harrisenfield42

[harrisenfield42]

Holy Water

How do you make holy water? You shoot it until it bleeds, and suck it dry like a vampire. Bite on the bullets like a child bites on a lollipop and break your teeth clean in halves, a different direction each time. Swallow your teeth and the bullets together - they’re the same anyway - and try not to choke. Ignore when they lodge in your throat and chest. Ignore that something is stabbing your heart, poking in every time it swells too much.

I will die her daughter, I will die with my chest in pain and my throat closed, I will die with my blood on my hands, I will die with my teeth in my chest, I will die with her voice in my head, I will die in a million ways, I will die in a million worlds, I will die of suicide, I will choke on my words, I will choke on my teeth, I will choke on my pills, I will choke on the bullets, I will die the worst parts of me showing, I will die every night, and I will wake up at 6:30 the next morning for work.

[harrisenfield42]

things that should have been the last straw

when my mom told me my heart was cold and black and dead

when i learned she loved me better dead in a dress than alive in a suit

when my dad told me i wasnt cutting enough for it to be real

when that lady at the psych ward told me i didnt want to die

when i didnt want to die but wanted to want to die

when i did want to die

when i tried to kill myself with fucking ibuprofen

when i tried to jump off the bridge

when i found out mfv was never the person i thought he was

when i found out sunny was the one i wanted to marry

when i listened to that one song the first time

when i realized it would never be my first time again

for that song, for sex, for meeting my sister, for everything.

for being alive

when i accepted that my biological mother would never love me

when i began to see my father in my brothers

when i began to see my mother in myself

when i didnt get a single text on the third day in a row i missed school

when all of them told me that i was the problem

when i realized i had been the problem

when i realized i wasnt the whole problem

when both of them loved me like it was easy

when i tore up my first painting

when i lost all my old writing

when i realized i was never going to be a writer

when i accepted i was never going to be the kind of me i wanted to be

[harrisenfield42]

Create

I don't know why I started writing. Probably as an escape. It was fantasy at first, fairy tales, heroism and heretics. And then poetry, woven woes. And now this, raw and unfiltered: insides spilling from my fingertips as if they were pens bleeding ink all over the inside of your bookbag. I think I write to keep myself alive. There's something about the words filtering from my mind to the page that reeks of bleeding with leeches. Let me expel my evils into the world of writing. Let my poetry sing my love and my prose scream my pain. Maybe someday I will be famous for my writing, but I doubt it will be while I am alive. A dead girl is more beautiful than a living one.

Consume

I think it started with Junie B. Jones. Then it was Little House on the Prairie, Harry Potter, Percy Jackson. There was a shift when I began reading anything by Ellen Hopkins. I'd read about people who were hurt, but never ones who hurt themselves. Or had real world issues happen to them, not like this. I'd never read stories about girls with scars who had never once done anything heroic. I'd never read books about bad people who were just trying to learn how to breathe.

Cavort

I am screaming lyrics as I run. I am walking with my shirt off. I am dancing with a girl I will never see again. I am always in motion. Even asleep, my chest rises and falls. Even in death, I will settle and then rot. I will only be still when I am dust, and even then, there will be parts of me in everything that broke me down. I will continue to move and be until the fucking sun explodes. I cannot truly kill me.

Commune

There is nothing to tell you that you are not good enough like finally being in a room with people just as talented as you. Does my work mean anything? Her analogies are better, his imagery strikes harder, my words are ink on paper while theirs are blood on the ground. Will I ever be enough? Will anyone read my books like I read the books of those before me? Of course they will, says my TA. My professor says I have the best piece she has seen yet. I am told by someone I look up to that she wishes she could do what I do. My mom already has a tattoo of my words. Perhaps I am eternal in at least one way. Must art be forever to be worthy?

[harrisenfield42]

flask

no alcohol in my flask, just the overwhelming burning suffocating desire to ask: if we did not have history (and blood) would you still love me? did you chose me because i am me or because i am familiar?

everyone is scared of new things. there is love/hate/both/neither in familiarity and in home – what is a home? is it this? You? is it the trust you have in others telling you i might be good? – am i good? can good people be full overflowing consumed by this much rage? anger? – why am i so angry all the time? when will it stop? when will i be able to think in colors other than red, a speaking voice, a sense of calmness? – when will i be able to think my own thoughts again? – have i ever been myself? or has God just decided to test out who i could have been? what does she want with me? –

what do you want with me? do you love me at all? how could you when i am everyone/no one/anyone?

[harrisenfield42]

"for legal reasons i wont" what about not legal reasons. are you telling me this because its a phrase and we are from tumblr or are you saying this to me because you dont want to get caught. do you just want to do it in peace? would you tell me if you were going to kill yourself? would you even allow me a proper goodbye? do you love me enough to let me say goodbye for the last time to your face?

[harrisenfield42]

your hands

your hands are soft, small, with painted nails. every time i see you, you show me the different colors you’ve painted on in your bedroom. you tell me once, giddy, that your toenails match in shade. i love you and your delicate hands. if you were to tell anyone else the violence they have seen, endured, inflicted, i doubt they would understand. but i know how hard you fought to stay soft, fighting parts of yourself and hiding away so you could look at the world and not hide your face. and i know you deserve peace — you should not ever, ever need to touch something so violent again. so why do i let you hold me? and why do you seem happy to?

[harrisenfield42]

an incomplete list of things that could fix me

the water from a creek/turtles/sage green/the smell of lavender/riding my bike down the hill behind my childhood best friends house at top speed/being friends with her again/not coming out until college/learning to play violin/or guitar/or piano/being able to sing again/writing poetry as easily as i used to/ink blots on my fingers/oil paints on my sweater/going to an addison grace concert/or chloe moriondo/being gifted again/motivation/caffiene/caffiene working again/writing fanfiction/reading fanfiction/reading/poetry/essays/fiction/lyrics/memoirs/everything/falling asleep with my eyes open/being awake with my eyes closed/learning moderation/a strong drink/a joint/sunshine on my face/rain on my back/scars on my wrists/a flat stomach/a thigh gap/a number on the scale that starts with none/strawberry shortcake/strawberry shortcake pajama pants/contacts/better eyesight/ The will to live

[harrisenfield42]

nothing i can be

teeth grazing my thigh as i stay trapped inside the meadow of my mind soon enough i find there is nothing here for me there is nothing that i need there is nothing i can be that will let me free hollow, my mind remains filled with peace and pain acceptance in my veins suddenly i drain bite until i bleed and forever remind me that there is nothing i can be that will let me free

[harrisenfield42]

music boxes and ghosts

i turn the crank on the music box: once, twice, thrice; the canned music is mechanical and ill-timed. there’s nothing to be afraid of here, in a childhood bedroom - not yours, but the one you imagined when you were little. the ghost of the girl you could have been dances before you, arms outstretched. the teen you are takes her hands and she hugs you before spinning off into smoke. you continue to dance, not knowing she’s gone, not knowing you’re alone. until you open your eyes, and stare the walls have teeth, you’re in the maw of the beast it closes on you as smoke leaves its mouth like it was vaping her and your screams are swallowed with your body, too high in fat, too low in charm or beauty. you tumble down its throat, silvery and burning like the metal slides on the wooden playground you smoke at. the music doesn’t follow you down.

[harrisenfield42]

Misery loves company, and my mother was never alone: I cling to my mother to this day, whether I want to or not. (I don’t know what I want) Hitting wasn’t even the worst of it. I was six and could tell if she was mad by how she walked. Steps in rapid succession, the thirteenth stair creaking under her weight. I’d put away whatever I was doing and take out a book: she can’t get mad at me for reading. Yes she can. She’s always mad at me. She hates me. She tells me that every day. And whatever it is, I’ve already done it. She already hates me again.

I’m nineteen. I tell her how much everything hurts, tell her I’m suicidal again. It takes her days to offer even an empty-sounding response. She cannot be bothered.

I think a part of her will always hate me.

[harrisenfield42]

Acid

There is acid in my throat. Sour and bitter, like misplaced love, I swallow it down and I bite my tongue. Acid burns. Best not to burn everyone near. Better to bear the pain Than to endanger your family. My mom taught me how to spell family (instead of “familie”) by saying “FAM I L Y, for I Love You.” Even though she’d yell that she hated us, Should have never been a mother. Swallow the acid. My brother is a child, always has been. He is too young to be burned. I know he swallows his own poison. I can see it when he yells, When he curses me out. When he says to Dad, I don’t fucking care if you die. Dad is good at pretending it’s sweet, Though maybe it is when you wash it down With weed and a strong drink. I’m sure both taste better than what He’s had to swallow when he was a child. My older brother is the best at hiding it. The way he acts, you’d never suspect He had anything to digest like the rest of us. He takes his at three in the morning, And unless you’re there for one of his Coughing fits when he resembles both Mom and Dad in the worst of ways, You’d almost believe he was normal. My little sister looks normal, too. Out of everyone, she’s the only one who admits To me that she swallows acid too. She pretends it’s not there at school, At her friends’ sleepovers and parties, But by the time she gets home, she’s tired She lays in bed and stays on her phone And looks in my full-body mirror too much And talks about how flat her chest is. She’s not even in high school. When Mom was in high school, she did sports And she was in the band. By the time I was in high school, she’d nearly given up. She is the most verbal about her poison, Only because it causes her to vomit. She corrodes us, scarring my arms And my sister’s thighs and my brother’s forehead And my older brother’s hands and all of our Morals. All of our souls. We all scar our own throats. Swallow the acid. Don’t be Mom.

[harrisenfield42]

Favorite Dress

I want to fit into my favorite dress again. Not enough to starve myself completely, Or burn two thousand calories every day, But still - I wish it would fit me again. Maybe I want it bad enough to cut back. Sugar-free soda and no more sweets, Two meals a day. It’s fine, because I’m not Starving myself. I know people worse off. I’ll only burn a hundred and fifty calories. I only want to fit into my dress again, I only want to be a hundred and forty. That’s within the healthy weight range, So I can’t possibly have an eating disorder. Ignore my stomach hurting and my thighs Burning and my calorie tracker app. I want to fit into my favorite dress again.

[harrisenfield42]

i dont even exist actually im just an oc

[harrisenfield42]

brother

Fall to your knees & clasp your hands.

You are dirty and worthless,

But he loves you.

He has always been here for you.

He has gotten you out of the frying pan

Every single time.

And the fire was only meant to help.

He is your older brother,

Misguided but loving,

Bringing home prizes like poison

If you did a good job. He is addicted.

You are cautious, watchful,

Make sure he doesn’t go too far.

Make sure he doesn’t call the wrong guy a fag

Or hit on the wrong girl

Or call the friend in jail and say something

He shouldn’t be saying right now.

He’s not your real brother, of course.

You’re no more related to him than your neighbor.

He’s not even real, so why bother?

But he’s all you have some days.

All you have.

And he loves you in his own way.

Take care of him,

And he’ll find a way to take care of you.

[harrisenfield42]

the mirror / brokenness

brokenness: shards of memories like glass that cut until i bleed

i use the blood like glue to bind the edges into an unholy mirror

a hand here, a hush there, shadows and stones and stinging words

eyes: i see eyes everywhere, falling out of skulls and into mouths

the flaming woman, the dead child, the family friend with too many hands

and when i piece these shards of shapes of reality together

the reflection has nothing to do with what i started with.

when you quote someone you cannot misrepresent them by removing the word “not.”

but when you remove what is not, all you are left with is my blood.

so all i have of everything i have is this mirror which reflects

a hand on a thigh, on a mouth, inside me: pulling at my guts

and blood dripping down from my scalp into my eyes

and all i see in the mirror is a monster. Me

when you take what you have and make what you can,

you often end up with less than nothing

[harrisenfield42]

Rooms.

The Motel Room

The motel has one floor, a long and thin rectangular building with sixteen doors on each side. Each door has green paint under the peeling yellow and a window to the left, each with identical sun-bleached flowered curtains. The design of the curtains makes the man think of a bedspread in an old house that smells of cloves and stale air fresheners. In the back seat of the car, a boy is asleep. The man leaves him there as he gathers his wallet and keys, locking the door before making his way to the office.

The nighttime attendant is somewhere from their teens to their thirties and has a nose piercing that looks red and puffy and crooked. They don’t reply when the man says hello, but they take the man’s crisp one hundred dollar bill and give him three twenties in return before picking at their nails again.

The boy is still in his second-hand car seat when the man returns. He drives slowly around the building twice, missing the door the first time. The key sticks in the lock, and the man sighs deeply as he struggles, holding the still-sleeping boy in his other arm. The man sets the boy on the bed, leaving him over the covers for the time being. He turns on the air conditioning unit before going back to the secondhand car.

The man returns with all of their belongings at once: a duffel bag for himself, and a hiking backpack for the boy. He locks the door behind him and walks around both rooms, making sure all the windows are locked with their curtains drawn. He takes off the boy’s converse hi-tops and tucks them neatly under the foot of the bed, right next to the resting place of the bags.

From his duffel, the man pulls a pair of jogging shorts and an old band t-shirt which had been his estranged father’s. He dresses quietly before taking his bar of toothbrush and toothpaste to the bathroom. Normally, the boy would not be allowed to sleep without brushing his teeth, but the father realizes that it’s his own fault for staying on the road so late. It won’t hurt him to skip one night, reasons the man, but he ought to make sure the boy has brushed well before bed tomorrow.

The Blue Room

Three days after they began their journey from Grafton, Vermont, the man sighs as he pulls into what used to be a familiar driveway. The man’s father had only been twenty-five when he was eight years old and roughhousing in the lawn, or dumping their bikes on the sidewalk to come inside for fresh-baked cookies. The summers were better in the 70s, he thought. Lighter. They certainly weren’t as hot then as they were today, he told the boy in the backseat while he rolled his windows up.

The boy didn’t comment on the heat, instead asking if this is where he would meet his nana. The boy had never had a nana, nor a papa, nor a mother. He had only ever known the man and the various neighborhood girls who would keep an eye on him after school while the man was at work. The man sighed again and agreed: this is where the nana lived.

As soon as the man spoke, his mother came out of the house. She wore the same striped apron she had when she’d last made the man pancakes, though he couldn’t tell if she’d done it intentionally or not. She was in her forties and looked like she was in her thirties in every way save for the wrinkle between her brows. She smiled like a nana should, and the boy was pleased.

He ran to the nana as soon as he was let out from his car seat, immediately asking all the questions he had been saving up for her during the long car ride. She led him inside, and the man followed with the backpack. As the nana poured the boy a glass of lemonade, the man put the bag down on what used to be his childhood bed.

The wallpaper was still a blue sky with pristine white clouds, as it had been since the bedroom was a nursery. The bedspread was navy blue, with carolina blue sheets underneath. His dirty magazines were still hidden in the closet, under a cardboard box of cassette tapes. A collection of baseball cards remained in the shoe box under the bed. The man took them, wondering how much he could pawn them off for. He left just as the boy finished his lemonade, not bothering to say goodbye.

The Hospital Room

The boy hadn’t heard from the man once in the past eleven and a half years. Not a birthday card, not a Christmas gift, not even a phone call. His nana told him that was the way of the man, that one day he’d just packed up and left without a word when he was seventeen. Since then, she’d only heard from him twice: Once to tell her that he was having a baby with his girlfriend, and once to ask if she could keep his son with her in Payson, Arizona with her.

When the boy got the letter from the hospital, he almost didn’t bother to open it. His nana told him he should, and she told him he should visit the man too. She told the boy that she didn’t want him to have any regrets after the man was gone.

That was how the boy found himself facing the man in the hospital bed. The man was asleep, hooked up to three things. One was keeping track of his heart beats and other things, one was dripping liquid into his arm, and the boy was pretty sure the last one functioned as a toilet. The doctors said it was a miracle the man had lasted this long, that he would die any day now. Something about smoking too much or drinking too much, but the boy could see the bruised pock marks in the crook of the man’s left elbow.

The man woke up and saw the boy. He blinked slowly, then smiled. He slurred something that sounded like their name, which had been in the family for generations.

The boy turned around to leave without saying goodbye.