alwaysbeneathyou

[alwaysbeneathyou]

you balance the catholic guilt & you still eat too many servings of pasta. you split the pomegranate but you think of the lord jesus and his guts spilled across your dining room table. yesterday was father's day and you went to church. your father is also a deacon. he wants you to marry a nice man one day, when the lesbianism wears off.

you are religiously traumatized, probably, but also the world is in absolute chaos. you feel guilty all the time about not being endlessly informed - about the mini breaks you take between in-person activism & volunteer work and doomscrolling through online news articles. you feel guilty you dropped a sweater on the ground. you feel guilty you cannot afford rent. you feel guilty, and you quite actually feel guilty that you feel guilty.

your father isn't a tall man, but he is good at being imposing. yesterday was hard. all father's day activities are. you watched him radicalize in the last 10 years, moving from a man who had some ignorant views to - whatever this is. he crowed at you that 250,000 people showed up to trump's military parade. you have seen the pictures and think that it's very unlikely there were more than 100k. but your father has no shame. your father just says the thing without checking it.

you have a conspiracy theory that, in some small part, the parade was also to rebrand june as military appreciation month. how often they have said why is there no veteran's month, even though there is. the white house's stance on pride this year was that they did not want to acknowledge something that "only affects 7% of the population." you don't know where they got that number, but it's guilt-free. it's just, like, out there. they get to just say things. you can't even fucking imagine.

you haven't grown up. you still wear the 2014 tumblr style shit sometimes. you are still on tumblr. you are still thinking about girls and "holy holy holy" and it always does feel magical and rebellious and incredible to kiss her. nothing is new about love until it is your love, and then it is impervious. and yet - still you feel stuck, and guilty, and the acid in your stomach refuses to settle. all the yearning and the stupid shit, and the fucking guilt.

you make a little poem in your notes app. you make your hands into a little prayerful steeple. your mother tells you that you make yourself crazy. you have a running joke with your friends that if you had no mental illnesses, you'd be unstoppable.

but when you kiss her, you feel it. when you buy groceries. when you forget to text back - you feel it. the little thing inside of you, always fucking chipping away at things.

[alwaysbeneathyou]

I loved the underground (cont. below)

❤️

[alwaysbeneathyou]

The remorseful player

[alwaysbeneathyou]

i love my therapist but i hate being in therapy. 10 minutes before my appointment, i'm in a meeting with my boss - we discuss my artistic choices; my boss recommends i artistically choose less. 10 minutes after therapy, i wash my hair and think about everything that was said, and then i have to switch it off, like a lamp, and go back to work again.

i was on a walk the other day and someone had the perfect combination of his cologne and whatever-else. it was almost exactly his scent. i fucking hate that. after all these years, i remember that? i tell my therapist - i feel like a fucking wolf. try telling a middle-aged blonde lady. oh i scented him on the air. i'm 30, and i'm having a panic attack over something that would be a plotline in the omegaverse.

what they don't tell you about mental illness is that if you are lucky enough to survive it into adulthood; it becomes a weird slice of your life. because you do, eventually, have to build a life. i realized in a panic somewhere around 22 - oh. i don't know what i'm fucking doing, because i always assumed i'd just go ahead and die. i didn't die, and i'm grateful for that, and i'm very happy about that choice. but it does mean that i am an adult in an apartment, living with my conditions side-by-side like. oh, that's my roommate, adhd. ignore the glass, bytheway, that's ocd.

so you pick your stupid life up by the scruff of the neck and you're, like glad for it (so much laughter and light and friends you would have never thought possible, when you were in the worst of it). but it feels so strange to be dancing around these odd little microcosms, these patchwork moments of your symptoms. if you have a panic attack at night, you still need to wake up and walk the dog in the morning. if your depression is making everything boring, well, you don't have any sick days left, and a job's not really supposed to be that exciting anyway. your ocd tears out each individual leg hair, and then, an hour later, you sigh, patch up the bloody bits, and go get dinner with friends. and the life is kitten-quiet, mewling and pathetic, but it's also like - it's yours, so you're fond of it.

and it's like - you're real. so you still enjoy pushing the shopping cart really fast and then riding on the back of it down an empty aisle. and you're not, like, so sick anymore that when you accidentally drop a mug you burst into tears (except for the days you do that. which are bad). and no, you're not allowed around certain items anymore. oops! but you've learned to be good about brushing your teeth most days of the week. and you sometimes in the middle of the day you have a little freak-out about how fucking unfair it all is, how fucking hard, how other people can just do this without having to fucking hurt the whole time. and then you sigh and force yourself to sit down and fucking journal about it so you can tell the nice middle-aged blonde woman yeah i had a hard day but i practiced grounding. you still sometimes want to burst out of your own skin, but you force yourself to eat kind-of healthy and to take your vitamins. you let yourself chop off all your hair in the sink in a dramatic poetry of control and relief - and you also have developed good hobbies that help you move your body more frequently. you feel helplessly behind, lost in the shuffle - but you also practice gratitude, taking stock of what you have garnered. because you're trying. even if you're never gonna be normal, you have something... close enough.

and the little kitten of your life, this mangy, starlit tigercub, this thing you expected to rot so young: in your arms, it turns itself over, belly-up. exposing this new soft part, all the organs and guts. like it's saying i trust you now. you won't give me up.

[alwaysbeneathyou]

poems to read while having breakfast at the heartbreak hotel

I know I am but summer to your heart (Sonnet XXVII) by Edna St. Vincent Millay

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why (Sonnet XLIII) by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Time does not bring relief (Sonnet II) by Edna St. Vincent Millay 

I Am Not Yours by Sara Teasdale

[you fit into me] by Margaret Atwood

You by Carol Ann Duffy

Be Near Me by Faiz Ahmed Faiz

Blessed be the spectacle by Lev St. Valentine

You Are Tired (I Think) by E.E. Cummings

Hope you're well. Please don't read this by Lev St. Valentine

To Say Dark Things by Ingeborg Bachmann

Lilichka by Vladimir Mayakovski

Love and Hate by Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal

Sanctuary by Jean Valentine

the winter sun says fight by Peter Gizzi

The More Loving One by W. H. Auden

A Primer For The Small Weird Loves by Richard Siken

Dirty Valentine by Richard Siken

Morning by Frank O Hara

We Don't Know How To Say Goodbye by Anna Akhmatova

You'll Live, But I'll Not… by Anna Akhmatova

from “An Attempt at Jealousy” by Marina Tsvetaeva

The Last Toast by Anna Akhmatova

In Dream by Anna Akhmatova

Mad Girl's Love Song by Sylvia Plath

Talking In Bed by Philip Larkin

He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven by W.B. Yeats

La Belle Dame Sans Merci by John Keats

[alwaysbeneathyou]

They should make a "are you mad at me" that is taken neutrally and informationally every time and doesn't make everything worse when you ask it

[alwaysbeneathyou]

Sending my most reliable corporate staffer to Connecticut to shut down a Christmas tree farm. Wish me luck

[alwaysbeneathyou]

i love you, get up, keep going.

posted a month ago on my Patreon and Ko-fi, original text by @inkskinned can be found here 💗

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[alwaysbeneathyou]

you want them to text back but that's anxious attachment isn't it. it's just that you can feel on the wind when you're not wanted anymore. when they've fallen out of love in any small part of their marrow. you have a hawk's eye for disharmony. you can tell when she has begun packing her things.

don't be annoying. you want to write: i have never experienced unconditional love as an explanation but isn't that pathetic. in adulthood all love is conditional and it should be. you've been to too much therapy. touch grass. how sappy can you be.

but they don't reach for your hand while they're driving. they forget to ask you how you're doing. the call times no longer read 12:34:19. they're 30 minutes and perfunctory before she says baby please, i'm tired. i need to go to sleep. where in her life do you fit. why is it that you never fit into anyone's life very long. oblong creature with so many needs, spilling up and out and over everything. it's a fucking shame the first time she said she loved you it was for your independence. and now look at you.

hollow pit in your stomach, body shaking. fuck, not again. you're not going to ruin another relationship like this, codependent and toxic, spiraling. and in the other half of your brain: if that's your wife, wouldn't she want to hear it? wouldn't it be fine? wouldn't she just comfort you and you can both move on and nobody dies?

but you're crowding her! read another instagram Positive Vibes Only type of post that talks about calming your heart and your brain and your body. try to sit in silence. the thing is that you do have a life outside of her, remember? go back to it.

great news, your parents fucked you up and now you have no idea how to deal with love. you just keep wanting to be chosen. to be real to someone, all the way through. real and kept. held closely. seen as precious to somebody. why even is that? didn't you always swear that people can and should complete themselves? why are you so constantly driven to beg for love, doglike and barking?

it's just the tiny things. it's just that you have to weigh every silence and sentence like bricks on an exposed belly. you have no idea how to shut it off. every alarm bell in your body saying: this isn't safe. start scrambling. she's already going.

[alwaysbeneathyou]

i wrote an interactive poem for my girlfriend in 3 parts. she said you need to read it.

go here: take only the final quiz or take all 3. i don't mind. it's sad, though. this is a poem about choice. about fate and mental illness and how love fits inside of all of it. this is a poem about a long dark hallway. mostly this is a poem about mango sushi rolls.

good luck. i love you. despite it all, i'm hopeful.

[alwaysbeneathyou]

and i will tell you all of these,

with character and emotion

what happens next and how it relates

so close to us just barely parallel, yet

quietly be both know the implications

of connecting ourselves to familiarity

words of loving that places itself under fear

a warm yet restless creature

[alwaysbeneathyou]

blade against my throat

press it just a little closer, yes

I want to feel your spite against me

[alwaysbeneathyou]

what is it with him and being strange and offputting

[alwaysbeneathyou]

i have marina disorder. its termina(l)

[alwaysbeneathyou]

Diamond and the Marinas

[alwaysbeneathyou]

thinking too hard about bodyguard au again so we ramble :3 continuation of this post because these thoughts just won't stop coming

- even though hotguy is griande’s personal bodyguard, the head guy of security for Anything related to griande is skizz. he’s like grian’s overprotective weird uncle. hurt her and you’ll have one hell of an angry skizz coming for you

- when hotguy was first hired, skizz 100% gave him the “I don’t care if you’re some hotshot hero, if you try anything weird with her I’ll end you” talk (because they’ve probably one or two guys they hired for security who got… weird with grian)

- not that skizz worries for long though, hotguy proves that griande’s safety is the only thing that matters to him. and the two of them have been best buds since

- in his civilian life, scar is a model and pretty well known. I think it’d be funny (and really sweet) if grian had a lil crush on him. but they don’t know each other personally. just… admiration from afar

- that being said, scar has a massive crush on griande. he has so much respect for her. he’s got nearly every album she’s released and went to a concert of hers three years ago. so when he was approached as hotguy to be her bodyguard? there was no way he’d say no

- skizz was the one who suggested it btw

- have I mentioned that mumbo is a massive hotguy fanboy? and even after working with hotguy for like a year and a half, he still gets starry eyed and nervous? (also he and iskall are dating)

- grian will sometimes bring mumbo merch and he’s like “I can’t believe you got this!” meanwhile she’s secretly dating the guy who makes the merch

- scar uses hotguy as an outlet to be himself. he’s free to be as silly or dorky as he wants—it’s his escape from the daily life of scar goodtimes, a chance to be more of himself than he ever could

- yet interestingly, hotguy was never meant to exist. see, it started with a car accident. a pretty bad one—to the point scar was at death’s door. he was very close to dying when at the last second, a certain doc monster stepped in to save him. doc genuinely just wanted to save scar’s life. he never meant to create a superhero in his desperate attempt to fulfill his doctor’s oath. but something happened, some kind of mix up. scar was healed within a matter of days, as if the accident had never occurred. and scar was… changed. irreversibly

- (not even doc could figure out what happened, when scar stormed into his office. he couldn’t reverse it, either. he offered to run some tests, to help him figure out what happened. but scar vehemently denied any more tests. no more tests. he can’t go through that again, please don’t make him do it again he can’t he can’t he can’t he—)

- (…all doc could do was offer to help scar control his new abilities)

- so hotguy was accidentally born! and it was a freedom scar never knew he needed. sure, both the powers and the impact on his modeling career are permanent marks of his near death but. in a strange way, he’s thankful for it. for the opportunity it gives him

- (even if he can’t go to hospitals any more. lab coats shorten his breath. he panics at the sight of a needle.)

- (and sure, maybe he ends up put on a whole separate pedestal, objectified in a new way, and no one sees him for who he is but. it’s a freedom.)

- and for grian… ariana griande is a way to be the person she wants herself to be. griande is confident and sassy, not a single hint of doubt to be seen. while grian moon is snarky, and rough around the edges, full of self doubt. griande is a mask for grian to pretend to be who she wishes she was. griande is a form of escape she needs. but she’s also a shield

- before grian first began in the music industry, she was doing open mic nights at different establishments. until one night, she’s approached by a producer who sees a lot of promise in her, and would love to sign her on. cue grian calling mumbo and excitedly telling him she’s found her big break. only, to mumbo, it sounds… suspicious. he tells her to be careful, but grian swears it’ll be fine and he’s just overly cautious

- things with her new producer are great! she’s introduced to a bunch of people, given a tour of her new workplace and she’s eager to get started. and well, she’s a bit disappointed that she’s only allowed to record songs that other people have written, but she’s sure that’s just because she’s new! so grian does as told, encouraged and praised by her producer

- slowly that praise is replaced more and more by little nitpicks but it’s fine. she’s inexperienced. her producer is just trying to help her. (“your tone is way off.” “you’re not holding your air long enough.” “you’re in the wrong key.” “you can hear the other harmonies, can’t you? match them.” “you’re straining.” “you sound bad. re-record it.” “your clothes are hideous.” “some make up would do you good.” “your hair is too long, cut it.” “I don’t remember your voice being so bad, grian.” “you’re never going to make it big.” “signing you on was a mistake.”)

- ( she’s not good enough. she’s not good enough. she’s not good enough. she’s not good enough. she’s not good enough. )

- she’s caught writing a song of her own. it’s actually pretty good, her producer is impressed. he’ll think about recording it

- grian isn’t allowed to sing it. she’s not even credited for it.

- this goes on for months. she’s overworked, verbally abused, and beaten down. she’s hardly seen mumbo or any of their friends. it’s not until mumbo gets fed up and goes to see her himself for answers that grian finally cracks. she tells mumbo everything, that he was right. she has no chance at her dreams now, she’s not good enough for any of it. and well, mumbo wouldn’t be a very good friend if he let grian continue to believe that

- he gets iskall’s help in getting grian free of that company, and offers to help her get back on her feet, start her own brand. and thus, mumbo and iskall become her mangers

- grian creates griande to protect herself. griande is what the industry wants, who people expect her to be (as for grian… she doesn’t know who grian is anymore). she grows more comfortable as griande and she gains popularity quite quickly. she loves it

- when it comes time for scar to meet grian and not griande… she doesn’t know who to be. she doesn’t know what scar expects from her, or who he wants her to be for him (she just wants to be good enough for him). it makes her anxious. uncertain. but all scar wants is for grian to be herself. to be comfortable and happy and safe

[alwaysbeneathyou]

my strange addiction