matsukoeto

[matsukoeto]

sitting in the kitchen with the back door open, letting a breeze through

my hair is messy and wavy. i have bed head, but i still feel beautiful

i’m drinking coffee. cuban espresso style, and i haven’t had it in a while. i love the taste

and i’m contemplating my next nail color, shape. i might go coffin, since my natural nails seem long enough

i like how i look when im dancing free, and im hoping i can do that in public, confidently some day. i guess it’ll come with time and experience

there’s something droning in the background, but with the breeze it feels fine

i was thinking about how i know people wouldn’t really like my glasses. but i like them. i love how i feel when im wearing them

[matsukoeto]

i thought childhood was the kingdom where nobody dies. but i was wrong.

he died. and i don’t remember much from my childhood—i’ve blocked so much of it out—but i remember him. he was a happy memory. one of the few i had. i remember staring out the field of such a lush and inspiring green. i saw the young boys playing flag football, running around with their lanky bodies somehow more coordinated than i could ever be at my age. i remember turning around and asking my mom and her friend a question. and then he was there. we went off to play. i had fun with him.

and now he’s dead. i hadn’t spoken to him in years. we’d get christmas cards, but that was sort of it. but they said he struggled with mental health. that’s all they said about how he died. and that is so profoundly troubling to me. because we parted ways, and seem to have had similar struggles. and i recently came to realize how i survived my own. against the odds i was so sure of, i survived and now i’m tasked with living. but he didn’t. he’s dead now. and when i load the dishwasher and make pasta for dinner, i realize those mundane tasks are something he’ll never get to do again. but i do them. i didn’t know i carried him with me. but now that he’s gone, i realize i do. i read that childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies. so i always thought that the people i knew in my childhood were just as invincible as i am—they’d always be somewhere out there in the world, even though we parted ways. it was a comfort. it feels like maybe it was a pillar of my identity. but he’s gone now. he died. and it feels like part of my childhood was affected. one pillar crumbled.

rest in peace, Collin.

[matsukoeto]

when I was in high school, a teacher once told me, “I have never been disappointed by anything you’ve done.”

[matsukoeto]

i don’t have friends.

“It can make you think having people around is the same thing as having friends.”

nights out are like that. i’m with people. and they’re there. we have fun.

maybe not a world of fun. but it’s nice to be out. drinking and smoking because that’s what we should be doing at our age.

but i don’t have friends.

i don’t have people who text me or check in on me during the day.

people touch on me for the poetry and depth in my character.

and that’s only sometimes.

other times i just present myself as this superficial thing—-something marketable to make them love me. ‘hey, look at this! i’m relatable!’

i don’t have people who know me or understand me. no one who can tell me what i want when i don’t know.

and i just have to ask

what is so wrong about me that no one ever wants me as their friend?

i don’t like being alone

but i guess at some point i’ve become good at it

good at ignoring it. good at coping with it.

whatever.

[matsukoeto]

mom.

i love you more than i love my life

[matsukoeto]

Gentle.

I need to be gentle with myself. I think for a while I equated that to being forgiving. But forgiving is not always the right answer to cope with my behavior. Because oftentimes I am doing something wrong. And I don’t need to forgive myself because that allows me to continue doing wrong. I need to be gentle with myself. I need to understand my feelings, accept the validity of them, but steer myself to the correct course of action. I need to yell this to the ocean while standing on the edge of a cliff. I need to burn this realization into my memory so it never leaves me.

Be gentle with yourself. Not forgiving.

This is growing up. This is maturing. You’ve already taken the time to consider your inner child. But that girl is not your whole world. she’s the past. You are the now and the future. So we have to focus on the future, on moving on. Let’s not talk about our past. Let’s move away from our thoughts being consumed by nostalgia so frequently. Let’s find new music, meet new people, discover new interests. Read! Read some books that make you happy and open your mind up to the larger world!

[matsukoeto]

Mother.

I feel like I am the object of your anger recently.

And I don’t know why.

I don’t know why you direct it at me so much, making me feel so little and awful.

Like I could never be good.

You make me feel like being a horrible person and daughter is just my nature and you’ve always known this about me and it never changes.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry I am your daughter.

[matsukoeto]

Love and deserving love.

I hate when people say you deserve love. I don’t deserve love. I haven’t done anything to deserve love. Not that anyone actually says it to me, because who would? It’s just stuff that comes out of the internet. “You deserve love.” No. I don’t.

I’ve realized that I don’t get hugged. People don’t touch me. They don’t put effort in to make me feel safe. They don’t show they love me. I’m just something they have expectations of. And I hate being that. I can’t be that anymore. I’m failing. I’m falling apart. All of this is slowly killing me, breaking me down.

Right now I want to turn to a God and feel His love. But I don’t. I don’t feel love from anyone or anything. I wish I could ditch logic and have faith. I would give anything to just believe.

I want to be held so much. All I want is to be held. And loved. I live in agony. I just want love. I want a break.

“I feel like I am the object of your anger recently. And I don’t know why. I don’t know why you direct it at me so much, making me feel so little and awful. Like I could never be good. You make me feel like being a horrible person and daughter is just my nature and you’ve always known this about me and it never changes. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I am your daughter.”

[matsukoeto]

Religion.

I like thinking about religion. I like evaluating what it means to me and my relationship with it. And sometimes I like talking about it with open minded people. The people who are a bit spiritual but not bizarre fanatics that worship the bible or some other text.

I am God’s mentally ill daughter.

When I was young, I was paranoid. I had this awful night where I was crying alone in my bed. I wanted to sleep but I was afraid that a slasher movie villain was going to come and kill my whole family and me. I was terrified that they were just lurking in the darkness, ready to step out and terrify me. I was so desperate for relief. I prayed to God for help. to make me stop thinking of this.

And after a while, I realized it worked. It dawned on me that I had stopped crying, that I felt a sudden calm and serenity. And just as this little child, I realized this must have meant God listened to me and answered my prayers. He took pity on this crying child begging for help. He saved me.

So it feels like a disservice to Him—that Him—for me not to believe anymore. For me not to have faith. For me to say ‘the Universe’ in place of God. Because I now think of it as just being the fabric of the universe, time and space, with the strings of fate that can be pulled on any which way. I don’t think there is a man. I just think it is how it is, the universe may bend my way sometimes. Because it is perception. And my perception is that it loves me.

And when I feel fortunate, that the universe takes care of me, I say “I am God’s favorite. I am his champion.”

I don’t know if I can say it’s love. I have a trend of not feeling loved or worthy of love. And the God in the bible is a cruel one. Looking from the lens of the larger world, of all the pain and suffering woven into it, one can’t think a good God can exist. Not the one they speak about. So I guess that knowing Him as this, it’s easy to say he is a father that doesn’t love me.

But I am still his mentally ill daughter. His afflicted child.

And if I know anything about a father, I know that this is real. This is still an existence, something less of a connection or relationship, but it is still there. That’s what this is.

[matsukoeto]

Worries.

so I’ve had this worry during this whole asexual awakening. and reading and thinking about it a lot has helped me clarify and voice my thoughts on this.

my worry was that i would have to keep my asexuality a secret from a romantic partner because then they won’t invest themselves in me like i want them to because they will think i’m not even attracted to them in the first place. that they’re wasting their time because i don’t even want them to begin with.

but i realized

i can say:

“You want the honest truth? You’re sure?”

“I’m borderline asexual. I very rarely feel sexual attraction to people. But with you, it’s different. I feel very attracted to you.”

And I can go into a date with that mindset. I can connect with them without holding back. i won’t inhibit myself

[matsukoeto]

Football.

i hate when men watch football. domestic violence reports get higher during football season. men become these angry fucking demons during football season. yelling at the screens, then yelling at their wives. yelling at their kids. being just angry fucking people. i wish they would die, truly. because it’s not worth it. i will not accept a man who watches professional football. fuck that.