flieswithmanners

[flieswithmanners]

– Jamie Oliveira | from "Erosion"

[flieswithmanners]

If the reality hurts you, consider me a dream. Hold me in your mind since you can't hold me in your arms.

- Evenlis

[flieswithmanners]

[flieswithmanners]

[flieswithmanners]

I am my father’s daughter.

Except… I’m not.

I’m not cruel.

I’m not reactionary.

I’m not unfair. Or unwilling.

I’m not scary. I’m not angry.

I’m not the werewolf in my dreams. The one that lurks, and preys, and waits until I let my guard down to eat away at me.

I don’t demand people’s fear because I’m too afraid I won’t earn their respect.

I have empathy. I have emotional intelligence.

I’m not my father’s daughter.

No. Not at all. Not even a little bit.

Except…I think that maybe I am.

I think about that time when I made a girl cry in middle school because she made me feel small.

Or the time I called my landlord a cunt because she made me feel weak.

How many times have I taken someone’s power

to stop feeling powerless?

I think I am my father’s daughter.

I think he’s in every part of myself that I hate.

I think that maybe he was his father’s son.

I think he’s tried and failed to cope with his monster.

I think I’m destined to repeat the cycle.

But fuck destiny. I’ll create my own.

I’ll scratch and claw away at the monster he's made me until it learns to fear me.

I’ll eat that monster down to its bones.

I’ll swallow it whole.

I am my father’s daughter.

But I’m trying not to be.

[flieswithmanners]

[flieswithmanners]

[flieswithmanners]

[flieswithmanners]

[flieswithmanners]

the rain, the rain, the rain.

[flieswithmanners]

[flieswithmanners]

For the first time in weeks, you did not plague my dreams.

I’ve let you go.

Who knew all I had to do was speak my mind.

[flieswithmanners]

[flieswithmanners]

Sometimes, when I’m drifting into sleep and the night is quiet I wonder about you.

I wonder if your water filter is still on the second shelf of your fridge, a suggestion I gave you so the water would stop freezing.

I wonder if you bought the skin care I told you about, and if it works.

I wonder if you got that shampoo we researched.

I wonder if you’ll ever hang the print I picked out for you.

I wonder if you still use the shirt I got you to work out in or if it just sits in your closet now, you said you loved it.

I wonder if you see the poetry I bought you and think about reading it, just to feel my presence.

Most of all, I wonder if you also wonder about me. If I like the honey you bought me, if I’m doing all of the things I told you I’d do. If I’m taking the vitamins you told me about, maybe even tried the coffee shop you recommended.

Then I wonder if that’s all just hope. Hoping you cared even a little, that my short lived presence made some kind of impact on your everyday life moving forward, without me.

I wonder if you think about me, even for a second. That wonder does me no good, but at least it brings me a moment of comfort.

I’m so tired of wondering.

[flieswithmanners]

[flieswithmanners]

Rainer Maria Rilke, from a letter to Lou von Salomé written c. June 1912

[flieswithmanners]

“That’s all I can do. I’ll keep at it and hope it gets better.”

— Ned Vizzini, It’s Kind of a Funny Story