that thing i always say
Letter from an ex.
Her- Raven’s message, paraphrased:
I’ve been reading your journals again.
You brought up the time you told me you did in fact believe I was stupid. I think that’s one of the most hurtful things you ever said to me.
I still think of you often, hope you’re doing okay, I wish life was more kind to you.
My response, paraphrased:
I would apologize to you but you’re perhaps the only person who knows what sort of creature I truly am, so perhaps it would have no value. If it’s worth anything to you, I do now understand your behavior a bit better, and do genuinely think I shouldn’t have been so harsh
I also think of you often and about Zelda (what we were to name our daughter who never was.)Hope you and yours (by which I meant her fiancé) are well.
I don’t remember most of her response I - it’s not important anyway. The most important past was that she said “I forgive you, I think”
“what does any of it mean?”
Well.
Despite my fanatic exaltations of my former relationship with Yujin, I believe that in hindsight we never actually truly knew each other. Our respective masks would slip a tiny bit from time to time but never fully come off.
Once at lunch, eating oysters with ginger and black bean sauce at Pho viet we were discussing one thing or other about our relationship and they said “I don’t have to care, I can just not.” I nodded and said I understood and that I am the same way.
Another time talking about how we had planned to kill ourselves when we were younger I said I’d go on a water diet for about two weeks, and three days before, I’d stop ingesting the water as well so I don’t soil myself upon death. I’d shave my whole body completely hairless to aid the autopsy, pack away all my things and then kill myself in the bath tub to make the overall clean up process as quick and painless as possible.
I had never understood what the phrase “twinkle in your eye” meant until I said that to my lover. An explosion of light even behind the otherwise often dead eyes, a wry smirk. “Me too.” They had the exact same plan apparently.
Another time, we were discussing the dark, inhuman, depraved things we spent our formative years viewing with completely unchecked internet access. “Like what?” they asked
I decided to start off with something I considered to be light, no where near as bad as the worst things I’d seen. I described a video I had seen and chuckled at involving some strange sort of BDSM set up, and a cactus ball being launched via catapult? large slingshot? between a woman’s legs.
I had never seen my lover truly stunned before then, in the way you’d be stunned upon finding evidence of a higher power. They said in a haunted tone, “I’ve seen that exact video.”
They were on the same sites I was all those years ago.
We were the same sort of animal, as liberating and wonderful as that was in theory, it also meant we could never ever truly see each other. The creature that I am and that they were was always making contingencies and operating behind several proxies. Truly the core of it was the fear that if anyone knew what I really am, they could never love me.
Very juvenile, I know.
The ex that sent me this letter however, she knew! I told Raven everything in sordid detail in an attempt to scare her away and… she fell in love with me for it.
I suppose I should have known then.
I’ve spoken of it here before, the incident she was referring to. The one thing that could make me break character. CONSTANTLY REPEATING HURTFUL BEHAVIORS I’VE BEGGED FOR THE CESSATION OF. After more than a year of this and a handful of breakups over it I suppose I’d had enough.
“Be honest, do you think I’m stupid?”
I did. How else could I describe a person who seemed incapable of learning and changing a behavior that was destroying what was according to her, the most important thing in her whole life?!
and then I did it too. I endlessly repeated a behavior that was destroying something I considered the most important thing in my life. The freezing out, the punishment.
Ultimately it’s what caused the demise of my last relationship.
I would tell you that I’ve since learned, that I’ve changed, and maybe I have, a tiny bit. I only freeze people out for a day or two now, I don’t harp on what they did, why it was wrong, the consequences, and why it’s actually ten thousand thousand times worse than they think it is.
I… feel bad when I see them feeling guilty, crying about it, etc.
I feel.
“novel experience.”
not entirely, but that’s besides the point. The point
It was…
to say cathartic would be a gross understatement.
The freedom to be about to drop the act, to FINALLY stop playing the game, to finally cut loose and say what I truly believe.
“𝕴 𝖍𝖆𝖙𝖊 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖌𝖆𝖒𝖊 𝖞𝖔𝖚 𝖇𝖑𝖆𝖈𝖐 𝖍𝖊𝖆𝖗𝖙𝖊𝖉 𝖆𝖓𝖎𝖒𝖆𝖑𝖘 𝖇𝖎𝖓𝖉 𝖒𝖊 𝖎𝖓𝖙𝖔 𝖕𝖑𝖆𝖞𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖜𝖎𝖙𝖍 𝖞𝖔𝖚 𝖊𝖛𝖊𝖗𝖞 𝖉𝖆𝖞.”
Every single day WATCHING all of them pretending to be decent, pious, amiable even!
“DEMONS!!YOURE ALL FUCKING DEMONS!”
Today I scolded my friend and coworker for speaking poorly of himself. “Lazy piece of shit.” Is what he described himself as because for the last two days he hasn’t woken up at six am and hit the gym.
HOW ABSURD!
This came to mind because of a sentence I was about to type out. “I think of myself as the scum of the earth” It was going to be followed by some sentiment about how it’s not just negative self talk because I do truly believe it to be an objective truth. I’ll- explain why later my mind is slipping as I write this
I have just thought about it further though and- I really am not so bad. I have never and could never for example, rape anyone, being victim of it myself I can’t use words that would adequately enough explain and articulate the depths of torture, horror, perpetual annihilation I feel because of it. I could never sanction the genocide of a people, truly who I am, the child that died within me was the sort to cry over any slight implication of pain being inflicted on an insect, let alone a child. So on and so forth with the self aggrandizement over thoughts and feelings that should be the base, commonplace thought norms. Point being I’m not bad.
Holy shit what a tangent.
I was going to say that I’m objectively a piece of shit, I’m aware of it, and even then I’m stunned by the filth and pettiness I observe daily from the way people behave and treat each other.
And being honest and free to say and speak the truth of
“fuck you dude, I think you’re an exceptional piece of shit, I don’t care if you’re the assistant manager” etc etc
Salvation is the word. It’s my final salvation and ultimate absolution to get to be honest.
I suppose this is what they meant when they kept harping on “the truth shall set you free.”
How did we get here, how did all this start and where are we going.
My ex sent an email, I jokingly said we should exchange diaries to someone I’m flirting with and I need to make a post substantial enough to prove what an oh so very special and exceptional guy I am so I need to write something that isn’t a bunch of grunts my brain could vomit out, uhh what else
the point the point the point
the point is, I’ve been wondering for a long time now why I seem to have this undying compulsion to “put it all out there.” I’ve come up with various reasonings in the past but I think it all comes down to basic mommy and daddy issues as with everything.
If I’m oh so very bad and people still love me, as Raven did, then I am real, I have worth, I won’t be abandoned.
Because I am an animal, a biological entity that learned somewhere down the evolutionary line that being abandoned by the pack, the herd, is certain death, and complete obliteration. The ultimate thing to fear.
Certain death and complete obliteration are all but guaranteed, yet here still we sing and dance in the madness of the earth.
Maybe it doesn’t matter what I do and why I do it. Maybe it doesn’t need to be understood. Maybe I don’t need to be.
Maybe I don’t need to constantly prove how awful I am and I don’t need to feel this cutting, horrible, bitterness because “I was meant to be beautiful and they brutalized me into this UGLY INCARNATION!!!!”
I was meant to be beautiful, and I am. Quite so physically! Even more so every where else. Fractured mind and all.
It’s all part of the painting, it’s all part of what makes me beautiful
with all of it
I am 𝕲𝔢𝖘𝔱𝖆𝔩𝖙
Finally I am truly realized.
Thank you for bearing witness.
“Either that or I’ve finally lost it eh?”
Enjoy everything.
