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Drip

Eventually you will be let down -
not just by your family, or friends,
but by the people you trust most,
the people you give your heart to,
no matter how many times it’s
already been broken,
because you feel like they’re
actually worthy of it, or whatever
your brain seems to tell you
in those instances when you’re
trying to decide. I’m here to say
that it will always fucking hurt,
no matter if the person is new or
if it’s the fiftieth time they have
taken what you’ve given them
and tossed it aside -
it will ALWAYS fucking hurt.
There will be nights when that pain
keeps you awake while they are
sleeping soundly beside you,
nights when you are swallowing back
the boulder in your throat to keep
from letting out a sob so loud
it would break the sound barrier,
if sobs can even do that.
They will apologize and tell you
they’re an idiot for betraying you,
but they won’t quite understand
your guarded silence, or the way
your smile starts to falter
an instant after it appears.
I am here to tell you that I have been here
at least fifteen times and I am
still no closer to knowing
whether or not forgiveness
is worth it in the end.
If having faith in other people
could change the world,
I tell ya, I’d be as
well known as Gandhi by now,
but it can’t.
He still clings to me like
I am the last drop of water
in the Sahara, but he doesn’t realize
I am now too weak to
hold him any tighter.

I.

The first time your heart was torn from your chest,
You thought you were dying.
You knew you could not live with the empty space.
So you replaced your heart with metaphors
And set out to create a world where the metaphor was unbreakable.

Now look what you’ve done—
You can’t breathe so you write.
You can’t hurt so you drink rum and pour our pirate chanties.
You can’t want revenge so you leave.

II.

When I see you I have two thoughts:
You are the reason The Smith’s wrote songs,
And my god, you are beautiful.

You are so beautiful
Blinking stars go blind.

But I can see this is going to get ugly.
The metaphors don’t make you feel whole anymore.
You sell out your deepest insecurities for a handful of laughs.
This life has you wound so tight you make grandfather clocks look relaxed.
You hold your body like banks hold money—all locked up.
Your shoulders are glass rocks waiting for the next attack.

But you’ve got it all wrong.

You don’t survive history.
History survives you.

There is no breakthrough without breakdown.

III.

If you’re going to break, shatter.
No explanations.
No limp-legged dog excuses.
No messing with this bullet proof vest fury
So popular with the cops and the presidents.

You’ve got to break like Texas.
You’ve got to take the pain from the safety valve of your heart
And return it to your fists.
Fight your better judgment ‘till you’re sinister again,
‘till your body remembers what it already knows how to do—
bend back
and manifest grief.
Scream torches ‘till you embarrass the enlightened.

Please. No more polite conversations with your death wish.
Give it something useful to do.
Change your life.

Cause I can’t stand to see you like this.
So blue, my eyes turn green in your presence.
Listen—you are so beautiful,
Grass pushes through sidewalk cracks just to kiss your feet.

IV.

Maybe no one ever told you,
But the heart IS a metaphor.
Yours is growing so strong
You’ll have your rhythm back any day now—

Loving like rumours spread.
Dreaming like lunatic spacemen jump from their suits.
Living like you never forgot how.

Mindy Nettifee, “The First Time” (via larmoyante)

I decided a month or so ago that, were I to ever write a memoir, I would title it, “If I didn’t love you so much, I’d punch you in the face.”

This morning, after getting three hours of sleep in the last 40-some odd hours, I decided that the first chapter will be called, “Brain, what the fuck are you doing, why won’t you let me sleep?”

“Suicide as a Sort of Present,” by David Foster Wallace (Excerpt)

There was once a mother who had a very hard time indeed, emotionally, inside.

As she remembered it, she had always had a hard time, even as a child. She remembered few of her childhood’s specifics, but what she could remember were feelings of self-loathing, terror, and despair that seemed to have been with her always.

From an objective perspective, it would not be inaccurate to say that this mother-to-be had had some very heavy psychic shit laid on her as a little girl, and that some of this shit qualified as parental abuse. Her childhood had not been as bad as some, but it had been no picnic. All this, while accurate, would not be to the point.

The point is that, from as early an age as she could recall, this mother-to-be loathed herself. She viewed everything in life with apprehension, as if every occasion or opportunity were some sort of dreadfully important exam for which she had been too lazy or stupid to prepare properly. It felt as if a perfect score on each such exam was necessary in order to avert some shattering punishment.¹ She was terrified of everything, and terrified to show it.

The mother-to-be knew perfectly well, from an early age, that this constant horrible pressure she felt was an internal pressure That it was not anyone else’s fault. Thus she loathed herself even more. Her expectations of herself were of utter perfection, and each time she fell short of perfection she was filled with an unbearable plunging despair that threatened to shatter her like a cheap mirror.² These very high expectations applied to every department of the future mother’s life, particularly those departments which involved others’ approval or disapproval….


¹ Her parents, by the way, did not beat her or ever even really discipline her, nor did they pressure her.

² Her parents had been low-income, physically imperfect, and not very bright—features which the child disliked herself for noting.

Before you fuck up and call her anything less than her name, before you grab her by the arm you need to know the trigger that you are pulling at. You need to know that the safety is never on. You need to know her history before you tell me that this isn’t my business. You need to know that her history is my history.

See, she and I, we come from the tribe of raw knuckled little girls who call our father by their first names and wear their mothers like bruise coloured war paint under eye. We grew thick skin before we grew permanent teeth. We learned to piece together our own families in the backyards of rented duplexes where we promised plastic faced babies better things in soothing tones that we mimicked from TV. We do not have daddy issues even though our daddy’s have issues. We have piercing eyes and promises to keep. We grew up to be nomads surveying domestic war zones with black eyeliner binoculars, always refusing to camouflage. We threw our heads back and laughed at oncoming explosions, never flinched, absorbing shrapnel, never let them see us cry.

We do not dream of boys who will save us from towers. We dream of boys with courage caked under their fingernails. Boys with hands rough enough to wipe metal tears from our faces but warm enough to mold them into stars. Boys with vertebrae strong enough to lock with ours so they can sleep sitting back to back with us and keep watch. And these are the boys, these are the boys who will find love under our armor. These are the boys who will find that we love selectively but we love fiercely. These are the boys who will learn that we love in ways that leave claw marks down the baseboard before we ever let go.

So do not think she doesn’t know how you fear her absence - you should. Your cage is not stronger than her will or her smile. Do not think you are good enough to tame her. You aren’t. And do not think you are the first to try because i have already closed your eyes and crossed your arms before your body hit the floor. And you think she deserves better than you. You are right. So be better than you.

Be thankful that she knows your name and be careful never to forget hers.

Rachel Wiley  (via false-evections)

This is absolutely amazing.

(Source: queenofthewest)

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