Atlantis Practice

I actually let me being a people pleaser make me become a stronger person. 

Here’s how:

I allowed an imbalanced micromanager take advantage of my fine tuned skill of creating order from chaos, from my eternal desire to make right in the world, and emotionally abuse me.

Along the way, I unraveled, oh, but I never once became a loose thread.

Instead, the process made me stronger. I became more resilient once I finally listened to what my loved ones around me were telling me: that I needed to run. But I’m an Oak, and my roots go deep. I know my order: I settle in to nurture the soil around me.

Now I’ve come to terms that I’ve not been uprooted; just pruned.

In realizing this, I finally feel less scared than I have ever been whilst faced with a situation like this again in my life. I will sleep at night. 

when you start thinking about work outside of work in the way that makes you feel like you've got a boulder in the center of your chest

it's time to get out

because that's how ma went crazy playing bingo and not taking her pills funneling them down the toilet yes i watched her i watched her she did it and she played bingo played bingo played bingo made friends and i went to thailand??????? and she went to london and found love and

but then again does that boulder ever get off your chest?

-----

i asked myself: what wakes you up in the morning?

i was so surprised with myself when i answered with, "responsibility." i mean, that's why i stay with things to the bitter end. i will hand on tight with my teeth sinking in yet

yet--

it doesn't take much to start chipping away at me, to squeeze and stretch and tether and tear me apart

remember remember remember remember rememeber remeembmemr mrembmerm rmemmber rmememembr..............................

by the end, they set me on fire,

by nature born into the rite of selfishness

no wonder everything comes back to me in tenfold because the stress and lack of practice of selflessness

now i am spoilt,

unable to crawl out of my own ditch

We were leaving an Italian restaurant. The pizza was shit. The service was worse, but not as bad as their poorly mixed fountain root beer. 

I begged my mother to hand over the keys to my cars so I could drive home. My uncle hopped in the backseat, carrying on a conversation he'd been holding since half-way through our meal. He could talk your ears off. I always say a little prayer for the receiver.

We didn't talk much in the lot; I looked at my phone, mama smoked her post-meal cigarette. She isn't allowed to smoke in my car anymore after I'd been singed on a night drive to Arcadia a few weeks ago.

She stamped it out, my uncle was still on the phone, bitching about Bank of America.

"Bank of Assholes," he said. My mom and I laughed. "I like Chase because I liked Washington Mutual."

We passed by my old babysitter's house, Sandy. I wondered about Grandma then said, rolling to the STOP sign, "Washington Mutual ruined banking in America."

"Yup," mama agreed.

"All that free shit. Free checking, free accounts. Now look at us. It's impossible to sell something that used to be free."

I turn left, and it's quiet for a while. My uncle goes on about how much he hates Wells Fargo for fucking over my mom while she worked there. We pass by my bank on the right when I rounded the corner on Grand.

"Shit," mama said, "should have stayed on Mauna Loa."

CalTrans decided to start another half-assed project on the 210 overpass. Grand was down to a lane and backed up to the church. I signaled left for Baseline.

"Are you gonna be okay?" mama asked.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"When I leave. Are you gonna be okay?"

What she was really asking was, "are you gonna miss me?"

Sure, we were at a red light, down to one lane at nine o' clock at night. If the car ahead of him pulled up a smidge, I could have weaseled my way into the turn lane.

i am a Fury i see this irony (at 22) when you feast on Teledrama and consider the plots and think it is so far fetched it could never happen to me!!! tell me when my life turned into an HBO drama now i know how more young men boast naked crowns on their heads /rub rub rub/ i spend half my days knotting my hair (and bouncing my knee two pots of coffee deep) stripped of my royalty product of catholicism CATHOLIC SCHOOL conveniently catholic when you hit the point where you are giving your parent relationship advice: (i really think you need to realize that secretly getting on the pill is not going to solve anything and if he doesn't want to fuck you with a condom then i don't think your relationship is healthy and if you can tell us everything and he can't tell them everything then i think there is so much no-no [i'm sorry i am making you cry but this is painful for me too]) we have decades on each other you have months on each other and reciprocated sacrifice is love remember that time i wished i was dead and i begged for a roundtrip for springbreak so i initially came home to tell you that i'd rather've been dead and that was better than finishing school well look at me now: i didn't back out b/c i was too afraid of disappointing you FEAR AS A COPING MECHANISM and sometimes i think of what i've done has been more for you than for me, but really, i think it was mostly for the both of us those feelings of deadness have began to subside (but can so easily come back like those times i remember kissing [slobbering? {licking?}] Justin Stones on the asphalt at Adeste or that singe of pain in my right Achilles every time i kicked off the wall each turn in the 100 breast)

i do no resent you for giving me life for bringing me into this world but i also think you forget that joke about you being able to so easily take me out of it is GARLICKY

pungent and flavourful and everlasting and strong and repulsively in excess

HA! YOU ARE HALF WAY ROUND THE WORLD i am tracking holes in the carpet mm mmmmm and my lips are swollen

I SING IN THE SHOWER I SING TO OUR DISHES IN THE SUDSY SINK

my forbearance is lasting to July and i'm gonna make $1k this month and i  feel like a noodle behind the wheel these days

THE SECRETS NEED TO STOP:  I LIED TO YOU ABOUT BEN, OKAY?

A reading by Any Syler

I am cursed with the power of knowing too much at once like the last time we locked eyes and I whispered through sobs, "I love you, love you, I will always love you," I knew it'd be the last chance I had for you to hear them, but forever now, even when I am dust, I get to have you in my heart.

Keep practicing,

here we have The Void known as You: you've been consumed by Nothing fed Nothing to live off Nothing and feel Nothing and do Nothing slow and rhythmic-- never hard, never stopping so you turn into a Nothing The Void known as You: and the sad thing is to others you look like a Something and they all look like Somethings (they could also be a Nothing; there are so many Nothings veiled with a Something) Somethings don't get Nothings because Nothings only eat, breathe, sleep, shit, cry, sigh, smile, bathe, drink, dream of Nothing to hang on better a Nothing to a Something than dead

Keep practicing,

when you finish reading something

and it feels like you're saying goodbye to that lovely couple from Manitoba on the cruise ship you met one afternoon at the coffee bar

and it feels like that roadtrip you finished driving through the whole Western coast of the United States, wobbling though Oregonian Seaside Tsunami warnings and misty Californian Redwoods

and it feels like the morning after your last night in your apartment before college graduation

and it feels like dropping your best friend off at the airport at 5 in the morning after skipping sleeps for three days just because

you want to scarf up and hold on

to as many of those moments

and seeing how time

is arbitrary

yet very set and ever fleeting

and there are bookends everywhere

and you need to know

you can still pull it off your shelf

and look back

but really there is no time

If you’re feeling discouraged about your work, I guarantee that your number-one problem is this: You aren’t submitting enough. I might not know you, but I know I’m right about this.

I came across a link to this amazing column by Michelle Seaton earlier today. There are many valuable things in here! I have taken a lot from it, and I need to conquer my reservations with submitting to publciations. If you suffer from not submitting your work to publications, like so many other writers, I hope you take the time to read this.

Keep practicing,