Feelings

Standing outside his apartment with a bottle of wine in the last gasp of Summer heat.

I wrote this back in November right when it happened. It's a little thing now, but still, it's writing and the capturing of a whole lot of feelings so I thought I'd share. I want to share more. So yeah...

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I intensely, unabashedly idealized you. I didn’t realize I had until I saw you last week. Four months ago I arrived to your apartment in a Lyft and you were waiting outside for me. Just seeing you there, you looked like candy, and I wanted to point and say “that one”. 

We had texted for hours weeks before we met. I felt so comfortable and accepted by you, dismissing your hurtful comments and labeling them as helpful because you were an English major. I stopped writing for months and gave up on my book idea. Your vision was to teach me everything, when I just wanted to be seen and accepted, to figure it out for myself. 

I felt guilty any time I dated a straight guy because you were so against it, I thought it was you being protective, but it always felt like you were looking down on me from some pedestal your partner, your dad, or you had built for yourself. Oh you special boy, you.

I struggled for months with my feelings and I didn’t think you liked me. Also our age difference was so extreme but I wrapped myself around the idea that you were mature and held onto it because I wanted you and I wanted it to work. 

We texted less. I lost my shine and glitter. I wanted to text you constantly, but didn’t want to look like an idiot, so I pulled back just the way you did. I guess I get old real fast, the old lady that came to see you once a month, I mean why was I even there? C. or J. were always with us and I didn’t understand why. I came into your apartment and you just went about your business as if I wasn’t even there. Your partner was the host, not you, you were the cute kid sitting at the table. But then you looked at me or laughed, and I fell in your glittery magic.

You thought you knew everything. Were quite elitist. Didn’t ask many questions or act interested in me, and I just took it, I have taken it so much from so many, that I think I deserve it. 

Then I messaged you and you told me I was cute so you would like to be more than friends. I was cute…not that you liked me. I wondered. And I said I liked you too and my heart fluttered and I was so thrilled because I had built my own pedestal for you, my ideal. 

Then I came over and we spent a few hours alone. We watched tv and you texted your sister for an hour before your partner came home. Once they were home, they talked to me while you talked and looked only at them. I knew it was time to leave. I knew it was over before anything began. But when you turned to me and I looked into your blue eyes and we were stuck staring at each other a little too long…fuck, it hurt so bad.

And once again I knew it was the last hug, and as you walked away you said you wanted to see me again, and I knew that wouldn’t happen. You had a new date, a new glittery shiny thing. You texted her all week, when you didn’t send me a single message. 

Its easy for me to think it’s because I’m old, because I’m not smart and college educated, because I live a small life, because I’m not interesting, and you constantly corrected me when I said something twice—memory loss is destroying my life. 

But it was and it is you. You let me down. And it was and it is me. I let myself down by seeing you as a shiny stick of rock candy, as brilliant and the one I wanted. You put in the bare minimum. Always in sweat pants. Said you wanted to cuddle, and I said it too but we never initiated a single touch other than big hugs before I got in the elevator. Sometimes I think I get it, who would want to cuddle me? But we sat together, me ignored on the couch.

Now I’m just sad because you ghosted me and I never thought that you would do that. I guess I see you now. I guess I get it. And it’s not something about me, it’s something about you. I can write it off as you are just young, or you are awkward and don’t understand how friendships or relationships work, or, or, or. It wasn’t meant to be and it hurts. I feel dumb and embarrassed. I am still waiting for you to text. It’s going to be hard to let go. But it’s time. You were never mine to begin with, it was just shadows. I’ll miss your smiles and endearing awkwardness, and your dog (should have stole her when I had the chance). I guess I’m still a little girl in a lot of ways. But I’m growing and trying. Maybe you're the boy trying to do the same.

"and at once I knew, I was not magnificent"

Trigger warning: talk of abuse, depression.

I haven't blogged in ages. I guess I feel like unless you are an influencer with a huge following, blogs are sort of dead. But I want to write this out just for me because I figured out something and I want to get it written down, and if someone reads it, that's cool too.

I've been in a really deep depression since July. We rescued Ruby and the next day a guy from the UK came to visit me for three days. As soon as I met him in person, I knew he wasn't for me, but I still spent three days with him. I have CPTSD and so I didn't even realize I didn't want to spend time with him until after he left. Being abused as a child, I learned to deny all my feelings and only do what my parents wanted, and to behave. This made me start to believe that I actually wanted the things my parents were doing and making me do. So it's easy for me to still get caught in this trap, although just over these few months, it has gotten a lot better.

Honestly, we mainly had sex the whole time he was here. I was not attracted to him, but he came so far to see me and I felt obligated, I couldn't say no. Our relationship online was very loving and supportive, but sexually he was very demanding and I felt very used and like a sex object. It was really awful. And the worst part was that I didn't stand up for myself. I actually got scared of him. Not because he was actually a scary person, but because letting someone take advantage of me put me back in the space of my abuse and that is a very scary place. 

A week or two after he went back to the UK I broke up with him over FaceTime. I mainly blamed everything on me and said I was too fucked as a person to be valuable in his life. I haven't talked to him since. 

Looking back now I realize that I didn't owe that guy anything. What I wanted to do was tell him as soon as we met that I didn't think things would work and so I wouldn't be able to see him anymore, and that would have been totally fine and reasonable. 

I also missed the first three days with Ruby and that was super hard and it also has taken a long time for her to bond with me. She was really bonded with Ron but it took her until this week to feel comfortable and safe with me.

Since that time, I have felt so much shame, shame that I let myself down, that I didn't honor and listen to what I actually wanted, and that I let myself be used over and over by him and just took it. I have had a lot of extremely hurtful things happen to me sexually and a lot of manipulation by the people I have dated and I'm still trying to heal from that. 

I want to make it clear that the people who have hurt me have not all been straight men. There have been queer men, as well as a trans person. I know straight men can be fucking horrible, but I also am realizing just because someone isn't a straight guy, it doesn't mean they won't take advantage and hurt you. A lot of people tell me to just stop dating straight guys, assuming only I've only dated straight guys, but that isn't true.

I think I am getting to a place where I am a lot more selective about who I date and I stand up for myself. The last person I dated told me he wished I was a boy, and I immediately broke things off with him. I'm learning I have a voice and how to stand up for myself. I've made a lot of progress, there is still more work to be done, but I am incredibly proud of how far I've come.

I know I can find healthy relationships, and I am able to build and maintain healthy relationships with both friends and people I date. I would really like to find someone who accepts me as I am while also encouraging me to grow, I think that is the best I can ask for. I am tired of people using me to fulfill a fantasy, using me sexually, and trying to turn me into someone I'm not. 

The whole thing with the UK guy was kind of the trigger for a depression that I'm sure would have come eventually. I am realizing I have a lot to work on (always), and I am doing my best. I don't really know what to say. Sometimes I have hope, but most of the time I do not. I wake each morning and try again. I'm working really hard in therapy and we are changing meds to get me to a more stable place. 

Depression is a scary thing. I just don't know what will happen next. But I do know I am fighting like hell, and I won't stop fighting. I deserve a life I love, or even just a life that is ok. I deserve to be free from the trauma and bullshit I have experienced. I deserve space to be me. --you do too.

xo, C

poem

I saw you once in the forest, still as a deer. And I loved you.

All the analogies we connect to various landscapes,

And all the love we feel toward people we don’t know.

I see her in Lisbon, bright smile, soulful French beauty.

I see them in my house kissing me lustfully while I don't know

What is swirling in their head like a goldfish in a bowl,

How I am the carnival ride and fetish, though I felt like a human

The whole time.

I see the old lady at the coffee shop every weekend. 

The way she both forgets and remembers me when we talk

Makes me feel warm and tired. I wonder about her life.

How she is old and seems happier than me. 

I go on dates with strangers. 

No one knows I was sheltered mercilessly in a house, 

And that my therapist refers to my childhood as “cult-like” unless I tell them.

Everyone tells me what was done to me isn’t who I am. I don’t know who else to be.

I don’t trust my own impressions, I can’t tell if he/she/they 

(and all the lovely pronouns that are here to describe the magic of identity) 

Like me or not. Our pronouns don’t do the trick.

I shudder at the thought that anyone would want to be real with me

While I pop open my heart like a bottle of champagne and overflow with the

Truth of my experience and then run away into bed, afraid.

They will finally realize I am unlovable, just like I was shown and told all those years ago.

Those years bear on my shoulders, like a bad high. 

Those years continue to construct a false narrative to my questioning ego, fragile as my broken 

Body that I push to the brink out of guilt and a stumbling desire to prove I’m strong and 

Capable, even though sometimes I can’t walk. 

When I’m myself I’m strong as a lion, and vulnerable, and real, and tender without fear of 

What anyone thinks. It’s scary to be real, the way my PTSD makes me blindly terrified of being 

Creeped up upon. It’s scary to tell the truth and not run away, but stand in it, like jumping in

A fountain, standing on a stage, making the first move.

To stay hidden, I think of going to the local bar and finding someone to sleep with.

I would only have to say a few words. When I walk in a bar it only takes a few minutes before 

The men start rushing toward me. It’s disturbing and gross and I like it. It would be easy. 

It would be cheap. It would fulfill the slut in me. I wouldn’t have to open my cast iron heart. 

But I’d end up empty, crying in the shower, after giving another piece of myself to someone 

Undeserving of my touch. I've done that too many times already.

I dream of someday opening, not just my legs, but my innards (all scalpel proof) to someone, 

And maybe they won’t be scared, and maybe they could even smile at what they see. 

The way I smile in the forest, still as a deer.

poem

Trigger warning: talk of mental illness, suicide, self harm.

"and all the world drops dead"

I wake up dead. Wondering what he’s thinking.

Is he thinking of me or someone else? 

Is he comparing me to her?

Am I not funny? Do I not make him smile?

This is not me. I know the truth. I know his love.

This is my mother.

The questions she stuffed me with like a fat turkey on Thanksgiving,

They’re baked in.

It’s like a conspiracy theory,

He is out to get me. He is out to ruin me. It’s only a matter of time.

I know this is her because I am not a paranoid person. 

I am trusting to my detriment, I am loving and a healer in my own

Right because I have been there, I have been alone, and I never want

Anyone else to feel that earthquake of despair.

I hang off a hang man my mom cast upon

Me in the womb. 

When will he see I’m a mistake? When will he leave?

When will he realize I am a brittle shell, a heavy boulder

Slowly chipping away at his life?

There is no good in me. 

She injected me every morning with beliefs,

With fear, with an amoeba that has been eating

Away at my soul (do I even have one?).

She is still hard at work in my click-swirl brain, filling it with nonsense and codes

Only I can read.

Somehow I still move. I get out of bed and put on

My loose dress, (my body shrinking just like my confidence),

And I walk, how do I walk? One foot in front of the other?

Or is it a type of floating? Toenails and elbows scraping across the floor?

Regardless, I end up at another place to sit. Another place to cry. 

Another place to mull it over in my mealy mouthed mind. 

I have mulled it over for decades, why don’t I just do the damn thing?

But I’m scared and people will hurt and I can take all the suffering,

But I won’t let one person suffer at the loss of me 

(Even if I think their suffering is stupid), who would mourn me and why?

I have filled a house brimming with useless items, the roof is ready to burst like a volcano.

I have lost myself in the television- all ouija and poltergeist, not even 

Trying to find a way out for years. 

I can’t even read a book because I am too scared.

I have slit and cut and banged and slammed my body

Into concussions, lumps, stitches, shreds. Until I wish I never was.

I know I’m a mistake. No wonder my birthday is the hardest day of the year.

And sometimes I can be confident and “person” my way through it. 

I go to bars and on dates, dressed up, tits out, seducing men 

And magically convincing them that I am more than a broken down

Warplane with PTSD. And I drink it all stiff. And I smoke it all hot,

And I drive them wild.

And “for a minute there I lost myself.” But they all leave. 

Just the way she promised me, as she rocked me to sleep in my onesie,

Only holding me because if she didn’t I would cry, and holding a mistake

Is easier than letting it keep you up all night with its wailing and gnashing of teeth.

I make plans, I arrange that plaster smile, brightening it with lipstick

Dressing in my costume. Smile and wave like the skeleton beauty queen I never will be. 

In the motorcade, my hand waving a fraud, my eyes sulk back into my head until I see the 

Black wispy smoke that’s filling my brain, and I climb out of the car like Jackie-O

Grabbing bits of his brain.

And my feet grind across the pavement and I collapse.

The chasm opens and I float down (lead balloon that I am).

And I stay there. I stay there a long time. And it’s fear. And it’s death.

And it’s the most sharp and ruddy suffering I have ever been through 

(And I have suffered many things).

I dig my hands in the dirt, so much dirt under my nails that they begin to fall off.

I can’t sleep. I eat less, full of guilt for taking a single bite—because she wouldn’t.

The only way out is death. But I’m scared. So I wait and I go to my appointments

I take my pills, and I sleep and I cry. 

After awhile (could be days, has been years) a ladder 

Is thrown down, not sure by whom, and I wait a few days, staring at it,

Capsizing in my readiness to live again, like bobbing for an apple. 

Then I climb up, then I climb out, and I wash my hands and I move forward, 

Always waiting for it to happen again.

And like a stalker, like my mother, like a villain in a horror film,

It always comes back. And like a fighter,

I always climb out.

poem

threat

I know how to act when a man doesn’t want me,

I know how to pretend when a man wants me and I don’t want him.

I don’t know what to do when it threatens to be mutual.

I know how to become the typical desperate girl when I’m not wanted,

Graciously making a fool of myself. And then I wonder why I

Even liked him in the first place.

I know how to please and rage the hearts and bodies of lonely men

That I feel terrible for not genuinely wanting even though I spend 

Weeks convincing myself I do. 

My legs like a quaker, naked in bed. Obeying, forgetting I am a rebel at heart.

Forgetting I was controlled and forced to behave my whole life.

Slithering back into that role like a snake reaching for the sun.

And most intensely forgetting that my behavior will end up breaking hearts

No matter how much I try to persuade myself there is something between us,

Or that I owe my body to another man.

But strangely and as typical as my everyday shoes, when there’s a chance

There is mutual feeling between me and a man, I am terrified.

This isn’t supposed to happen. Aren’t I the ugly one? 

Aren’t I the sick broken soul? The abused child? The idiot, incapable one?

The hanging marionette of my mother confirms these things in

My brain second by second, for years she has been there, behind my play

Theater eyes, dancing and rattling hauntingly, forcing my dreams to become nightmares. 

I’m ready to kill her off like a spider on my bedroom wall, to tear her strings, to burn

Her wooden form and all the lies she resentfully funneled into me, until my eyes rolled

Back in my head, until all I could see was the end of the world.

shitty poem

Fucked

I hate to say I miss you. 

When I get made up and pick my lace panties,

That you never saw, I think I am getting ready to see you.

Then I remind myself I am going to meet a stranger

And I’m terrified, and I almost start to cry on the way there,

Because what if they hurt me? With you I felt safe, even 

With our conversation being carried by my doldrums.

Do you remember my jokes? Do you remember my kiss?

I regret not touching you. I regret not breaking the rules.

I imagine breaking the rules and you wanting me so bad that

You leave her for me. I feel terrible for even entertaining the thought.

Your life would be so much better, and that’s the sad part (or so I imagine).

You could really be poly and build your own life and be free. 

But instead you stay with her, and you know why more than I do, and it’s none of my business.

I shouldn’t even say that. I shouldn’t think so highly of myself. Like my sister would say,

“He’ll want me, not you.” I am the ugly broken one, the untouchable chained in the basement.

You kept telling me she didn’t hate me, but I could feel her laser eyes

On me whenever we were together. I could sense her scrolling through my Instagram,

Judging me, reading all the comments. I felt so guilty, just for looking at you,

Just for wanting you. I wanted, and still want you, but I blew it,

Because I had to. Because I’m a grown up and don’t take shit. 

I think it was pretty obvious I wanted you more than you wanted me, 

Once again, an unbalanced relationship. What else is new?

And how many dozens of songs you ruined for me.

But I miss you. And I want to talk to you so badly, but you don’t want to talk to me.

I guess if you couldn’t eventually fuck me, you didn’t want me. Keep it simple. 

No drama. And once again my hands detach from my body and I type slowly,

And start to wonder if I’m even real. If there is someone out there who will want

Me sincerely and not just use me. I hurt from it all. This isn’t how I imagined it would be.

And I lost you, just like I lost my innocence when I thought the day of lovemaking and 

Smoking joints on the swing outside went well, when they were actually using me and turning 

Me into a fetish. Like the assault when I was twelve and the PTSD that reverberates in me still.

Or when he tried to blackmail me with the nude photos I sent him.

Or when he bit my lip and I started staring at the ceiling and had to stop it and 

Drive him to the station while I cried. 

Or when he didn’t show up for our date. Or all the times I’ve been ghosted.

Or all the messages I get from guys who only want to fuck me like I am inhuman, 

Like I am a toy. I think over and over “I am an idiot” for thinking anyone would be

Kind. Would want me, not just sexually. Would hold a conversation with me. Would be real. 

So today I go out alone, on the verge of tears, because sometimes it’s best to be alone. 

To think it through. To try to accept that I will be used, that men will see me as a toy.

That when I dress up and go to a bar I will be hit on, even when I’m there for ten minutes

Waiting for my date.

That I will grip my phone tightly anytime I’m in a Lyft, that the driver will

Put on his sunglasses on a cloudy day just so he can stare at me through the rear view mirror

And watch my breasts shake on our broken down highways because I was too tired 

And worn out from sex to put a bra on. That men will tell me what to do in bed

And I will obey whether I want to or not because I feel obligated. I want to be the good girl.

I want to be wanted, so tell me what you want, daddy. And how that makes me feel like a machine.

 And how that makes me feel like a slut and dirty. 

And how next time I sleep with a guy I’ll probably still do whatever he asks because my fear of 

Rejection overrides my self love and care for myself. 

And how sometimes they fuck me so hard I start bleeding. 

And how disgusting that makes me feel. 

And how much of a failure I am. And how I don’t read the books I buy. 

And how I don’t clean the house. And how I don’t keep up with my tasks. 

And how I’m going to fail at school. And how people think I have too many clothes, am too fat

Have too many tattoos, am their broken toy they can gossip about.

And how depression will always be tied to my wrists, like a tight rope burrowing into my center 

Like an oil well, and I’ll never be rid of it.

And how it tells me to slit my wrists sometimes or take all the pills. And how much shame I feel 

About my scars or having suicidal thoughts, or almost dying so many times. 

And how hard it is to take a shower. And how hard it is to share my genuine feelings without

Feeling terrible and like a sinner, destined for an imaginary hell. And how my mom’s voice

Still floats around in my head like unset jell-o.

And how everything tries to hold me down, when all I want is love and to be wanted and to 

Connect.

But instead I dissociate and float above my life imperceptibly, with no one knowing, 

Afraid to come down, to be in my body.

To truly examine who I am and how fucked I am and how fucked everyone I know is too.

But I still miss you, and it makes me feel sick.