hi friends. this post is a lot and really just me doing my part to scream into the void so i can attempt to function. if you need to skip, i understand. i might need to skip too.
there is something grossly optimistic and desperately poetic about looking for an engagement ring. i know the stone; the material; the size.
i know my partner; her laugh; her eyes.
i don’t know if i will ever be able to slide that same engagement ring on her finger the day we get married.
this fact settled into my consciousness today.
i’ve been working instead of drinking, physical labor doing the same thing to me as alcohol would. instead of downing shot after shot, fire burning me from the inside out—
—i get up. i shower. i put makeup on my face. i pry open my eyeballs and press withered contacts into them. then i work.
i still come home crying, aching, and sick. i still come home and collapse immediately in bed to avoid the posts and headlines.
i know i am privileged. i know that for some people, it is a curse to have a uterus. please don’t let me convince you that i am suffering most. i am not.
but right now, i am fourteen years old in my bedroom, sobbing as my mom goes through text messages, and it is a curse to love again.
i am twenty-one years old in my bedroom, sobbing as i go through headlines, and it is a curse to love again.
i am seventy-five years old in a hospital bed, sobbing as my love fights to get in, and it is a curse to love again.
i am a charred corpse, rotting in tangled sheets and my future. i have burned myself alive just to escape, yet i still take rattling breaths and press withered contacts into my eyes.
i can see clearly. i can see nothing at all. i don’t know which is worse.