"The best stories are not told through words, but with your eyes." - Kai York

"Behind every beautiful thing, there's been some kind of pain..." - Bob Dylan

I love you. Seems the easiest thing for us to say. It is everything else. Everything that comes after that is hard. That seems to get stuck. Caught in the silence after. I love you. Is not the hardest thing for us to say. Not any more. Not to each other. It is everything else. Everything we silently wish for. The dreams we hold in our heart that we barely let ourselves dare hope for. Those are the hardest things. Those are the words that get caught. Maybe we think that if we dare utter them it will curse this love that we have. This love that once even we could not admit. To each other. Though everyone else who knew us already knew. That we loved. Why is it that the things we want the most are the hardest of all to say out loud? Why do we stop our lips from uttering what we show each other with in things other than words? Do we wish for it so much? Are we so scared to lose what has become the most precious to us? How can that be? Because once even the love we share we dared not even allow ourselves to have as a dream. But it happened. Yes it did. It exists as much as we do. As alive as we are. Growing as much as we do. Becoming only stronger with every day that we let it live. I love you. When did they stop becoming the hardest words to say?

Words: © 2019 Rosie Chee

Photographer (Raw Image): Tony Mitchell

WILD DARK

There was a burning wild inside of her, and the first time she gave up complete control to let run rampant, thrilled her. The thrill enticed excitement, for the wild was Woman, whom she had always denied, choosing instead to mask with the armour of Warrior.

The release of the wild stirred something else inside of her, reckless and dangerous. Surrounded by death, she sought solace in the arms of a twisted angel.

In the darkness, she forsook her tormented soul for the moments of peace it brought, desiring the rare quiet of her mind that accompanied it. She could not have known that what initially began as a distraction from the chaos outside would become an addiction for the chaos inside and awaken the demon that was shadow to her angel.

Words: © 2018 Rosie Chee​

Photographer: Tony Mitchell


#oamg #blackandwhite #art #raw
#unapologeticallyme #natural #nomakeup #tattooed

Beauty and pain go hand-in-hand. Like happiness and vulnerability. Live life unexpected but full of promise. Let the world see your wings, fragile as they might sometimes feel, for they have strength you yet do not know. Keep your heart, because even breaking means you feel, and if you do not feel you cannot truly live. I have learned this. Let what might break you make you. Exquisite pleasure plunged into darkness. Yet even in darkness there is light and that is where it shines the brightest. Where you do; turning tragedy into triumph, ashes into diamonds, soul finally truly free.


Words: © Rosie Chee​

Photographer: Tony Mitchell

That "fear" no longer exists. It took a long time to admit, even to myself, that I had feelings. Even after what had happened. What continued to happen, life reiterating through loss after loss, just how unpredictable it was. And while known and accepted, it still took a little time before any "fear" was put aside, following the feelings that could not be ignored either. If anything, time just made them stronger, embraced in both darkness and light. And after these past years there is no doubt of the energy here, strength and depth of emotion and feeling nothing to ever fear.

Words: © 2018 Rosie Chee

Beauty revealed in the pain expressed through solace of art as tormented heart seeks voice for what yet cannot be spoken. The way of perception vastly altered through eyes that scream emotion barely conceived by those who see nothing but surface. Assumption of being no stranger to soul so often misunderstood in a world condemning of difference. Vulnerability exposed in rare glimpse of self that causes step back to process such rawness of feeling. When words are inadequate to touch the depths being transformed by experience allowing illumination of beauty.


Words: © 2018 Rosie Chee

Photographer: Carley Patmythes; MUA: Judy Trout

There is nothing like seeing the sun rise above the ocean; especially in New Zealand, and in summer. With streaks of pastel leaking across the sky, the reflection of the clouds and their marvelous colour on the water streaked sands, you could almost believe you were in either fairy tale or painting. Pinks giving way to glorious crimsons and reds, flecks of gold reach down to the shimmering blue of the ocean, the foam on the waves like frothy light frosting finishing off an already perfect look is pure paradise.

Even better is the sound of the waves in their roll and crash, hearing the thunder, watching the swells as they create lines of beauty. Some complete, while others slide down into the stillness and form again at another point. They look so calm, sound so calm, so small, when in reality they could topple you in a heartbeat, hidden rips and undercurrents pulling you back with them and sweeping you out into the beautiful blue deep.


Something about them transports you to another place, a realm of rejuvenation and healing energy for a tired soul that has been drifting with seemingly no direction, like one of the waves themselves, from place to place, touching shores and cultures, always coming and going and never staying, always changing.  Peace is found in the gentle wind breathing salt air as the ocean caresses your skin, tension slipping through the soles of your feet as you feel the sand sink beneath you with the pull of the tide.


Close your eyes and empty your mind of everything but the feeling, the sensations, and embrace the gentle quiet stirring inside, whispering of dreams and flickers of hope like the brightening of the sky above you. There is a desire to stay there, in that place, in that peace, a wish to be able to lock yourself inside a glass bubble in that ocean, on those sands, for a lifetime, where your soul is nothing but light, in tune with the universe and every vibration of love.


But nothing lasts forever. Not even the sunrise. The magic of that magic gives way to the bright light of day, blinding beams as you open your eyes to the ocean. The ocean does not change, the effervescent blue still real and perfect, a reminder that there is heaven in everything, perfection even when perfection seems to have passed. It enables hope to stay as you turn from the horizon and leave the ocean’s arms for the way beyond the sand.


Words: © 2018 Rosie Chee

Photographer: Rosie Chee

You cannot see it, but beneath the skin there lies a heart so deep it could drown the ocean. There is a soul that glows in the right light, even after it has been completely broken, although of late the darkness takes over more than is let known. But you cannot see it. For you have no idea what this woman has been through. All you have are superficial assumptions on everything about her based on how she looks.

You have no idea what makes her smile, or why her smile is the way it is. She smiles even when she feels buried in the dark, struggling to hold on, trying to decide whether her stubbornness to stay is hurting her more than the uncomfortable realization that if she simply disappeared it would likely make no difference. But you know nothing of that. All you see is a smile and to you that means everything is ok.

Her heart has hurt her more than once. With so much love to give, knowing no other way to be but non-judgmental and unconditional, it has taken more abuse than a heart should, and now it is tired. Her head is bowed, if only to rest her eyes for a moment, because her mind will not rest, not even for a second, scattered and shattered with more spaces and sights than reasonably existing in any one place.

Her story is not simple, even though she strives to make her life as simple as possible. Her simplicity is in the beautifully intricate weaving of the openness of her being with all that has wounded her, everyone who has ever crossed her path and the rare moments her soul found peace. Evolutionally ongoing, she is still learning how and trying to heal it all together.

© 2018 Rosie Chee​

Photographer: Carley Patmythes

It is not always going to be easy. You are going to love, and you are going to hurt. But it does not end there. Your story does not end with the pain, or the heartache, or the loss. That is only another beginning. Another beginning of learning to let go, of understanding that not everything and everyone you love is meant to last your lifetime. Every love has a lifetime in our own, even if it is brief, and each one changes us in ways we might never have imagined before we lived it. We have to remind ourselves to remember the love and the beauty of it, for it was real to us, and that means something. But we have to make ourselves leave it alone when it is time to go, for if we do not, then we only hurt ourselves. And ultimately, love is not meant to hurt, but to help us change and grow and bloom into more than we are. That is what we have to remember. That we do not have to always be hard, and that sometimes it is our vulnerability that first allows us those most precious moments of beauty. It is in our softness that we learn to love, when we take off our armour and let ourselves be seen for the soul within. And those who truly cherish that soul will not seek to break it, but encourage the strength within to be the light that seeps out, so that armour no longer needs to be worn.

© 2017 Rosie Chee​

Photographer: Carley Patmythes

"It's a strange thing," she said, "to miss the one you love the most, and yet it be as if they never left."

"I don't understand." He looked confused. "How can you miss someone who is still here?"

"It's not something everyone gets," she sighed, "but the artists, the lovers, those who feel the soul in the world - they do; they know."

He shook his head, as if she spoke a language he did not understand. And she did. And it was sad.

Because he was the one she missed most of all.

© 2017 Rosie Chee

Missing the person
you love is the loneliest
feeling in the world

Haiku © 2017 Rosie Chee

Art by: Daniel Taylor

You were just a dream -
brief, beautiful emotion;
now I must wake up

Haiku © 2017 Rosie Chee

Do you understand

that you feel like a starting

over point for me?

Haiku © 2017 Rosie Chee

Art by: Aaron Griffin

In a world of stark

you were an explosion of

colour I embraced

Haiku © 2017 Rosie Chee

Art by: Lora Zombie

How hard it is to
say good bye to one you love
like heaven itself

Haiku © 2017 Rosie Chee

Art by: InkSide Ram Studio

Such pain as I sit
in the light disappearing
slowly from my reach

Haiku © 2017 Rosie Chee

Art by: Alexandra GaudiBuendia Khitrova

MOTIVATIONAL OF THE DAY


YOUR MIND


Your most powerful weapon and best tool. The most dangerous control or greatest gift. And you choose what it will be. You decide. YOU.


You ultimately determine whether or not you control your mind or allow it to control you. Decide NOT to let it "just happen". Consciously take charge.


Reinforce your "reactions" by being IN control. You are an emotional being capable of extreme logic. Create a balance to achieve your best action.


Through it all never lose sight of your soul. Your vision. Your purpose. You can both control AND be free. It is not easy. But it is possible. BE.


© 2016 Rosie Chee

MOTIVATIONAL OF THE DAY


OBVIOUS

Yes,
I kissed You,
But
You
Kissed me
BACK.


© 2016 Rosie Chee​

MOTIVATIONAL OF THE DAY


IN YOUR ARMS


Falling asleep in your arms was a bit like falling asleep to the sound of the ocean. It felt right. Like I was "home".


© 2016 Rosie Chee