we are writing.

eventually this will be revamped.

[itwasonlyandeverlove]

12-10-13

like number one, i actually don't think our desires to have a bf actually stem out of something shallow or bullshitty

like maybe asking why ugly people have bfs is, but idk in a way i feel like it's healthy

we're just like, well, we're fucking awesome, why does no one want to share that with us

and then to like pile on that, i actually feel like our desire for a serious relationship comes from wanting like a future

both you and i have pretty strong goals to have a family and we were sort of fed this fairy tale idea that you'd meet your bf in uni

even if you didn't marry your uni bf, that you would HAVE one

and like neither of us have, and we both know we're pretty fucking valuable

and at least for me, it plays a lot on what my adulthood is going to look like whether it's ppl who graduated and are working in starbucks or people like bro who seem to just go through the daily motions of life without anything really pushing them forward

and a lot of the time i'm like, "if this is what my life is going to end up like, what's the fucking point?" like idk the world kind of sets up these goals for you "if elementary school sucks, high school is better. if high school sucks, uni will be better. if uni sucks, post-grad will be better. if post-grad sucks, your job will be better." and both of us are getting close to the end of that chain, and our generation has been shown that all these promises are bullshit -- there's no job or family GUARANTEED for us.

and for me, the whole tentativeness of that sometimes makes it SUPER fucking hard for me to be motivated in school. like i work hard for what? to work harder? to compete harder? to have a career where i won't have any time to have a fulfilling social life?"

like i think i snapped it but idk if you remember there was an article about women and ambition and the conclusion was that a lot of women just DON'T want to go for the CEO position because they don't value spending their life working 24/7. they'd rather take the back seat and have their own time

and idk thinking about an adulthood where i have no emotional connections is so fucking soul-killing

and i've sort of been in this weird space too

like i wake up and i'm tired because i feel like i haven't had a good rest (and the only time i was able to sleep semi-soundly was after i smoked some pot the other night. like when i try to sleep my brain just seems to be going down a list of shit i should be doing instead) then i go to class and i spend most of my time in class zoning out and trying not to sleep which only means i have to try to devote more time to catching up. and then when i'm not doing that stuff i'm working.

like it's gotten to the poitn that i HATE socializing. like the whole tina issue and even the next day i was pissed because my mom was making me go to this thanksgiving thing

and it's like i see myself doing it and i feel like a shit, but i feel SO stressed because no matter how much i do it never feels like enough

which is probably a little uncalled for because i've been doing really well in everything except calc

but it's like i have this massive fear of failure

and the more i cut people out of my life the harder it is for me to take it easy on my grades because it's all i have

but i just haven't been able to spend time with anyone

because it feels like it requires money i don't have, or i have this out of body experience where i don't even feel like i'm being me.

idk my social life is so bad

like i can't even gossip because there's nothing to gossip about

the biggest things in my life are talking about like

political shit and/or people i don't even talk to

like i feel like life isn't even happening

i'm literally going through the motions

and yeah idk it would be so nice if you were here to like, be my bbg and we could have study dates and hang out all the time

i just don't have feelings. and i'm not doing anything interesting. and the less time i spend during interesting things the less i want to hang out with people, because i'm so fuckign BORING

i'm bored of myself

and it's like, k that's hella better than being a mess

idk though

huron felt like being ont he outside of a club everyone else was in

main just feels like being alone ALL the time

and again, i think some of it is me being snobby and not trying to like ~befriend~ people

and then like maybe something is wrong with me lmfao

like i tried going out with this girl, the SPHR pres randa

it didn't work out because she had to go home early

but like, yeah we were hanging out with these guys and i was super high, which like, bad idea, but idk, people are weird. i said no, and she was like "but you've smoked pot with me before!" so i felt obligated and then we even went in and i was like "i don't want to drnk" and they'r elike "no here have something"

but yeah i was just quiet, because i'm quiet, but i get even quieter when i'm high and they're just like "SHE'S SO QUIET" and i'm just like

wtf do people say??

i don't have anything to say so i'm being quiet. like i just have no patience for small talk that i don't know what the fuck to say when people are like, "she's quiet"

do normal people have thriving social lives because they talk about irrelevant bullshit?

like it takes SO much to impress me, that i tend to disengage with a lot.

anyway yeah the point was, people suck, school sucks, what is living, can we go back to north bay

[itwasonlyandeverlove]

space cowboy

did you leave because you thought i would hate you? did you leave because you didn't think there would be a universe in which i didn't blame you for her dying? i traveled the world. i traveled to every place you ever told me about your lies are in my bones so i stood on macchu pichu and i imagined the story you told me about mom, with her arms spread wide, weightless, for a moment, you thought she was an angel. your heart bleeds for height and so mine bleeds for freedom but my footsteps have never fit yours not because i could never fill your shoes, but, rather, because you could never fill mine. and just when i think i've lost you, my bitter shadow pacing, cut the threads, recoil the anchor i feel the lies tripping off my lips i see why you builts world out of words i see why this world was never enough for you. you taught me to believe in moonrocks and pixie dust, and ever since i've been an astronaut.

[itwasonlyandeverlove]

lilac skies

These are the things we avoid together, solidly. It feels like we watch cartoons weeks on end, with our limbs tangled together while I scribble heart-hearted poetry onto your chest. We’ve created a fortress of gluttony, and I can’t help but think of my sister’s harried annoyance, every time I take her to lunch, every time I suggest she tries to do something fun. Remember when I tried to convince her to come to Paris with us? She looked at me with such solid hatred and said, “Some of us have responsibilities.” As if you and I were just children in a candy store, and she was the one picking up after me. She doesn’t understand that I did this for her, and it’s apparent that there’s jealousy. She makes it apparent in bitter words and harsh comments, in the fat she swaddles herself in. It’s like she wants to match every calorie I’ve counted and tried to lose. I don’t blame her. I did this because I hoped things could have been better for her. I chose this life so that she could have the exact opposite. I just worry about her worrying – and who am I to be anxious? I’m tall and glamorous, with a rockstar boyfriend and a closet that costs more than her college tuition. Good things in your life always come at a price – I pay for my beauty with loneliness, self-hatred, and isolation. Oftentimes I feel like I’m trapped in an obnoxious costume, constantly trying to communicate with people but they’re so appalled at how gauche it is, that they can’t even hear the words I’m saying. You say you hear me. You say you get it. You do, but you don’t. We’re two parallel train tracks, running in the same direction, but still, complete opposites.

I don’t know what we’re hiding from, exactly, but it feels nice to hide. You fit your fingers into the grooves of my rib cage and smell my hair. Being with you is like being alone. We revel in our filth, in our utter aloneness, of our bored bodies and empty minds. We don’t talk. You drink and I smoke, and with kiss until our mouths are dry, until we can’t feel anything. You peel fruit with sharp knives and I think about running my wrists across blades. The longer we stay away, the harder it seems that going back will be. I want to slip below the surface and shed my skeleton skin. I want to die in the best way possible. I want to dissipate from the anxiety in my veins. I worry about getting old. I worry about becoming irrelevant. I worry about seeming meaningless. I worry I’m the person my sister thinks I am. So I numb it. And you let me.

We fuck without passion, and it’s not working any more. It’s not helping me forget, and mostly I end up curling away from you and you leave the room because you don’t know what to do when I’m crying. I yell at you. I tell you it’s your fault. I call you names and feel terrible and you fail to understand it’s not because I want to hurt you. I want to hurt me, but I can’t, so the best way it to try to get you to do it. To throw plates and break glass. I push you, so you push me back. There are a million terrible things I want you to do to me, things that would never cross your mind.

I’ve grown to hate myself so much. I don’t think you could ever understand the hysteria of being a woman. You have a certain hysteria of your own, the way your skin colour prefixes anything you do.

You don’t sleep enough but I can’t stop, shoving pills down my throat till I’m feverish and knocked out. I don’t want to think, because thinking gets me nowhere. This is me at the top of my game, at my most high.  No one can pull me out of this nightmare, because I have the advantage; I’m the only person who’s constantly in my head, I built up my walls of darkness so high that they’re impenetrable by the time you even try to climb them. I don’t want you to climb them. I just want you to be sad with me.

We built a blanket fort together, and I cried and you tucked my hair behind my ear. “You can do whatever you want, kid. That’s the secret. It’s all you.” I burrowed my face into your shirt and cried for two hours straight. You didn’t budge. You understood that some things go beyond words. Afterwards, I kissed you, and fucked you, and you had this empty look in your eyes, like you saw everything pass you by, like you realized you were a cog in my machine, and not the other way around. You just drink and write melodies and hide your lyrics from me. I’m waiting for you to leave me. I could try harder, try to get better, but I want to see how long you last. I want you to leave so I have an excuse to be sad. I want to be sad. It’s easier than trying.

So you leave the apartment to pick up take-out and return with pupils blown wide from camera flashes and there’s a chasm of all the silence between us, all the things you haven’t said, all the things I won’t bring up. I want to drown myself in it, wear it like a cloak, become one, become submerged, but you won’t let me. You won’t let me, and I think that’s the only thing that’s keeping me going at this point.

[itwasonlyandeverlove]

white iverson

“Aren’t you being kind of a bitch?” he asks me, looking straight ahead at the back of the headrest.

I don’t say anything. He’s purposely doing this; purposefully trying to yank my chain – at least that’s what it feels like. Like he can’t handle dealing with whatever emotional fall through so he wants to get me angry. If he’s angry he has an excuse not to deal with it.

“I mean, your best friend just OD’d. You’re acting pretty calmly.”

“Shut up,” I snap. “You don’t know anything about me. Or Hadassah. Or my friendship with her.” I slump lower in the chair. “And frankly, it’s none of your goddamn business.”

“Jesus, sorry,” his voice sounds lazy and disinterested and I can’t help but think about how utterly fucking useless he is in situations like these.

“Why don’t you call Malik and get his opinion on the situation?”

He pauses. “I might. I could probably get good money for leaking his opinion to the press, couldn’t I?”

“If he doesn’t give them a piece of his mind first. I can see it now. Moody bassist punches paparazzi in the face after being questioned about ex-girlfriend.” My voice splits for a moment. Not for Hadassah, or Malik, or even their split up; more for that period where we were golden, all of us, that rare time when the universe played a chord and we were all happy at the same time. That’s what I had always wanted more than anything – friends, happiness. The elusive feeling where your heart was content, where you and your friends all knew each other through and through, where you and your friends felt like you were a part of a cool club that everyone was looking in on. Feeling wanted. Feeling like you could do anything and everyone would have your back; not the self-conscious guessing, the desperate desire to please that stained my youth.

“He wouldn’t” --- Paul starts, before catching himself. I look over, curiously, and watch his eyes darken. He’s still not looking at me and I wonder where we got to this point. My body is pressed against the taxi door, I suddenly realize, and I unwind myself, melting a little closer to him. I wish we were still as close as we used to be. A certain nostalgia comes over me when I realize maybe it wasn’t so much that I knew him well back in the day, but rather that I just didn’t know him well enough. There was a space, bubbles of air insulating ourselves from each other, tricking me into thinking that a person can exist without any kind of darkness, the freedom of that knowledge allowing me to exist in that same lie, exist in a space where I didn’t have to be made of darkness.

His eyes glaze over and he quiets, realizing, I suppose, that maybe Malik would do something like that; that Malik wasn’t the quiet humble guy he used to be, avoiding cameras like the plague, and instead preferring to find the organic personal connection that fueled his desire to make music, his desire to connect, his desire to open his heart not to the public, but rather, to the right people. The people that needed it. The people that cared.

Malik didn’t seem to care about much of anything anymore.

“She fucked him up,” Paul tells me.

“And he did the same thing to her.”

Our eyes make contact for the first time in what feels like weeks, and I wonder how we got to be like this. Star-crossed lovers to strung out has-beens. Kissing him would have been appropriate, maybe, and getting out of the taxicab, never seeing him again. Leaving it at this, at some mutual understanding.

But that would be too easy, wouldn’t it? Despite the pain, it was always him. It was always going to be him.

[itwasonlyandeverlove]

糟糕

times are dark. i want you to consume me. i want you to press a blade to my throat like slicing into a birthday cake. revel in it. cut me to ribbons. make me something beautiful. jewels burden my bones. free them in a flash; splashes of rubies spilling diamond white hollow pearl bones to sharpen your teeth on. make me nothing. make me less than or equal to something else. crystallize my tears and mount them. end the pain and worship me forever. rotten cake and dusty cosmetics; i decay underneath your fingertips; i'm a dune in the wind, sands of time in an hourglass -- to die young is so becoming, but instead i waste away, unconsumed, and you wonder why i'm so lonely, why i weigh my self-validation on a scale measured by other people's approval, and maybe it's because of my father, but maybe it's just me, and maybe there's no universe where i don't exist like this, like a soggy piece of paper someone's trying to hold together --      maybe the only universe that doesn't exist is the one where you're not looking at me like a blood stain on your bed sheet,      maybe there's a universe where you're not pressing against me, but you feel like you're pulling away, eyes like honey bees, always looking in my direction, but never looking at me.      maybe there's a universe where i'm not counting universes and making pinky promises.      maybe sometimes i love you because it's easier.      easier than this. than the chinese fingertrap of your tongue, the edge of the hole in your heart that i'm tiptoeing on, ready to fall.

[itwasonlyandeverlove]

i got rejected from a sorority and all i did was write a stupid blog post about it

i’m tired of feeling on the outside of things. i always feel like i’m on the outside of things. i always feel like there’s this massive discord between how i perceive myself and how other people perceive me and i don’t know what to do about it. 

and it’s like, because i am where i am, i can see all the cogs and pulleys making things up, and i can see that it’s a system and i can understand why i get pulled under or why i don’t make it, but it still hurts like a bitch every times, because i want to be on the inside. i don’t want to be the person on the outside critically analyzing the structure of the machine.

i think i just haven’t felt like i fit in anywhere since north bay

[itwasonlyandeverlove]

my year in lists.

birthdays make me sad. i don't think this is a unique thing. birthdays make me sad because they make me think about how life and happiness is ephemeral and fleeting. i hate all major holidays for this reason. i feel like people are taught to build up SO MUCH to be SO LET DOWN. and being let down is okay, a lot of the time, because if you have this moment, this one, big, all-encompassing moment that changes EVERYTHING it won't do anything but make you sad because you'll have to come face-to-face with the realization that you'll never be that happy again. this brings about two questions: a) are you okay with never experiencing that happiness? (or at least not experiencing it now) b) how do you deal with the possibility that you've already experienced that great happiness? that the rest of life isn't about happiness anymore. it's about just keeping on. because that's the thing. a lot of life is about just keeping on. it isn't about extravagant gestures, and i think that's why i hate extravagant gestures so much. they always feel hollow and empty, like a big neon sign pointing to that empty hole in my heart that, for arguably evolutionary reasons, will never be filled. this summer was so happy, and now i'm back to reality, and reality is pretty fucking great, but also, it's me, and for some reason, i can tear all of that to shreds. it's always BIG QUESTIONS that shred my happiness to ribbons. it's always big questions about happiness and purpose and being in the Right Place at the Right Time, and if I'm in the Right Place then why doesn't it always feel like it? i think a lot about mediocrity too. mediocrity is the scary monster under every 90s kid's bed. we were born in an era where truly anything could have happened, and we're so vividly aware of that. the thing is, when you believe anything can happen, you also know that the worst can happen. that's why we reward the outliers -- they took that risk. well, we honour the outliers we know of at least -- glory is a brutal monster, and we often forget about the people that fail. people that fail don't get awards and magazine covers and expensive cars. you don't hear about the failures. they're dead echos. it's just i'm almost twenty-one and i've spent my life going on and on about being an author and i'm not, not yet, and sure i have time, but in the back of my mind my heart breaks because i thought i would've bene successful by now. every time i find myself sitting in front of a blank word document, i wonder if there was anything special about me to begin with. narcissism's a killer.

[itwasonlyandeverlove]

the afterparty 1/?

I scan the crowd looking for him, a bad habit that’s overlooked because Hadassah’s drunk enough to be working the room, inhibitions down once she’s stripped down to a body con dress and in the centre of a well-lit room. She’s a predator in the room, inebriated but focused, focusing on the layout of the room while she stands in the center of the storm, eyeing everyone around her. It only takes a glance for her to hook them – all of them – her body will do the rest. Hadassah’s face is like a sample tray of a Sephora shop, her face contoured into a new existence after hours of watching make-up tutorials on YouTube, the perfect wings of her eyelashes rendering her truly feline.

Hadassah pushes further into the crowd, near the front (are clubs designed with a “front” in mind?) towards a group with bottle service. She moves surprisingly fast for a drunk person, with her hand wrapped tightly around my wrist, so that once we reach our destination, she can spin me around and we’ll dance face to face. Of course, I’m facing the group of boys, and she’s facing away, only ever looking their way if the song calls for it. The science to this is that she seems disinterested, while simultaneously showing off the eighth wonder of the world, which is – of course – her ass, all glorious forty-two inches. She’s the master and I’m just along for the ride (but it’s an incredibly fun ride).

It takes all of half a song before a guy is approaching us, awkwardly trying to position himself for both of us to grind on him, which is a little impractical, but renders Hadassah even more disinterested. The boy is from the bottle service group she was targeting but he’s not attractive enough for her, and the fact that he dares to think that she’d share attention is enough to drive her away.

She dances alone, momentarily, flinging herself about wildly, biting her lip and batting her eyelashes at a more appropriate target. He’s tall and lanky, but has this odd boy-next-door vibe about him, with heavy-lidded eyes and gelled hair. With magnetic attraction, she swings to him.

***

After parties in Toronto are slow affairs, with thick liquor-laced music and boys I don’t know well enough. Hadassah sits on someone’s lap and laughs, while I feign interest in a conversation and smoke. The boy next to me puts his hand on my thigh. He’s not from here (I can’t bother to remember; I’ve had so many menial details about people’s lives thrown at me in the past few hours), but who is?

That’s when he walks in. It’s not like the movies, where everything goes in fucking slow motion and the music stops: it’s having spent the past few hours on the edge of my seat, wishing for something to happen (repetitively telling Hadassah in an anxious voice that no I hope it doesn’t; who knows if she believed it) only to half the prophecy fulfilled. Despite thinking about this scenario all night, I hadn’t even thought of what I would do if it happened. He hasn’t seen me yet. It’s just the back of his head at a bar, but I know him. I know him anywhere. He looks stupid and dorky, that’s what I tell myself. He’s in a generic button down shirt with the end trailing out. He was never the loudest person in the room, never the hottest.

I ash my cigarette and sit up straighter. He turns.

[itwasonlyandeverlove]

#Motivation

I haven’t written in what feels like an eternity, like, I know you were mad that I didn’t write yesterday, but it was like, I was almost afraid/ super apprehensive/ super anxious to see what it is that I would actually say...it’s like, when something is just a thought in your head, you can pretend it never existed and you can make it go away, but then when it’s there in plain sight, in the form of letters strung together that make actual words and coherent formulations of the thoughts in my head, it’s kind of scary a little because then I have to face it... 

Then again it’s not like there’s anything particularly terrifying that I’ve thought about, I’m just a little afraid of life. I’m in this weird rut right now where there’s a month until school and I just got back from this great trip but I don’t know what to do next and I was plopped back into reality so fast that it kind of almost feels like the trip never even happened. But then it’s like, why does reality have to be this dreary thing? Why can’t my reality be exciting? Why can’t I craft my life in a way that I ALWAYS have a reason to wake up in the morning, and that there is ALWAYS something to look forward to, and ALWAYS something to motivate me? My motivation comes in peaks and valleys, right now I feel like I’m smack dab in the middle of that valley and I want to know how to pick myself back up. How are people ALWAYS motivated? How do I cultivate consistency? Because I want that, I really truly want that, but then I guess to start off with, you’d need to be a do-er not a thinker right? I bought a book called “Getting Things Done” that teaches you how to get things done, but like...I haven't even gotten around to getting the book done.... 

I guess I could sit here and mull over how bleak everything is, or I could actually do something, anything about it to overturn that. I wanted to feel this motivational high when I got back from Amsterdam, and to be honest I really truly did feel that high over the last couple of days there. It felt like a microcosm for my future- a bunch of motivated lawyers from all over the world collaborating and getting to know one another, and exchanging experiences and perspectives and thoughts and opinions all in the pursuit of a set of ideals that transcends difference, that mitigates difference, that unites. And it was great, it really was this high, in part because I realized that not only is there Canadian competition I have to deal with, there is competition from all over the fucking world with brilliant ass kids who are all vying for the same small set of jobs. 

And then visiting the courts, and getting to speak in French, and actually watching an actual trial of a man that I had studied in class for weeks- it was fucking insane. It was unreal, it was terrifying and somehow, I don’t wanna say cathartic, but it was like this peak, this ultimate really satisfying culmination of a whole bunch of things I’d studied. Like, I just couldn’t help thinking- this man was there metres away from me, in a hoity toity suit, looking sharp for an old man- and it was almost impossible to really conceptualize the gravity and extent of everything he’d done. How do you conceptualize genocide? How does one make sense of crimes like this? And then it made me think of all the other career paths that I could go down. That while this fight against impunity was happening, there were still people suffering from the physical costs of all that happened and that needed help. Maybe I could figure out a route to pursue where I’d get to help them? 

I guess, how do people motivate themselves? I mean sure external motivation helps a lot but, where does intrinsic, consistent,  all consuming motivation come from? I guess i need to act, somehow, and just start somewhere and it’ll hopefully all fall together. Insert cheesy quote something along the lines of, you won’t get anywhere unless you take the first step and all that jazz. I can’t give up on myself. I won’t. This rut will pass, and I will ensure that it passes. 

[itwasonlyandeverlove]

HOW TO REACT WHEN A BOY YOU HAD A DISASTROUS SEXUAL EXPERIENCE WITH ASKS YOU TO DINNER

I keep asking you if you’re sure, because I literally cannot understand why you would ask me to dinner. I’ve been as brutally honest with you as I am with everyone, that kind of brutal honesty as harsh as the kiss of the bee, or a straight razor dry shave. But, no, when I ask you, explicitly, if you are doing this to get in my pants or if you genuinely want to go to dinner with me, you choose the latter, as if there was any fucking way you would honestly admit to me that it was actually the former.

So, what does this mean, Boy I Had a Disastrous Sexual Experience With? Is this like a Sandra Bullock / Attractive Male Actor romantic comedy, where your capital p Perseverance is what puts you Ahead of the Pack? The fact that you Actually Pay Attention To Me sparks an unlikely romance between a nerd girl and a frat boy?

I don’t know. The last time a boy asked me out to dinner was when I was eighteen and we were already dating and I had met His Whole Family, so it didn’t feel particularly special, just some motion we Had to Go Through because it was New Year’s Eve and we were Supposed To.

I can’t help but wonder if my head is that good.

HOW TO TAKE MDMA PILLS AND FALL IN LOVE WITH STRANGERS WHO DO NOT TEXT YOU BACK BECAUSE THEY WERE QUOTE UNQUOTE "TOO FUCKED" WHATEVER THAT MEANS

I was so high and I keep repeating this to you as if it was going to change anything, but all I want it to feel your body against mine and ask you all these stupid questions, that weren’t really Intimate Questions – they were just Getting to Know You questions. It felt like all my neurons were connected, and you kissed maybe like a 7.8-8.9 on the kissing scale. I remember at first I was like, “Hm, I can’t tell if I enjoy kissing This Boy Specifically, or if I just like the act of kissing so much that I could be making out with a squid and it would be sufficient.” But I did enjoy it – otherwise I wouldn’t have kept you up all night, kept giving you goodbye kisses as if each time you were slipping a different pill that would help me get through the day without you.

We talked about the evolutionary purpose of gerbils, and poodles, and Yorkies, and French bulldogs, and I can’t help but wonder what the fuck the evolutionary purpose is of two twenty-somethings drinking till they don’t have feelings anymore, and trying to flick cigarette butts across the street.

The way I see it, L O V E isn’t something that happens to you or a decision someone makes. It’s a capacity. I wasn’t In Love with you, I just saw the capacity there. You just decided not to text me back.

[itwasonlyandeverlove]

hills like white elephants 1/? [allayna]

Jig runs her hands through her thick hair carelessly. It fell to her waist in thick ringlets; it had always been her hook, or, as her mother liked to tell her, her crowning glory, a bright beacon, a lighthouse beam that seemed to draw men to her. Jig herself likes to think of it more as a trawling net, dragging in her victims, including the prize catch and the scum off the sea floor. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference.

Her hair grew wild in the heat, and stuck to her bare shoulders, like a bad feeling she couldn’t get rid of. She continues to play with it, for lack of anything better to do. Jig knows she must look like a child, sitting at a bar with this older man, unable to sit still and keep her hands out of her hair. She doesn’t care. Jig is exceptionally beautiful, and because of this, she has the freedom to be a little eccentric. What’s rude and disgusting on an ugly person becomes endearing on a beautiful person. Beauty gave her freedom from self-consciousness. She learned early on that people would talk terribly about her regardless of what she did, so she decided that making herself happy was the smarter option.

The American did not feel the same way, probably because no one stared at him, unless he was with Jig. He seemed to have this paranoia that people were staring at them because they knew and one of these strangers would surely call his wife and let her know that the American was gallivanting around Europe with a French-African half his age. He only ever seemed to be happy with her when they were alone in the dark.

Looking at him now, his sunburnt, wrinkled skin, she wondered what she had ever seen in him. She believes she loved him because she thought it would be simple, the way affairs with older men are supposed to be. He would admire her unconditionally, pleased with his luck for winning her affections, and constantly securing them with lavish gifts and beautiful dinners. But his commitment to his family would ensure that things never got too deep. He would be a casual parishioner to the church that was her body, visiting sporadically, only when he felt necessary.

It was supposed to be easy, and that is what she had admired about him. Initially, at least.

[itwasonlyandeverlove]

personal blog post #22: babylon

You’re a write-off. I sent handfuls of loose leaf tea to Brooklyn in an envelope, because I knew you were a write-off, but the rest of it is still sitting in my closet because I can’t let you go.

I hate myself for not letting you go. I imagine myself successful, happy, in love. But it means nothing if I don’t get to see you, get to see you see me, and realize everything you missed.

Even though maybe you haven’t missed anything. Maybe the time hasn’t struck perfectly. There’s no way to figure out if you feel about me the way I feel about you. You’re silent. That means you feel nothing. But my heart has always been an adept liar, so here I am thinking that you’re afraid of admitting I could be something to you. I like to hope I cross your mind, at least sometimes, but I doubt it. I miss you. I miss you. Even you will never live up to the man I imagine you are. You were just a sweet bit of nothing I temporarily needed.

I wish I could put more of this into words, into the way you would look at me, not with this burning love or anything, just this opaqueness. Looking at you was like staring at a brick wall, and it sounds silly, but it was sort of transcendent, when you’re someone like me, someone whose life has always been a tempest. I felt like you knew things about me that I didn’t, and I felt that there were so many things on the tip of your tongue that you would never tell me, and I miss you lying on my stomach, and letting me stroke your hair, and how I would find the black strands in my mattress for days. I have never felt so truly at peace as I did in your arms. You asked me why I never asked about you, and I told you it was because I knew you’d never answer; you only ever would answer when I accused you of something. Then you would pause, because you wanted to lie to me, but you would end up telling me the truth. Your voice would drop when you were serious, and you always wanted me to relax more, but I never could, not around you, not unless you were touching me, unless we were looking out on the city and you were telling me I’d grown cynical, I want you. I want to stay forever in that moment, that first night, lying together on your couch in silence listening to Frank Ocean. I want that to be just as special to you as it is to me, but I know it isn’t, and I want to get over you. I want to get over you, but I can’t.

[itwasonlyandeverlove]

you remind me of a distant constellation

Memories don't come back in a linear fashion, though. It's weird phrases that I'm not even sure are correct. And that's sort of the thing, right, with any substance abuse. It's a weird paradox, of wanting to have a good time that you won't remember, with people you wish you were close with, but who will have a completely different experience. All of this was just so completely uncharacteristic of me, which is I think what got me. I mean, I used to write as an attempt to live, but sometimes I need to live to write, and this peek into the life of Teenaged White Boys with Too Much Money (who are treating me as an Attractive Girl, deserving of respect, but at the same time, a complete outsider, a shadow watching) was something I needed.  It reminded me how much I like boys. I mean, to be able to watch the way they interact with each other set against the way they interact with me. From profanity and cigarettes, and bong hits, and phrases I can't ever pull off ("yo man" "a'ight king" ) especially the weird irony laced in their use of dialect and Mark's All Leather Outfit (he's such a fucking cliche. maybe it's hypocritical for me to say that, but it's too true) to the vulnerable things. To a feverish glare in the dark, or blue eyes of a giant boy looking at me, or offers of everything unneccessary, to the unconcious twining together of bodies or if they rest their head on my chest and let me stroke away their hair maternally to lip-syncing and them spending too much time on their hair. They're overgrown children; the weird contrast between Rob's sweetness and need to please, and Mark's Total Retraction. A screwdriver took me apart early Sunday morning, and suddenly everything I've been holding down rushed back up, about how much I want to die. Because it was too much. Hanging around people who can compete about how fucking large their house is going to be, and have jetskis for kicks. Part jealousy, part guilt for mistreating my mother who has to struggle so hard for me, part sickness. Sick for a lot of reasons. That it's a life I might one day want. And children starve while seventeen year old boys do shrooms. Some of it was how empty I feel in conversations, like they're always hard for me to follow, and hard for me to say anything, and hard for me to understand people being nice. Or maybe my ability to have potentially fucked up everything, for pleasure I can't remember, and pain I can. All of it balancing of the backs of these boys (Mark's taught skin like a honey-coloured canvas dappled with moles, Robert's giant cross-bow with the brown sunburn at the peak of his shoulders tapering down to his thin soft waist, his back, seeming to be a universe of its own, his boyish sweetness becoming suffocating just because of the pure size of his huge body, a giant among humanfolk) who seem to be complete opposites, and at the same time have an almost unsettling similarity to Audrey and I (as if the four of us were to pairs of identical siblings with astonishingly similar temperments. Audrey saying, "He looks like a female version of you with more... something" if we knew what. Giant loping dark-haired europeans with crayola coloured eyes, charm and control, conceding because the fight was already won versus the racially ambiguous new species a little closer to earth, sexual caricatures, draped in the colour of mourning, maybe Adam and Eve reincarnate, the regret for the original sin permeating dark eyes, and restless wild hair). Mark standing waifishly in all black with a cigarette versus Robert lurking, in his plaid shirt, with his nicely combed hair. Mark, in his tightly blinded dark hot room, ruler of the night, pulling away after initial closeness (and explaining nothing), and showing up at the door blank and speechless with no goodbye's, either the introvert or the spotlight but never in between (not sober at least), bursting in and out of the room like a tempest, and all the contradictions -- his cotton candy lips spitting out words like knives, versus Robert, flourishing in bright morning sobriety (the yellow room, the sunlight pouring in through the french doors over the ocean view), assuring me that there's no romantic connection (there isn't) but still playing along, because -- and I guess that's something we have in common -- the romance is part of it for him, bringing up food to eat together on the bed, cuddling, kissing, the need for eye contact and those weird oddly direct questions in the outside world with his eyes just piercing; the concern, the surrender, versus The Fight. Trying not to ignore that my father's namesake can match my father's absence, and the other sharing the name of my nearly-stepfather, the same smoker's breath reminding me of him. Being thirsty only to be repelled by the taste of water, the way the smell of weed seems to have taken up residence and multiplied in a Fiji bottle. Comically veiny arms, (as if it were an artist's dramatic sketch, the blood there and vital in the tangled veins) when the night before you had been so desperate to carve into your own fleshy ones, because, in a flash when you became aware of the world spinning, you suddenly remembered how much it hurts to breathe, how the air feels solid, like liquid glass you resist, drowning, and sucking it in with effort, until it hits your balloon lungs, soldifying, breaking.

[itwasonlyandeverlove]

Latching On to Anything That Will Anchor Me

So, this past weekend was a whirlwind. I felt so many things. So, so, so, so many things. I felt alive. I felt devastated. I felt hopelessly confused. I felt ashamed. I felt special. I felt valued. I felt embarrassed. I felt ungrateful. I felt content. I felt like a piece of shit human being. I felt. 

Sometimes it feels like, I only really feel, when I'm taking a break from reality. But then again it's like, well are the feelings I feel productive feelings? But then it's like, does there need to be an end attached to the feeling? Does it need to be productive or not productive? Is a feeling not just a feeling? 

Sometimes I'm afraid to indulge, and sometimes I don't feel like I indulge enough. A friend of mine was recently telling me the story of how she's done a complete 180 from the person she used to be in first year, and that now, she totally loves herself and the person she's become. I was astounded. I don't really remember the last time I heard anyone say that they loved themself. Then I thought, well do I love myself? Then I thought, well I know the unfortunate answer to that one so I probably shouldn't think about it. I guess I delude myself into thinking that in cultivating this life, and this set of occurrences and happenings I can indulge in, that these instances, that these moments and experiences and stories will become me. As in, not that the person that I am will shape the experiences, but that the experiences will shape the person that I am. That, going to this frat party will be a super cool experience that I'll never get again, and why the hell not? That I want to visit my friend because my soul needed to be near someone, and talk to someone that understood me. That I want to visit this boy and get to know him because people are worth getting to know and I ought to give him a chance. 

I hate that I look at my phone every 10 minutes. Even now I'm thinking about checking it to see if I got a notification. I probably would have checked if I wasn't on my bed and it wasn't on my desk. To think that like, a few messages from some random boy about semi-superficial shit is validating, is disgusting. To think that, this anchors me, to think that I like the idea of having someone to talk to on a daily basis, and that that's what boys have become to me, is gross as hell. It's just gross. It sickens me, I sicken myself. Am I that needy and desperate? I don't have my mom anymore, or my best friends. I mean I have them, but who do I have to hash out the minute details of day to day existence with? Maybe I like the feeling of A person and not the person. That it isn't the individual but what they represent and the purpose they serve in being a constant. 

Remember when I asked you what grounds you? I guess what I meant, or well to be honest I don't know exactly what I mean when I say that, but I mean, what anchors you? What keeps you going? What is a constant in your life that you can count on? I don't know that I have that, so maybe I've tried to outsource that on rando boys? But then again that doesn't help because they are ultimately rando boys who will leave. And it's like, I actively refrain from ever disclosing any particularly personal details about myself, so as to protect myself from the inevitability of when whichever boy in question leaves. No longer talking to Salman hurts like a bitch and I miss him so much- but I'll probably get over it easier because I never really unveiled myself to him. 

Everything feels uncertain. I miss certainty, and stability, and security. Why can't I handle loneliness? Why is the thought of not having somebody so petrifying? Then again, I've never even really known what it's like to have somebody? I've had a number of random best friends and a number of random boys, and a number of conversations, and a number of random shared

experiences but nothing that's ever really been legit. So then it's not even like I'm yearning for a thing that I've had in the past. I wanna know how to love myself and be comfortable with myself and being by myself and having to rely on myself and no one else. You've told me, and another one of my friends has told me that you don't really get to know who you are until you've been alone. I won't really get to be alone any time soon but I mean, I guess just learning to navigate this life would be a good first step. Learning to not need someone to send stupid text messages too. Even now, I HATE that I'm waiting for him to message me, it's SO dumb. 

I don't know how to find myself. I don't know how to love myself. 

[itwasonlyandeverlove]

personal blog post #21: tits & sluts & strippers

I remember the first time I was called a slut. I was fourteen or fifteen, I think. It was at my friend’s house. I don’t remember if it was her birthday or a normal day – our group spent a lot of time together during that era – but we had spent all day at the waterslides, and were showering at her house before dinner. We had split up – some of us were in her shower, and the rest of us were in her brother’s shower (he didn’t live in the house any more, either at boarding school or university). I was talking about something with my friend while we showered in our bikinis, maybe about not being popular with boys (I haven’t changed much, have I?) and she said, “It’s because you’re a slut.” Me, at the time, completely virginal and untouched, my romance life not even consisting of those kindergarten kisses, but just a string of unrequited crushes, replied, “What?” She answered, “Have you seen your boobs?” As if she were telling me the sky were blue. Simple adolescent logic: you have slightly larger than average boobs, ergo you must have a voracious sexual appetite to match.

This is the first time I realized how people saw me. Of course I had been subjected to catcalls (which were luckily only ever an inconvenience in my case, never a danger, sort of something I just expected while I was out in public, like sunshine), but those were…men. Those were strange men. This was my friend. It only became punctuated after I did finally get my first boyfriend and, in one of those estrogen-laced battles that occur between mother and daughter during those tender years, my mother told me, “You were probably stupid enough to sleep with him.”

Bodies. Bodies, bodies, bodies. Sometimes I wish I could just slip it off.

Even my hair thing. My hair has had five phases. The first was when my mother would pull it up into a ponytail on my head, and kids at school would always ask why I didn’t wear it out, why I didn’t straighten it. Two, when I finally succumbed. My mother and I textured my hair so I had curly hair to my shoulders. Three, when I shaved it. This was as close as I could ever get to slipping out of my body, but it still subjected me to so much bullshit (speculation about my sexuality, mostly). I was tired of being a pretty girl though. Four, my baby fro. Five, the long straight blonde extensions I wear.

I haven’t talked about going blonde yet, because I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. On one hand I was happy – more of my friends were upset about me going blonde than people were when I shaved my head. On the other hand, I’ve been a little peeved. Here are the typical three reactions.

1.      I love it! It looks sick! You pull off blonde well! (general population)

2.      You look hot. You look better than you ever did. I don’t remember what you used to look like. (some boys)

3.      What the fuck happened? Who did this? Why did you do this? Did you do it to fit in? Are you trying to be whiter? When will your hair be back? I miss it. (close friends, yourself included)

#1 is my favourite reaction. #2 is too be expected, and it’s only been one or two people because I don’t speak to that many dumbasses, so I just chalk it up to a lack of knowledge about socialization and why we value European features over all others. #3 is what pissed me off the most, though. Here’s why:

It takes away my agency.

I love that you guys love my natural hair, but it’s been irritating that some of my friends acted as if I didn’t have a choice in it. As if some mystical force forced me to get a weave.  As if I were passive in the situation. That it was a fun experiment but I should switch back ASAP.

I’m tired of my hair being its own entity. Yeah, yeah, bullshit first world problems. But try to put yourself in my situation: has anyone from North Bay told you that they miss a certain body part of yours? Have people stopped you to touch your hair? Has your hair become your defining feature, the thing that people think of when they think of you?

Similarly: have you ever wanted to change your hair? To be able to whip it back and forth? To curl it like Lana Del Rey? To change the colour without damaging your hair forever? To be able to try a completely new look, new colour palette? To make all your friends gasp in surprise when they see you for the first time after winter break?

This is what I wanted.

There’s this photo on my public Instagram of my boobs in a shirt from V-Day Western that says “ORGASMIC”. I’m not wearing a bra because I was in the house, and I literally never wear a bra in the house (do you do this? Is this a privilege I was afforded because I only ever lived with my mom and never had to worry about potentially arousing the men in the house?). You can kind of see my nipples and areolas. I posted it because I wanted to post a picture of the shirt, and I didn’t realize it was semi-see through till I took the photo and then I did and I was like, “so what, I’m not gonna go put on a bra and retake the picture, plus my boobs look awesome.” Earlier today I was thinking about deleting it, weighing the pros and cons of it being appropriate, blah blah blah. Kind of like when I posted that cute Snapchat of my butt in Panda underwear. Is that okay? Is that too much?

I hate that feeling of second guessing myself. I never used to do it. You know why? Because I never used to subject myself to the male gaze. The first time I think I became blatantly aware of the male gaze, was this moment when my ex-boyfriend, McKenzie, and his friend Dorian were hanging out with me outside, and made me stop moving. “Doesn’t she look beautiful?” “What are you talking about?” “Come over here. From this angle, look at how the light hits her. Don’t move.” And they literally stared at me for a good seconds (albeit they were also high). Despite catcalls or whatever, I had never really seen myself at this thing, as just photons hitting boys’ eyes, to steal Hank Green terminology.

I’ve always had a sort of blissful ignorance to any sort of attention I got (friends would point out people staring at me; both Audrey and McKenzie have credited me for getting more attention from females; and I’ve seen many a girl compliment me more than they would a normal friend would Oh your eyes are so pretty…like a hazelnut…You’re glittering, or just constantly bringing up my body or lingering on my silhouette too longingly). When I dress up, it is the way I like to dress up. Okay, sometimes I’ll wear something a little low cut and tight if I want to get in somewhere for free. But I dress to express myself, whether it’s that skin-tight purple dress, or that white button down I got from Goodwill, or that ugly grey sweater you and Jen hate.  

Another moment of awareness was when I was in Montreal with Daouii, and there was this annoying guy who was being weird and clingy, and he said, “You dance so sexually.” That was just a weird thing to say, but also, I dance for me. I dance for me. Sometimes it’s sexy, but I’m not dancing to arouse anyone. I’m dancing because this is the way my body likes to move. I’m not dancing for you. I’m not dancing for you.

I bring this up because I just watched this video on Buzzfeed about pole dancers trying to break the stereotype, and I relate to it so much. I love dancing. Zumba is the highlight of my week (and now NewBody and Sh’BAM), and I literally just love going to the gym in my sweat pants and sports bra, and losing all my inhibitions, and shaking my hips in front of a mirror in a room full of old ladies. Sometimes I even come home and pull up some choreography on YouTube and dance in my underwear. I love it. I love it. And I’m not doing it for a guy.

I’m just tired of thinking that I should be. When my mom and I were talking about 50 Shades, she was going off about how she hopes Dakota Johnson got paid well because she was so naked. But…Jamie Dornan was just as naked (although she did criticize him for doing this movie while having a wife), but you know, he’s a guy. He doesn’t lose any shame. Channing Tatum can make a movie about stripping and its chill. No slut shaming attached.

But let’s get out of this bullshit white neoliberal feminist view point. I am tired of women’s bodies being ANYONE’S. I started research for my essay on human trafficking in my city, and it’s actually fucking ridiculous that just as I look up this article about a woman talking about being exploited sexually, physically and mentally abused, and having to drink/drug herself to be able to go on stage and dance. She said she couldn’t go a whole day without crying for six months. So, you know, in juxtaposition, this Buzzfeed video seems kind of ironic.

We need to stop commodifying women. Whether it’s a woman who’s being exploited for sex work or the female labour force powering sweatshops or being gang raped or dying in honour killings. Fuck the system. We wouldn’t be looking at women’s bodies as these things to protect and consume if there wasn’t a value on them. There wouldn’t be a value on them is the capitalist patriarchy wasn’t the dominant institution.

[itwasonlyandeverlove]

fucking boys who look like you because you look like him

I used to mix up your names all the time when I first started screwing you,

Alex, Adam, Adam, Alex.

Same first letter. Same generic white boy name, a stockpile name, a name of a million different actors and fictional characters (not like mine). A name people can spell without asking you how to do it. Two Syllables. Two people. Four syllables. Four letters. Sort of like love.

You were such a good replacement that you started taking on a life of your own, and I’m really good at excuses, so I would make a million up for you. You were a dollar store colouring book and I took my crayons to the page, colouring within the lines, making you into a masterpiece that you never would have been without me.

But of course your true colours were going to come through eventually.

I think about how much I hate you. How much I’ve cried over you. How much I’ve felt sick to my stomach running into you. Because you are genuinely a piece of shit. I can’t deny it. I try to say that all the boys I’ve been with always turn out to be pieces of shit, but they don’t. You were different. You were the embodiment of everything I’ve always been afraid of, to be honest.

I used to nickname him Patrick Bateman, but when I think about it, he afforded me a lot more respect than you ever did. He always replied to my texts, even if it was to tell me he was ignoring my texts. He never drunk dialed me, and made plans that he would regret the next day, acting like they never happened. I still have a bag of oolong tea he gave me. He was a rock, and you were always fire. He was steady where you were mercurial, and quick-to-please. I miss him like a penny dropped in a well.

But you made me feel something strong. The hatred I feel towards you is a feeling I probably haven’t felt since my ex cheated on me for the first time. Because you’re fucking impossible, and I have to keep surrendering to you, and never vice versa.  But I like holding on to strong feelings, because they remind me that I CAN feel, and that’s something I frequently forget.

I’m over you now. But I’m talking to a boy on tinder who looks just like you.

But that’s the thing. Do I want to fuck him because he looks like you or because he looks like him? Or do I just want to fuck him because he’s hot, and it’s not my fault that so many boys in this town fall under the category of “tall, white, and dark-haired”. He even has a generic whiteboy name to boot.

I like to think about that frequently. About how replaceable you are. There are a million dark-haired white boys in this town, whiteboys that will probably make me jump whenever I see the back of their heads on campus or in a club. But I’m less replaceable. My name is less common. My hair wilder. My skin darker. My clothes, different. I defy the cliché. You will always miss me: that’s why despite everything, you still can’t completely get over calling me when you’re drunk. Memories of me will haunt you for, at least, the rest of your university experience, while I, on the other hand, can group you into one smudge, one blob, of tall, white, dark-haired boys, who were all far too easy to bed. Sluts, if you will. Disposable cameras, polaroids in the trash. You are nothing, but I am everything. I am all the things I have learnt from being so violently different, and while you slip into an existence of six plus figures, empty pill bottles and marriages, and white lines on glass tables, I know my recklessness, my willingness, my differentness will always be more than you. I am more than you. This is the issue. The issue is finding someone who is more than me.

So for now I’ll probably just keep fucking boys that look like you because you looked like him. But lately? Even that’s getting boring.

[itwasonlyandeverlove]

personal blog post #20: the ever-living ghost

I’m so bored, I’m so bored, I’m so bored. I feel like this is how I always feel whenever things slow down. I’m so bored.

I did text him even though I shouldn’t have, because I was bored, and I was in the mood for mind games, and I was thinking that I looked very cute, and someone should be in the mood for playing mind games with me. I physically think about that, how I look. How my boobs look in my white tank top, how my ass looks in my underwear. Blah blah blah, how I’m dressed the way movies pretend girls dress in their downtime. And how I just think that someone has to see this, it deserves to be shared, how someone should open the door and pick me up and kiss me, how I want so many things, how most of all I want a boy to curl up with me under the sheets, and kiss my forehead and run his thumb across my cheek and tell me over and over again that he loves me. I just want to hear that over and over again IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou.

The thing is, I know Satan isn’t that boy, and I didn’t want him to be, it’s just I’m really low on options. Who else am I gonna call? Hayden. No. IDF boy? No. I just want someone to put his hands on me and make me feel like…not me. I want to not be me for a bit. I want to be a figment of someone’s imagination. I want to die but in less explicit terms. I was looking at my little manicure kit, thinking about cutting my wrists, but I don’t want the scars to still be healing while I’m in Panama. I feel like shit. I feel like dying.

I feel so alone. And I know a part of it is because I set myself apart from people, but part of it is that primal loneliness. I feel alone, and I think about all the things I’ve done this past year, to be a good student, a good daughter, a good whatever, and I feel numb. I feel like I was playing a part. And when I’m not playing that part I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to define myself without a relation to a person or a grade or a whatever.

And as excited as I am to go to Panama, it’s back to playing a part for two whole weeks. I don’t get to see Colin or my grandfather or Audrey. I don’t get to eat the food from my home town and go to the beaches I grew up around. I get to play pretend with my mother for a bit and pretend we don’t have real problems. I just feel so lonely. I want to die, I want to die. I don’t know. Everything just gets so tiring sometimes. I would be okay with slipping away for a bit.