#but the only way out is through

[lauriemarch]

the little girl in my head wears a side ponytail like deb from napoleon dynamite because she genuinely thinks it looks good. she has a round face just like me, the little girl thinks. and she is pretty, so i must be pretty.

the little girl in my head lies to her fourth grade class about her parents getting a divorce and cries at every 9/11 presentation because her dad took a flight only a week before that. the little girl in my head does not believe she has anything true to offer to the world, so she makes up stories to hide her plainness.

the little girl in my head wears pink plaid shorts and reads in the library at lunch. the little girl in my head looks at a tweet i saw today that read "i'm so glad my pain didn't make me cruel" and she turns to face me. why did you let your suffering turn you savage? she asks. it is not judgemental. just curious. the little girl in my head is so curious. she does not know that my barbaric life is for her, i bear my teeth and hiss-spit my venom to protect her and give her reason and meaning. everything is a defense mechanism.

the little girl in my head is too afraid to try the monkey bars because she is embarrassed to be out of breath in front of the other kids and the 22 year old body i occupy is too afraid to be courageous in anything because she is embarrassed to be wrong. the little girl in my head watches me skip out on the first time i could actually call something heat and frowns, turning to her books, and catalogs all the ways we have prepared for this moment. a shiver runs through your spine, she pushes her purple glasses up on the bridge of her nose. you blush. you dream of nothing but them. how did you miss the signs?

the little girl in my head wears an itchy black and white dress to read a few verses from the Bible on the stage at Christmas service. she skips around in patent leather shoes and screams "FORGOTTEN, FORGOTTEN, FORGOTTEN, FORGOTTEN!" in circles while i claw at the earth around me, my years of life laying in heaps and puddles, trying to justify every action i have taken to be here. "EVIL, VILE, UGLY, LAZY, MEAN, ANGRY, STUPID, DISAPPOINTING!" she's crying and she does not understand why. i am awake at 4am and i feel the weight of years i never got to live pressing down like an impossible force of gravity. "UNLOVED, UNWANTED, UNNECESSARY!" she dreams of a future where she is picked first, called best friend, seen as the love of someone's life. i sit in my car and wrack the frame with sobs that are so violent i have to throw up on the side of the road.

i have let down the little girl in my head. if she met me, she would be afraid. chalk the distant ghost of a woman down to a cautionary tale and open another library book, careful not to spill her capri sun on the worn-down pages. i do not know how to change i whisper through the pages if i could i would and i would do it all for you i am sorry that i have killed and maimed for you next time you grow up do it gently please please please please please

[ahauntedcowboy]

having a big heart is all fun and games until your chest aches with the grief you must carry all the time.

[lady-harrowhark]

okay i literally cannot be on here at all today. i don’t have the self control and i have so. much. work. that i need to do. i am cutting myself off.

[voidspacecowboy]

One day I hope to unscramble the mess inside my brain in order to do justice to the stories stuck within it

[circuitousmoths]

Making myself incomprehensibly sick with worry over something that is simultaneously entirely out of and entirely within my control. As is my nature.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

HOT, SINGLE, UNSTUDIED SPONGES. 3000 NAUTICAL MILES AWAY. Come sail the distance and read Tiger Tiger!

[ink-the-artist]

Rabbits

Some bonus art, I initially started making this in a totally different art style but changed my mind about halfway through lmao, here are the parts I finished

[gh0uist]

Every time I send a poorly timed elipses I am reminded of Things.

[aroaceleovaldez]

Nico referring to his mom as "Mama" implies he most likely at least used to refer to Hades as "Papa" and i 100% headcanon he still does but mostly in the manner of him having the entire Underworld wrapped around his finger for being the baby of the family

[welcometogrouchland]

[ID in ALT] I've made posts before about Talia/Dick co-parenting Damian moments (will never happen but let me dream) and this came to me in a vision. Took me ages to finish for some reason 😭 and then even longer to post

[hangonsnoopy19]

Something I love is that Daniel fixes his mistake.

In ‘73 his original sin is that he jumps in and rants mid-interview about how he deserves the dark gift and Louis doesn’t understand the meaning of his own story. He interrupts in order to haphazardly ‘explain’ Louis’s own story to him and impose meaning on an incomplete narrative, which you shouldn’t do as a journalist and can’t successfully do anyway without knowing the whole story.

Present day, he interrupts again - this time stopping an emotional spiral - and tells Louis to keep telling the material details of his story. Ignore the existential implications and focus on getting all the pieces together. “Sidestep the big picture; get the story straight first.” Finding meaning comes way later. Meaning doesn’t mean anything if parts are missing. You’re going to go to pieces and lose yourself completely if you don’t hold on to the narrative thread. Let the tale seduce you.

The man is totally and completely a journalist now, and he’s right. Memory is a monster.

[morganbritton132]

AU where Eddie gets all his love advise from the exasperated cop that keeps arresting him only to later learn that Steve is Hopper’s adopted son.

[starzonez]

when maddy starts openly sobbing while watching the pink opaque and owen doesn’t quite get it yet. OKAYYY okay okay okay

[bulldagger-bait]

I've always been curious to know this about the people around me. Most people have been in severe pain, but in my experience few have had what they would say is their 10/10 experience. I guess it's just something I find fascinating, as I had my 10/10 experience quite young and I sometimes forget that not everyone has. In my opinion it changes your relationship with pain and how you engage with it afterwards. If you answered yes, feel free to elaborate on your circumstances in the tags!

(reblog for a bigger sample size etc)

[thepeacefulgarden]

[thesorrowoflizards]

↳ You never know when the good you do may come back around.