I think I messed up again.
And I think about you and the things that I try not to let others see. My hands are shaky and my anxiety tells me that there are cameras on me.
We did this. I did this. I let you let this happen. And Iâm wrong. Iâm so damn wrong. Jeez why canât I find out whatâs wrong? This is all fine and no oneâs hurt, right? I should choose friends over what society says, but jeez, what the fuck did they mean by that? Why are the people that tell me that also society themselves?
Maybe Iâm too nervous. Iâm surrounded by my family and Iâve said something and Iâm holding in the tears. Iâm holding in the thoughts. Why am I cornered by my own mind?
I close my eyes and I think of someone I knew and I remember what it was like when she was ten. And here she is now, stuck on the floor, her glasses broken, her hair up, and I just canât imagine what itâs like when you threw her down in there. Thereâs blood on the floor. Her mouth is open.
I shake.
I remember your name. I remember what I thought of you.
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Iâm so sorry that I was born the way I was. Itâs super funny to me too. I know Iâve tried to jump the bridge a few years ago about this, but I want to laugh it off. Iâm funny, I know that. I know I canât control how I was born, but itâs so funny when you boop my nose and squish it around because I was a kid when things out of my control happened.
I promise you I do this to cope. I cope with humor. I may as well be a comic relief character in a high budgeted movie. You know that about me, and then you gently pat my head and continue on with your life.
Iâm embarrassed with myself. I know I canât control how I was born but I genuinely just wish I could throw everything away and disappear too. I wish I could just be your neighbor and agree to everything you say.
No⌠what am I saying? I shouldnât feel guilty of who I was born as. I shouldnât feel guilty about things that happened out of my control when I was a toddler and kid. I shouldnât feel guilty about trying to understand other peopleâs viewpoints when mine are very different.
Maybe I should just sit down for a moment and wonder why Iâm so anxious about this. I just want you to know Iâm doing my best. Thatâs all.
But I also want you to know I donât want to be selfish and trying to excuse myself. Iâm just explaining.
Sorry.
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I canât believe thereâs something so extremely valuable in our friendship.
I didnât know that you reaching out to me about something so silly would lead to where we are now. It genuinely makes me cry to think about if we never met each other.
You are a small and soft bunny who lies on my lap and bites my jeans as I pet it. You can fit in my pocket and I can take you wherever I go. You fall asleep so easily, so I compile things to share with you for when you awake so your morning or afternoon can be blessed with small samples of joy.
Bunnies are anxious creatures so I hold them tightly to the gentle heartbeat of warm pillows and protect the bunny when it gets anxious. Humans are also anxious, so the bunny cuddles near the crook of the neck to dry the tears when Iâm shaking and breathing sporadically about the smallest things that happened to me.
The most beautiful part of it all is that before, during, and after the storm, we share the same world together. And I think thatâs beautiful.
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Oh, hey toxic person in my life.
Hey Iâm sorry I cut you off for a bit. No, yeah, I just needed a break. I needed your help, thatâs all. Yeah, I know youâre upset. Iâm sorry.
Oh, hey toxic personâ
Yeah I can do that for you. Itâs no problem. Itâs a lot of work and itâs hard for me to say no. You know that. Ok, Iâll do it. Itâs not too big a deal to me though. I can get through it.
Hey toxic person.
I know I canât cry in front of you. Others have it worse, I know. I should be grateful for where I am, and Iâm too sensitive. I understand.
Hey toxic person.
I canât leave because youâre important to me in one way or another. Some part of my life comes from your benefit. Thatâs fine. Yes youâre good enough for me. No youâre not better off dead.
Hey.
Get your foot off my face. I tried to explain why I wanted to tell you that you were wrong about a small thing. I didnât mean that I didnât believe you, I just wanted to politely inform you why you were wrong.
Hey
Never once did you say thank you or please or youâre welcome or sorry or
Hey.
I feel safe without you. Stop blowing up my phone. This is why I cut you off. I can enjoy my life without you sometimes. Get off my back.
Hey!
I relapsed. I need you. Itâs fine. Iâm sorry about what I said. Yeah, I know youâre upset. Iâm sorry.
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Life is rough. I sit in my tight little room and cry because I compare myself to others. I know whoâs better than me and who deserves more than I do.
I know they donât like me. Well, to be fair, itâs the anxiety talking, but I said something that was out of touch and got confronted on it, and I took it well, but I believe you let in linger in yourself because you havenât reached out to me since. For that I apologize.
Iâve been told not to compare myself to others by my friends. However Iâve been told to compare myself to others by older adults because life is unfortunately a competition for some reason. So I sit and trust no one that is Gen X (except Tommy, who I owe my life to) and try to find out if Iâm being too sensitive or if Iâm actually asking for some damn respect around here.
I have some privileges that others donât have, but I also have some struggles that not a lot have. I wonder if I can ever truly find out where my place is. I donât want to be petty. I donât want to say âoh woe is me.â But I donât want to be a tyrant. I donât want to be selfish.
I rip my own flesh off trying to find out how to be perfect. I found out I wasnât perfect and I figured that I need to be punished if I hurt someoneâs feelings, so I hurt myself. Now I feel like everyone stares at me with those glowing eyes a predator has.
I want you to tell me what I did wrong. Not just so I can improve, but I can make up for it. What do you wish from me? For me to stab my eye out? To cut off a toe? Maybe a finger? Go on. I donât live for myself because I have anxiety. I live for others.
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I donât like you.
You make me want to rip all my skin off even if youâre doing something so small. I know you want me to be annoyed. I know you do.
You donât respect me. You play victim. Youâre insecure. You have a lot of internalized ableism. You blame the fact that you canât change because âthis is the way I am.â
The only way to win is to ignore you. But youâre not going anywhere, are you? You keep pushing. Youâre a hypocrite. You lay the ground for an innocent conversation and then blow up like a land mine once you catch someone.
Youâre an awful person. Congratulations, you made me write about you. Big fucking congrats. Do you want a trophy, you toddler-brained rat? Do you want a gold star? Do you want some more attention just to make yourself feel better than everyone else? Do you want to pretend youâre handling your autism better than everyone else to make yourself feel good because youâre so insecure?
I know you havenât changed in years. You refuse to change. Youâre a prick. You do this all on purpose. And my anxiety forces me to stay. Of course it does.
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If I feel that the vibes are off, then why do I bother to stay?
Itâs only been a week, but I feel like Iâve been sucked into being myself for the most part. If all you do is gossip, then is it really worth it in the end? I feel as if as soon as I mess up or do a small thing you donât like, youâre going to talk shit behind my back.
Now, it could just be the anxiety talking, and Iâm very much aware of that. But I am entirely sure that jumping into a friend group that mostly gossips is not as welcoming as I thought it was.
You have already established you appreciate me and that I can easily change for the better. I understand that I make mistakes, but I donât think itâs worth it if my instincts are telling me that this isnât as much of a safe space as I thought it would be. I feel as if I messed up telling you things about my personal life so soon. I understand that nobody jumps into things that quickly and that I may be bad at reading social queues, but I think if I worry that bad⌠then this isnât for me.
Yet what do I continue to do? I continue to stay despite the warning signs. I continue to stay so I can feel like I belong somewhere. I want to belong so badly.
Iâm going to give you the benefit of the doubt for now. Iâm going to let blame my irrational anxiety for this for now. Iâm going to blame your stressed state of mind for now.
Hopefully this will all just be a funny memory with irrational worries.
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âI went down south with a pen and a maskâ
-âSee, thatâs when I moved to college. (Laughs) I had a lot of fun down there but was during the height of Covid. The pen is the stylus I used to draw, and the mask, well, (laughs)â
âI came back up with a difficult taskâ
-âI had been sent to the hospital over (inaudible) reasons. I had to keep all my mental health together.â
âIt was dancing dizzy days after three yearsâ
-âGo on to the next line. Iâll describe it there.â
âThe sweetest way to describe all your childhood fearsâ
-âOk, so, that was when I was helping a friend write a book. I had to balance, (laughs) right? No no, ok. I had to balance that and my college work. The dizzy part before refers to growing up and how much it sucks. The âchildhood fearsâ was what the book had a lot of themes in. Iâm sorry, I canât tell you what the book is.â
âHold your head in my hands and tell me whatâs wrongâ
-âKeep going.â
âNobody here is singing your beautiful songâ
-âSo, this part is about [her]. She worked with us for a long time and just looked tired all the time. She couldnât handle the stress of the workload. The song part is just about her artwork in general and how she was under appreciated as an artist. She had a bad streak of luck.â
âPopped a vein over the wavering handâ
-âI like this one the best. âWavering handâ refers to bosses and professors and teachers and such. They put so much pressure over her she may have, um, actually hurt herself in order to escape it. It sucks.â
âItâs difficult to say Iâll never see you againâ
-âThis is just what happened. [She] ended her life, scared about the AI thing and the pressure. She thought there was no point. The part at the end of this poem where her name is repeated ten times is because of her friends and classmates, including me, who kept calling her name and trying to wake her up. But she was dead. Yeah, (laughs nervously) that was kinda messed up of me. I feel bad about it. I didnât know, but I still feel bad.â
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I was born a sheep, and I was put into a world where I have to walk alone at night sometimes.
Sheep stick together and thatâs natural for us. Sheep can see during the day and thatâs all right. Sheep have friends and family that check in on them.
To get to point A to point B, I know it isnât safe. Because during the night, there are glowing eyes that watch me. I donât know if the glowing eyes belong to wolves or dogs, but they all glow during the night, so I always assume the worst.
I continue to walk down the path while trying to look away from those glowing eyes. When a set of them approach me, it was just a dog stalking like a wolf, passing by to where it needs to go. Dogs and wolves need to go places too. Even wolves will walk by me, and I wonât even notice, because maybe that wolf has already had its dinner for the night and I was lucky.
Wolves will blabber about how sheep shouldnât look so tasty. Sheep have been hunted and killed no matter how much wool covers them. Sheep are sheep to wolves like that. Sheep are sheep which means wolves will lick their lips upon the smell of one behind closed doors⌠usually. Sheep are sheep so wolves will get tired of the usual rabbit or squirrel from their forest and go attack the sheep because they are never satisfied with their kill.
What my metaphor gets wrong is that men and women are the same species. What my metaphor gets wrong is that wolves hunt out of survival, instinct, and to eat. What my metaphor gets wrong is that women have tools to protect themselves.
But damn, I really do feel like a sheep walking in the woods by myself as the glowing eyes of wolves watch me.
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Two days after Christmas, we walked into the forest together so we could talk about small things. You wore that fluffy jacket I like that had traces of black fur from your cats. I went and kicked rocks while you took the path with the least amount of troubles. The cauliflower colored clouds made you sick, and the dry air made me dehydrated.
You asked me to walk on the ice river. It was cold enough not to break. I refused because I didnât want to crush us under the ice and get your brown Uggs wet. You jumped a little bit. You were wondering how much more trouble you would bring to me.
You told me a lot of things about yourself. You are very open, somber, and melancholy. I can see and understand why, because you told me why. There is a part of me that wanted to explain everything about myself to you back, but so much has ruined my anxiety to make me feel like Iâm âtrauma dumpingâ on you, when in fact when you do it, I donât even mind because weâre friends.
I told you about what I keep in my purse because I feel like a sheep who could run into a wolf at any moment, whether the wolf be someone else or myself. Not everyone is brave to admit they want attention, but I want attention from you at times. Sometimes itâs because I respect you, but other times I just want your attention like a toddler whoâs asking their parents to watch them do a trick. That trick in question might be something personal about myself because I feel comfortable to share with you. You saw a scar on my arm and I didnât feel like lying to you that day so you became worried about me. You texted me one night going on a bit about things that make you laugh. I just want to hold onto that memory.
I eventually stepped onto the icy river and nothing happened. We walked under a bridge and I said it was the perfect place to write graffiti because of the clean blank concrete. You hit me on my back lightly and told me thatâs a crime. You chuckled.
There was the hot breath seen in the cold air from that chuckle. Not only could I hear the chuckle, I could see it. It made it feel real and genuine, like I could snatch it up with a net like a butterfly.
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I donât want to lose you.
I havenât even had you for a year and Iâm so protective of you. You are a big part of my life. You took me out of depression. I hold you in my arms at night and I think about you constantly, even in my dreams.
I want to be with you for the rest of my life. I know thatâs not possible, and I can think of you whenever, but I really mean it this time. Iâve meant it with others before, and I truly do wish they stayed, but I love you so much. I canât thank you enough for being there for me, and you donât get to understand a single word of it.
I know you love me too. I just wish you knew how much I loved you. I canât stop thinking about you. Itâs not that type of unhealthy obsession, itâs a type of love, I promise. To care about you so much says a lot about me. Come closer and I can whisper secrets about myself into your year. Come closer and if you understand so I can tell you about how you saved my life. Come closer and I can tell you about people who love you that you donât even know exist.
Tonight, I want you to hold me in your arms this time. In a way, you took care of me.
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Youâre a strange specimen of a person.
During a period of time, I wanted to feel your lips against mine as you mispronounced hard English words in your daffodil-coated accent. A week after that, I wanted to punch you in the stomach for making such insensitive assumptions about me. We still talk nonstop and you tell me about something that saved you and I tell you about something that broke me.
I donât think I ever understood âlove-hate relationshipâ like I do now with you. Youâre a bitch at times and you own it, having your own ground on things you are sure you wonât change your mind about. I feel like youâre a princess in a castle who ran away from home, and you have no one to tell you that youâre pretty so you start to believe the harsh things you tell yourself because no one is there to ground you in reality. Like, God damnit, why wonât you just take a compliment instead of insisting youâre such a bad person?
I think the way you write is beautiful and I want to help you grow that. You should consider publishing a fantasy book about children who have no mothers so they find themselves as a family and rescue other children in their position. I think the way you make me see people in a different perspective makes me realize that I can take a deep breath and not be so anxious. I could feel you write yourself into that story you made. I could feel you hug this version of the person who saved your life somewhere in the world when I was just born.
You didnât have to be so vulnerable around me when you told me about your backstory. You could have kept that to yourself, but no, you used it as fuel to the fire to write so passionately that you forget how an English sentence should be structured. Sometimes I want to do the same thing back, but thatâs when your bitch comes out and you have very different things to say about how I handle my depressive episodes in life. And after youâre done being a bitch you apologize to me that it happened and I didnât deserve it as a person. I wish you could say that to yourself.
Maybe Iâm being too judgmental and I just donât understand or remember that your upbringing made you like this. Maybe Iâm just not meant to try so hard to find a way to make you feel comfortable and or relate to you because youâre not from my generation. Itâs strangely comfortable to have a friend more than a decade older than me like you. If we disagree on something, I donât have to worry about you having a serious tantrum and breaking off contact over something minor. If I told you I was going to hurt myself tomorrow, you would spit on my face and call me stupid for even considering it, but then the next day I would catch you coming over and forcefully pull me away from that cliff, purring like a panther to get me to stop.
Maybe I do deserve the bitchy part sometimes. Maybe I do deserve the comforting part sometimes. I have a disability that makes it hard to communicate in the way that Iâm actually thinking, so I spew nonsense. Hopefully I donât use that as an excuse every time I say something awry. I just want to be honest, but the truth is both multiple things and yet nothing at all.
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I always said that you had the sky in your eyes.
Somewhere in my brain there is a memory of me meeting you for the first time. Somewhere in my brain there is a memory of introducing you to my grandma. Somewhere in my brain there is a memory of when we brought you home.
I can stand outside in the January cold with Gatorade on my lips, and your nose will come to sniff them for a brief moment. I can put a blanket on you and expect that you stay warm, but I still worry about you. I can watch an older movie to forget about whatâs going on for a bit. I can stay up and talk to my best friend about whatâs going on as he expresses his sympathy.
No matter how much I cuddled you and gave you treats and scratched your back, it never felt like enough. I feel guilty. But you donât see it that way, do you? All you can do is love me, and thatâs all you ever have to do. No, Iâm sorry, itâs all you ever had to do.
Youâre gone.
Itâs ok, I can make it through this. Say hi to Grandma for me.
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The thing about having a December birthday is that itâs always going to be the same. Your wishlist for your birthday and Christmas is just split up between the holidays and your birthday. Youâre never going to have time to decide what new things you want in between that time. Youâre going to count the things you didnât get for the first day you opened presents and expect them for that next day of opening presents.
Maybe it would be nice to have a summer birthday. Maybe âJingle Bell Rockâ doesnât have to play when Iâm eating cake. Maybe it would be nice to go to an outing that isnât decorated in the Christmas spirit, as every time you look back on older photos, there are going to be wreaths and holiday lights, and even the Grinch once. Maybe it would be nice to celebrate my birthday with an activity outside. You know, when itâs warm. Maybe it would be nice to go to somewhere that isnât closed when your only option to go somewhere is a holiday light show.
I donât exactly wish to change it like that. It must be nice for the people buying presents for me that they can purchase the gift on sale on Black Friday or Cyber Monday, or whatever weâre doing now. It must be nice to get recommendations for last minute gift ideas. Itâs nice for me too, because family members get to give me two different gift cards in a short period of time.
Thereâs no use in complaining, just explaining what itâs like to have a December birthday. And hey, if youâre a December birthday kidâ or anywhere in a similar position of holiday and birthday mashupâ you can find comfort knowing youâre not alone.
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âMaking art just for yourself has a deep, personal flavor and different meaning to it.â
As I was thinking of a low time in my life, I thought of this quote and picked up the pen and drew. Despite being a happier person, I do have my healthy sad moments. Iâve realized that a lot of my work I make for the intention, at least a little bit, to show to other people.
Donât get me wrong, many artists have the intention to show their work to the world. Itâs something that comes naturally for a lot of us. The need to share because we are social creatures overtakes us no matter if itâs to strangers or your only close friend. Itâs just this quote made me think about making something for myself and myself only. Despite that, thereâs always this thought in the back of my head going,
âWhat if an audience sees this?â
Is my vent art cliche? Cringey? Edgy? Bad? Something a young teenager would make? Something an older art critique png YouTuber would put in his awful art compilation? Something you could compare to Deviantart? Is it because that Iâm Gen-Z so my vent art can not compare to older generations who drew about war, politics, and genocide? Is it only valid when the art is venting about something that affects a lot of people? Then is it something valid as commentary about world events, and not something very personal? Is it more valid painted with oil on canvas than it is digital with a trending art program?
And I think to myself, I know how the audience would react. If this vent art is about an existing character you can relate to, what will fans of that character and or series think? âItâs too edgy, itâs out of character, she would never do that, why her?â And if itâs your own self or own character, itâs too personal to have anyone care about it. âWho is that? Is that you? Do I need to call someone? Why do you look like that?â
What if I just feel like drawing something? What if it just comes to me? What if itâs my own self expression? I donât need to think about an audience seeing this. My overthinking brain comes up with this scenario about how a large group of people will accidentally see it somehow. And I think thatâs the main reason I barely make vent art at all. It adds to this weird urge to explain why I draw everything so someone doesnât see it negatively or in a way I donât want it to be seen.
So I took all my anxieties and future worries away and drew what I wanted.
And I felt stronger.
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The scariest twenty minutes of your life happened. And it wonât even compare.
All you really did was stand up for yourself even if you didnât have to. All you had to do to not get in trouble nor get into physical fighting. Not speaking, just sitting, just sighing, just listening. But no, you stood up and spoke out. You fought. You were going to die on that hill. You werenât going to live kneeling.
Honestly I admire you a lot for that. Youâre younger than me and you know your world so much better than I do. You make quite a few mistakes, you tumble, you yell, you spew nonsense when youâre angry. Well, you spew nonsense when youâre scared, and thatâs because youâve been thought boys canât get scared, so you replace it with anger. But thatâs a different conversation. And usually when youâre angry and spewing nonsense itâs for a good reason because you wonât tolerate bullshit even if it comes from strangers having a conversation that you were never involved in from the first place.
You thought you were going to die too, and you sat there when your best friend pulled out a gun on you, and you furrowed your brow when his girlfriend backed away in horror, at that point she would have agreed to anything you would have said just to not get shot herself, but he wasnât focusing on her. I could feel the terror in her voice when she held my hand and told me about it all.
He didnât even shoot you yet and you looked at him dead in the eye, saying you wonât stand for this. Wonât stand to see any more kids get hurt. Wonât stand to see those kids grow up in this world. Wonât stand to be the only person who believes in what is right even if the entire world was against him. I will admit, it sounded completely badass, like a main character in a movie.
I think when you had the blanket on you, and a Squirtle plushie in your hands, and your feet exposed to the cold air of the open bedroom window during a breezy day in November, you actually felt the chills of realizing what happened to you. And Tommy got you some cherry ice cream and Coca Cola when you started yelling about it to yourself, like an insane person, thinking everything was a dream. You know, lying to yourself. He walked right into the kitchen when he heard you scream. He knows you better than I do, better than your dad even.
It scared me for a few days until I realized you got over it before I did. I wonder if it has to do with you being raised a boy again. Or youâre hiding it. Iâm sorry, I really donât want to make you more uncomfortable than you already are. Iâm writing this because I saw you this morning with a smile and I wanted to get the feelings out.
I admire you a lot.
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Be yourself this Halloween.
If putting on the mask makes you who you truly are, then let it sit.
Thatâs it, thatâs the post.
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