till death do i part

poetry | angst 

[ghosti02]

line art for something

this is the start of a piece of art. this is my oc, friea, who gets blinded by her sister in a violent altercation.

im also opening commissions. headshots/busts are $8, just line art like this. if its a funky pose or with extra props n things, its $10.

basic coloring/shading is the $3 more.

payments via PayPal

willing to negotiate too.

[agdab]

reblog and put in the tags what you think will fix you

[ghosti02]

I don’t know what is worse; the fact that I am in love with you, yet you see me as just a friend- or that I am perfectly fine with it. I’d frame the invitation to your wedding, I’d love her if you asked me to. I really, and truly, don’t care. I just want to be present, and if that means being there in the background but nothing more, then that is okay with me. Because that is what love is. Love is being alright with getting a role in your life that I did not even prepare for nor want. Love is enjoying this show, even if I just get to be an understudy. Love is giving her a bouquet of roses, even though I want to be the one who is receiving them beside you. Love is apologizing for writing another poem about you that doesn’t include your name yet I feel might be too personal to reveal to another human being. Love is saying that I’ve let go, but all I really have done is pry my fingers off of your affections and wrap them around my throat. Love is feeling my grip get tighter, is seeing the dark close in, is choking on unspoken confessions, and yet not doing a single thing to stop myself from loving you. Maybe …that is what love isn’t.

love isn’t // ghosti

[ghosti02]

I always saw myself as some sort of chronic liar, some sort of great pretender, a person with a mask that is so intricately designed that it blends in with what everyone wants me to be. I feel like an actress upon an overwhelmingly large stage, and I guess to some degree I am correct. Life truly seems to have its own script, and I sadly missed out on receiving my own copy. Was I a last minute addition to the cast? The final pawn to be added into the game? The last knight to be summoned by the queen of smoke and mirrors? I feel like I am wearing tainted and torn clothes, white linen that has been stained red by the mere contact it has with me. Like I am some sort of double-crossing spy who has betrayed everyone, who has even convinced myself that I am right, yet I am a traitor at heart. I will never be good enough, never be a hero or a savior or even my own protagonist. Where do I fit in this story? How can I find my own place that isn’t entirely villainous? How can I keep myself from being seen as what I truly am? If I am too afraid to fight this war against myself, I guess there is really only one way I can handle it. The fact of the matter is that you don’t have to be good to make yourself into a martyr. You just have to die.

martyr // ghosti 

[ghosti02]

It does not matter how much You try and love someone. You cannot make them stay. Not because it is painful or worthless Or an artistic rendition of an execution- It is because you are not a place For someone to find a home in. People are not houses. Their eyes are not windows. Your heart is not a heater To keep others warm. People are not going to stay, Even if you beg them to. A body can barely fit one soul in it, No use in trying to fit another. A soulmate is nothing more Than a next door neighbor. Do not try and force them to move in and be your roommate. There is only enough space For one, and you might find Yourself locked out of your own life. Love makes us feel like we are more than we actually are. Like the sky is the limit- Which is probably true. But eventually you get so high that You start to run out of oxygen. You choke and you beg for help And that is when you realize You really are all alone. Because no one stayed with you. It was a solo ride to the the top, And now you have over 20,000 feet To emotionally plummet from. Will anybody catch you? Do you really want them to?

above sea level // ghosti

[ghosti02]

I am neither a witch nor a queen nor a wolf. I do not have blood trickling down my chin or fangs sticking out from under crimson red lips. I will not kill you in cold blood or make you wish I had gone and done so- I am not cruel or unforgiving, nor am I seeking vengeance. The poets talk of women with honey poison in their voices, and of gentle hands that also bring curses down upon those who have done wrong against them. They talk about revenge, and of feminine aggression, and about how karma has a little girl’s timid stature. But what about the ones who don’t bite? What about the women who sit and brim with anger that they do not understand nor give in to? What about the ladies-in-waiting that sit by while the king barks orders and the queen cries? What about the all of the young daughters, the ones with shaky voices and tears in their eyes, the ones with hearts that are begging to be forgiven for the crimes of their foremothers? We talk of the ones who make their way to the top, but we do not mention the ones they had to stomp on to climb their way up there. Not every woman can be Helen of Troy. Some of us have to be Iphigenia. It’s true, that the mark of womanhood is having blood run through your cities and your streets. The only difference is whether or not the blood happens to be your own.

womanhood // ghosti

[ghosti02]

You turned my rib cage into a nursery, And my empty body into a green house. You grew flowers inside me with seeds I don’t think you knew you ever planted. It was a surprise to you, wasn’t it? When you could see pink roses spread across my cheeks and hear a flutter of wings in my voice. You didn’t even realize how beautiful I was until weeds and ivy set in, overgrown and choking me out. You made me into a garden and then Let nature overtake what I had become. You put butterflies in my stomach, But now all of the butterflies are dead.

butterflies // ghosti 

[ghosti02]

I am having an affair on the future with my ex. I let her seduce me into a chance to write something meaningful. I allow her to press her lips to my neck, to leave reminders of things long forgotten, to completely destroy me for one last night. I say that every time, but I know it will not be the last time. She will find her way back in my bed some day, I will find myself back in her arms- in her claws. She does not deserve to be painted as a villain. She does not know I plan to live tomorrow. She does not know the name of my college major or the friends on the other side of my phone. She is hurting and she is suffering and most of all, she is numb. And I use her to try and feel the same. What is worse than using someone to feel better- but using someone just to feel worse? I am having a one-night stand with my middle school sweetheart. I say we are strangers but her number is saved in my phone. She is my emergency contact for when things go off into the shallow end of the  pool. She is the only one to make me feel both everything and nothing at all. She is the only one to bring me to tears and forget my own name. She is the only one who can truly bring me to the brink of the end- and yet never go over the side. I vent about my sins to my accountability partner, but the pill bottle stays quiet. I am seeking for advice that is right in front of my eyes. You cannot save someone who does not want to be saved. I fill up a diary with all the mistakes I make with her and I label it art. I am neither drunk nor  sober- I am neither heartbroken nor high. I call her up anyway. She never fails to answer, yet this time she does not pick up. I keep calling, I drive to her favorite bar, I reminisce over things better left in the past. I can not find her- she leaves my existence on read. I am getting ghosted by my one and only mistress. How lonely do you have to be for your depression to leave you too?

affair / ghosti 

[ghosti02]

One day, I hope to find the words to describe myself so I do not sound like a victim or a victor. I want to be someone who is untainted by war. I do not want to be remembered for going through battles I did not get a choice of partaking in. There is no intimate or personal reason I survived- it is neither a testament to my character nor an evaluation of my flaws. Do not picture me as a tightly held fist or a freshly sown up wound, because that rests the description of me on the shoulders of a doctor or a soldier. Who I am is completely separated from them and their occupations.  I want to be remembered for my smile, for my open mouthed laughter, for how it does not take much to spark joy inside of my heart. I want to be a crudely drawn picture done by a child- I want to be the coloring page they hand to their parents after a long day of not staying inside the lines. I want the colors inside of me to not stay inside the lines- I am not held by those arbitrary limitations. I am overflowing and developing and changing with the times. I am an outstretched hand, the one who helps others to their feet, the one that sends out acceptance wherever it reaches. I am the wrinkles between my eyebrows that I get from thinking too hard over what to pick for dinner. I am the assorted old worksheets in my backpack with no home- the  forgotten flashcards and the random pens. I am the thirteen different colored socks in my drawer with no matches. I am the two pairs of shoes I wear on repeat- the boots for when it is raining and the sneakers for when I do not care. I am the jacket laid over the back of my desk chair and the notes strewn across my dresser. I am the memories that I hold and the ones that I have dropped and the ones that I am waiting to make. I am the adventures I have gone on and the ones I decided not to. I am everything with both a purpose and none at all- I am opportunities and the cost it is to take them. I am not good nor bad nor somewhere in between- those are only terms assigned to dead people in history books and I am  still alive. This poem is not an in memoriam but a declaration. Not an elegy about what I have lost but a firm vow to love myself. This is me looking up the word masterpiece in a dictionary and showing off a selfie. This is me flipping to beautiful and immaculate and wondrous. This is me turning the Oxford of good words into a scrapbook.

self appreciation / ghosti 

[ghosti02]

The other side of the bed is cold. The side you pretended to sleep in. The side I used to pretend I believed you were sleeping in. The side that really was not a side, but a whole completely different bed. It is cold now. It is empty without you.   Well, not really. The world has conditioned me to believe that without you, my bed feels empty. It is not empty. There is air taking up the space you once lied in. There are blankets and pillows and my own limbs have invaded that area and reclaimed it. I am where you used to be. I can finally say I live in my house, and I am not just haunting it.   It is foolish and childish of me to put faith in the memory of you. To let you keep existing in my space, in my vision, even  having you off in the sidelines is too big of a role for you. You do not deserve to take up any room in my life, even as just a learning moment. You did not teach me anything besides that I should listen to my feet when they tell me to run the hell away. That I should get used to biting off the hands of people who take and never give. That I should understand my worth and that it is not measured by the amount of resources someone like you can extract from me. You were nothing but a weight tied to my foot since the day you weaseled into my life. Your love was a drug- the kind that makes someone nothing but a body, nothing but obedience and servitude. My life is not yours to use. I am not blood you can leach from- not a bank you can run a heist on. I am not a currency to be stolen nor defaced. You came into my life, convincing me that you were someone in need of aid. You abused my kind and forgiving nature, you pretended to struggle so I would help you. When did helping turn into slavery? When did  even the most simplest of things become impossible for you? When did mere empathy become a strenuous task? I begged you just listen, but you did not have the strength to even try and uncover your ears. I could have tried to make you see how much you needed me- I could have cried or begged or slept my way into making you see what you were doing, or lack thereof. I could have walked out of the house that I built for us, I could have stormed out in a flurry of silent rage and left the static of you behind. But you did not put in the effort to care when I was there, so why would you waste energy on missing me either? I woke up on the cold side of the bed this morning. I like this side. It is my side now, and it is not empty. It is full of a future that is not reliant on someone  else's eggshell emotions and never being good enough. It is full of potential breaths, of untamed life, of a love that does not get traded for use or worth. It is full of me- and that is just the way it should be.

cold side / ghosti 

[ghosti02]

Is it too much to ask that I get what I need without having to beg for it? That I do not have to ask you for the bare necessities? That I do not have to ask whether or not I can forgive another person? Mercy and grace are not things that can be rationed- you do not have the right to force taxes on my forgiveness. Love is not a payment nor a currency- you can not try and use a heart like a credit card. No amount of bloody or tearful deposits will ever be enough. You are not God. The blood under your finger nails is not holy, the wrath you hold is not righteous, you will never make me bow down and pray to you. What is the use of a religion without a faithful relationship? What is the point of  unconditional love when you have to sign a contract? You say ‘I love you’ from the other side of the phone. I refuse to say ‘Amen’

amen / ghosti 

[ghosti02]

There is something in both psychology and neurology called a neural pathway. It basically means that in the process of forming a habit or consistent behavior, we stack layers of neurons to form bridges until they are strong and resilient. It is hard to change these pathways- it can be done, yes, but there is the tough process of breaking them all down and starting all over again. Each time you go back to an old habit or action you are trying to stop, you just affirm to your brain that everything you are doing is okay. I am trying so desperately to break the habit of you, to stop reaching for you when my heart aches in this elegiac sort of way, to get some form of respite from all of these feelings that I have for you, But when it is 3 am and I am drunk on the cheapest and most bitter tasting vodka I could find, when the only thing I can remember is your childhood address and old phone number, when I call you up and I beg the dial tone to just let me talk to you- All my brain is repeating is   “it is okay” “it is okay” “it is okay” And all I can respond is “not anymore” “not anymore” “not anymore”

bitter habits / ghosti 

[ghosti02]

To the little girl that had a Disney Princess birthday party despite not liking Disney Princesses, I want to tell you- I do not like them either.   Dresses are overrated. So is diplomacy- but the movies never showed that part of the life. Chances are Cinderella would not know how to handle a peace treaty if she tried. Do not blame yourself for not being able to handle your own diplomatic relations- Parents are not supposed to be countries that need treaties anyway. You are not their princess they use to make the country work. Your existence is not to fix issues- you cannot be made into a bandaid for their festering infection. To the little girl who tried to find law books in the small public library, You will not be able to find your answers there. I know- I tried. And I found the books too! There is no law saying two parents have to get along- No rule against forcing a relationship that was already boiling over. Do not try and settle it- do not try and move the pot. You will only get burned. I know you want to be able to handle the situation calmly and correctly, but honey, an 8 year old does not make a good mediator. Drop your mother as a client and lock your office doors. The pay will never be good enough for that kind of work load- You will never be able to not take it home. To the little girl who never had friends in class, but still preferred to be alone at school rather than be alone at home, you were not alone at home. I know it did not feel like it, but you always had your family there to talk to. I will not lie, sometimes I feel like mine is not there for me too, but never believe it is your fault. It is not because they do not love you- love is not measured in conversations or hugs. Love is whoever is willing to clean up the blood when you skin your knee, whoever is willing to pick you up when you fall. Love yourself, sweetheart, because there will always be a time when you are bloody on the ground and it is up to you to stand. Standing sometimes hurts, but standing is the first step of walking,  and then you can move on. I did it- so can you. To the little girl who hoards books and notebooks like the end of the world is approaching, and words are the only currency in the apocalypse, I am not going to tell you to stop. Do not. You are absolutely right. Keep writing- keep reading. Keep searching for the words that taste just right, the ones that both heal and rip open your wounds. Some injuries do not heal right, and that is okay- cut them open and start again. Poetry works well as a scalpel and a knife, but not a bandaid. It is good for doing autopsies and winning wars, but it will never be a good doctor for a broken heart. Writing will help find words for what you feel- but that does not stop you from feeling it. To the little girl who wears depression like a warm coat and uses anxiety like a pacemaker for her heart, That pleasant feeling you feel is not pleasant at all. You are not protected by it, or comforted, that tsunami is playing games with you- that hurricane is not a raincoat. When the teeth seem sweet, you need to find a hunter. You have a beast on your tail. That jump in your heart will not save you from being “lazy”,  ripping your hair out will not help you lose weight. It is not normal to set fire to your feet in order to keep up with everyone else. Just tell them to slow down. To the little girl who feels like all through childhood, she has been picking up burning coals labeled “focus” and “calm down”- It is okay to ask for help once in your life. It is okay to feel different and embrace it. It is okay to not live up to standards built by a system not made for you. It is okay. If this world is not made for you, make the one you need. Tell people to be quiet. Turn the lights down. Just because it is fluorescent and not solar, does not mean you are not burned. You do not have to accept suffering to gain respect. If those people were really going to respect you, they would do it for who you actually are, not the pillow you shoved in your spot. To the little girl who has stained her baby blanket red and swears she will not live to pass middle school, much less graduate highschool, you will. I promise you that you will. I am proof you will. I am standing on the edge of the future with my eyes wide open to the possibilities, I am holding your hand  as I walk on that stage, I am thinking of you as I do homework and as I talk to friends. I think of you as I take pills to treat migraines and as I lay down to take naps. I think of you as I lose things and get mad, because I know it was something you never let yourself do. I think of you as I look out my window, as I close the one in the bathroom instead of climbing outside. I think of you as I look up at the roof, because it snowed and not because I am judging the height, I think of you as I get ready for bed and get under the covers. And that baby blanket? It is no longer red.

to the little girl that is the reason i am in therapy now / ghosti

[ghosti02]

You tell me I am so good at changing- so good at taking advice and doing better. I should not have to change. I should not have to mold and alter myself- I should not have to take a knife to my personality and carve out whatever you want. You force me to use a sharpie and draw on fake facial expressions- to take bleach to my wandering eyes and scissors to my quivering lips- to erase words you do not like from my script until I say nothing at all. I surgically remove  one of my lungs so I do not take in so much air- I remove my limbs one by one so I do not use up so much space. I make myself smaller- I compact myself into a tiny waist and a continuously decreasing number but it is still not enough for you. Large fish eat the small fish, but we are humans- we are people. Are you trying to force me into an easier pill to swallow? I will make you choke- I will bust your windpipe and steal the air from your lungs. You say this is just the rules of survival, but survival is not brushing a lion’s teeth from inside its mouth. Survival is walking out and away, but what if I do not want to just survive? Why do I have to pick the route that is the most pleasant for everyone else? Why do I have to stunt my own growth- to starve myself because I remind you too much of your own regrets, to hate myself because children are just reflections of their parents, and you hate yourself too. I do not want to just survive. I want to thrive and thriving means pulling out all of the teeth in the lions mouth so it can not hurt me anymore. It is cutting off its tongue and wearing it like a scarf- what is warmer than freshly drawn blood, anyway? I do not want to live in a fearful neutrality with something I know will eat me alive- I want to let it know that if it does try and eat me, I will open the gates of hell from within its stomach. You want me to change? To be better? I will. I will be myself- I will be the person that terrifies everyone, the one that performs root canals on Godzilla and turns its teeth into dream catchers. You want me to become the tiny fish? The algae you eat? Honey, I will become the ocean. I will  turn your so called gills into a braille suicide note. I will turn your cries for help into bubbling sea foam. Just try and swallow me now.

survival / ghosti 

[ghosti02]

1. Something has happened. I can feel it- I see mouths moving and lips twisting around words and I can feel the heartbeat of something in my chest. Is that me? Is the heart mine?  For a moment, I do not feel real. The world blinks out temporarily- almost too fast to be noticed until later, when I am staring up at my ceiling, and insomnia is staring right back at me. I am fumbling for the strings, for the reins, for something, please- there are lights flashing, is that an officer pulling me over? Wait, but am I not on a sidewalk? Or is this a road? Am I a deer in headlights, the deer my father sent to hell? Rudolph did not commit enough sins to deserve that south bound trip. Is it my turn to go next? 2. I’m reaaaalllly confused. Please, just pause a moment. Or 2. Or 45, the more the better because this world is not just revolving- but God has smacked the globe so hard that I am dizzy from how fast it is spinning. Are you asking me questions? Do you expect to get any answers from me? Hell, I am not even sure what my name is right now. I am speedrunning through my mental code to try and  figure it out- every college drop out worker in my brain is trying to decode what is going on. 3. I get maybe half of it. I understand what you are saying, a little bit, but what do you want from me? I can try and add an anecdotal- would you like a story? Or is that too narcissistic? I can add a piece advice- no? You do not want help? I am so sorry. I am just trying to be what you want. What you need. I try to step in, I try to maneuver my way through, but every turn has already been spoken for. Every person is already involved. Every piece of the cast has already been taken- was there an audition for friendship that I missed out on? Is there a script for conversation that slipped out from between my fingers? Why does everyone know when and what to say, except for me? 4. Oh, it is finally my chance at speaking! I open my mouth… and words will not form. I can not convince my muscles to move. What was I going to even say? My neurons have a bad case of social anxiety- my brain is tying itself into a knot so it will not have to perform in front of everyone else. What is the point of even attempting to think when every thought has a self-detonation? I am trying my best to be apart of it all, but it is killing me to even try.   My temporal lobes are committing kamikaze, my frontal lobe has turned around a “Closed Sign” on its front door- my ears have become nothing but accessories to remind me of my failures. What is the point of having a body if it does not want to work? What is the point of existing if it will never be in the right kind of way? 5. I am always late. I will always be a step or a mile behind of everyone else. There is nothing that can change that. No amount of early starts can change the fact that in the middle of the race, my legs will seize and my spine will paralyze. People keep commending me on my adaptability- that implies I am changing to keep myself from dying off. If I am getting better, why am I still so far behind? If all of this is what I am supposed to do, why was I not made that way to begin with?

five seconds of thinking from a rainbow wallflower / ghosti 

[ghosti02]

When everything gets too much, I take a step back. I choose to be something different- someone new. My life has been a constant game of make pretend- I have been going through the years with a blank “Hello, my name is-“ sticker- I fill in my name tag with whoever I need to be. I am both the chameleon and the rock- I am both the thing that constantly changes and the one person that will stay the same. I mold the world around me into whatever I want it to be. This is not my weakness but it is my strength- my power over everything else.   If someone new enters the room, if the party lasts too long, if the people I came with are no longer the people I know- I can tap out. I can step into a new dimension, I can watch the walls bend and the sky dip- I can turn the ground into a silk sheet- and make it ripple under my shifting weight. I send the foundations of reality into a disorienting tailspin. I do not have a problem with being here- Here has a problem being with me.   What is the point in fighting for something that does not want you? If existing in this world does not work for me, I will stop trying to work for it. Is that okay? Is it okay to dream away all of the days- to wake up only when I feel like reality is better than what my imagination can come up with? I feel like I have experienced so much while being trapped within my cranial cavity- and I have nothing to show for it. I spent days as a child locked away in my mind, making my own escapes from what I did not like. Instead of living through the fights that I could hear going on downstairs, I made up my own arguments with my fictional friends. I had falsified battles and many invisible scars- did I act out scenes with fatal wounds as a way to cry out for help? When did dying with someone by my side become a fantasy? I blink away the lies and scripts, and I am in shock. Everything has passed by me, and I have not noticed it at all. I am 7 going on 17- when did time stop being paused? Did I really sleep away all of those years? The role I built for myself is getting cramped- I can not be a child actor in an adult body. What do I do with all of this life inside of my head? It wants to get out- it wants to see the world and travel abroad, but the most exotic place I have ever  been is a step out my front door. I do not want to get trapped inside of my head again- I am tired of trying to convince myself I am something I am not. They tell me this is just a coping mechanism- what is the point of coping if it causes you to suffer even more? I traumatize myself for fun- I dig graves in my spare time. It is so exhausting, bottling up lives in your heart that are not your own. I want to breathe actual fresh air again- I want to be me again. Do I even remember what I am? Who I was? Did I ever get a chance to build myself up, or was I born with no identify? My name tag is still blank, so just call me whatever you want. It is difficult to label an empty box- how do you name something if you are not sure it even exists?

maladaptive daydreaming 

[ghosti02]

My skin hates me more than I hate myself. All of these sores form words that taunt me- it itches, it burns, it crawls, I can not breathe, oh please, where is the air- I have to inhale through my pores, but they are blocked- I must pick and I must pull, But what if I do not? What if I explode? Is this mess really worth it? Am I really worth it? You say to just get better, is that not what I am doing? Doing, doing, doing- I do too much, not enough, what is enough- does it exist? Do I exist? Am I thinking too much for these words to actually be thoughts, and not just premature ashes and dead sparks? Am I willing to go ahead and burn myself up? Am I doing it just for others to see themselves in a better light? I am racking up my electricity bill by merely being present- the city should just use my nerves instead of whatever the hell they currently are using to power the block, because I have enough misfires to light up downtown. Downtown- sometimes walking through my brain feels like walking through downtown Birmingham, except I’m not walking, I am running, I am screaming- Wait, now I am stopped- Why am I frozen? I am not frozen, my heart is beating way too fast for me to be paused- my muscles hurt, my jaw is clenched, my chest hurts- I am scared but I have never been scared of the dark before- the unknown never frightened me because I already had faces for all of my fears. Just dig my nails into my palms and take a deep breath, I have to ground myself. Take my brain off the plane it is crash-landing, shut down the party my head is throwing. My thoughts are all guests in a party where I am the main attraction. My heart is the music, the lub and the dub and I am the body thrashing from inside the trunk. Why get a DJ when you  can get a panic attack to make all of the songs? Why take drugs when your blood knows how to scream off key all on its own? I feel trapped in my mind- I can step out ever so often but my captor will not let me leave for good. I am playing chess with the Devil and he has got me always stuck in check- I am picking my poison at a gourmet restaurant, and I forgot my glasses at home. I can not see the menu- I will die surprised by something right in front of me. How do you scratch an itch on the inside your brain? How can you tell your frontal lobe to just [screw] off? How can you get your mind to sleep, without letting the nightmares inside? Letting yourself rest means closing your eyes. Closing your eyes means letting darkness come in. I am not afraid of darkness, I never have been. But I am afraid of relenting control- Did I ever even have control of myself to begin with, though?

obsessive thinking / ghosti