Last Call

Trigger Warning: Self-Harm and Suicide

If you were to ask me why I've spent the majority of my life being so nonchalant toward men with the exception of a couple undeserving souls, I could offer you a plentiful list.

Nothing, however, and I do mean NOTHING, takes the cake over learning today that a nigga who tried to get in my pants in high school lied about his mom dying. I'm genuinely gagged---not because the attempt worked but because WHO goes to that length to get laid?

***

I wrote the above portion a couple weeks ago. The past couple of days is what really takes the cake over some garbage from high school. Here I am yet again looking at a motherf*cker I know shouldn't be in my life. It's not like I'm not willing to leave; he isn't. It complicates things because I technically can't force him to go, but I also dread the idea I've been coerced out of my own safe space. Home doesn't feel like home because it isn't. 

I haven't cut myself in years, and then boom. There I was just needing to escape being screamed at for this or for that. I can't keep up anymore. The overarching theme is always that I deserve it, that it's my fault. Talking too much or showing emotions or rejecting things that harm me means I deserve yelling and discord and violence. 

Evidently, I still haven't learned the place my father tried his best to show me with his own violence.

What's sad is that when I am willing to play the role--to be the miserable, self-loathing, thoughtless and speechless person that doesn't "deserve" violence---that's also not good enough because then I'm "overexaggerating" and things are still---you guessed it---my fault. I'm "causing my own pain" just by existing, which means they're basically telling me I only exist to endure pain. 

The expectation for me to be without reasonable boundaries is the reason I am so enraged. At every interval of my life, there are people who believe I'm supposed to let them trample over me simply because I exist, and there's something they don't like about it. I'm supposed to allow shallow relationships, unhealthy job environments, and familial drama. I'm supposed to be screamed at, accused, betrayed and never fight back. I'm supposed to die. They want me to die, and I guess it's not happening quickly enough. I genuinely believe most of the people I've ever known would be indifferent or relieved to learn of my Earthly absence.

No one loves me, and I'm not allowed to cry about it, talk about it, think about it, or even feel it. This is the only place I can come to, and it's not even a place. 

 

The Bad Bitch Diet

 

"Cut them fake hoes off, and I ain't feel nothin'." -Numb, JT

Today I'm getting by water. I'm submerging my feet. I'm going to hopefully feel the sun after all these rainy days and getting up at early af o'clock. 

I want to warm my skin and visit myself...sit in silence with my phone in the car because sometimes, perhaps very often, it really *is* that damn phone.

Perhaps my oracle cards will tell a different story today, one of triumph and self-mastery. I will be grateful for all the combinations of celestial dust, fate, irony, and fortitude it took to animate me. My locs will continue winding into themselves. I will rest my palms on the same earth that witnessed my weeping. It will offer me cushioning. 

Whether or not I feel more or less of what I'm anticipating, I will be consumed. Bad bitches are always consumed by people. They watch, whisper, poke, police. To offer all that attention without true care feels sick. I haven't learned anything new about people since I was sixteen. I've simply forgotten and remembered in cycles. What more is there to learn besides the fact that people will eat me both figuratively and literally without actually acquiring a taste for me? 

My former homeboy described me as a "turkey sandwich" (reliable, tasty without the fuss), and that, ironically, is one of the more endearing things I've been described as. I understood what he meant. I'm like home, but dwellings only have the quality of the people occupying them. My best tenant is myself, so I've refrained from letting people in for quite some time, even for a brief visit. 

What's consumed is rarely edified. People don't trust me, and that is a mutual feeling. How many weird bitches, obsessive niggas, and the disappointments left by them should I allow myself to endure? I've maxed out on fucks to extend. 

Fuck the radio silence after being all goofy in my face. Fuck the fake concern. Fuck the proximity. Fuck the weird ass projections.  Fuck the hoes that want me gone so they can play dress-up with my aura. 

Starve.

Happy for Me

 

"Who can say if your heart grows where your love chose? Only time." --Enya "Only Time"

    Visibility was never the core problem. Nunca. 

    Those desiring invisibility are either hiding something or want to be hidden themselves, which is indicative of repulsion or worse...self-hate.

    Self-hate was never my ministry. Nunca. Repulsion is ironically dignified in this context because repulsion is social rejection. While one can reasonably weigh potential social outcomes, there are no complete predictions to be made. Self-love is the constant in social's variable game; therefore, I've never minded being visible. 

   What I do mind, no hablo. Not anymore. 

    I used to believe I was relatable, that sharing myself with others was actually honorable. I am not relatable. Rather, I'm something more fun; I'm entertaining. 

    A spectacle. A theatric. A specimen of charm.

    Charm is deceptive, I know, but what isn't? Where is the vanishing point between deception and seduction? Life has to seduce us. Why else would we bother if not for the illusion of splendor? Something worthwhile?

    To summarize, I have not been hiding. I've been tasting the formula of privacy, and it's muy bueno.

Adios.

Drea