th0rnfield

[th0rnfield]

Writing Prompt

Have you ever wanted something so bad, that you keep hoping it’ll happen? Even when you know that in the end it would never be? That as much as you hurt now, facing the disruption of what could’ve been is easier than having to face the reality of what was?

I feel angry tears prick my eyes as I touch the tapestry. Today was my birthday. Knowing you ,I would’ve woken up to cake and flowers. Surrounded by friends, and love, and laughter.

I quickly wipe the tears away as I look at this dusty, half hearted jumble of what could’ve been. I don’t know why I come here. Why my thoughts keep straying over to you whenever the wind catches a chill. Whenever I hear that song you loved.

I refuse to miss you. It’s a luxury I refuse to participate in. Truth be told I’m much too scared to miss you. To face the reality that I might’ve chosen wrong.

I shake my head, bunching my fists together tightly as I gather the strength to look over at your tapestry. You’re destined to go on. To move on, explore and see the world. Meanwhile, I was destined for the jobs nobody else wanted. The one no one else could do.

A cold collectedness overcomes me; just as it usually does. I’m proud of the work I’ve done here. Of the legacy I’ve built for myself. It’s strong and sustainable. It’s everything I could’ve wanted for myself. I’m quite proud of my work.

Years from now, I will no doubt remember be remembered as the kind and strong woman I wanted to be when I was younger. I will have left this place better than I left it. I did everything, I’m doing everything. We can’t all go off galavanting wherever we’d like. No no, people need stability, and structure. I need sustainability and structure.

I find the strength to stand moving my hand away from the moth eaten tapestry. I turn my back on the lovers depicted. They are strangers to me. Strangers I don’t care to think about. I pause looking at the weaver’s prime tapestries. Of the striking image of power and success I had feared years ago. I’m radiant and glowing.

Across the room is theirs. Surrounded by so many people I don’t even know anymore. Depicting a woman I thought I would’ve given the world for. She’s happy, far happier than what I could’ve given her here. And maybe, probably, that was what fate deemed necessary.

It’s not always about what you want, it’s about what you need.

There’s that haunting loneliness that overcomes me every now and then, but it’s mixed with the biter sweet taste of my current freedom. This is the life I wanted for myself, the one I worked and bled for. The one I owed to myself.

Taking one last look at the tattered tapestry in the far back as longing sets back in. I would’ve given you the world. And maybe I would’ve if things were different. But we made our choices, and now we’re here. You’re a memory to me now. One I keep hidden and locked. My favorite by far.

Sometimes I dream you come back. Dream you pick me up and hold me. Dream that you tell me you were wrong and that you wanted me. Sometimes it’s the other way around. In either case I’m lying, and in either case that won’t really make either of us truly happy. At the end of the day we made our choices, and as sad as they make us, I think we both know that this is ultimately what we both wanted, what we truly needed. Painfully as it is, I wouldn’t give the world for what I have now.

[th0rnfield]

every couple of months i put my life together and take it apart and put it back together because. well. what else

[th0rnfield]

Writing Prompt

I am a weaver. I start my days early in the morning. Spinning hopes and dreams, fears, and disappointment on my wheel. Staying with them until they take shape. Coiling together to create the string of fate.

The rest of my days are spent sat by my window, overlooking the castle gardens. Quietly threading fate into design. Weaving in and out. In and out. Checking and rechecking. Doing and undoing the string in whichever pattern she deems best suited.

Occasionally I get visitors. None so much as the forlorn queen. Once a bright and beaming princess, I feel her heaviness everytime she enters. She’ll offer a word or too.

A polite how are you, or a that looks lovely. But never too much than that. I was surprised when she offered me refuse here in her castle, but having my original domain be disturbed so often, I’ve come to enjoy her presence. I can tell she enjoys mine.

She likes to peruse the tapestries. Gazing at old and new. Occasionally she ask me how to go on to certain changes, and occasionally I’ll tell her that’s up to the pattern. Mostly she’s grown accustomed to simply seeing out the course the thread deems best fit.

It’s been ten years since she first came to me. No longer bright eyed and bushy tailed. She walks with purpose and clarity. Occasionally taking up spinning with me. She looks wisened and hardened, though..

In moments, I’ve noticed, when the wind is harsh. Or the light is fainter. When the air takes a chill and lights are all about. Or when the sun hits exactly in that sweet kiss that lets you know life is upon you, I find her.

She’ll be sat. All the way in the back of the corner. Sitting next to an unfinished tapestry. Of two lovers entertained. A long road left unfinished. Of two lovers that once were but never saw it through. I’ll catch her being quieter in those days. Gentler. And with a soft movement I’ll gently lead her to the present ones. Ones depicting a strong queen, at the height of her rule. Secure and glowing.

I’ll catch her eyes drifting to one of a young adventurer. One that once resembled the bright eyed maiden she was once entwined with. Now off in far away lands. Galavanting off into the sunset with friends and lovers. Exploring new stitches in brave and build patterns. All while she remains here. Delicately stitched together in often the same meticulous patterns. Holding up strength and wonder. Becoming contended with watching how the thread shapes. But every now and then, like clockwork, she’ll wander over to that unfinished tapestry. Stroking the now faded fabric of the love she abandoned

[th0rnfield]

locking in won't save you. self-discipline won't save you. you're trying to tidy up a house built on a fault line whose shifting is beyond your control. you know this already.

[th0rnfield]

Writing Scenario

I look at the tapestry the fate had woven. Looking at it over and over and over again. I should be happy. Here I am met with my own reflection. Gold crown set above my brow. Scepter raised, radiant and glowing while people bow before me. I am powerful and strong. And so painfully alone.

I look back at the other tapestries. Hers surrounded by friends with endless roads surrounding her. Friends and allies raise her up.

It wouldn’t have mattered what I chose. Wouldn’t have matter how hard I worked. How hard I tried. Not when our fates are so fundamentally different.

Part of me wants to beg the weaver. Beg her to undo the thread, to shape it to the version I so desperately desire. I know better. Regardless of how much I long to scream and cry no amount of begging can undo what is destined. She was born to travel, and I, destined to forever be marked alone.

[th0rnfield]

The Last Unicorn and Womanhood

TLDR: I think way too much about this movie

Recently got reminded of this movie, particularly the scene where Amalthea mourns the loss of her identity and is actively discussing being a woman and trying to figure out what she wants to do. Looking back at that scene now, I can’t help but feel so deeply seen by this scene. Between the fragility in Farrow’s voice, and the way in which you can actively see her looking out and longing what is essentially her innocence is just so deeply heartbreaking. More importantly, I think that nails what it feels like to grow up. To actively feel that shift in oneself and know that you are no longer as innocent as you once were. While this isn’t a feeling exclusive to women, I think in my own experience as growing up as a girl these scenes, and really this whole movie, hits harder when you look at it from a specifically female perspective .

So much of our lives are spent being trained to become wise and poised. Growing up now in this current socio and political conditions (writing and living in the U.S here), I think a lot of the scenes, especially this one hits the hardest by far. You have this young woman, broken down, and so incredibly aware of how much she’s changed. This is especially true for the reprise with Lir, where her goals have shifted. I’m rambling at this point but to get back on track I think something that sticks is the line, “Now that I’m a woman”. Thinking about this more, she could’ve said now that I’m a human, but it’s that distinction of being a woman now that makes it interesting. Looking at it specifically as an allegory for growing up and becoming a woman specifically, I think it could also represent that moment where you realize just how much weight and responsibility comes with that. More than that, you’re recognizing the changes in yourself, in your body, and in your perceptions. You have thoughts and desires, and sometimes those thoughts and desires end up being drastically different than what you initially set out to do. You’re experiencing the world for the first time and it changes you.

Something I just thought of as I look at this scene, is you can see her actively wrestling between two different identities. One being her true self, the one that just wants to know if she isn’t alone, and the other being completely unknown. Here, we see The Unicorn, transition into Amalthea. While the two are the same, they’re also now different. Here, Amalthea is grown. While she shares the longing of knowing, she more importantly wants to be loved. She wants the safety and security that comes with playing into this role. she knows she could and she almost does, abandon her initial goals all together in exchange for a life with Lir (I actually really enjoy his character and think he holds up well today). And why wouldn’t she? She’d be safe and secure, she’d get that love and that companionship that she didn’t even realize she longed for until after this transformation. And even after being transformed back into a unicorn, there’s still key parts of Amalthea, particularly her love and desires, that she’s still painfully aware of.

I don’t know maybe I’m reaching a bit but I’ve been chewing on these ideas for a while now. It also does not help that the marketing, and the use and choice of having the unicorn (which has always had a strong connection to purity, particularly in women and with femininity ) I need it to be known.

Definitely am going to need to write about this more when I’m fully awake and can give this idea the proper depth and time it deserves, but just thought this would be a fun thought to share out here.

[th0rnfield]

[th0rnfield]

My Body, My Period

a messy, personal essay from a messy English major in her senior year.

hopefully another woman reading this knows what I'm talking about

<3

CW: mentions of body dysmorphia, religion, menstruation/bleeding, and SA

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When I was a child, I sleepwalked out of bed to the landing at the top of our stairs in the middle of the night. My dad was at the bottom, likely having gotten up for a midnight snack because people who go to bed at 7 pm are undoubtedly going to bed hungry. He looked up at me, perplexed, and asked what I was doing, and like a suicidal bird with a broken wing, I stretched my arms out wide and fell forwards, leaping to a weird, unprompted death. My dad caught me, as is apparent by my ability to be alive and writing this, and when I think back on it now, I don't think about how lucky I was that my dad was there to catch me. I think, instead, “I wish I were still light enough to be caught.”

I write about things that matter to me—things with an importance to me that I hate to admit out loud—when I'm on my period. My period makes me think about what I believe in, and how nothing it all feels. I want to believe in witchcraft, but not in the way that other white girls you meet at house shows believe in it. I want a coven of women, all taller than I, with wild hair and long, yellowish nails, that will comb my hair back as I expel whatever concoction they’ve brewed for me to make me fall out of love with my best guy friend. I want to sit in a circle with them around candles that don’t smell like anything but dust and fire, and cut each other's hands, kissing the cuts and wearing our newly red lips as badges of pride in our sisterhood. But I don’t believe in any of that. It’s only a fantasy that stems from my love for women who look beautiful even when big. I don’t believe in god most of the time, and actively roll my eyes whenever I stumble across an earnest millennial proudly displaying their pastel portrait of a weeping jesus on the internet (“everybody hates my christian art”), as if i wasn’t going to bed in 2012 praying to a higher power that I always pictured wearing a blue button up shirt that I would get a solo in Holly And The Ivy in the christmas eve service. I don't believe in god until I think about the death of my mother and one day never seeing her again, and then suddenly everything shifts. I imagine the man in the button up shirt standing in a wide open field. It's 70 degrees and sunny with plenty of pockets of shade and my first dog Maggie, who died of a tumor, runs circles around my second dog Ollie, who lived a long happy life. My mother is there with the body she had in her 20s and hair down to her ankles and she’s sketching portraits of my brother and I as babies like she loved to do. That heaven is something to be earned, and I have no doubt in my mind that my mother will have paid her dues, ever the good episcopalian, but I lie awake at night fearful that I will not be so lucky—I have not feared god more than the scale, and therefore I will be fated for some forever darkness, lost in a space in which I slowly forget my mother’s voice but never forget the number, up to the decimal.

The scale is the greatest equalizer. It tells me all my justifications were nothing but—that I didn't truly deserve fast food just because I woke up bleeding. I didn't truly deserve to sit on my bed all day and watch other people watch movies I like on YouTube until the sun went down just because I woke up in pain. Periods are the third strongest things in the world, second only to the uteruses that shed for them, those of which are second only to the brains and hearts attached to those uteruses that decide every day not to kill themselves, to end the pain and suffering. 

I once got in an argument with a Lyft driver about periods, which I think he thought was flirting which was weird because he had a girlfriend and it was an argument about periods. He told me women are insane on their periods, that he grew up with sisters and knows better than to “mess” with a woman on the rag. I asked him if he’d ever woken up, looked in the mirror and not recognized his reflection. If he’d ever stared into the face of something horrible and ugly and massive. If he’d ever felt like his intestines were being scrambled by two chainsaws, like a hellish salad. If he’d ever sat down on a plush chair and experienced a sensation akin to shoving a large ice pick up his rectum. If he’d ever spent a week convinced that everyone who loves him absolutely despised him, and he didn’t know why but he did know that it was all his fault. If he wept for a grief he’d sworn had already long been dealt with. He technically didn’t answer, but he laughed, short, sharp and very loudly, so in a way he did. 

My body is about men. As I get older, I fight tooth and nail to make it about women, so maybe someday it won’t be about anything at all. I think about men when I fall asleep. My AC is on full blast, and I shiver under the covers. I think about my body, and how maybe men would like it that I get cold. I didn’t used to get cold, or maybe I did but I can't remember it. When I was at my biggest, everything was hot and tight and itchy and uncomfortable. I would've given anything to shiver and huddle close to another person's body fat. I was the space heater to huddle close to. I was the friend to ask for advice. I was a fat girl in a movie. Fat girls in movies are only beautiful when men don’t want to be rude. My first boyfriend was skinny as a rail, and he would huddle close to me. Now in our 20s, he’s even skinnier. His partner looks like a Pinterest page, and he’s so happy, and I’m happy for him. But my body still revolves around him. My body revolves around my dad complimenting my face and how it’s slimmer than it was. It revolves around male professors reading my writing and a guy on the bus across from me. It revolves around men I love, men I’m indifferent to, and men I want nothing to do with. My body is mine like a punishment is mine—given to me by another out of spiteful justice. 

My body and my period are one and the same at the gynecologist. My gynecologist is a man, which stuns all my friends, but makes sense to me for some reason. He’s older and doesn’t care about anything that creepy older men care about, so I only panic for a moment when he puts two fingers inside of me. When he removed my old IUD, we chatted about my major and if I had any internships lined up for the summer yet. When I told him I wanted to get off the pill, he told me I shouldn’t be taking anything I didn’t like, and I pretended to agree. Right after the election, I was more afraid of rape than I’d ever been in my life, not for the torture of it, but for the aftermath. I want to be a mom, I want to be a single mom, but I want it to be planned. I want to be 35, with a sperm donor and a circus nursery I paint with my best friend. I want to watch my baby grow, and fill a notebook with all the things I wish my parents had done differently, so when the time comes, I know how to do them. When he inserted my new IUD, my 2025 administration IUD, it hurt more than anything I'd ever felt. It felt like rape. He was so apologetic, and the female nurse was so apologetic and held my hand gently and stroked the back of it with her thumb. My body is mine like a punishment is mine. I prepare it for a fate I work tirelessly to avoid. 

When I go to sleep tonight, I'll feel the way my pelvis aches and my menstrual underwear expands with blood. The IUD makes me bleed more, makes my muscles ache more. I’ll feel everything wrong with my body—the way my stomach pours out onto the bed on my side, the way my thighs touch even though they have to. I'll feel the way I would feel to a man and I’ll remember to shiver. I'll tell myself, so as to finally fall asleep, that it will all feel smaller in the morning, and in my mind, I spread my arms out wide and fall forwards, leaping to a weird, unprompted dream.

[th0rnfield]

Reclaiming My Writing, My Voice

Recently, I’ve been working on a series of essays for one of my writing courses. One such essay is a metacognitive reflection on my work during the quarter.

If you’re new to writing or have never heard of that term before, metacognitive essays refer to essays that essentially think about thinking. They’re one of the few essays that force you to sit and think about your process and everything that goes into creating your writing. For me, these essays are simultaneously one of the most infuriating and revealing types of essays to write.

I think one of the reasons for my severe distaste for the genre has always been that I just didn’t have much to say about my process before. Many of the topics I’ve written about for my previous courses have never really stuck with me the way the essays that I wrote for this course did. In my humble opinion, many of the essays that I’ve written for previous classes have always had this feeling of detachment. I think the main reason for this is that they just weren’t for me. I was writing for a grade, not for anything that I thought to be fulfilling and meaningful. It was at this moment that I realized the reason for my feelings of detachment was because all of my essays, and the majority of my writing up until this point, had become factory-made.

Growing up, I took a lot of pride in my writing. Much of my free time was spent creating short stories and showing them off to my parents. I even attempted writing and failed to write several short stories when I reached middle school. Looking back at these years, I would honestly say that those were the golden years for my writing. Not because the writing itself was particularly profound or because they were especially engaging; in all honesty, they were probably some of the most cringey pieces I’d ever created. But they were for me.

I’m not sure when I stopped trying. Maybe it was sometime after the pandemic. No, it was definitely during and after the pandemic. Looking back at that time, as much time as I wound up being on my own and having time for myself, I found myself having to slowly take on more responsibilities. I wasn’t a fun, quirky twelve-year-old with an abundance of free time. Now, I was an anxious seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen-year-old trying to get by.

Looking back, I realize I gave in to one of my greatest fears. I wound up sacrificing myself and my own thoughts and ideas in the hopes of being able to make it into a good school. The problem with this, though, is that I never stopped, even after finally making it into college. I lost myself. More importantly I lost my ability to relate and write about things that I cared about. I lost my desire to try and create and act out the stories that lived within my mind.

Sure, I had them, but these were no longer the same wild fantasies that I dreamed about translating onto the page. Instead, my thoughts had become over run with deadlines and fulfilling essays that didn’t matter to me half the time.

I think this is something that happens to a lot of us. Whether we verbalize it or not. The education system, as great as it can be, can also be deadly to those who live inside of their mind. The less time you spend cultivating your dreamlands, the more you become detached. It makes me ill thinking about just how factorized my writing has become in the last few years. I didn’t even realize how long it had been since I wrote anything that wasn’t an essay for class until a couple of months ago when I started writing poetry for myself again.

Something that helped me come back into this type of writing has been the classes I’ve been fortunate enough to take during my time in college. I realize I’m rambling a bit, but the main point is that these courses deviated from the standard essays my previous schooling has forced me into. Instead of simply having me pump out another mindless essay about some topic I quite honestly could care less about, they force me into thinking about the meaning and connections behind the pieces.

I say pieces because I think many of the essays that I’ve started writing over this past year have become far closer to a work of art than a simple piece of analytical slop like the ones I’ve written previously. No, these pieces are full of meaning. Full of contradictions and thoughts. Full of my feelings and desires. The pieces I’ve created are pieces of me. They are pieces that are so heavily connected to my own life and soul that these are a few of the essays that should I ever be fortunate enough to even be remembered as a writer, I would want to dictate the majority of my legacy.

Writing and laying this all out, I can say that I’m still rusty. I’m still used to pumping out and sanitizing my words that speaking so freely here feels strange. At the same time I think writing and creating this blog feels just as freeing. It’s one of the purest forms of self-publication. I’m not writing for a grade or in the hopes of pleasing some unknown grader. I’m writing because I want to. Because I decided that what I have to say matters, and I’m feeling ballsy enough to put it out for the rest of the world to see. I’m writing because my soul aches, and I deserve to write.

I think oftentimes, we focus a lot on trying to get our pieces out there. Trying to make them known, or have them appeal to a certain audience. In doing this, we, at least here in America, focus on creating a product. So much so that we have gotten to the point of almost complete removal. This is especially true in the era of rampant capitalism and commercialism. After all, what is the point of making a product if that product doesn’t fill the exact needs or aesthetics of the very machines designed to produce it.

We have focused on matching this almost copy paste approach to life and art to the point that we’ve forgotten what makes these pieces matter so much in the first place. Thinking about this has opened my eyes to how I think about my pieces and my own decisions behind creating. Honestly, most of this essay was just to vent out my little thoughts and epiphanies, but if there is anything to take away from this spiel, it would probably be this. Write.

Write a word, maybe a sentence, two if you’re brave. But please write. Write your thoughts, your emotions. Write your cringey fanfics that you will doubtlessly regret creating later on in life, but write for yourself. I think too much of ourselves has become devoted to pumping out products that we have forgotten how to come back to ourselves. Forgotten that one of the best things you could ever do for yourself is embrace selfish writing. Write your thoughts, write your dreams, write your life. Because even if it isn’t productive, it’s still yours.

[th0rnfield]

Thinking of doing a more in depth essay type thing about this. But I got reminded of Great Gatsby and how when I was first reading it and thinking about it so many people I knew hated Daisy. I don’t quite have the proper structure for it right now but tldr: I think Daisy doesn’t get nearly enough empathy and analyses as she deserves. Who knows maybe I’ll come back to this and follow this up with a proper response post.

[th0rnfield]

I will not be small. I will not be quiet. I will not make myself easy to swallow. If you must consume me, then choke.

[th0rnfield]

[th0rnfield]

how’s that house that raised you?

[th0rnfield]

Jeans

CW: CURSING, BRIEF DISCUSSION ABOUT BODY IMAGE, POOR RELATIONSHIPS

I don’t know how but I lost a pair of jeans

It happened on a Thursday

Or maybe a Friday

No, Saturday, definitely Saturday.

I came home looking for them

Looked in the bottom of my hamper

Still couldn’t find them.

It’s been a week since they’ve vanished.

A large part of me believes I may never find that pair again.

Such is life.

Some bitch ass freshman is probably out there

Wearing them better than me

It’s ok.

They weren’t my favorite.

they were always kind of tight around my stomach

I remember using it as motivation to be thinner

Measuring progress by how comfortable I felt .

How I seemed to become more appealing with how much less my stomach didn’t seem to hang.

The pockets were way too small too.

And hard to access.

Always needing to unbutton them in order to carry my phone.

They were shit jeans

But they worked at the time.