Normal people don’t stick their fingers where it hurts, only people who want you to hurt do that. But me, no, I don’t follow the rules. I am always shoving sharp objects into my wounds. I like to feel it all.
Why increase the pain that already exists, you may ask?
Pain is a type of pleasure. If suffering is what I have, suffering is what I shall feel.
Does pain have a reason? Must I increase my own suffering because I am already suffering? Simply, yes. I am alive and I am breathing and I will suffer while I do it all. It reminds me of the things I have failed at, and the things I do not want to do again. So yes, I will continue to push the knife into the open wound on my arm, I will drag the blade across my chest, I will make that rip bigger, I will not stitch it up and I will let it bleed. To recover is to have known pain fully, and only when you know it fully will you ever truly heal.
Aug 14, 2020
Aug 14, 2020 at 1:28 AM UTC
I often wonder if I am not being clear when I speak. Maybe I am talking in a way others do not understand. Maybe it is that no actually means yes and that I am talking backwards. Maybe walking away means that I want you to stay. I don't really know. Everything is so backWARDS. 2017- THANKS BUT NO THANKS. NO ONE SAYS WHAT THEY MEAN AND NO ONE DOES WHAT ALIGNS WITH WHAT THEY FEEL AND I AM NOT SURE THAT I CAN BE A PART OF IT ANYMORE. I AM STILL WONDERING IF YOU WILL CHANGE YOUR MIND AND IM NOT DOING IT TO **** YOU OFF BUT I MISS YOU AND ID LIKE TO SEE YOU AND I THINK ABOUT KISSING SOMEONE ELSE AND I GET SICK WHEN I MOVE TO DO IT AND MAYBE THAT MEANS NOTHING BUT NOT ENOUGH TIME HAS PASSED
Sep 5, 2019
Sep 5, 2019 at 3:05 PM UTC
and if you cant love
me ill still love you
but from a distance
because i matter too
Sep 5, 2019
Sep 5, 2019 at 2:12 PM UTC
my knees itch
i want to scrape them across the cement
only i may be able to,
with the tug of your hands
soft and gentle against my palm
i want to feel pain
i want to see the blood rushing
from my cracked skin
rip my body apart
the way you do
with all your words
hit me
tear out my hair
bruise my arms the way
i know you can
this body heals
or it dies
but your lips and
your hands
are stuck in my head
swirling around
pressing against my eyes
“i think i have nightmares
because i am lonely”
now i cant sleep
and you have your drugs
the images at night
haunting me
you leaving, stuck on repeat
Dec 2, 2017
Dec 2, 2017 at 1:08 AM UTC
I still think about you every Tuesday and Thursday.
I imagine running into you on the cemented walk I trek to class. I imagine looking up and seeing you trying to get away from me. I’ve never once seen you here on Tuesday or Thursday, but I am still thinking of you.
I still think of you in the shower. I can feel your arms holding on to my slippery body. I feel your hands in my hair as the luke-warm water trickles over my scalp. It find comfort in the absence of your touch, but it is brief, and it is never enough.
I still think of you when I am at the beach. I swim and I swim until maybe I absorb enough salt to forget the night you wished for me on that star. I see your face under the sea and I can feel your warmth laying next to me.
I think of all of the mistakes I’ve made. I think about what lead me here. I think maybe you ruined me before we kissed. I was looking for you in all of the lips I met. Now here I am still searching and yearning. I thought If I felt something, anything it would be enough to put out the fire. Maybe I will drink myself to death, but I know that when I see the man standing in front of me it’ll be your angry voice that pulls me back.
I am wondering how many images of myself there are. Thanks to you, and myself, I am certain there are plenty. They will pick which one they are most interested in, and that is the one they will run with. Have I played the victim poorly? Maybe I should have stayed home. I know that these things subside, but I have been digging for so long, I have dug so deep.
I am trying to think but the pain in my skull radiates into my teeth. Breathe in, breathe out- pain. Maybe it will stay, maybe I will never sleep. I see the eyes in my restless dreams. They haunt me through the scenes. I never know when the light will return to me. Maybe it is a game that they wanted to play on me. Let’s get her to move 10 hours away. Let’s ruin her. Maybe she isn’t ruined yet.
I wonder what would they think if I went home. Maybe I’ll drop, maybe I’ll lose my phone. Would they feel guilty for hurting the girl who only wanted to find a new home? I cannot leave, but I want to. I wish I did not have to face them again. Tomorrow it will come, and I will have to feel the anger under their skin. I will see the disappointment in their faces. I will try and try and it will never be enough.
In a series of events, I found myself sober, on the beach. The sky was high and the stars bright. We kissed and kissed and I laughed all night. He told me stories of his past lovers, and I knew they did not compare. I knew I was the one. I ran from him, laughing, and he ran after me, like a good boy. I felt his arms around my waist and I smiled. I made a wish on every star that twinkled in the sky. We searched for the dippers. I was sober and I was happy.
Again, I found myself on the beach, more drunk than I had ever been. I went out and I was bad. I kissed all of his friends. I made a mess of myself and I made a mess of my head. My heart is gone and I have been looking for it since then. I have traveled around the beds of others, looking for something like my long lost lover. His eyes were inviting, now I fear them. His voice loving, abrasive at the ends. I lost my lover, and I’m not quite sure how. I am looking for my heart but it is nowhere to be found. I will go to the sound and look again. I’m high as a kite and I can’t remember how this began.
The sun rises and sets, and I am trying my best. Passive aggressive is all I get. If I had the medication, I could be as cruel as him. Yet he is winning and I am lying on my back. I look to the sky without a cloud in sight and I hope to God that this feeling will subside. I’ve never been one to linger so long, but it feels like eternity since I’ve laid in between your sheets. I should have kissed you again before I left, maybe I could have changed your mind.
How does one become more interesting? I’ve spent my entire life being interesting and it wasn’t enough for a boy like you. An angry man who doesn’t know anything but mad. I was wondering if you would like to try something else. I think you did and it must have tasted bad because you ran at the next opportunity. Now I am mocked in the back seat of a broken car. I am laughed at because I am the stupid one. How silly it was for me to think that a boy who looked like you could feel for a girl that was me.
Maybe one day you will remember to look for me on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s and maybe I’ll stay the night in someone else’s bed.
Dec 2, 2017
Dec 2, 2017 at 1:05 AM UTC
And I will tell my friends that I will continue doing what I do for them simply because I love them. And the sun crawls between the leaves on the trees, and drips down the hanging moss, flooding the ground my feet walk on. I will move through the puddles of light that form around my toes and seep into the concrete. I will walk and walk lightly on the hard ground and ignore the pain screaming into my ears. I will continue on and I will tell myself that I will stop doing what I am doing for you, simply because I love you.
Nov 13, 2017
Nov 13, 2017 at 10:18 PM UTC
December 25
Lonely
November 12
“There goes the love of my life.”
October 16
Leaving: the process begins
September 15
Falling for the heartless
August 23
First time
July 22
Oblivious
I should have stayed in June.
Nov 13, 2017
Nov 13, 2017 at 1:22 PM UTC
It is not the end to the suffering, it is the beginning of a new kind.
Oct 28, 2017
Oct 28, 2017 at 8:02 PM UTC
The day after you called and told me you wanted to stop seeing me, I sat alone in a Barnes & Noble. I was exhausted from the night before spent lying, screeching on the floor. I sat alone there trying to convince myself that if I could just do my work, I’d stop thinking about you. I used to like thinking about you. It used to make me smile. Now, I think of how it all was just a lie and now I sit alone at Barnes & Noble wondering just how stupid I am. I am sitting for awhile, fighting the sleep that begs to consume my eyes. I sit and I notice the people: a woman tutoring on the other side of the pole, a young black woman viciously eating a spinach croissant while flipping through three different books all at once, and finally a man sitting to my left, with a single coffee cup and a book in hand. This man has been glancing my way for the past 20 minutes. I am trying to stay awake and I am trying not think. I do not want to think about what this man is thinking of me. I do not want to think because then I will think of you. Soon he leaves and I feel a breath of fresh air wash over me. I am sitting alone and I am no longer being watched. Five minutes goes by and that man sits down at the chair opposite my table. I look up and he begins.
“I’m sorry to bother you. My name is Jake.”
“My name is Rhianna, nice to meet you.”
“Again, I’m sorry to bother you but I was wondering if I could take you out to dinner.”
Look, I’ve never known how to handle these situations. What do you say to someone you don’t even know who wants to take you out? How does someone you just met want to take you out more than the person you have spent so much of your time on?
“What..how… how are you?”
“Me? I’m good.”
“How old are you?”
“24..”
Ouch. Wait, that’s how old my, uh, not ex-boyfriend is. Hold your ******* tongue, dude.
“How old are you?”
“I’m 18.” He ***** in air hard.
“Do you go to UNCW?”
“Yes.”
“What are you studying?”
The conversation continues, and he puts his number in my phone: Jake. Not even a last name. Dinner? Yeah, we’ll see. He gets up to go.
“Again, I’m sorry to bother you.”
“Yeah, no worries. Thank you.”
He leaves. Here I am, in a Barnes & Noble. Tears dripping down my face as this man walks away. It’s not his fault. So why am I sad? Was it the way he made me feel? The way he said my name? The way it wasn’t you? I wanted to call you. I wanted you to tell me you were gonna beat his *** if he came back. I wanted you to make me laugh. I wanted you to make me feel better. I wanted you to walk around the bookshelf and scoop me up like you did the night on the beach.
I’m sitting in Barnes and Noble, getting hit on by random strangers. Their interest mocking me, reminding me of your absence.
I guess they’ll have to do.
Oct 17, 2017
Oct 17, 2017 at 6:10 PM UTC
As a technologically advanced human race, we have still only studied about 5% of the earth’s oceans. There are still 2/3 unknown marine life. Every day there are people exploring the ocean, yet we have not reached the deepest point in the oceans. Every day the waves crash against the shore, but what lies within remains a mystery. The first time I fell in love, it was the day I ran across the hot sand, through the heavy air, straight into the salty, raging mass at the edge of my world. I knew that we did know a lot about the oceans, but what I did know was the way I felt. To stand in something so much greater than myself is a powerful thing. I felt small and weak but she was kind. My clothes stuck to my skin and my hair plastered against my neck and forehead. I feared her as the sun hid his face behind the clouds, and the sky grew dark. She was having a bad day, and I did not know why. She grew even stronger as I stood on the shore, not wanting to leave her side. My mother forced me back into the hotel we were staying in. My heart sank as I saw the rain poor onto the asphalt. I had left my love at her low. I knew she was dangerous to man. The ocean is relentless. Her currents increase when she feels like it, and I could get ****** under if I stayed out there. Every year at least 100 people die from drowning in rip currents. Of course, my mom could never have that.
I was torn. My love was unrequited. What she taught me was something I didn’t understand until years later. She showed me that I did not need to travel to the coast of the land to find her. For she lives in everyone around me. I am falling in love every day, with the eyes the color of the ocean. The soft hands like waves caressing the shore. I see anger in the mouth of a lover, rage like a hurricane. My heart shatters the way she devours the boats, swallowing them whole. These people I love are oceans of their own. Their depths have never been reached by a single human being. Every year, they consume the hearts of those around them. Sometimes they are recovered, never the same of course, but sometimes they are left to lie unseen on the ocean floor forever. These people leave their scent clinging to the hairs on my arms the way her salt is left all day after a swim in the morning. It is not their fault that they break my heart, it is not their fault that I loved the ocean first.
I fell in love on a Thursday afternoon. He had dark hair and eyes the color of my first love. I never thought about how bad it would hurt when his storm came. He consumed me entirely, then his waves receded and my toes were left to dry on the shore. That Thursday, the sun shone so brightly as we laid on the couch. Weeks later, he took me home with only the words, “This ***** No one ever said the ocean was poetic. The scent of his salt took me home.
As our silent goodbyes were exchanged that cool Sunday night. I could not stop thinking about her, my first love. I prayed to God as the tears rolled down my hot, red cheeks. I thanked her in my mind for preparing me for this, for this gut wrenching heart break. I stepped away from the truck. I clenched my fists, and I knew the love. I knew the pain already. This was familiar. His scent, home. Now I was in a place of fear. The fear she had showed me. The ocean is relentless, and so was he. The ocean’s currents take over 100 lives a year in the US alone. I was drowning in his space, but I made it out. I will not be a part of that number. I am not a number, and you cannot build a home out of the ocean.
Oct 3, 2017
Oct 3, 2017 at 9:10 PM UTC