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haikyupid · 4 years

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Frequently used emojis:

👍🤡🎂✅👌😃😚😘😊😆😩🤠😀😱😭😔🧙‍♂️😫😉😡🙁🤔🙃😗❤🥰😎😤 I hope these suffice I’m submitting over mobile because I dont know how to emoji other wise.

Why follow:

First and foremost I saw you write cute prompts with cute guys and I thought the request system was pretty neat. And correct me if I’m wrong because it wasn’t explicitly stated in the order but you don’t seem to mind making a fic Gender neutral or even doing a fic for male!characterxmale!reader which is something I really appreciate.

Reasons to start and stay:

I can’t for the life of my remember where I first saw Haikyuu I know I heard of it before watching it. It was probably as simple as earnest sport boys are hot so watch this anime. Still reeling on a single reason I stayed since so many of the guys are just so pretty or hot or both.

Why them:

Full disclosure I had no one in mind when I started writing this submission so most of my brain power is thinking of my favorite character right now. There is so many to choose from but upon further consideration it is Bokuto koutarou (as I typed his last name his first came up in the suggestion bar lol) he is so energetic and screenshots from the manga make him BEEFY he has my heart in his hands. I’m trying really hard to put to words what else is great about my sweet owl boyfriend something about his hair probably.

Letter to you:

You run a very cute blog and I respect your positive attitude even when you’re a user of this hell site. Hopefully it’s not presumptuous that you male x male reader inserts although it would be a lie if I said I don’t care if you do. I hate to seem rude but I hope I actually qualify for this lol I’d feel silly if I didn’t hop on this train soon enough.

I hope this is both sufficient and legible ‘cuz right now I want to thirst a bit over the runner ups for the KING of my heart. To gush a bit more on Bokuto I love art when his shorts ride up and the knee guards have some uncovered skin showing as I have a weakness for thighs TBH. I love the fukurodani boys Akashi and Bokuto are both beautiful, Nekoma has Kuroo the smug sexy noodle boy and Yaku who was this close to catching my heart. I’ll put an end to this here and I hope and pray this all makes sense English is my first and only language but I am not a smart man if I am to be honest.

NOW PLAYING ◃◃ ❙ ❙ ▹▹ CHANGE MY MIND

for bokuto — when his heart long for yours. when your laughter and words evoke a feeling so foreign, yet he welcomes it as the flutter in his stomach continues to intensify. when thoughts of you cloud his mind, leaving him staring blankly at the ceiling of his bedroom wondering if you’re doing the same. when he screams into his pillow at 2 in the early mornings, as the feelings overflow and threaten to burst at any given moment.

ılı.lıllılı.ıllı.

Perhaps it’s the glow of the sunset that makes your features stand out with a tint of gold that makes it hard for me to look away from you. Maybe it’s because of my tendency to want to be surrounded by loud noises that I end up intently listening to you speak, as the two of us walk along the quiet neighborhood with only the muffled sounds of sputtering engines accompanying your voice. It could be that your smile is contagious, and I find myself laughing along with you every time.

But there has to be a reason why I always find myself wanting to be near you- no, to be with you. But what is it? Why am I always longing for your presence?

“Bokuto.”

My eyes go wide from your sudden call of my name. I gulp, and I hope you don’t notice the nervous lump on my throat. “Yeah?” I curse myself as the word comes out in a tremble.

You tilt your head. That’s all you do, but my heart feels as though it’s intoxicated by you, and it suddenly hurts. My heart thumps louder than ever before.

“This is me.” You gesture at the familiar front of your house.

I find myself paralyzed. I can’t move — I refuse to move. I need to hear the words I’ve been longing for you to say to me; for you to say the word ‘stay’ with your lips no longer curved into a smile of farewell, but one that invites me in.

I feel my fingers twitch in an attempt to grab a hold of you and beg you to explain the feelings that continue to beautifully haunt my every waking moment. You should know, you’re the cause of it.

Please, tell me to stay. Then tell me that you crave my presence like I do with yours. That your soul feels lost when you’re not with me. That you want me to hold you in arms while I confess the foreign feelings that I have for you.

“Stay,” I say all of sudden. Shit, shit, shit! Please don’t think I’m weird. Damn this mouth of mine that never shuts.

Silence dawns upon us. It’s awkward, at least for me it is. I can’t bare to meet your eyes — I don’t know if I’ll be star-struck like before, or become too flustered and run far away from where we stand.

You finally break the silence with a: “so, are you going to say something?” You end the sentence with a lighthearted chuckle. You always knew how to lighten the mood, to lessen the awkwardness that I seem to always bring between us. Maybe it’s one of the reasons why you draw me in, like a tidal wave that leads you to a sea of happiness— and I wish for nothing but to be pulled in.

It’s now or never.

I huff in, my chest puffing out as it would in confidence, except I’m doing my best to feint mine. “Please, ask me to stay!” I don’t mean to scream, but the feelings that bubble up inside continue to intensify. I’m afraid that I can only speak ‘shouts’ at this point.

Please, please, please say the word. I need to know if you feel the same. I don’t think I can handle this foreign feelings any longer — I’d burst. So please, say it. Say that you want me to be with you a little while longer. Ask me to stay with you, and tell me… that you love me.

I search for a sign that blatantly tells me that my thoughts are wrong; but as you smile at me differently — one no longer meant for farewells — I find the gears that connects through my heart and mind finally working, and I now know— I now realize that these ‘foreign’ feelings are derived from the love that I feel only for you.

“Stay, Koutarou.” My heart finally bursts.

NOW PLAYING ◃◃ ❙ ❙ ▹▹ NEVER ENOUGH

for bokuto — when his lips linger on yours just for a split second longer than usual, and his mind is suddenly clouded by you and you only, disregarding everything else that was, and comes to mind. when his arms wrap around your waist like a man starved of your presence, but gentle enough as though he wants to protect and cherish you being in his grasp for as long as life allows him; and when his expression perfectly conveys the pure love and adoration that he feels for you, because to him, words are simply not enough to describe it.

ılı.lıllılı.ıllı.

“Koutarou…”

Your voice puts me in a hypnotic haze, one that I want nothing more but to be surrounded by, every second of the day. It doesn’t matter if it leads me to danger, if the true meaning behind your words hide behind a sweet facade, you could coax me to do just about anything with those words and tone of yours.

“You need to leave now.”

Everything except that.

I feel the strings of my heart tug harshly from one direction to another. How is it that your voice, so sweet and alluring like pure honey, is able to produce words that elicits nothing but hurt from within me?

My heart agonizingly aches, yet your smile — that damned smile of yours that I’ve loved and yearned for years — shows nothing but amusement. How?

Do you not love me enough? Am I not worth your time? Do you want me to leave that badly? Have I done something wrong to make you say those—

“Kou,” your hands find itself on each side of my cheeks, cupping it in the most gentle caress only you can convey, “if you don’t leave now, you’ll be late. Akaashi and the team will start worrying, and they’ll end up spamming my messages.”

Oh.

The cooling relief that rushes through my racing heart and mind greatly contrasts the rising heat that climbs from my neck to my flushed cheeks. Can you see the effect you have on me?

Could you possibly blame me for reacting this way? I love you too much. I wouldn’t mind having my heart ache like this if it means that you’re the cause. I won’t have it any other way.

“I’m sorry.” My eyes close, and I instinctively kiss your lips. I hope that through it, you’ll feel the love that overpowers every other emotion that I’m meant to feel. Every responsibility other than deeply loving you being disregarded in mere seconds.

For once, I let my lips linger longer on yours. You don’t pull back, and I hope you never do. If only time will allow it — could we stay like this forever?

My lips are close enough to feel the small tug on the corners of you lips, indicating a small smile is forming. This is familiar, as it’s often followed by a gentle push by your hands that rest on my chest and a “go, you’re going to be late” — but no; this time, you close the gap in a rushed and delicate kiss.

It doesn’t even last a second before you pull away. I long for more. “Please,” I beg you once more.

“No,” you chuckle and suddenly, everything in my vision becomes much brighter and colourful, “you’re going to be late for practice. Just go, and I’ll give you more when you come back.”

“You promise?” I know you always uphold each one, but hearing you say it makes it that much more meaningful to me. A reassurance that I’m the only person to make these kinds of promises with you.

The sides of your eyes crinkle as you grin at me. “I promise,” you say with a honey-like tone. It evokes a different feeling from earlier, this time, it’s warmth.

A breath of relief, one I didn’t know that I’ve been holding in, leaves my body. And as my chest heaves down, I feel the grin only you can make appear decorate my face, and suddenly, I feel like everything’s going how I want it to; as if the world’s on my side.

I love you. I promise to, for as long as the universe lets me. I’ll never get enough of you, in this life and in another.

0 : 00 ──────────♡─ E : ND

bwahahahhaha, i can tell that you most definitely write better than i do even if i haven’t seen an example — but, hopefully you still liked this one. i’m not good at writing at all and i’m not used creating them, but hopefully this was at the very least decent enough for you. forgive me if it’s not…

you’re so nice 🥺👉👈 also, ik we haven’t talked much like at all, but your personality, i love it! the ‘oh, howdy’ had me wanting to talk to you more 🤣 i haven’t been greeted like that in so, so long, i missed it so much. and you do not seem rude at all! ik i haven’t explicitly said that i’m open to writing for every gender, only bcause i thought it was supposed to be common sense? clearly i was being quite ignorant, so i’m really and deeply sorry about that. but yes, i try to cater my content for all genders, unless the requester explicitly asks for their gender/pronouns to be used.

THIGHS FOR LIFE, HECK YEAH! i loooove that akaashi scene where it’s angled from under him and we get a view of his toned thighs and i’m just like 🤤💛💛 yeah, so now i simp for kuroo and akaashi bcause i’ve seen their beautiful thighs; but when i tell you that i’m willing to do anything to get a peak of bokuto’s bare thighs from under those knee guards, i mean it ahahahaha!

#🎉 ; events ; 200 ; serenades of love #milestone event #bokuto kotarou #bokuto #bokuto fluff #haikyuu bokuto #hq bokuto #haikyuu #hq #haikyuu matchups #hq matchups #haikyuu requests #hq requests #submission

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ephemeral-writings · 6 years

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Everything I Need // 02

oh sehun x reader

genre: angst

word count: 1.7k

Everything I Need // oh sehun teaches you a thing or two about life. but falling for the boy who lived across from you was not what you had anticipated.

Part 01 / Part 02 / Part 03 / Part 04 / Part 05

TL @snowflakesandkisses

You woke up at ten the next morning, stomach empty and begging to be filled. Your last meal was a protein bar and extra leftover fries from your co-worker, it was no wonder you were starving. Your mother would surely frown upon the poor excuse of a meal that was a bar and a bag of chips from the school’s vending machine.

It wasn’t too cold out, but you grabbed a jacket on your way out anyways. Down the street, at the corner of an intersection, was a cheap diner that you frequented, especially when you’ve yet to restock on groceries. What your mom never told you was how expensive it could be to fill the cupboards and fridge with food.

You ordered your usual, a sausage omelette with a hefty side of potatoes because you loved potatoes like it was your lover. As much as you ate at the diner, you hated being outside in general. As you played with your phone, you tried your best to ignore the gnawing loneliness that crept up. You drowned out the sounds of chatter as people of all ages shared a meal together, and you were mostly successful with food to distract you, but then they walked in.

The group was the same age as you, and you knew that because one out of three of them was your classmate. You prayed a silent prayer that they wouldn’t notice you. Kim Jongdae was a social butterfly, and despite you being anything but, he had never failed to flash you a smile and gave you a simple greeting whenever you bumped into each other.

“Oh, hey, Y/N,” Jongdae chirped as his friends walked by to sit in the booth behind you.

“Morning, Jongdae.” You hoped there wasn’t a piece of potato skin stuck in your teeth. Jongdae was a pretty good looking guy, just not your type and you most certainly weren’t his. He asked you about the paper that was due in two weeks time, whether you had started working on it or not, and of course you did. There wasn’t much in your life besides work to distract you.

After exchanging a few more pleasantries, Jongdae rejoined his friends. You overheard one of them ask, “Who was that?”

“She’s in my econ class, we did a project together a while back.”

“Oh.”

They quickly dropped the subject, and you stopped listening.

Your phone stopped being entertaining when you’ve gone through your e-mails(mostly spam and school related). You never understood how people could stare at their devices for hours on end, two hours was enough to give you a headache. It was twelve by the time you left the diner. On the way back, you stopped by a market and picked up some essentials. You needed at least some source of food before re-stocking with your next paycheck which was due by the end of the next week. Eggs, bread, milk, ramyeon, and a new box of cereal would be more than enough to feed one girl.

You walked back to the apartment with all the items stuffed in one bag, except for the carton of eggs which you held. You decided to stop by the mailroom to check if you had any, which you did. Spam mails from your bank, credit cards ads, and a letter addressed from a correctional facility.

“Hey.”

You snapped your head in the direction of the voice calling your name. Sehun, standing a few feet away, was looking at you with a questioning look.

“You okay?”

You looked at him and back to the letter in your egg carton-free hand. What the hell was it even doing in your mailbox?

You nodded even though you could feel the blood draining from your face. “I’m fine. I gotta go, I’ll see you around. Bye.”

To say Sehun was surprised by how abruptly you had left would be an understatement. Your face had looked pale, but more than that, your hands were shaking as you locked up your mailbox.

As soon as you were in your apartment, you ripped open the envelope. The letter was creased and torn on a few edges and the writing wasn’t in any better condition. It had, after all, traveled all the way from a penitentiary miles and miles from here.

The day before your high school graduation, your father was incriminated for fraud. Unbeknownst to you and your mother, he had gambled away everything your family owned, including any little money left that was keeping your mother on chemo. In the end, the cancer wasn’t what killed your mother but your father, and for that, you never forgave him. After the funeral and sentencing, you packed everything you could carry and walked out of the empty home. So your father, whom you’ve lost contact with for three years now, how did he find out where’d you lived?

You thought you’d never be faced with the man who was the cause of all your sufferings, but somehow he’s managed to creep back in your life in the form of a letter. Like hell you were going to allow anything further than that. The letter tells you that he was sorry for his mistakes, that he’s repented, and wishes for nothing more than to make things right. His mistakes? They costed your mother’s life. Him realizing his mistakes now wasn’t going to bring her back. Repentment? According to the police, your father had been falsifying fake documents in order to cheat money from the government since before you were born. That was twenty plus years of coming clean of his sins, but of course he’s finally had time to reflect after being caught.

You heaved a few deep breaths, realizing the constriction in your chest. You tear the paper into shreds, until the words were no longer decipherable, much like the father figure in your life.

You brushed whatever tears that unwillingly escaped, and quietly prepared for work.

If it was one thing you could count on, it was work being the worst distraction possible. A bad start to the day just makes the shift that much harder to get through. Your boss lectures you for not properly garnishing dishes, in the middle of a goddamn dinner rush, and you accidentally burn your hand with hot soup in the middle of it all. Just the cherry on top of it all, a man then yells at you for not giving him his food before another table’s when his order came in one minute after.

“Sir, we are working on your order right now. It should be done in any moment.” You try to stay as calm as you possibly can, and placate the angry man. “Why don’t I go check on it, okay?”

Everything was apparently not okay when he hollers back, “Are you even doing your job right?”

Chanyeol, the other server tonight, meets you in the kitchen and murmured under his breath, “You want me to handle it?” You shook your head, willing the hot tears away, but your face was no doubt burning red.

“I’m fine. I got this,” you flashed smile in thanks, but he still looks at you, unsure, as you turn on your heels and head towards the table with the man’s order in your hand. Everyone, and literally everyone, watched as you present it to the man and he all but acknowledges you. Instead, he shot up from his seat, muttering to his wife to stand as well, and promptly stomped out of the restaurant.

To think that was the most that could go wrong. Your boss proceeded to blame you for your lack of competence for not bringing the food to the angry man first, “Because their table only had two orders! You could’ve finished that table’s order before starting on the bigger table! Use your brain, Y/N!”

You bit your tongue so hard that you broke off a tiny piece, and all you could think of while going through that second round of verbal abuse was how you might possibly choke on your own blood.

You finished off your shift with little encouragements from your co-workers, but other than that, you were ready to go home and sleep until the next ice age.

The next day, on Friday, you didn’t have class or work, so you decided to head to the police station. Last night you barely slept a wink. Even though the letter had been physically rid of, you couldn’t ignore the unsettling feeling in your stomach. How easily it had manage to find its way into your mailbox, it scared you half to death to imagine the man himself showing up on your doorsteps unannounced.

The bus ride took half an hour, with morning traffic, before you finally arrived with questions prepared in your head.

Despite your father being a convict, it was your first time stepping foot in a police station. On the bus there, you imagined it to be hectic, dangerous even, but all you were greeted with was a bunch of middle-aged men and two women sitting in front of computers, some looking like they haven’t slept in days. There’s a man in one of the cells behind the cubicles, snoring loudly, which explains the annoyed looks on the officers’ faces.

“Good morning,” you greeted a man at what you think is the front desk.

He’s not one of the ones who looks tired, but his movements are sluggish as he looked up from his computer screen to see who was the random girl so early in the morning. “Morning. Can I help you with something?”

“Yes, I have a question.” You took a moment to find the proper words to ask, “Would you know if it is possible to rejected letters from someone in prison?”

The man peered curiously at you, and asked, “Is there someone harassing you, miss?” You shook your head without elaborating. The officer noticed that, so he went on. “Well, I’m going to assume that the inmate is your immediate family. They don’t send letters out unless the content’s been approved of, and sense no danger in forwarding the message.”

“So, if I can request for the letters to not send, may I?”

He nodded. “You would have to contact the facility directly, and handle it from there, miss.”

You gathered as much from that that your father doesn’t actually know where you live. Now all you had to do was make sure it stayed that way.

#exo #sehun #sehun fanfic #sehun scenario #exo scenario #sehun angst #sehun fluff #kpop series #kpop fanfic #fanfic #angst #leave me your thoughts pls!

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burn-this-world · 6 years

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The apology I never sent:

To: Her

From: Me

Subject: Don’t freak out. This is a good this, I swear!

(Im sending this with the assumption the email address will go to spam like you had it set before. If it hasn’t; or your reading this because you looked in the folder, then I’m sorry this is long...

I hope you can smile by the end of it. Please read it before you decide what to do. I know it’s a breach of the dvo, and there is nothing that will follow this. Please don’t take offence.)

Hi, Dana,

It’s been a while, a long long while, don’t freak out please. I have the best intentions.

One sentence tldr: I am doing great, I’m not that person anymore, and I have moved on as a much better person because of it, and just needed to apologise for the pain I caused when I broke down, to feel at peace with my growth and like a good person again.

Look, I know this is probably too soon, and what you do with the email is completely up to you. Im really hoping enough time has passed that this will be okay... I know you have a whole different life now, and so do I, and I will continue to respect your space and this distance. I’m not here to disrupt your new path, cause any fear, or change your mind, hear me out.

These last few month have been some of the best of my life. I feel like a happy, healthy, well-regulated person for the first time in my life. I hadn’t thought about you in months.

After I read your affidavit at court that day, it made me see how toxic I was and how not okay my actions toward you were. It made me so ashamed that it forced me to take accountability for fixing myself and my life.

I feel like I’ve made so much progress to being the best me possible and loving myself for the first time ever. The final item to cross off the list and truly close that chapter, is to apologise to you for what I did. That is all really. I have also written the entire story behind it as to hopefully fully explain my thinking of taking this stupid stupid stupid risk of sending this apology. So here goes;

I hope you’re happy, I truly, honestly do. There is no jealousy or hate in my words. When I hit rock bottom, reading your affidavit was a painful truth. Ever since then, i became determined to bounce back, better and stronger than before, and never ever be that manipulative, unstable, abusive, dependant asshole again. I’m proud of how far I’ve come in keeping that word to myself.

Im not trying to be apart of your life with this, that is not the point of what I’m trying to say. It’s to say I’ve come so far healing, that if I re-lived the breakup as strong as I am now, I would high five you whenever you had had decided to tell me about that night, like the friend I said I’d be would have done. And I suppose that’s the point of this, it is not to you my ex-girlfriend, it is to you my ex-best friend.

I would have been more supportive of your decision and not the jealous, emotional and abusive way I was. I am honestly happy for you, whatever you’re up to. I’m sure you’re doing big things, and I wish nothing but the best for your future, I know you’ll kill it.

You breaking things off was the best decision for both of our sakes, and I’m thankful you were storing enough to do it. I mean, sure... it does suck a little that I ruined us being able to be friends... but from it I learned to be a better person, so it wasn’t for nothing. I’m better focused on the whole picture of my life, and so driven to succeed at it, with happiness. I’ve stopped letting a small moment that everyone goes through(and better than I did) hold me back.

I know a lot happened that is probably unforgivable, and I know I made your life harder than it should have ever been, and I regret that a lot... I said and did some shameful things, but please know that is not who I am any more. I am somebody to be proud of. And, as jealous and mad as I was towards Kurt, I am happy you guys found each other and have lasted, honestly. Congratulations on one year.

As much as my friends say it shouldn’t be any of your business where I’m at, a bit of me still kind’ve thinks you might care that I’m doing well too, and that I am doing so much better with my mental health. You always cared through everything, even as I was horrible.

I need you to know I’m not that scary person anymore, and I really really don’t want you to remember me like that. I’ve never been able to say this before in my life, but I am finally honestly happy and proud of where I am. I’m a new person, one at peace, one who will not try and talk to you if see me, or try and get your attention with stupid shit. One who has truly moved on, free of my mental instability.

I took responsibility for learning to be better from my actions, and I’m now ready to move out on my very own, and cant still buy a new car. I religiously go to the gym, and play golf every weekend. I even quit smoking and gambling, as well as drugs, and cut down alcohol, I even started playing music again! It took a year of therapy, and several books, and month of work. But I did get better.

I’m proud of my progress, and I hope you can be to. I feel better than I ever have, I feel unstoppable. I learnt to love myself, and understand my mind, before trying to love anyone else, and I think I’ve finally found happiness with that. I’m ready to be a part of the world again; and this is me stepping into it again.

I expected me to take longer to get to this point, but here I am, and the last step to my “bounce back” plan is to say thank you:

Thank you for everything you did for me. Like when you went looking for me and stayed with me at hospital, and thank you for always worrying about my feelings and wanting the best for me. I never showed it at the time, but I really do appreciate everything you did for me. All the care you showed me. I am so sorry for how I treated you and for how I took advantage of your caring nature and pushed you as far as I did. I was so toxic and abusive, and I wish I could change that. I wish I was never the reason you shed a tear, or made you fear an order was the only way to feel safe. That was not fair to you at, and I’m so sorry. I will never put another woman through that again.

I let myself get out of control and emotionally unstable, and let myself give up, and nothing I did was at all okay, but...living through it has made me learn so much about stopping myself ever being like that again, so it wasn’t for nothing in the endZ

In hindsight, I am so grateful for everything you did for me, you truly are one of the kindest caring people I’ve ever met, and I’m thankful to have met you.

Not that it matters now but, I really didn’t know you couldn’t block my email address. That’s my mistake.

—————

I’m really really hoping there has been enough time and space to make this okay. There’s honestly no pressure for you to reply, it’s all good, but I really hope you could find it to trust that there is nothing more coming, and not tell the police. I really don’t want to breach my probation, which this is, and I really want them to let me go to America this year. I fully intend to follow the dv rules from here on out, i just needed you to have the apology you deserve.

I hope you are at a happy place now too and can appreciate this apology, and hopefully smile at the fact. There’s nothing to be afraid of.

I wish you all the best, and if you tell Kurt about this, please also tell him I’m sorry for trying to punch him that time. From what I’ve been told he’s a really nice guy, and I really am glad you found someone that makes you happy. Also, I’m sorry you got hurt in the crossfire of that punch. I would never intentionally hit you, and even accidentally doing so makes me sick to the stomach with disgust. I regret that night so much. I wish you both nothing but good luck and happiness, honestly. I have nothing but support for you guys.

I’m going back to not thinking about you now, don’t worry about that. All I needed was make it right, and this was it. You don’t need to respond, that is not the point. I will not be following this up with anything else, you have my word. I haven’t in 12 months, I can do it again.

(I know I’ve said things like this before, but this time is different. I hope I conveyed this in exactly the right way to make sure my good intention isn’t misconstrued.)

Best of luck with everything in your future, Dana. I hope you find what you’re looking for, whatever that is. I hope you kill it at life.

Peacefully, with kind regards,

An older, wiser, not-so-crazy-anymore old-friend.

“Please, God, may she smile from this.” - wrth

————————————————————————

P.S

I make a lot of money now, I’m a business development manager for Telstra now, and I have that money I said I’d pay you back set aside waiting. If you ever need it, someone can tell me where to transfer it and it’s done.

I hope you saw Eden. It was awesome.

Don’t forget, new Buzzfeed Unsolved was released this weekend.

Katie let slip you spoke to her, also. I don’t care, but I don’t want the same thing to happen as what has with her. When she saw me she was so scared that I was going to hit someone or get angry, even saying “that’s not my boyfriend” out of nowhere. It absolutely broke my heart to see what I did to her. I don’t want you to be like that if you see me. Please just know; if you see me, I will run away,. I’m not going to go anywhere near you, and I’m certainly not gonna start a fight. I am not threat.

I do hope some day you might be able to unblock me, or catch up for smashed avo and coffee at wheelhouse, no talk about what happened. That would be nice. It would be nice to see how far you’ve come, how things are, whats been achieved. Hopefully when there’s been enough time, we can laugh about it all.

Sorry for writing so much. I have written this apology 100 different times in the last week, trying to keep it short with the perfect words as to stay out of legal trouble. You know how I try and over explain things...

I tried religion eventually, like you suggested. I even prayed a few times. It wasn’t for for me, but I hope he’s on my side tonight that this works out as I’ve explained above. Not with any problems.

Apologies to all those caught in my line of fire. I don’t hate any of you, and I don’t have any bad feelings about it, so don’t worry about me if you run into me, I’ll just blend into the background.

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lalobalives · 8 years

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*An essay a week in 2017*

My mind is all over the place today.

I’m thinking about my family, immigrants who came to this country seeking opportunity.

I’m thinking of the kind of poverty my mother described to me in Honduras. The kind of hunger that eats at the walls of your stomach.

I am thinking of the children I saw when I went to Honduras for the first time in the summer of 1985 when I was nine. Kids who lived in huts made of cardboard and aluminum siding along the edge of the Rio Cangrejal. Kids who didn’t have access to clean water for drinking. Who used the bathroom in the river next to their homes. Who didn’t own shoes and whose clothes were tattered rags. I remember feeling ashamed. That was my first confrontation with my own privilege. No, we weren’t rich but compared to these people we were. I had new clothes on my body and shiny shoes. I used an indoor toilet. I had access to food and education. My biggest issues with poverty was not being able to have the latest sneakers and trends, and maybe that’s why they don’t matter to me now as an adult. We may have lived in a hood that was riddled with crime and drugs, our apartments may have been falling apart and the living conditions we lived in weren’t healthy or ideal, but we had food. I can never say I suffered hunger. Ever. Even if it was Spam or canned corned beef, a fried over a bed of white rice; we ate every day, a few times a day.

My mother once told me the story of a classmate who died when she was just a girl. They would lay the body out for a day or so to pray over it and do rituals. Lombrices (parasite worms) started pouring out of the girl’s nose. There was squirming in her mouth. Things were poking at the insides of her cheeks causing them to puff out. An adult went over and opened the girl’s mouth. Lombrices slithered out.

My mother learned the normalcy of death early on.

My grandmother, my mother’s mother, left Honduras after losing yet another child to the horrors of poverty–childhood diseases that are easily cured with a shot or week long dose of medicine. Medicines that weren’t accessible to them then and still aren’t in so many parts of the world. She left months after her infant daughter died in her own home. The baby had fever that wouldn’t break for days. Then one day the baby had a seizure. “Su cuerpo le brincaba,” my mother said, showing me with her hands how the baby’s body jumped as she seized. My mother was just nine or ten years old. Her mother would leave to Puerto Rico a few months later with the Turkish family she worked for as a maid. She left to seek a better life. A life where her children wouldn’t die. Where she could feed them and care for them, and she could send money back home to her family.

I once asked my grandmother if she’d ever return to Honduras to live. She’s an old woman now. “There’s nothing for me there.” And I imagine what it must be like for her, this woman who I admittedly resent for countless reasons that I still struggle with and don’t care to divulge now. She’s old and fragile, but still so strong in so many ways.

I thought of her and of my mother as I watched the crowds of people on the trains on my way to teach yesterday, and on my ride back home. There were signs that read: “My body. My choice.” and “Not my president.” I thought of the women in my family who have traversed the world seeking safety for themselves and their families. I thought about what this new administration means for them, for me, for us.

***

I didn’t go to any of the marches yesterday. My form of protest entailed facilitating a workshop for twelve women of color. I led them through various exercises to help them write their stories.

I left hopeful but still wondering: Am I doing enough? Where do we go from here? How does my work affect the world and help make this world a safer place for all of us? How can I carry this work forward? How can I contribute to the growth of this nation and this world?

These lines from Chris Abani’s TED Talk “On Humanity” have been in my mind on loop for the past few days: “what I’ve come to learn is that the world is never saved in grand messianic gestures, but in the simple accumulation of gentle, soft, almost invisible acts of compassion, everyday acts of compassion.”

Some days I believe this to be true. Some days I worry that it’s not enough. Yesterday, in that room with those women, I believed this to be true–that it’s through the work that we do every day work that we change the world.

As I scrolled through my FB and saw the pictures of the marches across the world (which were glorious and inspiring), I wondered if I should have been among those women. Should I have been there with my twelve year old daughter, holding signs and shouting and showing our resistance?

I came home to a message from a fellow writer of color. She wrote:

Hi love, I’m not sure where you are right now or if you remember me from VONA but I just wanted to send you deep love and gratitude today for the 52 essay writing challenge. It is giving me the much-needed courage and commitment to words that need to be written, about love, race, white supremacy and more. Slowly but surely I feel like I’m finally going to begin writing the pieces I need to write. You are a force, inspiring and BRILLIANT.

This writer served to remind me that, yes, this work is important and my work is having a ripple effect that is necessary and appreciated. The thing is, I am the type of person who always wants do serve and do more, all while being starkly aware of the fact that I am only one person.

So I wonder, how many people are carrying these protests forward? How can we continue to protest and be involved in our daily lives?

I think about the day after the election where what so many of us feared actually happened. I walked into my Fiction class in East Harlem, into a roomful of students of color who live in NYC in marginalized neighborhoods, who are told again and again, via the media and the results of this election and so many spaces, that they don’t matter and their stories don’t matter and they are less than… I threw out my lesson that day. Instead, I tried to get them talking about what the election results means to and for them. They sat, quiet and sullen. At first they didn’t want to talk about the election, but soon, after I shared my own dismay, they were talking and sharing. Two of my kids told me that they experienced racism for the first time that day. One student confessed that her mother is undocumented and she’s terrified for her. When the end of class came, a few of them lingered. They hugged me. They thanked me. They needed to be seen. I gave them what I could, my heart and my ears and my shoulder. I came home exhausted. The sweet exhaustion of this soul work.

They are the reason I wonder. My daughter is the reason I wonder: Am I doing enough? Is this work enough? Then I get these messages from writers, dozens of them over the past few weeks, who say thank you and tell me this #52essays2017 challenge has them writing and producing in a way they haven’t in so long. And I poll my students and they say they want me to continue the fiction class in the spring semester and they say they love the readings I’ve provided–all writers of color, all writers who look like them and come from places they come from and/or they can identify with. Writings by Junot Diaz and Judith Ortiz Cofer and Glendaliz Camacho and ZZ Packer and so many more. And so as I sit to create the syllabus for the spring, I think of what else to share–a story from Roxane Gay’s “Dangerous Women” and an excerpt from the graphic adaptation of Octavia Butler’s “Kindred.” And on Thursday I learned that a record number of students have registered for my Fiction class, and the class is now vying for first place with Robotics for the number of students trying to get into the class. This has never happened before. Wow.

I know that hunger for stories that represent me. I am reminded that representation matters, and so I’m also reminded that this challenge I created with the push of my brujermana Lizz Huerta (#52essays2017) is an effort to get more stories like ours out in the world. I think of how this will influence the literary landscape in the next five to ten to twenty years. And, yes, sometimes the weight of it overwhelms me. Sometimes I am scared by what it is I’ve taken on and what was and continues to be the driving force behind Writing Our Lives–that our stories matter and only we can write them and I’m here to help people do this, especially writers of color. Us. You and me.

***

My daughter went out with her friends today. She woke up early to finish her homework and study for an upcoming exam and help clean the house. She swept the house. She cleaned the bathroom. She did three pages of the Kaplan test book I got for her. She showed me what she’d done and promised to do a few pages more when she gets home around 6.

She’s twelve and wanting to be with her friends. She wants to see the world like I did. She wants to experience life. I worry about the world I’ve brought her into. See, I get the many who say that they don’t want to bring kids into this world. And I also know that I couldn’t imagine a world without my little girl. This girl who isn’t so little anymore. Who is taller than her mama. Who has a 97 average and when she finishes her work early in class, spends the rest of her time helping her classmates. This girl who doesn’t come to me to help her with her schoolwork anymore. Who says, “I got it, mom” when I offer to help.

There was a time when I was her best friend. I didn’t think about when I would stop being cool and everything that she aspires to be. I wonder if I’m doing enough. If my hands off approach and “I won’t hover or helicopter mom you” style of parenting is enough. I don’t know, just like I don’t know if the work I do teaching and facilitating writing workshops is enough. But the evidence is there, isn’t it? It’s in the writers who before walking out of the class yesterday told me that they have the beginnings of two short stories and possibly more. It’s in the messages they send about how my work inspires them and pushes them to write. It’s in the eyes of the student who told me recently “I usually hate reading, miss, but I really like what you bring in for us to read.” It’s in the conversation I overheard my daughter having with a friend where she said, “My mom can be a pain sometimes, because, you know, moms, but she has my back. I know I can talk to her and I know she won’t let anyone mess with me.” The evidence is there when I walk into her room at night to turn off the light and she’s fallen asleep with a book on her chest.

All this inspires me to keep revisiting and reinventing ways I can show up for my students, young and old, emerging writers and established. And it keeps reminding me to keep mothering my daughter in resistance to how I was raised and how the world tells me I should mother her–conflicting messages that do nothing to affirm the role of mother. We all have our way of showing up and loving. There is no one way and no one road. The point is to keep striving and giving and serving and working to be your best self. The point is to contribute positively.

***

Two days ago a video came across my feed. It’s a speech (which felt like a prayer) by Valarie Kaur, Sikh activist and interfaith leader who centers her work on storytelling for social change. In her prayer, she talks of her grandfather’s immigration story, how he was imprisoned upon arrival for months until a white lawyer filed a habeas corpus and got him freed. Ms. Kaur connected her work as a lawyer and humanitarian to her grandfather’s experience. I choked up as I listened. The tears came when she said: “”Yes Rabbi, the future is dark, on this watch night, I close my eyes and I see the darkness of my grandfather’s cell. And I can feel the spirit of ever rising optimism (in the Sikh tradition ‘Chardi Kala’) within him. So the mother in me asks, ‘What if? What if this darkness is not the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb?…. What is this is our country’s great transition?”

Ms. Kaur wrote on her blog:

What if our America is not dead but a country still waiting to be born? What if the story of America is one long labor?

What if all the mothers who came before us, who survived genocide and occupation, slavery and Jim Crow, racism and xenophobia and Islamophobia, political oppression and sexual assault, are standing behind us now, whispering in our ear: You are brave? What if this is our Great Contraction before we birth a new future?

Remember the wisdom of the midwife: “Breathe,” she says. Then: “Push.”

Now it is time to breathe. But soon it will be time to push; soon it will be time to fight — for those we love — Muslim father, Sikh son, trans daughter, indigenous brother, immigrant sister, white worker, the poor and forgotten, and the ones who cast their vote out of resentment and fear.

I like to think that my relentless hope is my superpower. I’ve written about how my faith has waned during these times and how that scares me. Ms. Kaur’s speech reminded me that this kind of hope is necessary, because it makes us push, it makes us fight, for ourselves, for our ancestors, for our children and our students and those we call brother and sister and friend and family and brujermanas and brujermanos. And, yes, for those ancestors that came here, who survived so much pain and hunger and disillusionment, who kept trying and fighting and didn’t give up. Who knew they couldn’t give up, not on themselves or the generations to come.

I remember those labor pains when I had my daughter. I remember when I first saw her. I remember when I decided not to return to corporate America because I was so miserable there. I learned firsthand what misery can do to a child. I didn’t want to bring my daughter up in that. So I wrote my first book and didn’t look back. And in the journey of writing the book, I faced what I feared and started moving toward it: becoming a single mother and pursuing this writing life while doing it. That was more than twelve years ago. That was my new beginning. It hasn’t been an easy road but it’s been a beautiful, fulfilling one and I’m still here. Still doing this work and the dream evolves as I do. I continue to push. I hope you will too. Word.

Relentless Files — Week 56 (#52essays2017 Week 3) *An essay a week in 2017* My mind is all over the place today. I’m thinking about my family, immigrants who came to this country seeking opportunity.

#52essays2017 #immigration stories #protest #writing #writing our lives

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thiswasasuperterribleidea · 6 years

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Just gonna draft an email real quick...

Maybe hi? So..this email is associated with your contact in my phone. I have no idea how or why, or if it’s even one you use. I have no idea if it’s a valid email. I have no idea how it got there because I know I’ve never communicated to you through it before. But ...it’s here, because iPhones are too smart, and it’s very creepy. I have no idea if you read your emails or not. I usually don’t even open mine. I automatically check them all as read and move on with my day. Unless I’m looking for something specifically, or a good sale comes along and makes me go online shopping. So I have no idea if you will ever receive this. Or ever read it if it is received. Maybe you will notice it and just delete it entirely. Maybe you think it’s spam. I did give it a weird subject name... I’ll never know. That gives me a little bit of anxiety...but I hope this story book email finds its way to you and you read it. I can promise you one thing, it’s not what you think it’s about... and hopefully you find the time at some point to read it for what it’s worth not as a “how the fuck does this girl have my email now?”.... cause I truthfully don’t even know the answer to that lol. I’ve been to counseling a few times. I explained the anxiety I developed from being blocked. She told me to send a letter. I told her I don’t know your apartment number to mail it , and that you probably have nightmares of me showing up to your complex, and that because of that reasons I wouldn’t drop it off in the mailbox myself lol. She then suggested writing emails. She told me what I just said up there...I’ll never know if you get them or not. But it’s a good way for me to decompress my brain. So here’s my email!! I’ve been doing really well! I want you to know ! I’m finally becoming happy again! I almost said becoming myself again... but it’s not again. It’s that I’m finally becoming myself ! I’ve been working on myself a lot. Ive reconnected with a lot of my old friends. People I always forgot to check in on regularly in the past year and a half. I felt really bad about it once I’d realized how much I distanced myself from such good people. At first it was like I was only coming back around because I was going through a hard time. I was really guilty for a while. Guilty in terms of that, in terms of blaming myself for why we ended.... But I’m so happy to be back in touch with everyone that I felt I had no time for before. I learned how to make time for everything and everyone important, not just one person important to me. I’m really excited about that. I’ve even met a couple of new people who’s company I enjoy a lot. This is huge for me, because meeting new people wasn’t ever something I was good at. I still live with danielle. I learned to sleep alone when she’s not here and to not check the door 8 times to make sure it’s locked. I learned to be alone, which is also something I was never good at. Oh, and my coolest update yet is that I started a blog! Dwight gave me the idea a while ago. He told me I should write a book lol. He told me my life is too entertaining right now, so I started a blog to share my craziness that I’m finally embracing. I don’t understand how blogs work or how people market for them. But I know I have one, and I know a lot of people found it in the past month, and a lot of people laugh because of it . I feel like I’m helping strangers a lot. They relate and laugh at my insane things and tricks I tried to play. But it’s also teaching them self control that I didn’t have. It’s funny because it’s like I’m just this random typically emotionally unstable girl giving advice to strangers through a heartbreak and they love it... when in reality I shouldn’t be allowed to give advice to anyyyone and people should not want to listen to me lol. It’s so funny. It’s like I’m low key famous. Maybe they’ll pay me soon. If they do I’ll be sure to thank you! It feels really good to be able to embrace my situation and find a way to take something I wasn’t originally happy with and make it something positive. While I have been doing well, I still have my lows. Sunday wasn’t a good day for me and neither was yesterday. It’s weird . It’s like the universe truly knows when you’re doing well... so something comes and punches you in the face real fucking hard to really see how well you’re TRULY doing. Life is just so many tests. Sunday morning I woke up to a text from Katie. She was out at Geronimos and saw you on a date. She told me she hated to be the bearer of bad news, but she thought I should know. I hate her for telling me that. I was doing so well moving on. I would have been so much better off not having any idea. It set me back. She told me you were laughing and having a great time... with a pretty girl. That you were very comfortable with her. I originally prayed it was Nicole. I wished it was you with your friend. Of course I asked. I didn’t want to assume you were on a date. I try to assume as little as possible and be as rational as I could be now. Most importantly I didn’t want to lose the self control I built while being blocked and text you losing my mind... especially if I was wrong. But she said she was absolutely sure it wasn’t Nicole. She said she saw you leaving holding hands with your new GIRLFRIEND. As soon as she mentioned holding hands... I knew what you did that night. I knew you weren’t just out with any random girl and holding hands... but Katie calling her your girlfriend pushed me over the edge. So I relapsed. I texted Nolan. I asked Dwight if he knew. And I tried to ask you myself. I know I didn’t need to ask you what I already knew the answer to. I knew it wasn’t my business anyway I unfortunately just had it dropped on me. I still don’t think Katie needed to tell me what she saw. But I don’t want you thinking I’m some stalker with eyes on you at all times. I’m sure that’s how you I assumed I knew... I wish Katie saw you and didn’t tell me about it. Id be doing a lot better without the setback. I know it’s been a few months. I know you did nothing wrong. I know you just moved on faster than I did. I’m not sure how to put the idea in your head since I don’t have the same effect on you that you had on me. But try to picture someone you spent the past year and a half with and you personally wanted to spend another year and a half with and make better than the prior. Maybe your ex before me... And then picture them in bed with someone else what feels like so soon to you....The bed you used to lay in almost every night... but now they’re laying with someone else... being touched by someone else...Inside someone else. Remembering everything done between us.. knowing now someone else- someone maybe better... is doing that for you now. Knowing perfectly well, that once that happened... you cut all ties and all emotions with me. That you just didn’t care about me anymore. I was replaced . I get it, it’s part of life. But it cuts like a knife. Especially when you just started doing well... I know you think I’m crazy, but it is nothing but natural for that to eat at a person. It’s every ex’s worst nightmare. Are you in love again already? Was it a rebound without feelings? Was it the best you’ve ever had? ...hoping it was mediocre... but knowing it probably wasn't. Those aren’t Francesca’s crazy thoughts, those are a normal human beings thoughts. As I continue meeting new people, and pick my next person... those thoughts will eventually disappear. But Sunday, they were there. So I am sorry for relapsing. No matter what pain it brought me, I know you weren’t happy with me, and I am happy as long as she is making you happy in the ways I never did. I was never mad. Throughout the time you’ve had me blocked, I finally came to my senses. I realized while I was in love with you, I too realized you weren’t the one for me. That doesn’t mean knowing you’re with someone else who maybe is your one doesn’t knock the wind out of me. Which is also normal. While I struggled at work for a bit while going through this, and tormented my team...I managed to get back on top of things. I missed top ABM in August by 1 point when things were real bad, solely because of my personal sales. So... in September I made sure to kill it and came through #1. So that was exciting. I’m going to 7c, which I wouldn’t call exciting but I’ll try to make the best of it on my new little island. It’s weird.For some reason, I thought when my email rolled, either for 7c or for top abm that you would text me calling a truce. Saying congrats ... hopefully you have some more self control now... let’s keep it civil. If not an unblock then I honestly expected an email from you. I just want you to know where I’m at right now, and not hearing from you through either of those moments hurt more than finding out you are with someone else... don’t get me wrong, I get it. You were loyal to me, and I’m sure your new girl doesn’t want you communicating to your ex in anyway. I wouldn’t want that either... but it really put me in my place that you really don’t care about me anymore. And that really hit me like a ton of bricks. After a whole year and a half of almost everyday spent together, you cut me off and moved on like I never even existed... it’s crazy because I know that tends to happen with some relationships. But I thought ours was different. While we didn’t work out, and weren’t meant to be together ... I thought we mutually still cared about eachother. I thought we still would wish eachother congrats when they were due...Dwight told me you arent unblocking me when I go to 7c. It’s so disappointing to know that after all we have been through together, that you have 0 intention to ever unblock and speak a word to me again... it’s hard to process how blindsighted I was. I never thought you would want to delete me in ever humanly way possible. Its a lot to accept. Darren, I will probably always have some type of feelings for you... but I have realized that I too, am not in love with you anymore. I did think you were someone different, and while I know my personal mistakes I’ve realized a lot more flaws in you too. You aren’t who I thought you were... well maybe you are that person... just not with me. But I have no hard feelings. I still find it shocking for you to not care about me at all.... I know I became intensely frustrating, but we had a strong past... but I have no hard feelings. If you took the time to read this, I appreciate it . But at this point I want nothing more than to be civil professional acquaintances at work. And I want to reassure you that can be a thing. I have said everything I could possibly think of here. If you read this and are thoughtful enough to just acknowledge to me that you got it , I would appreciate it. I don’t see you doing that either way, but that would be cool. I would love for you to comment on anyyy of what I said and have a civil conversation with me before seeing eachother at whatever work function.. just so it isnt tense . It’s time for me to act like an adult... thank you for maybe taking the time to read ? I just want you to know.... I’m doing a lot better... Xo francesca

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