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thoughts-of-a-caterpillar · 11 months

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Like my mother

I need to be beautiful like my mother.

She's the most beautiful woman to have ever lived. But no one knows that except me because no one else has the same wounds as her like I do which can carry the entire truth of her existence. No one else has cried when she cried, bled when she bled, died when she died.

No one else has inherited her rage.

No one else has inherited her grief.

No one else has inherited her bloodlust.

Except me

So I need to be beautiful like her too.

I'll paint my lips to hide the crimson stains of spitting my own blood.

I'll darken my eyes to hide the bruises from nights spent with mania instead of rest.

I'll pluck out every imperfection in my brow until it no longer furrows for men who do not deserve it.

I'll put kajal on my waterline so whoever makes me cry has to see me in all my horrifying anger.

I'll powder up my cheeks to hide the tears my father never dried and put lotion on the skin that holds the scars from wounds I was too young to heal.

Like my mother did.

Because I need to be beautiful like my mother.

Even if it leaves me lifeless.

She has been lifeless for most of her life too.

#guddu writes #poetry #poets on tumblr #poets on desiblr #sad poetry #mommy issues #eldest daughter #eldest daughter syndrome #eldest daughter poetry #dark femininity #mother poetry #mother problems #dark poetry #mother daughter relationship #abuse poetry

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lovely-abeille · 1 year

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on being the daughter of the family

if my body could speak, blythe baird // i put the coffin out to sea, lisa marie basile // @/belovedbi // ? // been a son, nirvana // elektra, sophokles; translated by anne carson // ? // churching, kristin chang

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muskaanayesha · 1 year

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Peace be upon the daughter who helped her parents grow up. Accepted their cold shoulder, excused their anger, pardoned their mistakes, taught them how to be human. Peace be upon the sister who paid the price of rebellion. Screaming to her fullest, shaking like a leaf but standing tall, never letting the dictatorship go without a fight, paving the path for her siblings to breathe easier. Peace be upon the first child of an immigrant father. Aching to find their own purpose in life, firm in their own beliefs, contradicting generations and generations of cultural values. Peace be upon the girl who shouldered her mother's trauma. Swindled it into her own, morphed herself into an image of the womb she once resided in, immersed herself into troubles that weren't even hers, covered up scars that she couldn't even recognize. Peace be upon the woman who forgot who she was. So determined to be the savior of everyone, to fix her family, to nurture and love everyone around her. So deeply lost that she forgot she's just as worthy of love. Peace be upon you.

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millersamour · 2 months

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A good dog always finds its way back home

Clarice Lispector A Hora da Estrela / Heather Havrilesky Ask Polly: Help, I'm The Loneliest Person In The World / Sarah J Maas Heir of Fire / Louise Glück Timor Mortis / Molly McCully Brown Falling Down / Mitski Cop Car / Yves Olade Belovéd

(All photos from pinterest, credit in image description)

#words #web weaving #oldest daughter #dog motif #poetry #poems #on being human #eldest daughter #mitski #sarah j maas #like a dog #literature #aesthetic #quotes #writing #spilled thoughts #on home

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harleylot · 10 months

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Maybe God is an older sister, an eldest daughter. Maybe God has found herself to be her father's daughter, righteous with misplaced anger. Perhaps God sees us as a younger brother -- naive and young, but happier than she ever was, and undoubtedly something to take care of. Do you think God hides from us the same way older sisters do -- finding it better & safer for us if she loves us from afar, for when she's around she can't help but lash out

#blogging #entry #ethel cain #southern gothic #rural gothic #poetry #religious talk #religous trauma #eldest daughter #girlhood is godhood #nicole dollanganger #morute

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golden-letters · 1 year

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some days im mothering the child within me who never got her words of comfort

you’ll be fine, you’ll be fine, you’ll be fine

i say to her, hugging her knees,

it’s going to be okay, you’ll make it, you’ll be fine

#vent #eldest daughter #family issues #daddy issues #unfortunately #poetry #?#poemblr #writeblr #chaotic academia #dark academia #light academia #academia #aesthetic #burnt out #burnt out gifted kid #school #university #college

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ikarust · 5 months

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i would die just to know if my mother will cry at my deathbed or spit on it. i would die just to know if my mother loves me at all. (mine)

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aphrodites-serenade · 11 months

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Like Father, Like Daughter

When I look into the cracked mirror, I see the remnants of you. I hate how my nose is exactly like yours. I hope I can get it fixed one day. Your sister once said I had your eyes. You don't know how much I wished I could gouge them out. But you don't exist only on my face. I can feel it in my bones, and oh, they're too heavy for a girl. I hear it in my voice, and I speak as if I'm you. I run away from my problems, just like how you did years ago. Sometimes, I pretend they don't exist. You knew how to do that so well. Who was it that said that I was too loud? Did they not know it was the only way we communicated? Each time I stand in front of this mirror, I realize that I've become terribly lonely. My father never knew how to love, and I, who always messes up, know that too well. And I hate it, I truly hate it. I'm not my father, I'm not my father, I'm not my father, I repeat. But like father, like daughter goes the proverb… right?

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theiaevangelineashwell · 1 year

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I took a test online once

To see if I was the Soldier

The Poet

Or the King

It told me I was the King

I always thought I’d be the poet

I think all kings long to be poets

In the same way that all eldest daughters long to just be children

Why bury your pain for the sake of others when you can turn it into art

Why raise children you didn’t make

But just like the test said

“The sword is at your side”

“It bore your name long before you did”

I never asked it to bear my name

I want to be free of it

But we all want what we are not meant to be

“You are tired of being steady. You dream of feeling alive. Not that you aren't, but, sometimes, it's hard to remember that there is a heart between your ribs.” -@atlanticsea

#poems on tumblr #soldier #poet #king #atlanticsea #spilled thoughts #poetry #soldier poet king #parentified child #eldest daughter

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embeccy · 7 months

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You remember too much,

my mother said to me recently.

Why hold onto all that? And I said,

Where can I put it down?

- Anne Carson

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petrichor-moss-and-lightning · 6 months

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that daughterhood feeling of slipping out of your body, trying on different bones, adjusting the marrow so that your mother might look at you, might love you enough. that daughterhood feeling of being simultaneously five and fifteen and fifty-five. of counting the rings of your spinal column to make sure. of being haunted by the vengeance of every version of you that didn’t make it out of that house alive.

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bluetalepost · 10 months

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i would never be a therapist because that's who i've been all my life. i wonder if i would ever let myself be a mother.

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muskaanayesha · 1 year

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I am the eldest daughter, which is to say that I am a sponge that absorbs all the trauma of the household. Life is spilt milk and I am a kitchen cloth burnt at the edges. I am falling apart at the corners, threads coming away, rips and ripples like I am torn and trembling in an ocean of nothingness. I am the eldest daughter, which is to say that I emphasize with everyone. The love of my life marries someone else, and I find myself hoping that he loves her the same. My brother wishes death upon me and I toss and turn in my sleep over the tears I saw in his eyes. Life is an accidental fire and I am water. I attempt to stop a tragedy I did not start, to go blindly into a catastrophe that I cannot halt. I am the eldest daughter, which is to say that I am silent in my needs. My father asks me what I'd like to eat and I say that I am not hungry. I will chew on my guilt and swallow my pride before I even think of asking for anything. I buy myself a sweet and nothing tastes as bitter as it. Life is a metaphor for debt and I am drowning in the desire to be as insignificant as possible. I demand nothing and nothing demands me.

#desi women #poets on tumblr #women writers #authors #poetry #spilled poetry #literature #poetic #writeaway #booklover #daddy issues #mommy issues #eldest sibling #eldest sister #eldest daughter #eldest born #immigrant parents

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mad-girlslove-song · 4 months

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"I have known that I have wanted to be an incredible mother for as long as I have feared being a regrettable daughter."

Blythe Baird

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amoxicillin-tangent · 1 year

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"siblinghood, as a series of seasons"

//

[spring]

our father brings you out into the hospital corridor. you are swathed in a linen blanket. i am impressed that you are not crying.

on the way home, our mother makes some comment, something like i hope you aren’t upset that the baby was born so close to your birthday. i do not respond. i am staring into your eyes, and you are staring back.

-

[summer]

summer, in all its brutality, is us together in the scorching heat. it’s me, the only one who can interpret your toddler babble. it is looking over as you take shaky steps and knowing, before anyone else, when you are about to fall.

you are old enough to walk now. i still spend my spare time wondering who will catch you.

such is siblinghood. such is life.

-

[autumn]

when everyone else thinks of autumn, they think of golden leaves.

we think of the reason why they turn.

this is the nature of siblinghood; we grow up in a burning house. we leave with ashes under our nails. you are the only one who will ever hate our parents as much as i do. you are the only one who could ever love our parents as much as i do. you accidentally call me mom once and i say it’s fine, so long as no one’s listening.

i am old enough to leave, and i fly like a bat out of hell. you are too young to leave, and you stand in the hallway with crossed arms and a glowering face and you burn, and burn, and burn.

-

[winter]

winter is an echo of all we should’ve had; a world where we imagine siblinghood and think of warmth instead of salvation.

our golden forests have faded to gray. i could not save you from the fall, nor could you save me from the flight. i could not save you from the burning house, but i’ll try my damndest to patch the wounds it left. you hate me just as much as you hate our parents and i love you just as much as i love them.

i try to imagine a world where i am not stitching up your wounds as i bleed out from my own. there is no such world.

winter is all we have.

-

[spring]

a patch of dandelions blooms to our left.

have you come to save me? you ask, and i shake my head.

no, kiddo. we already tried that.

well, what are you here for, then?

the answer to your question chokes in my throat. i’m going back to college. your birthday is my phone password. i still think of you every time i eat a marshmallow.

you are still bleeding, and you are still smoldering, and you are still glowering in the hallway. i have stitched up my wounds; they are healing into scars. i saved me first. i saved me at your expense.

i lived to regret it.

i would not have, if i’d stayed.

i’m here to make a wish. i say, and i hand you a dandelion. wish with me?

you puff the seeds into my face. it is just as annoying as you stealing my clothes in autumn when you were thirteen and cutting up my books in winter when you were five and taking what remained of our parents’ love in spring when you were born. siblinghood is a list of sins you’ll never remember and being the oldest means letting them cease to matter.

i reach out. pick a dandelion. blow the seeds off in some unforeseen direction.

would you believe me if i told you that my wish was for you to be happy?

you do not respond. but you do not leave.

i stare into your eyes.

and you stare back.

[in spring, we are reborn.]

#siblinghood #older sister #parentification #eldest daughter syndrome #family issues #family dynamics #family dysfunction #poem #poetry #spilled ink #poets on tumblr #poetry community #sorry i haven't posted in like forever i got a promotion and work is kicking my shit in!

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golden-letters · 9 months

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the thing is, i'm pathetic. you'll watch me try and try again and again and still be a hopeless novice. you'll grimace with embarrassment when i fail again and again but continue to try and win. and the thing is, i'm pathetic, in the way that i'm a try-hard wannabe who's not really that good at anything at all. but you'll watch me, with pity, as i finally manage to achieve something average, and you'll watch me, as you're about to lose all the patience you have (or maybe your patience is already lost), as i succeed.

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