Letters I'll Never Send

[originallandlockedmariner]

[inkskinned]

i am not doing well, but i'm not doing well in the ugly way. on tv and instagram "not doing well" looks like a messy room, an artsy picture, a painting made in haste. it looks like wild hair and steepled fingers over shadowed ribs. it looks practiced, a woman with a single tear running down her plastic, molded cheek.

i'm not doing well like there's rot in the sink. like i haven't combed my hair in a week. like i don't remember the last time i brushed my teeth. i'm not doing well like sleeping on a bare mattress because i don't have the energy to wrestle with the sheets.

i'm not doing well like i'm lying to my boss about emergencies. i'm not doing well like i have the first-steps of a bunch of projects scattered at my feet, abandoned to dust and spiders and reek. i'm not doing well like i know i'm supposed to be doing something-else, not writing this stupid post. but i can't get up. i can't get moving.

i'm not doing well like. there's not enough time to make up for all the missed assignments. like - when's the last time you ate something healthy? like i think about calling someone for help but - i've already asked for too-much recently, haven't i, no sense in making a fuss when i've already spent the last 3 months falling. it's okay, now. i hit the ground with the same wet crunch. i am a volume of mud, slipping out her white bone fingers, trying to attach life together by electric rods. i don't believe in love. i think i'm going to die alone. i am a playact on motion; the pretend residual girl waving from her animatronic waist.

i'm not doing well to the point i know others will say - again? or still? i know others will roll their eyes like there's always something with her, and they're right, there is always something. i know i'm not-doing-well like shit covered in glitter; i am no longer a work of well-intentioned failure but am now just a fester in the corner of the room, someone else's excuse to flinch and hold their breath and hope i blow over soon.

and i'm just sitting here, on my floor, thinking: i'm gonna lose everything left i have to lose.

knowing it doesn't matter. i'm not going to find the motivation suddenly. i am not going to burst apart covered in blooms. i'm going to watch it all drift past me, peacefully slipping into the dark. into the ooze.

[inkskinned]

you met her, literally, on the floor of the ballroom. the ballroom was also a cafeteria. it was underground, and it felt underground. wet. 

welcome, transfers! on a propped-up sign next to the vegetable plate. you'd been offered a chicken sandwich but declined because you'd worry about having lettuce in your teeth and you were nervous enough already. 

cold nose and sweaty armpits. you had already had the six same conversations - where you had transferred from, what you were studying now, what dorm you were in, what classes you had, where you grew up. the sixth category was when you eventually broke bad and would say something kind of strange, blurt it out due to your anxiety, and then you'd watch the other person sort-of flinch. you considered this topic misc. even you didn't know what would come out of your mouth during that part. it was horrifying.

you were stacking coasters, trying to work up the courage to continue to be normal-you. the self-that-isn't.

she had long hair and she talked first. "i like your coaster pyramid"

"i'm building a house for mice." luminous green, the words from your tired mouth sound immature and ugly. oh my god, you're so fucking awkward. 

"hang on, i gotta go do something," she says, and walks away.

the words on the floor are melting into the stone. they glisten, viscera. you want to hate their approach, but understand how it feels to rot in the stale air. you put the coasters down. you want to slap your hand against your face and drag it down, but that feels dramatic.

you sip your little dixie cup of water. you smile half-heartedly at other people who are walking from group to group. you take a deep breath and say i will be normal. you have never been normal. you once tried to read a workbook called women with adhd but it made you sick to your stomach.

you try normal anyway, just for a few minutes, wandering up to a new table, asking the same questions. feel that heart of yours banging inside of your chest. keep a big bright smile on your stupid face. get the wind knocked out of you, have to pretend you're okay while you walk away. act like you are settled and friendly.

stare at your phone while you amble aimlessly back to your safe little corner.

you almost jump. she's there. she's stacking a new pyramid. there are more coasters than before. 

she doesn't greet you, technically. "mine is a castle," she says. "i'm gonna keep the mice in, like, special parlors, and stuff. your mice can visit if you want."

later, while she's looping her fingers into yours in a casual already-friends way, she'll say: "i think the thing i miss about nobody having cell phones was that. more people should be weird. i like the way your weirdness is showing."

"phones?"

she wrinkles her nose. "nobody likes the idea they might be recorded. nobody just does stuff in earnest anymore, because it's cringe-worthy to be caught just... having fun like we're supposed to."

"you had fun?"

"we learn through play," she says. she drops her hand to your shoulder, steading herself while she bends to shake a rock out of her shoe, "it's like. a human necessity."

"i liked the part where you made the mice get gay married."

she winks at you while she stands up. "people who are weird are my favorite," she says. "it means we all get to be weird together. way less artifice. it's like. kind of funny actually. people are more themselves while they're playing pretend."

[inkskinned]

i just get stuck. halfway between things, invisible rules come between my fingers. i have 2 important things to do today; i am doing neither. i am frozen. i want to get up to do one or at least do something, but there's a rule i'm not following, because i don't know it yet. i'm just not allowed to get up. i don't like being here. i feel scattered, raw. it's like living inside a sunburn. every move is the wrong one.

how can you explain that to someone. i am a person with so many strengths and so much love. but i can't get up yet. i don't know why. i just .... get stuck.

[inkskinned]

it isn't that i'm godless or supremely powerful. but there's a black dog in my heart. i picked him up from the library and stashed him under my childhood bed. he grew strong in the shadows, living off of my dread. in the bitter hours when it is only the moon and i, the black dog goes walking; his eyes all blue flash in the starlight. stalking at my heels. quiet, patient, reserved. the black dog is not a warrior, not a great wheel of fire - but he is not small, either. and he is good at waiting.

i have spent a life in a flinch. i am tender and i am trying constantly to be perfect. i am an error of a person. i am scattered over my floor. i stumble away; i have no home. i would rip my seams for a single note of love; i set no boundaries and claim no needs. i let others take whatever they want from me.

the black dog puts his head under my hand. he noses my little carcass over every morning. he pushes his body against the back of my legs, gets me to stand and start walking. the black dog makes sure i eat. he stands at the corner of the room, watching.

i spend months locked in a shiver. i expect no one to see me as dangerous. even i don't take myself seriously. there is nothing particularly special about my existence.

but once in a while, the black dog remembers the darkness; where i have fed him every memory and scrap of my innocence. the black dog remembers what it took to get out of the rabbit snare. the black dog remembers how long we have been trudging.

when it is too much. when she tells me what her boyfriend did. when my house is full of yelling. when the dark gets slippery and a man at a bus stop whistles and follows me. in that moment, the black dog curls into me. up my throat. out of my teeth. the partner to my won survival: the welcome warmth of a true and patient fury.

in that moment, love. the black dog howls through me. the word is not-quite feral. something raw, undulating, less pretty. something like - i have been stalked and hurting and hungry all these years of my life.

and now it's time to go out hunting.

[caffeinewitchcraft]

Oh god, she’d nearly forgotten the feeling of rage howling in her chest, the cramping of fingers turned claws, the pressure of gnashing teeth.

To be reminded was to receive a call to arms. Here are her weapons, her body, her spirit. An ancient voice whispers, yes, here they are. Take them up. Wrap your hands in bloodied cloth and anoint yourself with oil seeped in intent. Fight.

There must be cost when decisions are made outside the reach of those it affects. A cost and a consequence, like a blow and the painful bruise that follows.

Unholy? Ha. Unholy in a world that bellows for control and leeches the spirit from her as if it is its due. To this world, her blood-thirst is abhorrent. Unnerving.

In truth, she is Divine.

[inkskinned]

call it a little rebellion, but i will love the flowers in the mud. i will love all the wilting broken stems of their bobbing white heads. if i am alive, i am alive right now like the things that scuttle under dead leaves. i am alive like a wet bed of moss. i am alive like the tender fingers of lichen. i am building my small life in this chitin spring, in the private dark. i have my belly pressed against the earth and i have been whispering secrets to every passing ladybug. we speak worship for every new birdnest and every old and falling feather. we are going to hold hands on the floor of the forest and we are going to pray in a new tongue - the rapture of the infinitely small; the unnoticed, the marred.

if i am alive, beloved, i am alive like a bruise. i am beginning to see, in this fresh dawn - that the mottled paint of healing is a blessing of paint and blood.

[inkskinned]

this is , and has always been , about control.

my father is a deacon in the Catholic church. i can say with authority and extreme research: abortion is not murder in the scripture. it has the same significance as "only fish on fridays during lent" - it is an invention of man and tradition.

if they cared about children, marrying a 13 year old would be illegal in every state. it is not illegal in every state. if they cared about children, about lives lost, about the value of life: they would have worked to make that life have value. where is the church, the religion - where is that, when it is time for anything else? when they close their eyes to their own priests? when they close their eyes to domestic violence? to marital rape?

if it was about life, prevention would be key. proper sex ed would be in every school. options for birth control would be in every hallway. we know these things work. we have known for a while. hiding from the problem never diminishes the problem. we are not seeking to actually-prevent unwanted pregnancies - so therefore an unwanted pregnancy must work as punishment for a behavior that is otherwise uncontrolled.

this is not about when and where life begins. there is already a discussion of bodily autonomy that exists, and it is legally bound to us. if i have died, even if my body could save one million children - i am not legally bound to give that body to those children. in death, where there is no debate; that the human soul or life or essence has passed from me - i still retain autonomy, and owe those children nothing.

jesus said, specifically, that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of god. it is a thesis restated many times in the bible; textual and specific evidence. and yet the church has not lobbied for wealth redistribution on the grounds that billionaires are going to hell, only prayed for the spirit of charity to flow amongst us. the american christian population is not disturbed and ashamed of their wealth. instead they see their wealth as a gift from god. there are not entire churches dedicated to picketing the estates of billionaires (unfortunately). it cannot be about the biblical evidence or jesus's word, then.

it is about control. and people are going to die. and the church - despite telling us over and over how all life is precious, perfect, present - they will look at the bodies and shrug and say: your fault, shouldn't have sinned. and then they will turn their eyes away.

[inkskinned]

what do you mean i'm not important? or that you're not important? the other day i stood and watched a tree all full of flowers shivering in the morning wind. i was the only one around. who else would have watched it dance? who else but you will notice the way the sun is slanting through your windows? how the rain scoops over your roof? the most important thing is to just exist, you see. by observing the world, we celebrate alongside it.

[inkskinned]

thinking of how many traditions stem from bread, from dough, from sharing food. how many times we as a species come back to this small gratitude. how we tie it into grief, into celebration, into early mornings. how we sigh into it, how we seek to change it. the other day i made a meal that only me and maybe 2 other people on this planet know about - my friend made the recipe up; it's a weird conglomeration of foods he calls spicy perfect. i keep thinking that somewhere is another college kid accidentally stumbling on their new favorite "whatever's in the fridge". somewhere someone is making their grandmother's old pie recipe. every time i'm cooking, someone else in the world is cooking too, probably. and isn't that just sort of beautiful? this quiet, necessary skill - to make-something-good. to make something filling.

[amargedom]

“You didn’t love her. You just didn’t want to be alone. Or maybe she was good for your ego. Or maybe she made you feel better about your miserable life. But you didn’t love her. Because you don’t destroy people you love.”

—

[inkskinned]

the instagram post begins with all-caps - LADIES!

i'm a lady, and it's 2 AM. i can't sleep. it's been a while since i felt rested. i am in and out of a springtime mania; all summer energy with six more weeks of winter to go.

the rest of the post says if your man kisses your forehead, you better appreciate it. he's not getting anything out of that kiss; it's just to comfort you.

at least the comments are ripe with derision; wow we're really romanticizing the bare minimum here huh. i stare at it for a long time; thinking about how often these types of posts wound up on my facebook wall. i've since stopped checking facebook.

and there's someone out there who wrote that. there's someone out there who will just-read-that and accept it as true. there is someone out there who is reading it, right now, and letting herself say - see! he loves me!

i want to tell you a better story; but my co-star's don't list had editorializing on it today. i am 28 and safe now. you know what i'm going to say, but i still feel awkward admitting it: for five years of my life, i would have loved that kind of sentiment. i would have saved it for later, watched-out-for-it. noticed his small effort just a little bit harder. sure, it's weirdly worded (..."get" anything out of it??), but it's true, isn't it. he loves me. this proves it. if you go far enough back in my writing (please don't) you can watch me repeat it. how he loves me so much; demonstrated in these small interactions.

i was never the type to post that stuff; even in the days of livejournal or myspace. i used to have a private folder on my laptop. screenshots from when he'd say nice things. little pictures that read things like you know he loves you when he sees you crying and orders the hitman right away or if you're the only one he's soft to, you won or, you know. slap my ass and buy me pizza. tasteless, stupid, vapid little apologies for him. girl if he's not texting you it's because he's napping. little ways i'd see him, over and over, in the lines other people were writing. if he hates your music, get to love his. the tepid-water system i was slowly boiling in.

i mean, i'm a feminist. i'm an activist. i've done the reading. i've been better than this. the other day my onedrive sent me the most unpleasant picture memory: if he uses you hard in bed but still cuddles in the morning, you know you're lucky.

i had seen so many posters and signs and bathroom stalls that warned: you will always believe it can't happen to you. there was no being better-than, there was no "deserving it". it was just him, over and over again, taking up all this space. and, to some extent - it was me, finding reasons to apologize for him.

of course he loves me. he kisses my forehead. and i'm not going to like the picture or save it; it's ugly. but see? the idea isn't that unusual. and who cares if it's the "bare minimum." he does other things too. there are girls out there who are only getting the forehead kiss; i feel bad for them. he's a good one! i just have to be more appreciative. i just have to work harder at seeing the little things. i just have to be patient; i just have to be more caring, i just have to -

[inkskinned]

it would have been okay, if it weren't for the loneliness. i liked to be alone - i liked the summer sun peeking her head over the lily-thin wings of dragonflies. i liked the shifting of a quiet woods, and the stirring matter of wildlife. the thin little bodies of crocus flowers; the silent knowledge of trees. i could spend hours in silence, listening. stirring my tea. knowing myself and the language of the world, in that way that being alone allows - as if nature says i'm showing only you this, are you watching?

but i was lonely. not in the places i expected, but in private, horrible moments. a snatched in-between state that would scream up inside of me, bristling - unannounced, the lonely just simply arrived, full and hungry. it saw me come out of the shower and said no one would know if you hit your head, my love. it saw the browning tops of perfect cupcakes and said you can never eat enough to fill this. it scooped me up in one giant arm and hung me over otherwise-peaceful moments and said see? where are you going? will anyone notice if you're gone?

a shifting, horrible thing - loneliness without escape. loneliness without shape. loneliness, swallowing me in a yawn.

[inkskinned]

there is a very strange idea that exists that we are ill by choice; that we have never tried to get better. i have been told to climb mountains or swing from trees or learn to cope silently. i have been told about yoga, about crash dieting, about using extra pillows or less sugar, about deleting my social media, about being more adventurous, about parties i should attend, about books to read, places to travel, people to kiss, dresses to buy. that all of these individually could be the cure, or maybe if i mix them right i could wake up indestructible. 

the thing that kills me is i’ve always tried it. i’ve done it. i’ve already used and overused physical activity to marginalize anxiety. i’ve eaten nothing but vegan organic solutions and i’ve also treated myself to everything fattening. i’ve done yoga and i’m good at it but i’m bad about keeping sugar-free. i deleted my social media, tried not having toxic friends, read self-help books about being a better person. i went to the parties, i dressed up nicely and smiled broadly, i studied harder in anticipation for when i couldn’t study at all, i wore bright colors or stayed out in the rain a second longer. i grew plants and pet dogs and tried it all.

when you are bad, it isn’t a matter of changing your attitude, of mind over matter. why would i do something when it doesn’t make me feel happy. it’s hard to get up the energy enough as it is, why bother when it fills me with numbness? the fact of the matter is that i go so cold i could hold the sun without burning. that’s what it is. i could be doing everything perfectly. i could be doing only my favorite things. it doesn’t make it go away. healing just takes time and patience. i grit my teeth and survive it. 

stop assuming in my life i’ve never tried. i made it this far. you can be damn sure i’ve sampled every silly magazine cure and more. you’re not witnessing someone who just began the fight. you’re witnessing a seasoned warrior in battle and telling them you suggest using a knife.

[amargedom]

““You should date a girl who reads. Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve. Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn. She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book. Buy her another cup of coffee. Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice. It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does. She has to give it a shot somehow. Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world. Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two. Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series. If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are. You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype. You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots. Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads. Or better yet, date a girl who writes.””

—

[inkskinned]

and for what! when you've scorched everything and when there is no more clean water and when your own children cannot survive - what is the point? what will money even do? what will banks be? you keep us in debt and in hunger and in bad health and you allow all this suffering to go unhelped so that you can - what?

money isn't real! it is a concept. you horde it on the thought it will keep you warm in the long night that is coming - but how? you cannot barter with what has no value. you cannot sell what is just stock. you cannot promise you'll invest; you already failed to deliver on investing in a sustainable century.

in movies, people have started saying - during the apocalypse, all the security will go to the wealthy. and it feels on-the-nose, out of the mouth of billion-dollar hollywood productions.

but if i was choosing between letting a rich man on the boat and letting in a family - why would i take money? what, in a crisis, does a million dollars mean? that money is nothing when we are under the sea. that money is just an idea, and it cannot come with me.

and the thing is! when you kill us, you kill your own legacy. who will sing beautiful funeral songs of you, when you have ruined us so completely? your name could be holy. your name could be hallowed. first to give what was needed. instead, if we go down - who cares about you? yours is a warning story. king midas. he who kills all that he touches. your name like a spit.

we know how to make a thing last-forever. we will tell stories instead of tiny gratitude. how so many had nothing, and still found something to give. how we were kind to each other. how we said goodbye in a kiss. we were always capable of eternity, that thing you seek so hungrily: we know how to keep-alive a memory, to soothe a soul over the passage of time. look how long we've been studying stars and calling them sisters. we know how to make a story last in spades.

but you? you will die alone, so happy in your green freedom. you, who wants us to die with you, false pharaoh, surrounded by those who you never cared to learn the name of. you want us to burn alongside your beautiful mansion.

i am erasing your name from this and from me and from any history i'm writing. we will call you mosquito or bloodworm or wriggling leech. you have always been meaningless. you little gnat. you little coward. you little, horrible monster of greed.

[inkskinned]

“This isn’t what family is supposed to be.” (r.i.d)

[inkskinned]

hi, my love. it’s 2021. we’re looking through our old work to include in our new book - this one is about being-good-enough.

these are pictures of our old back yard. it doesn’t look like that anymore; we cleaned up the broken bird bath and laid down loam. last i saw, there were big pink roses. we live in a different old-house-in-the-woods, but our kitchen is still yellow.

i think you knew, even then - there is something beautiful about springing up from shattered glass. that’s why you took those pictures, right? you felt unbelievably sad and lonely; fascinated with the measure of ivy to survive shade and rot.

you are doing better, by a lot. we adopted a dog. we have tattoos over our scars. at the time we took this picture, we thought we would never recover; that this was all we were ever going to be. it’s been five years clean. you did it, in part, for your family.

you were looking for home. i don’t think you recognized that. you were full of detritus. you were trapped in your fear of perfection. an unshot arrow could never miss. you thought if you were very still, the future could rush around you and slip by your ears and somehow not drown you.

you were not wilting. you were just sprouting. what unsure walls taught, current hands can climb.

keep growing, little love. it is worth it on the other side.