apart from that ghost

there was never a teenage hood and definitely not any childhood. always a weirdly shaped adult esque .. thing.

this will all sound very lorde writer in the dark. she is a girl that i love. desperately. a girl im afraid of. a girl i think about constantly. everything i do everything i write everything i say is about her. a girl i worry about disappointing every day. and never more than when i am trapped there with her.

i love her, sure. a sweet little baby who was so so failed. i do my best to be the one thing not failing her. to finally live a life worth living. something we only ever dreamed of.

and then i get told that i Will Be moving home. I get asked what i want them to Do to Her Room. i don’t think there’s anything they could do to resuscitate her. and i know they wouldn’t be happy to see her in the streets.

i look for her in everyone. i’ve put a lot of effort into creating a nursery for this new me. desperate to cling onto a personal museum. that’s all i ever wanted that room to be. and less than a month after i left everything i built was burnt and thrown away. her pain deserves to be immortalised. that’s the best section of the museum. the people pay to sneak a glimpse at a taxidermied (not a word) teenage girl. put a coin in and she’ll recite various pete wentz idioms.

but i don’t get a choice apparently. on moving home. it’s not presented in hey this is an option. it’s just. this is what’s happening. no other thought.

i’ve been told i was a “grown ass adult” since i was sixteen. told i need to make my own choices (as if i had a nurturing and supportive childhood. as if i was ever not an adult)

but here i am not allowed to. always a pawn in “fixing” them. doing the caring doing the parenting myself.

i always feel uncomfortable in this house. a vulnerable child at five foot eight and twenty two years. another ghost i can’t see, a toddler i think. it’s not a good place for me. it’s not a good group of people. i feel exposed. i understand the girl who was afraid to be near windows because i am still her.

but the ghost i do see, oh she’s beautiful. unloved. i see her dark hair and i miss the routine of a l’oreal preference (never excellence) level 4 that eventually turned into 3. i miss the girl on the box. my old and only friend. i see her face, round and devoid of colour. devoid of life. apart from those stupid rosy cheeks. bright shining red.

i see her blood. i can’t help it. those cheeks i still love are the same colour as her arms. something only i saw. i miss the sight. i miss the feeling. my gorgeous stupid baby. nothing cuts close.

my nose always bleeds when i’m in her room.

she never got nose bleeds. a point of pride. my bleeding was quiet and secret. i never made a scene. never left any proof. my brother would have these great big nose bleeds and stain the entire house. he always got praised for making a mess. “oh sweet special baby” not mine. nothing like my baby.

sometimes i wish i had screamed. out loud. forced everyone to care. to notice. i often think of the time i was forced to have those bright red arms out for an entire pe lesson. how a group of my friends and my teacher watched me changing, as i sobbed and begged. and the looks when they saw. but then did nothing. i often think of that whenever i do safeguarding training. the anger that fuelled her still runs through my blood.

it’s always on the third night she appears.

a ghost staring me down.

i look at her face. she looks at me.

every day that i am in that house takes away from my soul a little bit. it’s always the third day she comes kicking and screaming. telling me i Need to get out of there. it’s suffocating.

i am reminded of fragments of some great emotional piece of writing. for sure it’s my old friend pete wentz. i find out that it’s myself. well i always say “i never new how to speak until i met Him”. (laugh at capital h him: pete wentz. like a god. sure that’s my religion. try not to break into a tangent of his own religious imagery in lyrics. but i always loved xo. and west coast smoker. and the entirety of mania)

it’s a rambling from the beginning of the end of the Worst time. not the girl who stares me down. but someone i’m afraid to look at still. but it’s the beauty of tourdust. laugh agin at how even this comes back to fall out boy. because it always does. but remember this tour that taught you to love every past version of yourself. that i don’t need to hold onto her pain an keep it secret or safe any more. (i can write again) think of those songs that belong to the world again. ginasfs played the first night. ending with pavlove.

“i can swim without armbands or floaties now. i can stop myself drowning. holding onto them only pushes me back down again. i can go swimming whenever i want. i’m teaching people to swim too (i never signed up to teach drowning lessons it was always meant to be how to stay afloat)”