Butterfly Diaries

PDX reader & writer

[lengthy-artery]

ashes to ashes, dust to dust, reeses to pieces

[lghreads]

FacePalm

My little sister is getting ready to have her first baby and she's showing me all of the things she's gotten for the little thing when she points to the stroller she's found. She picks at the fabric and asks me if she has a boy if she should get a new stroller because of the black and white damask pattern saying it's pretty girly and people might think it's a girl. I tried so hard to say "It's a nice stroller, it will be fine" and to not tell her in total sarcasm that subjecting a baby boy to fabulous patterns will probably make him a gay, so definitely, change strollers.

[lghreads]

Hungry

“Fuck it. Hot mouths wrestle over the middle console in my dingy Mercury Sable. It’s probably close to 11 now and for the last hour we have told story after story of how fucked our current relationships are. It has taken him this long to tell me that he’s always wondered what I looked like naked. When he tells me I am thankful it is dark because when I blush I look more like a burn victim than a becoming young lady. I sit back in the driver’s seat—I’ve always preferred to drive but my boyfriend hates it because he’s a control freak; I consider what will happen if I take off my shirt. I consider that this is something I will never tell my boyfriend. I consider that I can probably never tell any of my 2 friends about this because they are judgmental cunts and would totally flip. I consider that I have a boyfriend. A boyfriend who has done worse things to me than this, but still, a boyfriend. I consider that the beautiful, face like a freaking German god that speaks 3 languages and knows how charming he is, has a girlfriend who is more bitch than she is actually a person, but still, a girlfriend. I consider that I will probably never see this boy again. I consider that he wants me. I consider that he is actually considering me and potentially wants me. Being considerate is fucking work. So I take off my top. So I take off my bra. I am 17 and topless at 11 o’clock at night sitting next to a German exchange student in a corn field planted along the side of some back road. Occasionally a car goes by and when it does I lean my chair back far enough so that no one can see my tiny apple sized breasts. Minutes go by and he doesn’t say anything. I’m freaking out because I’m half fucking naked and he’s just looking at me like, I don’t even know because I can’t fucking look at him while he’s looking at me while I’m half naked. It’s not decent. I’m about to say something snarky and funny, but my face freezes in a crooked kind of questioning smile. His eyes are soft and sincere as he leans in and kisses me. A small kiss, but he pulls away only so far as to see my eyes “You are so beautiful” he whispers. I would have honestly slept with him that night if I wasn’t so afraid that he would see my Costco sized tampon box lying in my back seat. I consider now that my actions were inappropriate and forward and blah blah blah. But I also consider that the relationship I was in at the time was oppressive, abusive, and almost worst of all, stiflingly normal. I consider that even though it was just that one evening, that someone saw me bare and vulnerable, had every chance to say something hurtful and disgusting, but instead looked at me and called me beautiful. I consider that the person that I was is so much better because I broke the rules and realized that I was worth considering. I am more considerate to myself because of this moment. When I visit those back roads and pass by that corn field, I smile and remember the feeling of being hungry for something beautiful.”

[lghreads]

My lady love and I

[lghreads]

On Saturday I went to the Renaissance Fair dressed like Sleeping Beauty and I found a mini Maleficent dragon! Don't worry, we're cool now.

[lghreads]

Click here to support Princesses Against Cancer

Princesses in the great North West are joining the fight against cancer! Every single dollar donated will be given to the Hillsboro Relay for Life taking place June 27th-28th. The best part about this fundraiser? If you are one of the first to donate $10+ to the cause, you will receive...

[rifqirdv]

[jessicaburdon]

Sounds like I need another Sunday wine!

[lghreads]

Always yes.

[jessicaburdon]

SHOW DON’T TELL

“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” — Anton Chekhov

[lghreads]

An Urgent Message (Pt3)

“Did you know what I was thinking that last night together, when I stopped and looked at you in the dark? I nearly bit my tongue to keep the words inside. Instead you put your hands on my cheek and you saw me for what I was and pulled me close to you. My insides were ringing with the words and I wished hard that I could let them out of me, but it would have been wrong. Maybe if I said something you would still be here? I miss talking to you. I miss being your friend. I miss my friend. Sometimes I lie awake in bed at night wondering if I miss your mouth or just your voice and I wonder if I’ll ever stop wondering about you. Over the years you’ve managed to stay on my mind even when we didn’t speak for months at a time, so I imagine you will never really go away. In a way I am comforted by this about as much as I am torn apart. That night I looked into those eyes and saw the world, the clouds and every star. I choked back, but what I wanted to say was that “I love you.” I love you. I love you with my body and my voice and with every trace of a whisper that carries on the wind, I love you. I wanted you to know, that at some point, even now, there is someone in this world who believes in you. There is someone here who cares about you. Someone who misses you and cries for you, and most importantly, there is someone who loves has loved and will love you.”

[lghreads]

An Urgent Message (Pt2)

“It is only when we are left alone with ourselves to consider the things and the people that we have lost that we can truly weigh the space that they took up inside of us. We begin to notice how much room we set aside for them behind ribbons and lights so that no other thing could compare to something so precious. Tears cannot fill up that space and neither do the bodies of other people who are not them. It is that singular person—the one you reach out for in the night only to find that their body was only something that you managed to dream up. A whisper of a memory there to haunt your bed and the corners of your body that cripple beneath the weight of that loss. Alone in her car she considered what she was doing. This wasn’t an emergency; not even close. But she didn’t care; so on she drove in the dead of night, and while everyone was sleeping off their Christmas turkeys and hams she whispered all of the things she never said.”

[lghreads]

An Urgent Message (Pt1)

“It was the night before Christmas and she sent him a message. In this message she asked him why things were happening the ways that they were—they had been friends for years. Hours were spent lying on the grassy fields outside of the school house, and when bad choices had been made they took care of each other in whispers. She was a whisper. So small and miniscule that any second now she might slip through the cracks in the floor and be lost forever with the dust, the bugs, and the mice. Everything had changed now and it was something she did not understand. In his last message he had sent, he wrote to never contact him again unless it was an emergency. Although it was not, his turning away from her began to dig deeper into her heart and the urgency of the emptiness was something she could not ignore. So she got in her car and she left. Just like that, she disappeared into the darkness like a whisper—just loud enough to have existed, but not enough to be remembered.”

[lghreads]

My Spirit Animal

“There is a story that I know very well—every time someone new tells the story it changes a little, but the ending result is always the same. When I was young I did everything myself. From my first day I never wanted to sleep; I would crawl out of my crib in the middle of the night and escape the safety of my house in nothing but my skin. I was an explorer and an adventurer; climbing counters by the time I’d barely learned to walk so I might reach the special things my mother would hide on top of the refrigerator. These days she laughs when she tells these stories—“You were so independent and strong,” after a pause that lasts a second too long she adds “you still are” and for a moment I believe her.

During the summer I would sit on my great grandfather’s lap and watch “Homeward Bound: The Long Journey Home,” “Heidi,” and my favorite “How The West Was Fun.” I remember climbing bales of hay in my grandparents barn stacked so high it would’ve taken away the breath of someone with a lesser spirit than my own. But I was invincible—I was both the cowboy and the Indian. Blue jeans and sneakers and short cropped hair, I made my way across the wild prairie of Gaston, Oregon. I sometimes imagined that I was hunting for my spirit animal—that if I maybe trekked a little farther into the wilderness or built secret forts in the hay that they would find me, and then I wouldn’t have to be alone anymore.“

[lghreads]

Sorry Not Sorry (Pt6)

“There was never any point in leaving because he was always right—who else would want me? I was broken after all. I was getting fat. I was too quiet because I was an expert in hiding my own stupidity. I gargled back hatred for myself and left it up to him to fill me back up again. Touch me tonight. Tell me you love me tonight. The nights he would lie face to face with me in bed were the good nights. When he held on to me instead of the nights where I held him so tight I had to listen for his heartbeat to know I hadn’t smothered him—those were the nights I believed he could actually love me.”

[lghreads]

Sorry Not Sorry (Pt5)

“The nights that I would stay asleep in my boyfriend’s bed until 2 a.m. I would sleep as close to him as he would let me. The fireplace was always running and he kept quilts on his bed so you couldn’t not get out sweating, but I held my body closer. I wedged myself into the corner of that bed like I wedged myself into believing every filthy thing he said to me. “

[lghreads]

Sorry Not Sorry (Pt4)

“I was wrong. I’m sorry. (pause) You’re right. Stupid question, but—. (pause) I don’t understand. (pause) I’m sorry; you were saying?”

[lghreads]

Sorry Not Sorry (Pt3)

“These days I prefer the quiet. Those days everything had to be loud. I didn’t let anything soft get inside me. To this day I swear that music saved my life; it was the only indication that I was not completely alone in the shit-hole that was my life. I had friends who slit their wrists because it made them feel something and one night when the hole in the middle of my chest got so large I thought it would swallow me up and eat me whole, I tried it to make myself come back. All I did was make a mess. The sting on my damaged wrist that the dull exacta-knife left took my mind off of what I was really running away from. So I guess in a way mutilating myself did help, but I never did it again.“

[lghreads]

Sorry Not Sorry (Pt2)

“After a while I got really sick of apologizing so I just stopped saying anything. I stopped feeling altogether really; the only exception was the empty hole in my chest that I tried to fill with you but it never filled and I was always empty. Always so sad I couldn’t believe the state of my own mind. The pain I could feel in the lengths of my fingers and toes it hurt so deep. No wonder people kill themselves. I often thought about doing it; killing myself. I wanted someone to save me because I didn’t want to save myself. I told the boys that I was with that I wasn’t worth the trouble that I caused and that being with me would be their biggest mistake; “I am an accident” I would say, and they would push the hair out of my eyes and kiss my neck and tell me that I was beautiful and that they would never think that. They lied.”