It’s such a strange feeling when something comes into your life like a movie or an artist or a band that just feels like it’s made from the same stuff you are, it immediately becomes part of how you define yourself and it’s everything you see yourself as at that point in your life and everything that you aspire to be and it’s such a bizarre sensation when you discover something and you immediately feel it fill a hole inside you that you didn’t know was there
it’s the first day of school and i wonder what our kids will be taught first: how to count past ten or how to hide in their classrooms should an armed intruder trigger a lockdown? will we teach our kids how to read before or after we teach them to play dead because the shooter won’t fire at a dead body? should we skip today’s science lesson to remind them to stand on the toilet rim to keep their feet hidden? how can we teach them social studies when we’re already living proof that history repeats itself? and when will we teach them that enough is enough? that we care?
do we care?
because the voice of this generation sounds a lot like the trigger being pulled on an AR-15 but everyday i pray we will speak louder than the shots fired at us
i’ve been asking myself better questions about stuff i had forgotten. like why is the sky blue. why do i feel like i should walk into the ocean until i turn back into a fish. how come when i drop something i still flinch. is it true that one and one makes two. can you find your way even in the dark. is it okay. are you okay. are the stars out during the day. is that you in the moon. how many wolves are there in your closet. who cut your hair without remorse. can a fox be a person, can an eyelash stop a storm. who was it that showed you which direction is up, did they also let you down. can you unfold without creasing. when are you alive and when are you just sleeping.
“the books assigned to us don’t have any REAL meaning”
yeah, i know. i am an author, i felt that keenly through my entire academic career; i hated knowing it wasn’t the case. that i was being lied to.
but we make meaning. the first time someone read into my writing and found something i hadn’t put there, i found myself smiling. oh yeah! it felt good. it felt good they tore it open and plucked something out. it felt like i had done my job well. and they felt good, too.
a lot of books assigned in school won’t have something you see yourself in. they’re general books, or they’re forced in by how cheap they are, or they are just good examples of one type of writing. it is frustrating writing essays about them, like pretending you are panning for gold while you are ankle deep in a plastic pool. these are things that were made for other people, for another time, for a different set of hands. we cannot force ourselves to be kin to what is unlike us. our skin rejects it.
but we make meaning. there will be books - and maybe some will even be assigned - that will not be intentionally written for you, but they will feel that way, down in your ribs, like when you catch your reflection in a store front and for a second don’t recognize who you are. there will be art and dances and songs (god, so many songs) that will do this, over and over and over and over, because our hearts are these big things that love to grab onto any sign we are not alone. that our pain and our losses are not unnoticed. they will be the books you hold differently and the songs you scream along to and the art you cry about in the middle of the museum. and these same books and songs and art pieces will be looked at by other people and those people will say “there’s no meaning here. i don’t get it.”
sometimes, sometimes, i do have a meaning i tuck into words. and sometimes even if i think the meaning is one thing, someone will tell me: here is another. and every time this happens, i am 13 again, and i feel good, and i know i made something worth loving. worth looking at. people come to me and they say: i know you don’t know me, but you know me. and i do know you, because we know each other, because a piece of writing is a two-way looking glass, where you see me, and in that honesty, i hope you get to see yourself, too.
somewhere, tucked into this, chewing on itself, is something i like to remind myself. when i am at the end of the rope, when i am scratching old wounds, when i am trying to untie my tether because none of it matters, i say: we make meaning. and i think of the books that i love that others do not. i think of the flowers that mean things to me that i cannot spell and you cannot know. i think of what i have given meaning to, and who has given me meaning. and i tell myself. yes, this is a dark time. but we will take it and we’ll put it on a loom and we’ll weave ourself something out of it, and we’ll make meaning from this life. i will give meaning to others when i can and i will write and hope others find meaning and i will live like i am meaning to, because if i’m stuck here, i mean to live.
no, maybe it doesn’t mean anything. but maybe it’s just the wrong book. go on. keep looking.
im killing myself tonight. felt like telling someone, but i dont have anyone someones of my own.
please don’t. tomorrow we might meet a horizon we have never known. in six months might be the best night of your life.
six years ago, i used to picture a silver tie around my neck, and a closet door, and my throat caving in. i used to promise myself: tonight, tonight, the bite of forever, a silver knife. nobody would miss me, or else they’d get over it.
i forgot about me.
i forgot about the tattoos i wanted or the piercings. i forgot about the classes i wanted to take and the places i wanted to visit and the songs i wanted to sing and the people i wanted to meet. i thought about the albums i havent heard (hozier, are you with me?) and the memories i hadn’t made, unchecked on my bucket list. no skinny dip, no singing in public. no learning guitar. no books, no puzzles, no nothing. no last episode of that tv show.
it took me six years. not months, not the passing of the moments. but in six months, i’m happy in a way that i felt impossible. i remember sitting on the floor thinking: there’s no undoing what has been done. we are coming apart, us, the one. and when i died, it would make no impression. a satisfaction, in the end, the ending. the only mark i could make, the secret ending.
but in six years, i remade friends. i found my best friend. i caught my family so tight that i remembered them. i found family where family wouldn’t make itself.
what if the next poem i write is the one that saves your life. what if in a few years you hear an album that tells you where you’re going.
i love seeing elderly women who clearly have reached that point where they don’t care about how they’re perceived anymore and are fully engaged with life on their own terms. idk that sounds deep but im just really happy to see this woman on the train rn with pink streaks in her hair wearing bright green new balance sneakers and reading a stephen king novel with a book of crosswords sticking out of her suitcase. i feel like ideally at some point in old age women return to the freedom and unselfconsciousness of pre-pubescent girlhood
I live for the small bursts of happiness. The smiling to a text someone special sent. The careless lip-syncing to your favourite song. The inside jokes that make no sense but still make you smile when you think about them. The little things.
I know it sounds fake but you really do have a lot of silent lovers on this planet who look at you and wish they had your smile or your hair color or your humor or your intellect or your intentions or your heart, your manners, your eyes, your ease, even just you. People who are too shy to tell you what they admire about you or what they wish for you or who they see themselves becoming bc of you & they’re too shy to tell you. even tho it isn’t verbalized, the universe has still heard and the universe has loved you for helping out on its creations. You’re that person. You’re you.
hello again, sorry for having to make another post about it but aprox. two weeks ago i lost all my passwords and several accounts and because of that bad luck moment, i lost the email connected with my ko-fi account, i was able to change the url and leave a message there that i wasn’t using the page. but i still have money issues and so here i am.
long story short, my father has decided to stop supporting me and my mom. this includes not paying for my therapy and medicines, but also the monthly expense for my pet (stuff like food, his baths and appointments because he’s going blind). on top of it all he’s not giving my mom money for food, so she’s relying on her savings. i’d really really appreciate your help right now. my mom and i are planning on leaving but we don’t have enough money, our situation is very complicated at the moment. your help could really change our lives.
please reblog and share this, i will be so thankful and please if you can support us, as its on my ko-fi i can draw/write a ficlet for you in return. here’s my ko-fi link: ☕️ // ko-fi.com/chaseali | my current ko-fi set goal is $50, id really appreciate it if you can help me reach it soon, and if you’d like to help w $1 or $2 you can always dm me for my PayPal. thank you so much already, all the love and good vibes from me to you. xx
