#dnfrant

Reaching out the only way you can without spreading more infectious pain, and still coming back with an empty palm

Screaming and crying like a useless baby didn't work the last time you tried it either, so why bother

Everything laid so terrifying, embarrassingly bare yet still incomprehensible to all but your ghosts

Fruitless

Trying to word things in a way that isn't dishonest but isn't scathing or accusatory is a near impossible task when all the space around you is going to remain just as empty as you were briefly too optimistic to see it always was and always will be

So just don't say anything anymore

Be even less than you are

Even though there isn't a space far enough or small enough for you to take up that isn't in the way

"The world is more beautiful for you having been in it"

Not beautiful enough to tether, and that stain has more than covered it, even if it's the prettiest blue you could imagine

So gather up your courage one day, gather all of it up

Dramatic changes in where I sit on the ladder of knowledge on various subjects, and exhibited neurodiverse traits. I got really used to being at or near the top or bottom of either of those, but those positions have inverted with this new circle.

Tumblr has tags separate from the post itself; users can easily block content they don’t like as long as everyone follows the courtesy of properly tagging their stuff. Not everyone does this, especially people who reblog. Please, I am begging you, tag your reblogs.

Twitter pretends to have hashtags, but the majority of people don’t actually use them, or any semblance of keywords. They’ll just throw literally anything out there and it’ll show up on your feed either through algorithmic nonsense or someone you follow retweeting it, and there’s nothing you can do about it. You have shit you hate thrown in your face because people will draw the most stomach-churning stuff and only say something like “hehe” instead of tagging it. Twitter does not have a tagging culture.

But I’m in a unique position now. One of my closest friends, who I initially bonded with over something obscure that I felt too embarrassed to talk to anyone else about. It wasn’t something bad, but it was generally disliked and is still too embarrassing to actually give a name to even now. We haven’t had much in common for a long time now, but we’ve checked in with each-other pretty often. Reaffirm that we still feel strongly about our friendship at least once a month for years. We haven’t spoken of that thing for a long time now, and I thought it was just one of those things they lost interest in but would be cool with still remembering, since it’s what brought us together. So I brought it up. Turns out they actually hate it now. Doesn’t want anything to do with it. Doesn’t want to hear about it. Doesn’t want to remember it exists.

And uh. Wow. That hurts way more than it ought to. Way more than it has any right to. It’s something so small and unimportant in the grand scheme of things, but it was something I liked very much, way too much, and only had that one person to ever talk to about it. It kind of feels like I’m also being called bad. I’m too scared to continue that conversation with them. Even if they turn out to be fine with me still liking it, it’ll still feel like I’ve lost them as a friend in a way since that thing was why we met and what we bonded over. I associate them with that. Being able to talk to them about that had made it feel like I could talk to them about anything. It feels like I can’t anymore, so now there’s an entire side of me that I had gotten used to finally being able to share, that I have to bury again.