flashph0t0hraphy - Tumblr blog

[flashph0t0hraphy]

I hate myself. I hate things that are good for me, I am selfishly invested in the excitement of my own ruin. If only I could put other's needs aside and indulge my self destructive tendencies. I wish that I knew how to end things. Every time I think its time I convince myself I'm better off with you than without you. But I'm so bored. Im so bored.

Is it always going to be like this? Am I going to be bored for the rest of my life?

[flashph0t0hraphy]

i cant actually remember at which point i stopped crying out loud

when i was younger it was like full on wailing and i didn’t think there was any other way to cry

it must have been when i was four or five when i was put in time out for - i forget why it was a long time ago - and i was crying

aloud of course because that was what crying was

but my mom said to stop crying loudly and i didn’t understand and i think i remember her saying to learn how to cry without making sound

she must have been mad at me

sometime after that i’m sure i figured it out

my tears have been silent ever since then

is it a blessing or a curse

[flashph0t0hraphy]

the rocking

back and forth

of this bus

is putting me to sleep

the stop go stop go

is taking my sleep deprived mind

under it’s sweet warm wings

except that it’s a public bus and

if i fell asleep i’d probably be pretty embarrassed

and my eyes are shutting

but i still have shit to get done

so i guess exhaustion will just have to work right now

[flashph0t0hraphy]

I’m back at STA again

Killing time waiting for my boy

The minutes are crawling by

Time hasn’t moved this slowly since summer started

It’s hot but there’s a breeze

Almost chilly enough for me to get a hot drink

But if I did that I’d probably boil

The iced drinks at this place are limited

And gross

But it’s all about appearances here

I don’t want to appear lonely

Or useless

So here I am.

God I wish I liked iced coffee.

[flashph0t0hraphy]

The morning after the show

I wake up with a fever

And makeup smeared on my pillow.

I told you last night that I didn’t feel so good

“Relax, you all will do great,” was your response.

I should have explained

That what I was feeling wasn’t nerves,

But you also know

That I rarely get nervous before performances,

Although this one was a bigger deal.

I was delirious

By the time the show was over,

And acted less and less like myself

As the night went on.

You left early,

So naturally,

You did not notice.

I got in Sophia’s car,

And even though I had always thought Corey was rude,

Looking at her from the backseat of the red streetlight tinted car

With the feeling of cold air blowing on my face from outside

I couldn’t help but fall a little bit in love,

Not with her,

But with all things beautiful

And with my fever-induced delirium.

[flashph0t0hraphy]

im so very obviously drifting away

like an unwatched

untied boat

not being supervised or held down

by anything or anyone

i begin a peaceful, easy descent

into alcoholism.

and it’s a nice escape

from the whitecaps

that i have been floating on all this time

it’s relieving to drift into

nice

calm

water

no more angry, rushing emotions

just me

sedated yet unable to sleep at night.

perfectly numbed

so that i dont drown.

[flashph0t0hraphy]

It wasn’t enough for me to feel broken

But I did lose something that night

Something I probably won’t get back

You knew it, too

You whispered to no one in particular

“Oh, what have I done?”

But it wasn’t just you

You shouldn’t have said that

It was the both of us

What have we done?

[flashph0t0hraphy]

I take your hungry

Your tired

Your scared

I take

Your sad

Anxious

Lonely

Heartbreak

And I bottle it up for you

Not so that you can drink it or keep it

No I store it somewhere safe

Deep within my chest

Further in between the veins that lead to my heart

I take your emotions

And I keep them for you

So that you don’t need to feel anything but joy

Love

Happiness

Laughter

And I am okay

But there are some emotions even I cannot keep

Not by myself at least

It worries me that this time

I can’t keep your emotions for you

[flashph0t0hraphy]

i can’t handle the fact that you hate yourself.

i want you alive but you so obviously don’t.

i love you but you can’t love yourself.

that’s okay.

i can’t kiss the scars away, or hold your brain and clear it of illness.

but i can just listen.

i can hug you so tight that we feel both our ribs crack. not actually, but you understand.

i miss you when you’re gone.

i’d miss you so much if you were gone

[flashph0t0hraphy]

and my eyes

they sting from crying

why you ask

well i don’t know

i’m sure i knew when i started

but after a few years

you start to forget what you’re crying about

[flashph0t0hraphy]

Learning to love someone is not a necessity, but it’s something that people do without thinking sometimes. Maybe its not something that requires thinking. But thinking over it is definitely something people should do. If people thought more about who they love, there would be less misery. It would become less of a casual thing to say, “I love you,” those are big words, but they aren’t treated as such. So before you utter those words, think. Think for a second if you actually mean them.

But don’t keep it to yourself. Don’t stay quiet until it’s too late, until all you can do is smile and say, “I was in love, once.” Because that hurts more than any rejection, that hurts longer than any breakup, that hurts more than you may know. Take it from me, a person with regrets. An “I love you,” means everything, but not when you don’t think, and especially when you don’t say or show it.

Losing someone you love, and having never told them, leaves you emptier than if you had.

[flashph0t0hraphy]

I was once told that walking through a doorway could cause someone to to forget even the most precious memories they had. Memories of good, memories of bad. Memories of love and of loss. All in one second. Memories they had cherished, and memories that sat idle like cold, grey, piles of snow pushed to the side of some empty parking lot. All lost in an instant. It’s as if taking one step through a wooden frame was enough to release someone from their trauma, their sorrows, their pain. As if stepping over those old aching floorboards could somehow rid someone of their happiness, or love. I stand at that doorway now, and you are on the other side. And I can vaguely and strangely trace your outline, but even still you are no more than a blur. In this moment, I am taken over by longing, it grips me like a fever, hot and unrelenting. It terrifies me but I am still in awe of the misleading shape in front of me, on the other side of this doorway. I don’t dare move. The odds were stacked against me from the beginning, wearing my heart on my sleeve and my mind on my tongue. I can still remember the smell of your shampoo or the cadence of your footsteps in the morning. These hazy memories of you were burrowed away like the folded knit blankets we save for the rainy days that take us from time to time. All tucked away neatly. Until now. Now they come crashing down on me like the waves on the Southern Californian shore, waves that resemble your eyes. Eyes that used to dazzle me. Oh, I remember your eyes. I remember the way your laugh sounded as it echoed through the palace that you and I built together. Your silhouette is tempting, but on the other side of this doorway, this doorway that keeps us apart. This doorway where you remain nothing more than a shell of a person. Now I can almost see the rise and fall of your chest as you breathe. Is it really you? Or is all of this an illusion? I reach out to touch you, praying that you are more than just a vague blur, and find nothing. My foot crashes through those fragile floorboards, those fragile floorboards where I thought you once stood.

Falling now, I’m falling through empty blackness. The dark overcomes me, and it seems that I have become one with it, swirling into nothing more than a hazy smudge. Nosediving through nothing. Nothing nothing nothing nothing

it feels so good to be nothing

it feels so relieving to be free

I take one final look upwards, spinning through the dark void that swallows me like a warm blanket, at your empty silhouette, and I am already forgetting. I will see you again soon, when we next meet at this doorway.

the darkness is healing. it takes my shattered heart, my twisted mind, my hollow wooden limbs, and it makes me whole again. it warms me from the outside in, freezes me from the inside out. and now i am nothing more than an indistinct clutter of lost memories and frustrated tears. and it is so freeing.

[flashph0t0hraphy]

I’ve decided that love isn’t worth it. I’m here to please now, I’m here for you. I’m here for your roving hands, your prying eyes. I’ve given up on myself. I’ve decided that forcing myself to feel anything is problematic, and only leads to heartbreak. So I will stay with you, and I will feel nothing, and I’ve decided that that’s okay.

[flashph0t0hraphy]

very loud

John was in the

Van

And the music was

Very loud

And it was dark

And lights were passing

On the highway and

He was asleep but the music was

Very loud

And people were singing

And dancing

And John’s big shoulder was

Next to mine

And despite the fact that the music was

Very loud

My eyes started to droop

And his big shoulder was right by

My head

My head with my tired brain

My head on John’s big shoulder

Lights passing on the dark, cool, highway

Music turned up

Very loud

And yet

I fell asleep

[flashph0t0hraphy]

There’s a cute girl sitting a table away from me. She’s really pretty, she reminds me of a small red flower. I’m sitting here, skipping practice again, don’t tell the coaches, don’t tell my mom. I’m here to focus on my homework. But there’s a really cute girl sitting one table away. When she glances up I meet her gaze for two seconds. She has really nice eyes. Okay, back to the article I was annotating. She has shoulder length black hair and circular glasses and- is that a crew team? Do you think they see me? Look down, look down don’t make eye contact. Focus. Homework. Here we go. Her phone case is yellow, she’s waiting for her drink, she looked up at me! Okay hold up I can’t be going around getting girl crushes my dad would- her drink is here. I can’t quite see what it is but it fades from brown to white. It looks good. She’s not drinking it, she’s on her phone. Should I talk to her? No thats creepy. Just look down and focus on my work. That better not have been my coach passing by. This Starbucks is louder now, I have to turn my music up a bit more. It’s almost hurting my ears now. She’s playing Pokémon go, thats so adorable. That trend ended in 2016, awww. She’s so intense I think I love her. She’s mixed her drink so its not two different colors anymore, its just light brown. Who gets an iced drink in the fall when the winds are 30 mph? Her apparently. Speaking of the wind maybe its died down and the team needs me again. Nope, still freezing and gusty out. There is a reason why I skipped after all. She makes eye contact with me, it appears she can feel my gaze and doesn’t appreciate it. Alright then, I’ll stop looking.

[flashph0t0hraphy]

Youth Lagoon

He’s warmth. He’s wearing wool socks and trying to walk places as silently as possible. He’s the way the sunset looks over the bay, or the way birch trees look in the fall. He’s the half of a grapefruit sitting on your kitchen counter. He’s the way Bergen looks after she’s just finished crying and is giggling at a joke I just made to cheer her up. He’s lean and fast. He’s graceful and quiet. He’s perfect. He’s the way you feel when you wake up and you drink cold water. He is the crunch of leaves in the fall, the laughter of children, the warmth of the sun on your skin when you know it should be cold. He’s messy hair and longing looks. He is music.

[flashph0t0hraphy]

Cold wasn’t a new sensation for anyone here.

Our fingers would turn blue and icy, our teeth would chatter.

The smallest of us were in danger of death, or loss of limb.

But no one quit.

No, we chose this life ourselves. We chose this pain, this cold, this misery, this exhaustion.

Mind over matter, they all say to me, the youngest, smallest and newest of us.

Some wrap me in their arms, knowing I might be the next one to go to frostbite.

I don’t see why they do it anymore.

It’s not like they aren’t freezing too.

So I ask.

I say, “We’re all turning blue. Why do you guys want to spare me?”

Their responses differ.

“You’re young, you have more time left anyway,” they say.

“You’re a pretty little thing, shame to see that go to waste.”

“Youre smaller, you’ll freeze quicker.”

“So much potential-”

“-of a higher rank-”

Tears fell.

They were as important as I was, as a human.

But our positions were indeed different.

Later, most of us had fallen into a shivery sleep.

One of them came to me, again trying in vain to keep us both warm.

“Why?” I asked once more. Death was coming quick, and we all knew it.

“I don’t want to lose you.”

Poetic last words, aren’t they?