i was 17 when he hurt me

i was
-young
-weak
-tired

and i didn't know how to say no when you forced me to say yes once

i was 17 when he hurt me and
now i'm almost 22 and
the hurt fades but
it never leaves me be

annabel lee.

Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe was one of my favorite poems in high school, and even reading it now I get a kind of wistfulness that is really difficult to describe. It is dark, and haunting, and relatable even as it distances itself from the reader, and it is so, so beautiful.

"My life and my bride," Poe writes, with a kind of heartache that I think only those who have loved can fully understand. I don't think it had to be a bride. I think it could have been, "My life and my child" just as easily. "The moon never beams without giving me dreams," he says, and I don't think there's anything I could say that Poe doesn't convey twice as well.

There's something kind of beautiful in tragedy.

even if we can't find heaven

the sky is soft and
the sea crashes like i did when
my first car slipped on a patch of black ice and
sent me headfirst into a jeep cherokee three times my size

my hair is turning silver at the edges and the base and
two years ago when i ran my fingers through it
it came out in handfuls
but at least then it was still brown

what makes a week?

two bags of ramen
a single box of chinese takeout
and a black hole in your chest that takes and takes and takes until
it's swallowing even your hair

my demons ate my heart but at least they
had something to feed them
nourish them
until they could climb out of my throat and
into the world that had made even my hair want to escape

the sky is soft and
the sea crashes like i did when
my boyfriend caught me holding a knife and
standing in the rain on the rooftop of our apartment complex

and
oh god
i am hungry
so hungry
more hungry than
i can satisfy even by eating my demons

eat it? ate it.

"It doesn't matter that they won't remember me. What matters is I helped."

This is a quote from one of my favorite video games, even though I didn't know it was from a video game at first. This quote is what made me want to play. It's said by a 'spirit of compassion,' a being that exists only to help.

I'm not that selfless but I think it's a pretty valid sentiment. I'm not always a good person and it's a little intimidating to think that that's the kind of mantra to try to live by, to want to do good even when people won't recognize or remember it. Of course, the character that says it is more or less a ghost, so I don't think it's fully applicable to a totally mortal person.

Food for thought.

welcome back winter

cracked lips
ruddy cheeks
sunrises & moonlight

you only broke me because i let you and
i might even let you break me again because
before you were broken glass and a fist through my bedroom door
you were a snowflake in the palm of my hand

you had my heart before i ever even believed i had one

i'm gonna let them stay

my blood pounds like a bird in a cage might sing
it's beautiful but not quite free
almost
but not quite

do you hurt me or do i let you hurt me (yes)

how old was i when i learned how to ride a bike (too old)

what's the point of waking up every morning when my caged bird blood sings with the hopelessness of a child who has already learned that their parents are human

baby girl you know we're gonna be legends

"This is my body, and I can make it do things. I can make it spin, flip, fly."

I just finished a book called Dare Me. It's about American cheerleading, kind of, about the darkness in the so-called All-American Girl, about the sinister undertones of how terrifying it is to be a teenage girl. These girls grow up too fast, they're cynical and detached, and they are hard as nails and too good for the world around them.

I hated myself for so long, hated being a girl, that it's hard not to put girls who are aware of their own worth on a pedestal now. These girls are like that. Even at their most evil, I want to worship them in the way they worship themselves, all glitter and sequins and spray-on tans. In my head I can wipe away the violence and eating disorders and cruelty because oh, God, are they beautiful.

Then I remember that they are just children, and I'm horrified to realize that I know girls just like this, girls who are much older than they should be, using sex as a weapon because they know sex is what makes the world go around.

They would be lovely (they are lovely) but they are heartbreakingly sad.

"If it hadn't been what it was, it would've been beautiful."