grrrlvirrrus

[grrrlvirrrus]

[grrrlvirrrus]

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I have this recurring dream, I’m 7, waking up the morning after a sleepover.  

It’s early, because that’s the deal I made with my mother in exchange for attending.  

When she picks me up, I’m the only one awake,  

so I write a note saying thank you for having me.  

I get into the car still in my pajamas and on the drive home we don’t speak, my mother and I.  

I watch out the window as we pass the trees and houses.  

There is a deep wanting in me that I don't understand yet.  

That I do not want to understand yet.  

I know not what is to come.  

And that is okay.

I wake up right as we pull into our driveway and when I do, I feel real pain.  

A subtle ache, nested within my rib cage.  

Like a newborn feels when they take their first breath.  

Like I’ve been severed from the only comfort I’ve ever known.  

What am I supposed to do with this wanting?  

With this dull ache.  

It’s made a home in my body and I cannot seem to kick it out.

I wonder if this ache is the price of growing up. 

If I leave the sleepover later, does it change anything at all?

I wonder if I’ll ever be driven by my mother in silence, as trees pass us by again.

Can I stay there? 

In those quiet moments in the car

Before we pull into the driveway.

Before I wake up.

I wake up as we pull into the driveway,  

and I wake as we pull into the driveway,  

and I wake as we pull into the driveway,  

and I wake as we pull into the driveway,  

and I wake as-

[grrrlvirrrus]

Longing

In the quiet hours when the world slips away, I linger in the shadows of your memory, Where love has twisted into a web of obsession, A delicate madness spun from longing and need.

Your name is a constant whisper in my thoughts, A refrain that echoes with every heartbeat, Each breath I draw is tinged with your essence, A symphony of want that drowns out reason.

I trace the contours of your face in the dark, Fingers brushing phantom skin, Your laughter, a haunting melody that loops, A tune I can’t escape, even in my dreams.

Every gaze you cast is a beacon in my night, A signal I misread, a hope I cling to, And I find myself tethered to your every movement, Bound by threads of desire too thin, too tight.

In crowded rooms, I search for you in faces, A specter in the midst of strangers, Your absence an ache I can’t soothe, A wound that pulses with every beat of longing.

I collect the fragments of our past encounters, Moments frozen in the glass of memory, Holding them like treasures in the dark, Each one a piece of a puzzle that’s never complete.

My love has become a relentless shadow, Chasing your light wherever it may go, And in the quiet of my heart’s confinement, I am both the prisoner and the keeper of this cage.

You are the sun that I orbit, unseen but near, A force that pulls me through the depths of night, And though I am consumed by this fervent flame, I am lost in the blaze, yearning for the warmth.

In the reflection of my infatuation, I see the fragility of my own resolve, A soul ensnared by the illusion of possession, A heart tangled in the chains of obsessive love.

[grrrlvirrrus]

"Fear and Guilt are sisters" - The Haunting of Hill House series, Netflix

[grrrlvirrrus]

Prayer

"Just pray"my mother tells me. I am eight and the most I know about God is what my Sunday school teacher is willing to dole out."If you just pray, He will take care of it". So I sit on my knees and close my eyes. With my lips to God's ears, asking for him to take it all away. To take care of it, like my mother says he will I pray that he'll forgive me for being skeptical of him. I pray that I'll pass my math test. I pray that I'll get what I want for Christmas and I pray that my mom's boyfriend is nice.

"Well have you prayed about it?" my grandmother asks me. I am ten and living somewhere new. Because my mom's boyfriend was not nice. I think maybe I just didn't pray hard enough for it. Maybe I just didn't believe in it enough. So on my knees, with my eyes shut as tightly as I can, and as nicely as I can muster, I pray. I pray he'll forgive me for being angry with him. I pray that I make friends at my new school. I pray that he makes me pretty. I pray that my mom finds a new job, and I pray that everything will be okay.

"I can pray for you?", my youth pastor suggests. I am thirteen and I feel like a fraud. I go to church every Sunday, and I pray every night. I ask God to take away the pain my mother feels. I ask him why it feels like he has abandoned me, when I've done everything I can to be close to him. To hear him in the way my pastor hears him. I ask him why he's given me this face and this body. I pray he'll forgive me for not liking how I was "fearfully and wonderfully made". I talk to him and wait for an answer. I wait for an answer and cry when I do not get one. Why God? Why am I being punished?

I am fifteen. I do not go to church anymore, because I was kicked out. Kicked out for loving who I love. And looking how I do. A small part of me is relieved. The other is worried. Worried that God hates me specifically, worried that I'll go to hell like my formerly kind youth pastor told me I would. Worried that my faith is just not enough. I worry that there is something wrong with me. I worry that I asked God for too much. But how can you ask a divine being for too much? I am filled with such anger and such hatred that it feels biblical. I plead with the king of kings, the god of gods to make me normal. To listen to me. To love me the way millions of others claim to be loved. I wonder if I am God's only lost cause. I pray that he forgives me for being this way.

I am an eighteen now. Still too young to understand. I've combed through theology books, and ancient texts for answers. I've reared my head against the great god in the sky and still have found nothing. I think about phrases like "God-fearing" and wonder why the almighty must be feared if he is all loving. I wonder where my prayers went, and whether or not I could take them back, for my own selfish purposes. Every once in a while I'll listen to gospel music for the comfort it brings me. Or rather for the comfort it once brought me. But one mention of prayer brings me right back. To all that time spent kneeling over my bed asking for forgiveness, and asking for help. With my lips to god's ears one last time, I simply ask him if he's there.