#i cannot imagine the trauma of being stuck in that debris

[hissterical-nyaan]

There is something really fucked up that we can now just fucking watch the last seconds of someone's life on our tiny little phones and repost it everywhere

Just feels extremely dystopian to me

Praying hard that we find some survivors asap in the Air India crash. I just cannot come to terms with the way the plane just fell from the sky man

[mullersturtleneck]

The Other Track (1)

(none of my tags are working right now so I’m hoping this one shows up somewhere on this hellsite)

This is going to be a sort of au series, I suppose. You asked for a fix-it-fic, but I haven’t really seen a fix-it fic in this way before (if I’m wrong, send me receipts or course) So. Welcome to Persephone’s Underground Railroad.           

_________________________________

   There is no day or night here, no measurable significance to time passing or any indication that there is time here at all. Eurydice had tried, at first, to keep track. One long whistle to get to work, a long whistle to get home. Between then there was the sound of machines; harsh metal brushing against itself in a horrendous squelch that pinched at her ears, created heat where there was already sweat pooling and dripping. She tried to count the number of times she hit her axe in the mines, rounded about the bases of large machines when her intelligence had moved her to a new room. There hadn’t been breaks-why would they be needed, in this realm where nobody could make an independent thought and she barely remembered her name?

              It’s your fault. One whistle meant to get to work. She tugged on the strap of her overall and examined the large gear that had been chugging against the usual mechanical rhythm. You sent yourself down here. You abandoned him. You’re selfish. You deserve this.

              Eurydice tried to keep time while working, tried counting the ticks of the cogs or the steps of her feet. She tapped her fingers against her thigh once, but imagined his hands there and could no longer go on. Within the echo of it all, if she really concentrated, she could feel him. She couldn’t hear his voice, see his face…she fought against the current of repression long enough to know that the image could no longer be conjured. But she remembered the feeling of him; a warmth that didn’t bring pain, a racing heart that leapt, danced. Sometimes there were phantom touches-hands around her waist, a brush against her lips. The moments were fleeting, however, and they were fading.

              One whistle meant get to work, so that’s what Eurydice did. But she could not shake the feeling that there was more; more than counting cogs, more than pressing her axe against rusted gears and repeating her name over in her head. Eurydice, that’s your name. Eurydice. You can’t forget it. Eurydice…

              Her name turns to a sound outside of her own being and it her mind struggles to process it. The sound comes closer; footsteps in their own rhythm, breathing heavy and ragged, and then his voice. Her gaze shoots up and her mind is flooded with information. His hands on your waist, his song in your heart, his lips on your lips…Orpheus…

              She says his name once and does not want to let it go. It feels foreign, these words she hasn’t been able to say and this sensation of being hugged, being loved after an unknown time of isolation. She clings to him, and another sensation; fear. Her breathing grows heavy, her head spinning. She’s speaking to Orpheus but can not decipher what she’s saying. She clings to his touch, cups his face in her hands. He’s real. He’s here. He’s real, and you’re not going to mess this one up again.

              “Let’s go,” Eurydice’s voice breaks. “Let’s go right now!”

              Orpheus shakes his head, wonders why she would want to come with her. It destroys her, this shattered sort of speech. He dreams of the things he’d promised her. She dreams of laying in his arms, of gathering firewood and planting gardens. Eurydice knows they might struggle, but dreams of struggling together; a team. She looks upon his sorry eyes, cheeks reddened with the smoldering heat, tears their only solace, and promises him a future. She commits. I won’t run this time. I won’t run.

              But they do run; they run together, hand-in-hand. Orpheus knows the way, has it memorized by landmarks of the places that had drawn new wounds across his cheek and his arms. They stay away from the railroad, cut through thicket and climb through rubble. They run side-by-side, Orpheus with a ridiculous, boyish grin that has her laughing too. There’s no sense of time here but she doesn’t care; there is Orpheus, her Orpheus, and she would spend one thousand ageless moments here in this fire if it meant she could see his smile, hear his voice.

              “I found you,” He can’t stop saying the words, brushing his thumb across the top of her hand, stopping to sweep her into his arms. “I found you, I love you.”

              They’re found as they’re crossing a massive pile of upturned brick, some crushed to reddened stone with other pieces remain. They’ve surmounted a mountain of them at this point, thrown spare pieces to the side and listened to them clang their way to the ground. They’re found just crossing over its top, where the hideaways of old windowsills and wall markers are much further down. The pair of runaways stop in their tracks; Orpheus guides Eurydice behind him immediately, shields her with arms that grasp at her, hold her to him with little give. A single brick tumbles its way to the bottom of the pile and they watch it, breath stuck in their throats.

“You found her-you’re here.”

              When Persephone reveals herself, Eurydice can feel Orpheus loosen his grip on her; not too much, but just enough to urge her to hold tighter. This is the woman who’d danced with her up above, given her a cup of liquor and her approval and spent the nights chatting with them at Hermes’s bar. This is the woman that had looked upon her in the black clothes of mourning, scorned her husband and then let him undress Eurydice of everything that had made her herself. He’d given her the contract, he’d brought her down here. And now here was his wife, who’d looked at her with such pity but had let it happen. The woman who is celebrated in their dandelion summers spends her winters shutting out the world, and Eurydice cannot bare to see her.

              Orpheus is torn between a sigh of relief and another cry for help, an escape. He can sense the unfiltered anxiety coming from Eurydice, the way she shifts as much of her body against him as she can, breathes slowly, shakily against his back. He looks into Persephone’s eyes and is unable to predict what will happen next, whether they’re saved or doomed. He’s not sure that she knows, either. Her gaze never leaves him, barely falters as she stands in the rubble. Her nest of pretty curls is tied atop her head, held in place by a scarf she’s tied meticulously tight. Her clothing is scuffed, tights ripped and deep black fabric splattered with stain and strain. He can see the unsteady rise and fall of her chest; quick, as if she’s climbed this hurdle on a mission. Instinctively, Orpheus backs up, shifts his hold on Eurydice so that it is as tight as it is being given. He narrows his eyes.

              “We’re leaving.” It’s the first time either of the women has heard Orpheus use this voice, harsh and darkened, protective. Persephone steps back, mirroring his actions, and holds her hands in the air. This is not the same boy she had helped raise. This is someone different. Orpheus had always loved deeply, but not like this. As the hardened landscape surrounds them-the ember-reddened sky, the rubble and the ash-his lips draw themselves into a firm line and he squares his shoulders. In her second home, Persephone witnesses Orpheus cross the balance between the little, naïve boy with unbounded happiness to a man crushed with trauma, a man who’d almost lost the most important thing to him. A hefty wall of pain hits Persephone’s chest and knocks her to a seated position as she looks upon someone who is almost a stranger to her now; someone who looks at her, unsure, for the first time in his life.

              “We have to go.” He says it softer now, shakier. Orpheus does not move when Persephone sits, but softens the slightest bit. He bites his lower lip, taps his free hand against his thigh. “We’re going home.”

              “You don’t know how.”

              “Yes, I do.”

              “You could get hurt.”

              “Lady Persephone,” She shudders. His voice is that of a child, pleading and half-whispered. Orpheus shifts forward, a test; a trial of the optimism hidden within the nerve-hardened shell he’s created. Eurydice stays close, lets herself move to his side but keeps her eyes glued to the expanse of land beyond the rubble mountain. Persephone looks between the pair; her nephew and his blood-charred cheek, his slightly haphazard clothing and his arms large around the tiny stature of his lover. Eurydice, stained with grease and oil and sweat, with gaunt cheeks and flyaway hair, is a picture of beauty in the strange ember glow. It is the way that Orpheus looks at her, drinks in even this shattered appearance and brushes away that untamed hair, that stirs Persephone’s heart.

              “I know every stone. I know every place you could get into trouble. I can’t let you get hurt, poet. Hermes would never forgive me; I would never forgive me.”

              Persephone rises, brushes as much debris from her clothing as she can, and turns to face the rest of the unknown.

              “I can take you there. I can keep you safe.”

              “How do we know that you’re not lying?” It’s the first time Eurydice has said a word to her, and it cuts sharp like a dagger to her throat. Her tone is laced with well-practiced malice, lips drawn to a thin line. She clings to Orpheus, kicks a small stone with the toe of her boot. She wonders just how long it would take to run if they started now-if Persephone is as fast as she seems, what moves she’d favor in a fight. She sizes Persephone up as a threat, but the older woman simply shakes her head. There is pity in her eyes, and Eurydice pushes down the boiling of her blood. Pity is not her goal. Orpheus and his voice and their second chance is.

              “Well,” Persephone shrugs, steps down the rubble-pile without knocking a single brick. “I guess you’ll just have to trust me.”

[torchedtrauma]

Rebuilding with Residual Debris

The main thought from this entry is going to be the basis of this entire blog; I imagine I will be expanding on it for a long time to come.

Trails and Traumas:

Recently I had something happen that was Earth shattering. The bigger internal conflict for me was this wasn't the first time I’d come in contact with adversity that brought me to my knees and crushed me. My last occurrence with the idea of ending my existence was in July 2015. It was the first time I not only had a thought and plan but actually attempted to execute said plan.

Since 2015, I have work diligently to rebuild myself in a way that I would be undeterred by forces outside of my control. I cannot begin to count how many times I reflected and brought myself back to center, only to begin depleting again. It was a constant loop of the highest of highs and lowest of lows. It took YEARS to find my grounding. Once I was able to get to the other side of that situation, I saw I had been down much longer than I previously realized. I couldn't figure out how I drained all my resources but thought if I just paid closer attention to myself moving forward, I would NEVER return to that dark place again. I thought I had built strong enough armor to withstand any bullet coming at me and was sure the worst was behind me.

I was WRONG!

This next part is what created a new path for the person who is typing this entry today, so listen closely: 

It DOES NOT matter what walls and defenses you build when planning for an attack when the enemy is within the walls AS you are building. 

Girl, what are you evening talking about?

Let me say it louder and more clearly:

If you are against yourself, you will always be at war and you will NEVER win.

In the past, I always acknowledged my part in the path I took and how it all devolved but I never fully acknowledged because I never understood WHY it devastated me so deeply and inevitably would be what destroyed me.

Death on Demand:

Here is the REALLY ugly and uncomfortable truth:

On February 18, 2020, Jenna Marie Diaz died. She went into a therapy session that she meant to but forgot to cancel. Her brain was full but her mind was completely empty. For the first time, she wasn't able to hide from the honest truth: She didn't want to die but was hopeless and tired; so she didn't want to live either. She wanted it all to end - the pain, the frustration, and the exhaustion. She was over this cycle. She knew even though there were good things that “could” happen, it wasn't enough to make her continue on anymore. She realized that if she stuck around for the really amazing times she hasn't experienced yet, it would without a doubt, come with more hard times too. She felt too weak and depleted. So she made a choice to change her semicolon to a period and finally call it a damn day. The past 4 years had been grueling and although she recovered, she never truly healed. She had already been through hell and made it to see the other side. Everything that lead her here was a part of that healing. Once she realized that fact, she immediately refused to go though it again. Her therapist talked to her and tried to counsel her but before she walked in, she made a decision to turn her self-worth and rationale in at the door. This created a barrier and a disconnect so that as she was being talked to, she couldn't even hear the words being said to her. She only focused on one singular thought: she didn't want to be saved. 

This may lead you to ask the question of who is typing this blog if the publisher died? The short answer: I don't know, yet. I can tell you that Jenna died on February 18, 2020 - I know because I watched it happen. What I didn't tell you is what happened next - 

From Ashes to Flames: 

I watched as Jenna began breaking and growing weak. I noted a few months before that she didn't seem herself. She looked tired, less focused and driven and overall...less human. One day without warning she burst into flames and disintegrated right in front of me with only her ashes remaining. At that moment, I wasn't able to process what happened but am now ready to share what I saw looking back:

On March 3, 2020, exactly two weeks after her death, I surprisingly caught a glimpse of someone who looked identical to Jenna walking the Riverwalk Trail. Even though the resemblance was uncanny, I immediately knew it wasn't her because, unlike Jenna, this person was ignited with purpose. It was written all over her and impossible to ignore. From her goofy grin to her quick, bouncy pace; I knew that I NEEDED to have a conversation with her. It’s hard to explain the amount of discomfort I felt from seeing someone look identical outwardly but being so different inwardly. It was clear, however, that she had something in common with the girl I once knew; life had crashed onto her like a wave hitting her, knocking her down and taking her under. If that was true, then how was she okay? It was her mindset; this girl believed life was happening FOR her instead of TO her. This trailblazer of a person began telling me how she had been hospitalized in February and how it changed her entire belief system. She explained how she came to the end of her road but instead of stopping when the road ended, she went on to create a new path. At first that didn't make sense to me but she went on to explain that she knew going back wasn't an option. She told me she had come a long distance and turning around would just be silly. I was dumbfounded when she said although turning around might seem easier, it wouldn't be. She said turning around would create doubt. She expanded simply by saying, “What if the end of that road wasn't her end but the perfect place to start a new direction or path?” Our walk ended and she began leaving. As she did, I realized I didn't get her name and called out to her. She retorted back simply with her name, Phoenix. 

After she was out of earshot I replied, “Welcome back, Jenna. This rebirth will be the reason you never have to die again”  

Phoenix:

phoe·nix/ˈfēniks/

noun: 

a unique bird that lived for five or six centuries in the Arabian desert, after this time burning itself on a funeral pyre and rising from the ashes with renewed youth to live through another cycle.

a long-lived bird that cyclically regenerates or is otherwise born again. Associated with the sun, a phoenix obtains new life by arising from the ashes of its predecessor.

a person or thing regarded as uniquely remarkable in some respect.