lizardman1959

[lizardman1959]

by god, you'll get through it. you always do, you always will.

but i know. you say it shouldn't have to be like this and i know. there's a comfort that comes with repetition, in knowing how to navigate these paths because you already know where they lead. that doesn't make them any easier to tread when it gets dark.

if we walk through the night, maybe we can find the end by first light?

[lizardman1959]

the year we started dating, I got a Polaroid camera for Christmas. I’d been so excited about it, always being a bit sentimental; the box of classroom-passed notes and photo strips still isn’t full, but each paper in it is well worn from use. Tangible pieces of my life, to prove I’m here, things happen.

I think I used it twice, in the six months following.

We were together for six years, over half a decade, and the last time I’d used my Polaroid before we separated was the day of our one year anniversary.

All of that time, a blur, and not once did I get out my camera. Not once did I feel the pull to document it, have a physical reminder of those moments. That’s not to say there’s no feelings involved, nothing to remember; that’s a thought for another time. But the question haunts me; why didn’t I take more pictures? Why didn’t I feel things were important enough to immortalize on film?

I’ve been taking it out with me almost everywhere, since we split. Film is expensive and it’s an old Polaroid, one of the minis. I’m not sure it’s got much left on its lifespan, but I’ll drag it around until it gives out. I had to get a new album to store them all. With how the one I had sat empty for so long, I didn’t think I would ever fill it.

I think somewhere along the line, I didn’t think I’d ever have a life that felt like documenting it was a worthwhile endeavor. I can’t stop seeing magic in the air.

I have Polaroids of so many mundane routines now. A friends apartment that feels like home, the antique shop downtown, video games with friends, the first birthday cake anyone’s ever made me.

Why couldn’t we find the same magic?

[lizardman1959]

when did you realize that you wouldn’t get to have any of the milestone moments you dreamed of?

was it in seventh grade, when you seventh wheeled your cousins friend group and noticed that no one had ever talked to you the way the girls texted their guy friends?

was it in high school, when you fell in love with your best friend, and they made empty upon empty promise of ways they’d show love?

was it at the end of high school, when the same person told you they wanted you to feel like the most loved girl in the world, before standing you up to two separate dances?

was it college, when you waived your right to new experiences by dating someone who hated everything you loved about romance?

was it every year after, when you stuck by them, thinking it was what you wanted because everyone you’d ever known told you how painful love was?

or was it when you made it to the past year, had intimacy that made you feel alive for the first time in your life, realized you’d been used the entire time, and are now looking back across the years, seeing all of the wasted potential of your life, because you always put other people first and never knew how it could’ve been to receive, too?

I’m sorry you never got flowers on the first date. I’m sorry you never got asked on a date to begin with. I’m sorry you’ve always made the first move and been the first one to have their heart broken later. I’m so sorry you’ve always made time and effort to make people feel special even when it’s not returned.

I’m sorry that the one time you asked for something special and specific for your birthday, they got it wrong. Because you know you should feel grateful for someone doing anything at all. But you know that’s not what it’s about for you. It’s about the years of wanting, begging, pleading for someone to listen, to understand how you work, to see any of the things you’ve dreamed about and want to make it happen for you. And when someone who knows you intimately for over half a decade gets the flavor wrong on the one thing you’ve asked to do for your birthday in the past five years, it’s not about the cake.

It was never about the cake.

[lizardman1959]

I don’t know if you’d remember me, this far removed from the years we spent together, but you come back to my mind as I piece together elements of the present.

And I find myself coming back to your embrace, your connection, your lies. what I can now recognize as an inability to set boundaries and inability to communicate, at the time was a hurdle so difficult I could not find the solution.

is that where I lay now? am I doomed to repeat the same scenarios, with faces that shift only slightly over time? Why do I remember your face when I see hers?

How much of the panic that seizes me when I let her in is residual fear that you left me with? That I will have been lied to, once again, left to pick up the broken pieces of my trust and heart?

[lizardman1959]

i am so severely depressed.

[lizardman1959]

why do you hurt me, nearly every day of our lives?

I know you can’t help it. It’s not your fault. You’re stressed, you act out for attention. I understand intimately; you’re just like me.

But I can’t fix it.

I try everything in my power; I clean up after every mess you make, I try not to hold it against you. You scream at me and I cry in response because I don’t know what you want. Nothing I do seems to be what you need. Nothing I do is ever enough. I love you so much. You frustrate me to no end. I find myself with violent urges and enough frustration to break an entire cabinet of glass with the pent up shrieks of anger you cause.

I know it’s not your fault.

It’s never your fault.

I just wish I could be better for you.

I don’t know if I should give you up to someone who could.

I love you beyond what any words could convey. I wouldn’t be alive without you. The only reason I get up every morning is because of you.

I wish I didn’t constantly feel like I’ve failed you.

[lizardman1959]

there’s a newfound strength that comes with living alone;

not a soul who cares for me, who would notice if I was missing, closer than an hour and a half.

I have to put up an extra strong fight against the painkillers when they call to me. by the time anyone realized something was wrong it would be too late.

that’s dangerous information to live with, for someone with such a heavy heart,

who’s listened to the whispered calls of the “easy way out” for as long as she can remember hearing them form

what happens on the day her resolve crumbles entirely? when she really and truly gives up?

she knows what the result would be. and she fights twice as hard to not let it happen.

she wonders sometimes if anyone else cares enough to notice how hard she’s fighting.

who would be the poor soul who’d have the misfortune of finding her dead on the floor?

[lizardman1959]

it saddens me, that after all this time you still don't understand the issues that led to your downfall.

but moreso, i'm sad and disappointed in myself. for trying so hard, for believing i could make a difference in your life. that my efforts would matter because you wanted to change.

you wasted six years of my life! all of those years, gone, and there's no point in wondering what could've been, and yet i can't stop myself.

you stay, you obsess, trying to think of what you could've done better, that you should've been better, and shrug off any ounce of accountability the minute it hits you. you come so close to the realization of how you might actually be able to change for the better! and immediately retreat from the cliff's edge, when your salvation is in fact the jump. you insist you don't matter but somehow everyone's problems revolve around you. you're obsessive. you're ill. you refuse to get help in a way that matters.

[lizardman1959]

maybe i overthink things, yes,

but when did you want me to realize that

my presence is only sought

when its a convenient alternative

to someone you love

(i know it's not me)

did you think i'd never realize what's happening?

[lizardman1959]

the generational cycles continue. they break. the ones you expect to break, you continue. the ones you expect to continue, they break.

i was so sure i'd found someone who loved me.

i thought i'd never go to grad school.

i was certain i knew what trauma i carried with me.

i thought i'd never want kids of my own.

nothing stays the same. everything changes, all of the time. consistency is the one thing i truly crave; until its the wrong type.

the cycle repeats. the rage builds. we are both so tired. we are both unwanted daughters.

[lizardman1959]

there's something they don't tell you about being hard to love-

it's that you will continue to be hard to love.

you can go through all the therapy in the world, practice all the techniques you can learn,

it doesn't change who you are at your core.

some words: too much, exhausting, a drain of resources.

not worth the energy. desperate. uncomfortable. lost cause.

hard to love does not equate to rewarding hard work.

you are just written off as useless and despondent.

are they right?

[lizardman1959]

the sheer volume of fanfiction i've been reading and the subject matters really shouldn't surprise me at this point. i'm grieving heartbreak and feeling replaceable and unimportant in the eyes of those i care about; of course i'm gonna go for the trope where person b sees person a in pain, upset, and constantly left behind and makes it their personal mission to show them that they matter and are a priority.

[lizardman1959]

I don’t know if anyone would ever find this place. But we might be making the title of this blog come true. If you happen to know me, I’m sorry for the displeasure.

You couldn’t have done anything different. I’m not particularly like able, and I live on my own. My cat will likely feast on my corpse, or my neighbor will take him in! He’s safe, don’t worry. He was always the best part of me. He might be who I’ll miss most from this world.

I wasn’t supposed to be here this long. I don’t know how I made it this far. An oversight, I suppose. But I think I’m okay. I don’t hold enough weight in anyone’s life to cause meaningful damage with my absence. It’s not likely to be noticed for quite a while regardless.

Live the life I wanted to reach. It was never meant for me. Importance to others was never my strong suit, even though I know it’s beautiful with other people. make sure you tell your friends you love them, okay?

[lizardman1959]

april of 2019 is when it all started, it feels like. the beginning of the worst five years of my life.

that incident left me hollow and broken in a way i hadn't been before

and when the pandemic started, and got worse, and so many people i knew died, and i lost so many more, and i lost myself to grief

i moved, and ive been trying to find the pieces of myself i left behind ever since

i don't know who i am anymore or where i'm supposed to be, just that i'm not where i'm supposed to be. i don't know where that is. only that i've never been there.

the past year has just- been so shitty, i know things need to change-

i don't think its gonna get better.

i'm losing sight of why we bother trying at all.

[lizardman1959]

i want so badly

to ask for attention from the people that matter

and yet I know I am too much

it does not matter the depths of which I am not alright; what kind of person would I be? If I asked for comfort from someone who cannot provide it?

Then I have disappointed us both- me, for having my needs unmet, and them, to feel worse for being unable to give.

Oh how I wish I could be anywhere else right now-

The anguish this building leaves in me cannot hold out much longer.

[lizardman1959]

it’s bittersweet to realize that what you’re really, desperately needing and wanting is to be given the same time and consideration that you give other people.

i know so many people who if I wasn’t the one checking in or reaching out, I’d never hear from them again!

But it’s *lonely*. It is *so fucking lonely* to be the person checking on other people and never having that courtesy repaid back to you.

I am so tired of realizing that my friends are really lucky- they have someone like me at their side if they ever need or ask for it.

I don’t have another me to catch me when I fall.

I just plummet and hit the ground and those same people will walk around my motionless corpse.

[lizardman1959]

i wish i understood the act of manifesting what you want in your world.

it feels like every time i try, every time i put that energy out or dare to ask, dare to dream, it just comes back to slap me in the face. kick me while i'm down.

is it really so much to ask, to want someone to care?

a little bit of consistency?

when it repeats, when its everyone you know, when every time you reach out you get silence, confusing signals, nothing to work with,

is it me?