the_fresh_b-tch_of_belair

My hair is quite long, but it's longest in the shower and you wouldn't know that unless you were the spider on the wall. She watches me with all eight eyes, unravelling me as I unravel myself. In the bathroom mirror, inadequate. Sometimes when I eat, my fingers end up down my throat but you wouldn't know that unless you were the spider on the wall. It's dark outside, I turn on the fan for the noise to cover up: the retching, the soft splash. Quick, flush the shame. In the shower is my razor, and sometimes it ends up carving at my hips. No one knows this except the spider on the wall. Box of bandaids, fix nothing inside wipe away the blood, feel the sting. SlitSlitSlitSlitSlitSlitSlitSlitSlitSlitSlitSlitSlitSlitSlitSlit. Once for every year I regret being alive. My knuckles tell a story, all mottled, acid-bitten skin. So do my hips, and the backs of my wrists. Oh, spider; why'd you have to tell?

0

Mar 28, 2021

Mar 28, 2021 at 2:44 AM UTC

spider on the wall

My hair is quite long, but it's longest in the shower and you wouldn't know that unless you were the spider on the wall. She watches me with all eight eyes, unravelling me as I unravel myself. In the bathroom mirror, inadequate. Sometimes when I eat, my fingers end up down my throat but you wouldn't know that unless you were the spider on the wall. It's dark outside, I turn on the fan for the noise to cover up: the retching, the soft splash. Quick, flush the shame. In the shower is my razor, and sometimes it ends up carving at my hips. No one knows this except the spider on the wall. Box of bandaids, fix nothing inside wipe away the blood, feel the sting. SlitSlitSlitSlitSlitSlitSlitSlitSlitSlitSlitSlitSlitSlitSlitSlit. Once for every year I regret being alive. My knuckles tell a story, all mottled, acid-bitten skin. So do my hips, and the backs of my wrists. Oh, spider; why'd you have to tell?

28

"Oh, I'm so sorry that happened to you" You didn't have to stand there. You didn't have to lie in bed like I did. It wasn't your hand grasped around the rolling pin, wasn't your heart beating out its chest. You never felt his liquor-stained breath, you never learned how to shut down like that. "It's okay, it wasn't your fault"

0

Mar 6, 2021

Mar 6, 2021 at 10:10 PM UTC

because the government doesn't work.

"Oh, I'm so sorry that happened to you" You didn't have to stand there. You didn't have to lie in bed like I did. It wasn't your hand grasped around the rolling pin, wasn't your heart beating out its chest. You never felt his liquor-stained breath, you never learned how to shut down like that. "It's okay, it wasn't your fault"

8

Shame. When you're on the cold tiles, sweat dripping to the floor, throat raw and burning, fingers covered in bile. Shame. When you open the fridge door, the contents staring back at you, white light spreading over the room; a taunt at your weakness. Shame. When you put your clothes back on, the mirror knows your secrets, you, in all your unfailing misery, stare back. Shame. She eats you away but you won't.

0

Mar 6, 2021

Mar 6, 2021 at 10:00 PM UTC

oh, mia

Shame. When you're on the cold tiles, sweat dripping to the floor, throat raw and burning, fingers covered in bile. Shame. When you open the fridge door, the contents staring back at you, white light spreading over the room; a taunt at your weakness. Shame. When you put your clothes back on, the mirror knows your secrets, you, in all your unfailing misery, stare back. Shame. She eats you away but you won't.

17

On the night of my fifteenth birthday, I cried myself to sleep. It was ugly crying, the type of choking-into-pillowcases that makes your stomach hurt, almost as much as your heart. I think emptiness is somehow the most consuming because it takes all of you, and overwhelms it with deafening nothingness. Like absence somehow has substance, and the absence of feeling had a feeling. It was never as hard as I made it out to be, because sitting in a house that the rent could not be paid for was not the same as going hungry on the streets. But I was unhappy regardless, despite, in defiance of all the small joys in my life. A beautiful poetry book. A glass bottle of soda. A burning stick of incense. A bouquet of flowers. A new set of bedsheets. A text from a friend. All the small joys in my life, in which I could find none.

0

Feb 7, 2021

Feb 7, 2021 at 7:35 AM UTC

ungrateful

On the night of my fifteenth birthday, I cried myself to sleep. It was ugly crying, the type of choking-into-pillowcases that makes your stomach hurt, almost as much as your heart. I think emptiness is somehow the most consuming because it takes all of you, and overwhelms it with deafening nothingness. Like absence somehow has substance, and the absence of feeling had a feeling. It was never as hard as I made it out to be, because sitting in a house that the rent could not be paid for was not the same as going hungry on the streets. But I was unhappy regardless, despite, in defiance of all the small joys in my life. A beautiful poetry book. A glass bottle of soda. A burning stick of incense. A bouquet of flowers. A new set of bedsheets. A text from a friend. All the small joys in my life, in which I could find none.

20

cold tiles press against her cheek ***** on her fingers, in the toilet bowl, in her mouth a broken promise on her lips. shush, don't wake them up. how could she find the words to say it? say what? "i need help." only people with real problems need help. being unkind to yourself is second nature wrap it up, in gauze and bandaids and little lies you tell yourself, because you can't admit you're not doing better. admit to who? yourself? she knows it's ****** up the way she lives with her screwdriver-sharpener craft and her fingers down her throat like a curse the sour taste that never quite leaves her mouth. but maybe ****** up is what she deserves?

0

Feb 7, 2021

Feb 7, 2021 at 7:20 AM UTC

tw

cold tiles press against her cheek ***** on her fingers, in the toilet bowl, in her mouth a broken promise on her lips. shush, don't wake them up. how could she find the words to say it? say what? "i need help." only people with real problems need help. being unkind to yourself is second nature wrap it up, in gauze and bandaids and little lies you tell yourself, because you can't admit you're not doing better. admit to who? yourself? she knows it's ****** up the way she lives with her screwdriver-sharpener craft and her fingers down her throat like a curse the sour taste that never quite leaves her mouth. but maybe ****** up is what she deserves?

19

I stopped reaching out for help I thought I didn't deserve it. I wish you had called me, I wish I had called you. I am at fault.

0

Feb 7, 2021

Feb 7, 2021 at 7:11 AM UTC

understand

I stopped reaching out for help I thought I didn't deserve it. I wish you had called me, I wish I had called you. I am at fault.

5

You ask me what I live for And I tell you, "I live for you" When in truth I live for the sea and the beach the waves that beckon and beguile without ever asking me to hang. Without ever asking me for time that was not their own. They ask me what I live for And I say "I live for love" But I don't. I live for the drugs and the money and the *** the human weakness in me and the easy numbing. The things that never ask me questions too hard to answer. You ask me why I can't stay sober And I tell you "It's just for parties. Just for fun" So when I sit on my bathroom floor, paper straw and credit card I know in myself I am lying. It is a lie I cannot stop telling. I ask you why you love me And you say "I love you because -" And the stream of adjectives you pour out are a kindness to me not your truth, a white lie. I cannot but wonder, what else is false.

0

Oct 20, 2020

Oct 20, 2020 at 6:49 PM UTC

21/10/20 thoughts

You ask me what I live for And I tell you, "I live for you" When in truth I live for the sea and the beach the waves that beckon and beguile without ever asking me to hang. Without ever asking me for time that was not their own. They ask me what I live for And I say "I live for love" But I don't. I live for the drugs and the money and the *** the human weakness in me and the easy numbing. The things that never ask me questions too hard to answer. You ask me why I can't stay sober And I tell you "It's just for parties. Just for fun" So when I sit on my bathroom floor, paper straw and credit card I know in myself I am lying. It is a lie I cannot stop telling. I ask you why you love me And you say "I love you because -" And the stream of adjectives you pour out are a kindness to me not your truth, a white lie. I cannot but wonder, what else is false.

20

It was the kiss on my cheek you held just a fraction too long, and the way you wrapped me in your arms that made me hate your forced embrace. When you whispered ‘sweet dreams. I love you’ they were both lies: my nights were not sweet terrorised bitter by you.

0

Apr 13, 2020

Apr 13, 2020 at 1:22 AM UTC

starched white bedsheets

It was the kiss on my cheek you held just a fraction too long, and the way you wrapped me in your arms that made me hate your forced embrace. When you whispered ‘sweet dreams. I love you’ they were both lies: my nights were not sweet terrorised bitter by you.

13

In the big, blue sweater that drowns my figure, I cry in your car. On the leather seats, worn out by travel tarnished by sunshine and dirt. I used to sit, in the back seat and you would play the radio and talk too loud, like you always did. I would put my earphones in and try to forget that I was still alive. In the front seat here, I am a big girl. My feet don’t dangle from the seats like they did when I was younger, and you held me in your arms and I felt all the world around me was so big but really, I just felt small. In the drivers seat, you sat and asked me why I looked so sad all the **** time, as if my sadness could be explained. And I told you the truth; my truth; that when I woke up I wished I hadn’t. Then you said to me, ‘you are so selfish to say that’ But I was too far gone to care.

0

Apr 13, 2020

Apr 13, 2020 at 1:17 AM UTC

we sat in the car

In the big, blue sweater that drowns my figure, I cry in your car. On the leather seats, worn out by travel tarnished by sunshine and dirt. I used to sit, in the back seat and you would play the radio and talk too loud, like you always did. I would put my earphones in and try to forget that I was still alive. In the front seat here, I am a big girl. My feet don’t dangle from the seats like they did when I was younger, and you held me in your arms and I felt all the world around me was so big but really, I just felt small. In the drivers seat, you sat and asked me why I looked so sad all the **** time, as if my sadness could be explained. And I told you the truth; my truth; that when I woke up I wished I hadn’t. Then you said to me, ‘you are so selfish to say that’ But I was too far gone to care.

33

I am back in the shadows, standing still as usual. On the outskirts of the dancing people and, in my own skirts that flow, burgundy wine in a crystalline glass that allures and detracts blame from the eye. And not many eyes do wander so far as to catch, in the corner, a glimpse of a girl so lost and tired, young and awkward. When his eyes meet mine I think, perhaps this is my story, my day (or night) to carpe diem. But when he comes near it is nothingness that I feel. Only illicit breath on my neck and from that, the guilt ****** as hairs stand on edge. I do not want this now, shocking, I know. Scandalous, I think. It would be wrong to stop, where after all, do our tales come from? Our narratives, sewn and stitched to rich fabrics of our lives. How can I write about this without the experience of knowing it for myself? I will detach myself and let it wash over, as his hands are on my waist and his cologne in my air, I think it must be like the sea, a salty traverse that washes away at shores edge. And I want to be a part of this oceans world with all I am to want. Music so ear-splitting I feel the ground pounding beneath me and the room inky-black murkiness that cannot be navigated, these factors must be what happened to my judgement And when he is done I sink into the walls and wish to forget this; he leans forwards and whispers into my ear.

0

Apr 5, 2020

Apr 5, 2020 at 9:46 PM UTC

IX.VI.MMXIX

I am back in the shadows, standing still as usual. On the outskirts of the dancing people and, in my own skirts that flow, burgundy wine in a crystalline glass that allures and detracts blame from the eye. And not many eyes do wander so far as to catch, in the corner, a glimpse of a girl so lost and tired, young and awkward. When his eyes meet mine I think, perhaps this is my story, my day (or night) to carpe diem. But when he comes near it is nothingness that I feel. Only illicit breath on my neck and from that, the guilt ****** as hairs stand on edge. I do not want this now, shocking, I know. Scandalous, I think. It would be wrong to stop, where after all, do our tales come from? Our narratives, sewn and stitched to rich fabrics of our lives. How can I write about this without the experience of knowing it for myself? I will detach myself and let it wash over, as his hands are on my waist and his cologne in my air, I think it must be like the sea, a salty traverse that washes away at shores edge. And I want to be a part of this oceans world with all I am to want. Music so ear-splitting I feel the ground pounding beneath me and the room inky-black murkiness that cannot be navigated, these factors must be what happened to my judgement And when he is done I sink into the walls and wish to forget this; he leans forwards and whispers into my ear.

26