a-w-k-o-h-a-w-n-o-h

[a-w-k-o-h-a-w-n-o-h]

It's currently the hourly hours of November 6th, 2022.

I'm in the spot where I always seem to be— in my bed, in my room, in the dark. I'm kept company by a makeshift lamp my mum gave me a few hours ago; it's just a jar with some fairylights in, but it's something. Anything. I've never had a lamp in my room before. Last year, when I would sob for hours until I fell asleep... It was always in the pitch black, in my best kept silence. Now, this year, I find myself sitting and thinking about the same things that did that to my brain last year, but this little makeshift light makes the world of difference. It's so crazy how an inanimate object can make you feel as if you're a tiny bit less alone.

[a-w-k-o-h-a-w-n-o-h]

dear god i miss you

[a-w-k-o-h-a-w-n-o-h]

god what is wrong with me. i'm completely torn apart by losing peter. every single fucking night for 6 months i have sobbed for hours until i can't BREATHE all over a motherfucker who probably hasn't even given me a second thought. i don't understand. i don't understand. i can't wrap my head around what i said or did or didn't say or didn't do. i was trying to have a conversation with him about how his lack of effort in the friendship made me feel like shit and yeah maybe i was freaking out a little bit but i was fucking HURTING and he just ghosted me mid conversation and that was it. i haven't opened up to a single soul since that day because i'm terrified of losing anyone else in the same way. i second guess and gaslight myself all the fucking time. i keep my god damn mouth shut because i am so scared that nobody gives a fuck. nobody gives a fuck. i want to kill myself so badly and no one has noticed. what's the point in anything? i'll never fall in love, i'll never be able to make a friend again because i'm so fucking scared and i'm shitty and not worthy of anything. every night i dream and fantasize about harming myself in so many ways and i scream into my pillow and stare at my phone willing myself not to text him again because he'll just fucking ignore me. he did this to me and he doesn't care. i don't understand why he's playing dead to me. one day soon i'll be fucking dead and none of this will matter. i won't matter. i can't take anymore of this. what's the point in anything if i can't have friends

[a-w-k-o-h-a-w-n-o-h]

is anyone home?

you're never prepared to be kicked out of your home. you belong there; with all of your things, your memories, your comforts. it's the place that grounds you when you need to slip away. that's your home. what do you have when you lose your solid ground?

i haven't been kicked out of my actual, physical house. thankfully my (physical) solid ground is still firmly in place under my feet, even if it rumbles and quakes sometimes. what i'm referring to, really, is losing someone that felt— feels— like home to me. i've talked about it so much yet no matter how much i vent, whether it's through shitty poetry or rambley thoughts or purely just taking it out on myself... i don't feel a release. it's a desperately lonely feeling to be wandering the streets. the door i was shoved out of so forcefully; with no bags packed, no warning, a good number of cuts and bruises on the way out— has since been locked, nailed, and taped shut. i'm still waiting outside the door, i'll admit... occasionally i'll muster up the guts to knock on it, maybe call out; just to see if anyone's even home anymore. i'm met with deafening silence every single time.

i know i'll be sitting outside that door for years to come. i would love to sit here and write about how brilliant i am with grief and letting go, but it's simply not true, and i think trying to force myself to be that way would only worsen me. i often wonder if the person who kicked me out ever looks through the little peep hole. it's embarrassing how much i wonder if he even thinks about me. does he quietly check up? i'm forever wondering just how he is.

i wish those peep holes weren't one sided.

i miss you.

[a-w-k-o-h-a-w-n-o-h]

if i clench hard enough, would it crack my skull? break my teeth and pop my eyes, not a death by suicide. i don't wanna think, i don't wanna think. can't scream loud enough, can't hit hard enough, can't see 10ft in front of me. it makes me wanna black out, makes me wanna pass out, makes me wanna fucking die. i don't wanna think, i don't wanna think, i don't wanna think, i don't wanna think. i don't wanna be in my fucking head.

[a-w-k-o-h-a-w-n-o-h]

nowhere is a safe space. i can't bring myself to write down the majority of my thoughts on this blog anymore because i'd be considered a risk to my own safety. i don't trust people not to belittle me or fade away or turn around and use it against me if i try to open up; either that or call someone on me. i don't need interference from any kind of hospital or emergency service or authority whatever... i just need someone to actually give a fuck. i'm surrounded by people that swear they would die for me but wouldn't try to meet me halfway up the fucking street. nothing is sacred. i'm all on my own.

[a-w-k-o-h-a-w-n-o-h]

i looked at your instagram today.

i do that sometimes. not because i want to intrude, because that's literally the last thing i want to do. i just wanted to see if you were doing alright. i just want you to be doing alright, as much as it murders me to think that i'm the only one rotting away like this.

you feel so far away from me now. most of the time it feels like you died. you don't text me, we don't talk no matter how much i want to, i'm never going to see you again. i'm grieving you so hard. knowing that you chose to ghost me just puts this gut-wrenching twist on that grief. i know that you're not dead, but you're trying to be dead to me, and somehow it feels like i should be the dead one because it murders me. i just want to talk things out. talk about how i shouldn't have called you out even though i should have but if i retreat and fault myself again maybe you might want to talk to me.

nothing really feels the same anymore. i didn't believe platonic heartbreak was a thing until you did this to me last year, even after we made friends again. i felt damaged. now you've done this again and no colour looks as bright, things are tasteless, my favourite songs don't hit the same anymore. part of me is missing, or maybe even dead. i've been beating myself up over being so genuinely heartbroken over you, because it sickens me to think that if i ever told anyone, they'd think i was clingy. i'm not clingy, or needy, or any of that. it's real grief but with that awful modern day twist.

i think about death and dying a lot. i often wonder if you would miss me at all, or if you would even think about me. would it be the same grief that i feel for you? would there be grief at all? would you care? i read over our old messages a lot, i visit our old stomping grounds. would you do that too? soak it all up? i'm so angry at you for tearing me apart like this. it's one of those things that i know has permanently altered my brain chemistry. i know that i sound like such a pathetic idiot right now, i know that it's laughable. but i just feel so damaged. there really is no point to anything and i don't want to be alive.

... but despite all of this, i really, truly just hope that you're doing alright. because as annoyed as i am at myself for still missing you, i love you and i want the best for you in life, always. just please say that you miss me, too.

[a-w-k-o-h-a-w-n-o-h]

nobody notices anything and it makes me realise just how bad i've been for so long. it's "normal" for me to be "moody"— but i feel so far from normal. why is it that my mum and her husband only seem to make fun of me when i'm feeling my worst? immediately barking into stupid jokes about me when i have no choice but to walk by them to get somewhere, mocking me if i say anything at all, provoking me into standing up so they can mock me more. it's exhausting. my mum always told me she knows me the best out of anyone, and she even knows what i don't tell her. that's not true. i'm walking around with a missing limb, as a corpse even— but it's like she sees a rag doll to poke and prod at. the walls are closing in.

[a-w-k-o-h-a-w-n-o-h]

i hate that i'm so beat up over losing a friend that probably hasn't thought about me in months

[a-w-k-o-h-a-w-n-o-h]

00:23

i've been staring at my ceiling for the last three hours thinking about how much better off things would be. thinking about every person i've ever loved and whether or not they would give a shit, truly— or if i would even be an afterthought. if those of them that have let me go would ever wish they hadn't. if those who wronged me would use me for attention online, or if they would dare to say anything at all. if my favourite musician, whose subtle attention i am so fucking lucky to have, would think about it at all. if i would be more than "that's sad" or less than devastation.

i wonder if i'm loving too hard. if it's normal to love friends this much. if any of them would be completely fucking destroyed like i would be. if any of them would regret the texts left unanswered, or the fights. if anyone would be able to say they noticed and didn't reach out.

i think about how many people would be happy. how many people would celebrate, or laugh, or say good riddance. how many people check my writing in the hopes to see me get to this point, or how many people would laugh at the thought of me believing that a single person in the world would bother.

i'm thinking about it a lot tonight.

[a-w-k-o-h-a-w-n-o-h]

why am i so easy to let go of?

march 24th 2021, 23:16.

[a-w-k-o-h-a-w-n-o-h]

an artist i admire once sang "it makes no difference, i'm insignificant."

that lyric has always bounced around in my head since 2014 when i first heard it, always coming back to me when i really, really felt that way. now in 2021, it seems to be the most relatable thing i've ever heard.

every so often i'll look up at the stars and i'm reminded of how insignificant we all are. it makes all of this sadness kind of laughable; the universe doesn't give a shit. nothing i do or say actually matters. it doesn't matter that i'm falling apart. because life goes on and the world keeps on spinning even when i'm staring at my bedroom ceiling for 7 fucking hours straight.

i know this is a bad mentality to live in.

i've been gaslighting myself out of having opinions. what i think, about anything, isn't important. what you think isn't important too. it sounds ridiculous and kind of like a joke but i do often wonder if there's a point. i'm not overly sad as i write this— actually i'm just sitting on my bed, tapping out these thoughts i've been having for a while. it troubles me but it doesn't upset me. i know it's not healthy to think like this, but when you're a natural pessimist...

it's actually sort of freeing, in a way. it nothing i say or do matters, why can't i do what the fuck i want? and if it does matter, to who does it? and does it matter to me if it matters to them?

insignificance is pretty lonely but i sort of wish everyone thought of life this way. maybe then we could be rid of war and conflict and hate and discrimination. absolutely nothing i do matters unless it hurts someone; and even if it does hurt someone, for how long will it?

look up at the sky one night and just think about it.

february 21st 2021, 22:55

[a-w-k-o-h-a-w-n-o-h]

i wish i was being dramatic when i say i'm not capable of falling in love anymore.

it's like that entire section of my brain disappeared and was replaced with performative emotion. meaning, my head is really good at tricking me into thinking i like someone, when in reality there's nothing there at all. i just want there to be.

it's not the same as trying to force myself to love someone. that comes after, when i've fully made myself believe i want to be with someone. then it's like headbutting a wall, trying to get blood from a stone.

i'm at a point where all i want is to get my heart broken again just to prove to myself that i can feel it. that i can feel something. anything. even when i know heartbreak was the strongest anything i've ever felt besides love itself. it ruined me. but i'd take it right now, just to prove that part of me didn't die.

'no use i just do' by hayley williams is a song that i needed many moons ago. if i'd heard it when i was 16, i'd have sobbed my silly little heart out to it for months on end. it would hold a near place in my heart now for being the song that described how i felt. now i'm 22 and all i fucking want is the ability and emotional capacity to feel any emotion that heavy ever again.

[a-w-k-o-h-a-w-n-o-h]

👻

i hate sleeping by my fucking phone. i turned my text notifications off because i can't stand the split second where i think it might be you. i don't cry but you make me cry and i'm so fucking angry at you for it. i hate that if you texted me right now, i'd welcome you back with open arms even when i know i shouldn't, even when i know that you know how much this is killing me. i don't understand. it's crushing me. i wish i could hate you as much as i fucking hate this. 01:47

i've lost trust in everyone i know. i don't know if that's because i'm ruined or because i am smart. if anyone tells me they're here for me or they miss me it feels like empty words and i can't help brushing them off completely. 04:10

your face gave me a panic attack today. i forgot to mute your other account and your post popped up on my feed and i tried to shake you off like an intrusive thought. my hands started shaking and my eyes welled up and for a moment, i couldn't breathe. 03:57

for some fucking reason my messaging app opened on my messages to you and it gave me a cold sweat. i knew what it was without even looking at the contact name and without reading the messages because i've read those messages back so many fucking times late at night wondering what the fuck else i'm supposed to do or say or why you stopped acknowledging that i'm existing. it started reeling off in my head and i didn't know how to make it stop, and i bit my lip so hard trying to take my mind away from it that i made myself bleed. 00:39

i've been seeing loads of videos and tweets or whatever about letting things go. they say things like "if it doesn't come to you, let it go". i feel like they're landing in my space for a reason but the truth is i fucking can't let it go. every day i want to text you and tell you how much i miss you and how sorry i am even though i know i shouldn't be fucking sorry. every day i want to tell you how much you're damaging me by doing this again. how it feels like the last straw and now i'm thinking about death and dying all the time. how vocalising any of this would probably sound manipulative. i have nowhere to go but here. it terrifies me to think that you probably already have let go. you probably did the second you stopped replying to me. you're a coward. you're doing exactly what i told you was hurting me. you ducked because you didn't like me telling you. / i won't call. i won't text. i won't for as long as i can stop myself. sometimes there comes this cruel flicker of false hope that makes me think that maybe i just need to try one more time, that maybe you miss me too and you need me to try, just one last time. but then it leaves me on the sender's end of an ignored heart-spill from across the atlantic. every single time. i know this. but sometimes that false hope really gets the better of me. 05:01

[a-w-k-o-h-a-w-n-o-h]

how many people can one person lose?

i find silence to be one of the most deafening things ever.

i was supposed to be organising my things today. when i do this i often end up sitting and pondering over little scraps of memories, whether they be train tickets or plane boarding passes, or polaroids, or photobooth strips, or signed gig tickets. festival wristbands, photo prints, birthday cards, letters. i keep everything. it all means something.

today i got so overwhelmed that i felt like i couldn’t move. these little things that were once so priceless i now find myself haunted by. it’s the first time i’ve really sat and looked at any of these things since before the summer of 2019, just before things started heading the way they did. somehow the weight of what those adventures meant to me meant that they were left pretty unscathed, but ever since i lost everything else i was holding onto, those memories i have feel so far away.

everything ended up kind of scattered around me while i sat on my floor, just staring at anything. i don’t know how long i was staring for, but i know that it was long enough for things to not feel real anymore. i looked up and caught sight of a 2017 tour poster on my wall and i realised that the version of myself that made those memories feels like a totally different person. whoever that is is completely separate from me, it was before me. “before” seemed to be my only real thought.

right now, i can see my map of the world that i have on the wall. i bought it at the end of 2019, because i felt like i’d travelled a lot that year. i’d made memories around the world. the purpose of the map was to put pins on the locations that i’d visited. i’d done so much stuff. i’d flown to america to see my favourite musician and i’d spent every waking moment with people that meant the world to me. i met kate, peter, and gabe in person for the first time ever after knowing them all since 2012. 18 months later and i can’t remember the last time gabe and i spoke, or had a conversation more than small talk. peter is ghosting me and kate and i don’t text much. 18 months later, i’ve pushed the right people away, but some of the best seem to have slipped away from me too. 15 months after i did the uk/europe tour and i couldn’t give a fuck about a single person i spent my time with apart from the three that i can’t seem to hold on to properly.

everything just seems to have boiled down to nothing. i knew everything was temporary but i never thought it’d come down to every last little glimmer. 

after a while of sitting and staring, i guess i started checking my phone. i know i did this because forever was passing by in 2-minute sections; i’d look at my screen and it’d be 19:57, 19:59, 20::01, 20:03. i’m forever waiting for a text i won’t receive, forever flinching at notifications, forever hoping somebody wanted to tell me about their day, wanted to talk to me about music, wanted to have a conversation with me. i wish i could do stupid little things like tweeting or posting on instagram without suffocating. it’s pathetic. i often wonder if anyone noticed i stopped texting first.

i went to pick up my phone to text my friend and it was like a reflex to retreat back and that’s why i’m writing tonight. she hadn’t replied to my last message and i know that that’s normal. she’s probably busy, and even if she wasn’t, it’s okay. i’m not entitled to her time, she can text whenever she wants. but my first thought, i think, was “don’t bother her again”. it’s so strange to realise my mind is learning all of these miserable things even though i’m doing everything i can to be aware of it. i know that my friend just isn’t looking at her phone right now, but i automatically got scared of fucking up anyway.

how many people can one person lose? and have i reached my limit? being physically isolated from my family is enough, it’s more than enough. losing my only other constant; my friends; genuinely gives me chest aches all day.

january 23rd 2021, 21:03.

[a-w-k-o-h-a-w-n-o-h]

love.

i’m always thinking about love.

i have such a complicated relationship with this emotion, or lack thereof. i am so out of touch with the person that i used to be. i’ve been in the fucking depths of love. it tugged at my heartstrings from across the atlantic ocean. it consumed me, every breath i took, every thought i thought. i’ve been so in love that it made my bones ache. if you know me at all, you will know that i love my own space and being on my own. i’m irritable when i’m around people too long. i stand my ground, i don’t change for anyone and i won’t compromise when it’s detrimental to me. i’m in my own headspace; there’s no time for anyone else, and that’s not in a selfish sense. i just don’t think i’m wired that way.

but i’ve fallen in love before. i had every intention to fly across the ocean and move in with my first love. i’ve never wanted to get married, but i so desperately wanted to marry her. i’ve never wanted kids, but i saw kids with her. i was so, so proud to love her. she was my world, and i know that phrase gets thrown around all too much and it’s sort of lost its weight, but i can’t quite put into words how much i mean it when i say it. she was my world in the way that oxygen allows us to breathe, in the way that water keeps us alive. i really, really, would have given up anything for her; i intended to. it just so happens that things ended before i ever got the opportunity to do that. but i would have gone through with it. everything.

i’m only twenty two. in theory, i’ve got my whole life to fall in love, but i don’t think it’ll happen again.

i believe in soulmates, i think. i think i’m sceptical of it now because it hasn’t worked in my favour. i believe that everyone has a soulmate, but when we meet them isn’t necessarily always going to work out. i truly believe that i met my soulmate too young and that’s that. we didn’t work out for a number of different reasons, but i truly believe that was it. i had her. i also believe that love is temporary, sometimes. 

so that’s it, in my head. i had my love, and i’ll never feel it again. so far, my theory has proven to be true. many a time i’ve been so, so convinced i have feelings for people. my performative emotions play tricks on me. but then it all comes crashing down and i’ll realise i have no feeling at all. 

i’ve never fallen in love since. never really had a proper crush; as much as i realy thought they were real at the time. i’m not interested in affection, or anything. i’m not interested in people. it’s been so absent that i’ve questioned my entire identity. what if i don’t like girls after all?

(how i felt for my first love will always be enough to tell me i like girls).

people that have fallen in love more than once completely fucking baffle me. how did they fall in love with someone, get over it, and fall in love again? did they feel the same love that i did? the love that consumed me, crushed me, and then left me altered? why can’t i do that? will i ever get to love again? is it possible? were you ever really in love if you can love again?

i’m fully aware there’s probably a level of trauma to it. it feels so silly to talk about, because i’ve moved on, emotionally. i’m not in love with her anymore. i love her, sure, forever, but we’re not in love. we’re friends. what’s done is done, and it’ll always be ours, and nobody else will ever know what it was except us, and that’s totally fine. but it’s altered me. 

this is the modern era. when you’re 13 and your first love turns out to be someone of the same sex, living across the ocean... there’s nobody that can tell you how to navigate that. especially when neither of you are out to anyone and it has to be a secret. it was our secret. it was so exciting. but there’s nobody that has lived that before you. there will be people that tell me my first love wasn’t a real love because i hadn’t met her in real life. i will fight to the death about it. i’ve never felt so strongly about anyone or anything. we have met in real life now, three times, and i still know that i used to love her. 

sometimes i feel like living through something so new and heartbreaking has really altered the way my brain works. truly. i think it changed my dna. i know that love and heartbreak can do that. i was capable of love before, but i think that i’m not now. and that’s strangely okay with me, equally as much as it breaks my heart. i miss the feeling of being in love, but somehow i’ve accepted that i’ll just never feel that again. so i’ve learned to be ok with being by myself.

i don’t really know what the point of my rambling is. i’m sure in another few months i’ll come back to try and reword these thoughts, because even when i’m writing them out they still never seem to make sense. 

or maybe one day i’ll look back and feel sad for 2020 me, because i’ll have fallen in love again. maybe. probably not, but one can hope.

i hope so.

[a-w-k-o-h-a-w-n-o-h]

resilience ≠ strength

last year, somebody that felt like home to me betrayed me. so i dropped them like they were never in my life in the first place. 

this isn’t something new for me. i’ve always known that i am capable of doing this. you fuck me around, i’ll act as if you don’t exist. it’s not even like i have to pretend; i can really drop you that easy. i’ll never utter your name again. but... you’ll always cross my mind. and i won’t replace you.

i spent the majority of my teenage years thinking i must be really strong to be able to function that way. even if someone means the world to me, i can just drop them. then i got a little older and i thought i must be sociopathic. now i’m 22 and in the past couple of weeks i’ve come to realise it’s because i don’t allow myself to grieve and process things, i just plod on. i am resilient, but i am not strong.

even after what ___ did to me, i still think about them probably every fucking day. wonder if i should have been more forgiving (even though i know i definitely shouldn’t have been). wonder if they think about me too, ever. wonder how they’re doing. wonder if they can’t listen to dave hause anymore either, or if they were ever able to listen to st patrick by PVRIS the same way.

i know that i was putting myself first when i cut ___ off. they pretended to kill themselves, they published a suicide note about me online, they made sure everybody knew what was happening and that they were attempting in the bathroom of the building next to the venue we were supposed to see our favourite artist play that night. i was going to pay for being angry at them for lying to me, they were going to make sure of it. i was going to come back screaming and crying for them when i realised what they’d “done” because of me. and it might have worked if i never found out it was all fake.  so i dropped them. there was a few days of sad, shocked, angry confusion, but as soon as i knew, i dropped them while i was in amsterdam and we’ve never spoken since. that was september 3rd 2019. i was putting myself first, i thought. turns out not allowing yourself to grieve has some pretty nasty longterm effects. if i expect myself to act like ___ is dead to me, shouldn’t i have allowed myself to be sad about losing them, no matter what they did? 

thanks to ___, i have trust issues so severe that i second, third, fourth and fifth guess every single fucking person’s intentions, with anything, and that’s quite the statement to make considering how bad my trust issues had become anyway. if my colleague tells me i can go on my lunch break, i’ll be hit with a wave of anxiety telling me they just want to get rid of me, that they’ll be bitching about me the entire time, that i’m not good enough at my job. 

if anyone’s tone is even slightly different, i freak out because i think i’ve upset them and ruined their life.

i take everybody’s words with a pinch of salt, even more so than before. you love me? you think i’m cool? okay. 

my emotions are more performative than ever. i genuinely cannot tell if i actually give a fuck about anything or if i’m just acting that way because i know it’s the correct way to respond to people when they say nice things to me. everything is temporary, and i am more aware of it than ever. what’s the point in making the effort to make new friends when i know that it will eventually crash and burn, no matter how much i love someone?

i amplified all of these things when i decided to carry on life as normal without letting myself just be fucking sad for a bit. when i genuinely thought ___’s fake suicide attempt was real, i screamed and cried down the phone to my mum, on the streets of birmingham at about 11 o’clock at night, too close to the tour bus of the band we’d come to see, praying they wouldn’t hear me. i was heartbroken and i was mortified, and the guilt that came with thinking i’d done something so terrible was making my bones ache. when i was in amsterdam and found out there was no suicide attempt, i felt nothing. or at least that’s what i thought. was it numbness, or was it performative emotions, or lack thereof? did i think it was the right way to react; to not react at all? or was it my brain protecting me from further trauma? was it just resilience?

my hopes for next year are that i learn to be strong. it’s kind of insane to spend my whole life being told i’m strong, and believing it, to then having it all come crashing down in what felt like 0.2 seconds. i would like to be strong. i know that to be strong, i need to learn to allow myself to be vulnerable. childhood trauma says no, but i’m hoping that 2021 me will push hard enough to say yes.  i always thought that resilience was a good thing; i still believe that, to an extent. but this year i’ve finally learned that i am resilient to my own detriment. and i need to work on that. it makes me insensitive, too. i cannot seem to sympathise or empathise with anybody because i can’t even fucking sympathise or empathise with my own damn self. and i think it’s kinda strong of me to finally realise that, with nobody’s help.

or maybe some. 

thanks, ___. i wonder how i’ll feel about you when i finally know how to grieve you. i thought i hated you, but now i think i maybe thought that because i thought i had to. i hope you’re doing well. actually i hope you’re doing the best you’ve ever been. i hope you got help for the way your brain ended up working that night, but also for the things you’ve never used to hurt anybody. i hope you never treat anyone else the way you treated me, and i hope the good in you that i know is there only grows. i’ll keep those memories safe, just like all the secrets we shared. i’ll never tell. those three years of friendship with you taught me many things... i guess this was the final lesson. or perhaps the second to last.

i’ll finally be learning how to live without you. 

december 7th, 01:35am.