#messages I’ll never send

[margins-of-me]

Birds on a Wire

Rehab felt like one long group project with people you didn’t choose and couldn’t escape. You’re all crammed into this weird little bubble—sitting shoulder to shoulder at mealtimes but emotionally on different planets. Everyone’s eyeing each other like we’re trying to crack a code, but no one speaks for the first few days. Too dissociated. Too twitchy. No one knows the rules.

It used to be a retirement home, but honestly, it looked more like a motel. Beige walls. Low ceilings. That stale, carpeted silence. The kind of place where time stretches out weirdly and nothing ever quite smells clean. The air buzzed with everything no one was saying: withdrawal, shame, caffeine headaches, legal drama, the occasional spiritual awakening, and yeah—probably a ghost or two.

They monitored our caffeine like it was contraband. One cup, maybe two, and they acted like we should be grateful. The only real recreational activity was watching DVDs on stiff, upright chairs that somehow made your spine feel worse. No couches. Nothing soft. Nothing to collapse into, physically or otherwise.

Eventually, people started talking. Not in some big “I hit rock bottom” monologue—more like casual trauma over scrambled eggs. Half-sentences in group. Muttered confessions between smoke breaks. One guy called an Uber and just left. No warning. Vanished mid-morning meditation. (Yes, that actually happened.) Another guy kept blaming his wife—for the drinking, the rage, everything. The therapists kept gently nudging him toward self-awareness, and he hated it. Eventually, he stopped showing up to group. Then he left. No goodbye.

Honestly, we were all full of shit in small ways. But we were trying. Or pretending to. Sometimes it looked the same.

It felt fake at first. Like one long, awkward icebreaker. Everyone playing it cool—but not too cool, because being too guarded got called out in group. But something shifts when you eat every meal with the same 50 people who’ve all seen you cry or shake or rage—whatever your particular flavor of broken is. When someone gives you their cookie without a word because they remembered you like it better than the ice cream.

It’s not friendship. Not really connection either—not in the usual sense. It’s this strange kind of survival bond. Not built on shared hobbies or vibes. Built on wreckage. On being cracked open at the same time, in the same room. And maybe that’s stronger. Or maybe it’s just Stockholm Syndrome in grippy socks. Hard to say.

There aren’t many places you’ll see a 17-year-old high school dropout hosting a talent show with a 54-year-old rancher and a 40-year-old lawyer. And no one’s laughing at the pairing. Because it makes sense here. Nothing makes sense, so everything kind of does.

Some days I miss it. Not the place—god, not the walls or the chore charts or the 7am medication announcements. But the honesty. The way no one was pretending to have it together, because none of us did. We couldn’t fake it—we’d already unraveled. There was nothing left to perform. Just this stripped-down version of survival: tired and twitchy and real. Like birds on a wire. All a little fucked up. Just waiting out the weather together.

[raddest-laddest]

ok. someone’s gonna have to come get my dad or i’m gonna tweak.

[pillowbee]

If we must start again

Ian’s not sure where things stand with him and his husband. They’d been fighting, right before Mickey left to join Carl’s scavenging mission on the outside world. But Mickey is back now — he’s covered in blood and is sporting a split lip, but he’s fucking alive, thank fuck.

Ian wants nothing more than to hold on to him and never let go again, but—

He’s not sure where things stand with them now.

//

Or:

The (frankly vague) zombie apocalypse AU where Ian and Mickey’s bond as husbands is put to the test.

Chapters: 1/1

Tags: Zombie Apocalypse

Read it on AO3 🌻

[rozicheeks]

Thank you for permission 😵‍💫 I just didn’t wanna assume.. also I didn’t know you had fansly! I don’t really have money rn because college ending things but I will uh definitely be checking that out at some point 😵‍💫

Absolutely no worries lovely! 🥰

[ghostzzy]

the thing about the mcr return show is. i saw almost none of it because i am 5-foot-nothing and got completely devoured by the ravenous crowd. but i remember every goddamn second of it anyway, and to date, it is the only concert that ever made me go home and immediately write poetry.

[margins-of-me]

Messages I'll Never Send #4

To the one who turned my recovery into a thought experiment and then made it about sex again

I wasn’t looking to argue. I was just trying to talk about something that matters to me. Something that keeps me alive. But instead of hearing me, you treated it like an idea to pick apart. Like it was up for debate. And then — like always — it circled back to sex. Even after everything I said. Even after how serious that conversation was. That’s the part that got to me. That no matter how honest or open I am, it still ends up there. Like that’s all that really sticks. It just made me feel reduced. Like the rest of me wasn’t enough to hold your attention.

I didn’t send it because I’m tired. Because I already said enough. Because if you really cared, I wouldn’t have to explain why this bothered me — you would’ve already known.

[thevampirearchive]

I made a comment about how the universe is truly on my side, keeping me away from everybody I’ve ever known in this small-big city, and my roommate said it’s because I go to work and stay at home, playing sims & reading. So, it’s not the universe, it’s me :) good. But honestly, if she knew my social life was more lively then that she’d be impressed. But then again, it’s probably not that lively to most. Sims and reading are what take up most of my time, but I also know I’m not going to find any of the people from middle or Highschool at the anime & manga stores, or the horror stores, or at the last showings at the cinema to watch newly released horror movies, or writing novels alongside me at quiet intimate vegan cafes, or at African-art galleries on random Tuesdays, or at a pottery decoration studio painting black goth fairies, or at the health store getting essential oils for homemade perfumes, or at the corner flower shops picking up whatever flows that look like they’d grow in cemeteries, or at the sci fi section of bookstores, or at build a bear getting new outfits for my teddies, or at the library trying to find books by black female authors, or in the men’s band-t section of the dank thriftstores, or at Kpop concert queue’s, or at the public pool sauna. I’m all over this city and somehow seem to not have spotted a soul I know, and when I do, I have to be reminded of where I know them from or they do the polite thing and veer. I’m like an anti-magnet and I couldn’t be happier about it.

[hamausagi]

.

[earth-gay]

Anybody else like so bad at having internet friends my adhd makes it literally impossible 😂

[wornbriefly]

When They Fetishize Your Damage

Content Note: emotional manipulation, kink, trauma, fetishization of mental illness

There’s a specific kind of danger in being desired because you’re fucked up. Not in the tortured-muse, soft-focus way. I mean the people who treat your trauma like it’s lingerie—something they can slip off slowly, trace with fascination, and then use to justify why they never had to earn your trust. People who think your wounds make you easier to control. Easier to break in. Easier to keep.

It feels intimate at first. They ask about your past with this careful, reverent tone. They say they want the “real you,” not the polished version. They tell you how much they admire your strength. But what they’re really saying is: I like that someone else already did the damage. Now I get to play hero without doing the hard work. They want someone broken enough to be grateful for crumbs. Someone who mistakes hyper-attunement for love. Someone whose trauma makes her easier to shape.

With Him, it started like safety. He asked thoughtful questions. He said he saw me—the whole messy, vulnerable, complicated me—and didn’t run. It felt like something solid. But eventually I realized he didn’t want me in spite of my history. He wanted me because of it. He liked that I flinched and apologized. That I second-guessed myself. That I kept trying to earn softness from someone who only offered it when I was on edge. The more I shrank, the better he seemed to feel.

This kind of dynamic isn’t always overt abuse. Sometimes it hides under kink language—caretaking, nurturing, D/s, emotional ownership. But what’s really happening is fetishization. Of depression. Of addiction. Of instability. There are people who seek out partners with trauma not to support their healing, but to claim it. They don’t want to understand your pain. They want to possess it. To wear your suffering like a badge of depth. Like they’re special for “handling” you.

The cruelest part is, when you’ve been through enough, it’s easy to confuse that intensity for love. When someone looks you in the eye and says, I want all your worst parts, it feels like being chosen. But it’s not love. It’s consumption.

If someone only wants you when you’re hurting, but disappears the moment you grow? That’s not devotion. It’s dependence on your brokenness. If they say they want “all of you,” but only seem comfortable when you’re small, that’s not intimacy—it’s control. And if their version of dominance requires your instability to thrive, it’s not kink. It’s cruelty dressed up as care.

You’re not a test of someone’s patience. You’re not a fixer-upper for someone’s ego. You’re not a story for someone to retell like they rescued you. Anyone who makes you feel like your trauma is the most interesting thing about you doesn’t deserve to touch what you’ve survived.

[starscelly]

i literally don’t even like this team and i don’t like hockey and i’ve never liked either of these things. i’m no longer a sports blog. i’m going to explode and die

[sorrowfulwill]

bros obsessed with me 😂 /j

[woundedheartwithin]

Something y’all need to know about me is, if I message you or tag you or send you an ask or comment or address you in the tags, I am NOT expecting an answer! Not ever, and I mean that. I will not get upset if you never reply to it, and this is for two reasons:

1. I know intimately how stressful and scary and exhausting notifications can be, especially when you’re not feeling so great mentally/physically/emotionally, and I will automatically assume this is the case if I don’t get a reply, even if I see you actively posting on my dash

2. I have already forgotten that I sent you something

[spockular]

just putting it out there but im currently prepping to get back on patreon… if anyone might be interested it won’t launch until at least next month but maybe something to think about. p much two paid tiers for weekly art posts ($2) and small paper goods mailed to you once a month ($6, zines and stickers and stuff)

[whatareyoudoingwithamaserati]

I think it needs to be studied how the fuck I’ve managed to live this long because holy shit what the fuck is happening

[margins-of-me]

You Promised I Wouldn’t Regret It

He made me a rose out of Legos.

I remember thinking, God, I hope I don’t like him too much. I remember feeling nervous in a hopeful way, like maybe this one would be different. Not perfect—just decent. Safe. Fun. Someone who might meet me where I was.

We laughed, kissed, split a couple entrées. He opened my car door. Said thoughtful things. Said he was serious about dating. Said he liked my brain, not just my body. Said a lot of things.

And then, after we slept together—after he made the first move, after we kissed like teenagers and I let myself soften into it—he texted me the next day. Said it wasn’t about judging me. Said he just didn’t like that he had become the kind of guy who has sex on a first date.

As if I was a mirror he didn’t like looking into.

As if I was the mistake and he was the one who needed to get back on track.

I wanted to scream. Or maybe just roll my eyes hard enough to rupture a blood vessel. He promised I wouldn’t regret it. He promised he wasn’t that kind of guy. And then he did exactly what that kind of guy always does: he blamed his discomfort on me and walked away clean.

I’m tired of being someone else’s line in the sand.

Their moment of weakness. Their moral dilemma. Their, “That’s not who I am,” right after becoming exactly that.

It’s always so civil, too. So gentle. So kind. Like if they phrase it nicely enough, I won’t feel used. Like there’s dignity in being the girl who understands.

But I don’t want to understand anymore.

I want someone who doesn’t need to backpedal his way out of intimacy. Someone who won’t make promises just to feel better about breaking them. Someone who doesn't turn my body into a confession booth and then call it a one-time lapse in judgment.

It wasn’t a mistake. It was a choice. We made it.

And I’m not ashamed of that. I just wish he hadn’t been.