healinghks - Tumblr blog

[healinghks]

Graveyard

I am loved the same way that a graveyard is. 

It’s the choice location for a moonlit, scandalous and illicit affair,

but in the daylight, 

no would choose to build their own house there. 

There’s people you can pay to take the ghosts out of haunted houses, 

but 

there’s no one crazy enough to be willing to pay to have them let in. 

[healinghks]

small

small girl

small mind

small love

small feelings

small age

small life

small maturity

make choices for her

she’s small

[healinghks]

I’m just as crazy as everyone thought

Abused to abusive

Villain with a victim complex

I’m just as useless as everyone thought

Virgin to whore

Perfect candidate to hit and quit

I’m just as stupid as everyone thought

A+ student to an F in romance

Perpetually heartbroken idiot who never learns

At least now it’s all confirmed

Hopeless romantic to cynical bitch

Emotionally distant winning lawyer

[healinghks]

The Heaviest Weight

I’ve told you my deepest secrets

And now you act like I’m not in the same room.

You’ve seen the most intimate parts of me

And now we avoid eye contact.

We’ve shared 6 months of memories

And now we can’t even share this space.

Amidst the barbell plates and dumbbells,

the heaviest weight in this room is the silence.

[healinghks]

Costco

Everything everywhere reminds me how alone I am.

The baby in front of me in the cart at Costco is smiley and giggly. The parents pushing her cart look madly in love, even amidst the chaos of a Costco on Sunday. In the outdoors section, they sneak a kiss and when he thinks nobody’s looking, he grabs her butt and she swats him away, laughing.

I push my cart alone to go get chicken breast and eggs, wondering if anyone will ever love me that way. Families are everywhere, reminding me of everything I don’t have.

A kid asks his mom if they can buy popsicles. She says, “maybe next time.”

Maybe next time.

Maybe next time somebody loves me, they won’t lie to me. Maybe next time somebody gets to know me, they’ll want to stay. Maybe next time someone meets all of me, they’ll actually fight for me. Maybe next time somebody loves me, it’ll be real.

But in this moment, all I see are bright overhead lights shining on all the things I can’t have. Inside of the Linwood Blvd. Costco, it sinks in that I have no one and maybe never will. I can pretend that I’ll find fulfillment in reaching my goals, but success is nothing if you have no one left to share it with.

[healinghks]

I’ll Miss This

I love the way you kiss me

I love the way your hands go down and down and down

How I get so eager for it

How you tease me to torture

How it feels when your tounge makes its first landing

Electrified and on fire

Nothing in the world but this

Cool breath over a burning flame

Fingers come to play too

A steady drum beat soundtracks an upcoming electric shock

Faster and faster and faster

Until I come undone

And you love it and praise it

Sexuality returned to one who thought she lost it

I want it again

And more of you

You fit so well

And then don’t stop

And still don’t stop

And oh my god

Fucking remarkable

I can’t take it

Fuck me

I love you

Please don’t go

[healinghks]

Broadway Boulevard

I’m walking home from the bar alone and I keep wondering what you’re doing.

Do you miss me?

Do you miss her?

Do you still love me?

Did you ever love me?

Why did you lie to me?

I held it together tonight. I only had two drinks at Harry’s and only got a little bit buzzed. I got Moscow Mules with my new coworker and now I’m walking home alone. Some homeless man at the bus stop followed me for a block, yelling at me and asking for my number. He told me I’m the sexiest girl he’s ever seen. I forgot my pepper spray. I think if things were okay, I probably would’ve drunk called you to come pick me up because I was a little bit scared.


Would you have come?

The first time I had sex with you, I was drunk as fuck and I can’t remember a lot of it now.

The last time I had sex with you, I was high as fuck and I can’t remember a lot of it now.

But I remember everything in between. And I keep alternating between being really appreciative of those memories to being angry as fuck that you did this to me.

I just passed Mini Bar on my walk home. I remember one time you invited me there with you after one of your gigs, but I was too tired so we just slept at my house instead.

I just passed Fitz Blarney Stone. I remember going there with you once for a drink and then going home to your bed. What was once one of my favorite places now feels like a far away land. Was anything in that bedroom real? It felt really real for me.

I just passed McDonald’s on Broadway. That place reminds me of the St. Patrick’s Day parade. I wasn’t able to go to the parade with you because I had class, but I picked you up, we ate gyros and cuddled together, and then went to an old man bar. I remember saying that I was so excited that next year’s St. Patrick’s Day was on a Saturday and that I’d be able to go with you to the parade.

I just passed a gay bar. I remember telling you about being pressured into a threesome once. I remember telling you about my fears of you being mad at me if I didn’t want to. I remember feeling so hesitant and then eventually so safe. I would test you and you’d pass every test on the first try. You never made me feel like I was asking for too much as I recovered from something traumatic. I just can’t bring myself to believe that the person who made me feel so safe in so many different ways was lying to me. I gave you more than my body; I gave you my heart, and it was thrown around like it wasn’t fragile.

I just passed the Uptown Theater. I went to a rave there once and sent you a picture of my outfit. You told me you wanted to take my dress off. I wish you still did.

I’m on my street now. There’s a little patch of grass by my apartment where I slapped you in the face.

I’m in my apartment now. I remember crashing onto this couch with you on Christmas Eve. Drunk, giggly, and cuddly, we started forming the connection right then and there. I asked you to stay, but insisted that I didn’t want to have sex. But the energy between us was too strong to resist, just like it was that final time when we knew we shouldn’t but we couldn’t stop.

I miss you so much.

Everything happy has washed away. There’s only hurt and occasional hope (delusion?) that turns to hurt again. I’ve just started a new chapter of my life. I’ve met new people. I’m making money. I’m doing the thing I’ve always wanted to do. But you’re not here.

It’s just me, alone, on Broadway Boulevard.

[healinghks]

The Bricks That Built the Castle

All the little things that added up to the big thing and now the thing is just nothing

I don’t know I’m high and this is just shit copied from iMessage

January 2: Can we do another drunken night out before your schedule goes to shit?

(We never even made it to the point of me having more free time. You vanished by then. Scared of stability )

January 6: I don’t wanna be safe I wanna fuck lollll

January 18: You can spam text me whenever you want - it’s mildly cute, lol

January 19: Your cortisol is probably through the roof. Also, he just started your new meal plan and you haven’t been able to gym super effectively - but you will recover and you’ll go hard, and you’ll get results

February 16: Oh my god are you okay? That looks terrible, do you need anything?!

February 17: How’d it go rockstar

February 22: I wanna run around town doing bullshit with you

February 24: Are the roads bad? I’m brave and stupid

March 7: Do you need chocolate?

March 11: Will you please sleep with me tonight

March 13: Hey, no big deal if it’s too disruptive, but I thought I’d offer to drop by this chocolate

April 6: hope you slept well! Do you need anything from Costco today?

April 20: Helene - that it the most vulnerably you've ever come to me, and I appreciate it so much. Currently, I have a handful of bandmates planning to come over for a fire after. I wouldn't be the slightest bit upset if that plan fizzles out, as I would love to come hold you

April 29: I am going to probably bring you some pre prepped chicken burritos for the week if you’ll have them

May 19: Thinking of you festival-ing makes me smile

[healinghks]

True Blue

“It feels so good to be known so well. I can’t hide from you like I hide from myself” - a lyric from a song that I sent to you.

But… you could hide from me…

3 months that you held me and told me how much you loved me while holding in a giant secret

How did you live with yourself?

How did the guilt not eat you alive?

3 months that are absolutely tainted

I’m STILL in absolute shock

Maybe I never knew who you were

Maybe no one will ever be good enough for you

Maybe you’ll never be good enough for yourself

What a depressing life

To still be figuring out basic things at 39

To be wrecking havoc on everyone around you

To be selfish and cruel

To be outpaced by a 25 year old

That’s true blue

[healinghks]

Processing: 10 Steps To Breaking an Attachment

This is not artistic at all, this is pure processing 

1. Make a commitment to live in reality. 

Jason does not want to be with me. He wants to be with other women. He does not love me the way that I love him and he most likely never will. He is a 39-year-old man with no sense of self. He is someone who prefers chaos. I am someone who needs stability. We are not compatible. 

2. Live in real time.

I am heartbroken. My trust has been destroyed. Everything that I thought was happening the past 6 months was not reality. There were big gaps in my understanding of who Jason is. He is not the person he presented himself as. As a result, I’m spending the first week of my VERY important job crying about him. The make-believe happy future is not the real time. In real time, my nervous system is shot, I’m not sleeping, I’m misusing stimulants, and I’m neglecting my personal self-care routine. The past memories are not the present and they will not create a future either. 

3. Live one decision at a time and one day at a time. 

I will finish writing this and go to sleep. I will wake up tomorrow morning and workout. I will go to work. I will be a good mini-lawyer. I will lift weights. I will shower. I will meal prep. I am okay. I am under no obligation to cut him out of my life overnight. it is only one week that we have agreed on for space. I can do this one day at a time. 

4. Make decisions that only support your self-care.

I will not text him, even though I want to. I will give him space. I will give myself time to re-immerse myself into the things that are good for me. 

5. Start feeling your emotions.

I feel disappointment. I feel grief. I feel betrayed. I feel sad. I feel insecure. I feel like I lost someone very dear to me. I do not want to lose him because then I will have to face those emotions. I am safe in my body to feel these emotions. My body is capable of healthy crying. My body will pull me through. I am not having a heart attack. I am sad, but I am safe. I can allow myself to feel these emotions without expecting someone else to comfort me through them.

6. Learn to grieve.

I am grieving the past memories that I thought were real. I am grieving that I haven’t slept in his bed in a while. I am grieving a future I started to dream of. I am grieving how I thought he’d fit into my family. I am grieving that our connection will forever be altered. I am grieving the loss of my hope, which was somewhat addicting. I am grieving the loss of my person, a person I loved so deeply.

7. Understand the “hook.” To do this, identify what, exactly, you are losing. It may be a fantasy, a dream, an illusion. 

I am losing validation. I am losing the feeling that someone actually loved me. I am returning to the feeling that I am not worthy of real love and I should accept less. 

8. Write a list of bottom-line behaviors for yourself. 

I will not compromise my morals to be with someone. I will not allow myself to be someone’s second choice. I will not attempt to convince someone that I am the right choice. I will choose what is best for my emotional and physical health. I will not stay up past 11pm on work nights. I will not keep skipping meal prepping to keep having the same conversation over and over again. I will not exhaust myself on someone else’s behalf. I will make choices that best support my goals and nervous system regulation.

9. Build your life.

I will succeed in my job. I will meet my fitness goals. I will spend time with my friends. I will spend time with my family. 

10. Build healthy connections. 

This one is hard because I thought we really had a healthy connection. I never felt anxious with him until that day came. I will start focusing on my other relationships: my best friends, my family, my new group of coworkers. 

[healinghks]

Sad, Beautiful, Tragic

I was 15 years old when Taylor Swift’s album Red came out. There was one song on the album that I always skipped: Sad, Beautiful, Tragic. It was a nice song, but I just... didn’t get it. I had never been in love and I had never been devastated. I just couldn’t understand the sentiment that one could find appreciation in having been devastated. If two people love each other that much, I thought, then why couldn’t they just work it out? 

I wish I was still 15. I wish I still didn’t understand that song, but at 25, I do. I understand what it’s like to be absolutely devastated and also to have appreciation for what was. 

What we had was beautiful. Two freshly heartbroken souls learning to find joy and share vulnerability with another person again. Two people eager to get closer and closer and closer. Two people willing to take the risk of a big hurt just to feel something so right. An intense connection that couldn’t be stopped, even when we started to know that it should stop. We were magnetic. We were wild. We were passionate. We were in deep love.

“This feels so nice,” I said, whispering into the pillows while tucked under your arms.

“I was just thinking the same thing,” you said back.

And that was all that needed to be said that night. We felt it. We knew that we had something that couldn’t be denied.

And so we went on to build something beautiful. On an empty and abandoned lot, we constructed a sparkling castle that I thought was almost ready to be revealed to the world. 

When the bomb dropped, I exploded. I lit fire to everything around me. If my world had to burn, I wanted to burn everything else to the ground, too. Out of despair, I threw gasoline onto the castle, too, and then panicked and tried to stop the fire. You joined me in trying fruitlessly to put out the flames. But even after it all started to burn down, we had to stop and stare because even the fire itself was still kind of beautiful.

Our story is the story that doesn’t have a happy ending, but it sure was beautiful. It was a Greek tragedy; a story that devastates all who hear it, but also leaves a profound mark. It’s the story of a twin flame, or maybe a karmic relationship. It’s the story of the necessary pain in order to find Self. It’s the story of love so deep and so strong that the people experiencing it know that they aren’t what’s best for each other. 

It’s real love, baby. Just like the song we danced to in my living room. 

And it’s sad. And it’s beautiful. And it’s tragic. 

But mostly… I want to emphasize again how beautiful it was. 

A girl opening her eyes to the world again. A man who showed her how she truly deserved to be treated. The most profound Christmas Eve in modern history. Strums of the guitar in the living room. Feeling beautiful for the first time. Feeling loved for exactly who I am. Loving you for exactly who you are, with the confession of love emerging in the dead of the night in the warmest place I’ve ever been. Moments of self-discovery throughout an intense entanglement. The excitement. The hope of it all. The learning. The warmth. The love. Oh god, the love.

The love was worth it all. I’d do it all over again. My only regrets are for not telling you how much I truly loved you sooner and also for hurting you.

Like Taylor said… What a sad, beautiful, tragic love affair. 

I’ll move on someday, most likely, but I’ll always wish it would’ve been you. If something ever changes, please let me know. I’m ready to turn the ashes into a castle again.

[healinghks]

I wonder if it will always feel this bad

If maybe one day I’ll get my appetite back

If I’ll ever feel warmth again

If I won’t wake up and immediately feel the heartbreak and the heavy

If one day someone will only want me

Seems unlikely

Perhaps I should stop betting on losing dogs

[healinghks]

The Guitar Pick on My Nightstand

There’s nothing left. 

The front apartment door that I crashed through with you, drunk and ready to fuck you in my kitchen, is now just a door that I walk in silently by myself. The bedroom door that we burst through after a drunken Christmas Eve is now one that I open and close quickly to unravel in the privacy of my bedroom, away from a sister who just doesn’t understand. 

Somehow, I’ve found a way to feel both completely numb and feel everything at once all at the same time. I feel every single part of the heartbreak in all of the most contradicting ways possible. I want to starve myself but I also want to binge eat. I want to fuck 100 guys and I want to be celibate. I want to rot in my room forever and I want to travel far away. 

“It’s okay,” said my sister to me after she could hear me sobbing from the living room. “It wasn’t you.”

But that’s the problem -- it wasn’t me. It was never me. It was never going to be me. 

There’s nothing left. Everything’s gone, including my dignity. I gave everything away. Every part of my body, every ounce of my love, every corner of my soul. I never let anyone close. I took a chance, got betrayed, and was left with nothing but complaints about how I didn’t love enough and I didn’t shed my armor fast enough. As if I wasn’t putting myself back together. As if I wasn’t working towards building my future. As if I wasn’t doing the best I fucking could. But it just wasn’t fast enough. 

I swore to myself that I’d never beg for a man ever again in my life, yet there I stood, pleading on a porch at 1 AM for a chance. My heart was giving out and I used my last breath to ask to be chosen. After that point, all that was left of me died. A pulse couldn’t be found and the ECG flatlined. A decomposing corpse drove herself home that night and put herself into her coffin, praying that when she awoke, she’d be in a heaven where she was yours. 

The corpse wasn’t worthy of honesty, wasn’t worthy of a chance, and wasn’t worthy of being heard. She wasn’t worthy of the beautiful life that could have been built. 

Last summer, I fucked a guy in the backseat of a car in the parking lot of the Miami Heat stadium. He had bought me three drinks in the club. The drinks were terrible. The sex was terrible. But it was a 15 minute distraction from heartbreak. When I did get back from vacation, my ex and I decided to talk. In the interest of honesty, I told him that I slept with someone. We were already broken up, anyways, but I wanted to be honest since we were thinking about trying to repair things. He screamed at me and told me that I was “worth three drinks.”

Maybe I am worth just a few drinks. Three drinks brought my biggest heartbreaker into my bed on Christmas Eve. One drink got a man from the bar in my bed, but only after I sucked his dick in the parking lot of The Levee first. Zero drinks got a guy from Yard Bar in my bed once and afterwards, he left without even giving me a hug or kiss. Maybe I am a cheap fuck. Maybe I am meant to be fucked but never chosen. That’s exactly what went on with Jeremy, too -- fucked and flattered but not chosen in the end, to an extent that I’ve never told anyone except for my closest friends. There’s some things I’m so embarrassed about that I never even told my therapist at the risk of my feelings being invalidated. 

I’ve never believed in the idea of a soulmate. I never thought that one person should be able to fulfill all of an individual’s needs. Not every person can be everything to everyone. There’s a need for different relationships in people’s lives. I’ve always believed that partnership was a choice, a commitment made between two people with a foundation built from love. I knew that soulmates weren’t exactly real, but fuck, you felt pretty close to what one would be. I never felt so connected to anyone. But maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe connections that could possibly come were more important than a connection that did exist. 

Everything’s gone. All that’s left are memories, hurt, regret, and a yellow guitar pick on my nightstand. 

[healinghks]

Me, Myself, and I

I’ll write my own name in the sand

I’ll carve my own initials into a tree

I’ll drive through Christmas in the Park with only the driver’s seat occupied

I’ll try on wedding dresses for fun

I’ll walk down the aisle to an empty altar

I’ll book a dinner for one

I’ll take myself stargazing

I’ll go to the movies by myself

I’ll fill up just one half of the roller coaster cart

I’ll hold myself in bed at night

I’ll let myself rot from the inside out

Because at least feeling alone while being alone

Is better than feeling alone with another person

[healinghks]

Everything I’m Not

I’m not a good singer

I’m not creative

I don’t look good in baggy clothes

I’m not mature

I’m not pretty

I’m not loved by many

I’m not part of any alternative lifestyles

I’m not cool

I’m not artistic

I’m not stable

I’m not good-looking

I’m not carefree

I’m not anyone’s dream girl

I’m not cool

I’m not sexy

I’m not a rockstar

I’m not friends with everyone

I’m not anything

I’m no one

I’m whatever’s left after someone is abused

I’m a heavy suitcase that won’t fit in the overhead bin

I’m a square peg that keeps trying to fit into a round hole

I’m a volcano that won’t stop erupting

I’m a dropped slice of birthday cake

I’m a wine-stained dress that no one can wear anymore

Nothing to anybody

[healinghks]

Unidentified

What if I’m enough on my own?

What if I am worthy of real self-love and real self-respect? What if it has nothing to do with how hot I am, how good my grades are, how much money I’ll make, or how ripped I am? What if I’m just... enough as I am? 

But who am I? How can I be enough if there’s not enough of me to be enough in? What if I just don’t have an identity? 

Grief takes away everything. The world seemed larger and brighter when I was 22 and my family was healthy. 

---

Text Messages on November 17, 2020

Me: Did dad tell you he has chest pain whenever he breathes in?

Eileen: Ummmm no. Wtf

Me: I’m scared. The most common signs of lung cancer are: (copied and pasted list from WebMd). 

Text Messages on December 3, 2020

Me: Is it bad to say I already knew... Like I knew when he told me he had chest pain a month ago...

Eileen: I think we all knew for a long long time

Me: Has anyone told Danny? 

---

Who was I prior to when those text messages came in? Because I haven’t been anyone since that day. 

All I remember from the first half of 2021 is the color gray. I would drive to work and it would be gray. I’d drive to work and shed silent tears listening to “I Know The End” by Phoebe Bridgers, “Soon You’ll Get Better,” by Taylor Swift, and “What Sarah Said” by Death Cab for Cutie. The trifecta of songs for a depressed 23 year old who could feel that her father was going to die. I would drive home from work and it would be gray. I’d take a nap in my gray bedroom. If I could muster any energy, I’d go on a run on a gray sidewalk. 

At some point, I detached from the gray. I started to build a personality that wasn’t me at all. In the second half of 2021, the color of my world shifted to a bright shade of pink. I wore pink leggings on a vacation to Colorado with my friends that I took while my dad stayed at home, miserable because of how much the radiation was affecting him. I was wearing a pink shirt to work when my mom called me and said that my dad had decided to switch to hospice status rather than continue treatment. I was wearing pink shorts when I destroyed a 4-year-long relationship because I wanted to feel free. I was wearing pink lipgloss when I met a guy at the bar a few days later and brought him home with me. Everything was pink and carefree. I posted pretty selfies and got a comment that said, “You seem so HAPPY! I’m so happy for where you are in life right now.” I thought I was the shit. My dad was dying and I was still happy. I thought I was the perfect image for how someone could be happy in tough times. 

In 2022, the color started shifting to orange. Orange is a crazy color. It’s beautiful, but you can’t have too much of it; it just doesn’t ever work out that way. I lost sense of everything actually happening. Everything was fun. I did a lot of MDMA. I danced a lot. I went to the movies. I smoked so much weed. I ate at new restauraunts. I always had weekend plans. I even had weeknight plans. I was going, going, going. My going, going, going wasn’t even stopped by my dad’s death. I had plans made a few days after. 2 weeks after he died, I went to Miami, got dances with strippers, popped bottles, and fucked in a hotel room with a mirror on the ceiling above the bed. I was orange. I was crazy, I was sexy, I was fun, I was unhinged and in denial. 

In the second half of 2022, I woke up. The loss of my human distraction, a piece of shit named Jeremy, sent my world into chaos. The world was blue because I was blue. Ocean waves of sadness poured out of me daily onto everyone I loved. I became nothing but heartbreak. It was visible to everyone around me. “Why does she always talk about getting cheated on?” said one of my classmates to another classmate behind my back. 

I don’t know what color this stage of life is for me. It’s unidentified. I don’t even know what the hell I’m doing. I don’t know what I’m feeling. I don’t know who I am. Who was I before my world became gray? Who was I before I painted the sky pink and then orange in a desperate attempt to remove the gray? What color was the world when things were normal? Why does it feel like the world used to be brighter and now everything is kind of mundane and monotone? Who would I have been if my dad didn’t get cancer when I was 22?

What if I would’ve been a better person if he hadn’t died? What if I never would have torn up a good relationship? What if I would’ve treated people better? What if I would’ve had more of an idea about who I am? What if I would’ve stayed friends with people I abandoned? What if I had never been raped? 

The what-ifs don’t get me anywhere, though. It’s useless to try to become the person I was pre-2020. I have to build a new me. But where do I start? 

I don’t want to die unidentified. 

Here Lies Helene... A nice person. A daughter and sister. A law student. 

I don’t know what else goes in that sentence. 

How could I be enough for another person if I’m not enough for myself? 

[healinghks]

Written last week

I’m on the beach in a beautiful place

You’re behind the front desk at an overpriced gym

I’m making law firm money

I think you’re still making $18 an hour

I finished 2022 as the top of my class in law school

You finished 2022 with a domestic violence protection order

I won

You lost

No matter what you thought

Updated today

Maybe I didn’t win

Because I keep finding you again in every man I date