educated-druggie

[educated-druggie]

out of everyone to put me on the back burner, i never expected it from her. that makes it hurt worse, i think. i feel like a middle schooler who just got told im the only one not invited to the slumber party because im not cool enough. she didn’t just change the plans SHE AGREED THAT I WASNT COOL ENOUGH TO GO. shes supposed to have my back even in the rooms im not in. ESPECIALLY in the rooms im not in. at the first sign of crisis, her first instinct is to say “you’ll figure it out” and hang up on me to be with her friends, yet im expected to stand by her during her times of stress and anxiety. how is that fair? i feel like im going to throw up.

[educated-druggie]

love language.

when silence first spoke your name,

from the moment your shadow crossed mine,

our souls began whispering sweet nothings

in a language only we could understand.

now, my heart beats

in rhythm with your breathing,

as if it always knew,

the shape of safety beneath your skin

and every beat,

was meant to sing syllables

in the shape of your name.

[educated-druggie]

Inheritance

My mother left

during my 13th spring.

The trees were full of promise,

but her hands let go

without warning.

Words read over a screen: I don’t want you anymore.

One day she was humming in the kitchen, and the next,

Running off into the sunset with the man who only ever met me with scowls.

Only the silence of dishes

left uncleaned, remained in that house.

The following days spent rushing to fit 13 years of life into plastic bags,

thrown into the bed of my father’s cherry red pickup.

I did the dishes before I left, just in case she changed her mind.

My father waited.

He stayed long enough

to teach me how to be afraid

of him leaving.

Then he vanished too,

quietly,

like smoke under a door.

No fight.

No final word.

Just the slow erosion

of presence.

I watched as he decayed.

They didn’t go together.

They took turns.

Each departure its own kind of weather.

storms that never touched one another,

but still managed to ruin

everything that stood between them.

Each storm worse than it’s predecessor.

A revolving door.

I learned early

that love doesn’t mean staying.

That you can be held

and still not be kept.

That people make homes

in others,

and sometimes

they pack up and leave

without a sound.

Now, I carry

two kinds of emptiness.

hers, sudden

and sharp like broken glass;

his, slow

and quiet. a rot.

Some nights,

I dream they come back.

Other nights,

I don’t let them in.

Both are survival.

[educated-druggie]

Writing My Own Eulogy

A girl I met today, told me that living the life meant for you meant a death had to occur.

Another girl, so dear to me, asked me what I wanted my funeral to be like.

I joked and said I wanted a parade in my honor, and all of my ‘opps’ to be jumped at the door.

Now, sitting here with warm sun on my face, the only thing bouncing around the edges of my mind, is my funeral.

I try to picture it.

I imagine the quiet

before the room fills.

A lectern.

A few folding chairs. Maybe church pews instead.

Maybe someone brings flowers,

maybe not.

Some have hot trails of grief rolling down cheeks, others, the smug satisfaction of knowing they out-lived me.

A spectacle on both ends.

This is not for them,

not yet.

I’m writing it now,

while my heart still drums,

while my mind still questions.

There’s a strange honesty in this.

speaking of myself

as if I’m already gone.

It strips away the performative.

There’s no need to impress the dead.

What did I love?

What did I try to forgive?

What did I stand for?

Whose names stayed with me in the dark?

Was I kind when no one watched?

Was I kind enough?

Did I ever stop pretending long enough

to be real?

Will I die as quietly as I lived?

In my unending quest to be digestible, Did I ever allow myself to ever truly live?

Did I ever have the chance to meet me?

What will they say about me when i’m gone?

How much did i leave undone; unexplored?

What is my legacy?

I don’t want my eulogy to be clean.

I want it to be true.

Let them know I failed,

sometimes gracefully,

sometimes like a plane crash.

If by chance, in the future, someone reads off my name in the shape of a question,

Tell them I laughed too loudly, and cried even louder.

Held on too long when I needed to let go,

and sometimes burned bridges and walked away

when I should have stayed.

I was both the betrayer and the betrayed.

Say that, above all else, I was trying.

Sometimes drowning in the effort,

not always succeeding,

but always trying to be better;

to be someone I could live with.

That might be enough.

[educated-druggie]

bite-sized

I can make myself smaller.

Shrink to fit your calendar:

I’m flexible like that.

Fold myself into whatever time slot suits you best.

Really, it’s fine.

I know gold watches run on stricter hours

than the brass one in my pocket ever could.

Go on.

Make me wait. Let me gather dust. Watch me sit and tarnish.

Some things are only missed

once they stop ticking.

I’ll still be here

when you remember

how I kept perfect time.

[educated-druggie]

threadbare.

pull me apart.

thread by thread,

stitch by careful stitch.

as a child i used to cry for the giving tree.

offering yourself up to slaughter for a moment of warmth.

The weight of longing

to be seen,

to be understood,

pins me to the ground.

There was no precision

in my making.

seams crooked,

stitches dropped,

a form held together

more by hope and desperation

than by hands.

i have always had an understanding that i am an easy thing to put down.

i am the kettle on the back burner, forgotten

about until i fill the house with screams.

of these things, i have always been sure.

And still,

I ache for a knowing

that isn't offered

like charity.

To be held in someone’s gaze

without their reluctance staring back at me.

I dream of vanishing.

not into hiding,

but into the vastness of nothing.

i want to cease to exist.

To disappear

so completely

that even I

forget

I was ever here.

No image,

no echo,

no fuss,

no memory of the desperation of wanting

to be known and kept.

Only the quiet

undoing of self.

a slow return

to nothing.

[educated-druggie]

an ode to being 13

I have not been home since I was 13.

Part of me will always be that 13 year old girl watching asdf movie on YouTube on the family computer with my best friend. Taylor Swift music videos playing. Hours spent together in computer room after school sharing the computer chair.

Late night poverty nachos and skins uk on the tv. I laughed so hard I peed a little. This happened often enough to warrant having a drawer of clothes at her house. The braiding of hair, late night confessions and Omegle. Wine coolers and trampolines. Bike rides and basketball in the driveway. Climbing of trees, skinning of knees. Never a fear of falling.

Sims 2 and fighting with her older brother. Hair dye mishaps and playing tag in the house. Low quality weed from a senior boy that rode our school bus, and cigarettes we stole from our parents.

Long walks and exploring abandoned houses. Sunburns, chlorine, Ribs sore from laughing. Jones soda. Save the bottles. Hating our parents, hating the town we called home, study sessions to get grades good enough to get out.

Eating whole pizzas, drake and josh reruns. Windows open, summer afternoons. A lawnmower in the distance, laughing about nothing and everything at the same time.

Pool tables, sunny-d with vodka, bulletproof love. First times, and first regrets. We wipe each others tears. Sharing Push-up bras and diet tips. Lying to our parents about where we were, watching SpongeBob. She had a pet bird. I accidentally let it out of the house.

4 wheelers, flip flops, and basketball shorts. Music playing through the house on the stereo speakers and sidewalk chalk. Doing online challenges and taking group pictures. Smells like teen spirit. Inseparable. We could pass for sisters.

I was Home.

I have not been home since I was 13.

[educated-druggie]

november

I was born too early, to a mother that showed love too little, and a father who drank too much.

Both of them angry.

So now, I can only let myself cry when I drink alone.

I am angry too.

[educated-druggie]

this is it.

it’s hard to see it when you’re in it, or when you’re too busy watching those that harmed you get their happy endings. it tastes bitter to watch them. a mis justice.

rent is due and you’re short, and the ac doesn’t work, you have so much laundry to fold, and your car is low on gas, and- my god.

how beautiful it is.

one day you will be sitting on the porch of the house that you rent,

that you can’t afford a couch for,

drinking sticky sweet coffee out of the fine china coffee cup you got from goodwill,

pinky up; of course.

the sun will warm your legs, the birds will sing their songs, and your eyes will open.

colors will brighten, you will take a breath so deep your lungs strain to hold it, and slowly exhale. you noticed this morning that you have developed smile lines. you paint flowers and butterflies on your bed frame just because. you get a call from a person that you adore. you burn your food so badly in your favorite pan that you have to throw it away because you got distracted dancing around the house to the music playing on the tv.

this is it.

suddenly you’re 6 years old and nothing bad has happened yet.

contentment that left you when you were 7 fills your chest like warm honey, and the knowledge lifts the weight that has been on your back for years:

this is it.

your happy ending. your soft place to land.

how wonderful it is to have survived all of that and remained.

suddenly, everything is years away and can no longer touch you.

you have fought.

you have survived.

you have remained.

you now get to live.

and how exciting this is.

one day it will be okay. one day you will find your way back to yourself. one day you won’t dread tomorrow.

[educated-druggie]

beige 

Her soul is a beautiful tapestry—woven with threads of kindness, resilience, and a light that quietly touches everyone lucky enough to cross her path.

how lucky am i, to have crossed her path.

[educated-druggie]

i think back at all of the things i swore i’d never make it through,

i laugh.

of course.

how could i have been so stupid? so blind?

the devastating truth envelopes every last nerve ending; warm sunshine on my skin.

everything that’s dead and gone. it was never going to be. it couldn’t be.

because it’s you.

oh god, it has always been you.

[educated-druggie]

i was lovely once.

i see my reflection as i look at the old photos of hanging on my mother’s wall.

two girls look into eachothers eyes.

only i see.

i wish to get back to her.

she was lovely.

i was lovely once.

i wish to get back to her.

she was bold, bright, and loud. funny, sweet, kind, charming. a heart too big for her body;full of emotion for all to see. freckles painted in fair skin from the heavens above, sun giving her a golden halo to match with her smile bright enough to blind. she was fearless; she was alive.

i am the reflection of her.

where she once shined, now remains shades of gray. trapped in the body of a ghost.

she tries to claw her way back out, but she always gets stuck in my throat.

[educated-druggie]

isn’t it odd?

what are the odds that the house i moved into- that has felt like home from the moment i stepped foot through the door, that i have felt more content in since i was eight years old,that i finally know what it feels like to be at peace in-has bedroom walls that match the color of my childhood bedroom?

almost as if to say, “ this isn’t just a new chapter, it’s the beginning of the second book in the series. you’ve come full circle; you are home. you can breathe.”

the universe will always communicate, if you take the time to listen.

[educated-druggie]

stuck.

I find myself on the precipice. Once again, I am waiting on nothing and everything, all at once. As always; stagnant.

Waiting for a sign; unwilling to make my own.

[educated-druggie]

home sweet home

Just as molasses moves in the dead of winter, we take two separate laps around the sun.

Still, the house sits.

the house that built me

Windows boarded, lights out.

the great silence keeps complaining.

Poking.

Prodding.

Chipping away at its warped plaster walls.

Bored.

Irritated.

Lonely.

Still, the house sits.

Windows boarded, lights out.

Foundation leaning, cracking.

Grass overgrown.

Empty.

Bitter.



[educated-druggie]

ghost stories

I want to haunt you—not with shadows, but with the quiet ache that lingers in the spaces you can’t forget.

I want to linger in your mind,

Like a fleeting dream you can’t forget,

A whisper that curls around your thoughts,

A feeling, sharp and intimate, like regret.

I want to be the silence after a scream,

The pulse that quickens in your sleep,

The thought that dances just beyond reach,

The secret you bury but can’t keep.

I want to haunt you in your waking hours,

In the corners where your gaze won’t fall,

A presence felt, but never seen,

A shadow that answers your silent call.

Not with chains, not with sorrow—

But with the quiet, endless ache,

That lingers, softly, like the soft touch of a forgotten lover,

A memory you can't forsake.

[educated-druggie]

i beg

let me consume you; body, mind, soul.

I beg.

I beg.

I beg.

show me every ugly part of yourself, so that,

I might bask in the beauty of it.

let my hands caress every crack in the porcelain shell that shields your skin from prying eyes.

i beg you, let me be tender, let me be kind.

show me every white puckered scar,

every chipped tooth, every bump, every bruise.

so that we may compare them to mine own.

allow your armor to chip away so that i might see you as you are.

i beg you, let me love you as a whole.

i will trace the lines, the times, the places. i will learn every piece of you that you cannot embrace. every piece that bring you shame, embarrassment, anger, doubt.

i will commit each one to tender memory, and replace them with warmth and comfort.

i beg you, let me be patient, let me be kind.

let me see into your soul, unflinchingly, with the eyes of a mother seeing her child for the first time.

heaven sent; holy.

i beg you, let me protect, let me trust.

i beg you, show me all of your embarrassment; bare, and i will lay down my own porcelain shell and show you the same.

let me consume you. body, mind, and soul.

i beg.

i beg.

i beg.