LizzieRiot

Everything you want. Nothing you need.

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I’m happy to announce my new book written with @keltieknight out on Valentine’s Day.

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It seems so far away now. I was at a birthday party singing karaoke at a gay bar in August of 2012 when I got the text.

"We should write a book together."

I just assumed she was drunk because it was 1:30am and but I forgot about the time zone differences and her penchant for being spontaneous...

[lizzieriot]

Burning Bridges...

Tonight, for the first time in a really long time, I feel like I'm going to be okay. That I'm going to survive this.

I shut down a very unhealthy relationship with someone who was using me for her own personal gain. I don't need her, and I don't want her in my life anymore.

I'm making amends, making apologies to those that I have hurt. To try and show them that I am truly sorry for the person I was when we were together.

The most important thing is - I'M TRYING.

So fuck you for judging me. Fuck you for using me. Fuck you for thinking that I somehow stood some sort of threat for what you believed you deserved from this life.

You don't know me. And you don't know us. You never will.

And I'm done letting you know about the things that are none of your goddamn business.

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So how will you make it? You make it by changing the way you see it. The break-up will be tough. More difficult than your friends will understand. Because they never saw just how amazing that person could have been - and that was what you believed in all along. The harsh reality is, they didn’t...

[gunpowderandgrenades]

Sometimes I feel like I’m losing anyone I let get too close. They all find something or someone better than me, and who can blame them? I’m stuck in the past, while they’re all moving on with their lives. Who am I to stop them? They all deserve to be happy. That’s all I want for them, even if it means leaving me behind. I just hope that they know that all I want is for them to be happy. I love them all so much, so I guess I should stop trying to hold onto them so tightly…

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I was listening to her talk. She was emotional and I could see the tears welling up in her eyes. She said, “And I said I love you to him. And it was a big deal - because that changes something inside.”

I sat quietly and thought about all the times that I have loved a woman but either wouldn’t or...

[matstokesphotography]

Alkaline Trio at The Metro in Chicago, IL on 5/31/2013

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She said, “The editor is going to need a brief description of your writing style.”

I brushed my teeth and thought about it.

I returned to my computer and typed, “Imagine if Mitch Albom and Henry Rollins were fighting while Dan Savage and Bukowski were jerking each other off in the corner while the jukebox alternated between God Save The Queen and Dear Mama - I would be the little kid outside of that club petting feral cats and screaming about how I should be on the list.”

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Coming sooner than you think. 

DXS016

[lizzieriot]

I cannot wait for this. I cannot wait to throw myself back into their world. I've missed them.

[lizzieriot]

Options.

Sometimes I wonder if we will ever be again. Just a small part of what once was...

Even if it never happens, I hope you know that I think about you often. And I hope that you are okay.

[eclecticpandas]

[lizzieriot]

Can we, please?

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She sat across the table from me and said, “Well you seem like you’re in a really good place.”

I wanted to respond like I usually do. Like I always have. The guilt, shame, and self-deprication runs almost four decades deep but instead I thought about it for a three count and said, “You know what,...

[lizzieriot]

For as much as you feel we've done for you, you've done equally as much for us.

[lizzieriot]

Memories Aren't So Great.

My first memory of anything sexual in nature was when I was eight years old.  My half brother, who is seven years older than me had come to visit our family in Georgia from Ohio; where he lived with his mother and step-father.  I was born shortly after my mother and father got together and from the time I arrived he was a doting older brother. My parents did not stay in Ohio very long after they married, moving us to Georgia to be closer to my mothers mom and sister.  

When he came to visit, it was nothing out of the ordinary. I had my room, and my two younger brothers shared a room across the hall from me, while he slept on the couch in the living room.   He was fifteen.   That night I emerged from my room, sleepy but needing to use the bathroom.  As I came down the hall, he was not asleep and must have heard me padding down the hall in my knee high socks wearing my Cabbage Patch nightgown.

He called out my name in a quiet whisper as to not wake anyone else in the house. I came into the living room and he was lying on the couch with the television on and the sound turned down low. I don't remember what he was watching, but I remember the way the glow of the screen lit up the otherwise dark room.   He asked me if I wanted to lay down with him and watch something, and I remember thinking how special it made me feel because it was well past my bedtime and I would certainly be in trouble if I were caught. As I walked over to him on the couch he reached out for me and pulled me down to meet him at his horizontal position. In doing this, I ended up on top of him; the couch not being very deep and unsure of where I was supposed to lay.  

He held me there for a moment and that was when I felt something hard pressing up against my nightgown below my waist.   I didn't know what was going on, but I was scared to say anything for fear of waking my parents and getting in trouble for being out of bed so late.   He reached down towards his pajama bottoms and pulled out his penis and started to rub it back and forth against my nightgown. I lay frozen, confused at what was happening and still needing to use the bathroom. I don't know how long he held me there, rubbing his hardness against me  - but I finally whispered that I really needed to pee and he released me.   After I came out of the bathroom I made a beeline for my bedroom and didn't look back. I shut myself inside my room and locked the door behind me before crawling back into bed. I don't remember much after that, except locking my door every night he was there when my parents shipped me off to bed.  

In the twenty plus years since that night in the living room I have seen him again only a handfull of times.  I attended his wedding as someone not of age, but still somehow managed to find a bar in the city of the ceremony that was willing to serve me and got drunk the night before they exchanged their vows.  When I was forced to hug him after they returned down the aisle as husband and wife it took everything I had to not spew the previous nights binge session down the front of my party dress.   In 2013 I came out as a surivior of sexual abuse to everyone but my family.

They still do not know.

[oofpoetry]

if only you could see yourself now, you’re settling back into a quiet autumn and you’ve missed the smell of must, rain, and tobacco kissed into the corners and couches of the same house you share with seven others. you miss the girl who used to sleep on your couch who had the skull of the bird she is named after tattooed across her arm. you are glad you stopped drinking. it’s 2am and you’re staying up far too late. you have an interview for a job in the morning that you will come to hate in 2 months. you’re not in love the way you expected. some memories turned into broken drawers that you chose to store all your knives in, every time you open them, they always come spilling out towards you. you miss having sex with people you also love. precariousness is now the pillow you sleep upon, and you no longer have such structured repeating romance. you no longer have such a structured repeating life, and I know it killed you that you knew it wasn’t forever. i know i can’t stop you from panicking, but it will all make sense. you repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat until you realized it was too early to build such a life based on repetition. you’re settling back into a quiet autumn, and you’re stone sober at 4am after a Friday night while the world starts to makes a strange kind of sense, the same way words become meaningless when repeated enough times. all of this is to say, you made it this far, and i’m proud of you.

Brandon Speck, “A Letter to Myself, A Year Ago”   (via whisperingbones)

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Soon.

[lizzieriot]

The downside to these late night sessions is that I'm super pumped when it's all over and have zero want for sleep.

Which is unfortunate because I have to be awake in like, five hours for my day job.

[lizzieriot]