Written Feelings

poetry is all im here for.

[humanaffliction]

you’ve ruined so many songs

and restaurants.

you’ve ruined gummy bears

and grape soda.

you’ve ruined outfits

that I used to wear

on date night.

now, because of you,

all these things leave

a bad taste

in my mouth

and a slight sting

in my eyes.

you’ve ruined the love

that I had for you,

but I’ll be damned

if you ruin the love

that I have for myself.

A.C. // @humanaffliction

[humanaffliction]

you put pits

in my stomach

stones

in my heart

the voice

inside my head

who gave you

permission to leave

them there like this

that’s the difference

between you and I

I’d wish you

heaven on earth

you’d make a deal

with the devil

but don’t waste

your time on me

A.C. // @humanaffliction

[humanaffliction]

You wake up ready for the day, yet fight yourself to even get out of bed. You dress yourself according to how the day will play out, as if you have psychic mind powers to predict it.

You get to where you’re going and someone cracks a joke. You laugh. Someone cracks another one. Your body is now infested with anxiety and you are suddenly uncomfortable with your own skeleton.

In another moment, you meet a kind stranger at a yoga studio who makes you feel like the whole world is giving you a hug in just one smile.

Then you find yourself at home in the shower, washing away all the fingerprints of every person who has ever hurt you- don’t forget your own, they’re everywhere.

Scrubbing down to the last layer of flesh just so you feel like a new or different person. This leaves you vulnerable, but so does the constant flashback of being a victim to the fictitious man behind every closed door, although he once was real.

Stop allowing the betrayal of the last person you bared your soul to remain in control of how you love yourself and others. You care for yourself in such a way to seem like any ole Average Joe and not a goddamn alien from the planet of insanity.

You are undaunted and confident; simultaneously, you’re scared to death of yourself and your insecurities get the very best of you. Your system is flooded with the love of the hatred or the hatred of the love you have for yourself.

Internal conflicts rule your self esteem. Internal conflicts embody the decision that make you who you are.

It’s all one step forward, two steps back, and one step forward again just to end up in the same damn position only each time its in a different lighting.

A.C. // @humanaffliction

[humanaffliction]

There comes a point when you stop wishing on fallen eyelashes and shooting stars for happiness from external sources and begin manifesting it within yourself. That’s the point that you know you’ve sprouted into a new person. Greet that person with open arms.

A.C. // @humanaffliction

[humanaffliction]

You never heal all at once. You’ll walk through the fire time and time again until the flames can no longer burn you.

A.C. // @humanaffliction

[humanaffliction]

I had emotions popping off like champagne corks, but now the bottle has been drained of every last ounce and as am I - empty.

A.C. // @humanaffliction

[humanaffliction]

I tried...

I tried to love the others.

I cut out my beating heart and practiced in the mirror how I planned to give it to them on a silver platter every morning and every night until my blood ran thin. But then I saw a gulf of constellations across the freckles on your back and I couldn't help but count how many breaths it took until your heartbeat matched mine. At this point, I knew I no longer needed to take a scalpel to my heart because you have a heart of your own. And the way saliva collects in your mouth when you're turned on, the way it tastes; pure desire to be with no one other. Not to mention that your skin overwhelmingly smells like home, and I've never been more confided by such a scent swirling of sex and nag champa. It's the look in your eyes while you're driving that blows your cool guy cover, an instinctive slam on the breaks and a quick glance to the right to make sure I'm still breathing. We won't acknowledge the fact that you're the one who was holding their breath. You became my bestfriend all the while of becoming my lover too. In the beginning of our trial and error love, it was nail bitingly clear that no matter how perfectly we fit together like two pieces of a puzzle - you were once wildly out of my world. Your stardust and my stardust coalesce together like the collapse of a nebula. I've never met someone who's made my efforts and aspirations feel so worthy; valued; valid.

this is a thing of the past, everything has changed

A.C. // @humanaffliction

[humanaffliction]

im trying so hard to make a good life for myself.

but this house is not a home and my reflection in the mirror is just a fucking ghost.

when did the world begin to crash and burn like this?

i must have gotten lost in the flames.

A.C. // @humanaffliction

[humanaffliction]

I am audacious and daring, as well as a tremendous nervous wreck.

I feel every exerted thought in my spline, and not a single one missed.

I wonder who will be the last to love me.

I believe in raw living and honesty within yourself.

I know I am full of alleged flaws,

and I understand I’ve spent most of my life trying not to waste time.

I remember resenting my mirror image, and always pretending that i put myself first.

I now imagine the roots of weeping willows entangling my sense of stability;

I am grounded.

I worry about never causing a great impact upon this Earth, or ever fulfilling my dreams.

I cry when I’m angry because I take it out on myself rather than you.

I allow myself to procrastinate when I try my best not to,

and care too much over things I’ll never have the power to change.

I dream about things like acid rain turning into the very fuel that keeps me going.

I envision myself traveling abroad, being sculpted by every individual experience.

I try to be kind and genuine.

I want someone to stop and think about something I once said.

I hope that thought changes their life for the better.

I desire harmonious coexistence and respect in the utmost ways.

I am born to live, not just survive.

-A.C.

[i-live-inside-my-head]

[humanaffliction]

You can't give up on yourself just because you're not where you want to be in that moment. Shit is fucking hard but ya gotta pull through. However, it's okay to not be okay sometimes. If you're on the ground, don't try to get up and run. Lay there for a while if you need, but no longer than that. Then eventually you'll sit up, maybe look around. And after that, you'll probably be fumbling to stand up so in that case, just settle on your knees. There, you'll be begging to on your feet again. It's alright to ask for a hand. Once you're standing, it's still not time to run, okay? Take a stroll down the street, through the park or something. And finally, you'll have a dire need for something burning deep inside of you, and your ambition forces you to pick up the speed and sprint to wherever you need to go. Pace your breathing, run steady, and don't look back. You'll find your destination and get where you need to be, I promise. It may not be today, but some day. It's a process, that's life.

Every emotion along the way is valid, even if no one acknowledges it. // @humanaffliction

[arizonapunk-blog]

How You Left Me

I don’t feel dead inside. I don’t feel empty. I feel like there’s too much inside of me. My stomach used to be full of blooming flowers and fluttering butterflies every time you touched me. The flowers roots grew deep, and will never go away, but I can feel their corpses in the bottom of my stomach, because I guess you can’t water flowers with whiskey. The butterflies turned to soul sucking bats. Beating their wings against my origins making me sick. The sickness spreads through my body filling my veins with black fluid. Poisoning me from the inside. I keep choking on cigarettes trying to burn the letters of your name from my throat. I shaved my head because my hair was giving off toxins of you into the air. My skin is bleeding and raw from where I tried to claw away the skin you touched. It feels like the places your hands laid on me are rotting and need to be pulled off. Maybe I could live with that if you hadn’t touched every inch of my skin. If you hadn’t imprinted yourself upon me. -AZP

[humanaffliction]

but your heart is warm and that wicked smile you flash makes my stomach flip flop and passion still ignites in your golden speckled eyes when you get excited so don't tell me you're dead inside when all that has to count for something

you are as alive as you'll ever be. // @humanaffliction

[humanaffliction]

Upon impact, the adrenaline rushes to your head. The solidity of the wall against your bare knuckles is so satisfying; painfully pleasurable. Is it saddening that this is the only substantial foundation I know of? It's probably toxic or something, I hear it's harmful. Harmful to my hand, maybe. But last I checked, punching the shit out of a hard surface made me feel a hell of a lot better than holding in my frustration. I'd boil over if I tried catching all the briny tears rolling down my face then cramming them back into my eye sockets. Shattering every last bone in my hand sounds more appealing than listening to your ignorance, or even cracking open the back of my thick skull; I'd rather that, honestly, as long as hearing the shriek of your voice is not involved. Now, leave me be to my wall-punching so I can empty my mind, then allow me to reintroduce myself with my pristine left hand and an uncanny grin etched across my face.

Nice to meet you. // (@humanaffliction)

[humanaffliction]

Last night, I went bed and I fell in a deep sleep; a trance, almost. There was everlasting dream of myself that was just horrifying. It began with a pretty average day, just roaming the streets and minding my own business. But everywhere I turned, people kept giving me these nasty or concerning looks as if I had something on my face. I brushed it off because I really don't care what people think of me. The longer I was in public, the more I got unnerving reactions. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. I ran home to look in the mirror, only expecting to see the same face I see everyday. Boy, was I wrong. I almost screamed bloody murder and started clawing at my face. Who is this person? It's not me, how could it be? The eyes were heavy and sunken in, with viscous blood for tears running down the cheeks. That mouth was curled into an aching frown; broke my heart just at the sight of it. This face was ugly, the kind of ugly that makes you cringe. But you can tell this person had been through too much loss and trauma. I couldn't bare to look for half a second longer, mostly because it had some familiarity to it. I started scrubbing my face - which felt soft and clean just like it does any other day - with scorching hot water, hoping to expunge the remnants of all things hideous upon my skin. But every time I glanced back at the mirror I saw the same image again and again. I eventually got so spooked that I threw my fist at the face staring back at me, causing crimson shards of glass to scatter across the bathroom. That's when I woke up. It occurred to me that everything in your dreams are something in real life; something you've experienced before because your brain can't create things on it's own in a dream. That face I saw was a face I had seen before; whose face it belonged to, I wasn't entirely sure about but it scared the shit out of me. Immediately, I ran to the bathroom just as I had in my dream. Bloody murder, I screamed; my face, I was scratching. The person in my dream was the person I saw in the mirror. It was me, and it was my own reflection that I started to recognize. And suddenly, I understood. It all made sense: the face in the mirror wasn't how I actually looked on the outside. It was my subconscious cry out for help on the inside, seeping through my pores and the sockets of my eyes. Each component that was being suppressed just vomited all over my fucking pride. You can't hide your internal being., It will leak on your skin from busted veins, and leave sores in your fragile little eyes, and there is no escaping the stains left on every last stitch of clothing you own. Secrets aren't really secrets when you walk around wearing them on your face.

masks make your insides ugly // (@humanaffliction)

[humanaffliction]

The worst part about depression is you get so down in the dumps and you hold this constant unsettling feeling deep inside yourself that you can’t get out for the life of you, and after a while you start to forget why you were so sad in the first place. You lose sight of the thing that put a crack in your soul. But healing doesn’t exist here, it just shatters the more you try to fix yourself. Picture quick sand; you take even one step in and you’ll sink. The more you fidget and squirm and reach out for help, the faster and faster - the deeper and deeper - you will sink. It almost seems better to stop putting forth any effort at all. Instead of considering why you took that one last step or why you weren’t watching where you were going, the general thought of suffocation consumes you. Down, down, down you go, and there’s no longer a reason for being sad; you just are.

swallowed alive // (@humanaffliction)

[i-live-inside-my-head]

It just dawned on me that you aren’t my first thought of the day anymore, nor are you my last thought of the night; and now I’m free. I’m free from you. I’m free from the idea of you and me. But most importantly, I’m fucking happy again with my feet planted in the ground and my eyes as wide open as ever. I learned a lot from my love for you and the pain you caused me; I think I might be a stronger person now. So thank you for breaking my goddamn heart and teaching me that I deserve better. I just hope the next girl’s heart you get ahold of, you don’t twist and wrench and shred to pieces in more ways than imaginable like you did mine; no one fucking deserves that. Fuck, I’ll love you forever, but I’ve moved on.

thanks for breaking my heart

A.C.

(via i-live-inside-my-head)