Backpfeifengesicht

J.D. Salinger

I repost this every time it comes up on my dash. Because I need this reminder several times a day.

(via septemberly)

(via uniquecole)

first, you keep it all in. the truth, the lies, other people’s truths, other people’s lies. go ahead and collect everything, then keep it all in. so when your heart is full, everything just purls together and topples over and it hurts, it fucking hurts when you try to touch it.

but even then, you should not say anything. you know that if you open your mouth, the words would only betray you. so you cry instead. you lie on your side in the dark and try to let it out, finally, through muffled sobs that sound pathetic and hilarious at the same time. the tears are too heavy and salty and unsteady, so much so that the mere thought of it makes you cry even more. what a fucking loser coward weakling piece of shit, you tell yourself. you know it doesn’t make sense, but who the hell cares anyway. and then that’s when you laugh, because you are already too wrung out from crying.

(or maybe you’re just going insane.)

at some point, you try to stop the laughs and tears from flying out of your system, because you remember that you have an 8 a.m. class tomorrow and it’s almost 3 in the morning and for pete’s sake, you have to sleep. or at least, try to sleep.

that is your last memory. the next thing you know it’s morning and you are staring at yourself in the mirror. you look like a walking mess, literally; and you feel even worse than before–more pitiful, more sorry, more dejected. you realize the crying doesn’t do a damn thing to fix anything. 

you feel deflated, you have no spine, no bones; you feel like a balloon that can’t hold itself up. but you carry on. you go through the day and pretend that you have your shit together.

(because everyone else pretends, anyway. because we don’t want to look vulnerable in a world full of strong things.)

so you keep it all in and stop yourself from crying in public. i’ve done this all my life, of course i can do it again, you think. you recite it to yourself like a flat-footed mantra. 

at the end of the day, you release the lump in your throat slowly, silently. you breathe out and let go of the sigh that has accumulated in the daytime. you fall back into this cycle time and again; and then at some point, you just get used to it.

you just get used to life.