@548arn - Tumblr Blog

“if you take medication for that, you’ll be taking medication all your life!!” yeah, and?? bud, i already put on my glasses every morning. it’s like. a condition of mine, not a side hobby i’m pursuing irresponsibly.

inkskinned

sometimes it’s like. i’m going back to my house. sometimes it’s “let’s go back to…” and you don’t know which word to use to sum up the building. sometimes you wake up to a text from your mother and have to shift all your plans to run home and sometimes you wake up and you are home. two nights ago i was confused about which bed i was still in. i sleep upside-down still, like i do at the house where my parents live. i don’t have as many nightmares as i once did.

sometimes you’re in the car and you’re wondering - where the fuck am i going? what am i doing? why don’t i just go do anything else?

and sometimes you’re in the car and you’re wondering - how did i get so lucky? how is this real? am i grateful enough for all that has been done for me?

sometimes you type the text you shouldn’t send and you send it. and sometimes you don’t send it but you do have a full conversation with your dog about it. and sometimes you aren’t really sad yet but you can feel it percolating under the surface, hissing like it knows it will overcome you if you let it. and sometimes you aren’t really happy yet either but you get the same kind of something; a beautifully fine edge like the hair on the back of her neck. like if you reach out you could brush against a meadowed life. and sometimes quiet is just comfortable and sometimes it’s what isn’t being said and sometimes it’s a horrible exit.

and you want to tell your past self - we made it out and we found a home! but you know she wouldn’t understand, because she doesn’t know what home is yet. and besides, you still say “im going home for the holidays”. you mess up and call the hotel home when you mean safe. sitting around a campfire, you find a warmth inside of their laughter, you mess up and call that feeling lovely when you mean belonging.

and sometimes you’re like - wow! i’m really glad i’m alone for this. and sometimes it’s like. fuck thank god im not alone anymore. and you aren’t alone anymore. or if you are alone, you’re okay with it, because you are someone else now, and can be alone and happy about it.

and sometimes it’s like. my childhood ended. i don’t know when. but i’m about to go close another part of it. i am aging, or i did age somewhere and forgot to notice it. the spoons are where we keep them, but the back of my hands have new scars and my sense of time is different.

i type - hi! i’m sorry to reschedule. i have to run home for a moment - and then go back and type i have to run to my parents’ house and then type i’ll be out of town. i don’t know where i am or where i’m going. i write home in the fog of my windowpane, and watch as snow starts falling.

inkskinned

It feels enormous that we live in a world where almost every person has a story where they or someone they know - just... Does something beautiful. For no real reason beyond empathy, all the time, people do these tiny heroic acts. They pay for the person behind them or hold a hand or talk a stranger through a panic attack. Often these are stories without reciprocated love - just someone being good and kind for no other reason than because it is right to be good and kind. They just do the right thing, over and over, and teach their children to do the right thing over and over. And love just ... Whispers. And it ghosts over us. And little good keeps happening.

inkskinned

There was this way I used to think of my body like a killing floor. I read a poem once where the romantic felt right at home holding a rope.

But if her hands are in my hair, I forget violence. I have been a slaughterhouse many hours of this life and mistook the blood for decorating. It is hard to see red flags when I have been raised by bulls. I learned that nature abhors a tenderness & will swallow any bird that rises.

She hands me a perfectly sliced apple and lets me feed her a single strawberry. And the red that sluices over my pinky fingers trembles at her blushing. Where were you, the first time you erased your father's words?

There was this way I used to think of gentle. I think it means something that I am now applying that word to the world. I think it means something that recently my life has been full of open windows.

Today on a walk my friend says: the girl you were five years ago - she would be so happy with where you are.

inkskinned

I send this in the aftermath. I never wrote the letter I said I would. I’m sorry I didn’t call. A long time had passed and I was afraid of frostbite. I was afraid of reaching across the glacial silence to find no one & you were right, in the end, your prayerful warnings all collected. I can’t collapse the meadows like I said I would learn how to.

These days I only eat my own hair & wander the asphalt of Halloween & feel my insides churn like writhing pythons, all of it dark and dizzying, the worst kind of movie and an even worse reality.

You were right about all of it, and it hit me too late and too hard. In another version of this life I think we could bathe in mistletoe & call it ingesting potential.

you were right about all of it and i was never alone until i was actually-alone & the goshawk of winter crept up & devoured the pine bow i had left at your doorstep.

winter loss // a collab with r.i.d & the nosebleed club

inkskinned

where am i, where does my identity begin. can i playact a happy person in all my friendships or is that manipulative. can i take this personality test honestly or am i trying to pick things for a specific end. is this something i actually want or am i just bored and looking for anything. do i really feel like i care about my horoscope, or am i just looking for how others might see me. when i get dressed am i actually dressing for myself or am i dressing for the illusion i’m complete. am i actually seeking answers about who i am, or am i trying to shape the answers into who i want to be. am i real to myself or am i lying.

inkskinned

So here we are and I'm driving away from you and the buildings here all have green roofs that come up over the orange leaves and it's so pretty that I want to take out my teeth and I'm trying not to read into what you put on that playlist for me.

"you are gonna drive yourself crazy," my friend says. Over the car stereo, her voice sounds different. "You know you are just her distraction. How many times does this conversation have to happen."

At least six more, probably. "I know, I know." I say, even though I don't know anything. Just the curve of your cheek and how you bite your thumbnail when you're looking for something to read.

"you let her ruin all your sundays."

Maybe. But at least it is an interesting way to start the week.

She sighs. "That's the thing with you artists. The ones you want are never the ones you can keep."