honeybushwriting

[honeybushwriting]

High Horse

Woah

How did I get up here?

I didn't ask for this

Who put me here?

I don't think the horse did either

I'm scared.

Either I fall (it's a long way down)

Or I have to keep this up

This is one honour I do not want

The pressure to rise ever higher

Holding a mirror against whoever decided I had to be special

For me or for them?

Their view by association must be nice

Basking, taking the credit

But I'm afraid of heights

[honeybushwriting]

[honeybushwriting]

maybe this time picking at Textures on my skin will lead to being silky smooth

[honeybushwriting]

[draft] Misspent Youth

"Look at this one," the first old woman said, stealthy eyes shifting to indicate a younger woman alone at the table opposite.

"Poor thing," her coffee date tsked, "another misspent youth."

"They're just so shameless these days," old bat 1 sighed, "doing their deeds out in public like that. At least pretend to hide the habit."

Old bat 2 craned her neck to try and see what the youngun was doing behind a laptop screen.

"Wasn't she Haggy Maggie's daughter? The kid who used to do the annual spelling bee?"

"I think so. What a sad way to raise a child, all those extracurriculars."

"They never turn out normal do they? The ones with brains. I blame that stuff they can get online now, the dangerous rubbish - what are they calling it these days?

"Scholarships," old bat 2 whispered, looking around nervously to make sure no one was within earshot of such language.

"It's a gateway to ambition," old bat 1 shuddered, "once they get one they can never stop, they get addicted to it. Makes them feel too good in the moment, I think."

"I heard she's on her third degree."

"NO," old bat 1 said uncomfortably loudly for the size of the cafe. "Where are her parents in all this??"

"They probably enabled it, they always were the clever sort."

"That poor girl could have turned out so normal. She could be working as a receptionist with time for hobbies and a family, and there she is, openly researching and studying like a complete slag."

"The prognosis for recovery from academia is so poor, too," old bat 2 said, looking into the dregs of her teacup. "Once you're successful it's nearly impossible to be happy ever again."

[honeybushwriting]

neurodivergent and queer people how are we feeling?

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My doctor and therapist: now with this autism + ADHD diagnosis you need to learn to unmask because masking all the time will make you burn out again and feel like shit

Other people: well it's just interesting how after getting the diagnosis you suddenly start behaving like that I mean I'm not saying you're faking it's just funny how you suddenly cannot be normal like you were before

[honeybushwriting]

hummingbird heart

birdcage ribs

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Some rando: You should think about stopping your prescription

Me: My pills make me not want to die tho

They: You shouldn’t want to die, that’s not normal

Me: Yeah that’s why I’m taking my pills

[honeybushwriting]

someone said ‘the version of me you created in your mind is not my responsibility’ and wow

[honeybushwriting]

“Sometimes when she was alone, and knew she was alone, she permitted her mind to play in a garden, and she smiled.”

— John Steinbeck, East of Eden (via luthienne)

[honeybushwriting]

When Anaïs Nin said “I don’t want worship. I want understanding,” and when George Orwell said “Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood,” and when Marina Tsvetaeva said “In my early childhood, for as long as I can remember, I thought that I wanted to be loved. Now I know and tell everyone: I don’t need love, I need understanding.”

[honeybushwriting]

“I hated going out with them because something would always happen.  It was usually on birthdays and special occasions.  I was painfully shy, but they weren’t shy at all.  They’d scream at each other in restaurants.  He’d never hit her in public because he was smarter than that.  He’d save that until we got home.  I felt like a soldier growing up.  Even the quiet times were stressful, because things could go wrong at any moment.  One time he chased her around the house with a knife.  Another time he broke her finger.  We’d always go to my grandmother’s house after the big incidents.  Those were the calmest times of my life.  But after a few weeks he’d always show up with flowers, and Mom would say: ‘OK, we’re going back.’  I tried to tell her that it wasn’t just her.  That we were suffering too.  But her answer was always the same:  ‘We can’t survive on our own.  And he doesn’t do it to you.’  Things changed once I started going to college.  I became more confident.  I felt powerful for the first time in my life.  I packed his bags.  I took his house keys.  I went to court, filed the forms, and served him myself.  Mom’s doing much better now.  She looks twenty years younger. She’s going out with friends again.  She’s taking theater classes.  And I just finished my first year of law school.” (Toronto, Canada)

[honeybushwriting]

women be

having undiagnosed adhd 

[honeybushwriting]

there’s a chip in the paint where there wasn’t before. i trace my fingers over the rough wood of the porch, a dark brown against the faded white post. it’s almost as worn as my soul. has it really been so long since i played in front of the house, hair wild and tangled with brambles? time seems to slipping away from me faster than the sun sets behind the mountains to the west. and maybe it’s the light of a dying star many millions miles away painting everything gold, but i feel a twinge of something like childhood memories. it weasels its way into my heart.

the little meadow behind my house reminds me more of home than the building in front of me. i’m almost tempted to run through the blackberry brambles now overgrown, no one to tend to them, and scream like the child i can still feel inside of me. she is a wild thing. her shout becomes mine as i stare into the thick, woody branches. the neighbor across the street stares at me. but only the town dogs answer my call.

childhood nostalgia || s.c. || @eloquencenet challenge: returning

[honeybushwriting]

“Sometimes when she was alone, and knew she was alone, she permitted her mind to play in a garden, and she smiled.”

— John Steinbeck, East of Eden (via luthienne)

[honeybushwriting]

therapist: how are you? me: fine how are you

[honeybushwriting]

“How much better is silence; the coffee cup, the table. How much better to sit by myself like the solitary sea-bird that opens its wings on the stake. Let me sit here for ever with bare things, this coffee cup, this knife, this fork, things in themselves, myself being myself.”

— Virginia Woolf (via brouhahamagazine)