little-atlas

[little-atlas]

it's just that when i love something, i love it loud and i love it long. i've never figured out the halfway of it - when i hold something, i let it scar me.

[little-atlas]

you're not quite an emergency, is the thing. you're just having a bad spell. so what if you can't ever really catch your breath. can't ever really feel at ease. a buzzing, terrible feeling.

but emergencies are loud, and passionate, and hit the floor. you are not a lion or a hurricane, you just live in a pretty okay apartment and your back hurts. you wake up and drag yourself out of bed and banish what if i was dead thoughts like cobwebs. you pick out your clothes and try to stay active. you apply for jobs on the internet.

the anxiety is a wave, and the depression is a spiral. the other stuff keeps things "colorful." you mitigate your symptoms and take your meds when you have them and you try to hang out with friends. you go home and your head is full of riverwater. no matter how much you sleep, you still stay tired. you journal and practice gratitude and build from the bottom upwards. and still, the haunting.

you're not a 911 call or a shriek. you're just staring up at the ceiling and feeling the house settle into your bones. you feel you are playacting as a wolf when you're only a sheep. not quite dry and not quite drowning.

over and over, you slog through the creek.

[little-atlas]

yea

[little-atlas]

do you see through me? i’m (mostly) honest.

[little-atlas]

February Prompts

i. best regards ii. briefcase iii. rocking horse iv. play house v. underling vi. cherry pie vii. sink viii. doll-eyed ix. lucky streak x. radio show xi. kidnapping xii. noxious fumes xiii. groomsmen xiv. our future together xv. ointment xvi. fireman xvii. porcupine xviii. doctor's orders xix. western states xx. differences in religion xxi. collection xxii. pleasing to the eye xxiii. americana xxiv. origin of something evil xxv. weird baby xxvi. warbler xxvii. rash xxviii. bad leadeship

[little-atlas]

for @nosebleedclub december day 22: out west

[little-atlas]

nonsexual intimacy!!!!

What themes / atmospheres / stories should we explore in 2025?

[little-atlas]

for @nosebleedclub 20. unseasonably hot

[little-atlas]

i'm finally back home, and school starts in a few days. i'm pretty excited. i'm taking some cool classes this semester.

it's nice to be back.

i want to start going to the gym more this year. i did a pretty good job of going over the summer, but it's been a few weeks since i was last able to go. i always set a goal for myself every semester, and last semester i didn't make it. i'm hoping to be better this time. i don't really have a clear goal for the entire semester, but i'd like to hit 100lb on the bench press by the end of september.

i'm so glad i get to start back up on my research back at home, even if it means i have to practically start my project over. i'll be redoing a lot of stuff with the method that i used this summer at my internship.

i've gotten back into some of my old fandoms, and been writing some stories for them. i've really missed writing fiction. college has had me so busy i haven't really had time to enjoy it. i'm hoping i'll have an easier time this semester, and therefore have more time to enjoy stuff like that.

i'm sitting in my living room at my apartment right now with my roommate and her partner, who's been living with her for the summer. erica (roommate) and addison (partner) are playing overwatch. at some point addison fell asleep this afternoon and erica was watching youtube, but they're awake and gaming again now.

i got to meet erica's cat that she got this summer. her name is sage, and she's very sweet, much nicer than the cat my (now ex) roommate had last year.

my other two roommates are out of the apartment, one at a party and the other in california.

since getting home, i've been pretty dissociated. i feel different than the person who left here three months ago. i'm still trying to figure out how i fit in to places, and it's a little nerve wracking at times.

still, i think it's going to be a good semester.

[little-atlas]

i'm screaming to myself, I DON'T WANT TO BE ALONE! FOR ONCE IN MY LIFE, I DON'T WANT TO BE ALONE! and i'm not sure i believe it but it feels right.

[little-atlas]

for @nosebleedclub's july prompt: day 13: nephew.

there's a tab open on my phone. books with transgender representation. i've fallen in love with them, recently. i love reading the struggles and the disappointments, but most of all the successes. it lets me look god in the eyes and say, i'm not afraid of you.

i have an uncle. let's call him lucas. he lived near where i live now, and he gave me the gift of a piano, sitting in my parent's dining room, under the painting of my mom's garden. he let us drive his golf cart, swim in his pool when it was hot. he voted against my rights. i haven't seen or talked to him in years. my dad hasn't seen or talked to his brother in years. i pretend it doesn't sting as much as it does.

i have an uncle. let's call him thomas. he lives the closest of all my uncles, and yet i see him the least. i haven't talked to him in a long time, his wife dropping off my graduation present half a year late. i haven't told him, and i don't know if i will.

i have an aunt. let's call her marie. she lives in a state i'm looking at for college. when she called my dad a year ago, i asked to talk to her on the phone. she was always so kind to me, and to hear her say hey reagan, through the phone despite me never telling her felt like flowers blooming in my chest.

i have an uncle. let's call him michael. he's always been my favorite uncle. he's always been the closest to me. i went and visited him in new york two years ago, got to venture around the big city. the last night on the subway, he fumbled my pronouns, but it still meant the world to me because finally, here's someone who's trying.

he was the first to call me his nephew.

[little-atlas]

i'm seeing the red sky at morning again.

we leave for new mexico in a week, and i'm so anxious that eating is becoming difficult again.

i'm spending my days holed up in my apartment, working from home, instead of walking the half mile to the building, going up to the 6th floor, and sitting in the too-hot room with three of the other people in my internship cohort.

i miss home, even though i just left. maybe that's why it hurts so bad.

i'm exhausted constantly, each day just draining more and more out of me.

i've started writing letters, at least. to my parents, to my friends, to my favorite band, small enough that they gave me their address. that one in particular was heart wrenching.

i cut my hair last week, by myself. it's still curly on top, but the sides are shaved down. my hair grows so fast i'll probably have to do it again by the end of this week. i thought my parents would say they hated it, that it looked too much like a mullet, but they did end up liking it. (not the hair on my face, so much).

as of yesterday, i've been on testosterone for a year and a half. it's crazy how much my life has changed in that length of time. i hope things continue to get better.

for now, i'm going to live day by day, hour by hour, song by song.

[little-atlas]

i’m sitting in a plane that’s just taken off. i think my ears should be popping from the change in altitude, but they’re not. we’re gaining height and the only thing i can think is i don’t want to go. 

i’m on my way back to my internship, a quick respite in my home from the stress of life. 

i don’t want to go back to the city. i hate living in the city. 

we’re flying over a lake and i can pinpoint the exact place, just yesterday, i drove through on the way home from my best friends house. 

i won’t get there until late. i’m still figuring out how i’m going to get back to my apartment, how i’m going to deal with the quiet emptiness. 

i am realizing i am scared. 

i don’t know what of. 

i miss my home. i miss my family. i miss my friends. i miss the woods. i miss the river. i miss lying in bed at night and listening to the frogs sing and sing and sing. i miss the stars. 

and now we’re flying through clouds and the plane is dropping and dipping and making my stomach lurch, a rollercoaster in the sky, and i love it, i love flying but i also can’t breathe with the weight of it all. 

[little-atlas]

i start the water boiling for my coffee and sit by the window to watch the storm roll in. i've got about 20 minutes before the weather channel says it's supposed to hit. i'll work from home tomorrow.

[little-atlas]

it's supposed to storm tonight, starting around 21:30. i want to stay up late to go sit in the rain, but i have work tomorrow, and i know my meds will knock me out for at least 8 hours, and i don't want to be late. there are no consequences to being late, except the ones on my conscience.

when i think about the way the world is, it feels like there's smoke in my lungs. my rights are being taken away, and so are my sibling's. this isn't right. i should be using this time to practice radical acceptance, but by god i think this fire could kill me. i'm trying my best to stay optimistic. it's really all i can do right now. hold on to the tiny thread that's keeping me from falling.

one of the other people here for this internship has been shot before. he didn't tell me this directly. he told me that when he can't sleep, he watches war videos. says it helps him to fall asleep, but afterwards, he has nightmares.

i, in turn, told him about my family. i was probably drunk, but couldn't feel much of anything different. i still remember.

he told me about his wife, and how they met, and how she hated him for a bit. it's not my story to tell. i told him about the difference between gender identity, appearance, sexual attraction, and romantic attraction. he's from iraq, and none of these things are accepted there.

my key to my room somehow got bent and wouldn't open my door, and he walked with me down to the front desk to get another. he let me borrow his shoes, a pair of flip flops probably 6 sizes too large for me. i brought him peanut butter pancakes as a thank you, and when i tried to return his shoes, he told me i could hang on to them for a bit.

we talked for hours last night. i haven't told him about the other people, or about what landed me in the hospital. i don't think he would understand. but i wouldn't understand his trauma from war, so i think it would even out.

i have a hard time reading people a lot of the time. he's one of the only people here that i can tell right off the bat genuinely likes me. he's a good person and an even better friend.

i hope, someday, i can be like that.

[little-atlas]

sometimes i think i have healthy coping mechanisms.

other times, i'm three shots of vodka in and it's not even 21:00 and i'm just waiting for the high to hit, even though i know i'll come crashing down in a few more hours.

[little-atlas]

i’m an organ donor. when i got my drivers license, i signed the line to give my body away should i fail myself. i’m thinking about how someday, my heart might not be mine anymore. liver, kidneys, stomach, lungs.

i think about the days where i would give anything not to be me.

at night, i get the urge to peel my skin off. to peel my skin off, pull my bones out of their sockets, separate muscle and make piles of organs. i think about putting myself back together, bit by bit by bit by bit.

self destruction with the intent to rebuild.