfar and wideuntil my bones ache and lungs splitand it feels good. Hear that people? It feels goodbecause I am the slave and ruler of my own bodyand I wish to do with it exactly as I please .Charlotte Eriksson
18
The stars are brilliant at this time of night and I wander these streets like a ritual I don’t dare to break for darling, the times are quite glorious. I left him by the water’s edge, still waving long after the ship was goneand if someone would have screamed my name I wouldn’t have heard for I’ve said goodbye so many times in my short life that farewells are a muscular task and I’ve taught them well. There’s a place by the side of the railway near the lake where I grew up and I used to go there to burry things and start anew. I used to go there to say goodbye. I was young and did not know many people but I had hidden things inside that I never dared to show and in silence I tried to kill them, one way or the other, leaving sin on my body scrubbing tears off with saltand I built my rituals in farewells. Endings I still cling to. So I go to the ocean to say goodbye. He left that morning, the last words still echoing in my headand though he said he’d come back one day I know a broken promise from a right onefor I have used them myself and there is no coming back. Minds like ours are can’t be tamed and the price for freedom is the price we pay. I turned away from the oceanas not to fall for its pleafor it used to seduce and consume meand there was this one nighta few years back and I was not yet accustomed to farewellsand just like now I stood waving long after the ship was gone. But I was younger then and easily fooledand the ocean was deep and dark and blueand I took my shoes off to let the water freeze my bones. I waded until I could no longer walk and it was too cold to swim but still I kept on walking at the bottom of the sea for I could not tell the difference between the ocean and the lack of someone I loved and I had not yet learned how the task of moving on is as necessary as survival. Then days passed by and I spent them with my work and now I’m writing letters I will never dare to send. But there is this one day every year or sowhen the burden gets too heavyand I collect my belongings I no longer needand make my way to the ocean to burn and drown and start anewand it is quite wonderful, setting fire to my chains and flames on written wordsand I stand there, starring deep into the heat until they’re all gone. Nothing left to hold me back. You kissed me that morning as if you’d never done it before and never would again and now I write another letter that I will never dare to send, collecting memories of loss like chains wrapped around my veins, and if you see a fire from the shore tonightit’s my chains going up in flames. The time of moon i quite glorious. We could have been so glorious.Charlotte Eriksson

19
Sometimes you need to sit lonely on the floor in a quiet room in order to hear your own voice and not let it drown in the noise of others.Charlotte Eriksson
20
.. so this is for us. This is for us who sing, write, dance, act, study, run and loveand this is for doing it even if no one will ever knowbecause the beauty is in the act of doing it. Not what it can lead to. This is for the times I lose myself while writing, singing, playingand no one is around and they will never knowbut I will forever rememberand that shines brighter than any praise or fame or glory I will ever have, and this is for you who write or play or read or singby yourself with the light off and door closedwhen the world is asleep and the stars are alignedand maybe no one will ever hear itor read your wordsor know your thoughtsbut it doesn’t make it less glorious. It makes it ethereal. Mysterious.Infinite.For it belongs to you and whatever God or spirit you believe inand only you can decide how much it meantand meansand will forever meanand other people will experience it toothrough you. Through your spirit. Through the way you talk. Through the way you walk and love and laugh and careand I never meant to write this longbut what I want to say is: Don’t try to present your art by making other people read or hear or see or touch it; make them feel it. Wear your art like your heart on your sleeve and keep it alive by making people feel a little better. Feel a little lighter. Create art in order for yourself to become yourselfand let your very existence be your song, your poem, your story. Let your very identity be your book. Let the way people say your name sound like the sweetest melody. So go create. Take photographs in the wood, run alone in the rain and sing your heart out high up on a mountainwhere no one will ever hearand your very existence will be the most hypnotising scar. Make your life be your artand you will never be forgotten.Charlotte Eriksson