aquariass7707

I write poems and stuff

[asadgoblin]

[destiny-swope]

Two Things Can Be True at Once

By: Destiny Swope

this is probably the most vulnerable thing i’ve ever published. I wrote it for anyone who has ever felt like their grief makes their decision less valid, or like they have to simplify their feelings to make other people comfortable.

[destiny-swope]

a little substack piece regarding the new sony controversy

destiny swope (@destinyswope)

This whole PlayStation controversy has really gotten me thinking. I think one of the quietest but most significant shifts we’ve made in the

[destiny-swope]

The Trial:

every morning

my brain drags me into a courtroom

where i am somehow

the defendant,

the prosecutor,

the witness,

and the crime.

the evidence is laughable.

a thought

i never asked for.

a feeling that arrived

three seconds too late.

the way my hand hesitated

over the stove.

the balcony.

the medicine bottle.

the jury is against me

i spend the day

trying to prove

i am innocent

to people

that only exist

inside my own skull.

i call old memories

to the stand.

i replay conversations

until they lose their names.

i confess to things

i have never done

just to hear

someone tell me

i’m still good.

but reassurance

is a verdict

written in pencil.

by tomorrow morning

the courtroom is open again.

sometimes

i wonder

what my life would’ve looked like

if every beautiful thing

wasn’t immediately followed

by a cross examination.

if love

didn’t require fingerprints.

if happiness

didn’t have to survive

an interrogation.

i don’t think my brain

wants to hurt me.

i think it’s a smoke alarm

that forgot

what fire smells like.

so now

it screams

at burnt toast.

at strangers.

at silence.

at the people

i would die protecting.

and somewhere

beneath all the sirens,

there is still me,

waiting

for the judge

to finally dismiss

a case

that never should’ve gone to court.

[asadgoblin]

Sometimes i dont feel like a person

I feel like a buffet table, everyone’s stuck their hands in even if they weren’t invited, they took more than their share, leaving me with the discards. But how rude of me to invite all these guests, and be surprised when theres nothing left for me. So i stay quiet, i sip the glass of wine left for me, even though its empty. I have to keep up appearances, i cant let them know im empty too, otherwise theyll find somewhere else to fill up their own cup.

[destiny-swope]

follow my poetry instagram💞

(@destinys_notebook) • Instagram photos and videos

141 Followers, 142 Following, 6 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from (@destinys_notebook)

[destiny-swope]

here’s a little something I wrote the night of my 23rd birthday

————————————————————————

twenty two taught me that love isn't proven by how much I endure. that staying isn't the same as being chosen. that I can walk away without becoming cruel.

it taught me that some friendships were meant to hold me for a season, not a lifetime, and that letting go

is not the same as failing.

twenty two taught me

that my emotions are not too much, they were just asking for safety. that I am not broken for feeling deeply, for needing reassurance,

for wanting to be seen all the way.

it taught me how to sit with myself in the quiet after everything falls apart. how to name my patterns without hating myself for having them. how strength can look like rest, like asking for help, like choosing treatment instead of pretending i'm fine.

twenty two showed me that healing is not linear

that some days surviving is the win, and some days joy sneaks in without asking permission.

and now i'm stepping into twenty three not fully healed, but honest. not fearless,

but brave enough to begin again.

twenty three,

i'm ready to learn how to love myself without punishment. ready to build friendships that feel safe,

ready to choose my body, my mind, and my future.

i'm ready to stay.

I'm ready to try.

I'm ready to grow.

here's to twenty three.

[destiny-swope]

Hachis Journal:

i don’t know what’s happening to us.

it used to feel so easy.

you’d laugh, i’d follow,

and the whole world felt like a cheap concert hall where only we knew the lyrics. i used to think that meant something.

maybe that was naive.

i’ve always been a little naive when it comes to those i care about. lately, though… there’s this space between us.

thin as cigarette smoke, but impossible to ignore.

i don’t know if i’m the one choking on it

or if you’re the one trying to breathe away from me.

i keep thinking about the apartment.

our apartment.

the one i made up in my head.

tiny, cluttered, warm in the way things only get

when two women are living too close

and pretending it doesn’t mean anything.

small kitchen. chipped strawberry mugs.

ashtray on the counter, lipstick stains on every filter.

your guitar leaning against the couch.

you humming something soft,

me pretending i’m not listening,

pretending i’m not in love with the sound of your voice more than the song itself. it’s pathetic.

you have your life.

a relationship that fits you, that doesn’t make you restless.

and i have this ache that follows me everywhere,

pressing under my ribs like a bruise i keep poking.

when you talk about him,

your eyes get that shimmering, far-off look

like you’re seeing the future and the future is kind to you.

i should be happy.

god, i want to be happy for you.

but there’s a part of me small, selfish

that feels like i’m standing outside in the rain

watching you through the window of a home that was never mine to enter. it’s not fair to you.

you’re my friend.

the one who stayed when everyone else left,

the one who held parts of me i didn’t know how to name.

i always thought we’d grow old together in some messy,

girl-best-friends-who-never-move-apart kind of way.

i didn’t realize until now that i meant it literally.

maybe i’m being dramatic.

but it hurts.

quietly. constantly.

like missing a train i was never supposed to catch but still waited for anyway.

still… i think about that apartment.

about us.

about how love between women is sometimes soft, sometimes sharp,

always confusing.

how it doesn’t need a confession to exist it blooms in glances, in shared cigarettes, in the way i memorize your footsteps in the hallway. i wish i could tell you.

i wish you’d stay anyway.

[destiny-swope]

Year of the Horse,

I was born into you once, and now I’m coming home again.

This time I am not small.

This time I trust the pull

the way my body leans toward movement,

toward rooms filled with friends,

toward nights that don’t end early

just because I’m afraid of taking up space.

I am learning how to grow

even when the ground feels familiar,

how to listen to the part of me

that wants more than survival,

that wants momentum.

There are cities calling me,

across oceans, across coastlines,

places where my creativity breathes easier,

where I don’t have to explain

why I want so much.

2026 feels like a door already open.

I don’t want to hesitate in the doorway.

If I run, let it be toward myself,

finally moving the way I was meant to.

[destiny-swope]

What does a prayer even look like when you're not sure who's listening?

When every echo feels intercepted by hands that swear they speak for God?

I don't know.

None of us do.

Not the ones who preach with clean mouths and stained intentions,

swallowing scripture only to spit it back out like ammunition.

Not the ones who call themselves vessels but leak cruelty everywhere they stand.

Some people hold His name like a blade behind their teeth, sharp enough to cut you

and holy enough to blame you for bleeding.

They call it righteousness.

I call it pretending.

They climb their own ladders to Heaven, hammering their ideals into other people's spines, and then have the nerve to look down from the top as if altitude is proof of purity.

As if being above someone means you're any closer to God.

They pass out "charity" like invitations to their reflection, do good with one hand and wound with the other,

then pray over the mess they made as if prayer is bleach.

And I think maybe that's what broke me for a while watching people who claim to know God move like they've never met Him.

Watching holiness worn like a costume, like armor, like an alibi.

The betrayal wasn't loud; it was quiet, whispered in private rooms, packaged as concern, their

"truths" about me

spoken with the certainty of prophets

who never bothered to look at the damage they caused.

Because real faith it it exists at all doesn't need an audience.

It doesn't climb on backs or weaponize verses

or tear people down to feel saved.

It's humbler than that.

Softer.

Truer.

God was never in their voices only in the quiet pull toward something kinder,

something that doesn't demand perfection, something that doesn't ask you to shrink so someone else can look holy.

[destiny-swope]

I keep having this dream where I'm half woman, half deer.

my legs are shaking, but I'm still trying to stand tall, like grace and terror can live in the same body. my eyes are wide, too wide, holding every warning l've ever learned.

people say "doe eyed" like it's pretty. like fear is beautiful.

like bracing for the arrow is the same as asking for it. they don't see how the stillness isn't softness, it's survival.

they don't see how my gaze isn't awe, it's alarm.

In the dream I fall in love anyway. he touches me like I'm water, as if thirst and tenderness are interchangeable.

I want so badly to believe him that his hands won't break what they bless, that hunger and devotion are different things.

but love always sounds like a branch breaking underfoot.

like a shadow too heavy to be wind. still, I follow him.

and then the dream shifts, as dreams do. his smile becomes sharp.

his knife flashes like a confession I ignored. he doesn't weep when he kills me. he waits until l've folded into peace and then severs me cleanly from myself.

suddenly I'm watching my own head be mounted on his mantle.

the antlers are a crown I never asked for. my eyes are still wide, not with wonder, but with warning.

this is the fate of so many of us to live hunted, called delicate for it. to be loved only until we are conquered. to be displayed as proof of someone else's power.

we become trophies,

cradled and broken in the same gesture, compared to creatures only soft enough to wound, still searching even after the killing is done.

[destiny-swope]

since as long as I can remember, a silence has followed me not the peaceful kind, the kind that gnaws,

that curls itself inside my ribs and whispers that I was meant to live alone,

even in a crowded room.

I watched everyone else

move through the world with ease, as if they were born knowing how to belong.

I tried to copy them, to perfect the art of living, to slip into a body

that always felt borrowed. every smile rehearsed, every gesture staged. nothing ever real enough to convince myself.

there are nights when I wake up and feel the skin around me tighten, as though l've been locked inside someone else's flesh.

I press my palms to my chest, but the heartbeat doesn't answer I am held captive, haunting a body

that refuses to call me home.

I love my people, but my mind is cruel.

It twists devotion into poison, convinces me l am the weight that drowns every friendship, the fracture in every bond.

mental illness paints me as the villain in every memory, and I believe it.

I believe it so deeply

and still I walk through this life, carrying a loneliness that will not die.

It clings like smoke to my lungs, it sings lullabies in my ear,

reminding me that no matter how much love I give, I will never escape myself.

I fear this is the prophecy written on my bones to act alive, to perfect the part, to keep playing human until my last breath.

[destiny-swope]

I was small, but I knew the weight of danger. footsteps decided my fate.

every floorboard groaned like a warning, every shadow in the hallway a blade against my skin.

silence had teeth.

I held my breath until it nearly killed me.

and when the worst came

when a grown man took what was never his the house did not open to save me.

It sealed.

It sent me away,

as if exile could wash him from my body.

my mother stayed. my brother stayed.

I was written out, erased from the dinner table, a rumor too heavy to name.

later they told me

"you felt like a ghost." but hadn't I always been? half faded, begging to be seen.

I was the oldest daughter, my mother's therapist.

I carried her storms while still a child,

cupped her despair in my hands before I ever learned what to do with my own.

now, years later,

I trace the storm still wired in my chest a body that misfires at shadows, a heart too quick to break open. not madness. not mistake.

the echo of locked doors. the inheritance of silence. the cost of no one standing guard for little Destiny.

she deserved to be guarded. she deserved to be seen. and I am still clawing at the walls that tried to erase her.

[destiny-swope]

I have always been the place where broken souls come to mend. they bring me their rough edges, and I hand them back whole stronger, steadier, ready for the world, never for me.

I watch them walk away,

pieces of me still lodged in their skin, while I am left in the wreckage, sweeping up the shards of my own silence.

for years I thought I was building love teaching, shaping, waiting, believing that patience could bind a heart to mine. but you cannot train someone into being your person. and staying too long

is just another way of disappearing.

still, I yearn.

In unspoken ways,

in the quiet after the world goes still, in the pit of almosts and the weight of what ifs.

I pine for the ones who left, for the ones I could not keep, for the ones I never truly had.

I wonder if I am cursed to live with this feeling,

to love only in the direction of absence.

I once thought aching was temporary, a hunger that would quiet with time. but it feels like my inheritance, the language my heart speaks best.

so l keep giving, keep healing,

keep building people into the versions the world needs them to be.

and when the world takes them from me, I remain,

the girl with the ready smile, the open arms, and the knowledge that no one ever stays.

[destiny-swope]

I carry the ghost of the heartbroken teenage girl I once was, hollowed and fragile, a quiet echo of sixteen still reaching for a door that never opened back.

I begged for closure,

but silence was all I received. now,

I still wear that silence a bruise that never faded, a weight I cannot set down.

I wonder what fault was mine, what secret crime of love made me unworthy

of even a single apology?

that door is sealed forever, the air thick with what ifs, and I mourn the girl who clung,

who believed she could outlast heartbreak if she only held on tighter.

but love did not return, and kindness never came.

I carry her still the shell of a girl with trembling hands and endless hope, her tears, her ache, her waiting.

and though she is gone, I remain bound to her silence, of a promise never spoken.

[destiny-swope]

I won't be in the crowd when the doors open,

when everyone rises to see you promise forever.

I'll never hear the music inside the room, never watch her walk toward you, never feel the air shift when you speak the words that seal a life without me in it.

I am the girl kept outside, the name you don't mention, the silence you chose.

still, in the quiet, I imagine it all

the way your smile will look when you say "I do,"

the way the world will pause for the two of you.

and l'll still love you from that distance, from the place where I am nothing but absence. not to break you apart, not to pull you back, lord knows I couldn't,

but simply because I can't forget how it felt when it was us.

so l stay here,

a ghost at the edge of your story. you won't see me when you turn,

you won't hear my voice rise above the vows.

but somewhere,

beneath all this silence, I am still screaming.

[destiny-swope]

I let you go. not with words, just with silence.

that silence still follows me, a shadow I can't unmake.

I held other hands, thinking they would steady me,

but your presence lived in the quiet corners. you never left, not really.

you linger in the light I can't shut out.

now you belong to someone else. and I tell myself I'm fine with it, but I still search for you in every face, every night, like an old wound reopening.

I don't want to break what you have.

I don't want to steal joy.

I only want a thread, a sign,

some proof the universe isn't done with us.

I ache,

but it isn't hate.

It isn't envy.

It's just the quiet truth that I loved you wrong too quietly, too late.