stuck-at-17

[stuck-at-17]

"if i was orpheus i would simply not turn around" yes you would. if you were orpheus and you loved eurydice, you would. to love someone is to turn around. to love someone is to look at them. whichever version of the myth — he hears her stumble, he can't hear her at all, he thinks he's been tricked — he turns around because he loves her. that's why it's a tragedy. because he loves her enough to save her. because he loves her so much he can't save her. because he will always, always turn around. "if i was orpheus i would simply —" you wouldn't be orpheus. you wouldn't be brave enough to walk into the underworld and save the person you love. be serious

[stuck-at-17]

i wish i could take a pen a destroy a page with it.

as a writer and a poet, we are encouraged to write every. single. thought to pen and paper. but, how come no one ever talks about how you want to just take a pen and stab and rip and destroy pages with it in your head but you couldn’t because of the belief that there are much better stories and lines that paper could have than a single struggling night you could just sleep off?

[stuck-at-17]

all everyone talks about are great love stories on how they get each other in romcoms. but how come no one ever makes stories about recovery and moving on… forgetting someone who’s alive, let alone someone who passed. and how she will get to that point? why does no one ever create or show a feature under a lively lighting and setting where when she cries while she goes grocery shopping, that’s when she feels the most alive? how come no one ever shows her moving to a new place, discovering more about herself and how she learns how to wake so early at dawn and to water her plants and cook and live the life she should’ve had with him? how come no one shows the part where she finally smiles as she acknowledges that grief will probably never leave and she just teaches herself to be happy again because all he’s left of her were memories and she knows that the grief will come to eat her up again but she has and wants to keep on living.

[stuck-at-17]

“just let go… make him let go.”

this was the first time i prayed to God for my absent and useless father. because… it’s much better to be a daughter of a dead man than live with the fact that there will always be a living ghost following you in every party and in every place you walk into.

#youth #girlhood #daddy issues #absent fathers

[stuck-at-17]

“you are not there, yet…” i declared while i grabbed my reflection by the neck.

you’re not there, yet. we can start again. we can start at long baths. then we tidy our room. then we stay quiet and empty our minds. let’s open a book and learn to read again. let’s listen to calmer music. bask in the morning sun when you get the chance.

we haven’t reached that far, yet. there’s no reason to let go.

let’s start again.

slowly.

#startingover #healing #meditation #mindfulness

[stuck-at-17]

honestly i just think we all need to slow down

[stuck-at-17]

friendship in the eyes of a twenty-something.

i met my best friend in the world when we were freshmen. like something out of a taylor swift song, we immediately bonded and became close. at that age, we thought nothing would ever come between us. i like to think that nothing did. but high school feels is a place where everything can happen. now, it’s been almost a decade. we found our way back to each other. and though we don’t talk everyday; hell, we only ever see each other at least once a year. nevertheless, there’s just this certain magic that makes you think that true best friends must truly exist. ✨ because i think that she’s my soul mate. when i want to frame someone, it’s her advice i’d ask. if there’s a body to bury, it’s her whom i’d call. we can’t read each others’ mind, but it feels like i know everything about her. if she goes to jail, i’d run and bail her out. and when it’s our wedding, we’re there, fixing each others’ train and when she’s unsure, i’ll start the car and get her the hell out of there. i don’t think this is something that happens often. which is why when it happens to you, i hope you never lose it. i hope you believe in magic and in whatever stuff barbie’s singing about and never take them for granted. i hope that in a room where they’re being doubted, you’re standing. truth is, you don’t even have to look for them too hard. they’re there, who’ll do the same thing as you did for them, without a blink. because i’ve had many friends in my 2 decades in the world. guess who stayed.

i guess what i’m trying to say is, when you’re young, it’s easy to treat your friendships as something dispensable. give it time. space. soon enough, you’ll find that there’s no one else you’d spend walking the streets of europe with, share a tub of ice cream with, and cry at guilty-pleasure movies together. a little distance and disconnection shouldn’t be the sole reason to cut something deep.

#friendship #youth #poems #prose #stories #girlhood #writing #poetry #teen girls #bffs #real friends #relationships #friends #bff #bestfriend #barbie #girls

[stuck-at-17]

resentment.

when i was young, i didn’t know what it meant to hold a grudge. then i grew older. i discovered the word and learned how to hold my own grudge. when i became a teenager, it was then where i was often angry. and in that anger, my thoughtful and sharp-tongued grandmother loved to remind me, “holding a grudge is never the answer, my child.” and how, by then, i should’ve hoped to never come across people who’d cause me great anger. how could i have known that my anger was rooted in my own home, from my own blood? and as my teenage years came to an end, i’ve come to realize that most of the time, i wasn’t angry. it was bitterness. displeasure. and eventual disappointment. i looked long and far on how i felt, it was just resentment, all along. when you look up the word, you’ll find that resentment, is a noun. oftentimes regarded as: bitter indignation at having been treated unfairly; being forced to accept something you do not like. and when i started to learn how to use the word, it’s ironic how resentment is attributed to as ‘harbors’ [resentment] when harbor itself is defined as an entity of security. comfort. refuge. and all my life, harboring resentment was the opposite of all that. approaching my twenties, i’m learning how to let go of grudges yet at the same time, harbor resentment to avoid mistreatment, ever again. this time, i chose to forego the words of my grandmother and refuse to afford people the graciousness they never forget to repay with ungratefulness.

#youth #poems #prose #stories #girlhood #writing #poetry #childhood #life #anger #femalerage

[stuck-at-17]

i was born fortunate.

struggles in my daily life prevent me from being completely grateful of all that i am, and all that i have. but more often than never, i remind myself, ‘i was born fortunate.’

i was born fortunate to have been nurtured and warm in my mother’s arms.

i was born fortunate to have been and still be educated on what’s right and wrong.

i was born fortunate to have a wise aunt who introduced the movie ‘12 Years A Slave’ to me at 10 in 2013.

i was born fortunate to baske in the freedom my ancestors fought so hard for in our long past.

i was born fortunate to occupy my very motherland that foreign oppressors and invaders once took from us.

i was born fortunate to be in the safety of my own home. with food. electricity. water. and everything i need.

i was born fortunate. but my Palestinian brothers and sisters, are not.

i like to believe that i’m restrained and incapable to extend my help but how could i complain, when the rest of them have lost their lives. when the rest of them have half their bodies buried in the rubble.

when they have nothing else to look forward nor be thankful for. no family, a bleak future, with allies and neighbors that seem more like enemies. and all they’re holding on to is a tiny gleam of hope that it all goes quiet. that it’s done. and they no longer have to fight a war they’re losing.

i want to hope that people in need of promise and help be delivered this. it might not be interesting nor written by a renowned writer, but it’s a heartfelt letter by a 20-year-old Asian who’s hoping that this message reaches where and who it should touch.

i grieve for all we have lost and continue to lose.

#free palestine #palestine #gaza strip #free gaza #stop war #stop genocide #poems #youth #prose #stories #girlhood #writing #poetry #life #pray for palestine #pray for peace

[stuck-at-17]

crawling to my mother’s bed

i feel the most fortunate child to be comfortable and feel my mother’s warmth whenever i can. i’ve had terrible times and life and there are tiny little things that keep me sane. it’s the fact that no matter how old i’ll be, how many lovers i’d scorn, children i’d bear, i’d still be her baby.

when having a bad day, i can still crawl on her bed because i know that she’s there. she’s this world’s sole and quiet comfort. and i fear that when she’s not, i will never be able to revisit that cozy room and remember the time when i’d pretend to be asleep so she could stroke my head and tell me how much i’d grown.

#child #youth #poems #prose #stories #girlhood #midnights #writing #poetry #mom #mommy #childhood #nostalgia #happiness #warmth #comfort #sunshine #mother

[stuck-at-17]

#life #poems #youth #stories #girlhood #midnights #writing #poetry #childhood #nostalgia #purpose #quotes

[stuck-at-17]

i love august and i don’t want it to end but i can’t wait for fall, where everything dies and we get another chance at everything.

#august #salt air #and the rust of your door #taylor #fall #autumn #youth #ribs

[stuck-at-17]

"I want to live simply. I want to sit by the window when it rains and read books I'll never be tested on. I want to paint because I want to, not because I've got something to prove. I want to listen to my body, fall asleep when the moon is high and wake up slowly, with no place to rush off to. I want not to be governed by money or clocks or any of the artificial restraints that humanity imposes on itself. I just want to be, boundless and infinite."

– Via "svnflower-blog" on Tumblr

[stuck-at-17]

am i severely introverted or is this an undiagnosed social anxiety…?

#social anxiety #capybara #introvert

[stuck-at-17]

comments from tiktok about siblings

[stuck-at-17]

june is ending. it’s halfway through summer.

just like the child i once was, i want to see summer in bright-colored glasses. i’m learning and unlearning. learning how to spend the long days and few weeks as if i was that once kid with sun-burnt cheeks afraid of nothing and glides through the ocean like a mermaid. because the past few years, all i’ve ever done is run tirelessly and lock that little girl inside that music box, throwing away the key. leaving it beside my half-empty diaries and stacked books, left unread for few summers now. inside, she screams, and knocks, and cries at night, every now and then, begging to be freed. and now, i think it’s time to set her free, that summer child; and start unlearning the wickedness of the world.

#poems #youth #childhood #girlhood #diaries #writing #summer #june

[stuck-at-17]

“A man’s heart is a wretched, wretched thing, Mariam. It isn’t like a mother’s womb. It won’t bleed. It won’t stretch to make room for you.”

Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

#childhood #khaled hosseini #quotes #youth #stories #a thousand splendid suns #father #mother #writing