SELF-CARE

It’s been a week since I’ve last brushed my teeth (do ice peppermint Halls count?) and probably longer since I’ve even checked the handles on my shower.

My hair is in knots (I didn’t think it could get this ratty when it’s so short) and I can’t nervously run my fingers through my bangs anymore.

My chest hurts and I’ve spent so long laid out on my back that I don’t think my little legs can carry me up anymore. My head won’t even support itself anymore; I can sense it wobbling back and forth as I type.
I can stomach soup and crackers but anything else feels too heavy, like it’s blowing my stomach up to proportions even I can’t grasp.

My pajamas are the same ones I wore last Saturday to bed.

I am gross. I am pathetic. I am dirty and a mess of balled up hair and dried up tears and shriveled up dreams.

But, today I was going to call you.

So I got up.

And brushed my teeth, hair, and put on new sweatpants.

I ate breakfast; a feast of cereal and citrus fruits.

And then showered, all the while rebrushing my teeth.

When I finished, I blowdried my hair (the first time in 13 days), the warmth of the dryer making me smile.

I got to curl up in bed with tea and my laptop and enjoy your face. Finally.

This is a once in a lifetime feeling.

This is purity and wholesome love in its finest, rawest state.

I will drink -- no, chug -- it faster than my tea, devour it faster than my nectarine, crave it harder than I crave the feeling of my mattress against the flat of my back.

WRITE WITH ME

 

You, Sir, are beautiful.

I want to write with you. Can I write with you? I want to correct your grammatical errors while we giggle over casual, accidental alliteration.
It’s not hard to be a writer; I can teach you how. How? How! All you must do is put a pen to paper (or pencil, in case you’re not into something that permanent, you have options; I rarely use pen, as my creativity isn’t set in stone) and allow yourself to feel. Even if it’s angry or sad or cliche… write it down. Let it out. Pour your heart and soul into mine.

Let them mix. Let us work like dyes on canvas -- spreading, leaking, filling.
Fill.
Fill up these pages. Fill up my heart.

Just let loose for one single moment. I promise, it’s the best feeling you will ever experience.
Write some poetry with me. Better yet, make poetry with me. We are our own lines and stanzas, made up of an entirely unique combination of the alphabet.
Rest your broken mind in my arms; I will be its infirmary. I will pluck the little negativities from your poor soul like a child picking weeds from his mother’s garden.

I will heal your wounds and release the caged bird within you, so you can finally…
Breathe, deeply. One, two, three (there you go) write fucking poetry with me. Please.

I love this and you and us together.
We’d make a great piece.

"IT GETS BETTER"

 

It’s what they throw at us like an afterthought, an attempt to humor us.

“Don’t be sad, it gets better!”

“You shouldn’t whine, it gets better!”

What would you know about our pain?

About fear, blood, screaming into the void and having it scream back,

Don’t tell me it gets better.

After a week of lying in bed, everything always feels worse.

Don’t tell me it gets better.

As if I can just wait this out like the flu.

This is a fever that will not break.

Don’t make this seem like something that will go away and stay gone.

As if it’s not a continuous battle,

Every.

Single.

Day.

Even when the weight of my armor is enough to bring me to my knees.

 

---

 

Don’t tell me that it gets better,

because after 14 years of hell with a man who never learned how to love

I ended up with another who didn’t know what to do with someone so broken,

so he chipped away at the glass.

And, then, I was stuck with someone who knew EXACTLY what he wanted to do with a broken girl like me--

break the glass more.

Because the gay girl in your new family was the first one you’ve ever met,

And she seemed so fragile, like cracked glass,

Ready to snap into a billion pieces at any moment.

And, what’s more satisfying than the sound of a hammer against a chunk of old window?

Because “stop” and “no, please” never really meant what they should’ve.

Because his hands kept wandering way past the metaphorical stop sign plastered across my waistline.

Because his hands crossed my mother’s too many times,

battling and bickering, bickering and battling, snap, slap, crack,

cracks in fragile glass never heal themselves.

 

---

 

Because no one listens because girls are too soft to be a razor edge, too fragile to ever hurt another. The bruises still blossom like a gunshot wound to my head.

How many times will I have to explain it?

Not all damage is visible

It’s strategic

Like a war fought inside my head, divide and conquer

Take away the power that lies in numbers

Until I only know her

When I don’t even know my own army anymore

Who am I fighting for?

 

---

 

“It gets better” when I stand to say it does.

It never gets better when you’re stuck in the same cycle,

pain, crash, yell, collision, crash, pain

Pain, pain like the fresh wounds created by the words of your peers

or the knives within your desk drawer

or the hands of a seventeen year old boy.

“It gets better” when you stop sitting around, telling me that and take a stand to MAKE IT BETTER.

Because complacency gets you nowhere,

Because I know you don’t really care when you’re whispering hollow phrases in place of sincerity and action.

 

---

 

“It gets better” when our safety comes before your comfort

The future will never erase my scars

And thinking of the past will only bring more.

So we only have the present, wrapped in the same bloody tissue I wiped my wrists with last week

wrapped in the love letters I tore apart, every word that bound us together

 

---

 

It “got better” because I screamed and fought until it did.
Because I spent every day and night making these years more like a war won rather than another fruitless battle against terror,

Because I took your words and crushed them beneath my feet,

and owned my identity like it was finally mine.

-m. jarnot & l. myers

TO LOST FRIENDS

 

L I’m ok by myself but you have to agree we make a pretty good team and I don’t want to lose that. I never wanted to lose that, miss that.

M I miss you. Sometimes, I get hopeful, like you’ll come back and rescue our broken friendship, but it’s damaged beyond repair.

We’ve lost it.

L I never wanted to lose you but I’m a ticking time bomb, we both know that.

As my mind counts down faster and faster, my heart skipping seconds as I’m thrown into absolute hysteria.

10,8,5,2,1

M Explosion -- scattered hearts, scattered memories

Scattered, shattered, and battered

I can’t remember exactly what happened but all I know is I can’t move -- I can’t think.

L I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe

But you’re telling me to

Breathe, you say, as if it’s the simplest thing in the universe, as if there’s not a ball of clay in my throat, not a haze of panic clouding my mind. You say it as if my life hasn’t become a low quality movie download, where the sound is off a few seconds and the picture is too pixilated.

M The air hitches in my throat and I feel like I’m drowning -- can you tell?

I can see the tears welling in your eyes, a sea against the bluest of skies

I want to tell you it will be okay -- but I’m stuck.

I’m lost in this world of nothing and I can’t find my way back. Please find me.

L My mind is a perpetual lost and found, filled with gloves and stability that no one wants to claim. I can tell you won’t claim me.

I can tell by your stony grip, I can tell by your completely ineffectual commands.

I can tell by the way you won’t even look at me.

Like I’m some kind of embarrassment, some crybaby you’re being forced to look after. A nuisance.

M I’m afraid to look your way, out of fear that you won’t be looking back.

Will you look back?
I feel ashamed, like a child stranded in the aisles of a grocery store.
I can tell you’re angry. I know. I just know.

L&M Friends like us could let this go

But you stopped looking at me as a friend a long time ago.