"I could never begin to describe us to anyone, because they would never understand."- j. iron word

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

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

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

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