stephs-place

[stephs-place]

I think I'm in love again

Its weird how it happens. I'm not much happier than I was, I don't feel particularly good now, I mean I'm not suicidal but that's not exactly a high bar. What I am though at least I think is in love. I hung out with this girl yesterday. I've known her for about half a year. She's strange, she had these weird quirks. A propensity to raise her voice suddenly and then drop down like it never happened. She laughs at strange things, silly little moments of shows I wouldn't even register make her crack up. She isn't traditionally charismatic or anything, but then again I never really have had a fondness for more traditional behaviors. She's almost ethereal in a sense, she towers over me, her skin is pasty white, markings line her body, she doesn't seem quite real. Now that might also have been the psychedelics. Admittingly I wasn't tripping that hard but there was definitely a glow about things. I didn't think things were gonna go like that. She came onto me. I prefer it that way. I've never been very good at flirting, and I hate making the first move, the idea of messing up scares me so bad. I worry that I was to stiff, that I came off as cold or uncaring. I didn't even realize the sensation in the moment. The sex felt detached. But it was after while we watched American dad with our shirts off, when she teasingly brushed her hand past nipple or grabbed my ass, it was then that I recognized it. I wanted her, and not just in terms of sex, but instead in the way where I wanted nothing more than to spend the night curled against her. Her skin was so soft, she kept complimenting me, it was weird to have someone show me that kind of affection again. I don't consider myself particularly attractive, I think I'm kind of average. We did degen shit for pretty much the whole day. Dropping shrooms in a park, smoking shitty homemade cigarettes, fucking in a dark messy bedroom. At one point we went out to her father's garden. It really wasn't a garden per say, I mean I'm sure it once was, but when I saw it it was mainly mugwort and another weed whose name I still don't know. She picked up a metal post from the ground and just began to whack at the wooden fence wildly. She did it with abandon, nearly hit me in the head, it snapped in half and then again and again until she had only a nub of weathered metal. She dropped it, and we went back inside. She scared me a few times, she's unpredictable. I love that. I crave that. I had no idea what would happen for almost the entire time we hung out. From start to finish it was almost all a surprise. I adored it, I desperately want to see her again. She lives an hour away across the state. Its not a bad drive, I'd gladly do it again. I didn't think I'd ever love again. Now I'm not saying that out of some grand heartbreak, I've never really had my heart broken, but more so just in the sense that I didn't think I could feel it again. The last time I truly felt love was over a year ago, it was fleeting and in its aftermath I spent a year with a man who I grew to hate in many ways. I don't want that to happen again, I'm worried that I'll wind up cold and distant like I always do. I don't know honestly. I don't know if she likes me like that, it could very well have just been the influence of mushrooms and happenstance that anything even occurred, she fucks all her friends after all. But maybe there's something there. Maybe there's a possibility that something could happen. I'm really not sure, but what I do know is that it feels good to care like this again. I missed feeling like this, I want to tell the whole world that I'm in love, I want to scream it from the rooftops. I didn't think I'd ever feel like this again. I didn't think I'd have this victory. Its stupid to call it a victory. But it still feels like one. Even if he doesn't ever think about me, even if we never speak again, I can still say that I kept living. I didn't end with him. He didn't get to say my life was over. I doubt he ever intended me to take in that way, or maybe he did, I don't fucking know. But for gods sakes I'm still here.

[stephs-place]

There’s this part of me that really wants to live that bachelor lifestyle. To spend my nights hooking up with people I barely know, making out in poorly lit cars, enjoying each others vapid company. I struggle with short term comforts. I used to rely on them a lot more. I’d say sex was my first addiction. Lust consumed my thoughts, I embraced my own deviancy. I hope I don’t come off as puritanical in my speech, I don’t regret my choices, I just find it strange now. A lot of it is I just haven’t found someone whose company I enjoy that much. It’s only happened a few times in my life, where that intersection of affection and friendship coalesced. I only ever had it in a pure form once, I was still too young to have even gotten drunk. It’s stupid to say but I was high on love in that fleeting way you can only capture when you’re young. I think I’m nihilistic on love, hell I’m doubtful these days I even have the capacity to hearnestly care for someone like that again. I waver so much, love comes and goes for me, oftentimes in the midst of relationships. Drugs make up for the slumps though. In a half lucid haze you’re not lying anymore, you hear early mean it when you say “I love you.” I think about that a lot, alcohol doesn’t make you say shit that wasn’t already there, I don’t think I was ever lying when I said it drunk. I just think I was to scared of everything that came with it sober. I hate conflict, I hate making people upset, but even more so I hate ruining it. It’s stupid of me but I don’t want the bad part of a relationship to ever come. I don’t want the downs, I don’t want things to get difficult, I don’t want to have those hard conversations. I keep my mouth shut because it’s easier than causing an issue. I watched a man I love destroy himself and said nothing, he lived in filth and drowned his sorrows in alcohol and weed. I used to stay over at his house every Monday. We’d get fucked up as early as we could, sometimes just barely past noon. Wed drink and smoke till we barely knew what was going on, we’d fuck and talk about how we adores eachother. Our entertainment was ourselves, we made our own fun. We used to sit in his basement, it wasn’t finished but there was a couch and tv there. His sister and her fiancé lived down there. They weren’t good people, they were mean to my boyfriend, they drove drunk in unlicensed vehicles, but they loved me. I don’t know why but they found me hilarious, I think they liked the dumb shit I’d say when I was drunk. They’d buy us booze all the time, let us smoke their weed, we used to have a lot of fun. I blame myself for what happened to him after I left. I never did anything to try and slow him down, I never once raised a concern at just how much he drank. The days he’d spend in bed hungover only to spend the night getting blackout. I’d come over sometimes while my brother had voice lessons, usually in the middle of the week. Some days were worse than others, sometimes I’d just wake him up and we’d chat for a bit. Other times though I could tell just from walking in that it was gonna be rough. There’d be bottles everywhere, his flesh would reak of alcohol and body odor. He wasnt always the best about showering, we’d take showers together while I was over but he didn’t always keep up when I wasn’t around. He was in a really bad place, I left him while he was in the depths of a downward spiral. I didn’t know what to do, I had let it get too far, the only option seemingly was to run. He hated me for a long time, I don’t blame him, I could have been a lot better.

[stephs-place]

Flashy Shit

This is gonna be some psycho babble, I'm just trying to channel a through line here. Something impermanent, just a temporary path to follow. A half stumbled recollection made whilst bumbling through the woods on a journey to accomplish nothing. I spent a few hours in the woods once. It was on a trail. Middle of the winter, cold as shit. I was just walking around. Half lucid. I kept just hitting this disgusting street cart. It was some garbage, absolute trash, made you feel cloudy and like shit. I wanted to feel like that. To feel different, to feel less conscious of myself and the choices I made. I feel a lot of regret these days. Its not particularly focused. I have lot to mourn. Which is stupid. I'm young, I have a lot of life left to live, I know this is a temporary period. Its a point of transition. A move towards a path that I want to lead. A life I want to lead. But I'm just so fucking sick of it. I hate doing it every day all over again, doing this shit over and over and over. It makes me want to cry. I don't cry anymore. Which is kind of weird. I think its my medication. I feel numb, there's this sense of detachment to everything I do. I don't really understand what I'm moving towards. I wish I felt sad again. When I was depressed I at least could feel guilty. I would feel guilt for every day spent rotting in bed. Achieving nothing due to my own poor state, wallowing in pathetic despair. But now its different. I don't feel sad, I don't want to die, I don't feel as though things are hopeless. I spend much of my time still doing nothing. I consume niche mindless media. Edgy bullshit, esoteric thought pieces, political extremism. That's something I do genuinely worry about. I've developed this anti social pattern. I don't understand people anymore. So much of what I see I just don't connect with. There are people whose company I enjoy, activities that still bring me happiness. But its just different. I crave community, I want to improve myself, I think things can get better. I think I just need to navigate the world through the lens of the person that I am now. I'm different, my life is different, I need to move on. I'm going to do better. There's a lot of hope in my life now, I feel much more compelled to make something of myself. I think I'm going to be okay. I really hope so at least.

[stephs-place]

I lied about posting everyday, it was an aspirational goal but if I’m being honest with myself once week is probably a more viable option. I’ve been thinking of love a lot, love I’ve lost, love I’ve hated, love that just kinda happened, it makes me feel sick. I hate how I’ve acted in every relationship I’ve ever been in, I’ve hurt, mistreated, disregarded, used and just generally done shitty things to people I supposedly love. There’s this song by Billy Woods, it’s the final song to Hiding Places, it’s called Res Dust. The song makes me want to cry, it’s one of the most guttural expressions of want and personal failings I’ve ever heard. I say that but honestly I’m probably misinterpreting it. I just love the song so fucking much and like it feels like it fucking speaks to me. It captures that feeling of want and hate and disgust, the way you can feel so many conflicting things about a person but still at the end of the day all you want to do is lay in their arms. The worst part is is that I know I’d do it all over again, I’d go through it, the worst fucking parts of it, I want to feel my fucking heart ripped out again, I want to suffer and to cause suffering and to just be worse. I hate that I’ve improved, I hate that Im getting better, I miss when I was worse, I miss the uncertainty of if I’d even wake up the next day.

[stephs-place]

I'm making myself post something here every day

Where the fuck is the alt left? Like I mean a genuinely underground extremist faction of the movement. I'm talking like fucking niche ass chatrooms where people are being indoctrinated to carry out fucking political assignations and shit. Cause like the right is fucking dominating right now, and I for one definitely think it is absolutely in part due the efforts of the far right. Cause like I've literally grown up watching the way right wing discourse has shifted more and more into this fucking fascist slop pile, and that's 100% in part due to the effort of the far right to mainstream those sorts of ideas. Like they're legitimately performing fucking pysop level shit in terms of spreading and normalizing what were once absolutely unheard of ideas and beliefs. Its fairly fucking demoralizing to me not only just how successful those efforts have been, but also just how little there's been in return from the far left. Like where the fuck is the alt left pipeline? Why aren't people being sent straight down that fucking chute, like holy shit there's clearly a demand for extremist politics and bold extreme political action, so why isn't the left capitalizing on it? The United Shooting certainly showed there's a fucking public demand for violent action against capitalist elites, so like why not just convince someone who already hates themselves and wants to die that they should kill a motherfucker or two before they go. This is absolutely pyschotic and I recognize that but like genuinely I want to write so bad and this idea has been in my head.

[stephs-place]

I feel like such a queen popping 10 year old Valium and smoking dispo weed, that’s not even mentioning the garbage liquor cocktail.

[stephs-place]

I’ve rediscovered my love of alcohol, this can only end well

[stephs-place]

Im never going to be a women. Im never going to be someone of worth. I want to see the end. I’ve lived for so fucking long, so much longer than I was supposed too. I regret all of it, I repent for my fucking sins, will someone not reach out and save me from this miserable fucking existence in which I toil. I’m so fucking pathetic, I’m such a useless fucking human, I curse every fucking moment in which I am still breathing. I was never worth it, it makes me sob at the thought that anyone had to suffer through loving me, fuck this life.

[stephs-place]

This years been really boring so far, I haven’t seen many people, I barely go out, most of my time is spent doing nothing unless I’m working. I desperately want to do more, I want to make new connections, I want to experience new things. But I’m not sure how anymore. I always had people helping me to do that, friends who’d step in and assist where I would fail. I was never good at keeping connections, and even now as I try to maintain what little remains I’m still struggling. I want to have people in my life who I relate too, people who I can authentically be myself with, but I’m just not sure how.

[stephs-place]

I don’t want to die this year, I don’t want 2025 to be the year that kills Steph. I will fight like hell, I will try my absolute hardest, I am going to live, I am going to fucking thrive. I don’t care if I takes everything I have, I don’t care if it’s a struggle, I just want to live, I want to live for real, I want to experience life, I want to be a real fucking person. I am going to be me, I am going to be true to myself, I am going to come out I am going to find love again I will fucking matter.

[stephs-place]

I’m gross drunk, I’m gross high, I’m on enough substances that I won’t remeber what I say, I want to feel flesh again

Hey I’m sorry

[stephs-place]

I’ve worked so fucking hard on myself. I got on the right medications, I’m actually doing therapy, I’ve been trying to stay sober and not make a fool of myself, and for what? All my friends fucking left me, calling them my friends now feels ridiculous. Because they didn’t care, they just acted like they gave a shit. I don’t think I did something that bad, I don’t think I fucked up that bad, but no apparently I’m fucking exiled. Apparently I don’t even get to fucking know how it’s going or what’s happening anymore. Why did it have to be everything? Why couldn’t there at least be some semblance of normalcy in my life, some anchor to hold onto? Cause I have fucking nothing, I have fucking nothing anymore, and I’m just supposed to be okay with that. I’m so fucking tired. I don’t even know if I was in the wrong anymore, literally no one told me anything they just left. I’m so fucking fed up with this fucking world.

This is all bullshit by the way, I’m a horrible person and I deserve to be lonely and miserable, this is just nature righting what was wrong.

I wanna scar my flesh more, write shit on myself, make marks that’ll never go away

He did the same shit, why am I punished but he gets to exist as though he is infallible?

[stephs-place]

I didn’t die, I need to stop being so dramatic

[stephs-place]

There’s scars on my thighs, they’re not giant but they’re not invisible either. Not like the ones on my arms. I never liked cutting my arms, it always felt wrong, it made me feel sick. But my thighs worked, they’re out of sight in most activities, in the winter I only wear pants in public, in summer most of my shorts settle at my knees. I hate them, they’re visceral reminders of my failings, the ways I’ve faltered. I wish things were different

[stephs-place]

Can we black out in each others arms? Just one more time? I don’t want to remember the night. I don’t care what we do. I don’t want it to be good. I want to feel empty the next day. I want the void, I want to chase that scant vapid thing, the idea of pleasure. I don’t want to feel good, I don’t want to get better, I want to rot with you, I want us to enable the absolute worst in each other. I’m so fucking sick of being here

[stephs-place]

There isn’t much of a point anymore

[stephs-place]

Pillowy Sheets

It's 1pm, and we still haven't gotten out of bed. I lay nestled on my right side against her, her soft skin rubbing against my chest, my stomach, my ribs. I nuzzle her gently, she smells of sweat and cigarettes. I have yet to truly wake up, my heart beats innocuously. I’m half alive, the warmth of the sheets is all that sustains me. I wish desperately to lick her, to embrace her further, to be with her more. But I refrain, she's still sleeping, snoring gently, her nose flutters as her cheeks shift around her jawbones. Her stomach rumbles as I hug her tighter, it's not the first time, it's been grumbling periodically since about 10. I always think about those first days, those first pretty nights draped in liquor and smoke. I remember how beautiful it was to dance with her, two banshees shifting listlessly about a tapestry laden room. Beautiful with the scent of incense and the low light of red strings. Those days we used to dance, to cuddle, to watch movie after movie, those feverish hungry days. The mania of our being, clutching each other as though we were the only life rafts present aboard a sea of great toil. The scent of her cucumber shampoo, the delicate bounce of her Adam's apple as she gulped another sip of some retched fluid. I can still taste her, that bitter hateful thing, I loathe how much I miss the revelry. 

I can still remember the first time we tried pills, her bony fingers clutching that little Hello Kitty baggy. Two blue little discs, unmarked and strange, we held hands as we did. Swallowing with timid gulps of Diet Fanta we entered into something. Her room with its sparkling lights and plush pillows, we listened to The Beatles. It was Rubber Soul, a scratched vinyl she’d gotten from her brother before he was drafted. She giggled so much as she tried to place it on the player, I watched from her bed. I watched from the bed, listless, my brain at an utter standstill as I layed enveloped in the sheets. She finally succeeded, the infernal contraption buzzing with life as the warm sound echoed out. She stepped, no, she floated to the bed. The oversized shirt she wore (crudely tie dyed in garish color) fluttered about her like silk. Her hair was especially long then, reaching her waist its reddish color nearly glowed in the artificial light. That first moment as she touched down, our bodies intertwining, empty stomachs rubbing against each other, it was bliss.

I can still remember how long that joy lasted, how her eyes twinkled as she laughed, rolling and contorting against one another. It was that day I knew I loved her, I can recall the exact moment where I truly knew. It was seated indian style on the carpet, her knees poked into my sides as she mumbled to herself. She was trying desperately to brush through the curly knotted disaster that was my hair. It wasn’t as though we hadn’t done anything up until then. We had, believe me, during long nights in cloudy smoke filled rooms, we did embrace, we felt and explored, we experienced each other. But those were not tender moments, they were droopy and misshapen, half remembered things that made our cheeks blush when we’d catch each other staring. I still long for those days, days of being not as anything but merely two peripheral entities. Half-people unceremoniously bumbling about. To be again existing only on the boon of three cups of tea and a few crackers. Those days, I miss those days, those days before the looks. The hushed whispers, and vocal displeasure. The chastising, the threats, the shouting, the violence, and eventually the doctors. A year and a half, a year and a half of barely being anything, even less than I was. Of long evaluations, harsh lighting, disastrous existence under the continuous gaze of an ever hateful system. I almost left then, a broken mirror and tearful determination were moments from freeing me, but they dragged me back down. My arms still bear the reminder of my folly, my mistake, my erroneous failure, I hate to look at them. 

It was no easy thing, it was no good experience, but it did end. It ended on the day of my 19th birthday, I was no longer the ward of my father and therefore I was a free person, a person who was no longer the problem of the institution. I didn’t receive many liberties, many joys during those times, I was given temporary housing and a sum of cash expected to last me a month. I was not a desirable hire, I lacked many skills, my education having been cut short. I was further not well internally, and while my attempts at proper smiles and tidy appearances sought to hide this, I was simply not of the right composure. Time and time again I struggled, and as my moment of true release neared I struggled even further. Eventually I came upon it, an art group, a large townhouse converted into the studio of an amalgamation of creative endeavors. It was here that I saw her again, she sat there, her form exposed. It was different,  the jagged peaks and divots I had known were obscured, the birth mark I had traced so many times was ever so slightly changed. Its form hugging new flesh, modified form. She didn’t see me that first day. I had been scouted by an aspiring sculpturist. His brain was strange, he muttered to himself often, and he regularly found himself in such distress as to be utterly unreachable, a mess of worry and accusation. Still though there was an odd kindness to him, a level of deeper consideration that inspired much of his actions and pursuits. I came initially to help with the paints, my off kilter eye for color just so happened to align with his particular approach.

Those initial days, crouched over, eyeing out dabs onto pallets with the precision of a surgeon. My deliveries always met curt approval, a myriad of mumbles ensuing as he briefly turned to face me, the paint in his beard was what I always focused on. The small spots and splotches, an ever changing but always present mark upon his face. It was one day, I believe sometime in late summer where I went down again to mix, where my form captivated him. Not in some sensual way, I still believe the man to be wholly disinterested in such things, but more so a muse. I still mixed of course, but more and more my time was spent posing and posing and serving as something from which form was inspired. It was around this time that I had started to mingle with many of my peers. Folks of all sorts, coming from a near unbelievable wealth of places, we gathered in the deeper recesses of the home. In the back of the basement was where we played, a bar, chairs and couches meant for lounging, all manner of procured pleasure gathered in great quantities. It was here, in the warm buzz of an odd dose that I once more saw her. Her parents had tried something similar to mine, but their methods were far less careful. Sent with a one way ticket upon a greyhound to some awful enclosure up North. She however pursued a different route, hitchhiking from the station she made her way around. She never says more than that, there’s a distance in her eyes at the recollection. Those first few nights were strange, we spoke, we talked, we danced, we sat amongst each other. But we were strange still, we were beasts anew, known not by ourselves or eachother. She held my arm one night, as we sat pressed against in the bed we share, and she looked at my scars.

She didn’t say a thing, her eyes merely traced them. Making subtle swoops and jerks they mapped me out. She took me in, she gazed upon me, and she looked up. Her eyes were damp, their permanent puffiness accentuated by her tears. She didn’t speak for a few moments, and my breath caught as she looked. It was some time before her words finally came, timid and shaky she uttered “I love you.” I didn’t speak, my head buzzed and my eyes welled. Informal things hung about my head, awful memories endlessly whirring about. I felt the waves, the lap of the water pulling me in deeper, I could see the light growing further and further away. I wished nothing more than to cease, to stop my wretched growth, I was so tired. Her arms wrapped around me, a listless hum emanating from her chapped lips. I didn’t react at first, my body felt like stone, a soured dysfunctional thing barely processing its stimuli. I’ve been held for every night since, every single night, the hum, our quiet admiration for one another, the relief of two lifetimes relished by its fortunate recipients. But no night since, no beautiful melancholic daydream in the time after ever did I cry. It was that night, that night as I fell into the inky slime of nothingness that I began to weep. My eyes welling, my form convulsing, head against her chest. It was only that night in which I sobbed.