Carpe the hell out of that diem

[inkskinned]

tbh for a long time i really resented the advice "pick a partner that you would want to raise kids with" because i don't want kids and i hated that all relationships had to come from this place of procreation-first. what about toxic friendships, after all.

it took me a really long time to realize it's a bastardization of good advice.

many of us are recovering from being raised by parents/caregivers that were in toxic relationships or were toxic themselves. we learned behaviors, thoughts, and patterns from these people, and we spend our adult lives untangling and dismantling the harm done to us.

the advice should be - is this the person you'd want a child to emulate? is this a person you'd want a child even around? is this a person you can trust alone with a kid - any kid, mind you - and know that the child is safe, looked after, loved? is the relationship you're in one you'd want children to see and repeat in their adult lives? or is the relationship one you hope they won't follow, after all?

to be honest, i knew when i was in a bad relationship. i'd tell people - i know, i know, i should break up with him. i know, i know. she's not actually a good friend. but the reality was that it's incredibly difficult to escape the-devil-you-know. it was easy enough to train myself to be okay with it; i have very little regard for the-self and the process of cutting people out was simply too threatening for my mental state.

but i wouldn't put a younger version of myself through the same thing. i'd picture her in the same situation. i would tell her, broody as she is - leave, you're happier outside of it, never let anyone talk to you like that, you're worth more than this. i'd tell her when you let him cross your boundaries, the fault is his, but you need to understand you're rewarding bad behavior if you don't do something about it. i would wish, fervently, i could restart the relationship and do it all differently, be-young-again.

and then i realized: i am the younger version of myself. a future version of myself is begging me to leave. to take my happiness seriously. i am a kid to fifty-year-old-me. and i need to take my own advice. it's okay if that sets me up to grieve.

pick a partner that you would trust a younger version of yourself with. pick friends you'd want your younger self to grow up alongside. pick love that makes you feel like you want everyone to experience in their life and feel with others, something magical and shareable and full of mist. pick a love that feels like you can grow in it. pick a love like: i will be proud of this.

[parkerstorms]

“When doctors stick their fists into the chest cavities of human beings, they leave something behind, some sadness that glues itself to the insides of the operated ribs. It is as if your heart knows it has been exposed to the sky and it is mourning the loss of light. It grows dark when they break you open. For some reason, you know the call is coming before it does. He says it’s over between you and him and you thought you were ready for it but instead you find yourself shaking and sobbing with the same nauseous out-of-control feeling as when you were seven and spun over your handlebars and hit your head against the concrete. His words are a high-speed collision without a helmet. This is what it feels like when you put the phone down: it feels as if you are lying with cold feet on the crinkled paper of a hospital table and there is an ongoing surgery occurring without anesthesia. Every doctor has his face. You picture the small moments that are being carefully plucked from your sternum - no more quiet moments while you sort clean clothing, no more ice cream trips at two in the morning, no more waking up before him to see the sun shift through his eyelashes, no more summer days with bare legs tangled on beaches, no more kissing him, no more curling up near him, no more him. And you hate that you want it all back, that you would take everything you have and trade it for another chance to feel him beside you. You are not someone’s princess and you never were. Your mother did not raise you with a wolf in your chest so you could howl over losing a man. But here you are, open-heart operation in progress while he cleanly snips out his connection to you. That’s it. No more future. He leaves you there, bones bent back to make room for the hole he has punched in you. You are the one in charge of your recovery, but you have shaky hands and there aren’t enough band-aids for a hurt like this. Every time you make a peanutbutter sandwich or listen to your favorite music or stare up at the ceiling, you remember him and the stitches come undone again. And your friends grow weary of hearing your story and hearing how you called him drunk and hearing how you hate him and hearing how you love him in an almost impossibly unending way and hearing how you’ll never be the same and hearing how you’re feeling better really and hearing how you’re back in the same sad space and your mouth grows wearing of saying his name like each letter was a prison wall and one day you don’t speak of him at all. You carry the scar but you no longer flinch when the sharpness of this world brushes against your chest. You are wolf, and you might be wounded, but one day you will get over it. You are still waiting for when that moment hits.”

— Soft dies the light (part two of five) /// r.i.d (via inkskinned)

[inkskinned]

i’m pretty calm and understanding but if i say “please don’t touch me” and you proceed to purposefully touch me, natural instinct will kick in and the large raptor which operates this machine will bite your fucking hand off

[inkskinned]

Just love without pretense. Love without calculation. Love without a winner, love without a martyr, love like - I know you were hungry, I saved you half of my sandwich. Like - I know you hate silence, give me a second to get the music on. Like - move over, let's be alone together. Love like taking off your makeup. Like fresh cleaned sheets. Like: I see you and you see me.

[inkskinned]

i had to cut a knot out of my cat’s fur. for the first time in his life, in the ten years i have known him, he put his teeth on my hand, gently, a warning, telling me i was hurting him but unwilling to let that message sink in. 

i wonder how many people i have hurt worse than my cat hurt me. how many hands were trying to help me that i turned and devoured. i was so angry, so often, bristling with so many tangles that no knife could slit open. people who loved me tried everything and i snarled at them. how hurt i was when they were angry i was acting out of order. i would find out later their anger at my behavior was just because they were scared to death i was going to explode and they’d lose me and it came out looking angry.

i wish i could be like my cat. to warn that i was in pain, gently. to only lash out with the littlest of teeth. to know that sometimes what looks like an attack is actually a sign of love. but i only know claws, and using the fullest force of my venom to hurt others when they never meant to hurt me. i know logically sometimes there’s pain to pull the glass out. but i can’t stop myself from reacting.

[inkskinned]

i don't wanna love myself like "buy this feel good". i wanna love myself like i made a sandwich for later because i knew i'd be too busy. i wanna love myself like hang on take a breath do you actually like this. i wanna love myself like okay we're gonna set a reminder to get up an brush our teeth. i wanna love myself like - it's okay to say no, it's okay to take that nap, it's okay to go home.

i don't wanna feel sexy like tv. i don't wanna feel sexy like little black dress. i wanna feel sexy like high note during karaoke. like just got done writing 14 pages of poetry. like let me show you this scarf i've been knitting. i wanna feel sexy like hand on the back of the headrest while you parallel park. like did i tell you about that time i saved a baby bird. like don't tell her but i've been sneaking money into her purse.

i don't wanna feel pretty like expensive. like high fashion. like paid to be here. i wanna feel pretty like a bird in a puddle. i wanna feel pretty like streak of dyed hair. i wanna feel pretty like calligraphy, like new leaves, like a skinned knee bleed, like a dog running at full speed. i wanna feel pretty like lying next to you. i wanna feel pretty like the new album just dropped, i wanna feel pretty like a shower, i wanna feel pretty like a stone wall all covered in moss.

i keep saying body neutrality. that feels negative - no bad things, no good things, just body. but i mean - my body is neutral like a flower is neutral like an oil slick is neutral like a day is neutral, too. my body is neutral so a kiss can feel like lightning so a dance can feel like a hula hoop so a walk to get coffee can feel like - god, i'm so happy to just be around you.

my body is a site. not the source of the joy, just where i can find it. i don't wanna love like - finally got my body tight/forced myself through a diet/whatever trend is the current hype. i wanna love myself like - i go to this river and i find gold every time i shift around inside it. i wanna love myself like - i feel sexy because it's sexy to be alive, and laughing. i wanna love myself like - bitch, i could have died, and i didn't, and if that isn't the prettiest almost in the whole world, than i don't know what is.

[inkskinned]

i am reminded by a professor - once a person leaves, you will never love like that again.

how wonderful. i will love in a new way each time, then, for new reasons. i will find out that my heart never had a limit on joy. i will know new things.

he says - we can never find our way back to loving the same way twice.

i am not the same person from before, though, am i? why would i want to take a tour of my life through the same eyes? why would i want to hold the same figure-eight? why would i come back to what has already been shoved through my throat? why wouldn't i want to walk in a new garden, with new stones?

it is also never the same sunset twice. the same thunderstorm. the same birdsong. life, in little chaos, holds no ghosts. i will love again, and thank god, it will be different. i move on, and the world says - you will meet someone else, who knows a different way to listen. and when i put my ears against the music again, it will feel like i am understanding a new set of secrets.

how wonderful. my love does not run out. it is remade and recolored and unstained in doubt. gold hair, coffee, the shape of her mouth.

[inkskinned]

i have been thinking about how we say it was nice knowing you when we are joking about leaving.

down the street from me, a nursery has a sign that says don’t panic! and nothing else. i am hoping they are referencing hitchhiker’s guide and not referencing the pandemic. i drive past it on the same day we hear about the impeachment.

it was nice knowing you. there’s a carl sagan quote i love: we are how the universe knows itself.

it is hard. we make a plan together where we both only have 5 dollars and a box of tissues. how do we make bread from stone. i tell him - i will have to resort to eating my tongue. he says - i will help you cook it so it tastes good.

it was nice knowing you. like dark and stormy night, i only hear it when we are being purposefully overdramatic. when we are feigning our ending. our final words, movie-theatre lights.

this time last year, there were people i said see you soon to. and i turned around and walked away and didn’t say i love you.

my teacher asked me once: if you can imagine the last words you’d say to a person, why not say them first. love doesn’t need to hide in the epilogue. sometimes love should take the whole stage up. sometimes you should look to a person and tell them - my life is more beautiful for having known you. thank you for letting me in.

no waiting, then. it is nice, knowing you. anyway, i love you and it is a good day to love someone and we are going to make something beautiful in this book long before we get to the end. it is nice knowing you. it is nice being your friend.

[inkskinned]

i thought it would be like - shooting stars and calligraphy and shouting confessions. i thought it would be movies in slow motion, and sunrises, and never getting old.

but it was my dog falling asleep at my feet. it was a new jar of peanut butter. it was saw-this-and-thought-of-you. it was “keeping my ringer on, just in case”. it was “stay where you are, i’m coming for you.” all of us in the abandoned parking lot, six feet away, eating in our own cars so we could say we shared lunch. not just arriving but saying here we are. it was getting lightbulbs and groceries together. it was sitting in the same room while each person quietly does work. it was snow that didn’t stick and my cat yawning. it was eighteen degrees fahrenheit on the thermometer, let’s go walk anyway because you need to go somewhere. it was coffee and dollar-store candlelight. 

i thought i would wake up in the movie, you know. i thought it would be suddenly: things are okay now. i’d get better and the better would just be there. a lot of things in my life were already so wonderful, and i couldn’t feel them, because my soul had gone numb. i thought i could just be happy if i could only wake up.

it came like ochre. it came slow like the tide.  it came like - oh, the moment i’m in is lovely, and i can finally feel how lovely it is, can’t i? and then it wasn’t just sitting in the car, it was sitting in the car with you. it was knowing he probably meant it. it was comparing scar tissue and talking about hornets and collecting chess pieces off the floor. it was watching just one more episode. it was falling asleep on the lawn. it was saying - i can’t wait and see you soon and don’t be long. 

there is this cheesy thought - the stars are always present, but they are only visible in the dark. the white heat of my sun; the collapsing echo of my horror; the sleeplessness of a neverending dawn.

and then, slowly, the day was over, and here i was. and here was the moon, and her stars, and a future like an expanse of sky untouched and unhurting. to want to go rather than to want to be gone. to not just watch but to jump in and dance along. to not just hum - to innately, sweetly, finally know the song.

// selections from a commission for anonymous. ty & ily. (dm for commission info here or on insta @rid.inkskinned) // 

[inkskinned]

“falling for him wasn’t falling at all. it was walking into a house and suddenly knowing you’re home.”

— r.i.d

[inkskinned]

i made a little quiz. it has gentle wisdom to take with you. whatever i can give you is yours. love u. take the wisdom & run.

[pukicho]

cha cha real scared

[remanence-of-love]

[inkskinned]

i know we’re both just messing around pretending to be whole but look at me. if the train was coming would you move. if the ground was falling from under your feet would you even notice or would it just be another tuesday for you. if somebody stabbed you could it hurt worse than you already do. what i’m saying is that i love you but i think we both drive over the speed limit when it’s raining. what i’m saying is that i want to hold your hand and i understand about how you sometimes have to sit down in the shower. what i’m saying is that i’m here for you and if the train comes please move.

[inkskinned]

Are you in love? Or does he just need you, and you like being needed? Are you in love, or are you so tired of lowering the bar you have promised yourself - this is not the ground, it could go lower - as if being in the basement is comfortable enough. Is he good to you, or is he just sometimes good to you and that makes it "kind of count". How many times have you asked him to change. And how many times has he stayed the same.

[inkskinned]

I have been thinking of the ways we tell people things. My father's hands shake, but he holds the phone up so I can watch the video from six feet away. My mother emails me the recipe of her beef stroganoff at 6 in the morning with the comment - woke up and didn't want to forget to do this! On the highway, we sing so loudly my voice grows hoarse; on the beach I sneak nice rocks into people's hands so they have something to hold; on the floor we all sit quietly in the same agreeable silence. We are all saying the same thing.

My friends say "Oh you know, keeping busy." This means they are having a hard time but making themselves survive it. I ask them to help me walk me dog; this is me telling them it's okay sometimes to just be present and talk about young adult fiction. When I cancel again because I can't get out of bed, she tells me she's on her way with cookies.

I point out the sunset. She shares her fork before I ask for it. He calls me at 1 AM just because I'm on the road alone, we talk about stupid shit. She waits for me to get indoors safely before driving away. He says - nah, forget it, I'm happy to do it for free.

People are saying it, you know? They say it often and loudly. Sometimes, you know - you just have to be listening.

[inkskinned]

sometimes u just have to stand over the sink and eat fruit that is perfectly ripe and know that each person is a world you cannot ever know the depth of and that each fruit and each life deserves a moment of quiet