i'm not going to change, not for anyone

These words are a part of me, they're my feelings on those 3am nights where sleep seems impossible, they're my dreams when I hope to be someone that others could love, they're my experiences in this world.

[peachyyykat]

‘phantom pains’, caitlin conlon // ‘what i could never confess without some bravado’, emily palermo // ‘i will’, mitski // ‘a self-portrait in letters’, anne sexton // ‘desperation sits heavy on my tongue’, @/tullipsink // ‘hunger makes me’, jess zimmerman // ‘coffee and cigarettes’, sade andria zabala

[toomanyrats]

on shame and yearning (pt.2)

[sa-dnesss]

“My 20s have been the loneliest era in my life. I am surrounded by people but not connecting with anyone. Everyone is living their own lives while I am still waiting for mine to start. I feel lost between what I should be feeling and how I actually feel.”

—

[abnormall]

i am tired. i am exhausted. from my head to my soul to my bones i am so fucking tired.

[sa-dnesss]

“I feel like I am so far behind in life that I will never catch up. Everyone is doing so many things with their lives. I am just here. Frozen. I have been a ghost for years. I wonder if that is all I will ever be.”

—

[educationbybeauty]

maybe if you bundled yourself up and went for a walk out in the cold then came back inside with rosy cheeks and cool skin and warmed yourself up with a nice warm cup of herbal tea with honey maybe then you'd calm down

[raeiyyn]

when kaveh akbar said "i don't remember how to say home in my first language" and when fatimah asghar said "home is the first grave" and when katie maria said "my head spins and I am back in my childhood home where love doesn't exist" and when @inkskinned wrote "my hands hurt all of the time but in this family you don't show weakness" and when clementine von radics said "what is home if not the first place you learn to run from" and when

[inkskinned]

and i just waste it; this life of mine. hand over hand. the days slip in between each other and nestle in ugly spurs. what did you do today? how many hours have i spent, neither truly here nor truly there. just frozen. wanting desperately to begin anything. get up and shower or work out or drink water or make a change or dance along or be a person - just get up. my insides, coating the edges of blank atrophy. how hard can it truly be? people do this every day. they make their life every day. why can't i? why am i stuck here? why am i stuck like this, with only my heart and no boat? the shifting warning - you need to start swimming, you can't always just float. but what else, when my limbs don't move and there's no sound for the breach of my throat? what else, and where am i going? what shore am i supposed to even be wading out for? nothing and nothing and nothing. the swinging, empty bridge, and no railing.

[thoughtkick]

“If nothing else, one day you can look someone straight in the eyes and say ‘But I lived through it. And it made me who I am today.”

— Iain Thomas, I Wrote This For You

[mermaidinthedeepocean]

[heartshop]

Sarah Kane, Psychosis 4.48

[pallidgent]

“There is no longing like being homesick for a person.”

— casualangst  (via wordsnquotes)

[written-honey-deactivated202109]

[perrfectly]

[perfectfeelings]

“Do you ever just get waves of missing someone? Like you’ll be okay for awhile, then all of a sudden, your heart hurts.”

—

[inkskinned]

the men in my life are all good men, or, at least, they are men who are not violent - and that is enough for a man to be considered good; that he could be violent but is not.

the men in my life are good men. recently at a hardware store one of the men in my life let me stand behind him, just a little, in that ghosting way that girls can learn. the disappearing technique we master of shadowing behind our Good Men. this was to protect me from a man who was not-being-good.

i fall down. one of the good men in my life offers me one arm like a knight, we are laughing while i clamber back onto my feet. i give the good men in my life piggy back rides because i like to show off how strong i am. i give the good men in my life run-at-them hugs. i let the good men in my life pick me up like i am a sack of grain; i get the good men in my life coffee, i make them sandwiches, i teach them dancing.

i am a man-hater, obviously. i am gay enough the insult is sort of funny. waiting for the bus, where there are men who are not-known-to-be-good, i google how to make a fist. i can never remember if the thumb goes on the outside or the inside, only that it is imperative that i do not fuck it up or i will break my thumb at the same time the man tries to break me. 

i walk my dog around the track only-at-dusk and-no-later. i made that mistake once, in august, hoping i could take a later run and maybe see the stars - i romanticized the idea of being able to skulk like a fox. the man that followed me across three lawns, two road-crossings, and back to my car - he spent the whole time whistling. the good men in my life say - oh, do you need me to come with you? and are actually asking - do you feel safe?

i fall down in a supermarket. a man i do not know grabs the inside of my knee. i do not know if the man is good, but i am supposed to give men the benefit of the doubt, so i laugh while standing. a man trying-to-be-in-my-life says what, no hug? and i have to decide if it worth it to just take off or put up with it. a man who-might-not-be-good stares at me while i walk by - i have to calculate if he’s just looking or if he’s watching. other men have badly hurt me, physically. the casual remark made is that those men are not real men. but they were real enough, to me.

there are many men who are mad at me. an entire reddit thread once was dedicated to how to dox me for feminist ranting - it was kind of funny, when it wasn’t downright scary. i have been stalked and harassed and treated horribly. they are all good men, in their own lives, you know. they are not violent, usually, unless provoked, and all it takes for a man to be good is for him to not be violent unless provoked, and i am, of course, always provoking.

a man in my life rolls his eyes. “i am sick of hearing this. we get it, all men are fucking evil. get over it.”

a man who-is-not-good shouts something unwritable at me. i have to tell the good man i am standing next to - it’s okay, this is nothing compared to what-could-be, this happens, it’s really not that big of a deal to me. 

“but it should be,” he says. “it should be.”

[inkskinned]

“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.