literallytheonlyjo

[literallytheonlyjo]

trying to come up with a story for her guys lmk

[literallytheonlyjo]

long story short or whatever

tw: discussion of suicide

She told me she tried to kill herself, and I told her she was pretty.

I don't remember what day of the week it was. I don't remember what she was wearing. All I remember was that I had her in my bed, safe as long as I could reach out and touch her. In those moments, I was already planning a life we would never have, one where she spent every night inside a house I'd come to own. We could have been explosive, dangerous even, something she'd bring home to her family with caution. We could have been mezcal for a recovering addict, an omen for the nonbeliever. I was seeing visions in her eyes, something I didn't realize I needed help figuring out. I thought she was my Eden, a paradise I could let myself die in. I think perhaps I just wanted to die.

She did, too.

I opened the blinds one night, third week or so. I watched the way light blurred against the glass. I remember thinking about how in love I was, disguising it as a playful confession for late nights. I don't miss the hopelessness that inhabits that room, and I don't miss the jagged piano keys of the grand downstairs where I penned songs about her on the hard days. I used to sing about staying inside her sheets until we both became corpses. I was composing sonnets to vomit in her lap, dreaming about when the world would only be us. I was dreaming of a perfect funeral, the flower arrangement, the sting of death. I was dreaming of watching her tear me in two. I wanted to be a bloodied, lifeless creature in her arms. She'd find beauty in all that ugliness and kiss me still. We would go in art museums, something moody and bleak for teenagers to pin on their Pinterest boards. I wanted to be sculpted by her, lie as a motionless statue in front of her, be a joyride inside a sports car. I wanted her to beat me with a shovel, toss me under dirt, and watch me rot from a lawn chair, sipping a skinny margarita.

I don't want to die anymore, though. I think, if I saw her again, I might.

[literallytheonlyjo]

Cafe Mo

There was a cafe I used to go to when I was younger. It was at the corner of my neighborhood. It was a quaint place, but you could feel the love radiating out of it.

When you would walk in, you were met with the smell of something cooking. Usually fried chicken or catfish, something that would make you feel immediately at home. The owner would greet you as you walked in. She knew the name of every customer who would walk in. From the moment I stepped foot in this place, I felt like I belonged.

As I got older, I started working there. I would come in after school and spend so much time there. It was an escape. My personal little paradise at the end of my street.

The years went by and I got older. I forgot about this cafe at the end of my street. I stopped going. The owner would reach out but I wouldn’t respond. At the time I thought I had better things to do.

Then the day came I finally went back and the owner was gone. It was a sudden thing. She was there the day before, according to another customer. It was as if nothing was the same. All life has been taken away from this place. My safe haven was gone.

I wish I came back to this cafe sooner. The cafe at the end of the road. The cafe that happened to reside in the city in my mind, before my world changed forever.

[literallytheonlyjo]

sonic boom

I guess I don't know how you did it. I got tired of the doing, the moving, the running, the pain you could Bluetooth. Then there's hour-long conversations in an old phone booth: the floor of my bathroom, the corner of my room. I can't believe you never called out this problem-solution dynamic that couldn't come to its fruition. I did what I did, if not just to prove it. Watching the unravel of the silver lining, "It's all in the grandeur; it's all in the timing!" I'd rather be bitter than stuck in the writing, than finding new ways to keep up with the lying. I don't know how you were okay with stoic refining.

I'm thinking of the times I was alone in your room with nothing to lose, something to prove. But you're on the ground, watching the blue. You're putting on headphones for my sonic boom.

[literallytheonlyjo]

redbull.

I woke up two months ago, and finally became aware of the stars that sit in the heavens, the hairs on my knees, the grains of sugar in the dish. I was amped up on caffeine up until then, and everything blurs together. I don't see days, just smiles of people I don't talk about anymore, and then their profiles pop up on my Instagram, and I wonder if I should reach out or just let it go. Probably leave it alone, right? After all, every time I think of them, I remember the woman that lived through them, dissociating on the bathroom floor at three in the morning.

You remember though, right? Before all the caffeine in my system, when we danced on your porch under the tornado watch. At fifteen, I was still writing songs about you, but now I'm memorializing you in this post, wondering about the in-between moments. My mom used to think we hooked up, some sweaty and sultry moment in a teal bedroom that couldn't be spoken of. I'm thinking of the poetry I wrote for you, a child's awe in the face of a creature I could not best. The anger I took out on you, and what a sack you became, and last a symbol for my repression. You were everything I wanted to outrun at the time, but now, I'm doing the things we used to do together with other people. I drove by your house the other day, saw the porch we danced on. I'm thinking of you now, of being behind you, under you, touching the keratin on your hands and going back to thirteen. I was scared then, as thirteen-year-olds should be, but I'm not anymore. I'm quitting now, done drinking caffeine.

I'm wondering now what a mess I could make of you.

[literallytheonlyjo]

for even more still...

[literallytheonlyjo]

the introduction

I'm Jo. this is my blog.

in the process of my detoxes, I find creations too beautiful to simply purge. instead, they land here, something to write about when it's late at night and nothing sounds right to eat.

melodramatic in nature; never too serious. a collection of experiences I had/have/will have. laughing through it all.

she/her. middle child. late spring baby. type 8. miniskirt enthusiast.

a writer. an artist. a star.

[literallytheonlyjo]

foggy now, isn't it?

what makes you believe this is the easy route? what compels you to image that the weight of my lies, the secrets I have weaved, the car rides I have omitted from this narrative, are easy? they are stained with my self-disrespect, a refusal to be honest. they are not things I would make you understand; they are things I long to forget.

I am not a rebel, not a martyr. I was a child, born to run, unsure of repentance. now I must defend decisions I cannot in hopes I do not become one of you.

it was never about him.

[literallytheonlyjo]

noisy minds have sleepless ambitions

[literallytheonlyjo]

I said the writing was on the wall. Maybe it was, but if so, it was in a language I couldn't read. The runes were ancient, something biological, something I had long evolved past. They were the cries of man and woman, never fitting together, reaching, searching, coming up short. They were in another's tongue, from a land too far away, one I didn't understand. I though the pictographs simply pictures, paintings made for me. I forgot you were not artistic, seldom a poet. I didn't realize you were carving a tragedy, trying to tell me you no longer found it in you to love me.

[literallytheonlyjo]

seems like something; was never anything

I have to quit doing this, or I'm going to keep doing this.

Until my nail beds bleed, my head spins, surely you get the picture. Perhaps it hurts, but not enough that I can justify all the things I feel. I don't even like him, I just miss what it feels like to make a man come alive again. To see his eyes light up. Oh, how I miss that light.

[literallytheonlyjo]

fourteen forever

my greatest fear is that, inside of my mind, I will be fourteen forever. I am driving on an interstate, far from here, and I glance over. there she is, singing along to the radio. except this is a song that was released long after I was fourteen, and I am driving alone. each winter I believe that she has perished, her bones molded by the dirt. I'm always wrong.

I pick her up at the restaurant. she can't drive; she rides shotgun. I take her wherever she wants to go. I give her my intelligence, trying to make her stronger. she replaces it with rage, then I see red driving over 100mph. we crash, my limbs mangled and her skin raw. I believe I see her take her last breath, blood pooling at her mouth. I am always wrong.

It's not her fault. I'm the one healing her, resurrecting her for one more round. I wonder what it's like from her perspective, seeing my glare across the car. she hears me honk outside the restaurant and must tell her friends I'm not a threat. she takes my intelligence and uses it, giving me what she believes is her greatest weakness. when we crash, she lays out on the asphalt, wondering why it had to be like this. how did we get so messy? how did we get so careless? what happened to make us so jaded? she cannot think of anything because she's not smart enough to know day from night, right from left, dead from alive. all she knows is fear.

her greatest fear is becoming me.