burnout

i'm really just trying my best ig, she/her, queer, hapa filipina

[erickalarissa]

Allow yourself to release the desire of wanting to bring people onto your path and put the responsibility of their growth on your back. Many things will shift in and out of your life the more you choose your own alignment , but not everyone is on the same path as you. Letting go when things have run their course is necessary — you must make room for the new to enter.

[americansport-deactivated201912]

poem from last year that got published

[sweetwinesecret]

keep (your) peace

no one tells you giving up on the people you love will hurt you more than it will hurt them. 

through their eyes, you’re finally letting things go. After all the yelling — the dismissing, the pleading with you, why why why do you keep bringing this up when you could just move on — you’re finally keeping the peace. i bet to them, it looks like you’re growing up and finally letting things go. 

at the very least, they’re right about the latter.

while you let go of them — let go of your own will to fight for a better relationship with them — you’ll feel every tedious second of breaking your own heart to break yourself away from them. every swallowed protest will burn on the way down, every passive enforcement of boundaries feels less like a stronghold and more like a brick against your chest. the only fight left is the one in your own head, pulling you back and forth asking if you’re really doing yourself a favor by protecting your peace or if this is just another form of running away.

the fights before at least gave you a direction to rage in, because they exposed for certain just how little they cared to understand how they hurt you.

letting go is so isolating because only you know and feel the absence of them fighting back. All you can do is wonder if they can feel it too. 

protecting your peace is a fight alone. you know how badly you want to walk back in the room — tears in your eyes, but shoulders squared — and make them hear how much loving them makes you hurt. how much you want to yell and yell until they finally hear 

you just want them to care.

but you won’t walk back 

you’ll stand your ground, right where they left you

alone with your feelings, because you’re growing up. you understand now that you can’t make them want to understand you, and you can’t make anyone want to fight for you. 

you can only hope that maybe months or years later when you’ve healed from pulling away, they finally think to look back

and they see you’ve stopped following behind them

they finally see that you’ve stopped walking in the shadow of all they take for granted, they see how small they once made you feel, and feel for themselves how far away they’ve left you.

you hope they realize that if they’d just listened — if they just looked back once — you could have walked hand-in-hand. 

but until then, all you can do now is let go.

and hope that when they finally see how far they’ve pushed you away

they turn around and fight to close the gap.

[sweetwinesecret]

phased

peel back the layers of everyone i’ve loved, everyone i’ve tried to be. everything you see in me is there, nestled in the person i’ve adapted to survive, to match and mirror whoever is beside me this season - this phase. 

a million layers of other people, struggling to live up to their own belief systems, maybe being a good person.

peel scratch scrub and sand but never polish, because polish is just an added layer of hopeful deception. layers and layers, until all that’s left is truly my own:

my handwriting, and a gelatinous projection of the person i hope to become.

[sweetwinesecret]

i don’t want to hate you

but i do

because you taught me how to love myself 

then stopped loving me

[sweetwinesecret]

The knife is in my hand

I can either unsheath it and hack myself free

Or turn it around into my own chest

And time and time again I feel the blood rush forth

Cortisol and red iron caked against my chest

The tension will swell again in a few breaths

But I chase the release

-

How many hours or days or weeks would it take?

Metal against metal, until the blade dulls or my chains give in

Why risk getting so close only to stay trapped here 

When instead I could stay here, but get to lose myself for a few

Sweet deliriously insensate moments

-

I see the end

The meager sunlight leaks from the chipped mortar

Down the hall, so many chains just like mine clink

A mournful chorus whose faces I cannot see

And cannot see mine

-

They clink

Metal against metal

Link to link 

How could one distinguish the sound of the blade

Against the lonely chain?

-

Let me bleed here

For a few more moments 

Let me bleed, rather than resume the pull

-

For one more moment

Let me pretend to give in

[sweetwinesecret]

miss taken

Our life is shared between five people in these four walls, but my one doesn’t belong to you, not yet, but I thrust my heart into your hand while it’s still four hours fresh from its last love’s wound 

Hold my hand as we spiral down together, your pleading consent just a begging breath, my outstretched hand ruining what we had in favor of 4am kisses and sorries and purple/red temporary tattoos that fade from my chest slower than you faded from our room

I know I’m going down but the landing will be softer if I take you down with me

In the daylight you dance to steely dan and yacht rock and I never liked the 70s but you move like you’ve finally found life’s fleeting zest and I can’t take my eyes off your smile

When it's over I’ll remember only these moments, and how your eyes watched mine with my tits in your mouth and hands, caressing and undressing so caring and quiet and our friends are in the next room but no one needs to know

Casual is our sole condition but a relationship looms over the horizon of the lines we cross, but my heart is as bruised as your left collarbone after the third night 

and it needs to stop 

and I need to breathe

and I need to feel the absence of what I’ve lost but all I can feel is your hands in my hair and on my cheeks

I needed so badly to take from this, take the concept of us from the future and corrupt it into an illicit affair 

I need to take a step, to preserve whatever might be left after we come to our senses

I need to take a step back 

Away from you

When its all over, at least when our eyes meet I know you remember it all too

[starsphere-deactivated20251020]

[lilllium]

—Lilllium, from In Place Of The Mirror is a Portait of You

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

clowns honk their noses bc that's how they spread their Spores

[poeticallybitter]

[acespec-ed]

You might be sexually attracted to that person if…

- You think sexual thoughts about the person out of nowhere

- You feel aroused upon seeing the person outside of a sexual setting

- You find yourself wondering what the person is like in bed and what their genitals look like 

- You want to have sex with that person because your body is screaming for sex with that one person in particular.

- Seriously though if you’re already horny and that person is there you will feel all hot and sexually aroused and might drool a bit and fantasies of doing X-rated things to that person will fly through your mind and your body will literally be screaming for that person to take you or for you to take that person. Even just thinking about that person while horny can do this to you.

- TMI but if you get off while fantasizing about you having sex with that person, the orgasms can be absolutely mind-blowing and may even give you leg cramps.

- You really do “just know.”

You might not be sexually attracted to that person if…

- You make a conscious effort to fantasize about sex with that person, mainly to see if you actually want to

- You feel aroused during a sexual situation, but that arousal has more to do with the activities instead of the specific person. Alternatively, you just don’t feel aroused at all.

- You feel aroused at random, but it’s directed towards no one

- You want to have sex with that person because you want to make them happy or are just horny and want to get off with a partner or want babies or want money or literally any other reason aside from your body screaming for sex with that one person in particular.

- TMI but if you try to get off while fantasizing about you having sex with that person, you may get bored and start thinking of other things. Or, you may start fantasizing about that person doing sexual things that don’t involve you in which case aegosexual might be worth looking into.

- You just don’t know.

If the “you might be sexually attracted” list boggles your mind, you are possibly asexual.

If the “you might not be sexually attracted” list boggles your mind, you are possibly not asexual.

If you can relate to the “might not be sexually attracted” list, but also feel like you’ve experienced some of the things on the “might be sexually attracted” list, it may be worth checking out some acespec identities.

(Disclaimer: This is strictly based off of my own experiences as acespec and is meant to be a guide for people questioning sexual attraction. Overall, you know yourself best and I’m not gonna tell you what you’re feeling or how to identify.)

[aegosexual-moments]

These types of lists are always so helpful!

A big one too, I think is, you may fantasize, but the people in your fantasies are never YOU. They’re fictional characters or your OCs but they’re never you specifically. And if they are it’s an idealized version of you.

That top list makes me realize I’ve never experienced any of that, it’s kinda like when I stumbled into an ask Reddit about what sexual attraction felt like and I went “yeah, I have never felt THAT way and whatever I feel isn’t sexual attraction”

[zymomonasmobilis]

here it is, the info I’ve always wanted to see, breaking down attraction vs not-attraction in intense, analytical detail

[thoughtlessthinkythoughts]

Here’s a few more for aces who do experience aesthetic attraction and who aren’t repulsed, because goodness knows these are the ones that confused me when I was figuring things out. If you have sexual fantasies that involve things being in a certain situation or having things done to you, but you aren’t visualizing anything or imagining specific people, you might not experience sexual attraction

If you’ve ever had the thought “masturbation is better than sex because it is more efficient and skips the boring bits,” you might not experience sexual attraction.

If you find someone attractive, but the thought of seeing them with their clothes off isn’t more attractive, it probably isn’t sexual attraction. (A naked body is just a naked body. But people are so lovely when in a look they’ve picked out to express themselves.)

If you occasionally notice body parts considered sexual and think they look nice, but do not want to do anything sexual related to those parts, it might not be sexual attraction. (I will occasionally think someone has nice boobs or a nice butt, and I assumed that was sexual attraction for a long time. But I’ve learned that for allo people, thinking those things leads to them having a response of “therefore I want to tap that” which is absolutely baffling to me. Also, again, those thoughts don’t lead to “and therefore I want to see them without clothing.”

If your response to something that seems to be making others horny is very similar to your response to those videos of “oddly satisfying” things, it might not be sexual attraction.

[hopefully-inspiring-persona]

Holy shit. That’s what sexual attraction is???? Was that so hard to lay out like that??? I’ve never felt any of those things and thinking about doing any of that is just so bizarre lol

[mckitterick]

I realized I was demi thanks to [tumblr] ace-spectrum posts like this, because I can experience all those “you might be sexually attracted” things - but only with the person I’m in love with - while usually only having aesthetic attraction to those I find pretty but with whom I’m not in love

[thetortured-poet]

A relationship should be 50/50. You save all your dirtiest jokes for me and I'll save you a seat

[sweetwinesecret]

you looked over my shoulder

that was a pleasant surprise

but nothing is really going to change, is it?

that’s our trademark, the chill friends

but this is new for me

it’s not what i want

i don’t want to be the one that sits by

does nothing

you know how to use your title

they’re stumbling drunk, crying and laughing 

and you take care of them

of us

but i can’t balance between giving to help and giving my all

all i know is to give, give, give until i begin to dissolve

burnout after burnout but at least everyone else will be okay

i’m still not drunk

3 vodka shots that went down all too easy and 3/4s of a hard seltzer

the room shifts but my mind is steady

when do i get to feel numb, instead of my standard practiced neutrality?

when do i get to tell truth without control

where can i bear myself with no lies nor deliberation

my forked tongue borne before judging eyes

my jelly mask finally slips and melts on the cold floor

but no

not tonight

not here in this room where we all live and all hide

i’m sorry i called you a bitch when you looked over my shoulder 

i dared you to look

that was step 1

where is step 2

i’ve forgotten how to be close to someone 

how to trust

maybe i can be close again to you

[sweetwinesecret]

it flows like water but it burns lie its trying to cleanse the hurt inside of me 

but it doesn’t 

rubbing alcohol cleans, but my alcohol just makes the mask fluid

it makes the mask slip and waver

fluid in my head like it swirls in the can, fluid like the limbs of my shit-faced friend

she laughs and i wonder how

the room slides when i stand, but my mind is still sound 

you can’t see what i’m feeling

i can fake just as well as i could before my first sip

what will it take? 

drunk as i write this, maybe you could just look over my shoulder 

i dare you to look over my shoulder 

bitch

[sweetwinesecret]

the whole favorite person and hyperfixation thing really bit me in the ass

[ryebreadgf]

if i was very little i could live inside your tote bag and use your rumpled up receipts as blankets. have you thought about that