you deserve a more tender tomorrow.
yes, even you. reading this, agreeing without applying, hands in front of your eyes. i’ll pass this on, you think, but it doesn’t apply to me.
i know because i have spent the last 2 weeks trying to say out loud: “i deserve good things.” i only get to “i deserve g-” and then i break out into a cold sweat. who am i to deserve anything? there are people out there suffering. there are people out there who need good things to happen. i don’t deserve anything. i am just a person. a filament. if a good thing was supposed to happen to me, i hope it passes over and happens to someone more - deserving.
but just because you can endure the present does not mean it should be something so painful.
you deserve a tender tomorrow for the same reason you deserve water, food, or air. you deserve it for the effort of survival. you are surviving, aren’t you? doesn’t it take a toll from you, staying here?
goodness and kindness and tenderness should not be a commodity; to be doled out in quantities. you should not feel that life exists as supply-and-demand - your happiness does not come at the cost of someone else. it does not take from some gallon of global happiness. it does not promise that a stranger will have an equally-tragic reaction to tip the scales back into balance.
there is just you, deserving. you didn’t have to earn it. there is no calculation of time-enjoyed versus time-spent-suffering.
trust me. you (yes, even you) deserve peace.
duckie | comedy is my coping strategy | bi and still a queen | stressed
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you deserve a more tender tomorrow.
yes, even you. reading this, agreeing without applying, hands in front of your eyes. i’ll pass this on, you think, but it doesn’t apply to me.
i know because i have spent the last 2 weeks trying to say out loud: “i deserve good things.” i only get to “i deserve g-” and then i break out into a cold sweat. who am i to deserve anything? there are people out there suffering. there are people out there who need good things to happen. i don’t deserve anything. i am just a person. a filament. if a good thing was supposed to happen to me, i hope it passes over and happens to someone more - deserving.
but just because you can endure the present does not mean it should be something so painful.
you deserve a tender tomorrow for the same reason you deserve water, food, or air. you deserve it for the effort of survival. you are surviving, aren’t you? doesn’t it take a toll from you, staying here?
goodness and kindness and tenderness should not be a commodity; to be doled out in quantities. you should not feel that life exists as supply-and-demand - your happiness does not come at the cost of someone else. it does not take from some gallon of global happiness. it does not promise that a stranger will have an equally-tragic reaction to tip the scales back into balance.
there is just you, deserving. you didn’t have to earn it. there is no calculation of time-enjoyed versus time-spent-suffering.
trust me. you (yes, even you) deserve peace.
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everyone writes poems about august. i keep thinking it’s july. i feel restless, unhinged. i am not where i belong, recently, no matter where i am. i have this sense - get up, go! but no sense of where i’m supposed to be going. i feel uncomfortable with my own skin, rabbiting between the frenzied pleasure of summer wind and the cold air blowing in.
i think im very likely going to be a very lonely person for my entire life; or at least until i can learn to stop obsessing on the past and constructing intricate impossible futures. i hate the present tense, but i always regret not-living-in-it. i feel like i wasted these months, even after everything i have done during them. i wonder when time will feel less like a thing that can be wasted - when it is just something i experience, not something i can buy or promise.
i think i am very likely always going to hold too much superstition. i think i am going to be overly nostalgic no matter the circumstance. i have been called a romantic, but i don’t feel like one - more like a helpless optimist. i keep thinking about fall apples and pumpkins and something kind of sorrowful fills my stomach - i’m not ready, not yet. i haven’t been here long enough, is all. i’m not really sure what here is.
this borrowed month. this month, an open mouth, a longing. the leaves are already turning where i live. this summer pressing kisses in a starfish on my ribs - you tried, she says. i tell her - whatever it was - i feel unfinished.
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it’s hard for me to hold anger. it is a terrifying emotion to me - i flinch so easily. i don’t like how quickly it spirals out of control. i feel selfish when i cut people off, stand up for myself - i feel like i am making mountains out of molehills.
any time i lash out, i wonder: am i turning into him? i give people too-many-chances, telling others: well, i might have overreacted. i shut down. bite my tongue. i hate that, at some point, i can be goaded into reacting, into letting go. i hate who i am when i’m angry - someone mean, quick-tongued, willing to cut to bone.
i am angry about what happened to me. i am angry about the ways other people saw what was happening and allowed it to continue. i am angry for the ways it was excused. for the ways i never got an apology, nor should i ever expect one. i am angry i let myself get used. i am angry for the ways i wasted my time and the ways i let myself be fooled. i am angry knowing - you don’t care what you did to me. i am angry knowing - you’d rather burn apart our connection than actually consider my feelings.
i feel this anger tangled, brewing, constant - that i will never be able to reach a peace about it, because the anger just bristles, flaring in the center of it. i’m terrified of it - what if this is who i really am, and everything else is just veneer? if i really want to main & hurt & tear down until i have rendered the world into ice?
any impulse i have for self-preservation has become shadowed in a strange selflessness instead. maladaptive, i give and give and give, worried that i might be mistaken for someone who would take without asking. i owe so many current friendships to people who accepted my apologies and who gave me second chances - who am i to ever deny someone the right try again? when in the back of my head the kicked dog snarls a warning - she is lying - i turn my head. i tell the dog to shush. i tell the dog not to bite. i say we lie too sometimes. i say we will try to be honest and good and whole and if we are very-perfect, we’ll never have to fight. i would rather lie down and accept the blow than be the one wielding the knife.
my sister sighs on the phone with me last night. you always go too far with patience, and let too many people use you.
i am worried i am a creature of extremes. that if i unleash, i will spill out, fill the room with smoke, destroy everything. i sigh too and tell her: well, but i don’t wanna be mean.
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“When I first saw you, I was afraid to talk to you. When I first talked to you, I was afraid to like you. When I first liked you, I was afraid to love you. Now that I love you, I’m afraid to lose you.”
— please don’t leave me (via hatin)
(via perrfectly)
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guilty because i put up a boundary. guilty because i enforced it. i want to eat my own fist. hate the whole of it.
i tell my therapist that i don’t really feel like i need boundaries. i say i am comfortable with most things; i’ll figure it out as i go along. she says: that’s a fawn response. i laugh about it, because it’s either laugh about it or do something about it.
the thing is that once i like someone, i’ll forgive them for anything. they don’t even have to apologize for it. they could step over each of my desires and take all my teeth. it might take me a little while, but i’d get over it.
i’d say: oh, she was having a hard day, and didn’t realize i was serious about my safety.
i’d say: he’s always had anger issues, i feel bad that he hasn’t been responding well to therapy.
i’d say: you know, it kind of isn’t fair of me to expect them to know i don’t want to get hurt, i should have been more clear and repeated what i wanted.i tell other people i’m easy-going. sometimes i get called good natured or happy-go-lucky. i am not able to list traits that i like about myself without mentioning how i help other people. i let people desiccate me and then i say - well, as long as they’re happy.
i have been a bad person, is the thing. when i was really sick. and honestly sometimes even when i was doing better. i’ve hurt other people, and i don’t want other people to hurt the way i did. i only have friends because others have forgiven me for the wrong i have done. i only have gotten this far because someone else gave me patience, and kindness, and help.
so it’s not fair of me to set a boundary, ever. plus, if i set one and it is broken - that just hurts. and when someone crosses that line i drew, i have to take an action in response. i have to kick someone out of my life (as if i have so many other options) or i have to confront them about it (as if that doesn’t make me cry) or. if i take the easy route: i have to simply accept that it happened and internalize it and move on; let it go without a fight.
i can’t control, after all, how other people react to my boundaries. they probably are unfair boundaries anyway. it’s easier if i just control how i react to the pain - if i just ignore it, and hope it goes away. no need to blow this out of proportion. no need to make a fuss. this way all the hurt stays inside of me, and doesn’t slip out and get into anyone. this way is better, right.
who cares what it does to me.
