âHome is where the heart is,â they say, but
I canât find my heart. No wonder I never feel
at home. I get caught in bed sheets and bad
dreams about the past, pictures and memories
slap me in the face even when Iâm asleep.
Thereâs no escape really, I use to drown in
my tears at midnight and wake up alive. Now
I realize Iâm in over my head, slowly suffocating
myself with unsaid words and crowded thoughts.
Things I cannot, will not, donât even know how to
actually say, are what bug me every single day of
every week. Leaving the house doesnât even help
anymore, because I just want to fall back into the
waves I call covers and sleep just to forget, but
really to remember, what Iâm running from.
You know, you live in a house with family, but really
what is family? I donât remember anymore, because
itâs more like strangers you know really well, just
not enough to tell them youâre slowly dying inside
your mind. Iâve had longer conversations with
sleeping pills and the walls of my bedroom. At
least their silence doesnât make you feel like
youâre fucking insane.
âIâm fine,â has just become the default of, âI wish
youâd stop asking, you donât really care.â
Or maybe itâs because Iâm too tired to explain whatâs
wrong, or how I feel, because I live it every waking
moment. Maybe itâs the thought they would know by
looking into my lifeless eyes, thereâs nothing there.
Maybe itâs the urge to tell my mother the
first time my skin was kissed, it was by the razor,
then realizing how pathetic I really am. Or maybe itâs
just the sadness talking, I donât really know anymore.
i.c. //Â "Whatâre you running from?" (via delicatepoetry)
1. There will be some days when you close your eyes while crossing the street, maybe because you want to see what fate has in store for you, or maybe because your depression is running rampant again and you donât know how to calm her. Itâs okay. I will still love you.
2. There will be a year, or a series of years when your birthday doesnât feel special. Celebrate anyway. Because people spent time baking you a cake and buying you cards and even if theyâre your family and theyâre obligated to, they still love you. Cherish that love. Revel in it. It is the best gift you will ever receive.
3. You will learn that the saddest word in the English language is stay. Whether itâs your motherâs voice whispering it before you leave for college, or your ex-loverâs desperate screams as you walk out of the house, it will always be a hard word to hear. Sometimes you should listen to it, other times you shouldnât. Trust yourself. Go with your gut.
4. Along with hearing the word stay, you will also hear the word why from every person who is remotely related to you. Why did you get that tattoo? Why did you try to kill yourself? Why arenât you married yet? You donât have to answer them. Be selfish. Keep some things to yourself.
5. Some nights you wonât be able to sleep. You will lie awake at 2 am and contemplate existentialism and wonder if the French had a point. Get up. Get out of your bed. Do something. Because even if there is no God, what you do matters, who you are matters. You matter to me.
6. Some days you will want to run away and never return. So go. Drive to a small town in the Northwest, maybe Oregon, and settle down there for a while. Tell people your name is Elizabeth, because you loved Jane Austen as a child and because this a town full of strangers and whoâs to know the difference? Donât be selfish. Call your mother each night and remind her that you love her. Come back home when you find yourself seeing your sadness painted in the shadows, and when you feel more at home in the arms of a stranger than on your own.
7. There will be several nights when you lose yourself in the medicine cabinet, because liquor and morphine seem like a faster cure than time. Itâs okay. I will still love you in the morning.
8. One day, in the midst of work, you will learn to forgive. It will start out with a simple reminder of the past, maybe a facebook notification from an old schoolmate or a wedding announcement from an ex-lover. In that moment you will learn that yearning for the past isnât romantic, itâs stupid, and that if Gatsby had just let go of the green light he wouldâve lived. So forgive your past, it didnât know any better, and move on.
9. Leaving home will hurt, but soon you will learn that home isnât a place but a feeling, and that there is a compass on your heart that points directly to that feeling. Follow that compass. Donât get sidetracked by [girls] who donât care or alcohol that doesnât forgive. If you follow that compass, no matter how lost you get, you will always have a home.
10. The hardest lesson you will ever learn will be to love yourself. But you can do it. There will always be days when you hate yourself, days when you wish you had never been born. But darling you are beautiful, and if Shakespeare had met you you wouldâve inspired his 18th sonnet, and if Monet had known you he wouldâve given up painting water lilies and chosen to paint you instead. I know itâs hard to love yourself, but sometimes itâs okay to be a little selfish with your love.
11. When you begin to feel worthless, remember that the stars died for you. You are made of elements that are thousands of years old, elements that make up every atom of your being. When you want to cut your wrists, remember that the souls of stars live in your veins. Donât kill them. Donât be selfish.
12. Some days will be beautiful. Live for those days. Live for the days when the sun shines on your soul and the smile on your face isnât forced. Live for the days when you donât give a fuck what anyone thinks because your scars are a part of your story and you donât need someone elseâs approval to wear them with pride.
Live for the life you always wanted but were too scared to pursue.
Live for you. Live for me. Live for every person who has ever loved you, for the people who have come before you so that you may be here today.
Live for the fire that burns in your soul, that tells you: keep going, youâre almost there, just a little farther. Because when Rome burned down the emperor didnât run away, he stayed and he sang for his people. Stay. Sing for your people. Sing for us.
Are you listening? Because this is your life, singing a siren song to capture your attention and steer away from the rocks, to guide you back home.
The Twelve-Step Program for Life, by M.K. (via devilettes)
Elizabeth Peña has passed away on October 14, 2014 at the age of 55. The Cuban actress, with a professional career spanning nearly 40 years, left us on the night of October 14 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. She had recently wrapped work on the first season of the El Rey Networkâs action series, Matador, where she played the title characterâs mother Maritza.
Well known in roles like La Bamba, Rush Hour, I married Dora, Modern Family and the voice of Mirage in the Incredibles.
i had spent long days hours minutes remembering how my lungs worked
slowly going in and out and learning how to laugh and smile again because sometimes it just
takes a long time.
but now i spend my days weeks months sitting trying to look like i'm doing something but really i'm just slipping through the cracks. i don't really know what it means to be alone because i never knew what it meant to have a home
Okay, so I may have become obsessed with this routine over the past week and youâll see why. âSomething About Usâ is beautiful and amazing and perfect and should be danced on a stage filled with gold and treasures.
I now have the pdfs for six of the books in the Singerâs Musical Theatre Anthology. I will be adding the separate links in each song today but it will take a while. For now, here are the links to the pdfs. These books are fairly large and popular and...