we were all stars, once

poems from my notes app and thoughts from my brain

[thevisions-soul]

i am not an easy person to love

it's the first thing i remember learning about the way the world works

the sky is blue, the sun rises in the east, and i am hard to love

everything is difficult for me in a way it never was for my peers,

every misstep i took on my perilous journey through puberty burned like fire through my veins

I've never been short on awareness when it comes to the things i do wrong

but 21 years in and i still cant make myself easier to love

[thevisions-soul]

Poseidon And I Are Well Acquianted But Not Good Friends

i worked one summer as an observer on commercial fishing boats

3 long months of sacrificing meals over the side of the boat

apologizing silently for the damage i watched them do

the lives discarded as worthless that i was there to record

i guaranteed their species would live on,

but i couldn't help but feel like my whole career was built on a compromise with the devil

[thevisions-soul]

I used to listen to Enchanted by Taylor Swift like I'd written it personally

Heidi taught me young never to waste the opportunity to make a wish

But I never really thought I'd spend so long wishing for people who'd never want me back

Pretty enough to compliment, but never without a sarcastic wink

Nice enough to joke about, to say you would

But we both know you never really would

I wonder when it will have been long enough for me to ask why

What it was about me that always made someone else seem so much better

What should I have done differently?

[thevisions-soul]

everyone always told me growing up that i would be extraordinary

i built lives in my head full of certainty and success

i never knew how people could not know what they were doing with their lives

i had come from an extraordinary line, and i would live an extraordinary life

and it would all come easily to me if i let it

until, it didn't

until the winter of my sophomore year of high school turned into 3 soul crushing months of studying for hours and still barely scraping by with a C

until i tripped on my own stubbornly dropping mental health

since then i've learned that it's easier not to plan

less painful, when it doesn't work out

i've been holding out for things to get better for a decade now

i'm starting to wonder if i was right back then after all

if maybe someone out there forgot about me

if maybe this is all i get

i know that this is not enought for me

i know that it will never be enough for me

what i dont know is how much longer i can live with that

[thevisions-soul]

i learned in middle school

(the first time i tried my best and still failed)

that it's a lot less painful when you fail if you dont try to succeed

this is not a novel thought, and i was far from the only one of my peers learning this lesson

but i often wonder how far i really could have gone

i think i would have loved being a doctor— in another life, of course

(one where i was born on a saturday, perhaps)

the problem is that when failing wasn't an option, success felt good

but still my bones were so heavy, and my soul was so weary

so i wasted every golden opportunity handed to me from the wreckage of my parents hard work

the lives they will never live so that i could squander my catapult start

lying in bed crying about everything i was missing

staring at the "Oh The Places You'll Go" poster hanging on the wall

wishing i was living a different life

wondering where i first went wrong

leaving clawmarks behind on every door i watched slam shut

(but you'll never hear me scream

because if i never asked, was i really rejected?)

[petrichara]

Trying to remember the last time I played hide and seek. The last time I said hi to everyone on the street or saw the girls I spent every day of six years with. The last time my dad picked me up, or my mum brushed my hair. When was the last time I dressed without consideration? There is so much to think about now. I remember falling on the grass at school and making stories with the clouds. Hanging upside down from the swing and realising how big the world was. I wonder on the path of growing when we stop feeling big. I am taller now, smaller still.

[thevisions-soul]

and suddenly i was an adult

living a state away from my family, paying my own bills

living my own life

and i understand the poems now, that used to frighten me so

because i am alone and so so lonely

but i am not a kid anymore

[thevisions-soul]

i think the truth of it is that the things we lost in 2001 and 2008 left us living in a world thats missing its soul

i have never known what its like to walk through an airport the way it was originally designed

i can only just remember the house my family had to sell when the markets went to shit

people like to say that things just change, the world just moves on

but when the middle class cant afford to live and every time a plane flew just a little too low over my new jersey suburbs i wondered what building it was gonna hit i dont think we can consider this just another casualty of time

i have spent my whole life longing for the world my big brothers were born into

it has taken me far too long to understand why i couldnt find it

[thevisions-soul]

ill be 21 in 21 days

it feels like yesterday i was mourning the loss of the teen at the end of my age

but this year i am not clinging to my youth with desperate claws

i am in my 20s

i am okay

being a teenager is all blinding emotions and overwhelming fear

but now i can go through my day without the weight of dread shadowing my every move

i made mistakes and i learned from them and now i finally forgive myself

because i was just a kid

distance is the secret ingredient to healing

aging is not a bad thing

i love my 20s

[thevisions-soul]

i stare at the ceiling or the stars and it makes no difference what i see.

i am alone too much for my own good but being around people weighs too heavily on my heart.

i am at peace with the war in my soul and the ways it has shaped my mind.

the scars i placed on my own body fade with every day and i hope the ones on my soul will someday do the same

[thevisions-soul]

i was born into this world missing all the things i would one day lose

i am already mourning everything i havent loved yet

[thevisions-soul]

Plato said that everyone becomes a poet at the touch of love.

so make me a poet

show me the beauty in the mundane,

paint my prose a vibrant purple,

teach me how to see the world through the gorgeous haze of love.

make me the poet i have long since accepted that i have failed to be

[thevisions-soul]

im afraid that i can only be good hypothetically

in the comfort and privacy of my own mind i am kind and honest and i love with my whole heart

but when the moment comes i am left watching myself be cruel, begging myself to say the things i think when im alone

fear crawls its way up my spine and steals the right words from my tongue,

it puts a knife in my hand and leaves me no other choice

i come back to myself with an armful of new regrets

and i set to work piecing back together the shattered remains of everything i ruined when it mattered

[thevisions-soul]

in honour of pride month, make sure to take the time to be kind to your younger self.

as in love as i am with my queerness now there is still a little girl in my head clinging desperately to a fairy tale i never really wanted

also happy mf pride guys bask in the beauty of this community

[thevisions-soul]

some days the only thing that gets me out of bed is the thought of the version of me that lived everyday with a deathgrip on the hope that one day I'd have this life.

my own apartment in a new town, far from the crushing expectations of a city overflowing with memories of my hazy bitter-sweet adolescence

the girl who left those marks on a city i left behind would be so relieved to see where i am today

i will not let her be wrong

it will get better

i will be better

[thevisions-soul]

im twenty years old

twenty years old in the sense that i still call my mom whenever i don't know how to do something

but sometimes my mom actually tells me to figure it out for myself

that i'm "an adult"

twenty years old in the sense that i'm on zoloft now and it's like finally turning away from the shadows and seeing the real world

in that i am finally starting to feel settled in my body

and maybe even starting to understand my mind?

i'm twenty years old in the way that i can't think about the fact that i'll never be a teenager again without having a panic attack

but i'm so excited to meet who i'll be when im twenty-five

it's like taking a step toward nirvana

out of the forest and into the meadow

like finally learning to trust that "yes i remember locking the door"

like not going back to check

i'm twenty years old and i can feel my frontal cortex developing

and it doesn't feel like the year is mostly winter

i'll be twenty-one in july

and i'm far away enough from nineteen that it almost doesn't make me want to puke to think about it

and i hate my job but it brought me to a life i want to live

so i guess they were right after all,

sometimes you'll just understand it when you're older

[thevisions-soul]

when i was fifteen i forgot how to dream

a world beyond highschool was something i thought id never see

i took blades to my skin and let my thoughts cut deep into my soul

i have believed that it wouldnt matter if i left

i have imagined the ways people would miss me

i have seen how easy it is to give up

it feels a lot like the view from halfway down

like I'll never be the same again because of a choice driven by pain

i have clawed and crawled my way back up

i have slipped back down and learned to try again

i have felt the warmth of spring after a winter i thought would never end

and eventually, i remembered how to dream