what it is like to live with an anxiety disorder

blankslate:

1.
no one ever congratulates you
for doing the really difficult things
like driving on the freeway or getting out of bed or
staying alive

2.
every friendship you make is a countdown
to the moment
when they finally can’t deal
with the missed calls and canceled hangouts
every friendship is on a timer
every friendship expires sooner,
not later

3.
you hear phrases like “bootstraps”
over and over
until you wish you had some to hang
yourself with

4.
you have to learn to simultaneously
relax your muscles
and move them with determination
you have to be in control
and you have to let go
at the same time
it’s enough to drive you into
a blubbering mess

5.
music is a conduit
crying is a conduit
your dad calling is a conduit
everything becomes a conduit
for either having or not having another panic attack

6.
you learn to stop making plans
because you’ll either disappoint yourself
or someone you care about or both

7.
you accept all of it

8.
you hope someday everyone else can
accept it too

(via swamphorcydes)

punctuation

implexa:

lots of times
i’ve heard about
people curving 
around their lovers
like apostrophes 
and commas
and ellipses
but when you
brush your
swollen lips
against my
shivering spine
grammar goes
right out the
window.

(Source: memereve, via peacepunx)

tenderartist:

queer thoughts in seven parts

forahorizon:

one


you called me a dyke when i was thirteen years old,

already pressing six foot tall, equally sized in my self loathing,

desperate for friends, and you, you looked to the

dr martens on my feet and called me butch.

i cried, and wondered if i had the word queer stamped

across my forehead, or if i smelt

too much like the pussy you assumed i loved.


two


i had sex with a girl i didn’t like because i knew at fifteen

that lesbians don’t grow on trees like straight girls do.

we bumped against layers of fabric in her single bed,

interrupted twice because her mother wanted to know

if her “new friend” was going to stay for dinner.


three


no, i don’t want to fuck your boyfriend with you.


four


i flicked through magazines and saw brightly coloured

combat boots, winking at me from glossy pages.

two, three, four months later and the girls

that sang “i kissed a girl” at me in my

maths lessons until i cried, they were wearing them.

for years i’d worn my boots like i was carrying a cross

but when all five foot six of pretty straight girl

strutted in front of me in them, now, suddenly, it’s fashionable.


five


no, i don’t just need to find the “right guy”.


six


i’ve sat in classrooms with people that i considered friends,

people that call themselves allies. people that then turn around

and say that a child needs a mum and a dad. babies

need someone of the same “sex” as them to identify with.

i want to call their bullshit freud theory the literal mother-fucking

bollocks that it is, but i simply do not have the energy.

it is not my job to tell a girl that thinks having gay friends is

“neat” what the difference between sex and gender is.

it is not my job to calmly try and convince these people that

they are talking about things they do not understand.


seven


the next time you squeeze your hand around your dick

on a website that’s address has both “lesbian” and “xxx” in it

remember my face when you told me you thought i was unnatural

remember my face when your eyes go white and roll back into your head

and i hope you feel bad,

i hope i ruin your orgasm

because you soiled my identity like the cum stains in your underwear.

because you are not my ally and i am not your friend.

this queer has a moan that can’t be silenced by a volume dial,

and it will never be yours to hear. 

(via hairypitsandtits)

thund3r-b1rd-0n3:

This just made me stop everything

(Source: travels-, via misandrist-witchcraft)

(Source: marykateteske, via joansuffrajett)

ON BEING A SHITTY SAD SELFISH TWENTY-YEAR-OLD

girl-germs:

aleashurmantine:

1.
Your roommate comes home to find you
in the kitchen, in old sweatpants and a lace bra,
heating soup on the stove. You wonder

what she thinks of your stomach, its pillowy folds, if
it isn’t a little obscene, how it grows softer every day
while you stand there, tearing chunks off of a baguette,

barely chewing, constantly swallowing.

2.
Your friend invites you over for a movie. Cancel because your
feet hurt. Cancel because your fat stomach hurts. Cancel
because he thinks you’re beautiful and you know you aren’t.

3.
Consider writing the boy you love another letter
to tell him you are sad that he ignored your first letter.
Wonder when you stopped worrying about being

a “crazy girl.” Acknowledge that becoming one
feels natural, like tugging at ivy until it’s uprooted, like
holding the vine and watching soil fall from the roots,

back to more soil, gently.

4.
Fear every man who looks at you.
Hate every man who doesn’t look at you.

5.
The train whistle you hear every night
sounds like the cawing of an angry crow.
This is not the mournful song everyone

writes about, not the lone bassoon stretching
its neck into the night—this is something harsh,
dogged: blaring sandpaper, a smoke alarm.

6.
Think about getting hit by a car almost every day.
Resent that you can’t think of anything more creative
or less passive.

7.
But that boy. You have spent most of a year unraveling
your skin for him, draping strands of it places
you thought he’d notice, your teeth always chattering

like crude drums calling him to battle across the room,
across three states, across your bed. The woman he loves
is a magnet. You don’t know what you are, but you suspect

it is something less permanent, something
more likely to dissolve in water.

8.
Eat the whole baguette. Lay in bed
sweating. Don’t call anyone back. There’s
that train whistle again: furious, obscene.

mhmm

remlupins:

so in writer’s craft our assignment is to write the worst poem we can possibly create

and we’re having a contest and i think i’m going to win

(Source: lupinses, via sourceofselfdestruction)

[tw] pretty in pink.

owlmylove:

When I was 10, I saw

my first episode of Law & Order, SVU

a woman screamed

and her pretty pink dress ripped

the scene cut to black but then

she sat in a station

hair mussed and mascara running

and she seemed broken

and empty

and that’s when I began to prepare

for the inevitable.

When I was 12, my sister got

hit on by a boy

he looked at her funny

and I couldn’t forget

how his eyes tracked

her pink t-shirt

around the room

he reminded me of the predators

that I saw on nature documentaries

and for the first time, my strong sister

seemed like the prey.

When I was 13, my auntie bought me

a pretty pink can of pepper spray

she told me if my daddy comes at me

or any other boy

I spray hard and fast

kick them in the balls

and then run run run

as fast as I can.

I flicked the safety switch

on-off, on-off

and clipped the can

to my purse.

When I was 14, I went to a sleepover

and met a boy named Jake

Jake was 18 and had tattoos

he smelled funny and his eyes

didn’t leave me all night.

He waited for me in the dark

outside of the bathroom

and I sprinted fast fast fast

and hid under a blanket.

Clutching my pretty pink can

and flicking the safety

on-off, on-off.

(I didn’t sleep that night)

When I turned 15, my mom took me

to buy some new bras.

I had to go up a cup

and I stared at the pretty pink tags

and told her that I knew

Knew that some day

that cup size

was going to get me in trouble.

She looked sad when she said

that it wouldn’t be the cup

but the men who’d take my body as an invitation.

(I didn’t see the difference)

No one ever talks

about the pretty pink can

on my purse.

No one ever mentions it

or asks about it

And I never get pulled aside in stores.

People’s eyes flick over it

dismiss it.

But what I want to know is;

How is it okay

for a kid like me

to have a weapon?

I’ll tell you how.

It’s because I’m a girl.

We’re trained since we hit puberty

for a war that no one wants to talk about

trained for horrible things

that people claim never happen

Or worse- “They happen for a reason”

we are told to be careful

we are told not to take walks after it’s dark

we are told to fight back to be compliant to yell and to stay silent

but nothing you tell us

ever works.

I don’t know how old I’ll be

when all of that advice

will be needed.

I don’t know how old I’ll be

when I’ll take a shower

and see blood mixing with white

running down the inside of my legs

swirling into a pretty pink cream

while I try to un-break myself.

I don’t when it’ll happen,

But I know that it will.

tomorrow or years from now-

and I’m scared.

But hey!

At least we girls look pretty in pink.

(via ilovereadingandwriting)

burrito-princess:

this is how rape culture feels

1.
when it’s dark
and late
and i’m walking alone
my body is 
whirring in time with my frantic heartbeat
and in my mind
the news broadcaster is telling me that
one in three women will be a
victim 
of sexual assault in their lifetime -
well, i went out with two other girls tonight
so which one does that make me?

2.
arms crossed
head down
walk fast
no streetlights?
cross the street
keys between fingers
cell phone in hand
thinking,
it’s so hard to move quickly
in such a goddamn tight dress. 

3.
numbers, figures, stories - 
they roll off your tongue in conversation 
and you sometimes forget that 
each 
statistic-victim-survivor-horrorstory
was
brutally
brutally
brutally
created
a third of women
will have something fucked from inside them,
adam cracking eve’s chest to pluck an excess rib for himself
taken just because he could 
just to store away and rub and polish

4.
this feeling is the kind of unclean 
that no amount of showers can fix. 

5.
and then,
the questions -
why were you walking alone?
why didn’t you catch a cab?
why were you dressed the way you were dressed?
why didn’t you scream?
why didn’t you run?
why didn’t you fight?
and as you feel your tongue recoil with the hot blast of shame, you think -
why don’t you ask 
them 
why they burnt a part of me to the ground
and spat on the ashes?

6.
you don’t have to tell us
that not all men are 
“like that” -
we have fathers, brothers, male lovers too
but statistically,
more of you are 
“like that”
than you care to admit
and sometimes, we do not know if we are stepping into
dante’s inferno
or
grandmother’s cottage
until we are well and truly through the door

7.
if you can try and feel me up 
in a crowded train at peak hour
i shudder to think what you would do
had you come across me walking home alone

8.
if you claim that you are “neutral”
when it comes to rape culture -
that men shouldn’t rape
but women shouldn’t dress like sluts
and yes, rape is wrong, but what if it’s a misunderstanding -
then you are as far away from neutral
as i want to be from you
neutrality is something
that you can feel 
when someone asks,
“do you like glee?”
or
“would you like some more cake?”
it is not, however
an appropriate response
- a humane response -
to the questions of
“do you think people ever ask to be raped?”
and
“if they didn’t say no, that means it’s ok, right?”
your silence
your “neutrality”
is as hurtful as the hands 
that so many women have been 
invaded by
held down by
pushed up a fence, fingers in mouth, torn apart by

9.
no, i’m not interested in giving you my number.
i hope you understand. 

(via kyrandis)

eternitysshylock:

don’t be too clingy
don’t be such a ‘girl’
be a woman
but be hairless like a child

don’t wear skimpy outfits
don’t be such a ‘slut’
be modest
but take it off when i ask

don’t assert yourself
don’t be such a ‘bitch’
be nice to me
but don’t be a fucking doormat

don’t be ignorant
don’t be such a ‘bimbo’
be intelligent
but don’t argue your opinion with me

don’t wear make-up ever
don’t be so ‘insecure’
be yourself
but don’t complain if i don’t like it

(Source: tamamuratamao, via untrucbizarre)

(Source: staypozitive, via untrucbizarre)

rockwriteon:

Nikki Giovanni, Revolutionary Dreams (found this article-from 1973 in a book i purchased at Strand)

(via booksandzines)