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[whenmitchwrites]

How to come out to your female Christian best friends

You don’t.

When they ask about your ex-boyfriend, you crack jokes about how he kisses like he’s a Labrador puppy trying to eat your face (no offense to Labrador puppies). When they remind you of how head-over-heels in love you were with him, you laugh and swear he’s secretly gay. When they remind you of how he broke your heart, all in the name of good fun, you make Molotov cocktail of your martini and let it explode inside you. You do not explain your rage. You do not tell them how he told you you’re lucky he’s leaving you a virgin – like it was never your decision to make, like your body never belonged to you. You do not tell them how he could have broken your heart by saying that you are not kind or you are not loving or you are not enough, but instead he chose to walk out of your life by saying that you are not beautiful, like beautiful is the best you could ever be – 

But this girl cups your face like you hold all the secrets of the universe. But this girl can find you in the middle of a busy crowd, take you by the hand and lead you home on days you don’t even know you are lost and can’t find home. But this girl knows that your bones are brittle but holds you, and holds you tight, like you will never break – and you break with all the silence of atoms spontaneously splitting, and you learn that there is safety in silence as much as there is safety in your own undoing. How many men have volunteered to get caught up in your meltdown? How many men have volunteered to be the carnage in your aftermath? But this girl has twenty-plus years of experience and oppression at her fingertips and she is ready to defuse you or detonate with you – 

But you don’t tell them that. You tell them about the passable boy with the passable smile you pass by everyday on your way home. Because how do you tell your Christian friends who happened to be girls that you are a girl who happened to like girls too without making your profession of love sound like a threat? How do you make your whispers of “I love you” not sound like the cocking of a gun? When you are a prey going after your predator’s prey, do you become predator, too? Does your embrace cease being solace, cease being safety? Do you start unlearning your newly-learned violence?

But you don’t tell them that. Because how do you tell your female Christian friends that the way you brandish your bisexuality like a sword, the way you wear your non-heterosexuality on your sleeve, is not blasphemy but living for everything their Jesus died for on the cross? Because how do you tell them that when Jesus told his disciples to love one another, Jesus did not exactly specify the kind of love they’re supposed to give? And isn’t your love the pinnacle of over-achieving, the way you are willing to be crucified for her or weep at her feet on her crucifixion?

But you don’t tell them that. You tell them you’re still waiting for Mr. Right, then you come home and kiss Ms. Perfect “hello”.

[whenmitchwrites]

“I went to Africa last summer” Oh all 54 countries? “I volunteered in an African village” In all 54 countries? “I love African music!” Oh all 54 countries’ music? “African clothes are so pretty” The ones worn in all 54 countries?

No one says Europe when talking about England No one says North America when talkin about Canada. We’re fucking 56 different countries don’t lump us all together god fucking dammit

[whenmitchwrites]

A tiny list of things for 2016 (in no particular order)

[whenmitchwrites]

When you are sixteen, I guess you love like you cannot run out of love. When you are eighteen, I guess you love with a little more fear, like you are now wiser, like you now understand. When you are twenty-two, I guess at one point while trying to make it to the bus stop without falling apart, you forget how to love – maybe yourself, maybe the world, maybe this life, maybe this art. At twenty-two, when you find yourself in the company of bad people, I guess you puff that chest out, I guess you down another shot, I guess you pretend that you do not hate the smell of cigarette smoke and bad decisions. At twenty-two, when you figure that he could have been right about you being difficult to love, I guess you own up to that bad rep, to that bitch cred, even when whispers of “bruja” and “bitch” cease being terms of endearment. When you finally give up on loving yourself, I guess, that’s when you realize that you can run out of love. When you finally give up on loving people because they don’t deserve it, because you can’t see what’s there to love, I guess that’s when you fall out of love with the idea of love. I guess that’s how you forget how to dance like God is watching, like your hips always know the song, like your feet will always take you where you need to be as though you haven’t spent too many years figuring out where you need to be.

At twenty-two, when you forget the face of that 12-year-old boy who looked at you like you hold the secrets of the universe, I guess that’s when you forget the secrets you hold. At twenty-two, when your hands forget how to write love letters, I guess that’s when you forget how to live off this art. At twenty-two, when foreign exchange students still ask you if you’re Chinese and your parents’ friends from the province still ask you if you could speak in your parents’ tongue, when you still only know who you aren’t, when you still can’t bear to know who you are, I guess that’s when you figure that you know too much, understand too little, and forget all the time. At twenty-two, when you wait for someone to validate your anxiety and late-night crying, when you wait for someone to offer you help and then decline, I guess that’s when you figure out that there’s nothing about life you got figured out. When you’re twenty-two and just trying hard to make it to twenty-three with as much optimism as you could stuff in your pocket full of receipts, I guess that’s when you figure that all along you’ve just been guessing, bullshitting your way to the end of the universe.

[whenmitchwrites]

Extraordinary

[whenmitchwrites]

[whenmitchwrites]

We love like tongues of flames trying to spread like wildfire, trying to set the world ablaze.

[whenmitchwrites]

[whenmitchwrites]

2015 As People You May Know

January is definitely that girl from your high school class, the one with the toothy grin and a chipped front tooth. The one you’ve never really spoken to. The one who’s all bright smiles and angel wisps of hair, all summer and no love letters tucked in her notebooks. The one boys secretly call ugly. The one boys shotgun-subtly call ugly. The one always hopeful, always excited, all OCPD and high grades to compensate. The one with enough fight to run a Fight Club. The one nobody in your high school class will remember but everyone in college will consider phenomenal.

February is your teenage love affair smelling vaguely like citrus ice pops and mass-produced Valentine’s cards. The one you never forget but never want to see again – but only out of disinterest, not of hate. The one with all the innocence of a three-year-old, all wide-eyed wonder, all butterfly kisses and sweaty palms. February is the sweet dream you never quite remember fully, or correctly, or well enough to write poems about.

March and April are the passers-by to your busy life. The people who strike a conversation every now and then but never linger long enough to leave an impression. The boys on the bleachers. The girls with their sundaes. The mother and child making all sorts of weird, supposedly-cute sounds at each other. The ones you will forget as soon as they leave the room. The ones you do not pause to remember.

May is always magical – the golden girl from your childhood, all wavy hair cascading down her back like water falling to worship at her feet. May is always Nick Joaquin’s muse and witchery and blinding heat and school requirements and wanting it all to end. May is the one in the sundress, summer incarnate, sun-kissed skin glowing in the moonlight, boys trailing her footsteps like Labrador puppies drawn to everything that moves. May is the prelude to greater things and better people, the soft serenade, the silent prayer, the coin you tuck in your shoes for good luck.

June, July, and August are the sickest, baddest, craziest group of individuals you know. The part-artists, part-alcoholics. The borderline geniuses and self-diagnosed depressed. The giggle at the funeral, the sex joke at a family gathering. The group chats. The poetry. The songs written in moments of caffeine-induced panic. The euphoria immediately followed by suicidal depression. The Kahlua. The hopes, the dreams, the mistakes, the panic attacks. The dream-catchers. The dreamers.  The dreamy.

September is the boy always sitting at that corner table in your favorite quaint, little café. In your head, his name is Dominic and he plays the guitar. You always associate him with rain – partly because he always has a brooding look on his face and partly because you only ever see him when it rains. At one point you figured he doesn’t have an umbrella. At one point you figured he just really damn like coffee and solitude and the sound of raindrops against glass doors. He smiles to you occasionally. You nod and never say hi.

October is your almost-best friend moonlighting as your meantime boy/girlfriend. The one always half-drunk on life and half-fed-up of living. The one whose fingers will always fit perfectly in the spaces between your own, but will somehow not feel quite right. The one you tried to save so many times only to find yourself falling in love with the way the shadows dance on his/her face like butterflies trying to emerge from beneath the skin. October is always sad but ever hopeful, always the open arms and gentle caress, always the quick smile and deep sighs. October is always the swift kiss on the cheek, the pat on your back, the love handles your hands know too well.

November is that cranky old woman in your program that you swear is too fucking old for college – and you do not discriminate. She wears heels she can’t properly walk in and can rival the sound of a horse running on pavement when she walks. She has the temper of a volcano about to erupt, all the attitude of a jalapeño, and all the personality of a traffic cone.

December is the three-days-ago version of you – dead-tired, done with this year, and in need of a drink.

[whenmitchwrites]

Sashay into a club alone in your shortest skirt, in your highest heels, with your boldest lip color, with your bravest face, with your strongest resolve, with the most confidence you can muster on a day that demands to be set on fire with a bottle of tequila.

Or stay at home with a good book, with a freshly-steeped cup of your favorite black tea, with all the love letters you never sent, with every part of you that is radioactive, that is no-man’s-land, that is a half-truth passed to a friend or a lover like a family’s half-secret, like a violin concerto your violinist friend’s fingers have forgotten how to play.

[whenmitchwrites]

[whenmitchwrites]

Remember: your higher education can only get you so far in case of a zombie apocalypse. Be the person worth saving. Be the person worth wasting ammo for. Be the person worth sharing provisions with. Don't be the person who gets shot by his companions even before he gets infected.

[whenmitchwrites]

sometimes people who are sad dont always need the “it gets better talk”

sometimes people just want to hear “you are sad, you are trying your best, and it’s okay. you’re okay and you’re alive and that’s a big accomplishment”

because i know for myself unconditional optimism gets really fucking annoying. sometimes i just want to be sad and have it be okay that im sad.

don’t make me feel weirder than i already do in my own skin.

[whenmitchwrites]

My forte is awkwardness.

Zach Galifianakis (via wnq-movies)

[whenmitchwrites]

R.I.P. The 2976 American people that lost their lives on 9/11 and R.I.P. the 48,644 Afghan and 1,690,903 Iraqi and 35000 Pakistani people that paid the ultimate price for a crime they did not commit

[whenmitchwrites]

Leaving is not enough. You must stay gone. Train your heart like a dog. Change the locks even on the house he’s never visited. You lucky, lucky girl. You have an apartment just your size. A bathtub full of tea. A heart the size of Arizona, but not nearly so arid. Don’t wish away your cracked past, your crooked toes, your problems are papier mache puppets you made or bought because the vendor at the market was so compelling you just had to have them. You had to have him. And you did. And now you pull down the bridge between your houses, you make him call before he visits, you take a lover for granted, you take a lover who looks at you like maybe you are magic. Make the first bottle you consume in this place a relic. Place it on whatever altar you fashion… Don’t lose too much weight. Stupid girls are always trying to disappear as revenge. And you are not stupid. You loved a man with more hands than a parade of beggars, and here you stand. Heart like a four-poster bed. Heart like a canvas. Heart leaking something so strong they can smell it in the street.

Frida Kahlo to Marty McConnell, by Marty McConnell  (via soracities)

[whenmitchwrites]

Scrolling through posts on social networking sites is one of the cruelest things you can do to yourself when you have social anxiety, or anxiety in general, or an inexplicable sense of dread coming out of nowhere, or that immense loneliness that sits just under your skin. So my advice is this: deactivate. You don’t have to measure your happiness against someone else’s. You don’t have to feel guilty about staying in, about struggling with your emotions, about not being enthused enough to do something for a like or a double-tap. I know, the fear of missing out will sometimes lurk in your own shadow, but, really, what is there to miss? The party you don’t want to go to? The lunch date with the people you don’t like? The songs you don’t want to listen to? Sometimes we forget, in this madness of fake memories and half-hearted experiences, that the heart remembers the tiniest details, remembers things long enough to make radioactive debris out of a chipped teacup or a song. Sometimes we forget, in this madness of smiling selfies and OOTDs, that it is okay to be sad, to feel alone, to cry sometimes or all the time, to try and pick yourself up and fail so hard so many times. My advice is this: deactivate and live in the present where it hurts, where it is beautiful.