Aftermath.

lillies move towards the sun- away from semblance of agony leaves fall, souls untethered crushed by sheets of teeth;

plush undergrowth filled with splatter poison climbing up trees till all is coarse scatter lined with grease.

a barrenness unnoticed empty space between stretching, hollow-like void untouched by trace of green;

filled with rage and bitter anguish for a rain seldom seen soils weep for wish of rapture silver fog rolling in;

I see nothing no more wool of despair pulled over my eyes for the sake of existence, I exist breathing flame into strife;

the river moved into another body poured itself out of my hands hiding, preserving from agony before disquiet turns to sand.

stakes cropping from the ground mistakes abound afire revelations, buried tombstones wilted heart, pyre;

acorns fall to the ground urging, begging, to grow no waters reach these lands no promise left to glow;

they seek and I am found, although, never truly too dead for resurrection too dead to ever breathe.

There is a gnawing in my chest that I can't quite place. It eats its way into my heart, hollows me from within, whispers to me in a tone that renders me raw and open, like a wirebrush against scarred skin. I wonder if everyone else feels this way, drawing bridges to human connection through shallow cordialities, coating themselves with a layer of fresh paint each time they have to step out of the structure of their own selves to reach and adapt to someone else's. I wonder how long it took them to perfect their smiles, their gestures, movements, speech, even empathy. A voice snaps me back to reality, "Hey, is everything okay?", and my eyes reacquaint themselves to the people around me, laughing, teasing, catching each other up on their own lives, filled glasses in their hands or on the table, sparkle in their eyes. I smile, "Yep, all good.", and I watch them all, comfortable in their own skin, as I squirm uneasily in my own, my body longing to be elsewhere. I wish I could settle back in, savour the company of those who love me, feel like I belong. But this discomfort overwhelms me. Knowing I can't be as grateful as they deserve, weighs me down. And I fear I'll be forever reaching for something to fill the void, falling short of anything that feels real.

We live somewhere little voices are buried deep within the earth to mute visions of freedom.

We live somewhere bigotry oppresses unrestricted expression, hatred burns at the bottom of our throats, a yearning to be heard settles deep within our gut, like a little cinder box, struggling to be broken open.

How strange it must be to think that the world we created is the one we're afraid of, where our own ancestors fought for decades to be listened to, only for the next generations to have to watch every word they speak.

How ironic it must be to think, that a promise of Independence turned into a graveyard for perspectives, a whispered murmur of liberation trying to crawl out from beneath headstones commemorating the courage of individual thought.

Normality is an illusion we're taught with an iron rod, a compulsion to adhere to.

Normality is the conformity shoved down our throats until we can't recognize who we are.

Normality is the creation of herds of sheep, their brains torn out to hardwire that being different is wrong, that poison is the only cure to wanting to be who we are.

Until the world of rampage orchestrates a symphony of repression, until compassion becomes a liability, and we're doomed to follow till death engulfs us all.

-Tamarind Fall; Insurgence.

The bruises on my knees remind me of how human I am. How human I've always been. How human I'm allowed to be.

It's the first actual injury I've had in years that exists out of pure foolishness rather than mistakes with repercussions to them. It's the first injury I've had that reminded me I'd forgotten how it felt to hurt somewhere that is human rather than somewhere that makes me a woman.

My hands are dusty and my knees hurt, and I've finally been allowed to exist as I am. As a child. As someone who doesn't have to stop to sound out every single thing I want to say. As someone who can just exist. Without the fear of being too mature or not mature enough. Without the fear of being unsafe or unheard.

It feels so liberating to just exist. To just hurt. To be allowed to forget and remake everything weighing me down.

I never thought I'd know how it felt to want to exist again. But I have a little hope now. A little blood, a little more freedom. And it feels so strange to fit into myself for once. It feels so strange to savour it. It feels so strange to be flawed, and strange to still be accepted. I want to be this more. I want to drown in sunrises and fall off rooftops more. I want to escape my head and exist within the sanctity of the wind more. Is that so much to ask for?

It's strange. We can build shapes out of anything. Your hands taking shape into new autumn leaves, mine still struggling to shed the summers.

I am trying to make sense in ellipses of metaphors, you are draped in soft shadows of meteorites, kissing the hyperbole hung around your neck, praying for the variables to put you amongst the stars.

We're both trying to make sense of things that never belonged here,

We're both trying to build homes in places that do not belong to us

As we lay claim to cities, scribbling tactics on papyrus under fading light, the skies grew heavy with the sudden need to escape.

So we learn to adapt. We adapt to the burning and the freezing of far off moons and decaying graveyards

We adapt until we burn with a glow so sharp, they can see us miles across space.

When the seasons don't arrive, our bodies will shape placid winters.

When the seasons don't arrive, we will scavenge craters out of light and shape spring into existence.

The light will always be there,

unwinding itself out of barren planets and rocket fuel, trampled wildflowers and particle accelerators, just until it fills up the void and tears our footprints asunder.

Just until it lays claim to everything that it was robbed of.

The fire shed itself, starving white light into hues, creating fingernails and nuances out of the absence of warmth.

It's probably true, maybe we were built in horizons, every city was an ode to the peace it could never revel in.

The light created us, and we moulded fractals out of it, storing its possibilities in glass lamps and burnt musings.

We crushed the embers until it dripped ink, we learned how to make it grow and it devoured everything.

Fire is just the sun unwinding itself out of wood, and we trapped it within our hands, pulling every inch of its life to harness our own languages.

We were built like shadows, and it breathed life into us. We were built into the light, and we taught it destruction.

-Tamarind Fall.

The searing metal into the curve of my spine

The words you carved burnt into the underside of my eyelids

I weigh your guilt in my shoulders

I weigh your sorrow in the space between the hours

I'm left to rot in the diminuendo of night

The scars set deep into me, the crescendos falling over me like water, soothing the rising edges of my skin.

What am I to you but a memory,

a lesson that muted wounds can sing,

a symphony that blinds you until you can't speak,

a decadence so sweet, you can't hear anything for a week.

What am I to you but a burnt musing,

A stroke in rage slashed across the canvas,

A volatile hollowness piercing through your hands,

A silence so loud, that colours haunt your sleep.

I am the brandish of your tongue

metal seeped into every crevice of my skin

A testimony to pain that fire can't destroy

A witness to the breathlessness that will tear you from within.

The music was already here. But then we broke it down. Twisted it into sentences and decimals. The parts we borrowed bled into paper and chemicals until they hollowed themselves and settled into the soil.

The music was already here.

The crescendos rose until the darkness got deafening, the light bleeding from its edges until it spilled into the atmosphere, piercing the clouds, spinning itself into tornadoes, creating breath, growing louder and louder until oh! The sunrise today was resounding, blanketing the horizon until the clamour brought civilisations in its wake. The rise and fall of neutron stars and supernovae turned into sheets of colour across the stars, and we were standing on the soil that borrowed symphonies from their spectrums, an unpaid debt that lasted for millennia.

How strange it is to stand where we are and wonder about the spaces between the stars, while indoctrinating illusions of hierarchy and hate.

How strange it is to believe we created the music the galaxies have roared with for billions of centuries.

How strange it is to borrow fragments of pulsars and weld them into weapons.

How strange it must be to survive, to trap the music in our chests and to capture the light.

Guys, some of y'all are going through some very real problems and it worries me that you send me asks about it instead of messaging me because I end up responding to those within two days, by which time your problems are very likely to have escalated. Please MESSAGE ME if you have problems you need help with. Moreover, with asks, I don't even have enough information to give you appropriate advice and it really fucks me up when I think about how much it can worsen your situation.

Oh my god I've been facing this situation as well. See, the thing is, being around your parents or even talking to them makes you incredibly anxious because they've put you through trauma before and your brain is in constant panic mode. With your brother as well, really. Neither of you put in the efforts or built a bond where you could at least be each other's safe spaces when you're dealing with the rest of your family. Once you identify these problems, it should help immensely because now you'd actually know what part of it is making you anxious. I spent years trying to get out of the house by either moving out or finding safe spaces in different cafes and with different people and it never worked out for me. If you can find a library where you can be alone and you can calm your anxiety, it may temporarily help. Otherwise, what really helped me was the hope that I could move out of the house if it gets too much for me to handle. Also, my sister started being nicer to me and bonding with me and I found /some/ safety in my own room. There's this book I have, and it's called 'Complex ptsd: From surviving to thriving'. I'd really suggest you to read it. For emotional flashbacks, I have a set of steps from the book which might help.