thestruggleiswonderful

[thestruggleiswonderful]

GG (Or, a Metaphor for My Mother)

There’s a game we play in my house.

Not monopoly, not Fortnite,

Kind of like a first person shooter with friendly fire turned on.

It’s a game of strategy and riddles and decision-making.

I’m really good at it.

I had to be, I’m the oldest, the first born, and the first one to make the mistakes.

I know how to store up extra lives and coax bosses back to sleep.

I’ll never defeat them, why even try.

If I tried, it would just make things harder for my teammates, and we don’t plan our attacks together.

I feel like a dragon whisperer sometimes.

Cooper never really picked up on my techniques.

He doesn’t know how to go into stealth mode.

He rushes into battle and he’s too weak, he doesn’t even have any stamina potions, what is he doing?

I always thought his strategy was stupid. Always stupid, never brave. I had to think it was stupid.

If it was brave, that would make me a coward.

I acquire special abilities: persuasion, illusion, magic.

The bosses get bigger, meaner, more medicated, more convinced of our insignificance.

I’m almost too old for games, having the high score doesn’t seem like such a priority now.

Hudson and Chance are getting better. Hudson stopped playing side quests, he’s on story mode and he probably regrets it. Chance especially has improved. He’s still so small but his hands hold the controller so well.

I just can’t believe- after years of looking up cheat codes and replaying levels and storing up grenades until my pack is full- after all that practice,

I wish they weren’t so good at playing.

I wish they’d be more like Cooper.

Because I’m almost too old for games, and it’s only now that I realize none of us have been winning.

#writing #mine my own my precious #family #brothers #mothers #games #gg #extended metaphor #poetry #poems #poem #my poetry #abuse

[thestruggleiswonderful]

[thestruggleiswonderful]

I can almost see you

I can almost see your unruly hair, so agonizingly and effortlessly perfect

I can almost see your crooked fingers, your purposeful body

I can almost hear you

I can almost hear you singing the songs your mother taught you, held with a rash holiness on your tongue

I can almost hear you fondly mocking my silliest moments and reverently exploring my saddest ones

I can almost feel you

I can almost feel the warmth radiating from your face, my hands are frozen

I can almost feel your arms, wrapped around me exactly like hers were all those years ago in Canada on the scariest night of my life

I can almost taste you

I can almost swallow and cough on your words like soda that I never drink

I can almost savor the sweet sharpness of your laugh

I can almost see your eyes- Green and blue and gray and if only this fog wasn’t in the way

I can almost hear the casual confessions that I will cherish like the sound of a church choir at fortissimo tucked into all the little pockets between my teeth

I can almost feel your hug, like connecting two sky puzzle pieces despite all the odds that were against them, being part of a 1000 piece set

I can almost taste your life, like pop rocks and mint folded underneath my tongue

I almost know you.

You almost know me.

I can’t believe I’ve spent this long being scared of you. You are me.

I’m ready when you are.

#I'm like #not scared anymore #romantic love #am i romantic or just really bad at this #i think i was just really bad at it? #love #mine my own my precious #poem #i need to write poems about something else lol #ew

[thestruggleiswonderful]

17 goodbyes, 5 breaks, 4 silences, 1 coldness, and this is the one farewell I really don’t think I can handle. 

#i am going to lose it after she leaves #im not going to be able to continue on #she's the closest thing to a mother and a sister that i ever had #i felt like a child for the first time when she let me cry in her arms #i can't deal with everything without her #i cant #theres nothing i can do but say goodbye for the 18th time

[thestruggleiswonderful]

Had another dream about you last night. I can’t believe it’s been four years and I’m still desperate for you to think I’m worth something. 

There are so many more important things to dream about, but I’m stuck on your scar. I can’t believe it’s been four years and I’m still afraid to speak to you.

You stole five months and a summer from my control, and I let you. I can’t believe it’s been four years and you probably don’t even remember me. 

#personal #mine my own my precious #you know when you have a dream #about someone you don't really know anymore #and it brings up all these regrets and feelings you thought were over #yeah #:( #zane

[thestruggleiswonderful]

I will be at Centauri again. Maybe not next year, maybe not for a couple of years, maybe never in the same way again, but I will see the quad again. I will sing in the dining hall. I will shiver at the insane AC of Loyalist basement. I will avoid the Parade Square. I will walk through Brock and Butler and Brant reliving everything that ever made me whole.

And, I swear to God, everything will be okay. 

#mine my own my precious #idk #I just needed to hear this #centauri #god I miss it so much #it hurts more than I could ever convey #No one understands and i don't expect them to #sometimes i think it's all gone #i'm so sad and so scared #oh god #reminder #reminder to myself

[thestruggleiswonderful]

#love #romantic love #mine my own my precious #text chat #text

[thestruggleiswonderful]

Happy Hungry

I remember the first time I cried in a dressing room.

I had always hated shopping. It made me mad, sad, frustrated, and bored. I didn’t like the way I looked under harsh lighting and clothes that never fit. I was eleven, trying on pants while my mom waited outside. I couldn’t pull them up over my butt and in anguish I told my mom that they didn’t fit. She said maybe if I had rollerbladed for an extra hour that morning, they would have. I sat down on a hard bench in despair and silently sobbed.

I remember the first time I called myself fat out loud.

It scared me. I was in front of a mirror, music was playing and I was in a good mood. I was changing, getting ready for the day. Suddenly, the words exploded out of me. Alone, in my room. I’d never spoken to myself that way before. It felt like an unpleasant tickle in my mouth.

I remember the first time I tried to make myself throw up.

It was the night before the first day of school, Junior year. I hadn’t finished all of my summer work and I was so anxious I shook. I tried to think of a way that I could stay home from school and not feel too guilty to sleep. I went into the bathroom and stuck my fingers down my throat. I tried four times, taking rests in between, but all I could do was gag until I was covered in cold sweat. I’d thought so often of doing it, and still do, but I hated throwing up more than I hated myself.

I remember the first time someone told me I had lost too much weight.

I was annoyed, and angry at the audacity of someone commenting on my body. I dismissed it as wearing a tight belt, or a tight shirt, even though those excuses didn’t make sense. A part of me was pleased, excited, obsessed. It’s working, I thought.

I remember the first time I stepped onto a scale and read a weight under 120 pounds.

I was filled with smug joy. I danced around my father’s room and ate a cookie from the kitchen because I could now. I was motivated to continue, and do even better.

I remember the first time I realized I had an eating disorder.

I was sitting in Psychology class, Sophomore year. We were doing presentations on disorders, diseases, conditions. I was barely paying attention, having already finished my slideshow. A girl named Talena stood up and began talking about Anorexia. She listed symptoms and I felt my fingers grip my desk. She said “hair loss”, I remembered the tumbleweeds which fell from my head. She said “feeling cold”, and I remembered the funny nickname I had created for myself - “PCP: Perpetually Cold Person.”

I remember the first time I told my mother about it.

We were sitting in a car and she was angry with me. I was too tired to deal with the drawn-out process of apologizing, so I burst into tears. It wasn’t hard to do. I exploded about the eating so that maybe she could lay off. It didn’t feel real. I used it. Maybe that’s why she still doesn’t believe me.

#mine my own my precious #tw: eating disorder #this one's a work in progress #but I'm glad I wrote it #poetry #kind of #prose

[thestruggleiswonderful]

I’m sorry I kissed you everywhere except on your mouth.

#mine my own my precious #I'm so sorry

[thestruggleiswonderful]

I Was on a Bridge and Thought About Drowning, Thought About You

The water looks as blue black as your hair, and is as bubbly as my false bravado

The sunset is golden and the waves fight the current, following the light- trying to swallow it, trying to retain its iridescence

It looks like how I feel with you

A dire, deadly bittersweet catastrophe

You and I are the light and the sea

You cannot lift yourself to my sky

And I can only scratch your surface

I never knew a force of nature could be so sad

If the Earth truly was flat

I would sail off of it with you

There is no light without the dark

And there’s still so much I’m blind to, though I blind you myself

I know less about you than I do the moon

My space seems suffocating, though I have not the gills to breathe in your grasp

Drown me, erode me, rot me

Here I come now, to you

The sun is setting

#poetry #my writing #mine my own my precious #trying to let go of someone #is really hard #my fingers are curled into a fistful of your shirt #and they creak when I try to loosen my hand #i miss you #poem #writing #water #light and dark

[thestruggleiswonderful]

I’m constantly terrified of losing friendships. I’ve always thought I had an expiration date. 

#but i thought we were non perishable #sad #mine my own my precious #rambling #missing so many people #but my ot3 most of all

[thestruggleiswonderful]

I found dirt in your spirit. I value messes and mistakes more than management. Let’s make love and let’s make a mess.

I found clouds in your eyes. I hate the oil of sunscreen and the punishment of sunburns. Let’s make love and let’s make a storm.

I found ice in your skin. I worship Winter and focus on frostbite. Let’s make love and let’s make it melt.

I found heat in your fingertips. I collect matches and set my chest to flame. Let’s make love and let’s make a fire.

I found wind in your breath. I have always wanted to fly and you are a force of nature. Let’s make love and let’s make a hurricane.

I found a solar system in your mind. I have always craved the endless but nothing is forever when it comes to planets. Let’s make love and let’s make the world end.

#mine my own my precious #sexy poem #kind of #lol #I wrote this at camp for no one in particular #but now it's kind of a Mood #let's make love #cringe #yikes #poetry #writing #my writing #poem

[thestruggleiswonderful]

Woke up with a bruise on my thigh and wished it was from you.

[thestruggleiswonderful]

Multiverse

I love you like the Earth loves the moon

I know you are covered in craters and I know you can’t sustain life, and I know one day my own gravity will crush you to my side

I love you like the polar bear loves the ice caps

I know you are melting and cracking but I have made you my home and jesus can’t you hold it together for a little while longer

I love you like the world loves the dying man

I love you like the philosopher loves the illness, like the fear loves the unknown, like the mother loves the child she never had

I have the universe inside of me - black holes, supernovas, vacuums of nothing

And it gathers in my stomach to spell out your name

All the progress we make is in retrograde, our visions of the future are as warped as the milky way

I am dragging dark matter into our lives with my fingernails

Because you are more likely to listen to the void than the sun

I hope more than anything that the truth is out there, because I am learning more and more that honesty is not a terrestrial creature

Maybe telling you that you are my soulmate is the most dangerous thing I’ve ever done

And maybe shipping yourself off to England was the worst thing you could’ve done

But, like I told you, I’m yours now, and there’s nothing I can do

I’ve been trying to save you for two years and I can’t stop

All I can do is try to trace the constellations on each strand of your hair and hold your hand so that you don’t scratch at the comet tails on your arms

All I want to do is bring everything to absolute zero so I can finally see your face for a moment without worrying if it’s going to be there tomorrow

And I can’t help wondering if all of it

The promises

The late nights

The apologies

The hurt

If all of it

Is due to space

#mine my own my precious #idk about this one it just kinda fell out but #i understand a little bit more about this person now #space #poetry #poem #writing #my writing

[thestruggleiswonderful]

You Have Lumps on Your Head

You have lumps on your head

And bullseyes on your cheekbones

Your throat is made of the spark found in Earth’s crust

And I wish you would swallow me

Your fingerprints are invisible ink

And there are essays written all over my skin

All I want to do is read them

I made a timeline of you in my life

The hard part was deciding where to end it

You are electric ground and disgusting indifference

And you are not so incredible as the way you made me think

It’s been over a year and it is hard not to write about you like you are a God

So I list your flaws

But they are about as real as I see them

And then I think about your hands

Jesus, God, your hands

They beat me in Mario Kart so many times

They slapped me on the back to show that I was welcome

They tapped my foot, the place where I feel love most

They drew me pictures and both lobes of my brain harmonized in their screams

They touched my leg and I hate them for it

You have scabs on your elbows

And papercuts on your eyelids

I thought I could be cream, but I’ve always been lemon juice

And I just wish I had swallowed you

Because you were a book

That I wanted to write

But your fingerprints were invisible ink

And I’ve always been lemon juice

#poem #poetry #first love #unrequited love #good times #honestly #frick i love people #UGH #love em #writing #my writing #mine #mine my own my precious

[thestruggleiswonderful]

Pianos Are Made for Falling

A piano is an instrument

With keys that fall

Through space and time

Dancing their way through a secret garden where

Magic is planted spontaneously

It drips through the mind at some times and

Rips through the soul at others

Down, down, down they go

Into your heart

He plays his piano like it is his life

And perhaps it is

His being tuned into its gliding sound

His eyes close and his spirit comes undone

Unravelling into the ivories

Lost in the whirlwind that is music

His mouth curves to a smile and

It’s more than you ever dreamed

Music could be

When you play your violin and

You feel the notes through your

Body and

You wish you knew how to smile

Like that

The smile of symphony, of sympathy, of starlight, of solace, of spirit, of something sweet buried in the wreckage that is life

But after all, it shouldn’t mean that much

Your father says smiling is a liability

A pointed arrow prodding the balloon of success

Music is not for your heart

Music is for others

Music is a way for your pockets to jangle a little

More with every note

But when he plays

The jangle ceases and

The room holds its breath

He plays with his shoes off

So he can feel the songs surge

Through his bones and

When you see the sugar in his smile

You feel it too

And all of a sudden the strings

Come alive and buzz with

The flight of the bumblebee and

You could almost smile if

You let yourself and

You just might

He’s only a boy and

A piano but

You start to think that’s

All the world ever

Needed

And the music starts to play again

#merthur #pianos are made for falling #fishwrites #i think #amazing story #amazing author #wow #inspired by that #title isn't mine #poetry #poem #pianos #mine #mine my own my precious

[thestruggleiswonderful]

Ridiculous

It’s ridiculous to mourn things that never happened,

Things that never could’ve happened, things that would’ve fit like gum in your gears or dust in your eye, things that were never meant to happen.

It’s ridiculous to think that someone is a miracle,

That someone is a blessing, that someone was born from purpose and crafted from laughter, that that someone is a someone you damn well should worship.

It’s ridiculous to hope for things you were never promised,

Things that were the most unlikely of events, things that exploded and twisted and lightened your chest to think of, things that you could almost see clearly when you closed your eyes.

It’s ridiculous to feel things that change the way you wake up,

Things that can set happy fire under your toes, things that blind you and open you until you swear you can see the universe in a pair of impaired eyes, things that burn.

It’s ridiculous to feel sad that I’ll never see you sad, that I’ll never know your clothes as well as mine, that I’ll never give you my Christmas and you’ll never give me yours.

It’s ridiculous to mourn not knowing your favorite color, your marco-polo strategy, your childhood awakenings, your secret dreams kept tight like a pearl behind the lips that I never really got a good look at.

It’s ridiculous that a pat on the back from you was enough to send me rocketing, that you drew me a picture and I had to run screaming down a hallway because there was a star in my lungs, that your face was my favorite book.

It’s ridiculous but I still see you the way Nick Carraway must have seen his Gatsby, I still think you have a stomach forever bubbling with life, I still think everyone who meets you is in love without knowing it, or should be.

I still think you’re like one of Jack’s beans, small and yet full of life-changing, rearranging, art exchanging magic. And I saw galaxies forming in your eyes. And that’s ridiculous. And I’m sad I’ll never tell you how ridiculous it was.

#first love #this is about the same person from the letter to myself #unrequited love #moving on #getting over someone #my writing #poetry #poem #prose #writing #prose piece #mine #mine my own my precious