Srij🕊️

Desi~ she/her ~ INFP~ Cottagecore~ Articulating the tragedy of life ~ (girls girls🦋)

[srijswings]

I wrote a letter to myself , after being inspired by a friend two months back which probably was the first time.

Okay is a home, okay is a state of mind. Okay is enough.

There's no greater joy than being you, than liking who you truly are✨

I promise things will be easier, it won't sting this bad, it would hurt a lil less.

You can lean on me, have faith in me when you can't find it in yourself. It's okay, we're going to be okay.

I read it today, I cried and i smiled. I felt at ease w myself. I wanted to hug myself , so I did. I've been through so much, faced things which I shouldn't have to. Yet i did. I was and am still kind. I'm a good human. I'm strong. I got to trust myself more. I hope this letter finds you in times when you need it the most. I'm pinning it for you, for myself. Hope it helps you.

[srijswings]

I'll turn 21 in two days. Can I believe it? I've not given it much thought. Years have passed by. Or so it feels that I've not given it much thought.

I was born 21 years ago!

That seems like a lot of years ago, two decades and a year. I've grown up from a toddler to a lil kid, from an adolescent to a teenager and now to a legal adult?! ( I'm not sure if I mentioned the stages correctly or not).

Am I happy? Have things changed? Do I like how I've changed? Do I hurt less?

All of it seems like cold ice. Solidified but will melt as soon as it's out at room temperature. I've done a lot to hold this cold temperature. I wouldn't want to let it go. Mostly it's alright. I can be melted and solidified. I've the flexibility but also the rigidity.

What am I most grateful for? Do I've to be though?

I'm okay with the fact that I've survived, it's been tiring but I love my relentless efforts to try to make it.

What do I hope for?

I hope to buy a big fridge that can hold as many ice trays as possible. I don't even drink cold water or ice creams as much. But the thought of having ice cubes feels rich. Like if it all, I require I'll know I'll have them stocked.

I wish to build a home, not just a house. With big windows and spacious rooms, a terrace to watch the sky from, lots of plants. But will I be able to take care of someone else? The plants I mean.

I feel tired. I hope I have someone who takes care of me a lil more than I take care of them. I hope I'm held gently and fed and listened to.

I also want to be alone. Because I don't think I want anyone else to understand my weirdness, my quirks, the stuff that goes in my head or most of all see me howl and cry and speak to my younger self. It's just v pitiful. I want to be the only one to pity myself and then pick her up.

I want to have privileges. I want things easier for me. I want to be less scared. I want to believe in myself more. Maybe smile more genuinely. I want to find people who want the same for me.

Oh yes I want to have home cooked meals everyday. New recipies. New hacks. All made with love. Just love. And maybe few people to share the meals with. Dinner table conversations and hearty laughter. So that I feel full. My heart feels full.

And I want a big steel jug to keep my water cool. I love drinking water or maybe I'm just used to it.

I want a couch in my garden and a swing. The one that rotates . The couch to lay down and soak in the sun. I want peace and quiet but also laughter and some occasional fights. But nothing intense.

I want mediocrity.

[ouspoowrites]

it's really weird when you have a toxic parent. it's like you hate them so much for the things they did but yesterday they got you your favourite food. it's like they're so mean to you but one day they're just not. you don't know what to feel about them. almost like you love them but hate them.

[aphrodites-serenade]

A real man

Having watched my mom growing up, I quickly found out that she was weak

And having grown up as the only girl in a family of boys, I quickly found out that I, too, was weak

My brothers were rough, rowdy, and boisterous– as all young boys are

They were a joy to be around, and I loved their disorderly ways

But soon, it came to a point where they were aware that I was different. "Because I'm a girl," they said

A girl, I never realized I was a girl before– who would soon be a woman

That revelation shook me, and quickly, it angered me

Because to be a woman is to be soft

Because to be a woman is to always be a little girl

Because to be a woman is to never be a real man

My father, he was a real man and nothing like my mother

Once his car arrived into the driveway, my mother would sigh weakly

He was big compared to her, intimidating to speak to, and had piercing eyes

His fists were harsh, but the words that came out of his mouth did even more damage

His presence was noticeable, and it scared us at times

As rough as he was, he was someone that us children looked up to

By comparison, my mother was delicate, always tripping over her own emotions

When she attempted to speak, we'd all exchange silent glances and laugh– her head was always full of foolish ideas

Be like my mother? No, I'll be a man

I'll be a real man, I won't cry.

I'll be a real man, my word's will hit harder than any other

I'll be a real man, one who can stand on his own and make others obey

But most of all, I'll be the son my dad wished he had.

Will this save me from my mother's fate, I wonder...

[bottled-cherry-wine]

to this day i silence my crying at night, as if you were still in the next room.

[exquisit3corpse]

[starshades-grace]

"yeah, eldest daughters tend to do that."

"do what?" she asks.

i look at her and i see a body filled with exhaustion caused by bearing the weight of problems that should never have been laid on her. i look at her and see the person who matured too fast, the person who doesn't know how to handle their parents' kindness or unjust expectations, the person whose stern expression swore to protect her siblings. i look at her and see myself.

"care too much."

[muskaanayesha]

I am the eldest daughter, which is to say that I am a sponge that absorbs all the trauma of the household. Life is spilt milk and I am a kitchen cloth burnt at the edges. I am falling apart at the corners, threads coming away, rips and ripples like I am torn and trembling in an ocean of nothingness. I am the eldest daughter, which is to say that I emphasize with everyone. The love of my life marries someone else, and I find myself hoping that he loves her the same. My brother wishes death upon me and I toss and turn in my sleep over the tears I saw in his eyes. Life is an accidental fire and I am water. I attempt to stop a tragedy I did not start, to go blindly into a catastrophe that I cannot halt. I am the eldest daughter, which is to say that I am silent in my needs. My father asks me what I'd like to eat and I say that I am not hungry. I will chew on my guilt and swallow my pride before I even think of asking for anything. I buy myself a sweet and nothing tastes as bitter as it. Life is a metaphor for debt and I am drowning in the desire to be as insignificant as possible. I demand nothing and nothing demands me.

[belphegorlance]

Matilda by Harry Styles is for children who don’t have a good relationship with their mother(or father) and constantly feel like they need to be doing more. They can never express themsleves in front of their parents because they will be rebuked for it. They're constantly getting yelled at for no reason, always stressed, choke back their sobs and feel that they are a disappointment at all times.

[srijswings]

Everything reminds me of her

[love-kills-slowely]

[sinligh]

When i die, I hope the blueprint of my soul stay behind that it doesn’t fall into abeyance nor stay as a work in progress in someone else’s hands…

In this life time, I traded it for a collection of long lost chances, and dreams that are brushed in passing

On a good day, I’m a hybrid of my family’s coping mechanisms..

On my worst.. i’m an abandoned painting a mixture of their insecurities Covered with the skin of a temptress

One that never feared speaking her mind yet, always ended up romanticized.

I carry the potential of growth with me wherever i go. A ladder I never bothered taking a single step on, favoring whatever stability i cultivated in my own bones

A hundred thousand words, six to seven hours wasted time; wasted love...

Ignorant, i saw all my chances hanging from the branches that grew from me.

thought they’re mine to harvest…

now I’m living in borrowed time, barely stable with one foot in this year While the other has gone ahead to the upcoming one…

so unlike me, to try and set roots…

I don’t really want to reflect, but if i have to guess then that’s just a reaction, a skill that I picked up to deal with all that i denied myself viciously until i broke and indulged taking no account of how alone i’ll feel carrying all that mess around to the next year

Disappointment ? I learned that it can look like every other feeling you know; if you were taught that you have the ability to be just another one of its definitions.

Growing up, my mother always told me: that the only thing she loves about being alive Is me…

I used to fear looking in the mirror, how ugly can love be ?

As ugly as wasted potential a voice answered me

The same voices that tried engraving in my mind that a woman must never be a disappointment

Yet I somehow am.

•••

•Quotes: Anaïs Nin/ Clementine von Radics/ Mahmoud Darwish/Clarice Lispector/ Anaïs Nin/Rainer Maria Rilke/Louisa May Alcott/Clarice Lispector/Susan Sontag

•Original context: Sinligh

•Art reference:

1. Detail from a painting by Alex Venezia. 2.Kleopatra Elin Danielson-Gambogi. 3. Detail from a painting by Nick Alm. 4. A Creation by Lisa Lach-Nielsen. 5. Overwhelmed by Valeria Duca. 6. Caído por Federico Ferro. 7. Fallen Angel by Chris Young.

[mysterieuxclairdelune]

{Alice Oseman, Radio Silence/ Emily Palermo, from Untitled/ Franz Kafka, from Diaries/ Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar/ Marya Hornbacher, Waiting/ Nikos Kazantzakis, from a letter to Galatea Kazantzaki wr. c. May 1922/ Mahmoud Darwish/ Anna Akhmatova, from The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova; "The Old Portrait"/ Lyric Hunter, from "A Garden," Swallower/ Albert Camus/ Varsha/ Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Meek One}

[srijswings]

Sure mystery, mind games and all might seem exciting to get the highs and lows but hear me out:

Intentionally putting in the effort to know them, to understand them, to be there for them. Both at times when they want you and even when they don't want it. When they don't say they need you, but you still just want to be around them and care for them. Giving them more than they ask for, giving them just because. Showing them you want them and only them. Paying attention to them, their details, their moods and voice. Trying to read between their sighs and 'okays', 'I'm fine and it's alright'. Going a lil out of your way to make things easy for them. Why? Just because. Because it's them. And you want them to be at ease, to be happy.

[sinligh]

In the name of healing I bite chunks of myself daily, spit them out in my hand with the intention to wash it away later

Eventually, i end up over analyzing them, like everything else in my life

grafts of all the causes I’m still here, glued together by my mother’s fears

be the Alpha female, she said. “feed on your most beloved, a cup of the moon’s blood every night before bed for you to run alone forever, run wild, never slip”

I Shower myself with self-loathing, lick my own wounds close Keep me sane, keep me safe

loneliness to me is just another insecurity that is dangling from my prefrontal cortex, dangling right in front of my eyes… for me to see the world through it.

I spend hours looking at the bloody chunks in my hand, thinking where did i go wrong ? how much can I hold on to this heartache ?

I've been running around it all my life, running around red lines, red lines circle me, i run in circles around myself I’m all that I’ve ever knew, yet, I only know myself in fading

A distant memory, a deja vu…

All I really know, is that the only stable in my life is the fact that I exist, and that it’s a temporary state.

jamais vu.

will the lines fade if i eat what i bit off of myself again ? if i chew and chew and chew… If i teach myself to stomach it will i be whole again?

is holding on to those pieces enough to satisfy my desire to be held ?

Or does it make me a feral rogue ?

Schizophrenic delusions ticking in my head…

Sometimes I wonder if it’s my fault that I’m this alone…

then again I wasn’t the one feeding myself all the insecurities as a young child.

I wasn’t the one playing pretend.

It was never my fault, my mother thought faking happiness is the way to protect me, it was never my fault father wasn’t interested in the details, as long as I was his perfect girl…

Now, I can’t hold on to anything the way i hold on to the lunatic turmoil that makes me sway and laugh on my own personal misery.

Call it history.

Hide behind defensive humor, get my inner demons drunk on caffeine, mistake that high for happiness cause mama did too…

And wait for caffeine withdrawal to wake us up, both of us…

I’ve never been hangover, but I imagine this is how it’ll feel

The aura ? The migraine?

The urge to throw myself up to be reborn clean.

•••

•Quotes: Olivia Laing/Heather Havrilesky/ Olivia Laing/ Marya Hornbacher/Anaïs Nin/Camille Norton/ Alice Oseman/ eduardo C. Corral/anne carson/ Joanne Harris/ Hannah Green/Hannah Green/Lisel Mueller

•Original context: sinligh

•Art reference:

1. Sasha Hartslief, Late Night Shower, 2021. 2. Getting Up by Vincent Giarrano. 3.illustration by Owen Gent. 4. The Lovers on the Bridge, 1991. 5. "Beverly Edmier 1967' Keith Edmier, 1998

•song recommendation:

P.s: the whole album is a masterpiece ! Give it a try, thank me later.

[basilpaste]

Love isn't the sacrifice, it's the act of giving.

letters from medea, salma deera | giovannis room, james baldwin | all i ask of you, phantom of the opera | because dreaming costs money my dear, mitski | water lilies claude monet | bittersweet, rumi | in case you dont live forever, ben platt | quote by sade andria zabala | photo by leonardo papèra | the rockrose and the thistle, the amazing devil | radio silence, alice oseman | this is how you lose the time war, amal el-mohtar

a silly little web weave based on perrie.

[catchymemes]