18/31: self harm & my suffocating sentence

and i realized today that i am not to blame for the way that i feel and there is no justification for the guilt nesting at the bottom of my stomach that ignites whenever you tell me all that i should do. you have set the bar so far across my own boundaries that i have bent back and been broken just trying to please you and i have nothing to show for it but the scars you made me feel. and is that the sense of piercing through to freedom, that i have a right to feel and to choose and to be and there is no shame in a life worth living. and it’s inexplicable to think and believe in everything you made me feel like i was undeserving of the breath i’m still breathing.

my life means more than under your control and i’ve been cutting away at these prison bars ever since i discovered the air of hope. i am imperfect but my flaws do not sacrifice my value beyond anything i could ever say or anything i could ever do. i have only ever sought to try my hardest but you said it was never enough and so i kept pushing to keep up. and it has taken me this long to find the courage to speak to your face to say that i refuse to condemn myself for your own sins and i will not accept this sentence that you yourself deserve to bear alone. i will no longer be your victim and i will no longer allow myself to become a scapegoat and let my blood be shed for your pseudo redemption.

i am worth more than what you have made me out to be and that is what i am starting to believe. i am not what you wanted me to be but i will not destroy my life striving to fulfill some self injuring proxy for your purposes. i have inflicted enough hurt upon my skin and my soul to settle for no better than that.

i will learn to let go of my resentment to burn the last bridges you use as avenues of authority into my existence and i will learn to sever the strings that tie me to this hate you have created.

i think the sweetest sentiment of freedom is the release from self reviling so that my arms are open to embrace the ecstasy of liberation.

17/31: hurting hands of the hopeless

maybe it’s all just part of our humanity, how we seek the very things we know we can never have. we strive for perfection even though the whole of history has proven to us its impossibility but somehow we believe that we are the exception. we reach for beauty even though we know that the image in our heads created from the pictures on the web are not what matches up with what we see in the mirror. we let ourselves fall in love with someone who we know we’ll never have a chance with but the lovely scenarios linger in our minds and we can’t seem to push them away because they are so beautiful and we crave them so much.

is it a vice or a virtue to desire the unattainable and is it our very own ambitions that destroy us in the end rather than all the temporal sources we blame.

16/31: call me ishmael

why is it that everything always ends and what makes it so hard to deal with when it finally comes if we know that we face the inevitable. days end and years end and lives end and even the sidewalk ends and no matter how hard we try to embrace it none of it makes it ever any easier. is it because deep down inside we’re wishing for what we cannot see and hoping that we’ll find shadows of eternity hidden within everything. but what makes us so desperate to count the heartbeats and clock strikes up until those final moments and then after we breathe our last demand to know why it has to be over. we desire and deny the reality of the finite and we make believe that we are gods that will withstand the test of time. is that what makes the endings so hard and why our hearts might sink a little lower each time we turn the last page of a book.

we want a never-ending story.

we’ve learned that endings come and we’ve learned how to write the best ones and we crave happily ever after tales and heroes who ride away towards the setting sun. and maybe that’s why it pains us so to witness how real stories ebb and flow and rise and fall and crash like waves and end like final foam on a distant shore. we’ve grown to hate goodbyes because they sound so ultimate and they’re the kind of words that can never feel comfortable rolling off the tongue because it seems cruel to think of becoming all too familiar with them.

and i think sometimes we hate goodbyes because we know that some stories end too soon.

but the funny thing about eternity is that maybe we’re wrong in thinking that it stretches on and on and never ends or that it’s shaped like a loop so that all things come full circle each time. maybe eternity is a train track and the starting point and the destination are so far off they seem to exist only in our imagination if we can even choose to conceive it. we are only on board along for the ride and and some know more than others what’s actually coming up ahead but all the same the train halts and shudders and it’s imperfect and looks forward and never goes back, only pausing for a breath before moving on to a new beginning.

it’s the beginnings we must learn to love the most because they promise a sweeter story, not leaving everything behind entirely but living in spite of it and living because of it, because it makes us better somehow. it’s not bs or a bluff but it’s a part of the adventure of it because we’re never promised a smooth ride but only that it will be worth it by the time it ends.

15/31: fatally forsaken by a father

i was told today that i am “so young, [i] couldn’t possibly have experienced any terrible things” before but last time i checked there was no age limit for victims of abuse and maybe we should think twice before assuming we know all the parts of the story when only one page is even visible to the naked eye. when was it ever our role to place restraints on our ideologies and say that it can go this far but no further when it’s clear as hell that there’s more beyond that horizon but it might be a sea of blood. when was discovery never worth it because however horrific the knowledge is it’s awareness that has always been the first step towards prevention and if we constantly deny cruel realities and keep them at bay out of our minds we will never be the solution to these tragedies.

“why do they hate me, daddy ? daddy, why won’t you answer me ? i know you’re busy and there’s so many other people that need your help but could you hear me out just this once so i can know that i’m still one of your precious ones ? you said you love me so much that you sent your only son but can you help me stitch up these slashes in my wrists because they’ve been aching ever since the bleeding begun.”

and trauma lives within us in the cracks in our bones and in the crevices between our lungs it makes a home and swears never to leave us nor forsake us. somehow it’s not enough to wash away the shame because it’s as if it’s permanently stained on skin as scars like sin.

“daddy, i hope you’re proud of me but you never came to see me like you promised you would so i’ve decided to come visit you instead. maybe when i arrive you can tell me the story of how you created the world and brought it to life. now i’ll have to stop writing this letter so i can swallow all these pretty pills together but i’ll see you soon and then maybe things will be better.”

14/31: bravery & breaking boundaries

so maybe it’s best if we erase ourselves from each other’s lives and leave us with a blank canvas because we blended acrylics together. your veins bleed out white and my veins bleed out black and they end in pools of grey that we smear across our backs as we attempt to replicate the galaxies by staining a scene in shades of cyan. we can paint the stars in any colour we want because this design is only a fantasy of the mind and we’ll end up burning our artwork if we have to if it means starting anew.

but while we’re at it let’s draw a thick line between the two so it’s clear where each of us stand. then again it’s always seemed better to balance along the border as if this were a tightrope and we never know what’s waiting below so it’s best not to fall because we aren’t sure if our wings are strong enough to fly just yet.

we live without a sense of urgency and we loop in circles around the truth on our minds and hope that each other is capable of telepathy. we’d rather write it on a paper napkin and leave it for them to find that part our lips and let the words leave because that’s too much of a risk. so we are left alone and all that we have is a false sense of hope while each of us wait for the other to take the first step forward.

 

13/31: second chances & snowfall

putting words on a page is a lot easier than putting an idea in your head and actually making you believe it. i wish there was some way i could stop the pain and help you see that you’re beautiful even with all the screwed up things you’ve done. i don’t know if you’ll ever realize it but i swear that i will be beside you so you won’t have to walk towards the light alone and when it gets too bright and blinds your eyes i’ll hold your hand tight and guide you on home.

be vulnerable and feel your scars and cast away your shame because the past cannot be changed and it’s best to be embraced and i’ve finally learned to love myself the hard way. toss a prayer up to the sky and kiss the stars goodnight because we’ve got a long ride ahead of us and to me you are as pure and as breathtaking as a cold winter morning.

12/31: canons & convicting conversations

somewhere along the way we broke the strands of communication and we’ve spent hours trying to figure out what went wrong and how these ever-thinning strings can be threaded back together again. is trust indeed like a sheet of glass in that too much pressure will cause it to shatter and no amount of glue can ever piece it back. take the sharp slivers and slice our throats with our own lies and we’ll be smothered in our own blood because that’s the price for the oath we took. we have sold our souls to hate the innocent and dedicated our hands to ripping apart paper hearts.

we let some words enter one ear and instead of exiting the other we let the ideas sink through our skulls and flow through our veins and pump through to the heart and let them still and spread their bony black fingers scrape across the surface and leave us with wounds full of a disease called disbelief. the diagnosis deems it deadly but we’re too distraught caught up in doubts since we’re so practiced at shutting other people out.

we keep our thoughts to ourselves at all times and if we miss a beat we’re sure to stumble so we keep our heads down low and we’re taught to never let our feelings show. they say it’s better off not knowing so we don’t have to care but maybe one day we’ll have the strength enough to question the indisputable dogmas and therein our freedom lies.