MAELSTROM HEAD

journal | prompts | characters | series | something else notes to self & everyone else | other things

[maelstromhead]

Don’t look frightened, don’t look at your feet. Don’t stop, don’t make eye contact with anyone. I wonder how long it would take me to find my knife in my purse. Why didn’t I put it in my pocket? Wrap your fingers around your keys. Hold on tight. Don’t make too much noise. Be silent. My mother always told me to walk quickly and with intention. The number one place women are attacked or abducted is grocery store parking lots. I wonder if I look as afraid as I feel, and I hope I do not. Number two is office parking garages. I hope that I am capable of making myself feel powerful. I have been trying hard to cultivate strength. Number three is public restrooms. I hope that one day this paranoia might become unnecessary. I hope that one night I can walk alone and feel like I am free. My mother was not attacked by a stranger, but by someone she knew and loved very much. Maybe I’m just holding grudges, but I don’t think I will ever see a man walking toward me in the dark and not think DANGER. Maybe I’m just naive, but I don’t think I will ever stop asking how this is fair. Maybe I’m just tired. Maybe I’m just fucking furious. Maybe I am clenching my fists because they are my only weapons, maybe it is not just a coping mechanism anymore.

Things I Am Thinking About While I Walk To My Car At Night After Work, Heather Elise

I wrote this awhile ago but it seems relevant now.

Me too.

[maelstromhead]

Describe yourself with saved notes

[maelstromhead]

It’s not so much “Depression” as it is “There Is Something Very Dark Right Behind Me Again Isn’t There”

[maelstromhead]

A Whisper Or A Scream, 2016

[maelstromhead]

I got some cute paper hoping it would inspire me to write down little poems more often

[maelstromhead]

some dreamy clouds outside work earlier

[maelstromhead]

You got lost and you were gone for awhile but now you are back and your friends still love you and your family still loves you and nobody’s feelings are hurt and you haven’t missed too much, you can still catch up and everything is going to be okay I swear

[maelstromhead]

This is the summer of my fourteenth year, walking through dark neighborhoods alone, knowing how angry my mother would be if she knew This is the water under the bridge where I first contemplated suicide, dry mouth and sweaty palms, what are you waiting for just do it This is my bedroom in my father’s house, dust dancing in the sheets of light pouring through the window, wondering if any home will ever really feel like it is my own This is a school trip in the tenth grade, depression sinking its teeth into my neck, my best friend sitting beside me on the bus, never once asking why I’m crying, never once looking me directly in the eyes, can you even blame her what did you expect This is the first time I told someone a secret, my heart knocking against my chest so loud I swear everyone must hear it too, her sympathetic smile, her silence This is that night I could have kissed her, that mattress on the floor, the way her voice faltered when she said she didn’t really like kissing much unless it was just as friends, just for fun, what are you waiting for just do it This is my first girlfriend and the way she hurt so much it crawled between the words of everything she said, those nights I held her hand and whispered it’s alright, knowing that it was a lie This is when she found me in the basement scribbling my poetry and calling it a goodbye, she laughs and says could you be any more cliché, can you even blame her what did you expect This is the night she said I love you so many times in one night that I knew it would be our last together, our fingers exploring the landscapes of one another’s flesh under blankets, secrets we’d kept quiet for a whole year This is watching her leave in the morning, wanting to cry but somehow feeling nothing, wanting to say something, something good, something final, anything, what are you waiting for just do it This is fallen leaves crunching beneath my feet as I run away for the hundredth time, away from love, away from feeling, away from consequences, away from life, away from death, away from all

Listening to Fevers & Mirrors And Thinking About The Girls I Have Loved, Heather Elise

[maelstromhead]

Since the moment we first touched, I have been trying to find the words to tell you how it feels to be touched to be held to be known to be loved by you. There is nothing I can say, there is nothing I can write. There are no words of this world that can describe the way I feel about you.

The Poem I’ll Never Write, Heather Elise

[maelstromhead]

When I was young, I forgot how to feel happy. I asked my mother to remind me, but she had forgotten too. I guess I learned what I could from my friends at school and from blades of grass and from fireflies and books. When I was young, I would lie awake at night, worried that the sky might open up and swallow me whole. When I was young, all I could think of was the end And when it was coming And would it hurt Now all I can think is I want more and more and all.

Anxious Child Grows Up And Wishes They Had Enjoyed Their Time More, Heather Elise

[maelstromhead]

I keep on telling myself that there are more important things than being the smallest person in the room I say it to myself over and over Sometimes it is a whisper somewhat like a prayer Sometimes it is a scream silenced by my tear stained pillows My knuckles white My own blood collecting beneath my fingernails I know, I know, I know that there are more important things than being the smallest person in the room but when the ghosts in my head start to howl all I know all I’ve ever known is that to silence them I’ve got to starve them first

I’m Okay But Sometimes I’m Not, Heather Elise

[maelstromhead]

thanks, past self, for hiding little reminders and cute leaves in my journals for my current self to find

[maelstromhead]

Some days you will wake up and feel unmovable, heavy and empty all the same. You will spend your time floating from place to place, task to task, operating on impulses you never even knew were there buried in your blood sleeping until winter waiting for the first snow. While you wait for the hours to pass you will convince yourself of horrible things daydream about hurting yourself clench your fists until your fingernails break the surface of skin on your palms. You’ll start to wonder what it was like before this, how long ago the fire burned out inside your chest. You’ll search for anything that might ignite the flame again sometimes stumbling over hiding places you should have made much more difficult to find. But there is pain in growing, and there is pain in healing, too. There are paths in the snow, covered up or forgotten, but still waiting to be found. Listen to your scars, they remember where you’ve been.

It’s Always Worst In Winter, Heather Elise

[maelstromhead]

Some days you will wake up and feel unmovable, heavy and empty all the same. You will spend your time floating from place to place, task to task, operating on impulses you never even knew were there buried in your blood sleeping until winter waiting for the first snow. While you wait for the hours to pass you will convince yourself of horrible things daydream about hurting yourself clench your fists until your fingernails break the surface of skin on your palms. You’ll start to wonder what it was like before this, how long ago the fire burned out inside your chest. You’ll search for anything that might ignite the flame again sometimes stumbling over hiding places you should have made much more difficult to find. But there is pain in growing, and there is pain in healing, too. There are paths in the snow, covered up or forgotten, but still waiting to be found. Listen to your scars, they remember where you’ve been.

It’s Always Worst In Winter, Heather Elise

[maelstromhead]

thank u for creating this beautiful blog god bless u

Thank YOU for reading and for this lovely message! ❤

[viceandvagary]

a living poem

Poetry as an art form Is nice enough. When I say “art form” I mean syntax And classrooms And proper indentation And study of classical lit. I mean a page of letters Marched in a row And all the things they spell Are contained within the ink. Yes, Poetry as an art form Is nice enough.

Poetry as life Is different altogether. The rhythm moving, The setting alluring, The letters paling in the face Of the words they create. Each sound is lifeblood, Each idea the author’s child As the writer bleeds onto paper And the reader drinks it up. Those poems seize my heart. They roll around in my brain. They stick to my insides, A little. Yes! Poetry as life Is different altogether.

10.4.15

~ For @maelstromhead. You are a living poem, and I am inspired. Keep going. ~

[maelstromhead]

This is beautiful! Thank you so much! 😍💖

[maelstromhead]

You look at me like I am made of gold and moonlight, but I know that I am composed of nightmares and nothing more.

Reasons To Remain Unattached, Heather Elise