[witheredhands-sharpenedbones]

oh the woes of being a middle child

lmao kidding im an attention whore

i figured out that the reason im so loud, dramatic, over the top ect is bc I want attention. i want my parents to stop forgetting im not in my room, i want to be the topic of the conversation instead of my sister, I want to be the one casting shadows instead of trying to crawl out of them. i think it all started in primary school. my older sister was well known, not always for the right reason but everyone knew of her. I was just her younger sister. people would come up to me and call me "kristas sister" i was not my own person. then as soon as i got to high school, it was the teachers. "Oh you're kristas sister?" they would ask, trying to hide a wince. She was a menace to the teachers, so that meant i was. screw the fact that i got higher grades, screw the fact that i was the quiet person that sat in the back silently doodling in my book. but now she's not at school. she dropped out and im still here. my teachers dont know who she is anymore. so why am I still being compared to her? "oh thank god you're not like krista" my friends say. MY friends say. These people barley know her. "but you're acting like krista!" my mum yells when i go without uniform. How crazy. Krista, the girl who made teachers quit? Krista, the girl who skipped so much teachers stopped asking if she was in class? Krista, the girl who was buying weed in an alley next to the school? im the same as her because i dare want to wear a comfortable t shirt? Yet, when i compare myself to her, point out that ive made it to my last year when she didn't, point out that ive never touched drugs, point out that at my age she had a baby, im in the wrong? Its alright for everyone else, just not me?

sometimes i fantasize about getting sick. I don't mean getting cold, i mean i wonder what my life would be like if i found out i had cancer. would my parents finally care? would they worry about me without brining krista into it? would i finally be the one that gets away with bending the rules? or what if i got into a car crash. would they finally let me have time to rest? would they finally spend money on me? I don't actually want cancer or to get hit by a car, but i do want the attention it would give me. I cant get it any other way. the last time i had my mothers full undivided attention, i was breaking down on the kitchen floor, choaking on my own tears. I win awards for my writing and get nothing, i lose my friends over petty arguments and get nothing, i make it the farthest in education in my family, and i. get. nothing. Krista got an A on an assessment and we went out for a celebration dinner. Krista called her friend a disgusting pig and she got hugs. Krista got suspended for calling a teacher a bitch and my mum took her out for fucking ice cream.

she has no expectations piled onto her, and yet she still gets every reward possible. I have every expectation, i am the one thats ment to graduate and become a lawyer and make all the money. i hate law. i hate it with a passion. i dream of being a writer, of my words and the hidden meanings in them making people i will never know feel seen, but my parents only see the successful one. the one that needs no help, the one that efortlessly gets the grades the first one couldn't.

every day is a desperate plea for attention. every breath, every word, every forced laugh, is me fighting to be seen, fighting for someone to see Jada, the Writer, not Kristas Sister.

[witheredhands-sharpenedbones]

if u see ur child having a breakdown do you:

1. blame it on the fact she is in her room

2. blame it on the dishes

3. blame it on her having to make her own lunch

4. blame it on her weight

5. all of the above

6. comfort her and ask her calmly what is wrong

my mum picked 5 ❤️

[witheredhands-sharpenedbones]

"oh why didn't you ask for help"

I say on the floor and cried begging to get help and to talk to someone who could help me and instead of helping me you told me about how pissed off my dad made you

[witheredhands-sharpenedbones]

being passivily suicidal is so fun bc u walk around wanting to die but not enough to tie a noose so ur in that cool little place where everyone just thinks ur a little sad when really ur on the verge of walking into traffic

[witheredhands-sharpenedbones]

"you can't just go to a doctor and magically get better you have to work on yourself too"

really? who would have thought? who would have guessed that I'm trying yo work out, eat healthier, go outside, get more hobbies who would have thought that i have to help myself when NO ONE AROUND ME will help me

[witheredhands-sharpenedbones]

"omg jada u never come our of ur room"

the last time I tried to talk to you you yelled at me for - get this - suffering from depression ❤️

[witheredhands-sharpenedbones]

I made this blog very serious with those first few posts but I promise I'm actually the court jester and those posts were just my sad jester days

[witheredhands-sharpenedbones]

she wonka on my willy till I oompa on her loompa

[ao3commentoftheday]

dark mode galaxy-themed ao3 site skin

Since the frog theme I made earlier was light mode, I decided to make a dark mode skin as well. This one is galaxy-themed and in shades of purple, pink, and blue.

You can get the code and instructions for how to use it here.

[ao3commentoftheday]

Bonus: I had some fun with the error messages too

[witheredhands-sharpenedbones]

realigning to remeber

[witheredhands-sharpenedbones]

My mother has never been like the others. She had me at 19, she was a tiny thing, and I sucked her life out of her. She took me and ran from my father. Since then she's stuck close to me. I hear stories every day of mothers being jealous of their daughters. My mother is not jealous of me. Is it because I'm worse, or because she's better?

My mother raised a quiet girl. A girl who hides in her room when men get loud. A girl who reads about a boy in a cupboard under the stairs finding a better life and dreams to become him. A girl who has nothing left.

As I got older, she found it fit to tell me more. More about why we left, more about her world, more about life. But it stopped teaching me things long ago. Now she tells me about my sister, or my father, or her mother. I don't want to dissapoint her. I suck it all in. I remember more about her fights with my sister than I do what I learn at school.

My mind is like a field. At first, it was a vast peice of undeveloped land, ready to be molded into something beautiful. My parents and teacher began planting crops, but it quickly ran out of room. My teachers are careful, they pluck out the old, the unused, and fill it with fresh crops, ready to go. My mother is not. She will rip out anything in her way, spreading her seeds through my whole mind, refusing to let the old die. My mind is now filled with old rotten crops, dying faster than they should. Another crop dies, and I am filled with dread, unable to find it in myself to get up and water the rest, I must mourn what just died, even if it kills even more.

My mother cannot see the field. She only sees me mourning. She tells me, I just need motivation, I just need to get happy, but I can't. Another crop just died.

I do not like my grandpa. He abandoned my mother, he spat on our floors, he insulted what I loved. He has done many things. I do not hate him for my mother, my hate is my own. Yet my mother tells me to forgive him. She holds no hate, so I shouldn't either. I try not to be mean to his face. It is hard. So I remove myself. That angers her more. All I do is remove myself. All I do is talk back. Which is it?

I love my mother. I love her in a violent, burning way. She is all I have left. The rest of my family has abandoned me, she is everything to me. She has forgotten me countless times. She came to one of my school performances. We have three every year. She has left me at a friend's house. She was sidetracked. She forgot I was at the movies. I'll have to get a taxi. Again. She is all I have, I don't go a day without worrying for her.

My mother is busy. She works all day, she only comes home in the afternoon. It makes sense that she thinks I stay in my room all day. I don't. I wake up and drink tea, sitting there for an hour as I look at what happened as I slept. I talk to my siblings, i make plans with my friends. When she comes home, I've become tired. I've spoken a lot, and now I want to relax. She thinks I do nothing all day. She tells me I do nothing all day. Now, I do nothing all day.

Now, I go back to my room, and I think about a cupboard and a letter. I'm too old for that now, but it keeps me sane.

[witheredhands-sharpenedbones]

when I was a child, I was quiet. I only spoke when spoken too, and rarely replied. I hid away from everyone in dark corners, waiting for the screaming to come back, waiting to feel the roaches and spiders crawl over me as they fled my father's wrath, leaving my mother alone. We had left, but my mind was still there. I would wake with tears on my cheeks, a dream or a memory still running through my head. I still remember them. Even now, when I don't remember what I looked like as a child, I still remember the dreams of my new father reaching out and doing what my first could never, ripping my mother from the world and getting away with it.

Now I am loud. I speak for myself, I joke, I laugh. I stay away from the dark corners, I still hear the screaming, I cringe away from the roaches and spiders, their legs disturbingly familiar to my skin, they flee my new fathers wrath. My mother was no longer alone, I had sisters, a brother, I was confident now, I could speak. And yet when I wake I can still find tears on my cheeks. I still have the same dreams and memories of a preschool girl.

My new father never hurt my mother. Not like the first. He didn't hit or or throw things at her. But he yelled. The yelling threw me back there, sent me away to the dark corners. When my new father yells, I stop. I stop talking, I stop blinking, I stop breathing, I stop thinking. I use up all my energy to keep the tears in my eyes. They make me weak.

When I was 13 I had grown in confidence. I asked my mum why my new dad didn't love me. I wanted to know. He treated my sisters different, why? Was it because of them? Was it me? Was it because it because I wasn't his? My mother assured me he did. I just nodded.

When I was 15 I tried to tell him about my thoughts of suicide. He laughed. Suicide is for the weak. It'd be a cowards death. I hold no respect for the people who killed themselves, for those who couldn't push through their life. He said all of this to me, sipping on his overpriced bourbon, fiddling with his golden rings.

A year later, his cousin killed himself. My new father cried. Does he still have no respect for people who killed themselves?

My step sister was only a year older. We have been sisters for 13 years now. We were raised together. We've shared a room for a decade. I know her better than anyone. Until she left. When she was 17, she dropped out, did drugs, and got pregnant, not in that order. Those were the 3 things my new father said he never wanted. I expected him to not let her back in, or give her new rules, something. But no. She was bought back with open arms. I loved her being back, but it wasn't what I expected. But she was 17, that must have meant something.

I'm 17 now. I'm still in school, I've never had drugs, I remain child free. My new father works me to the bone with chores, then makes fun of me for not having a job. He tells me I know nothing, that I'm still just a child. I am the same age as my sister was the day she got pregnant. I'm old enough to have a child, but not yet old enough to have an opinion. I've started my last year in high school. I'm the first in my whole family to do so. My new father now calls me stupid whenever he can. He tries to catch me getting something wrong. He told me I'm dumb because I'm the child and he's the adult.

I broke my thumb 2 years ago. My friend kicked a soccer ball at it and it snapped. I was sent to the nurses office and given ice. I told my parents I think I broke it when I got home. He said no. You would be crying. It's just a little sore. 2 years later, I can't open a door, or hold a pe. for long. He recently hurt his thumb. It's broken he says. He can still move it. He can still write. Which is it? Is his broken, but mine not? how? why?

Recently, a new girl moved into my house. She is my new fathers daughter. She is a year and a half younger than me. She is a liar. She is my new fathers favourite. She lied about everything, she made fun of him, she tried to leave, but he still calls her sweety.

The last thing he called me was a cunt.

I am not his daughter. I have no father. These memories will haunt me like the dreams, these houses will follow me like the roaches and spiders. But he is not my father.