[imreconnecting]

There's something I always forget about January. I'll remember the ice and slush, the stark absence of joy in a post-Christmas world, and the staleness of life after such a hustle and bustle time. But God, there's always one thing I forget. I always always forget just how long January is. The days inch by, each slower than the last, a month that feels like it'll never end. And I still don't know if I mean this as a bad thing or not. On one hand, the deadlines aren't impending the way they did so scarily in December. But on the other, I feel adrift, lost at sea, in the middle of the open ocean that is the first month of the year. Nothing to do, yet everything ahead of me. Sometimes I wonder how I cope, sometimes I wonder how I don't. It's creeping by, this January. Once it's over, the year will blink on by. Maybe the stillness is a blessing, maybe it's a curse. I miss when I used to feel hopeful about the things I wanted. Now I just feel sad that I don't have them. Maybe if my dreams were less realistic, it wouldn't be such a letdown when they still fell through.

[imreconnecting]

Another sign, and I shrug my shoulders. You pop up in another corner of my life, and all I do is wave. It's time to let you go. Maybe you'll come back later, I hope so. Old playlists and throwback movies. I set out on a grand quest to find my old self. But then, she's right here, turns out she never left. Turns out she never will. I'm glad, it's good to have her here with me. I'm busy admiring her, making her uncomfortable, looking at her, exactly like my mom used to when I became a bit more of my own person. A bit more grown. When I feel a tug on my sleeve, the other side. I whip around, and there's the version of me I'm becoming. Come on, come on. She's impatient, excited, waiting for me to pick up my feet. Time to cut away the weeds, the flowers, the bracken tethering them to the ground. Old Me goes in my back pocket, I won't leave her behind, our little secret. I'm scared to go, afraid to let go, butterflies... The way fear bleeds into excitement. Can't have one without the other, like me and future me. I'm ready to go with her.

[imreconnecting]

Killing myself to find something new to write about. Desperate for new material. If I'm getting bored of talking about you, surely my notes app can't take any more. Fantasies at work that border on romantic comedy. I've exhausted all my usual daydreams. A scene I'm writing with characters that don't exist, the characters are us. But we aren't at that wedding, whose even is it? I'm not crying in the bathroom, cause there is no man that's done me wrong, and you're not there to wipe my tears, because none of this is happening. It's not real. My head has gone so far that my dreams can't even be fulfilled this decade. Suppose it's my ten-year plan, then. I'm rewatching that show, the one with the friends-to-lovers slow burn. It's the one to feed the delusions of every girl that's ever lived the yearning I'm living. A story where even though you're damaged, even though you mess everything up, even though you run from love and say all the wrong things at all the worst times, you still have someone to love you. And the best part is they've been there all this time, and they've loved you since the start. You are flawed and awful, and you still get a happy ending. It's not good for me, this show. Just adding hope to my hopeless romantics, fodder to my ceaseless make-believe. New scenes for us to act out, new characters to paste our faces on, new dreams for me to dream. It gets me thinking that maybe the next time I see you, I'll do it. I'll say the rom-com lines, and confess the big confession, or kiss you the way they do in season two. But the sad part is, I won't. I'm too chicken, and you seemingly don't care. I'll keep sitting here pining and romanticising until it kills me. And my notes app is just gonna have to get over it, cause I don't think I am any time soon.

[imreconnecting]

I think I only like people when they don't like me back. Not just by chance, or some cruel fate. But by design. I only want them if they want nothing to do with me. Well, maybe not nothing, a little flirting goes a long way, a little banter. Just enough to create something fictional, all I need is the foundation. I'll build the cathedral myself, open the doors and pray at the altar. But it's like I'm more interested in myself, narcissism maybe. My stories are just so good, so rich, so perfect. You never mess up and always show up on time and always know the right things to say, in my head. You can be beautiful, you can be perfect, you can be imaginary. Don't you dare start loving me back. Because then, then I backpedal. Hard. I realize rapidly that you aren't imaginary, or perfect. You're real and raw and flawed and in love with me. The latter the worst part. The minute I realize, a switch is flipped, I'm over it. I've gotten the “ick” or something. And within the hour, I'm worshipping a new god that doesn't know of my insignificance. Someone else to obsess over and pine for and flirt with, til they finally give me the time of day. Then I'm sure, rinse, repeat. Call it fear of commitment, or intimacy, avoidant attachment style. Whatever. I just wish it wasn't so confusing. Trying to figure me out.

[imreconnecting]

I was in your dream last night.

Last night you dreamt about me.

I woke up to the message,

you nudging me awake, or

stirring me from sleep.

I did something cool or saved you,

apparently,

called me the MVP.

Whatever that means,

you wouldn't tell me what you dreamed.

Bad memory claimed, but I don't buy it,

roll-eye it.

All the juicy details,

you don't want me to know.

I have dreams like that too.

Anyways,

you dreamt of me last night,

had me in your mind,

and woke me up at eight.

I was in your dream last night,

and I was great.

[imreconnecting]

So I guess I'm fantasizing. Dreaming of someone coming to rescue me, sweep me up in their arms and profess their undying love. I have a feeling no one's coming. I'm trying to be the princess, the Richard Siken princess, cotton candy pink and sitting in the tower. Looking in the mirror and seeing myself. I don't think I get to be the princess; I think I already know that. I think I've always known that. That's why I like that stupid poem anyway, isn't it? Because I’m the dragon, not the princess. But it sucks to be the dragon, obviously. I've done it a hundred times over; I want the princess role this time. Let me audition, I'll try harder this time, want it more this time. But it's not meant for me. I'll have to breathe fire in the mud, forever maybe. I'll reread that poem. Love, for you, is larger than the usual romantic love. It's like a religion. It's terrifying. No one will ever want to sleep with you. It's the same big and little words all spelling out desire, all spelling out You will be alone always and then you will die. I'm so fucking sick of being like this. Being stuck like this. But unfortunately, I don't think I can change.

[imreconnecting]

Its quite strange being young and going to a funeral. You're scared to cry in front of other people still, but of course you're going to. Fight it or dissociate as long as you dare, the tears will come. And when they do, you're embarrassed for some reason. It's so vulnerable. But you look around and everyone's crying, even the babies, which makes you cry harder. But the older people, they cry, then finish, and can be normal about it. No shame, no fear, they've done this before. Which, in turn, is a sad thought. That they've done enough grieving in their lives that it's a practiced art. I'm still new to it. It's scary and vulnerable, and I wish I could be normal about it. Do they see me, struggling with this, trying to hide my tear streaked face, and feel sadder? Remember their first time grieving? Am I breaking their hearts like the babies crying broke mine? Maybe I'm wrong, maybe it's not easier for them. But maybe I like the idea that it would be. Cause that would mean it gets easier, for me.

[ashstfu]

i don’t think people understand how much of life is grief. not just people dying, but losing the version of yourself you thought you’d become. grieving the city you had to leave. the friends you lost not in argument, but in silence. the summer that will never come back. the feeling that maybe you peaked at 12 when you were reading books under the covers and believing in forever

[memoir-of-the-falling-star]

I am standing right in front of you.

The sun is hitting your face just right and you just giggled at something stupid I said. You are looking at me and it almost feels like everything is someplace far away.

I cannot look away. I think, for a moment, that I'll break.

I get worried that I'll open my mouth and say it. I'll just say it, I'll put it into words into the same space that you are in, and it will forever be there, and you'll have heard it, and I won't be able to laugh it off because you are looking at me and you can tell when I'm lying.

And my heart rate is speeding way past the limit and my cheeks are flushing pink and I know because you are looking at me and I see the twitch in your brow that you get right before you ask me what is up.

But you are looking at me. You don't need to ask. You already know, so you're smiling, and there's a beat of silence, of acknowledgment.

I think I live in these silences, in the little spaces between full stops and capital letters, and that is why I must remain small.

It is with great shame that I can honestly say that living in these silences makes dying every other moment worth it. It is with shame I admit that you make me happy by merely existing, no matter how much you crave to see me bleed.

Right now, the sun is hitting your face just right, and you just giggled at something stupid I said, and you are looking at me, and the words are on the precipice of my lip.

Instead, I tell you to travel safely, and to keep me updated. You say you will send pictures. There is no poetry, no sonnet.

You already know. I do too.

The rest is just noise.

[imreconnecting]

My heart's done an awful lot of aching lately,

over the last few years.

Between grieving and longing and grieving again,

I don't know how much more it can take.

Another needle pricked, another pinched nerve,

another poke, another prod.

It almost feels sore.

Like my arms after carrying too much.

Too much lonely, too much sorrow,

too much of missing someone.

I realize I've been carrying around all this sad.

It's so heavy.

My arms ache, my heart aches.

But I don't know where to put it down.

[imreconnecting]

The kind of fucked up thing is that I like having long hair. How is that fucked up at all, like even in the slightest? I hear you asking. Well, there's a whole convoluted backstory surrounding my gender identity, but moreover, some weird inner impulse to not do as I'm told. Something about my grandfather telling me he likes my hair like this, or my mom complimenting it only when I wear it down. It just makes me crazy, like I need a buzz cut asap. But trust, I've done the buzz cut before, and I don't want that now.

I think I'm just a contrarían at heart, a rebel without a cause, an obstinate little girl. I can't bear that other people have opinions on the way that I am, and I can't stand that they're approving ones. But the truth, the fucked up truth, is that I love having long hair. At least right now, of course, I ebb and flow and change every day. But right now, I adore it. Whipping my head around with that added emphasis, styling it different ways, following tutorials from TikTok. Running my hands through it when I'm stressed, or playing with it when I'm bored. It's beautiful and it's wonderful and it's exactly what other people want of me. Which is, of course, the issue.

Because I can't just simply be. Be what I want and do what I want. I can't stop thinking about other people, and for some demented reason, I can't stop constantly trying to be everything they don't want. I despise the idea that they like me, that they think I'm over whatever phase I was in before. I'll never be over it. I wish I could scream from the cliffside, tell the world. That I'll always be weird and strange and off-putting, even if my outsides stop reflecting it. I am always always always gonna be the freaky little girl who made potions in the mud, and the awkward tween who didn't talk to anybody, and the outspoken 16-year-old with a buzz cut and a political T-shirt. And I will never ever be what they want me to be, ever. But maybe... Just maybe, I can concede the long hair. For me. Because I like it.

[imreconnecting]

Taylor Swift has spoken on this feeling I'm having. This idea that as a child, things don't go your way, or you're hurt, or just irrationally upset or whatever. But you want to throw a tantrum, this fuck everything urge, and it is your God given right. You may get sent to your room or comforted or whatever, but either way, it's socially acceptable to throw the tantrum. But as we get older, we have aged out of this social grace, no longer allowed to slam our fists on the table, and slam doors, and scream at the sky. But the urge doesn't go away! I still want to throw a tantrum! I want to scream in your face that I hate you even though I don't mean it, even though it's not warranted. I'm pissed off and I have no right to be and I want to throw all my stuffed animals on the ground and yell, a loud guttural yell, at my slammed door. But I'm not allowed this; it's immature, it's wrong, I'm too old to act that way anymore. So, I stand in an unoccupied corner of my workplace and cry. A silent, lonesome, angry cry. With hot hot tears streaming down my face, and a grimace across my lips. I need to scream, but I don't think I quite know how anymore.

[imreconnecting]

I've got a very active imagination.

Something I've been told damn near my entire life. As a kid I thought it was a compliment, a good thing to have. Cause Sesame Street told me so, I guess. But now I know that was the esoteric language of grown-ups, where they don't say what they really mean, where they slyly insult you to your face. What they meant was, stop saying such crazy shit, kid. And I find now, as barely an adult, that this imagination is not my friend. It tricks me and fools me and blurs the lines of fact and fiction. I imagine and imagine and imagine until I can't remember if we actually had that conversation or shared that moment. Maybe I just imagined it, that's a possibility. Those adults, speaking with such cruel sarcasm, they weren't mocking me. They were warning me, trying to save me from myself. Stop believing such crazy shit, kid. They must've known how it would come to bite me in the ass time and time again. I've got a very active imagination. And it's a cruel fate because it makes me believe things that I shouldn't.

[alittolatte]

sorry that its been a week since I’ve replied to your message. I was held captive by the 20 something urge to do both everything and nothing in life.

[imreconnecting]

A letter I'll never send

So I wrote this poem, about you, a few weeks back. something about old friends and missed chances. I think I thought about you probably eight times in the last year. Which doesn't sound like a lot but, all things considered… I have this weird idea in my head, I don't know where I got it from, picked it up somewhere. That every time you think about someone, out of nowhere, at random, unprompted… it's because they're thinking of you. So like, I guess maybe I'm asking if you also thought of me eight times last year? Can you remember how many were random, how many I must have started, when I heard that song or remembered that show, that's not random, no. Sometimes, I wish we could see each other, like just for a night, no pretenses, no awkward first message of the one to reach out, no weird journey to rekindling. Just like, a night… in my childhood bedroom, and we could lay there and catch up, and stare at the ceiling. Talk bands and youtubers and memories…. Hey Ash, can I call you that? I think I miss you. And, I think we could've been something, something real and wild and intoxicatingly messy and cool and nihilistic, y'know. If we'd never had to go our separate ways, we would've been the coolest teenagers together, you and me. I still have a relic of us, y'know… A stuffed lion I'm too sappy to throw out or give away, tucked away so tenderly on top of my bookshelf. Don't know why I brought it up, but I thought you might like to know. And most of me knows you'll never read this but… maybe you at least randomly thought of me.

[imreconnecting]

My mom believes in telepathy.

Yeah, I know how it sounds. Apparently, there's this podcast she's listening to... Something about autistic children and their ability to perceive the imperceivable. And somehow that gives them telepathy? I don't think I believe it... I don't know, I almost want to though, believe. Believe that when you think of someone, they're thinking of you too. That when I stare at you, you can feel it, even though you don't see me. But then again maybe it'd be a bad thing. If you could hear it all. The things I'm screaming at you in my head. The things I wish I could say that I don't. The things I would never. Maybe it's beautiful, to think that as I lay in my bed thinking about you, you're doing the same. Maybe it's sad, that I hope with everything that that might be true. My mom believes in telepathy and I roll my eyes. But, maybe I want to believe too.

[imreconnecting]

In 2025,

So, it's a new year and I've returned to tumblr... except this time in a very different, far more intentional way. In 2025, I'd like to become a truer version of myself, what that means... I'll simply have to find out along the way. I want to go back to school in some capacity, I've been missing that studious, hardworking side of myself. I'd like to bring her back. I kept imagining this taking place somewhere far away and drastic, but what I need to realize is that I don't need to run away, nothing is chasing me. One question I think I will keep asking myself this year is, "Are you running from, or towards?" I will keep repeating it, almost like an affirmation. And on that note, of affirmations, I'd like to posit some to survive this year:

I am brave

I am strong

I have the audacity

I can do anything

And most of all I'd like to remind myself throughout this year, that, life... happens slowly... I have felt so rushed my entire life, whether by someone specific, or the world in general, or even myself. But life is not a quick snack, it is a full eleven-course meal, and I will savor every bite of it. I am in no rush to live all of life, I have the rest of my life for that.

As for the rest of my wants, I'd like to get either a piercing or a tattoo this year. Look, I've been putting it off long enough, and I like the idea of it aesthetically, AND I have a solid, thought-out idea for either. So really I'm just pussy footing around it at this point. It's time to fucking commit goddamnit. I need this year, to make bad art. To doodle and write and paint, and to do it all shittily. I need to make poetry and zines and music and, Oh! and I'd like to pick up the guitar, learn some Taylor songs or really any that I like, but I'd love to play the guitar.

And... more than anything, I'd like to do more things that scare me. Go to that party, and kiss that girl, and put myself out there in ways that absolutely make me want to shit my pants. I know that this is my year to be bold and be crazy and have all my wildest dreams manifest themselves into my life.

-K