@rosedha SAID : ❛ quiet reflection is next to impossible if your mental landscape is one long scream. ❜
quiet reflection is next to impossible... that's a rich girl problem. consider this : a scream stuck in the chest for six months, under the ribs, aching to be let out, begging to echo, to become tangible, to be recognized. a voice in her head pleading to be relieved of the weight, of the violence, of the claws digging into her bones. quiet reflection is all she gets, all she has, all she can afford. if sadness was a currency, ishtar would have to go through all of her pockets to find the needed dollars. if sadness was a currency, ishtar would have given it all to her robbers already. she calls it love, but it feels a lot like betrayal or violence, your mind & body turned into something out of your control. her keeping jimbo company, kissing his forehead before he falls asleep, trying to remember that it isn't about her, that it won't be about her if she sleeps and he ends up like rosie, a long line of vibrating static, convulsing and then dead, waiting to be taken out of life, incapable of doing that on his own either. quiet reflection is for those who can't scream, and ishtar cannot, ishtar doesn't have the right, ishtar has to smile through gritted teeth because she is sure that if she ever tried to let it out, she would never be able to stop.
she pictures it. pictures herself letting go.
in this fantasy, she is doing what she does every night, abandoning a dazed jj in her bed, a sight for sore eyes or a sore sight for eyes, she is uncertain... to be honest, she is just glad to see him alive even if he barely looks like he is living. she pictures herself getting in her car and drowning the oppressive beats of her hearts with the radio, which immediately starts spitting out GREEN LIGHT by lorde. she sings along, of course she does, she sings along so loudly the sounds reverberate through the empty car, her voice getting back at her, 𝙸 𝙺𝙽𝙾𝚆 𝚆𝙷𝙰𝚃 𝚈𝙾𝚄 𝙳𝙸𝙳 𝙰𝙽𝙳 𝙸 𝚆𝙰𝙽𝙽𝙰 𝚂𝙲𝚁𝙴𝙰𝙼 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝚃𝚁𝚄𝚃𝙷. but when comes the time to turn on the right, she doesn't. the car keeps slashing the night in two with its headlights, catching nothing but empty streets and cold asphalt. it is a beautiful night, she pictures it clearly, full of promises & indecent proposals. ishtar doesn't look pretty in this scenario because it is her mind furnishing the tools, she doesn't look like anything, not even herself. she's a random silhouette in a random pickup black truck, singing a random radio song as if her life depended on it. it feels good, though, it feels so good, better than getting high with friends on a couch owned by someone you don't know, better than fucking that one guitarist who really knows how to follow directions. it feels so good she thinks of herself as rosie, getting obsessed with the feeling, chasing it to the ends of life. addicted to the ectasy of that moment, addicted to the slightly vibrating steering wheel. addicted to never leaving that car but to be always leaving places and people behind. (fuck, to be the one leaving for once) addicted to this, forever leaving, never home and not needing one, being her own home, being enough, being free.
𝙳𝙸𝙳 𝙸𝚃 𝙵𝚁𝙸𝙶𝙷𝚃𝙴𝙽 𝚈𝙾𝚄 𝙷𝙾𝚆 𝚆𝙴 𝙺𝙸𝚂𝚂𝙴𝙳 𝚆𝙷𝙴𝙽 𝚆𝙴 𝙳𝙰𝙽𝙲𝙴𝙳 𝙾𝙽 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙻𝙸𝙶𝙷𝚃 𝚄𝙿 𝙵𝙻𝙾𝙾𝚁 ? she pictures herself, still singing at the top of her lungs, making so much noise it is getting absurd. opened windows, fresh air freezing her to the bones, but it doesn't matter, it really doesn't. nothing does in this fantasy, not when you are driving on the highway at night. it is the road & the moon & you. she is free, has never been freer, free because in that moment she has no handcuffs keeping her in one place, or tied to anyone. she just belongs, she is a lost note in a sea of noise, a dusty spot in an old abandoned church, a blade of grass in a field during spring. she is herself. she is nothing. and while she pictures that particular feeling, that particular image, she wonders if there was really any difference between the two. was she ever more ? she doesn't remember. rosie & jj asleep in those beds that aren't theirs, beds they've taken for granted, beds they think they can resent just because they wish they would be elsewhere. sometimes it feels like they've taken all the pieces of herself for themselves, like they wanted to fix the broken gears of their own minds and forgot that she might need them to function. broken pretty doll, stuck on the same song, over & over again. 𝙸'𝙻𝙻 𝙲𝙾𝙼𝙴 𝙶𝙴𝚃 𝙼𝚈 𝚃𝙷𝙸𝙽𝙶𝚂 𝙱𝚄𝚃 𝙸 𝙲𝙰𝙽'𝚃 𝙻𝙴𝚃 𝙶𝙾. they've taken so much without meaning to, so much she does not know how to get it back.
sometimes ishtar thinks about the day she saw rosie awake for the first time. the way she looked at her, barely fifty hours after opening her eyes, still so full of anger and resentment and something sticky __ like well-rehearsed sadness, or muddy, like dark dirt that you're preparing yourself to throw over a freshly dug grave. she looked so unhappy to be alive, to be awake, to be there. that had hurt so much more than finding her on the bathroom floor. she remembers that day too but she tries not to think about it too much. it comes back in flashes, like the horizon when you're driving at night ; little moments coming back to you as stolen sights of forbidden memories. she sees herself asking milot if she can stay at his house for the night, and he says yes, doesn't even really reply, just lifts his eyes from rosie's body and extends a hand with his keys in it. she remembers not wanting to go but going anyway, because someone has to clean up rosie's mess __ the few thrown-up pills, mostly, but also the water on the ground from when she left the sink open and couldnt get up to close it. ishtar remembers cleaning the bathroom, remembers not wanting milot to have to do it, not when it was his kid convulsing on the tiles. it took a long time, but not enough to waste away the night, so she has to find something else to do, something else to clean __ and that something has to be her. she pictures herself getting in that tub but doesn't really remember doing it. she sits there for a while, eyes lost in the white tiles, lost in an ocean of white noise from her head. each thought shot the second it is expressed as a coping mechanism : you can't panic if you're not thinking straight, and ishtar in that moment is all spirals. melting hot water gets freezing cold too soon, but she doesn't move, she lets herself feel it ; the nothingness, the emptiness of it. all she is then is shudders, pain dulled by chattering teeth, her body trying to shake her awake, to put her into motion. a soft, terrible electrocution of the machine trying to remember what action she is supposed to be performing. the last thing she remembers about that night is her face in the mirror, the mauve lips and the ruined bun, the mascara down her cheeks because she forgot to clean it off before showering. she distinctly remembers looking at herself and seeing nothing.
𝙱𝚄𝚃 𝙷𝙾𝙽𝙴𝚈 𝙸'𝙻𝙻 𝙱𝙴 𝚂𝙴𝙴𝙸𝙽' 𝚈𝙾𝚄 𝙳𝙾𝚆𝙽 𝙴𝚅𝙴𝚁𝚈 𝚁𝙾𝙰𝙳, fever dream ishtar is singing, a fantasy ___ while the real one is staring at rosie, her fists clenched as she slowly but surely looks up. rosie doesn't have her shades on, which somehow makes it worse. dead-end eyes and no smiling lips ; rosie in her worst, darkened glory. ishtar hates every part of it. « so what ? » she demands, too aggressive, voice impossibly higher than the gentle drawl she usually rasps with affection. doll seen in a broken mirror ; no longer the manic pixie dream girl but her horror counterpart, a ghost of someone too bright, tarnished by months of unseeing. 𝚃𝙷𝙾𝚄𝙶𝙷𝚃 𝚈𝙾𝚄 𝚂𝙰𝙸𝙳 𝚈𝙾𝚄 𝚆𝙾𝚄𝙻𝙳 𝙰𝙻𝚆𝙰𝚈𝚂 𝙱𝙴 𝙸𝙽 𝙻𝙾𝚅𝙴 ___ the fantasy is singing, and it's a lament, it's a refrain, it's an accusation. it's ishtar blaming rosie for feelings blossoming in her chest, blaming rosie for the ruined garden, blaming rosie because it's easier than blaming herself. the fantasy is screaming but it is not enough to reach reality : « so fuckin' what, uh ? you ain't gonna change, 's that it ? yer just gonna. stare at a wall and complain about how ya can't, think, and how ya can't scream ? » it's a fire set, a girl ignited ; she moves forward and rosie can either back down or meet her in the middle, but it will end the same way __ both of them too close & still not close enough. never close enough again, rosie made sure of that. 𝙱𝚄𝚃 𝚈𝙾𝚄'𝚁𝙴 𝙽𝙾𝚃 𝙸𝙽 𝙻𝙾𝚅𝙴 𝙽𝙾 𝙼𝙾𝚁𝙴, the fantasy breathes it softly into the night, as the real breathing girl wonders if she decided to touch the raw, broken edges of rosie, would she cut herself ? would she need stitches ? would it be enough to bleed out ? ; but that's a goddamn stupid thought to have when you're already a bruised mess from all the banging on a closed door. she's been bleeding out for months now, it's a miracle she still has anything left to give. « well guess what, princess. we're all on the same fuckin' bull, okay, trynna stay upright. you ain't special. so you either get over it, or you don't half-ass the job of killin' yerself this time. »
here's your one fucking long scream at its peak.
somewhere else, far away from the mess they made, her fantasy sings softly: 𝙾𝙷, 𝙸 𝚆𝙸𝚂𝙷 𝙸 𝙲𝙾𝚄𝙻𝙳 𝙶𝙴𝚃 𝙼𝚈 𝚃𝙷𝙸𝙽𝙶𝚂 𝙰𝙽𝙳 𝙹𝚄𝚂𝚃 𝙻𝙴𝚃 𝙶𝙾. a wish whispered into the night, like a shooting star, burning bright.
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