Journal

I was babysitting a six year old today.

Love is terrifying. It’s like music, I think. You find a song that becomes your favorite, and then you listen to it on repeat until you eventually get bored of it. Your music is on shuffle, and every time that one song rolls around you always skip it. But you can never bare to delete it. Is that what it’s like when love dies?

you finally did it, you know? you finally let someone in, after years of saying no. person after person, avoiding glances and wrists touching, trading chances for hours alone with your thoughts because you’re so anxious, you run from human connection, from hugs, from affection.

May you fall in love with someone, who never gets tired of saving you from your own chaos.

In the cool dark of summer nights, I try to forget every mistake I’ve made that starts with your name. The fan whirls by the window, the dog lies in a sleepy shape on the floor, and I am trying to forgive myself for loving you.   What dumb mistakes we make for people we believe would do the same– how quickly the soft skin of love can make your stomach churn.

I’m not normal. I always tell you that you shouldn’t love me, and that bothers you, and I’m sorry. But I’m the girl that sleeps at 8PM one night, then 3AM the next. I drink my coffee at night, and I always have to have a cold drink with it because I count it as more of a luxury than a fluid. I can’t catch a ball to save my life but I have these weeks where all I’ll do is go outside and throw a ball up and try to catch it on the way down. I can walk in a straight line no matter how many shots I’ve had, yet I lack any common coordination even so. I hate the word hate, yet I use it daily (never for a specific person). I consider myself a writer, yet I only write when it’s midnight and I’ve lost sight of who I am. I love to read but I have weeks where I don’t have the patience to pick up a book. My heart beats at abnormal rates, but never drastically enough for worries. There are days when I’m optimistic and pessimistic all at the same time and I still don’t understand the balance of that imbalance. I didn’t know my left from my right until I was ten, but I knew what sex was by age seven. I have an “I don’t care what people think of me” mindset, but my life is constructed on the foundation that is social influence. Half the time I want to punch you, but I want to kiss it better even before I do it. I see into other people’s emotions and interpret them and morph them into something that fits my life. I’m fucked up. I’m imperfect and I’m not normal. Don’t try to tell me that nobody’s perfect nor normal. No matter how true that statement is proven, nobody is ever this far off from it, and there’s nothing you can say that’s gonna make that any different. I am different in the worst way possible. I can speak these words. I can tell you every negative trait of me, unintentionally avoiding any positive aspect I’ve ever seen in myself. I can tell you about me. I can go on and on, except I don’t know who I am, and this simply further supports my claims.

This is the rape joke: My best friend was four years old the first time his father came into his room at midnight and tore out his throat. He still has days when I cannot hold him because the memory of a bleeding trachea haunts his doorway. He has not been home for the holidays in many years, but – even now – hands are seen as weapons. This is the rape joke: I have been told by more than twenty people that they have been raped. To all of them, I asked where the rapist was. From none of them, I heard ‘jail.’ This is the rape joke: Once my brother told me that I was so ugly, I would be a virgin forever. Unless someone raped me. But even they wouldn’t come back for seconds. This is the rape joke: I believed him. This is the rape joke: I now look at every woman on the street and wonder if the space between her legs is a crime scene, surrounded by ripped caution tape. The statistics tell me that this is so common that I will never be in a room that does not contain a survivor. Not even if I am in that room alone. This is the rape joke: I was thirteen years old, and he was supposed to be just a friend. This is the rape joke: When his older brother came home, the boy pulled away. He wiped the tears from my face and said ‘we should do this again some time.’ This is the rape joke: When I finally told my parents, they asked what I had been wearing. This is the rape joke: I had been wearing my innocence. My trust. I had worn the love I held for humanity and expected to be treated well. I had never been taught that I would be that girl, the one who keeps a mine of secrets between her legs – that girl was the slut. I wasn’t supposed to be breakable. What had I been wearing? I wore the rape joke, then I became it.

if you were one of the unnoticed ones, i am writing this for you. i am writing this because you were too good at smiling and laughing and never letting the truth  get loose. i am writing this because you kept your grades at a point where  nobody questioned you, even  when you sat awake at night wondering why you were terrifically empty inside. i am writing it for the panic attacks nobody saw, for the eating disorder you weren’t ‘thin enough’ for. i am writing it for the scars that stayed covered, the nights of ache that went unspoken. i am writing it for the mess in your room that your mom yelled about when really  it was a symbol of how apathetic you’d become. i’m writing it for the showers you skipped and the classes where you didn’t come. the illnesses that you allowed into your system, the weary  tiredness that everyone else challenged you with: your eight hours were bliss, you should feel perfect. i am writing it for the messages you  backed down from, the cries for help that went unanswered, the jokes you made that were the truth but said with a grin. i am writing it for the moment when you were giving advice that someone would ask, “how do you know all this?” i am writing it for the plates you left unwashed, the homework that went unfinished, for the pens you snapped with no other reason than to feel the release of breaking something. i am writing it for the nights  you stayed awake and  walked somebody else to shore even while nobody saw you  didn’t know how  to swim anymore. i see you. i see you hurting.  you deserve help. you deserve to feel good. you deserve to feel better. it’s okay to show it sometimes. it’s okay to bend. it’s okay. you’re not weak for your suffering. i believe in you. you’ve already shouldered so much. let the burden down.  it’s not giving up.

“I’ll say it then,” I shouted. “You hurt me. And you knew that. And instead of saying sorry or talking to me, it was easier to talk trash behind my back and make stupid excuses for your actions by blaming me. I was emotional, I was in a vulnerable position, I wrote what I was feeling at the moment. But that doesn’t mean that you can just assume that I wasn’t emotional and believe that I meant everything I said at the moment. And the worst thing is that, after hearing what you said to others, I did mean everything I said. And you can’t change that. Because you left when I wanted you there. And if that’s the way you want to treat me, I can only do you the favor of doing the same. Bye, Riley.” I turned my back to his gaping mouth, and ran towards the stoplight, hoping that the wind was strong enough the push the tears away. We were the last ones there so no one else saw. It was a secret. Like it had always been.

I am stronger than this. My tears are only here to wash away the pain.

Keep your smile, it doesn’t lit the world, no burden should be as heavy, but it lights your heart (and maybe that’s all that matters) Keep fighting, the world isn’t a battlefield, how horrible would that be, but it can be just as harmful (and maybe it shouldn’t be) Keep living, even if every day, every second feels like death let me tell you it’s worth it down the line
(and maybe I’m selfish)