#My mom said she can help sometimes but after our last phone call I really don't want to ask

[havegaysex]

It's nice not having to give my dog eye drops every 4 hours and waking up after only a few hours of sleep because he needs antibiotics in his eyes.

At the vets on Tuesday she seemed really surprised that it healed as much as it did from Thursday to Tuesday

And here I was beating myself up for missing two doses of his medication over the week. Obviously it's okay that he missed those two doses because his eye is healed mostly and now the vet said I can do the eye drops only twice a day, I'm probably going to do it more than that but it's so nice not having to do it six times a day

I'm still waking up at 4:00 in the morning though

[spicywhenspeaking]

If I'm There : Chapter Ten

read from part one

Noah and Natalie meet in high school and developed a relationship through their love of music and art. Falling in love, innocent and young, they think nothing can keep them apart. However, sometimes in the pursuit of your dreams the things we love the most get left behind

warnings: mentions of alcohol abuse and overdose, no death.

no beta reader so there might be a couple errors.

Noah was rubbing my back in soothing circles and looking at me full of concern. Kyle took a deep breath and finally told me what happened. “She was unresponsive, I called 911 and when they got there they said she barely had a pulse. She practically drank herself to death this time.” There’s pain in his voice but he seems to be calming down . “I’m with her and dads on the way. We’re at St.Peters Memorial. Can you get here?” I get out of bed and scramble to throw on my jeans with my phone cradled between my shoulder and ear. “Yeah, um I can ask Noah for a ride.” I look at him and he nods his answer, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and getting up to get himself dressed as well. “I’ll be there soon Kyle. We’ll figure this out.” I say to him. “Okay, I’ll see you soon.” The line disconnects. 

“What happened?” Noah asks as I’m frantically searching for where my bra got thrown last night. Finding it I put it on and answer. “It’s my mom. She- I don't know. Kyle found her unconscious this morning.” I trip over Noah’s guitar case getting my bra on. “Oh fuck!” He jumps up to help me up but I manage to get my balance on his desk and find my shirt. Throwing it on I grab my bag and wait for Noah to finish getting ready. In the car, my mind is racing and I bite my nail so badly that I jerk back into reality at the pain. Noah reaches his hand over to take my hand in his. “It’s all going to be okay” he tries to reassure me. “I don't know, my mom- this thing with her, it's getting so much worse,” I say leaning my head on the window, looking out and watching the road and the grass blur into one. “I just don’t know what to do anymore. My Dad tried for a while but he has no patience. One of the reasons he left her. Left all of us.” Noah squeezes my hand attempting to offer some comfort but the reality of how bad the situation with my Mom has gotten is hitting me hard. “I’ve just been ignoring it, to be honest, she and my Dad used to really get into it, yelling and screaming. After he left she got worse and I just kept to myself, focused on school and art.” I take a deep breath before going on. “Kyle, as you can tell, handled things differently.” I busy my free hand by pulling at the frayed edges that surround the hole in my jeans. “we used to be really close, you know? Twins that did everything together. After our Dad left, Mom started drinking a lot more, he would try to talk to her about it, begging her to stop.” I can feel my eyes burning with tears. I’ve told Noah a little about my mom but I was hoping it would never get this bad. “She would be embarrassed in the morning. Promising she would get better. That would last about 4 hours.” I scoff. “Pathetic.” 

Noah having been silent for so long just rubbed his thumb against the top of my hand in a gentle caress. “I’m so sorry Natty, why didn’t you tell me how bad it was?” He asks. I let out an aggravated harumph. “Not something I particularly enjoy talking about on top of how Kyle was acting. Things between us are good and I didn’t want to talk about my stupid mom's stupid drinking problem.” He nods his head “I understand, but you can always talk to me about that kind of stuff you know?” Noah is trying to reassure me, but in the few months we’ve been together we rarely talk about stuff like this. He doesn’t ever talk about his family stuff and I don’t ask. Does that make me a bad girlfriend? Ugh, I don’t know, but there’s too much going on right now for me to start worrying about my relationship. “I know, I know. You know the same goes for you too” I turn to face him and he smiles softly at him. “I know Nat.”

We finally arrive at the hospital and Noah drops me off at the ground entrance. “I think maybe I should go by myself. Kyle is likely to be pretty emotional right now, I don’t know how he would react to you being there.” He nods slowly and I can see the hesitation in his eyes. “Are you sure?” He asks. I unclip my seatbelt and gather my bag together. “Yes, it should just be us while we wait for our Dad. But thank you.” I say pulling him into a hug from across the center console. “Thank you for bringing me and I’ll call you later okay?” He hugs me back and kisses me on top of the head before pulling back and resting his head against mine. “Okay,” he kisses me softly. “Nick and I will be at the show out of town tonight but…I can cancel if you need me to?” I shake my head, “No, no don’t cancel.” The last thing I want is for him to cancel because of me.  “Just call me in the morning when you wake up and I’ll update you.” He kisses me again. “Okay, I will. I love you, Nat.” And with one last kiss, I head out of the car. “ I love you too.”

Walking into the hospital I’m hit with the thick nose-burning scent of antiseptic. Kyle told me they're on the 5th floor so I follow the signs to the elevator and make my way up. I meet Kyle in the room the assigned our mom. Kyle is sitting with his hands buried in his hands when I arrive and my Mom is asleep in the bed with wires and some tubes connected to her. The faint beat of the heart monitor is the only sound for a few moments before I make my entrance known with a soft cough. “Hey, Kyle. How are you?” I ask and he lifts his head up, standing and coming to pull me into a bone-crushing hug. I freeze not knowing what to do with my hands. “Umm okay, what's going on Kyle.” He releases me and takes a step back. “Sorry, it's just been a crazy few hours.” He holds my shoulders and looks at me and I see his red puffy eyes and tear-stained cheeks. “I thought she was dead and I-” his voice catches. “I just was so scared Sissy, what are we going to do?” Tears filling my own eyes I look between Kyle and our Mom, asleep in the hospital bed. “I don’t know Ky, what can we do? We can't make her get better, she has to want to.” Tears of sadness and anger are falling down my face. “Would she even go to rehab? She won't even go to her AA meetings anymore.” We sit in the chairs next to a large window in the far corner of her room. Kyle recounts the events of the morning. He woke up and found Mom on the couch and tried to move her before noticing she was completely unresponsive. Kyle with tear-filled eyes and panic coursing through his veins tried to find a pulse and was instructed by the 9-1-1 operator to perform CPR until the paramedics arrived. “Oh my god Ky, that's- that's a lot. Are you okay?” I ask, knowing the answer for all of us is no. “I’m okay, I’m alright, I'll be okay and so will Mom.” He's nodding his head emphatically, “She will be okay, she’ll get better.” He takes a deep breath. "She will get better.” I rest my head on his shoulder, “yeah, she’ll get better.” We sit there for a while longer and then our Dad walks in.

My Dad rushes to Mom’s bedside and takes her hand in his. “Damnit Kelly, what did you do to yourself?” He goes to his knees and brushes the hair off of her head. “This isn't the life we had planned for ourselves.” My Dad's voice goes soft and the room is silent as Kyle and I take in what's happening. So now he cares? Running to her bedside? After all this time.

“Are you kids okay?” He turns to address us. Kyle is silent in his presence so I manage out a small “Yeah, we're okay.” The doctor chose this awkward moment to come in and check in on Mom and give us an update on her recovery. He tells us that the excessive drinking will kill her if she doesn't get help and he gives my Dad some pamphlets on rehab centers nearby before heading back out the door. “Okay, here's what's gonna happen.” My Dad starts, “Your Mother is going to this treatment center until she's better.”

Kyle and I both nod in agreement. “And I’ll move in to keep an eye on you two while she's away.” My nodding stops and Kyles does as well. “Like Hell,” Kyle responds. “Nat and I have been taking care of ourselves for long enough already, we don’t need you moving in and taking over again.” I still don't know what happened between Dad and Kyle this summer but by the tone my brother is using im guessing things aren't peachy-keen with the two of them. “Watch that tone boy, I know you think you’re all grown up now but you still live in the house I pay for.” My eyes roll at that. “You don't pay for anything anymore Dad. Plus, we’re 18. You don't need to play babysitter.” He tenses up at us talking back. “Listen, your mother is sick, she needs us all to be there for her.”

My sadness is turning into anger quickly. “She needs us? Thats rich. And you're talking to us about being there for her? Are you serious?” My voice is rising. “You want to come home and play house like Mom is just off on a retreat? Kyle? What do you think?” I turn to my brother for his reaction. “Mom should go to the center, I agree with that, but you made it clear this summer how you felt about me. I’d hate to be just another disappointment you’re forced to live with.” A dissapointment? That's what my dad said to him? Ironic that it's coming from the embodiment of disappointment itself. “Ky, you know I didn't mean it.” Dad tries to soothe the sting of the words that have festered in Kyles's heart. “Stop, I don't want to hear it. If you come back to the house to be closer to Mom I won't stop you, but I’m not following orders or household rules or any of the bullshit you want to try. Nat and I are legally adults and will be out of the house soon. I’ll stay out of your hair, you’ll stay out of my life.” Dad's stern face nods sharply and he goes back down to sitting next to Mom.

Kyle exits the room and goes down the hall. I follow and call after him “Kyle, wait up.” He stops and turns around. “Can you believe him? Bastard. I shouldn't have called him” 

“No, no. it's good you did. He can help Mom more than we could. Unfortunately, she’ll listen to him.” We continue walking until we reach the elevators, taking them down and walking out of the hospital into the fresh air. “Dad kicked me out after the summer.” Kyle starts. “I was stupid on the job site. Got into a fight with one of the guys, dude broke his arm.” He runs a frustrated hand through his hair. “He fired me and told me to pack my bag. Called me a loser, a waste of space. A disappointment. Said I was the worst part of himself. The parts that he hated.. the thing that sucks is that he's right.”

I take my hand and place it on his shoulders, “No, he's not right Kyle. You're not any of those things.” pushing off my hand he backs away, “How can you say that? How can you defend me? After all of that shit last spring? After how much of a dick i’ve been? How can you see anything good in me, Nat?” He plops down on a bench and rests his head on his knees. I come to sit next to him and start softly. “Last spring was hard, you became someone I didn’t recognize. Everything with Mom and Dad has been hard on both of us and we should have been there for each other. I should have been there for you.” He looks up at me. “I should have been there for you too Sis.” We sit there in silence for a while. “Why don't we go to a movie or something. I’m sure Dad has all of this handled.” I wave absent-mindedly at the hospital behind us. “Yeah, that would be fun.”

We take the bus to the mall and get tickets to see some action movie. After sharing a large bucket of popcorn we call our Dad for an update and he lets us know Mom will be discharged tomorrow and that he will take her to the treatment center on Monday morning. By the time we get home after grabbing a bite to eat, I head up to my room. Crashing on my bed, I turn on some music and text Noah. 

Natalie: Finally home. 8:45pm

Noah: How did everything go with you Mom? 8:50pm

Natalie: eh, it’ll be okay I guess. She’s going to rehab on monday so we will see. 8:51pm

Noah: thats good news ! 9:00pm

Noah: we’re about to go on! I’ll call you tomorrow babe, Love you <3 9:00

Natalie: have a good show :) love you 2 9:02pm

I take a hot shower and put on my pajamas, falling into bed I am asleep instantly.

I wake up in the morning as the sun shines into my room, I text Noah but dont get a response, he’s probably still asleep. Heading downstairs I make a cup of coffee and sit in the living room and watch some tv. Kyle joins me later and we watch reruns of spongebob, laughing at the stupid jokes. I text Noah again but he still hasnt responded. Strange but I’m assuming that he stayed out late after the show so it makes sense he would still be asleep, especially since he woke up so early yesterday.

Dad brings Mom home a little later and she's weepy and apologetic, I don’t feel like fighting so I accept her hug and head back into my room.

It's close to 2pm and I decide to call Noah. It rings a few times before he answers with a sleepy yawn. “Hey baby, are you okay?” I laugh at his tired voice. “Yes, I’m okay. Are you okay? I texted you this morning and didn't hear back.” I hear rustling on the other side of the phone and the faint sound of Nick grumbling at Noah to be quiet. “Yeah, sorry Natty. We ended up staying out late, someone had a party after the show. Didn't get home until like 4am.” My eyes widen in surprise, “wow, that is late.” There's continued rustling and I hear the click of a door being shut. “haha, yeah. Sorry, I should have texted you that I would probably be asleep for a while.” I sigh and lay back in my bed. “It’s okay. How was the show?” And then it's like he just drank a Redbull, he's full of energy when he tells me, “Holy shit Natty, I have HUGE news! You’re going to freak out!”  

page divider from here!

Next chapter here!

taglist : @lma1986 @cookiesupplier @notingridslurkaccount @blackveilomens

thank you for reading! might be a few days before part 11! I have another one shot in my brain that I'm wanting to get out lol.

anywhooo love you!!! let me know what ya think!

[kabillieu]

This post turned into writing about my kid's autism, so I'm putting a cut here.

After a bumpy start to the school week with my eldest, he finished it out great. Last week we had a long talk about how to manage meltdown triggers at school and what tools he could use to help him come down from a meltdown. This is the biggest issue with my kid's autism. As he's gotten older his meltdowns have gotten shorter and less chaotic (which is so, so great!), but he still occasionally has them at school. After a great start to the school year he started having issues about two weeks ago, and it escalated until I had the principal calling me multiple times asking me to come intervene or even to bring him home. (An aside: I resent that she's asked me to come get him because my kid is entitled to an education just like all the other kids, and he has demonstrated over the years that once he's out of a meltdown he has the ability to be self-regulated and calm the rest of the day; she keeps asking me to come get him because she knows this is his last year at her school and she's tired of him. I get that my child is A LOT for educators, but, again, he's legally entitled to an education. Taking him home just reinforces that he can get out of school. It's not a good strategy.) ANYWAY, he had a meltdown on Tuesday, and the principal called as I was just about to start my Zoom class. After his last meltdown, my kid had come up with a special plan to help him snap out of one--a plan that was his idea and the result of a long conversation we'd had--and I had emailed her this plan earlier. She had apparently not remembered or had not read that email. I said I would not come get him and to please enact that plan, and thankfully it worked.

One of my goals as he gets older is to start being more transparent with him about how his autism and ADHD affect his every day life, as well as to begin teaching him how to advocate for himself because he will always need accommodations for certain things, especially in education but almost certainly in his adult life as well. It can be very difficult to be upfront with people about what you need to succeed, especially in our individualistic, boots-strap culture, and especially because many people are still skeptical that neurodiversity is even a real phenomenon. I'm so proud of him for coming up with a two-part plan to help avoid (if possible) meltdowns and then once in a meltdown to help himself come out of it. Autistic meltdowns are incredibly stressful involuntary states that people cannot usually control. My kid is going to have them sometimes, but we really need to have a plan in place to help him when he's in public and at school. That plan worked on Tuesday once I reminded the principal to enact it. It might not work ever again, but it worked once, and my kid was in control of making that plan. So I feel like I'm finally starting to do my job as his mom by teaching him how to speak up for what he needs to keep himself safe and calm.

I think his meltdowns will always be upsetting. Especially as he grows older, they begin to look more and more like defiance from a (soon-to-be) adolescent boy of color. And adolescent boys of color don't get to be boys. They're treated like dangerous men. I don't even know that I should be writing about this on the internet because I do wonder about trespassing on my kid's privacy as he gets older, but his autism affects so much of my own life. I've started involuntarily jumping again any time my phone rings during school hours. I'm always on alert, always waiting for bad news, always prepared to immediately start problem-solving with people who always, always judge me and think I'm a bad mom. I'm not a perfect mom, but honestly I'm usually a really good mom to my particular kid. He's a great kid, too. He's just not neurotypical. He can't comply in group settings like other children can. He can't control himself when he gets deregulated and stressed out.

This is all a lot, and I don't usually write about it so baldly, and maybe I'll make this private later. But I am so, so proud of my kid for being able to tell me what he needs in a meltdown (communication for kids like these is soooooo difficult), and I'm so proud of him for using the plan when he needed it. It worked!

[reidsaurora]

"Night Mama" ~ E. Prentiss

Summary: Just a cute lil blurb about Emily and her partner as new parents 🫶🏻

Pairing: Emily Prentiss x GN!Reader

Word Count: 623

Content Warning: very mild swearing, mentions of breastfeeding but nothing in detail, mentions of pregnancy, lmk if I missed anything!!

Genre: domestic fluff, what else would you expect from me

Extra Notes: this is one of the cutest things i've ever written and you can fight me if you say otherwise 😤 /j

Based On the Request: "How long has it been since you slept?" (requested by @lcvingprentjss)

Originally Written: 01/29/2023

Beta Read By: @lukeclvez

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ofwilliamandwalter's 1K cocktail party

🍸 Spencer's Sauvignon Blanc - send me a character + prompt and i'll write you a small blurb!

It wasn't until I rolled over and felt that the other side of the bed was empty that I realized Emily wasn't there.

My heart raced with panic. What if one of the killers she's arrested has come back for revenge? I thought. Quickly, I decided I couldn't take any chances and reached over on the nightstand for my phone.

It wasn't until I had dialed up 9-1-1 that I heard soft coos coming from the baby monitor. Thank goodness I didn't press the call button. I let out a deep sigh of relief before forcing myself up from the bed and trodding off to the nursery.

A tired Emily blinked at me, her voice coated with a sleep-deprived drawl as she asked, "What are you doing awake?"

"I rolled over and you weren't there," I answered, reaching up to wipe the sleep from my eyes. "How long has it been since you slept?" I asked, noticing the purple underneath her eyes and her near inability to keep them open.

"Nearly five hours since I got a nap in but since I got a full night's sleep? Um, about three weeks. The last couple weeks of my pregnancy kicked my ass."

"Babe, three weeks?" I questioned before walking over to her, holding my arms out for the baby.

"No, it's fine, really. I have to get up and nurse her every two hours like clockwork, just like Dr. Beckett, and Dr. Reid, said. Besides, she just finished eating. All that's left is burping her."

"Then you give Lilly to me and get yourself to bed."

"But-"

"No buts, Emily. You are working so hard. I am so proud of you. I mean, your body just carried and made an entire human for ten months, you're healing from all the postpartum stuff, you've been trying to get back to work already. Thank God that JJ put an end to that idea."

I took a deep breath, sitting down on the ottoman across from her. "All those things are amazing, Em. But it doesn't make you any less of a mom if you ask for help sometimes. So please, let me take Lilly and you get to bed."

She let out a soft groan, but stood before placing Lillian in my arms and shuffling toward the door. "Please come get me if anything goes wrong."

I looked up at her with a raised brow. "Em, I love you, otherwise I wouldn't have married you, but respectfully, I will not be doing that."

She let out a soft huff but turned and headed down the hallway. I could've sworn I heard her snoring before she ever even passed the doorway.

"Come on, Miss Lillian. You think you can give me a big ol' burp, sweet girl?" I cooed, patting the baby on the back.

She was nearly a replica of Emily. She had her brown eyes, the same jet black hair Emily had before she stopped dyeing it, that same freckle on her shoulder that Emily never knew about until I told her. Lillian was just like her mother, beautiful and perfect in every way.

After about five minutes, Lillian finally burped, and just like her mother, she nearly fell asleep as soon as she was finished.

Upon reaching our bedroom, I spotted Emily, who had successfully made it back to bed, quiet puffs escaping her parted lips. I giggled at the sight before placing Lilly back into her bassinet on Emily's side of the bed, leaning down to give her a kiss on her nearly bald head.

I crawled into bed beside the sleeping lump of Emily, leaving a kiss on the exposed freckle of her shoulder. "G'night, Mama," I barely got out. "Sweet dreams."

I AM ABSOLUTELY IN LOVE WITH HOW THIS TURNED OUT, I LITERALLY CANNOT

I hope I wrote this as gender neutrally as possible. I actually imagined Emily having a sp*rm donor while writing this for some reason because I just love the idea of Emily going through lists upon lists and hating every sp*rm donor because she thinks they're all ugly (because she's a lesbian and hates men) so maybe I'll make a second part about that because I just absolutely love the idea of lesbian!Emily still wanting to be a mom and still wanting to do all the work 🥹

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[bandedbulbussnarfblat]

I had a rough week last week. Tuesday my dog gets sick, so I look up her symptoms. And bc I'm a crazy person, my mind automatically latched onto the worst possibility. So I spent three hours crying hysterically and having panic attacks bc I was so scared she would die. Then Wednesday I had to take my dog to vet and was still super stressed out. Thursday and Friday I have to deal with medicaid and disability paperwork. Saturday I had a panic attack so bad that I couldn't stop it and had to text my brother to come help me (he lives with me. we're too poor to live without a roommate, and we've basically lived together our whole lives, so it was whatever). Sunday morning I have a panic attack and can't leave my house to play my weekly dnd game bc the thought of spending hours with other people away from home was...bad. Sunday night, I got completely (and irrationally) terrified of being alone. I was so afraid that I called my mom, and of course she offers to come over. And I'm freaking out so bad I let her, even though it was late and I know she has to get up early for work. (She only stayed until my brother got back around 10:30)

BUT, today is a new day. I managed to get my blood work done today, and talk on the phone to my case worker, and pick up a pair of contacts from my eye doctor to wear until my order comes in. And I didn't have a panic attack. I mean, I still had to have my dad take me, bc leaving home alone isn't something I can do right now. (Mentally or physically. My brother's car broke down, and since he's the one who has a job, he's been using mine. i stg it's like a fucking family curse; every time someone is already in a financial bind, their car will break down.)

So I have decided to take the next few days to just relax. My two besties that I've been friends with since middle school both have kids with autism and they said I'm probably going through autistic burn-out. I'm pretty sure I'm autistic and my doctor thinks I'm somewhere on the spectrum, though on the lower support side. I'm gonna play bg3, and unwind. And try to work on some fic. (bc I have the next chapter of 16 Days damn near finished, and it's the last chapter that ties up the current plot, then there's an epilogue that takes place later that played out like a movie in my head, so writing it will be a breeze.)

Side note, did y'all know that some school systems still use 'high/low functioning'. I've had to say to my coworkers that autistic people would prefer not to use those terms. But it isn't surprising; one of my cousin's kids was literally diagnosed with Asperger's. Which has fallen under the autism spectrum disorder since like, forever ago. And also there was a TA in the autism classroom I worked in once who literally told me that autism was caused by demonic possession. I'm so glad I left the school system. Bc I eventually was going to fucking explode with rage after the way my kids were treated. (My students, not my actual kids. I don't have or want any)

Working in EC has really shown me how little the school system actually cares about helping the disabled; they will cut corners and do shit that 'technically' meets a kid's IEP, but doesn't do a damn thing to help them. And if you say something like, 'i don't think that counts' your coworkers will not be happy. But to a certain degree you can't be too mad, bc there is literally not enough time or resources to meet every child's needs, bc they cram as many kids in one EC classroom as possible, hire the minimum amount of TAs required by law and expect one teacher to be able to magically meet all their needs. My last job had 3 kids in wheelchairs in those tiny ass mobile units schools started using, that literally did not have room to move around, unless the other students stood up to let them get by, and sometimes even move their desk. We had multiple kids with autism. One of them stimmed by screaming, another was triggered by loud noises.

This post kinda went off on a tangent. Anyway, heads up to any parents who have kids starting school, make sure you get a copy of your child's IEP. If you think they aren't being serviced, contact your local Board of Education, and tell them that you have a child with an IEP who isn't receiving adequate services. Then threaten to sue them if they don't start providing your kid their services. It does not matter if you can actually afford to sue them or not, an IEP is a legally binding document. You have the right to sue, and most of the time the threat alone is enough to kick their ass into gear.

[iamthunderhearmehowl]

Let me tell you about the tattoo that my mom hates (this is a long ass post btw)

✨️Trigger Warning✨️

Suicide / Depression

- - - - - -

Hey, hi, it's me. This is the only place I feel really open about sharing things - but with the holidays and cold months coming up I know how hard it can be for people who are struggling with depression/ bi polar / familial trauma, etc. So here's this post to remind you (and me) that we'll be okay. You and me. We will be okay. We are still breathing, and with every breath we take, we still have a shot at living the lives we've dreamed of.

You see this tattoo? I got it as a reminder. Oh yeah, also it's a Dark Souls tattoo. It says "Don't You Dare Go Hollow".

My mom HATES it, but she has come to terms with how much I love this tattoo.

But anyways, I got this tattoo to remind myself to keep going. I got it about 1-2 years after I attempted to leave this earth on my own accord.

Background (skip if you want)

It was 2020. I had been a Veterinary Assistant (technician basically depending on what state you're in, TN treats the assistants the same as technicians). Clients were beating me down dude. I had phones thrown at me. I had death threats. I had people telling me I was a worthless piece of shit. I wanted to help these animal, but to do that I felt like I had to take and accept this slurry of abuse. I was unmedicated. I felt alone. I felt like I was nothing. An empty vessel. So one day I was supposed to go to work and we were working on a skeleton crew. 12 to 13 hours a day, days in a row, sometimes we would still have to go in on our off days. I couldn't do it anymore. I called out. I said I was sick. The response "I'm sorry you're sick, but that puts our team in a hard spot". That was it. The last straw.

I ended up going to the ER. I stayed there for a week. And thrn I ended up in a mental institution for 3 days. I was started on Zoloft.

All was well for a little bit. I stayed in my profession and decided to go to Tech School to brighten my future and make some more money.

It was. The most stressful time of my life. While I did leave my previous clinic I switched to ER and Specialty and lasted only about 6 months there. Before I realized I was spiraling again. I felt like a failure as a tech. I was worthless. I wasn't enough. I got let go. If I had been doing this for 5 years and could do this what fucking good was I? I saw the signs. I understood what was happening. I sought help and went to group therapy at a behavioral hospital.

It was amazing. The people I met, the counselors, I made so many friends and people who believed in me. We increased the dosage of my meds.

Now. I'm at a new clinic. I'm spiraling again. I'm in bad health. The doctors don't know what's wrong with me, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it's stress from my career. I still come home sobbing. I come home feeling empty. No amount of medication can help free me from the unhappiness of my job. At one point I loved it. Somewhere along the way I realized that this isn't the life I want. I love your pets. I love my current clients. But I can't take the pressures of possibly getting hurt or sick. My back is messed up from this job, all of my joints pop and hurt, I have damaged and fractured my teeth from grinding them from stress. I am always tired. Working 10+ hours with just a one hour break isn't cutting it. I am miserable.

So.

I took the fucking leap guys. I'm doing it. I'm switching my career. I'm going back to my roots. I'm being creative and doing what. I started podcasting and realized how much I missed being myself. My VTNE is next month and I don't give a shit.

The game changer was really being inspired by the voice acting in Baulder's Gate 3. Hearing Neil Newbon's speech when he accepted his award made me cry. I took one of Steve Blums voice acting classes and . . . My God it was like finally hearing the affirmation I never got from my parents.

Back to the Tattoo

My point is, no matter how hard it gets, please allow yourself to enjoy the things you love and fuck what everyone else says. You do yourself a disservice if you don't give yourself a break. If you don't be true to yourself, if you don't strive for the life you've dreamed of.

It's why my tattoo is the Bonfire from Dark Souls. In your journey, you're going to fail multiple times. Sometimes, you get hung up on the same damn spot over and over and over again. Sometimes, you have to reface your enemies. DONT EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE BOSS BATTLES. You may fail thousands of times, but you know what you do? You go back to your bonfire- your safe place- and you heal up. You get the fuck back up the next day and do it again. Sometimes your game plan changes. You don't have to fight this boss today. You can fight him when you're ready. You don't have to make huge progress in the game today - you can dick around and look for good armor. You can change the whole path you take if you want to - it doesn't matter. In the end you will eventually accomplish what you've came to do.

I have really been fighting for my life lately, but I don't want to lose hope. If I give up, then I'll never see the end of the game or move on to the next one.

It's hard sometimes. But my favorite quote is:

"So if you ever find yourself in a slump, remember your purpose - whatever it may be - and never stop fighting for your goals, no matter how crazy they may seem. And don't you dare go hollow"

I don't know you guys but I love you. And if you need someone to tell you that personally my inboxes are open.

[autistichalsin]

Personal shit (with TWs) under the cut

I love my mom and she's a much better person than when she was drinking, like, I truly mean that

BUT

She requires SO MUCH emotional labor from me and gets really rude and sometimes downright MEAN if I can't or won't do it

AND she only approaches things in one mode- emergency mode

A few months ago I was in a meeting with my biostats tutor (EXPENSIVE and important) and she called me two or three times. I ended up STEPPING AWAY FROM MY SESSION and calling her only to learn the "emergency" was that she forgot her usual order from the local Indian place and wanted me to make the order for her.

Today the SAME THING happened. She was in pain- which don't get me wrong, she is chronically ill, and my heart really aches that she hurts so much, and I am trying really hard to help when I can, and the issue is 100% NOT that she asked me for help again. But she called THREE TIMES, back to back, and I thought it was something serious because... well, my family has a lot of shit going on, like, just last week my aunt got in a car accident

But NO, after THREE CALLS I call her back, get berated for not answering the phone (I WAS EATING DINNER!), and told she needs me to order her Indian food again. Then I very, very mildly said "hey mom, I'm not mad at you, but can you please be careful from now on? I thought something was really wrong"

And then she BLEW UP at me saying that if i answered the phone she wouldn't have to do this, and that it's shitty of me to "tell her off" when she's in pain and needed help... The problem isn't that she needed help! It's that she called when she could have texted and made me panic for a minute thinking someone fucking died or was seriously hurt or something!

Then she stormed off, and I helped my dad make the order, and then told him I'm sorry if I ruined his night since now my mom is going to be in a worse mood, and he softly tells me it wasn't my fault, that she admits she gets mean when she's in pain and wants to work on it, etc- and then my mom chose that moment to walk back into the room and snap at my dad for "talking about her behind her back"

And I'm so exhausted because she NEVER goes off on my older sister like this, and rarely on either of my brothers. And I'm ALSO the only one who takes care of her out of the siblings, to the point that I'm considering moving back in with them because my mom needs spinal surgery she can't afford, and my dad works so he can't do much- and none of my other siblings are going to (younger brother is in college and I want him to focus on that, older brother has kids and lives far away, older sister lives closer relatively but is a self-centered, abusive, utter piece of shit [but still my mom's favorite] so the idea of her doing anything to help is laughable). So I'm the one my mom goes off on the most of anyone and also the one who inevitably ends up being the "responsible one" and taking care of this shit

And like... I could just not. I could just stay put and live my best life and let her sort it out. My therapist is, like, not trying to steer me away from moving back per se but is saying I'm not thinking certain parts of it through, and I'm probably not, but just like... ugh.

She hasn't done this in a while, where she goes off on me, and I feel like i'd still be leaning towards moving back if it wasn't for this (or even if she called me but realized she fucked up by approaching it in emergency mode when takeout is not an emergency) but now I'm just... like. If I go back is she just gonna start up the same shit that used to happen when she was drinking, just, sober this time?

We worked really hard to repair our relationship after she got sober but shit like this makes it really hard to trust that she's not gonna lash out and be hurtful to me again. I already forgave WAY more shit from her than almost ANYONE else would have, because I saw her changing and apologizing and putting in the work to be a better person. And I want to be understanding that she's REALLY fucking hurting, but... this shit just brings me right back to that. I feel like it's 15 years ago and I'm a teenager again and she's drunk as shit and wishing me dead to my face. I guess at least in this case I can be reasonably sure she'll apologize and admit she was wrong later, when she feels better, which I didn't get when she was drinking. But still. It feels like a slap in the face especially since it's been a long while since she treated me that badly. And that just makes it hurt worse because I feel like Charlie Brown with the football now.

Fuck this, man.

[brokenmusicboxwolfe]

Yesterday I took a quick walk to the swamp because Mom had been too weak to talk long.

The western section of the swamp, the one effected by the “new”** beaver dam, had dropped 2 feet in water level in just two days. That means something has happened dam, and most probably the recent local kill the beavers/clear the swamps has started to hit close to home….

So, I was upset. But, interestingly, it has had a good side.

Today Mom was in a bad way. When I called Mom said nothing and my sister-in-law took the phone. She told me Mom was doing her “fish impression”, gasping for air more than breathing, and it probably wasn’t worth trying today because she couldn’t talk and wouldn’t be listening much. She suggested I just try again tomorrow, but I said I wanted to just talk at her for 5 minutes. Just so she could hear me and know I love her….

The phone was set be her head and I started what I expected to be a short monologue to silence. And it sure seemed to be just that, until I started telling her about the beavers. She was unhappy to hear about it and started talking!

Mom and I not only talked a while about that, but then about stuff I’d been working on, stuff I have planned to do, the news, what I watched last night***, and eventually back to reading to her****. I had gone in expecting to too not hear her say anything, and struggle at five minutes, but we went on for nearly 1 1/2 hrs with her still able to say goodbye!

So, basically, I think getting her emotionally hooked with the drained bit of swamp made her feel she needed to talk about it, which in turn gave her the push she needed. Yes, she is incredibly weak and found breathing hard, but sometimes the right motivation can really help.

Funny though, isn’t it? One day something makes me sad, and the next I am so very glad I had it to talk about.

**There are three beaver dams on the swamp along our place:

The “old” dam. It was created something like twenty or twenty five years ago. I’d go every single day to break a hole in it. That sounds like I had it in for the beavers, but actually I was trying to protect them. I knew if the water level got visibly from high nearby road people would “do” something. Then the government decided after a hurricane to use funds to clear the swamps. They were supposed to leave the beavers be, BUT the idiots doing it couldn’t tell a beaver dam if their lives depended on it. “it wasn’t a beaver dam. It was just mud and sticks!” they told Pop. And that was that for beavers for many years.

The “current” dam. When beavers finally returned they build their new dam down stream. This is the one that you see in photos I post, the one that created the lovely pond and where I has been watching the beavers swimming around. The place with the irises and my favorite tree to flop next to. This dam was safe, too far away to effect the road and with the neighbors, being duck hunters, glad it’s there.

The “new” dam. This one was started a couple years ago down stream, close to the western border to our property. It had been “under construction” before I discovered it. I wondered if it was just the next generation moving on their own home or what. That section is still full of trees because the ponding hasn’t been going on that long and it wasn’t as deep yet.

*** “Flight of the Conchords” is my current tv watching. Movie wise things have been disappointing, but this show has been making up for blah movies.

My movie comments were (to use one example..Movie: Company Business) “I hadn’t noticed Mikhail Baryshnikov is short, and I thought he looked about the same height as David McCallum, and OMG they were they WERE the same height! And I swear that movie script was unfinished, like there was stuff that felt like writer place holders to figure out later only they didn’t…which is weird since the writer was also the director. Pity, as a spy movie set in that very specific period where the cold war was ending and no one knew what would come next, with an American and Russian bonding in a thriller/comedy/buddy picture sounds fun.”

I swear, every movie I’ve seen lately (old, new, prehistoric) has ended up with me saying ���pity”.

**** Still Terry Pratchett’s The Truth. Mom has had some bad days lately, so we haven’t finished it yet. There was a chunk today about the public not caring as much as out hero about the news he writes, and how no matter how imperfect the Patrician is, how much worse other leaders had been and very likely could be….well, it felt very relevant!

[drugsouphello]

DRUG S0UP

👁️Short stories🩸on self hatred👁️

…

🤍Dedicated🕊️to🕊️James🤍

🩶Samantha🕊️and🕊️Matt🤍

💔💔💔💔💔💔💔

A collection of short stories lived and written by Noah Benjamin Phillips

…

…

…

Addiction is a compulsive mental illness and it can absolutely kill you. Many people never make it out or out alive…and the deeper you go with it the harder it becomes to save yourself, or for others to help you.

Don’t rush through this life, it’s ok, make it something that you want to live in.

(AND HERES ALL THE STUFF I WASN'T ALLOWED TO SAY AT THE 12 STEP MEETING).

…

…

…

(Circa 2013)

Larry the dust head is chasing me down a street by the train tracks, with a kitchen knife...

I'm still healing from the beating I got from our dealers last week; the ones he bought his dust from; the same ones I got my crack from.

I'm in the Hempstead bus terminal now, by the LIRR, asking people for $1 for the bus; because I'm trying to get up $30 for my 3 bag dope shot I'm about to really need soon; once I run out of these crumbs of crack that l've been taking smoke breaks with, every 5 minutes in the men's room.

I'm on the way back from my dope guy, going I'm not sure where because I have no place to go so I head to my mom's house, so I can break the restraining order she has, now...

I'm in a Nassau County police squad car, in the back seat.

The cuffs hurt; but I like pain; it's ok…

I must like pain.

(Circa 2013)

I see life like a series of Rube Goldberg machines.

One thing leads to another, everything with some purpose, ending inevitably and with alot of bullshit along the way...

I must have passed out in here, I'm on the floor of an adult novelty shop, one of the places I was hustling out of by Times Square. My bookbag is missing, my pockets got ran through.

They didn't get my stash pockets though, I got my dope and my Xanax sticks still. And my shoes...All they got was some Suboxone. Of course, my ID, my Obama phones and all my dirty clothes, and random junkie shit are missing - but who cares?

I do, obviously, so I go to the counter and ask the really mean Indian guy who's working where my bookbag went. He's like "You no sleeping here! Out out! Out now! I call the police!". I'm like whatever, I gotta come back to this shithole sometime later in the week and have the guy let me give him the $10 to go sit upstairs and try to get my dick sucked for cash, maybe get a free get high.

Pass out after I crash.

…

(Circa 1988)

When I was 5, my parents had me take a Stanford-Binet IQ test. I scored 137.2; certifying me as a "gifted" child. Almost a genius but not quite, back then; when the test was current.

I hated that.

It's all what you do with it, though, your IQ...and it's still just one kind of test.

At my first appointment with a psychologist when I was little I just kept repeating out loud "I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot." As I punched my own arm. I forgot what he said, I think it was something about me being "the teenager contemplating his navel"...

I got straight +A's in school, high honor roll, until high school hit.

All the years I thought I was so useless.

Such a lost cause, it sits fine with me now, because I see how my mind has saved me from death...

One time, my crack dealer said to me,

"You should stop smoking this shit and get a job, Noah. Enjoy the finer things...

You're not a stupid whiteboy".

Not everything or everyone is what you think, and sometimes it's best to listen.

…

SILENCE

…

My very first visual memory

from my old life

(1983-2020); I was at the Bronx zoo. I was 1 or 2.

My mom was holding me, I was looking at a lion in a cage.

A small, black, barred cage.

Blurry.

The last memory I have from my old life was a moving tire; on a 18 wheeler; as I was jumping underneath it to commit suicide.

Just as blurry.

I don't know, I think sometimes I died in that old life; and this is a parallel universe; and I’m another version of my self now; maybe I fell in between our dimensions and into the form of electromagnetic radiation; an afterlife; or it's just my last split second hallucination; this new reality of mine.

I broke my jaw in 3 places and shattered my right orbital on the ground that day; the tire threw me face first onto the street. I felt so stuck; I was trying to escape from a prolonged, grimy situation that I made possible with the help of drugs, sex work and extreme isolation from surface society.

Homelessness during Covid lockdown is what eventually drove me to that final point.

Locked out; while they were all locked In..

the bottom of the bottom.

But...l sit here now, able to write, record and realize who I am.

And forgive who I was.

At the end of each day, I suffered, invisible. Silently...

I hate wishing because they either don't happen; or they end up backfiring; but; I wished in the end of my journey; that I could just wave it all away; like the pale smoke that it really is.

(Circa 2013)

I was in the bus terminal again, asking around for crack...

I meet someone, he's a 40 something black guy, homeless too I'm assuming but he says give him a few minutes he'll be back. I told him I only had $9.

He comes back 15 minutes later with a cigarette cellophane filled with baking soda.

Tells me it's $9, I say "no I'm good".

He argues I can't leave the lobby, now, until I buy it. He says he'll stomp me out if I do. I walk out anyways, he follows me and gets in front of me...blocks the door, swings at my face but I block it; and I swing; miss his face and he ducks backwards, then lands a decent shot in my mouth.

One of my front teeth is knocked back.

He leaves me alone, I go into the bathroom with my 9 last dollars, and look in the mirror, to adjust my tooth back into a proper position. I wipe my face off, a guy who sees me cleaning my bloody mouth says to me "boy, somebody's gotta teach you how to fight".

I run into the guy I fought a few days later by the train station, near the tracks.

He calls me over, saying "Hey, you're my brother now!" and smokes me up on his blunt. Offers me some liquor.

An era of errors.

Erratic behavior on the A line...

All day, next year and into fuckin stupid tomorrow, too.

…

(Circa 1999)

I was committed to a psychiatric facility for the first time when I was 16 years old I had iust been indefinitely suspended from High School. For calling in a bomb threat 2 weeks after the Columbine shootings.

I only told one person, about the bomb threat. It was my best friend from next door and i didn't know it but some kid we knew was in the other room listening in.

He snitched on me...ducked me for like the following 10 years, too.

I was home schooled then transferred into the emotionally disturbed adolescent education system. A bunch of schools. But first, the psych admission. A children's psychiatric center in Long Island.

was arrested but didn't do any time in juvey, just a short hearing in the family court. Therapy. Anyways, I hated it. This was new to me, a locked in situation...

So in the hospital, I heard stories from the nurses. One about a kid who cut himself from top to bottom and across too and then pressed himself into the wall to make a bloody crucifix.

Another about a girl who killed 4 people; and was ruled clinically insane. She was about to spend the rest of her life in a psych unit. Watching Jerry springer and Wheel Of Fortune in the TV room... snacks and meds. Group. She was being transferred through the facility, broke a few staff members noses during her admission, said she bit all the way through her restraints once...

Two kids who escaped, robbed a liquor store, sat down drinking by some lake together, then one kid; impulsively or something, picked up a nearby rock and caved the other kids head in with it.

Went about his day after like nothing was going on in his life, I guess. He got caught a day later.

I would iump on the bed with my bunkies and the guy would come in waving the flashlight. Yelling to get back in bed.

It wasn't always that bad. Saw my first inner lip tattoo on a dorm mate. Said

"fuck you". I Got mine 2 years after when I was 18. Mine Says "torment."

There was a tall black guy, a nurse, who watched kung fu movies with us and let us stay up past bedtime.

I got out after 90 days.

…

(Circa 2007)

I'm on a "date" at some bar, which is really just meeting an older male client.

Staring at a few girls while I wait for him to show up...

I'm with my client at his apartment now; his grunting mouth on my soft dick.

I'm not sure why he still cums;

I'm obviously not into it.

I'm so numb I don't think I could feel you if you stabbed me.

Life itself is what you, yourself, perceive that it is...

Create your own perspective how you can, it creates your view, your perception, your reality.

your you.

Thave a strong sense of my own physicality.

Intuition in the physical sense, too...

I'm learning now, how to apply those traits to real life skills and betterments.

I hope I'm not bored or hurting when I'm dead.

…

(Circa 2020/21)

I can hear them talking to me, at a very low frequency. People, different ones, like voices in my head...

I'm arguing back to them, cutting small incisions into my temples with broken glass from my bedroom window that I just punched out, trying to find the chip implanted in my head that one of the surgeons in all those hospitals I stayed in over the years must have placed because this shit is unreal. The way crystal meth left my brain. I felt like there was something going on and I just didn't know what it was.

A secret created to irritate me all day...all of eternity for all I know.

Intrusive thoughts, ideas and internal dialogue that feels like it doesn't even belong to my own mind, isn't really claiming to, either. Telling me it's Jeff Goldberg (for some odd reason) calling from Hollywood on a telepathic device to tell me l'm going to be a star.

A bright, shining star...

Sitting in the TV room, the day room.

Interfaith Hospital Psychiatric department, wing 9 West.

With 46 stitches between the both of myelbow pits.

I decide the intrusive thoughts are telling the truth.

I'm just trying to explain it on the payphone to my mom but she's not buying it. I don't think. I'm almost sure she believed me at some point though, about the telepathic devices.

You know how insanity is contagious, when it's infecting the ones you love.

Don't put me back in the clown museum, I'm all out of balloons, can't sneak anything in, nothing to sneak.

When I go back, anyways, I'm gonna bite the first motherfucker that tries to give me that Thorazine shot..

Maybe lIl learn how to play chess, when get sent back to the psych unit.

…

(Circa 2008)

Once upon a time in Long Island, a pill popper/garbage head and his girlfriend lived in his mothers downstairs part of the house, before he was out on his ass and after they kept getting evicted from apartments. Collectively, they had no life.

They didn't take alot of Adderall, they took more than a lot. They fought so much, fought over the drugs, over the side-people in this "open" relationship of theirs... the screaming and him breaking all the breakable things in the room, with her trying to stab him with the broken objects. He ripped her underwear up and her favorite clothes, when he would find out she spite-fucked some other guy again...Then he'd force her to call up a regular trick for a quick $300 so he can do all the drugs they buy, anyways. She hated him from his dysfunctional dick, all the way down, and up to that garbage head too.

He made a girl squirt on her side of the bed one night while she was out. When she got home, he made her sleep in it, told her it was just water...

She bit his chest and broke his skin, drew blood when he grabbed the phone she was trying to call the police from. Arguing over coke, and the right to crash at her sugar daddy's place.

Manages to get the steak knife out of he other hand, too.

Changes his description on the way out of the building. Gets away without a problem. She left one morning when he was sleeping. It was cold and snowy that morning. Merry Ex-mass. He woke up happier, but got exceptionally more high and risked his life twice as much that week.

Because he was so glad...

she was gone.

He left to Florida after almost 9 years of this off and on, "relationship".

She invited him back to New York to commit suicide with her in a Taco Bell restroom, in Freeport, Li, on a heroin overdose method. He denied said request and stayed in recovery in south Florida. She eventually got clean, got married.

Lives somewhere else…away...

He lives back in New York now, he is clean, too.

…

(Circa 1994)

When I was 11, I was afraid to fight. I got picked on but then I learned better. My grandfather made me fight a boy who was bullying me after school. He saw the boy punching me and me not fighting him back. He taught me how to throw a punch and told me I'd better punch him if he picks on me next time. So the next day, after school the same boy tries to pick on me and this time I beat him up, face down in the grass, he never bullied me again. When I decided I'd had enough drugs, it was like war. Like a solo mission into myself to destroy at any cost at this point. I started saying that

"I'm doing it not trying anymore, no more trying." And I didn't believe I'd ever succeed. But when I, ME when I'd had enough that was when I was staying on a bare mattress a step up from sleeping on the train. With crackheads, smoking meth alone in my shitty small room. With my water rot hole next to my bed. That was when it clicked. When I made it click. When I finally, had enough. When enough was actually enough. And it took time. It took time...then I had to recover from the brain damage. Another 2 years and 7 months. Now? I'm going to become a fitness instructor, I won't have kids - because I'm too crazy, too big a responsibility but if I end up doing well I can live good on the salary with no family. But if you're fighting this addiction battle, then look inside yourself for the answer. And the answer is loving yourself. Whatever that looks like for you.

Because it's about you. Or extensions of you. But focus on you. You've got to.

When vou grab a vegetable from the ground you pull it from the root, usually.

Correct? So when you are trying to remove a problem from your life you should pull it like a tooth, or a vegetable or a black head. From the root and all the way up…

…

(Circa June 2020)

She crouched down beside me as I sat by the lamp post; with wild grey hair and dark skin; eyes like a hunter; and she said to me "I slit throats."

She was asking me assertively to give her "something more cerebral";

regarding the song I had on my speaker...

I shut off my music, wiped off my eyeliner and began to live the last portion of my street life; with God as my witness.

I only saw her one more time.

In passing...her knife hidden deep inside her boot.

Addiction is like creating an ocean between you and the rest of the world.

As you keep using, the water gets bigger, the creatures come about; the tide gets deeper, murkier. Until it's just you at the other end of 30,000 leagues of pure black water, trying to see the other side of life, the ones, the things, the places you desire to be a part of, but you are in your separate end of the ocean that your addiction has created and it's so hard tosee; let alone feel; or be intertwined and connected to. Once one makes that decision to swim up to the surface to be a part of and not apart from true, beautiful life anymore it's all holding your breath as the spiny, slimy creatures graze your legs and the predators near miss your head with sharp teeth. The first few breaths of air once you hit the top, though.

…

(Circa 2011)

Sitting by the window of my mother’s old sewing room that’s an empty space waiting to be remodeled…glancing at the plain, green(ish) lawn outside. It’s reflecting in patches against the twilighted sky, the broken wooden, picket fence, naturally colored, getting old…full of holes and broken tips…

With my dope needles; seeing which one isn’t clogged, so I can shoot the two small glassine baggies of heroin I just got.

I just learned how to shoot up, so I’m going in my upper wrist; where some veins were actually visible… I get a shot after fiddling and trying a couple times; dripping blood a little down my arm; I see the small drop of blood in the base of the syringe; light tan liquid, about 40cc worth of water and maybe .3 grams of extremely cut dope.

The small drop of blood in the base shoots up like a tiny, dancing red dragon as I pull the base of the plunger up then immediately push it in, trying really hard not to shake it and have it fall out of my vein.

The instantaneous effects hit me, right in my core; in early heroin addiction I’d still feel my shots; euphoria and excitement to get more; like a 12 year old birthday party gone well; smiling in my warm; itchy; fuzzy trance..

I remember when I was little; when this room was my mom’s sewing room still, she used to give me drops of blood for my toy microscope; to look at her blood cells; she would prick her thumb with a sewing needle…

I’d wonder how she dealt with the pain; it looked like it hurt and I was too scared to do it to myself…

My face turns to neutral expressions and the lawn leaves my sights with gone; emotionless blinks.

We grow up so fast; so fast we crash sometimes…

(Circa 2013)

My right ankle is shackled to the thick plastic bed frame, from an 18" steel chain, the ankle cuff is hard and the edges hurt, my hands are uncuffed. I'm starting to get anxious from the boredom, staring at my styrofoam lunch tray with the empty plastic juice cups and a few scattered string beans.

My plastic spoon...

I want drugs.

I'm in NUMC Hospital in East Meadow. I got arrested in such a dopesick/benzo withdrawal state that I had to be admitted to the hospital in custody... put on a small dose of Methadone and Librium.

The CO is by the door on a swiveling office chair looking at his phone. I decide to fake a seizure to get a shot of Ativan. I suddenly begin to shake around violently on my hospital bed, and drool, roll my eyes back into my head and tense my whole body up. The CO calls the nurse on the intercom. She comes in with a sweet little 2mg shot of Ativan for me.

Puts it in me, intramuscular, into the muscle, or, I mean, the flabby shit, on my pasty white arm. I calm down and take a nap, ask for some graham crackers and juice.

Then I do it again about 4 hours later...

The nurse gives me another shot, reluctantly.

Then on my third try, she comes in and exclaims;

"Ok, no way! You're faking it. Cut it out, it's only been 2 hours since the last dose.

You can't be having a seizure."

I smile and say "ok, sorry.

The CO says to me "you're an asshole", and goes back to the chair by the door to stare at his phone.

While I think about all the crack I'm gonna smoke in some motel room when I'm discharged from county jail.

…

(Circa 2013)

I must have walked 200 blocks the first night I was homeless in Manhattan. It was warm out at least...July I think.

My feet were in terrible pain, I limped when walked after about a week or so of constant walking or standing, until eventually, due to lack of another option, I got broken in.

Most of what I saw after all, during my periods spent living on the street was just that, the street. Bleak, empty at times, too crowded at others or just nobody who would talk to me about my problems or anything actually with anyone, anywhere but here...

..the sidewalks, scrolling by, on a one track, seemingly everlasting circle through a chunk of my time spent on Earth so far...

..and it is what it is.

I guess it's just gotta be.

(Circa NOW

1 used to believe, when I was in my adolescence, that I had so much love inside of me.

Probably other stuff too, yes, but love.

That's the word I picked to describe it.

As I saw that my love was not wanted or loved, yet, I ran out of hope. I decided that I was not to be loved.

So my love became some kind of hate instead.

Adolescent rage. And after I really felt the hate, came the drugs.

I did not love the hate, so I hated to feel this way, I needed more. More drugs.

So much more...with time comes change, more or less. Nothing short of miracles have made me able to sit here and realize that in actuality, I have recovered from the brain damage that was created by the drugs that I needed because of my inner, my outer hate, that was spawned from: not being accepted, my love, my wanting to love.

Didn't know the whole time I was the true love of my life...

The root is what?

…

(Circa 2006)

I'm walking back to the train from my job at the nude massage parlor, high on Adderall and more no sleep. Watching my frozen breathes, it's mid winter,

Midtown Manhattan.

I'm 23 years and 7 months old...

So I'm walking, and a tall, burly white guy wearing a long black trench coat and boots, he's in his mid 40's it looks like, stops me as I'm walking past him, with his hand.

He looks like a villain character or something from the old TV show,

"Highlander" he's got chin length, stringy blonde hair, balding in the front, scraggly facial hair, a goatee mostly and a very large crack it appears to be, in the skull of his forehead, covered by healed scar tissue.

He says to me firmly while he stares into my eyes "are you alright??"

I look at him and say "yea", in a low tone, almost sounding like a question.

He puts his arm down and I keep walking to my train.

…

I’m not ok…but it’s ok.

I have these violent urges at the air when I get flashbacks of trying to force out cum for a man four times my age in a dimly lit massage parlor.

It never happened.

But the stupid $500 a day at the time; made me keep trying anyways.

…

(Circa NOW)

Art, literature, harm prevention, realistic recovery options, health and fitness.

These are my purposes today.

As I sit here, before you, in my new form, typing with my new mind, clean hands.

My healing spirits, regaining the confidence that I lost while I was homeless and mentally unwell..

I'm not living in a carnal nightmare anymore.

A spiritual wasteland, being blown down every last street like a lone tumble weed.

Joking and smiling with the dope in me, everything had to be funny.

What else?

Just trying to live my dreams, now...

...hush; the shadows can't hurt you; a shadow can't move your body, your body moves the shadow...and it can't change your mind either if you don't let it anymore.

Find your purpose, child.

You will blossom soon, into who you are going to be.

…

It takes time.

Life IS a life sentence. just make the best of it.

You'll be alright.

..! 5G E 40

I'm learning still,

I'm still just a baby at this.

As far as everything else went; in regular life; with the living?

I'm dead already;

lived so long I croaked.

Now I'm in the garden; with the old battle axe; sitting round..waiting on a plant to tend to; as I just watch them grow in the tender sunshine...

Watching plants grow.

(St. Track Marks Place, NYC)

(Circa August 2020)

1 threw myself, headfirst, under the back tires of a moving truck, on Broadway & E.10th street in the East Village, almost 3 years ago, now. I was driven by constant suicidal obsessions. I was consciously empty inside, and still quite lost. I had been actively planning it for about a month beforehand. Testing how fast trucks could stop by jumping in front of them, but with the front, they could see me and stop on a dime. So I realized I could go under the back tire, likely without them noticing and being able to stop on time. I bummed my last Newport cigarette from another homeless guy and he smiled at me as I forced one back and walked to my planned fate. I tossed it. No point now.

I was about to crush my entire head off under the tire of a moving truck...I didn't want the train people to see it, and I didn't have access to a gun.

After dragging my feet a couple blocks, I found an intersection with nobody on my corner. The streets were quiet...about 10am. I wanted there to be minimal witnesses. I was just looking to go.

I took a last second fall towards the tire and undercarriage of a passing 18 wheeler.

I was thrown by the trucks back tires, they were the last thing I could see, spinning towards my face. It took a buildup of courage, to be honest. It was going about 20mph. I hit my face on the cement, and was left with 3 full jaw fractures, a crushed right cheekbone and painful whiplash that lasted 8 months or more. I also lost all the front teeth I had left. A plastic surgeon at Bellevue Hospital did my facial reconstruction. The bones were real damaged. My face was in 4 or 5 pieces. I eventually got dentures. The only flesh wounds were some road rash on my cheek. But luckily no big scars. However, my jawline is much narrower now and I have a new chin dimple.

Thank you, Dr. Cleveland.

…

(Circa 2014)

When I was out there still, I didn't care whether I died or not. I cared more about avoiding police than I did about killing myself by mistake. My mom? Who gives a shit how she feels? And my father either...I hate God because God made

US.

I barely know my little brother and my grandparents are on their last couple years here on Earth, and have been told by my mom not to answer their buzzer when I go to their building to ask to

"borrow" $20 "for food" so I can get a dub of something and feel ok again.

I can't feel; but if I did; I don't know. I really don't, I don't even feel a 5 bag shot of dope anymore until I mix it with a half a gram of good coke and actually hit a fucking vein for once in my shitty, can fuck off and die any-fuckin-ways, mother fucked, grandma fucked, all the way in the ass, fuck hole, dirty, drug addict life.

My grandfather, he's crying his first and last three tears l've ever seen come out of his face, as he's on his dying bed, in the hospital, telling me "don't rush through life, kid".

I'm not sure what the tears are about, exactly, but for sure, for years now; he's been watching the first of his two grandkids die slower than him; but not by much.

I'm at his bedside, 2 months before I miss his funeral because I'm in rehab, I am only 5 years away from quitting hard drugs, and 8 years away from being happy, healthy, and sane.

I'm serious when I tell vou that it takes

time.

"What, when I'm dead?"

"Yea.."

(Circa 2014)

I'm leaking blood on the tile floor, in the bathroom at the supermarket by where

I'd hang around in Williamsburg.

I was trying to find a vein. In there for over 45 minutes at least, then I hear someone spraying something, sounds like that at first; it's static. From a walkie-talkie. I hear a knock on my door, I jump up a little, hide my stuff quickly and open the door. It's a thick looking Spanish guy with a mustache, telling me to step out of the stall. He says he's a detective and he would usually bring me in but he felt bad about it, looking at me.

1 had stringy, long hair in a ponytail, about 130 weak Is of impending doom.

My eyes were wide, bulging and empty.

Pale, green oily skin and dirty, destroyed looking fingertips. Open sores on my confused face. He leads me out of the store and I walk out, with the delusional belief that there were still cops in a secret agency that were watching me.

But I kept walking.

Even when my feet didn't want to…

…

The spirit that lives inside of me is a perpetually galloping, bio mechanical war machine, shaped like a large cat of prey, maybe a giant canine, shedding its flesh as it rips off in pieces of the rubble, as it scrapes its talons across the landscape that is my post-apocalyptic reality.

I survive.

Because I do whatever...even if it hurts.

(Circa 2009)

Jeff wanted to be kidnapped, and brought out to the woods. Beaten and stabbed, left tied to a tree, raped too by as many guys as I could bring with me.

I refused of course, didn't look at him like he was crazy though, it's not the first request I had gotten to kill a client or heard of.

During our sessions, he liked to be smothered by my hands and choked until unconscious, rags soaked in poppers covering his mouth and nose like mock chloroform. I'd stay fully clothed.

Jeff was eventually murdered by a 16 vear old bov with a knife obsession & a bad coke problem. I was almost relieved when I saw it on News 12, because in some sense...I felt like I was going to accidentally kill him some day & wind up in that kind of trouble.

It almost felt unavoidable..at some point.

He was 57 & a heavy drinker with heart issues. My head was always in a very desperate and careless place when he'd text me.

I'm almost positive still that he somewhat forced the boy who was

severely intoxicated on cocaine and alcohol; which was provided to him for the session; through manipulating him and likely using fear tactics and creating paranoia as leverage, to make him do it.

He was undoubtedly a dark form of child predator.

He'd expressed to me several times on different occasions, how badly he wished to be killed by a younger man or even an adolescent boy. I did see a photo of two boys about 10 or 11 years old on his computer screen once. He forgot the window was still up. They were choking eachother while wrestling in the couple pictures I saw, clothed…..but that was his thing.

And soon, the 16 year old boy will turn 40 in prison.

Just so Jeff; could finally leave this world as he was cumming.

(Circa 2014)

It's dark. I look up from my cot and see him standing over his side of our locker/ divider, breaking some crack into a glass stem. He's a pudgy, middle aged white guy, Italian or something maybe? I don't know but I'm starting to get antsy looking at him and I ask him if I can have a hit. He's like "yeah let's go to the bathroom though, the cops been coming in here.." so I'm like "ok, awesome".

We're at the Bedford and Atlantic

Assessment DHS shelter by the BQE, in Downtown Brooklyn.

We go share a dime of crack in an empty shower stall in the bathroom by our dormitory.

He comments on my eyes "wow you do a lot of heroin man, your eyes. You got those dark circles...

I'm like "yeah I got a big habit."

We finished the dime in less than 2 minutes.

He didn't want to share any more with

me..

Now I'm in a 2017 version of relapse, LA, by the hostel I'm crashing at; calling one of the Bloods I met by the check cashing place to ask for a used .22 caliber pistol…so I can shoot this kid I'm staying at the hostel with; in his ass later. I'm dancing and he comes up to me in the living room and picks a fight with me. I'm tweaking, feeling like shit, and I'm trying to release the rage I'm feeling over his disrespectfulness and I'm too weak to wanna fight.

He says "yea, call me back at 6...

I never called him back.

got thrown out of the hostel for throwing the Bluetooth speaker I just stole from the annoying Spaniard who left it in the bathroom at his head while he confronted me about it.

It was a funny scuffle.

I feel like I won, though.

Now I'm in Inglewood.

Meeting some DL brothers from Grindr to get high with.

They say it's cool that I'm just smoking, not sucking dick or fucking...

I wonder where life will take me today.

It's a new day, after all and I'm feeling frisky.

…

…

When my life was getting dark; heroin; she became my light.

Until she became my darkness... and when the darkness became me?

Some parts of me; they never came back.

…

You can be Heaven sent but still be Hell bound.

You ran out of yourself before you could get more coke and dope for your next speedball shot.

Afraid of your own shadow, again.

You called your mother...

who you are convinced is an Al, prerecorded robotic voice machine.

You agreed to go to the hospital to talk to the doctors about the pains in your head.

Here you are now...

Laying down on the train tracks, just to get your hair cut.

There are layers of my being that may never leave the cold...they might very well be frozen for good.

When I look through you and you wish I could iust caress you with a friendly gaze instead, look warm into your eyes, understand that I can't help it..

The cycle of abuse, never ending as it may seem; can end with forgiveness if you allow it to.

…

(Circa 2014)

We met outside the Dunkin' Donuts, on Bedford and N. 7th street in Williamsburg. A very friendly drag queen with her friends, yelled over to me: "Hey what are you doing, baby?"

I said "you're looking at it" I just did a 3 bag shot of dope. A few Xanax. My boss at the jewelry stand just got me a chicken and pepperoni slice from the pizzeria across the street, I was eating it, she didn't like how my new friend was kind of rushing me to finish my slice and come home with her to crash.

The drag queen exclaims "well you're not homeless anymore", I was skeptical, but happy about finding a place to crash.

We get there, to her apartment in East New York. We smoke a few joints of K2 (spice) and split the bottle of like 200 Gabapentins she had from her doctor, the bottle is right next to her HIV medication and she is open about being positive with me.

She also tells me that she is an intravenous Crystal meth user. Says she's fine with me shooting heroin,

"outside of the apartment, please." She didn't want any "accidents" in her place, understandably I did fall out alot in public bathrooms and wake up on stretchers.

So the next day, her friend comes over, a play friend and he brings meth.

My new friend asks me at some point, if I

"want to be dirty" or in other words, if I want her or her friend to infect me with HIV. I say "no thank you" Some people do want that but I am not one.

We get high, it was the first time l'd shot crystal. I felt a kind of gasping sensation that was new to me but the rush was disappointing.

So they play, I'm talking to myself and fiddling with random objects and household items.

She's eating her friends ass on the couch while I tweak on a pair of sunglasses that I am attaching a flashlight to, so her fuck friend can wear it while he eats her ass, in the dark...for the last 3 or 4 hours.

It's light out. I leave, come back because I don't have any needles.

Go into the bathroom. Find one of her dirties, light the tip with a lighter and fix a shot of dope, while nobody is home.

I Rinsed it out too.

It is a miracle that I'm still HIV/Hep C negative.

I was asked to leave her place the following week, because of an argument over money.

…

(Circa 2020)

I'm curled up in a fetal position, pissing in my pants, laying on the hard steps of a closed CVS on 8th Ave. The streets are empty, it's around 4 am. It's sort of cold at night this time of year...middle of fall.

My hallucinations are, I guess, politically inspired tonight.

I'm underneath the Atlantic ocean, below the city in an enclosed prison/habitat; but it's the West Village in actuality...

Vladimir Putin's giant, genetically engineered sea dragon is in the sky watching my shrinkaged penis, and I can't take it out of my dirty sweatpants to piss anywhere or it will call the police to come and arrest me for indecent exposure. Charge me with being pathetic, in the 2nd degree.

Tears came a bit before daylight broke; more urine to soak myself with…

…

(Circa 2014)

I'm walking down 125th street by Broadway in Harlem. Looking for someone who has dimes of crack. A girl in a group of trans and homo thugs just told me they had some 2 for 15's but the look on her face told me to just keep it moving.

go back to the 3/4 house and ask my bunk mate if he can get me 3 dimes.

He's like "yeah I'll be right back let me see the money". Fucking crack calls me so hard I don't care if he smokes it up on the way home.

Of course he does but I had a bag or two of dope left I shot it and passed out.

I wake up to my 3 roommates arguing, the short Spanish one is waving a fork at the other two black guys; I'm in and out of a narcosis.

I wake up again to shuffling roommates all around the room as I'm going back to sleep. Then I wake up again to the cops lining us all up.

One of my roommates stabbed the Spanish guy in the head with a butter knife apparently.

He's out in the hall with the cops, head bandaged up with a big, slightly red stained white gauze.

He needs to indicate who stabbed him.

I'm like " don't know, I was sleeping" when the cop asked me what I saw.

The guy who stabbed him gets taken out in handcuffs, he's booked for attempted murder because he stabbed the guy above the belt line.

…

(Circa 2012)

I was living for it, would have died for it too.

I'd have gone to the ends of the earth and back for a few bundles of dope.

When I tell you I would have pimped out my

mother if I could have, to get enough drugs for myself for awhile, you have to believe me. I would wake up squirming in cold sweats in bed, or wherever I passed out, crying with restless legs and Diarrhea in my pants from the withdrawal.

From the top of my rattled head with my matted down hair to the pungent, worn out

souls of my feet:

I was heroin's bitch.

Now, I keep my addiction in a locked steel cage, in a castle on a mountain top, in the back of my mind underneath the cellar door.

It screams all night and all day, I know it's still in me but I can no longer hear it. I can no longer try to.

I am good now, well and healthy, it wouldn't be worth it to me anymore. I can not get high like I used to.

Because now, I've lost my taste for it.

For the lifestyle, the dirtiness, addiction to chaos.

To be honest? I don't even think about getting high anymore. And after 18 straight years of my life devoted to getting high and being paranoid schizophrenic for 2 years following my stop date; I can say that. I can say I don't want it. I can document it. I photograph people getting high now and it's a beautiful experience because it only makes me want to do it less.

Whatever works. Works.

…

She is shoeless and restless..

l ask her "so where do you live?"

"Nowhere.", she replied.

Let me in, deep within your heart so that I mav be there - and cleanse the very essence of all that has fucked you up.

Let me show you my - true self; tattered and blackened soul.

So you can see how fucked up I am too.

Dipped in toxic memories from the waist down.

Now, you may find some semblance of innocence

In your - true self and the eventual loss of all your guilts.

You aren't alone, friend.

And in some sense?

You never have been...

When life becomes life or death, life afterwards is to truly be alive.

…

(Circa 2014)

I would sleep on the L train alot instead of the dirty, DHS

"Castle Grey Skull" assessment shelter in downtown Brooklyn.

Schizophrenic guys would come into the dorm at 3am, turn the lights on and start screaming, inciting fist fights with the gangbangers. People would rob me in my sleep, go in my pockets and down my pants...

The bathrooms were disgusting, floors covered in stray, dirty toilet paper.

The showers had human shit in them sometimes.

The food was free, trays of TV style dinners like Swedish meatballs and spaghetti, or chicken parmigiana, which was mostly breading with bad tomato sauce and fake cheese. I didn't have a problem sleeping anywhere in general once my downers would kick in, but I felt safer in the streets, to be honest.

So I just rode the subways after so long of that shit...I'd cover myself completely like a mummy. Nobody usually bothered me.

Actually a lot of people bothered me to not sleep places. But the train was the quietest and emptiest. The L train went back and forth from 8th ave to Canarsie 24hrs a day. The other choice was the 7 train but my dealers were in Brooklyn, mainly.

She was sitting across from me on the L train.

Pretty Latina with an emo kinda style.

1 smile at her, she smiles back.

I say "goodnight" and pull my blanket over my head and body, lay down on the trains seating.

I wake up to a commuter, some older white guy smacking my leg gently to move so people could sit down…

…

(Circa 2020)

Being woken up again from my public slumber.

It's about 3am and I am laying on the sidewalk, with my bookbag as a pillow. This time it's a late 20 something British kid. Telling me something I can't comprehend as I'm looking up at him offering me a Marlboro (fucking) Light to wake up with; and I light it; and get up and just keep walking; not stopping to bullshit with him as he was surely hoping. People should never wake up homeless people who are sleeping in public, they are not choosing to sleep there. I'm serious when I tell you this, that just about every 20 minutes, for every bit of tiny, crummy sleep I could ever get outside in any city but especially New York City, I was woken up by someone or something. I could sleep through world war 3 and wake up to attack invisible, oncoming enemies every time, now. Yea, after a total of, let's call it 3 or 4 years, solid blocks, mostly running consecutively of sleeping on the street or in nasty NYCDHS shelters, I am quite literally shell shocked still, by means of sleep deprivation while simultaneously suffering through daily, public aggravation.

…

(Circa 2017)

The day I relapsed on meth, I didn't know; I mean I knew but I didn't know how it would end up for me. I knew I had to do it, to get it out of my system to throw a chem-bomb on the war in me. To end war, to begin peace.

So I'm with a kid from the hostel looks like he's in real bad shape too asks me to carry his skateboard to the boardwalk because it's too heavy for him to hold and we're almost there in sunny, Santa Monica California.

We get down to the beach/boardwalk area, to meet up with a few crust punks and squatters by a homeless encampment that he knows, who might have some. One kid looks like his face is made of red polka dotted zombie flesh and skateboarding with a fuck ton of energy for someone who hasn't slept in the better part of 4 years, he told me that's how long he'd been using crystal again.

And I wait for nothing.

The kid I came with disappeared on me it's ok I didn't give him any money.

But I ended up figuring out that on gay apps, I could advertise as a straight guy looking to party for play to get drugs and cash and other gifts, just using these guys basically and lying that they were going to get some.

I was deeply obsessed with taking the drugs. I thought I loved them. I did not know what love was back then. It didn't feel like it could ever stop, for me. I'd just have to erase myself off the earth slowly, one hard, busy for nothing day at a time, scraping myself across the cityscapes until I was gone. Peacefully gone.

I'd take Xanax with the meth to loosen up some, and go shoplifting all day usually, until night when I'd hustle on the gay apps. I end up prostituting again of course. This continues for

two vears…..

lost a very unhealthy 50lbs in those 2 years.

It took almost 3 years for my brain to go back to normal, from a very scary, and terribly intense paranoid schizophrenic state.

I also lost 8 more teeth, mostly in the front.

I'm missing 14 teeth, now.

I wear partial dentures.

I will eventually, sooner than later, lose the rest of my remaining natural teeth.

I am only 39 years old.

…

(Circa 2004)

Taking a bump from the small, green, plastic baggie with my house key, in the graffiti covered bathroom with all the stray piss puddles from poor, drunken male aim and stickers of artist's handles and hot words...it's my first time trying coke... the drip is bitter, mixed with snot from the back of my throat. I start to feel a cold wave of speedy, euphoric energy. I'm feeling kinda vain all of a sudden...I decide that all I want to do is creep up against the wall and enjoy these chemicals in my brain.

Well, 10 minutes of lonesome glory against the dance floor wall later? I'm awkwardly looking around; with eyes-too-wide; for that chubby middle aged black guy that sold me the last 20 bag...of half cut anyways...can't find him. Play beer hunter with the half empty rum and cokes or cranberry vodkas all over the tables in the club. They taste fine, like liquor to me.

Lit Lounge, 1st ave. in the village.

Wednesday night, who cares about a Wednesday night? Who cares about anything right now, I'd do anything for just one... more...bump. Fucking kill me.

Miracles are scary when you realize one has happened in your life because there can be an aspect of wondering why you were picked to be that lucky or have things turn out so good, and you're still trying to figure out when the eye of the great, big shitstorm is going to put you back in the burning and the cold.

…

(Circa 2013)

I told him "the next time you disrespect her, I'll stab you in the face with a dirty needle." He said to me "You do that I'll kill you."

I was mad that my crack dealer who I was living upstairs from, was being disrespectful to my girlfriend who would fuck him for crack sometimes.

I told him " don't care, i'd die for her honor".

I went back upstairs and told her what I said to him.

She smiled and looked for her rig so she could fix with the bag she had left for bedtime...

If things go awry again, I'll suffer I suppose, until I adapt or I suppose I simply won't survive…or whatever.

In the end? I hope that I don't suffer long before I die.

(Circa 2019)

I was going to walk back from south Florida to New York. In the hot sun walking down the side of the interstate. I made it a few miles then something stopped me. It was to see my family who I thought was in danger. I thought the apocalypse had started, or something. It was hot I knew I'd die with no water, I ran out, so I pissed in my empty water bottle and drank it to relieve my dry throat at some point before I realized I had to go back to the halfway house, to recover more from crystal meth induced brain damage...

I think I also decided that everything was fine.

Yes, everything…

…

Does anything actually exist?

Or is it just me; while everything else I perceive to know; in the vastness of this whole abyss; is it simply a figment of my own imagination? Does my imagination exist?

I don't know. Sometimes I really don't.

(Circa 2013)

We're by the Cross Island Parkway, me and Mike.. we're in front of a convenience store, in the parking lot, trying to sell broken electronics out of the trunk of his Crown Victoria with the failing transmission. Trying to get the last $20 together so we can get us a bundle of dope from my guy over here, in Ozone Park. We decide to just get 8 bags, 4 each. Days like this, all there was, was the drugs. Nothing else to live for, anymore...

(Circa 2023)

I completely understand what it's like to be an ungrateful, arrogant, little fuck and believe that the world and its inhabitants owe me something because I ain't got nothin.

So when I hear people, sounding like little fucking brats with a death wish to boot, I don't judge them. I look at them and I offer my hand; my help; my experience.

I could lay down a lighting bolt to add to their already black, hovering storm clouds; following them; everywhere's a rainy day wherever they are.

But any ways, I'm sitting up in my attic, always speaking to them; like Lydia; like Beetlejuice, too.

Don't kill yourself yet, kiddo. The real fun starts when you've had enough of the bullshit.

…

I never gave myself a fair chance, to grow or to feel noticed for anything good.

I really see it now, how true it is.

I deserve this.

Violence is how some people cry.

Instead of showing fear, they show wrath.

Instead of crying tears, they make others bleed and they laugh, instead.

I don't want kids of my own.

I hear burying a child is the worse kind of hole you can have inside of you, forever.

I just buried who I was...

And I don't want to dig up anything.

…

(Circa 2016)

We're in the living room of the halfway house in Lake Worth FL.

It's me and another kid we lived with, Jared's been in the bathroom for too long we're wondering what's up with him then we hear a strange and unfamiliar, low rattling noise, coming from the bathroom. We knock on the door. No answer. So we look at each other; I twist the bathroom door handle to break it off to open the door which couldn't be kicked in because it opened the other way. It's a cheap door handle. I see him laying on the floor by the toilet, his face is turning blue, he's unconscious. I was recently certified in CPR, in the program to be a rehab worker. So I use the technique I learned to get his tongue out of his airway. I give him mouth to mouth, with his snotty nose too and I slap him on the leg. He comes to. The EMS is on the way... I had flushed his empties, his needle and cottons and his cap, so he didn't get in trouble with the law. I was in early recovery too, so I'm just looking out for him. The EMS arrives a few minutes after he wakes up. He lies to the cops and medics about just being tired or something and on too much Gabapentin. They leave, he goes off to work and thanks the two of us.

He's doing good, now.

…

Every single thing you will ever have to know is already embedded within you.

Everything you'll ever love is already inside you.

Everyone you've ever known is always with you, regardless.

Everything you need or want to realize is already waiting; only space and time between you.

Nobody really dies.

…

(Circa 2013)

There's bread, peanut butter and some candy bars in my hands and in my arms. Gatorade. Think I got everything. I pace around the isles as if I'm looking for more items and head towards the door...I get to the register and bolt out of the front of the 7-11 and across the street towards my ex's place. We're out of food altogether and we gotta spend the next money she gets from her sugar daddy on the dope. Maybe some coke or some Xanax bars. I look back to see the clerk standing out front screaming at me to "hey, stop!" I'm running through the slowly oncoming traffic, dropping a bottle of blue Gatorade.

Fuck it. I head to the door of her building it's a block away, I see a cop down the street but I doubt he knows anything. I get inside the doorway, she buzzes me up.

Gonna need to find a new spot to steal food from in a day or so.. shit...

It just stops for me at some point, emotionally.

I get fed up and it becomes emotional backwash.

With traces of blood and stale mouth in it. When I accept the affect that the hatred caused

- I'm ok again.

(Circa NOW)

In my life I’ve been:

Underestimated, sold short, lied to, left out, ignored, alone and hungry, thirsty, homicidal, suicidal, delusional, terrified and angry.

Now, in my druggless life, I feel like a clownish rodeo bull with its balls tied back, dipped in gasoline, injected with gunpowder, lit on fire, slapped on its ass and set free from it's pen.

It's a sacrifice...it's a sacrifice, alright.

Drugs don't get better the more you do them…but we know that already.

But we keep taking it like we're starving for them. You're hungry, my love...hungry for love.

The love and respect of yourself. To feel worthy.

You are a warrior and you will keep fighting

until one of you dies. I hope it's the good you that wins the war, because they are losing battles.

Win the war, that's the part that really counts.

Do something for you today.

It's not a drug you actually need.

You just want it..

Something better than what you got.

There's a hole, we need to fill it.

Not sure if we ever get it all; sometimes we gotta burn out entirely before we can rebuild.

I had to do drugs til I got sick of them; scared of them.

…

(Circa 2014)

I know it's in here somewhere, just give me a minute...Maybe somebody dropped something, there could be a whole bundle in here, maybe even a hit of coke. I know it's the garbage, please... hang on...

1 swear, I would see rice in the street and i would pick it up and smoke it. I was downstairs in the drag bar, I would get high in the bathroom downstairs. I ran out of coke and dope and I started hallucinating that there was coke rocks on the pissy floor of this public bathroom in Williamsburg. I just ran out and had a dystonic reaction to the coke in my brains. I flopped around like a fish on the bathroom floor for about 5 minutes.

Nobody came in and saw me though, dead night. I picked some of the crumbs of white stuff from the floor and mixed it in my cooker. I was completely delirious and psychotic from the real coke I was doing earlier. I shot up the pissy sheet rock that had fallen from the beaten in walls. I was fully convinced that somebody had dropped coke on the floor. This was not an isolated incident. Sometimes it'd be off the sidewalk. This is a common phenomenon amongst heavy cocaine/crack users.

Anything white and chalky looking, I'd shoot it up with toilet water. They call it carpet hunting, looking at whitish specs on the floor fixating for hours, days sometimes. There's the shadow police, too, authoritarian hallucinations who live inside the walls. They are partially invisible and they know everything about me, they see everything. Hiding on pulleys in the trees outside my window with the tree police. SWAT team types. I don't see shadow police anymore. Tree police either. I don't acquire pneumonia from injecting dirty Sheetrock anymore. I don't want to anymore.

I don't crave; I don't care about doing drugs, now.

Ask me how? Look inside your self. and learn to respect what you see no matter what it is.

It's between you and you.

Stop blaming others and living in regret and learn to love yourself.

You are worthy; a secret deity; you just don't know it yet.

…

(Circa 2013)

I realized that sometimes, the Johns would get off to watching me shoot up. I'm in a buddy booth in the XXX theater, he's hitting his meth pipe. I'm mixing up the 2 bags of dope he paid for that I got from some guy sitting down, staring at the gay porn with idle hands, in the movie room...

He's jerking off under his pants, now, with the hand not fidgeting with the glass pipe. Staring at the needle in my arm, watching me push the plunger and feel my hit.

I want to fly, and be free to do anything, so I can cover the demon's scars left to sit on my face, read them like words.

No more...no, now, their trace under many coats of paint; fades to a lighter tone that you can no longer read, trailing off...

When you can't read the words on my face anymore, my demons can rest.

(Circa NOW)

Funny how when I was younger and scared to try anything harder than a Vicodin or a beer I would try to tell my friends not to do coke or heroin or ecstas or whatever...nobody ever wanted to listen to me though and I guess if you can't beat 'em you should join 'em? Yeah idk but I did and I got beat the fuck up but I beat it in the end. So now? My friends listen to me about drug abuse. I'm telling you I know my purpose. I just don't know that I'm figuring it out sometimes when actually I am. Took 20 years or so but here we are.

…

One time, when I spent two weeks in psych, I was in there with a girl who was in her early 20's... she wore a helmet; told me it was due to brain damage that needed to heal from getting into fights...

It's lunchtime.

I'm eating a dry cheeseburger; asking the lady across from our table, going around with the mask and the beverage cart for more ketchup and a cup of cranberry juice.

She's kinda ignoring me...

I eat the rest; and have some trouble swallowing the dryness of the oversized bun without small sips of juice or water...

I'm walking back to my room...

I hear a big commotion in the hallway; girls screaming; there's a fight so l take a peek; it's the girl with the helmet; being restrained by the hospital staff and security as she's throwing a Hail Mary punch at the chubby Puerto Rican girl who was at her table during lunch...

She was much calmer at dinner later that day...much, much calmer.

…

(Circa 2010)

One of the first times I tried Heroin I was with my friend, in Suffolk County, LI. She was going to hit me because I didn't know how yet. Her friends were getting it for us, a couple, the guy had one leg from falling asleep on the train tracks in the woods, high. A train ran over him and cut his leg off. He was dope sick, and needed a bag. She was getting him 2 bags to get us a bundle.

He was warning me about the dope sickness which I was already somewhat familiar with from the Suboxone I was taking recreationally. I'd get mild withdrawals from it sometimes but my habit was small, still.

He told me "it gets really, ridiculously unbearable".

I believed him, I mean, I think I did...

I just had no idea yet, what he really meant by that.

So we get the bags, he goes to fix up in the bathroom, comes out 20 minutes later telling us he missed, neglects to look for his prosthetic leg (again, apparently), in the sea of dirty laundry and random other shit in their room at his parents house, upstairs. His girlfriend keeps nagging him to look for it, but he just uses his crutches instead..

So my friend hits me, she finds something in my upper wrist pretty easily.

Barely did much though, because I took some subs less than 24 hours prior.

I just ended up smoking weed instead that night, waited for the Suboxone to leave my system…

…and then I hit her up for dope again a few days later.

…

(Circa 2018)

I was sitting out on the patio of this motel in Wynwood, waiting on a Moneygram from my mom. I was checking in, when the office opened in a couple hours. She was sitting across from me, thick black girl early 20's. Decently pretty I supposed, so I talked to her I was high on meth and feeling "social". So she gets to saying she's working, like sex work and I say "oh that's cool, me too sometimes". So she's like "do you think I could give you $60 to crash with you for a few days I go on car dates". I say yea, that works, and get the $60, we talked for a bit and smoked some weed. Checked in, we immediately break out her crack stem and my meth pipe. She tried putting meth in her crack stem and I didn't realize it but she got scared when it caught fire.

Meth is HIGHLY flammable. You need to vaporize it with hot glass, usually or sniff or shoot it. So we smoke meth, crack, weed, nothing to crash with yet.

We're laying in bed, she is in her underwear/pjs, I'm looking at her, she looks at me. We both smile kind of and I pounce on her and we fucked for a while and neither of us came. We got more high and fucked more, still nobody is cumming. She goes on her calls and I go online and meet guys on Grindr to scam for drugs. We meet back at the room. I decided about a day or so later that she needed to leave.

I'm getting crazy feeling from no sleep and my phone just broke. I'm mad. She is sitting on the bed. I walk over to the TV and I break the screen open using the butt of the butcher knife I just picked up off the counter next to it. I'm holding the knife.

I look at her, ask her in a gentle tone, to "please leave".

She shakes her head, "yes", grabs her purse and the rest of her things very quickly and runs out of the room.

I forgot how I spent the rest of that day.

Probably acting like a psycho someplace else…

…

…

When people shatter; sometimes other people get cut on the broken pieces.

…

…

(Circa 2020)

My dispatcher at the 24 hour cab stand told me one night that the worst thing he'd ever witnessed was a man across the street who was fixing his car, a truck sped past too close while he had his head poking out from under his vehicle. The truck crushed his head and my dispatcher described the sound, a brief hollow crunch. He told me that the saddest part about it was how the it was just some guy, doing what he had to do, doing his job, and then out of nowhere; bam; this truck.

I suppose at least he didn't suffer any...

The last few moments before I used a truck to attempt suicide;

I was in a place; a mental place where I wasn't feeling much of anything at all. Just couldn't make out any happiness if I tried, other than that I notice in retrospect; a lot of anger fueled by feelings of futility and helplessness. So I figured, at least I wouldn't need to do that day to day shit anymore. The part where I wake up hungry from a shitty and cold 2 hours of sleep woken up by the sun shining right into my face, needing a cigarette or drugs I don't have yet, with nothing to do no purpose and no place to be ever. Just needing and not having.

Death would have been easier dealing with all the great mystery over the predictable, grisly, hard days. The emptiness.

The waking up with drugs in me in the hospital would be better.

Even if I had to finish killing myself outside when I got discharged with something stronger. I was angry when I woke up with a numb face down in the street, heat in my sinuses and rushing blood pouring out of my face. Making a large and slimy multi toned puddle under me.

A bloody mess - shimmering on the stones...

Pretty brains, could have been wasted.

Running, spilling...crimson and scarlet.

…

(Circa 2013)

Tolerance and withdrawal.

The neverending pendulum; perpetual.

It's the chemical side of the cycle you're stuck in when you're addicted to heroin. The first time you do dope, it's ridiculously intense, and by the last time I usually didn't even feel my shot but I'd need it to not be dopesick. I let a creepy old guy in the men's adult theater, cum in my mouth for $40 once to get unsick from heroin withdrawals. I spit it out in the trash, as I gagged, dry heaved and almost puked...

But the lines of coke I did with him were keeping my stomach down.

…

Drugs aren't the problem.

Being on drugs is the problem.

…

(Circa 2014)

When my crack dealer was looking for me, I only owed him $300. But I told him to go sell his ass for it. And I said his girl, and his friends, in his gang could do that too.

What.

So he was planning to kill me or seriously injure me. That was my life, he said.

Seriously? Me?

Instead of that happening, he never caught me.

Insulted by the full-on audacity of this prick, I wore a black ninja face mask for almost 6 months just about 24/7.

And hid in plain sight.

Then I left the city; to be free;

from this crackhead bullshit; and these half-assed thugs. I can do the job myself someday, you motherless fuck. You will never, ever get me...but that's because:

ONLY I WILL KILL ME ONLY I WILL ONLY I WILL KILL ME ONLY I WILL ONLY I WILL KILL ME ONLY I WILL ONLY I WILL KILL ME ONLY I WILL ONLY I WILL KILL ME ONLY I WILL ONLY I WILL KILL ME ONLY I WILL ONLY I WILL KILL ME ONLY I WILL ONLY I WILL KILL ME ONLY I WILL ONLY I WILL KILL ME ONLY I WILL ONLY I WILL KILL ME ONLY I WILL ONLY I WILL KILL ME ONLY I WILL ONLY I WILL KILL ME ONLY I WILL ONLY I WILL KILL ME ONLY I WILL ONLY I WILL KILL ME ONLY I WILL ONLY I WILL KILL ME ONLY I WILL ONLY I WILL KILL ME ONLY I WILL ONLY I WILL KILL ME ONLY I WILL ONLY I WILL KILL ME ONLY I WILL KILL ME.

Also, you're too slow to follow me.

AND ONLY DEATH CAN STOP ME.

…

Public rest rooms across the way calling me to bang up my shit in.

While I drop my drawers and pretend I'm taking a dump in a locked stall, praying for a rush but knowing better that I’m probably just gonna miss my shot…

That first balmy, 80 degree night in New York, in the start of June.

In a river made of disease, bad sex, worse memories and self sabotage. the ammonia stench of stale urine.

An overflow of diluted drugs in crooked needles; emptied into dead vessels.

Nobody's getting there; I'll be on empty again soon enough.

Every spatter of blood, on every bathroom floor...

Red...

The color of love.

When I went mad, I ran off to the desert to find only myself there, with a furled brow; waiting furiously...

Shouldn't have left but I wasn't really there, anyway.

…

(Circa 2019/20/21)

When my meth-burnt mind said things, like "good, you deserve that" Or "exactly” in response to me, my actual voice, saying how I was going to kill myself; there were a few, several ways I tried.

Each time I saw the ICU...

The first way I thought of was for some odd reason, getting my head under the tire of a moving car. Slow, fast didn't matter to me in this mindset, so long as they didn't stop until I was dead.

So during an episode, I ran headfirst into a car in Miami; it was going sort of fast (35-40mph), a blue sedan. The bumper hit my head and I guess stopped short and saw me a bit too late to not be injured but right in time not to kill me.

I woke up in the street. Then the ambulance. Then the hospital a week later after I was out of the induced i think it was induced coma because I remember getting a shot in the ambulance and then darkness and a very very hard time getting breathes in and it seemed like it was for awhile I just somehow now remember it like it was 10 minutes. During it though I remember not knowing when it would end, if ever. My time perception was very off.

The 2nd time I tried, I took pills. At my parents house. A month later. Had a meltdown, ate about 40 Depakote and then I went into the kitchen where my parents saw me swallowing a handful of Remeron.

I fell unconscious in the emergency room after the cops and ambulance brought me in. I woke up 6 days later in the ICU waiting to be discharged to the psych. unit. Stayed there for 2 weeks.

The third time I ducked dropped under the back tires of an 18 wheeler truck. Going about 20 miles an hour.

The tire threw me face down on the concrete. I saw the tire and then the pavement, as I came to.

And my blood, a large, growing puddle of it.

My result: three jaw fractures and a crushed right cheekbone. I lost my remaining 4 front teeth, too.

Got 1 month in Bellevue.

The 4th way I tried, during another bad episode, I cut the elbow pits on both my arms, severed them down to the tendons and the larger arteries, as well...

I sat 4 months in a state facility after that last attempt, eating school lunches.

Very happy to be here now...

But even when I'm not happy, I am here.

…

(Circa 2018)

I'm just meeting him to buy some Xanax.

I have money, I see him before he sees me.

I can spot another tweaker who's there to see someone to sell drugs. He looks nervous, sickly skin complexion, holding a small bookbag.

He's looking around making me paranoid I was fine before this shit. He pulls out a black, 8"×5" unlocked, buckled shut box.

Says "it's in there, it's my stash it's Tina and 2mg sticks". I'm like "uh", I take it from his hand, though and ask him "why what's up with it?" He responds "they are filming a reality show, they need someone to be outrageous and a good personality." " gotta go." "It's yours. Free.".

I take the box from his hand, and walk to a nearby bus stop to call an Uber. I peak inside. It's a translucent pink rubber ball coin holder filled to the brim with like a 1/4oz of meth shards, and about 20 green, 2mg Xanax, and 2 pookies with a bunch of melted Tina still in them.

Jackpot.

My Uber comes, I forgot the rest of that week but 2 days later, he texts me back "hey do you have my stash still? I need it back I need money".

I responded "lol, are you crazy?" 1 blocked his number.

…

[crucifixionwouldfixme]

craigslist > personals > missed connections

blonde at ------ bar

It was Wednesday last week and you were standing at the bar. You ordered one of those girly complicated cocktails and we made eye contact across the room. I was wearing a blue shirt with a bird pattern on it and I had a cut on my face from shaving. You smiled at me but you left before I could talk to you. Contact at: XXX-XXX-XXXX

Dog walker outside office building - m4w - Downtown

You were walking a bunch of dogs past an office building by the big fountain downtown. I think you had a poodle and a doberman in there. You had red hair and an eyebrow piercing and the most gorgeous face and you looked like you hated those dogs. You called one of the little yorkies a cunt when it tripped you up on its leash. I helped you back up and caught a runaway dachshund for you. I think we had a moment. If you read this, I work on the 4th floor of that office building and if you stop by I’ll take you out to dinner. 

Conversation at ------ train station - w4m - last May

I left my wallet at home and I had to get to a conference for work and I was panicking. You heard my conversation with the ticket booth attendant and came over to pay for my ticket. We were going opposite directions and my train was leaving in two minutes and I didn’t have time to get your phone number. You had brown hair and you said, “Oh, it’s nothing,” like it was the simplest thing in the world to stop and help a total stranger for nothing in return. I should have gotten on your train with you. The conference was terrible. You had a picture of a woman in your wallet. It’s stupid. Nothing would have happened, anyway. You were just stopping to help some panicked girl and you paid for my ticket like it was easy and you waved and walked away like it was easy too. The woman in your wallet wasn’t that pretty. She was standing on a beach (it looked cloudy and cold) and the wind blew her hair everywhere and she was in an old, worn-out sweatshirt. I think about it sometimes. I wonder if you would have thought I was prettier than her. You weren’t that pretty either but nobody else has really actually smiled at me in so long and I hear you saying, “Oh, it’s nothing,” when I lay down at night in my bed alone. I look for you every time I’m at the station. The woman in your wallet wasn’t that pretty but it was a candid picture and she was smiling and the edges of the photo were worn and if you’re keeping a picture like that then you probably think she’s beautiful anyways. You probably tell her that she’s beautiful like it’s the easiest thing in the world and it probably is, for you. I don’t really remember your face anymore but I can picture hers clear as day. I know it’s only that I wish someone would call me beautiful at all but I daydream about it being you anyway.

wrong place, wrong time - NY, NY

We lived together for two years in this tiny little apartment in New York and we had a dog together but I don’t think I ever actually knew you. When we broke up it was mutual and neither of us cried. We were twenty and neither of us really knew what it meant to be with someone. We both liked sushi and documentaries and books that ended sad. I should have waited longer to start dating after that bad breakup and you should have been in therapy over your mom leaving when you were little. I think we could have really been something if either of us knew how to let each other in. Meet me for the first time again at a different point in our lives.

audrey from second grade - w4w

We were childhood friends and we only stopped talking because you moved away. When I found you on social media I thought you would be excited to reconnect too—when I said we should meet up, you said “yeah, sure” and you haven’t responded to my message asking “when would be a good time for you?” or “are you free this tuesday? i’m in your city this week” or “i’m leaving on sunday, if you still wanna see each other”. Your favorite color was lavender when we were seven. You used to eat the cookies from my Oreos cause I only liked the creme. Responders can contact me through the number for your family’s old landline (I still know it). 

one bedroom apartment in paris with matching antique handles on all the cabinets and drawers - serious inquiries only

We were in love and we talked about having kids together and we had a few things we disagreed about in our parenting techniques but I figured that we’d figure it out. I thought you’d probably have an easier time showing our kid that you loved them than you did showing me. We talked about moving to Paris and living above a bakery and me teaching while you became a doctor. You talked about taking me to your work parties so that we could dress up nice and drink champagne and make fun of the stuck-up science people you were going to work with. You always had a mean streak but I thought it was good for me to learn to be less sensitive. We had a thousand dreams and grand plans and romantic images of a life together.  You got bored of me, or got sick of me; you stopped telling me you loved me and you started getting tense with me and we stopped seeing each other as often. If it was my fault, I don’t know what I did. I pulled away because it seemed like you didn’t want me around very much anymore and you barely seemed to notice. I had thought we were going to spend our lives together. If you had asked me to marry you I would have said yes.  I tell myself that if you wanted me around you would have tried to keep me there. I tell myself that it’s not worth putting in the effort if I’m not worth it to you. Being with you would be a lot of work and hurt for me and I don’t think you’d ever really love me as much as I loved you.  If you can tell me what I did wrong and I can fix it, I can be reached at: xxxxx@gmail.com.

[crowleaf]

Also my mother finally acknowledged that my aunt (her sister-in-law) is probably emotionally abusing my uncle.

(tw cw: emotional abuse, spousal abuse, toxic relationship, controlling behavior)

I've been saying this for at least ten years. I've taken note of how he's gradually changed from being this weird nerd, who I always looked forward to seeing on holidays to talk about whatever new shows or movies he'd pirated and to exchange recommendations and to show him whatever recent Zelda game had come out (because the graphics of each new game since Ocarina would blow his mind), to being withdrawn and indifferent to things.

He wasn't watching anything new because his wife said he spent too much time in the basement (where the computer is, where he would pirate things). He lost all his friends (and only had her friends to socialize with) that he used to hang out with, who were all into classic cars, after she said he spent too much time going to car shows with them, and made him sell his Firebird (or Thunderbird. Can't remember which he had because I hadn't seen it since I was like, 12). He wasn't even 'allowed' to show an interest in video games because he was in his late 50-early 60's (at the time) and his wife thought it was childish and a waste of time.

Now he doesn't come to family gatherings anymore, because his wife prioritizes her family, always, and we've caught them (her) lying to get out of plans made with our family so that they could go to hers on holidays. Like, why lie? Just say you have other plans. (I should also note that his wife has no kids, not with him or anyone else; the family they visit are random extended relatives of hers)

The other day is what really got my mom to understand what I've been trying to say for years.

She called him, and he was in the Walmart parking lot in the car alone, and before my mom could even say much, he hurriedly said "(wife) just got out of the store, I gotta go." I didn't hear this call obviously but my mom said it was really weird, like he was anxious.

And before that, on a different call (that had been on speaker phone on his end...it always is, his wife always has to hear and be involved in the conversation) my mom asked if he was retiring because he'd just quit his job.

He said he wanted to, and his wife, from somewhere in the background, screams "He is NOT RETIRING!" to which my uncle replies "We'll talk about it later." During the short Walmart call, he told my mom he is not going back to work. He's 65, and he's had back problems since I was a kid. If he has the means to retire, then he should absolutely do so. So why the fuck is his wife so anti-retirement?

Because it means he'll have alone time, without her. Because she still works, and the job he just quit? They worked in the same school together. Where she could presumably 'keep an eye on him'. Why does she want to keep an eye on him? Fuck if I know! He's never cheated. He's never done anything to deserve her suspicious behavior.

It's fucked. I really wish he could get help. My other uncle has already given up on him because he doesn't understand that his brother is being abused, because they're all boomers (young boomers, but still) and their generation cannot fathom that a woman can abuse a man (my mom gets it, she just didn't realize it was happening to her own brother until all of this).

So I really hope when he retires and gets some fucking alone time while his wife is at work and not constantly listening in on his phone calls, that maybe my mom can call and ask if he like, needs help. Wants help. Wants out. But the men in my family, (myself included, I'm a man sometimes), are prideful idiots who have a hard time reaching out for or accepting help. So I don't know if he would even accept help if offered, or if he would just try to grit his teeth and suffer through this shit marriage until one of them dies.

It just kills me knowing the last 20 years or so of his life have been spent living under such controlling, abusive conditions. It breaks my heart to see how much he's changed. I miss my uncle, and I'm worried for him. I would help if I could, but I don't have the means to do anything.

It's getting worse though. It's the little things that make it obvious. For example, every year, even if they didn't come to holiday gatherings, I would get a Christmas card in the mail from him (signed by them both) full of scratch-offs. I actually won like $40 from them last year. I didn't get a card this year.

[faeryworlds]

percentstardust​:

Plus, her job where she gets more hours and more pay will let her work overtime if she wants to, so, really quitting her second job won’t be too much of a loss. She is glad Tara understands. A lawyer and a mechanic. What a sibling pair they make. “But, I want to—-” She stops herself from saying she’s going to do it anyways. “Fine. I understand that I don’t have to.” The difference between her and their father is that she came back. She planned on coming back once her shit was together. In fact, she came back twice, but, was chased away by their mother one time and Amber the other. She has stayed by Tara’s side. She guesses that is enough.

“Yeah, we’re the Core Four as Chad calls us.” She smiles laughing at the nickname Chad has given their group. She actually finds it endearing. “Kirby did say to call her if we ever need anything. I’ve actually been talking to her and catching up with her. It’s nice to have someone else to talk to. You know I don’t have other friends.” She exchanged numbers with the blonde. They have been chatting on the phone, texting, and they even have a video call every now and then. Her eyebrow raises at her sister’s grin. “So, can Danny move in too? Or is that me moving too fast in our relationship? I can never tell anymore. You know my dating track record.” She jokes. Her dating track record is horrible even without Richie being considered her shittiest ex. “Gale also said to go to her if we need anything which I am going to take her up on. She’s made up for her book.” The PR nightmare she thought she would have to deal with after they defeated Bailey and his kids hasn’t been as bad with Gale’s help.

“Oh?” She smiles again. “Well, I’m bisexual too.” She went so long without labelling herself because she did not know what her sexuality was. She liked men and women, but, she did know what to label herself as. “I’m glad you told me. I have something else to tell you. I am nonbinary. I want to use the they pronouns. Like Mindy does sometimes.”

Tara wasn’t even aware that Sam had tried to come back twice and both times she was chased away. She still doesn’t know and she would be even more mad at their mother if Sam would actually tell her. “Sam, you came back. The moment Wes called you and told you I was attacked you came back. Mom was stuck in London and didn’t came back. Dad well, haven’t heard from him since he walked out on us when I was eight.” Listening to her sister when she was talking about Danny and asking if he can move in too. They have the space right, if Chad is sharing her room, Danny and Sam sharing a room and then Mindy having her own room. It would fit and make sense. Besides her sister deserves to be happy. “You have been dating Danny longer than me and Chad. If you want him to move in with us, he can. He proved himself that we can trust him.” She knows her own birthday is coming up, it’s November and her birthday is in December and yes normally when you turn 21 it’s a big deal. Yet she wasn’t really feeling her birthday. Then again she also doesn’t even know if the others planned something. 

Hearing how Sam had been talking to Kirby which made sense they do know Kirby and knows how it is with the Woodsboro murders. And yes Sam deserves to have friends around her age. Since they do live in New York it’s easier to go to Gale whenever they needed something, that would make sense. Once hearing what her sister said about her being bisexual too and then saying she’s non binary like Mindy. “Wait, sometimes? What does that mean that you’re also still okay with the she/her pronouns?” She asked just so she was aware and wouldn’t make a mistake with her sister’s right pronouns. “Now we are confessing things. I have something else to tell you. Amber and I dated, around the time last year Amber and I were dating we had been dating for some years.”

This was the first time she told anyone, Chad and Mindy knew about it because well, they were part of the same friend group. Not so sure what Sam would say to that, cause Sam killed her then boyfriend at the time Richie and Tara killed her girlfriend. 

Plus, her job where she gets more hours and more pay will let her work overtime if she wants to, so, really quitting her second job won't be too much of a loss. She is glad Tara understands. A lawyer and a mechanic. What a sibling pair they make. "But, I want to----" She stops herself from saying she's going to do it anyways. "Fine. I understand that I don't have to." The difference between her and their father is that she came back. She planned on coming back once her shit was together. In fact, she came back twice, but, was chased away by their mother one time and Amber the other. She has stayed by Tara's side. She guesses that is enough.

"Yeah, we're the Core Four as Chad calls us." She smiles laughing at the nickname Chad has given their group. She actually finds it endearing. "Kirby did say to call her if we ever need anything. I've actually been talking to her and catching up with her. It's nice to have someone else to talk to. You know I don't have other friends." She exchanged numbers with the blonde. They have been chatting on the phone, texting, and they even have a video call every now and then. Her eyebrow raises at her sister's grin. "So, can Danny move in too? Or is that me moving too fast in our relationship? I can never tell anymore. You know my dating track record." She jokes. Her dating track record is horrible even without Richie being considered her shittiest ex. "Gale also said to go to her if we need anything which I am going to take her up on. She's made up for her book." The PR nightmare she thought she would have to deal with after they defeated Bailey and his kids hasn't been as bad with Gale's help.

"Oh?" She smiles again. "Well, I'm bisexual too." She went so long without labelling herself because she did not know what her sexuality was. She liked men and women, but, she did know what to label herself as. "I'm glad you told me. I have something else to tell you. I am nonbinary. I want to use the they pronouns. Like Mindy does sometimes."

[ryuttaeng]

What If the 6th member is ,not like a cold member but like normal

Sometimes happy pill,sometimes blunt,sometimes scary but they never and when I say never , n e v e r saw then cry,but then maybe like they call their parents as a dare or something and the moms like "well,didn't I tell you to not ever fcking contact me again,you're gay and that's a disgrace to our family,I still won't love you anymore even if you're famous" and they're like "okay,I just wanted o say I love you mom" mom:"...." Then she hangs up and then when 6th member calls her dad and says "hey,it's me,(name)" *phone declines*

And then 6th member just heaves,like I'm sayin' full mental breakdown

If you can ofcourse no pressure,stay healthy 🤟

pairing: itzy x 6th member!reader

summary: you’re always full of surprises, but what your members have never seen is you crying. no matter how hard the pressure was, you always had neutral face expression, they almost thought you’re just emotionless. that day your group was playing truth or dare and you chose the dare.

WARNINGS: mental breakdown, anxiety, homophobia, swearing/strong language, eating disorder, please do not read if sensitive/uncomfortable with such themes!

genres: angst, hurt/comfort

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

You sat with girls, as you played truth or dare, and unexpectedly for others and even yourself, you was the first person who chose the dare tonight.

Yeji rolled her eyes, thinking what to say, when she hit upon an idea. “Oh, call your parents and put them on the speaker!” Ryujin and Yuna booed at her, telling her that it’s too boring. “Isn’t it too boring, like?” Ryujin asked, rolling her eyes. “Ugh, just don’t do that, I won’t change my mind.” Yeji replied, waving off her.

You gulped, as you still remembered that your last meeting with your parents went horribly not really well. Nodding, you took your phone, calling your father first and putting him on the speaker. When he answered the call, everyone went silent. “Hi, it’s me, A…” you were about to say your name, but your father hung up.

Other girls looked at themselves, visibly confused with his action, when you tried to stay calm, while calling your mother instead. When she finally answered, her harsh words and aggressive tone was your last straw. “What? Didn't I tell you to not ever fucking contact or call me again, you're gay and a disgrace of our family, I still won't love you anymore even if you're famous now!”

You lowered your head, to try to cover up your tears falling down, but your shaky hands and voice obviously didn’t helped you. You sighed, “I just… I just wanted to say that I love you…” you said, but in reply you heard only silence before your mother hung up.

You covered your face, making your phone fall, as you silently sobbed. Everyone looked at each other, confused, scared and shocked. You quickly stood up, not forgetting to take your phone as you excused yourself. “Fuck…” you whispered before you shut your rooms door.

Next few weeks you barely left your room, only to eat something, even though it was once a two days. You was disgusted to look at other girls’ eyes, as you thought after what your mother said, they won’t even look at you. For sure, you’ve lost weight after barely eating anything, but what you didn’t knew was that girls everyday would stare at your room’s door, wondering how to talk with you.

You walked out of your room when nobody was around, perfect timing to take a small snack, heading to the kitchen, when you felt someone grabbing your hand. “What the-“ you turned around to see who it was, and faced Ryujin, worriedly looking at you.

Other girls went out of their rooms, as you tried to hide your face from them, but Ryujin grabbed your second hand. Yeji approached you both, carefully placing her hands on your face. “Please, please, don’t hide your face. You know that it doesn’t matter who you chose to love, right?” she looked directly into your eyes, almost tearing up.

You could feel single tear falling from your eye, as you slowly, almost unnoticeable nodded her. Ryujin let go your hands, hugging you tightly. “You’re- You’re loved and appreciated here, by us, it doesn’t matter if even the whole world will be against you, you always have us with you!” you could hear her stutter, as she tried not to cry.

You smiled at them, hugging Ryujin, whispering several ‘thanks’ to them, when other girls hugged you. You didn’t expect your coming-out to them like that, but it obviously turned out better, than you thought.

[sourcherryandsprinkles]

Silent breakup (part 1) | Jess Mariano x Reader

Summary: Jess breaks up with you by leaving town

Pairing: Jess Mariano x Reader

Word count: 0.8k

Taylor Swift bingo square: Last kiss

Notes: I initially wrote this for Last Kiss, but does it really work?

** Please keep sending requests! You can find the list here

*** Part 2 can be found here

-

The breakup happened - and felt - like a slap across the face. It was brutal, painful and unexpected.

Jess had promised to be there for graduation, but he never showed up. You had walked up to the stage, received your diploma, but didn't see his face in the crowd. Where was he?

After the ceremony, you had gone to Luke's to see if he was there, but Luke had this uncomfortable look on his face when you asked for Jess. ''He...eh, he left for New York this afternoon.''

You frowned, surprised. ''Oh? He didn't tell me he was visiting his mom for the weekend.''

Your ignorance gave Luke a sudden envy to push Jess in the lake again. He couldn't believe what his idiot nephew had done. ''No, Y/N, Jess moved back to New York. He's not coming back.''

Skeptical, you went upstairs to check, wanting to see for yourself - and be proven wrong. Tears welled in your eyes when you saw Jess' empty bed. He left without saying goodbye - again.

.

Three weeks have gone by since Jess left. You hadn't explicitly broken up, but Jess' silence was pretty explanatory.

Rory had been checking up on you every single day, either by phone or in person. She brought lots of movies to watch - and cry along - and ice cream. She even left Jess a nasty message on his voicemail. They were friends, but she hated him for hurting you. She gets that he isn't good at goodbyes, but leaving like that was a cowardly move.

''You need to make a 'Jess' box.''

''What?''

''A memory box, if you want. I did this when Dean and I broke up. I put everything that made me think of him, of us, in a box and stored it in the closet. It helps mourning our past relationship. My mom did the same with Max,'' Rory explained.

Although the idea was smart, putting away everything that reminded you of Jess would only emphasize that he was gone. You hadn't told anyone, but a part of you secretly hoped he would come back. He did it once, why not a second time?

''Then, she burned the whole thing after calling her wedding off, but that's beside the point.''

You chuckled at the anecdote, not really surprised by Lorelai's action. ''Thanks for the idea, Rory, but I like having his stuff around. It's comforting.''

''It's a daily reminder of his departure. Being surrounded by things of your past, in this case, pieces of Jess, will only strengthen your sadness.'' Rory's eyes caught on a dark piece of clothing on your bed. She picked it up. ''Isn't that one of his shirts? Please don't tell me you wore it to sleep last night.''

You snatched the Metallica shirt out of her hands and looked down.

This shirt was one of the last tangible things of your relationship. It smelled like him and calmed you down in the midst of your sadness. It was the shirt Jess was wearing the first time you met him at the café. He had landed it to you the night you and him got caught by the rain and your clothes got soaked. You never gave it back.

Rory sighed sadly. She had never gone through a breakup herself - that thing with Dean lasted less than a week -, but living it through you was painful enough. She wrapped her arms around you.

You missed him so much.

You missed seeing him at the café every morning, bringing you a large cup of coffee and a kiss. Every time, Luke would complain and tell Jess to stop smooching the customers and get back to work. Now, all you got was Luke's apologetic looks, feeling sorry for the pain his nephew had caused to you. He never said it, but he liked the two of you together. You were good for Jess.

You missed his rude interruptions when you were in the middle of saying something. The amused grin on his face after he kissed you in the middle of a rant.

You missed laying in bed together, reading in silence. Sometimes he'd steal books from your bookshelf and annotate them just to spite you, knowing you liked the pristine look of the pages. At night, you'd pull the books out and secretly read his notes with a smile.

You missed him knocking on your window at 1am and taking you somewhere. Most times, you went to the bridge to talk or read, or walked around the sleeping town, loving the peaceful ambiance.

You missed the look on his face every time you'd tell him you loved him and the way his arms felt around you.

You missed all of him.

.

Since Jess left, he became a forbidden subject, therefore Luke was not expecting you to ask about him when put your piece of cake on the table one Tuesday evening. Luke's eyebrows furrowed and his mouth was ajar, not knowing what to say.

''I just want to know how he's doing.''

''Eh...he's well. I guess.''

''Is he happy in New York?''

''I think he is.''

[vibraniumwing]

soft.

a bucky barnes x fem!reader wherein the reader comes home to see the super soldier with a toddler tucked in his lap.

WARNING: none! (all mistakes within the story are mine)

A/N: soft and domestic (and clingy) bucky, anyone? i’ve written this with tfaws bucky in mind after episode five where he was on the couch and smiled after seeing sam’s nephews. so yes now i present to you bucky with a child bcs we need that content, ,, good bYe for i shall be drowning in my own feels.

---

“Do you really have to go, doll?” Bucky asked, watching you by the frame of your shared bedroom door with his hands crossed against his chest. A heavy sigh heaving from his lips as his eyes observed you pick out a shirt to wear, hands grasping on his black shirt and opted to wear that; a small smile formed on his lips as you slipped into the clothing piece, adoring how big it looks on you.

You turned to him with your hand on your waist, an eyebrow raised, “Unless you want to starve for a whole month then fine I won’t go to the grocery” you say teasingly, checking yourself out in the mirror before walking up to him, arms linking around his neck loosely; his hands circling around your waist in a protective manner as he pulls you into him. “I won’t be gone for the whole day, James.”

He groaned softly, wanting nothing more than to accompany you but seeing that you were going with your mother, he opted out. “You always say that then be gone for the whole afternoon.” he grumbles in between the kisses he gives you. “You and your mom take so much time at the grocery store.”

You threw your head back and laughed, finding his small whiny state adorable. You retract your arms from behind his neck and cupped the sides of his face, squishing his cheeks gently. “You sound like a child, Buck. I promise I won’t be long. Besides, you have Alpine to keep you company.” you motion your head to the sleeping cat on the bed.

“Now please let me go so I can leave now and be back sooner.” you tell him, pressing one final kiss to his lips before ducking out of his embrace, making your way to the front door and grabbing your car keys before turning back to see him standing behind you with a small pout on his lips (albeit he would never admit to doing such an act),

You grinned and walked up to him, reaching up to press a small kiss on his lips. “Sometimes it's hard to believe you’re this big scary dude that can take twenty men down in a course of ten minutes when all I see is this big baby.” you tease, a hand snaking up to the back of his head to play with the ends of his hair softly.

“Doll wait before you go” Bucky starts off, holding onto you, cheeks lightly flushed as he hesitated with his words, clearing his throat lightly before looking away, “Can you set up that damn Netflix thing on the TV before you leave?”

Your gaze on him softened even more and nodded, leading him to the living room and set the whole thing up for him, handing him the remote right after. “I’m guessing you can manage now?” he smiled shyly, the area around his eyes crinkling as he nodded. “Yeah, I will. Thanks, doll.”

“I’ll be back later, I love you, Buck!” You bid him a goodbye, looking back at him from the door and gave him a small wave, the male waving back before focusing on the TV, searching for that one movie you suggested he watch.

“What was that movie called again? RIght, The Breakfast Club”

---

Not even half-way through the movie, Bucky had somehow fallen asleep on the couch, not finding the first few minutes of the film entertaining. He somehow fell deep into slumber that he didn’t even notice the front door of the house opening until he felt something being placed on his stomach.

He stirred awake and the first thing his blurry vision could make out is the outline of a toddler sitting on him. “Hey James, I’m leaving Hugo with you and Y/N for the weekend. Our babysitter cancelled out last minute and I’ve been trying to call my sister but she hasn’t picked up any calls.” Damian, your younger brother said in a rush, putting down your nephew’s baby bag on the coffee table. “Thanks James, we owe you one.”

But before Bucky could get a say in any of this, Damian was already out the door and the sound of a car pulling away was followed. Barely half-awake, he stared at the tyke who was staring right back at him with his innocent E/C doe eyes. “What do I do with you?”

He takes Hugo in his arms as he sits up, placing him on his lap, his metal arm reaching over to pause television. “Y/N’s better at this than I am.” he mumbles, watching the child look around the room before he started to fidget on the larger male’s lap, wanting to roam around.

Bucky sighs, “Now why won’t Y/N answer her calls?” he asks the tiny human who was still staring up at him. He reaches over to grab his phone and dials your number, only to hear it ring from the other side of the house, inside your room. He dropped the call and placed his phone inside his pocket, now wondering what he could do to keep the small person alive.

“Usually Y/N deals with you.” He says, watching the small child struggle on his lap, clearly wanting to get down. Bucky finally gets what Hugo wanted to do and sets him down on the carpeted floor, watching the toddler (wobbly) walk around the space freely.

Seeing that the child was doing alright after finding a small fixation with Alpine who was now resting near the couch, he returned his attention back to the TV to resume watching the movie. His attention split in half as he continued to glance back at the kid who was now playing with the toys you had brought him and kept at in a basket in the corner of the living room where you deemed it “Hugo’s Area”

Bucky was finally getting into the film, entertainment written all over his face at the sight of the students dancing around the library until it morphed into one of concern when a small bonk followed by a loud cry resonated the room making him look over at Hugo who was already flushed from crying.

He paused the movie again and rushed over to Hugo’s side, taking the small boy in his arms, cradling him on his lap as he tried to calm him down. “Now kid, don’t cry on me. C’mon” he mumbled, raising him up lightly to look at his forehead as he searched for any wounds, relieved to find none.

“C’mon James, what would Y/N do…” He said to himself, standing up as he moved around and cradled the crying child, trying to remember what you would do whenever he has meltdowns like this.

“Oh god, right!” Bucky exclaimed as he remembered, quickly going to the couch and sat down, placing Hugo on his lap as he gently placed his vibranium hand on the back of his head and his flesh one cupping the smaller one’s cheek, wiping the tears that glistened on his smooth skin.

Seeing how the toddler was starting to calm down, he carefully spoke, “Now you gotta work with me, little one.” Bucky then proceeded to blow softly on his face, remembering how you would do that when Hugo was having a fit. “Now can you do that for me as well?” He asked, encouraging the child with a small smile.

Once he felt the kid do the same thing, he repeated the steps a few more times until he was completely calm, letting the child snuggle up against his chest, feeling how he would occasionally let out a small shuddering sob from time to time, making Bucky laugh at the adorable action. “Now what do you want to do?” he gently asked, the cold surface of his metal hand that caressed the child’s back making small bubbles of laughter elicit from the baby.

“Bucky wead [ read ] pwease?” was all that left the two-year old’s mouth, causing a small surprise from the older. Hugo then pushed himself off from Bucky’s chest and turned to his small corner of the room, raising his small arm and pointing his even smaller finger towards the bookshelf that was filled to the brim with story books.

A chuckle left the soldier’s lips, “Alright then, little dude. Go take your pick.” he then proceeded to let him down and watch as the toddler walked his way towards the array of books and picked out one, running back towards him with a big smile.

“Alright big guy, what do you have for me?” Bucky asked, taking the tyke in his arms once again, taking the book from Hugo’s hands. He let out a (very) fake gasp of excitement which made the toddler laugh out loud as his reaction, making small little wiggles of his own eagerness for the book.

Bucky shifted in his seat a little to be more comfortable, letting Hugo snuggle up to him as he opened the book and started to read, “Llama Llama, red pajama, reads a story with his mama.”

---

You were elated to finally come back home and fall into your lover’s arms from a long day of errands with your mom. After the Target trip with your mom, you had to drive her back home and help her with her own groceries and pack up everything with her over at your childhood home一 with an addition of having a few serious talks with her about your future.

“Seriously, Y/N. When are you going to give me a grandchild?” Your mother poked your sides as you helped her bring in the bags filled with her stuff. Ever since Damian introduced Hugo to the family, she’d been on your heels about when you and Bucky would bring one to them as well; admittedly you and him had been in a much longer relationship than Damian and his wife which surprises everyone even more.

You shrugged, rolling your eyes in a playful manner. “I don’t know, mom. I think I’m content being with Bucky for now.” you answered truthfully, setting the items on the kitchen island and turned to her, “Besides, we have Alpine! Our cat!”

This made your mother sigh, laughing softly at your antics. “I know my sweet girl, but I’m just so excited to see a little you or James run around with Hugo.” Her answer causes your heart to swell at the thought of starting a family with him some day; conversations like this with him are normal but are always caught in a fleeting moment so you were never certain about his opinions on the matter.

“Well you just have to wait and see, ma.”

Taking the bags in your hand, you walked over to the door and opened it with ease, expecting to see Bucky waiting for you on the other side only to be greeted by none. Your eyebrows were furrowed as you carefully stepped inside, assuming he had fallen asleep as he waited for you until you heard his quiet voice resonating through the living room. “Little llama, don’t you know? Mama llama loves you so”

You peeked at the source of the sound and what you saw made you just melt on the spot. Bucky had Hugo on his lap, your nephew playing with the thumb of his artificial arm as he listened to the story that he was barely paying attention to as he was already falling asleep.

Not wanting to interrupt the moment, you graced on over to the kitchen in silence and arranged everything as quiet as you can. The smile on your face growing bigger at the thought of how much of a good father Bucky could be; the sight of him with your nephew caused a thousand butterflies to dance around in your stomach freely.

“You’re back, doll?” Bucky’s quiet voice made you jump, head whipping to his direction where he stood with Hugo fast asleep in his arms.

You nod and walk towards him, offering to take him from his arms and Bucky disagreed, pulling away from your attempts. “Hugo’s with me, I’ll take him to bed and I’ll help you finish out here, alright?”

Chuckling softly, you agree and reach up to place a quick kiss on your nephew’s forehead, moving aside so Bucky can place him down inside your room.

You were folding up the plastic bags when you felt a pair of arms sneak up and circle your waist, capturing you in a back hug. Your back was flat against his chest, the warmth from his body making you relax in his arms. Turning around, you let your arms snake up around his neck, your hands playing with the ends of his hair, his physique visibly loosening up. “So your brother came here earlier and said you weren’t picking up your calls.”

“I forgot my phone, i know.” you told him, throwing your head back slightly to let out a soft groan of annoyance at yourself before looking back at him. You met his gaze and his eyes were filled with adoration and love with a spark of something you can’t seem to pinpoint. “What’s going through that head of yours, James?”

He hummed softly, pressing a quick kiss to your lips, “I was just thinking of how I want to have a family of my own with you.” he answered truthfully, not finding anything shameful in admitting his thoughts. “The afternoon I spent with Hugo made me realize I want that for us as well.” his words were soft and dripping with enthusiasm at the thought of being with you for the rest of your days.

This made your cheeks flush lightly, a happy smile resting on your lips as you were already in agreement of his words, “I’ve been thinking the exact same thing, Bucky. I can’t wait to have our own little minion running around the house.” you admitted, this time making Bucky smile even wider than yours, happy that you had the same thought.

“Also, not to brag but I think I’m his favourite now.” Bucky said out of nowhere, grabbing the small carton of chocolate milk from behind you and letting you go, opening the drink and chugging it down in one go.

You rolled your eyes at his words, playfully flipping him off as you sauntered into the pantry where you were arranging your stock of goods. “I highly doubt that, he loves me way more.”

“That’s what you think but Hugo made me read his favourite book to him so now I’m his favourite. He even said it himself.”

“Oh no he didn’t!”

---

TAGLIST: @lunalovecroft @anchoeritic @harrysweasleys @https-bvcky @luana @weasleytwins-41 @angelsgrxzer

for those whose usernames are in bold, it means i cannot tag you for some reason. join my taglist! it's linked in the masterlist <3

[mostlycompetentwriter]

Wow, he’s hot

“Pairing: Fem!Reader x Seo Changbin (SKZ)

Word Count: 8K

Genre: Neighbors to Lovers? Lol

Warnings: Aged up characters (Changbin is ten years older than the reader), explicit sexual content, language, drinking

Summary: You were a fresh college graduate, returning home for the summer before starting a bright, shiny new position in the city, but you certainly weren’t expecting to fall hard for your neighbor. 

A/N: I hope at least one person gets my reference/pun at the end....But seriously? Oh, what have I done...

Your roommate was hungover again, dressed to the nines in a purple bathrobe and pink fluffy slippers as she attempted to move huge boxes of random shit between her bedroom and the foyer of your shared apartment. 

It was priceless entertainment, at least in your opinion, especially after witnessing your roommate in rare form the previous night dancing from one frat boy to the next, draining entire bottles of alcohol like she needed the liquid encouragement. 

From what you had observed, she was determined to embarrass you at all costs, and under normal circumstances, you could’ve avoided her rather inappropriate behavior in exchange for your regular hook-up, Joshua. But he decided to remain mysteriously absent for the entire evening, which meant that you had been stuck watching over your roommate, hoping that she wouldn’t get you kicked out again....

“I know what you’re thinking, Y/N,” Laura huffed, pausing next to the counter-top where you sat. “What did you expect? It was my last night of freedom before going back home.”

“Yeah,” you snorted. “It was mine too, but I wasn’t plastered face-down in the shower last night.”

“Whatever,” Laura grimaced. “Did you sign off on the lease yet?”

“I did it earlier,” you replied. 

“Our bitchy landlord’s been complaining all week,” Laura said. “I’m tired of her late-night phone calls, plus my mom’s been really annoying about the move.”

“Oh?” you questioned. “When is she coming?”

“In like an hour,” Laura huffed. “Why do you think I’m busting my ass to pack everything?”

“I don’t know,” you said. “Maybe you needed a distraction from thinking about puking in the bushes behind the frat house last night.”

“Oh, shut up about that!” Laura hissed, slapping your arm as you kept laughing. “Isn’t you brother coming tomorrow?”

“Ugh, yeah,” you groaned. “He said he has to come super early because of work, but my ass doesn’t start functioning until at least 8:00.”

“Well, at least tell Chan ‘hi’ for me,” Laura said, giggling like a love-struck teenager because she had been infatuated with your older brother for years.

“If I remember to tell him,” you grumbled, stretching out your arms and deciding that it might be useful for you to start packing as well, especially since the most you would be able to accomplish tomorrow morning at the ass crack of dawn is following Chan around the apartment in a zombie-like state as the two of you loaded your belongings into his car.

“Don’t forget that I’m coming to visit next week,” Laura said, and you perked up a little at the idea of having your friend come around, especially since the two of you had just graduated together and those long days and nights of being glued together at the hip were coming to a bittersweet end.

“Sounds good,” you agreed, checking your phone one last time to see a weird gif from Chan (as you had come to expect from him) before joining your roommate in packing up the remainder of your former college life.

Chan had always been prompt when it came to his familial obligations, and the two of you spent two hours loading all of your stuff into his car before starting the long drive to your old childhood home. A place that you hadn’t ventured to since leaving four years ago to start undergraduate school.

“Looks the same,” you remarked, sunglasses perched low on your nose as you allowed the window to roll down to take in some fresh air.

“What did you expect?” Chan asked, humming away to whatever shitty metal song he had playing over the radio.

In a totally random and last-minute decision, you had decided that for the next three summer months while you were stuck in an in-between phase, you were returning home for a while before you were set to move into a new apartment in the city close to where you would be working full-time. It seemed logical to save money, and there was a small part of you that did miss your family and old friends. 

Of course, despite Chan’s dismissal of your earlier nonchalant comment about the unchanging surroundings of your hometown, you were startled when you realized that the old house next door, which used to be occupied by an elderly couple until they moved away during your senior year of high school, was missing it’s familiar ‘for sale’ sign in the front yard, and there was a black Mustang in the driveway.

“Home sweet home,” Chan sighed when he stopped in the carport attached to your former two-story staccato, opening the door with a grumble. 

You frowned, following him around to the back of his car. “Someone bought the house next door?” you asked, dragging your eyes away from the sleek, shiny sports car to look at your brother.

Chan grunted as he heaved your suitcase from the trunk. “Yeah, they moved in last month. I think the owner is a lawyer and he lives there with his daughter.”

“Huh,” you remarked. “That house has been vacant for years.”

Chan shrugged. “Yeah, well, the guy who lives there now is really nice. Mom and dad babysit for him a lot when he’s working.”

“Great,” I muttered. “They’ll rope me into helping.”

“S’ not so bad,” Chan said, growling in frustration when your suitcase fell over to the side with an unpleasant crash. “Can you help or what?”

You laughed at your brother’s outrage, reaching back to pull your hair into a messy bun. 

Meanwhile, you noticed the front door of your house opening from the corner of your eye, smiling when your mother shrieked and rushed down the sidewalk to meet you halfway in a long-winded embrace. “Y/N!! I’m so glad to see you.”

“You’re crushing me,” you heaved through constricted lungs, accepting your mother’s open arms even if it was a little over-eager.

“Oh! I’m sorry, dear,” she said, pulling back just enough to allow oxygen to circulate once again, but not enough to pull you away from her mushy kisses. “You look so healthy and beautiful!”

“Yeah, thanks mom,” you said, slowly beginning the untangling process of removing her arms from around you while Chan struggled in the background to carry your suitcase up the front steps. “I should help.”

“Of course!” your mom agreed, but a distant tug of curiosity had you turning back to look at the house next door once again.

“Hey? Do you know anything about the new neighbor?”

“You mean Changbin? He’s wonderful, darling. So polite, and his daughter is so funny.”

You wrinkled your nose, never having been a huge fan of kids. “Chan said you babysit for him sometimes.”

“It’s always nice to help someone out,” your mother tsked, and you could recognize her patronizing tone from anywhere. “Such a shame that he divorced his wife. Heard it was kinda nasty.”

“It’s not any of our business,” you reminded her.

“Oh, I didn’t say it was!” your mother sighed. “He doesn’t talk about it much.”

“Jeez, how much do you guys talk?”

Because from the sound of it, Changbin had to be as old as your mom to make this much of an impression. You grinned as you briefly imagined the two of them on the front porch drinking tea together and gossiping about the rest of the neighborhood.

“He’s far more friendly than Mrs. Jones was,” your mother remarked. “I think you’d like him, Y/N.”

“I don’t know about that...”

“Well, you’ll get the chance to meet him tonight,” your mother said, smile full and wide. “I’ve invited him over for dinner!”

Oh, great.

“Can’t wait,” you forced out between clenched teeth, rolling your eyes when your mom clapped her hands together before grabbing your hand to drag you inside, feeling only a distant shiver roll across your spine as you walked onto the porch as if someone was looking at you from afar....

Your mother was hardly the type to run out of conversation, and you eventually were forced to leave her downstairs to argue with Chan over some menial thing that he forgot to do for tonight’s big dinner while you trudged upstairs to find some peace.

Unsurprisingly, your childhood bedroom remained untouched, and you circled around the perimeter, studying old pictures of yourself playing sports and hanging out with friends. Fingers dusting over your collection of old trophies and high-school yearbooks that recalled long-ago days of feeling carefree - with the future wide-open in front of you for the taking.

But you were well off in the present, allowing yourself to indulge in the nostalgia of looking through old diaries and journals before your mother’s voice called you downstairs for dinner later that evening. “Coming!” you called back, pausing next to your mirror to check your reflection.

The smell of your mother’s cooking had your stomach rumbling from the hunger of only stopping once on the way home to eat cheap fast-food with Chan, and you forced yourself to walk like a normal person even though every instinct was screaming at you to find the source of that delicious odor.

You were nearly salivating at the idea of your mother’s homemade cooking, and your hand caught the rail of the bannister to turn the final corner, but the sounds of voices from below forced you to pause at the top of the stairs, eyes growing wide as you took in the sight of the unfamiliar man standing in your foyer, talking to your mother like they had known each other for years. “Oh, Y/N,” your mother said, and you shivered when the man turned to look at you. “Come meet our neighbor, Changbin. I think you’ll really like him.”

You held back a snort at the ironic comment because it only took you a few seconds to come to the conclusion that Changbin epitomized the phrase “just my type.”

He was on the shorter side, built like he had literally spent his entire life working out, arms bulging beneath his t-shirt and chest straining the material tight to his front. So much so that you could practically see his nipples through the fabric. 

His hair was jet-black, ruffled from the wind outside, and his eyes were equally as dark, lips contorted into a self-satisfied smirk that you found exceedingly hot.

“Hi,” you mustered without much thought, nearly tripping over your own two feet on the way down the stairs.

“This is my daughter, Y/N,” your mother said, inviting you closer so that you were standing directly in front of Changbin.

“Nice to meet you,” he said in a deep voice that was slightly rough around the edges.

“Y/N just graduate from college,” your mother gushed. “We’re so excited to have her back.”

“I’m home for the summer,” you explained, shivering at the dark look in Changbin’s gaze. “I’m starting an internship in the Fall.”

“Y/N will be working in publishing,” your mother explained, jumping in while you and Changbin continued to stare each other down - something intense and provocative.

“Really?” Changbin asked, eyes making a leisurely stroll of looking you up and in down in a way that had you feeling extremely self-conscious. 

“Oh! Give me one second to check something in the kitchen,” your mother said, excusing herself with a smile before leaving the two of you alone in the foyer.

You inwardly cursed your mother for leaving you both in an awkward silence. Say something!! You screamed to yourself.

“So,” you started, clearing your throat and forcing yourself to stop swaying back and forth. “Chan told me you practice law.”

“Yeah,” Changbin agreed, and you swooned at his crooked smile. “It doesn’t sound as interesting as your work.”

“I don’t know about that,” you countered politely, but Changbin was unrelenting.

“You looked surprised to see me earlier,” he remarked.

You swallowed hard. “Oh, well when Chan mentioned a neighbor with a kid, I just wasn’t expecting someone so....”

“Yes?” Changbin prodded, encouraging you to continue.

Someone so fucking hot, you thought to yourself, someone who was literally made inside my best fantasies, but those explicit thoughts belonged exclusively inside your head. “Young,” you eventually finished, and Changbin seemed disappointed for some reason.

“I’m 32,” he said, and your eyes widened perceptibly, realizing that he was ten years older than you.

“I would’ve never guessed,” you said. “I mean, not that it’s a bad thing-”

“It’s alright,” Changbin interrupted, and you were relieved to hear him chuckle. “I know what you mean.”

“I’m sorry,” you said. “I can be a little awkward.”

“No,” he shook his head, coming to stand a little closer. “I think it’s nice.”

Oh? What was that supposed to mean?

“I used to have a boyfriend who looked a lot like you,” you went on, freezing when you comprehended what you had just blathered without thinking.

But Changbin didn’t seem bothered at all. “I bet he wasn’t as old as me.”

“He was my age,” you said. “But I kinda like older men...”

Fuck. Did those words really just come out of your mouth?!

“Y/N,” Changbin said, and you trembled at the huskiness of his tone. “You should be more careful.” He leaned in then as if trying to keep whatever he was about to say a secret for just the two of you. “I can be a very dangerous man.”

“O-oh,” you stuttered, finding yourself two seconds away from literally melting at his feet when your mother suddenly re-entered the foyer with a dusting of flour across her chin. 

“Dinner’s ready!” she announced, and you were fleeing behind her without a second thought, escaping the intoxicating hold of Changbin’s presence before you did something you might regret.

For whatever reason, you found yourself sitting next to Changbin in the dining room for dinner that night. 

“I made chicken,” your mother said, gesturing to each dish sitting in a line down the center of the table as she explained tonight’s menu. But you were barely cognizant of what your mother was saying because the close proximity to Changbin was doing very strange things to your head.

“So, Y/N,” your father started when everyone had been served. “I hope your brother was helpful with the move.”

Chan rolled his eyes, but you grinned at your father’s words. “Yeah, I was a little out of it though because of the time.”

“Like I said,” Chan huffed. “I couldn’t get there any later.”

“Let the bickering commence,” your mother said. “Changbin, you wouldn’t believe the fights these two had when they were young.”

“I can only imagine,” Changbin said, and you were wondering how someone could be even more attractive by the sound of their voice alone.

“Do you still need us to babysit for you tomorrow night?” your mother asked. “We would be more than accommodating.”

“That would be great,” Changbin said. “I’ve got a late conference call.”

“It’s no problem,” your mother continued. “Your daughter is just the loveliest.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear that,” Changbin replied.

“Y/N,” your mother said, catching you with a mouthful of chicken. “Changbin’s daughter is such a peach.”

You quickly forced down the food in your mouth when you felt Changbin’s gaze rest on you. “Oh? How hold is she, Mr. Seo?”

“She’s six,” Changbin said, and he shifted in his chair, causing your knees to brush together in a move that you knew wasn’t intentional, even if it didn’t stop your legs from wrapping together. “And you don’t have to be so formal with me, Y/N. Only my clients call me Mr. Seo.”

“O-oh,” you exhaled, reacting to the brief contact under the table, hoping that nobody else was noticing your strange behavior.

“Maybe Y/N could help watch Lucy when you’re gone,” your mother suggested, always the first to rope you into these things.

“Sure,” you agreed, even though the idea of pulling babysitting duty was less than appealing, and you could hear Chan snickering from across the table. He knew perfectly well your attitude when it came to kids. 

“I think Lucy would like that,” Changbin agreed, and you started to nod along until you felt Changbin’s hand move to your thigh.

Just that single move had your entire form frozen in place. 

While your mother continued talking about whatever subject caught her attention, you were left wondering how you should react to the very obvious posturing of Changbin’s hand moving decidedly against your bare skin.

“I’ll probably head back into town tomorrow morning,” Chan said. “I wasn’t able to get much work done.”

You knew it was a playful jab at you, but at that moment you were incapable of coherent speech.

“How is work, Channie?” your mother asked, just as ignorant as the rest of them to the situation unfolding beneath her table. “Anything interesting?”

“Not really,” Chan replied, and you nearly choked on the food you were swallowing when you felt Changbin squeezing your thigh. 

“Try to chew it first, Y/N,” your father chuckled, and you forced a smile which you hoped wasn’t as strained as it felt.

“What about you, Changbin?” your mother politely queried. “Anything interesting happening lately?”

“Maybe,” he said with a tone that was far too knowing.

“Hmmm?” your mother smiled. “You aren’t seeing anyone, are you?”

You knew the question was invasive, but Changbin handled it in stride. “I think it depends.”

“Sounds scandalous,” your mother joked, and you couldn’t have possibly been imagining it, feeling his fingers reach so high under the opening of your shorts that his fingertips touched the outline of your panties. 

You reached down to cover his hand with your own, bringing awareness to the fact that you weren’t ignoring what was happening, and he had every opportunity to pull back.

But he didn’t. In fact, Changbin’s light, playful touches only continued, and you were left reeling for what the intention could possibly mean.

Early the next morning, you were supposed to be cleaning the pool as a favor to your mother, but how could you be blamed for sneaking peaks at your neighbor working out in his backyard? 

“Holy shit,” you cursed under your breath, failing to do a very good job of pretending to be occupied with your current task while ogling the man across the lawn who was in the middle of another round of push-ups, biceps flexing while the rest of his body practically glowed under the sun. 

You knew it wasn’t a crime to permit the occasional glance, but your hardcore staring could certainly be qualified as spying at this point (especially in the direction of a lawyer) - making it blatantly obvious that you were very appreciative of the male form at the peak of performance.

Was Changbin seriously 32? And a father?

The questions boggled your mind, and in your distracted state, you clearly forgot to keep a firm hold on the handle of the pool’s leaf skimmer, huffing in annoyance when it splashed beneath the water.

It was enough to attract Changbin’s attention, and you were sure that your face was just as red as the towel draped over the back of your mother’s patio furniture when he stood to his full height before walking in your direction.

“Were you watching me?” Changbin asked, sauntering over to you with black mesh shorts hanging tantalizingly low on his hips, shirt foregone in exchange for a delightful sheen of sweat coating the skin of his thick upper torso in dripping rivulets. 

“Uh...” you trailed off anxiously, realizing that Changbin wouldn’t be stupid enough to fall for your half-assed excuses, especially after what had happened between the two of you last night. 

“You’re not planning on lying to me, Y/N?” he asked, raising one eyebrow in question.

“N-no, Mr. Seo,” you said, shaking your head quickly, barely keeping a firm grasp of your bearings as he abruptly leaned in closer, musk hanging heavy in the air between the two of you. 

“I told you not to call me that,” he said, lips lingering far too close to your ear for a simple neighborly exchange, and you could feel the body heat emanating from him in waves, holding you completely hostage as you briefly entertained the idea of falling to your knees right then and there. 

“What should I call you?” you asked instead, fisting your shirt between your hands because you were desperate for something to ground you in that moment. 

You could practically feel his smirk, holding in a gasp when his hand settled at the low dip in your spine, fitting into the space there as he pulled you tight against his front. “You can always call me daddy instead.”

Your heart skipped several beats at the scandalous words. Either that or you had just entered cardiac arrest.

But before you could muster a response, you found yourself leaping out of Changbin’s hold when the backdoor opened, and your mother was screaming out your name while waving like a maniac. “Oh!” she said when she realized that you weren’t alone. “I didn’t mean to interrupt!”

“We were just talking,” you quickly inserted, glancing at Changbin from the corner of your eye to see him smirking. 

For a while, the very strange flirtation between you and Changbin simmered down, and you tried your best to avoid him when you could, even if he made that very hard to do since he insisted on doing his morning workouts outside in direct line of your bedroom.

It was during the following week that you brought the divine glory of Changbin to your friend, Laura’s, attention, ushering her into your house when she parked on the side of street. “What the hell, Y/N?” she complained when you started practically dragging her up the stairs. “I’ve been driving for hours.”

“Oh, hush,” you said. “You’ll thank me later.”

“Thank you for what, exactly?” Laura questioned, but your response was to simply push her toward the window, standing side by side as you looked through the blinds.

“My new neighbor.”

“Holy fuck!” Laura gasped when she finally joined you, and you could only nod your agreement as the two of you continued to watch Changbin through two narrow breaks in your blinds, wondering how the image of your sexy neighbor simply mowing his grass could make you so wet. “That man is huge!”

“I think he does it on purpose,” you remarked, feeling your heart palpitate inside your chest when Changbin took a moment to pause his chore, reaching down to remove his shirt and tuck it into the waistband of his shorts.

Laura’s gasp was almost outlandishly laughable. “He’s ripped! Like, Sports Illustrated model worthy.”

“I would buy every last copy of that edition.”

“I’d even go a step further and tape the pictures to my wall.”

You both stopped to look at one another, nodding in your collective agreement. “Not here, though, my mom would freak.”

“Yeah, but how can your mom expect you to just ignore...that!” Laura exclaimed, gesturing wildly to Changbin. 

“She thinks he’s a fucking Saint, but I swear to god, Laura, he’s provoking me on purpose! The other night at dinner? He came over and put. his. hand. on. my. leg,” you said, emphasizing the last line with what probably looked like a comical widening of your eyes. “And he works out every morning in front of my bedroom? What the hell am I supposed to think?”

“No think,” Laura sighed dreamily. “Just enjoy the view.”

“Do you think I’m not?” you snorted. “I’m serious about him doing those things!”

“So what?” Laura grumbled. “Why are you actually worried that your fucking super model neighbor wants to make a few moves on you? I would be honored.”

“I’m not worried,” you huffed. “It just feels like he wants something from me.”

“Well, if it’s a good fuck, then send him all the signals you can, girl.”

“Really?” you muttered. “You know I suck with flirting. That’s why I only hooked up with Joshua at those stupid frat parties. He didn’t care that I was an awkward mess.”

“Well, neither will your neighbor,” Laura said. “Especially if he’s as interested as you say.”

You pursed your lips, considering her comment, but the sudden and unexpected sound of your door opening sent both you and Laura jumping nearly ten feet into the air as you hurried away from the blinds as fast as humanely possible to take up some form of normalcy.

No, mom, of course we weren’t staring at Mr. Seo.

“Girls,” your mother inquired as she walked inside, and you prayed that your mother hadn’t caught the two of you taking sly peaks at Changbin outside, but she seemed completely ignorant. “I have a question for you.”

“Hmmm?” you inquired, innocently enough, trying to act like the position that you had forced yourself into on the bed was totally not uncomfortable.

“Changbin needs someone to watch Lucy tomorrow night, but your father and I already made plans,” she said. “But I told him you would be more than happy to come over and help him out.”

You winced when Laura elbowed you in the side, giving you one of those looks that you knew quite well from countless nights of barhopping as sophomores. “Yeah, I don’t mind.”

“I’m sure you don’t,” Laura snickered, but you payed her no attention as you hurried to close the door behind your mother’s retreating form, breathing a sigh of relief to hear her walk back down the stairs.

In all of your years of existence, never had you questioned the appropriateness of an outfit to wear to someone’s place to babysit.

“Fuck it,” you eventually decided, settling on regular, well-worn jeans and a college t-shirt.

After all, it wasn’t like Changbin was staying for very long. He claimed he had something to do at the office, and you would be all alone inside his house with only his kid for companionship.

Still, after your conversation with Laura from the previous afternoon, you couldn’t help but feel more mindful about how he might look at you, and you forced yourself to wear your most professional smile when you rang the doorbell to his house, counting slowly from one until he opened the door.

“Hi, Y/N,” Changbin said, and you tried not to blatantly check him out; although, you couldn’t help but linger on the tight fit of his shirt across his pecs.

“Hello,” you nearly whispered, cursing your hormones as you followed Changbin inside.

“I actually have something to tell you,” Changbin said, leading you into the living room so that you could sit down while entered the adjoining kitchen.

“Oh?” you queried, as politely as you could, waiting for him to return.

It didn’t take him long, and you found yourself sitting up a little straighter from where you had made yourself comfortable on the couch. “So, I actually found someone else to watch Lucy,” Changbin explained, coming around to land next to you on the couch with two glasses of wine. 

“You did?” you asked, surprised and taken-aback. 

Why were you here then?

As if he could read your thoughts, Changbin smirked. “Thirsty?”

“Sure,” you agreed, taking one of the glasses and bringing the rim up to your lips. “I’m sorry, I just thought you wanted me to watch her.”

“I did,” Changbin said, and he seemed contemplative as he sipped his own drink. “But then I kinda wanted you for something else.”

“Something else?” you repeated because your mind was spinning those simple words in a thousand different directions, and you were only able to settle on one likely outcome when Changbin’s hand dropped to your thigh, reminiscent of your first dinner together from several evenings ago. 

He suddenly moved in closer to you, allowing you to smell the subtle cologne that he was wearing. “You’ve been watching me,” he said, and you shivered, feeling both hot and cold at the same time as you looked at him.

“S-sir?”

“Don’t play coy,” Changbin continued, and you found yourself observing the way his throat bobbed as he drank. “I don’t mind the attention.”

“You don’t?” you replied, a rather useless question considering the circumstances, and Changbin took your glass and sat both alcoholic selections onto the side table.

“Why wouldn’t I like it?” he asked, tracing little nonsensical patterns on the covered part of your thigh. “You’re a very beautiful girl.”

What. The. Hell?!!

“Mr. Seo, I don’t think-”

“Y/N,” Changbin interrupted, and you were so frazzled and disjointed by the sharp grip he took on your chin, forcing eye-contact that was so intimate, you could feel yourself grow a little bit wetter. “I told you not to call me that.”

It was the only precursor you got before Changbin was delving in, gripping your chin firmly as he connected your lips in a deep, sensuous exchange that had you reeling from the sudden 180 degree turn that the night had taken. 

In one word: everything was rough. Teeth meeting teeth, and tongues rolling in a messy glide against one another. Wet and warm. Silky and smooth. It was everything you needed in a kiss to get your gears turning, feeling your pussy positively throbbing in response.

“That’s right,” Changbin eventually said when he pulled the two of you apart - very much still in control. “We shouldn’t ignore this tension between us.”

“No,” you eagerly agreed, diving in once more for another earth-shattering kiss that rocked you to your very bones, taking the initiative to crawl into his lap, grinding yourself shamelessly against the tight bulge in his jeans while your fingers dug their way into his thick, dark hair. 

“Eager,” Changbin whispered between feverish kisses, keeping your mouths locked together at all costs, even if that meant growing a little bit light-headed from losing too much oxygen.

But you couldn’t get enough of him, not after all this teasing and tension. 

You didn’t care anymore, consequences be damned, and there wasn’t a single part of you opposing his intentional touches, giving him enough space to unbutton your jeans before sliding one hand beneath the waistband of your panties. In response, you moaned into his mouth, bracing your hands against his shoulders as he found the delicate folds of your pussy.

“Do you want me to touch you here?” Changbin asked, and you were feverishly nodding, sweat forming at the top of your forehead, trying your best to hold back your loudest moans when he slid right in with little resistance, moving his fingers around the inside of your cunt, stretching and filling you in a way that you imagined was nothing compared to what the thick cock beneath you could do.

But you would take anything from him, savoring the glide of his fingers since you were practically drenching him in sticky arousal, jerking forward every so often when his thumb pressed down a little too hard against your clit.

All the while, you could feel yourself start to break apart from the heated contact between the two of you, aching and wanting for the release that the look in his eyes told you he had every intention of providing.

And you were enjoying every bit of the journey to get there, bathing in his attention, groaning when his fingers curled up just right to tease your g-spot, and grinding down against the erection confined tightly in his jeans. 

Everything was suddenly so much louder, the sounds of his palm smacking against your cunt, fingers gliding through wetness, and the joined harmony of your combined moans and grunts. 

It was a rapid uphill ascent into the clouds, and you could feel him start to move even faster, pulling against the fabric of your jeans, and there was hardly any time for your mind to truly comprehend what was happening. Lost in a sinful haze of lust and divine rapture, wanting nothing more than to just lose yourself in Changbin.

Except he wasn’t letting you simply drown in the pleasure he was giving you, tugging at your hair to bring you back to the present, to the final string keeping your orgasm just out of reach. “You don’t think I haven’t noticed,” Changbin growled into your ear, keeping one hand tight around your waist to stop your squirming as he continued plunging his thick fingers between the tight walls of your pussy. “I see you looking at me because I want you to look.”

You moaned at the explicit expression of his desires, closing your eyes and returning your head against his shoulder, hips titillating according to the way he moved his fingers inside of you. 

“Cum for me,” he said, and you were more than willing to let go of everything, including the moans you had been trying to hold back, filling the house with the loud raucous of your screams as your orgasm snapped and unleashed a molten hot thrill along your spine.

You were gasping for breath, returning from the highest peak of satisfaction, but Changbin hardly gave you anytime to recover before he was removing his hand from your jeans and forcing you into the floor.

“My turn,” he grunted, and the sound of his belt unbuckling triggered some semblance of rationale, and you were practically salivating over Changbin’s cock, eyeing the red bulbous mushroom head and wondering how deep you could take him. “Well?” Changbin prodded, grabbing the base of his thick erection to brush it across the pout of your lips. “Open wide.”

You whimpered, but obeyed, allowing your tongue to stick out just enough to taste the drop of precum leaking from the tip. It was bitter and unappealing, but since it was from Changbin, you couldn’t resist trying more of him, going further and further down until you felt him at the back of your throat.

Your jaw was already aching from the extension, and a distant thought had you thinking, damn, you were gonna be sore in the morning. But it was completely worth it to hear him moan from above you, fingers tightening in your hair as you allowed him to set the pace, rolling you up and down his cock, tongue sweeping the sides and tip and digging into the little slit where you discovered he was the most sensitive. 

At the same time, you were all but humping his leg, desperate to get off again as he used your mouth for his own personal cocksleeve, hitting the back of your throat repeatedly, sending you gagging around his impossible length.

“You take cock like you were made for it,” he remarked, eyes glossing over in a way that had you feeling rather proud of your skills. 

It only lasted for a moment, and he abruptly held himself all the way down for one, two, three seconds until you were whining for him to let you free just long enough to take in another deep breath. 

“Finish me off,” he groaned, and you were working overtime to bring him to the edge, bobbing your head up and down the full expanse of his length, all gorgeous and velvety smooth skin. And you braced your hands against his knees, an anchor to reality, when he finally released down your throat, heavy and warm, causing you to nearly choke as you struggled to swallow every last drop.

“Good girl,” he whispered, petting your head softly as you whined and continued to rub yourself against him, jumping off the brink of orgasmic bliss right after him, allowing your head to fall down between his spread legs.

It was a quiet for a while as you both fought to catch your breath, but then he was moving again, rising from his position on the couch. 

You sat back on your heels at the jostling, whimpering when he stood over you with a menacing sneer, grabbing your face between his hands, forcing your gazes to meet somewhere in the middle even though you still couldn’t completely concentrate. But you were cognizant to at least understand his next words: “Lucy won’t be here tomorrow night, either.”

“Changbin,” you gasped, understanding the implications of his request and shivering at the effect they could still have on your worn-out body. 

“I’ll leave the door unlocked,” he whispered into your ear, keeping eye-contact as he brought his fingers still coated with your arousal into his mouth, sucking while you grew faint at the sight. Then, he pulled them free and knelt down to sear your lips together so that you could taste the riveting combination of your releases on his wicked tongue. 

You returned home that night in a daze, immediately heading for your room after assuring your mother that everything was totally fine with the babysitting, even if you probably appeared a little out of sorts. 

In the meantime, you landed on top of your bed with a sigh, opening your phone contacts to pull up Laura’s name, placing the call without any mind to the late hour.

She answered on the third ring with a curt grunt. “This better be good, Y/N.”

“Oh?” you replied with a nonchalant tone. “I thought you might be interested in hearing about my latest dick appointment.”

There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end. “You didn’t.”

“I did!”

“With your neighbor?”

You laughed at Laura’s shrill tone, rolling over onto your stomach with your feet dancing in the air behind you. “I totally sucked him off.” 

“Shit! How big is his cock?” Laura whispered over the phone as if anybody could possibly overhear your conversation. 

“Let’s just say he’s well-endowed.”

“You absolute slut!” Laura exclaimed. “Did he at least return the favor?”

“Oh, he’s a gentleman,” you explained. “He took care of me first.”

“Details!”

“He just fingered me,” you said, even as your mind sprinted with images and sensations; Changbin’s sultry gaze, defined muscles, and the burning desire he had planted deep in your core. 

“That’s hot though,” Laura said. “I can’t believe you actually did anything with him.”

“What? I told you he was sending me signals!”

“Yeah, but I was only halfway assuming that those signals might lead to his fingers in you!”

You couldn’t help yourself, laughing at Laura’s incredulous tone, and spending the next several minutes doing your absolute best to provide a heavily detailed play-by-play of your evening tryst with Changbin. 

“Lucky bitch,” Laura scoffed at the end of your long-winded tale. “I’d kill for someone to fuck me.”

“Well, we haven’t gotten there yet...”

“Yet? Are you planning to go back to him?”

“Obviously,” you said. “There’s unfinished business that I need to take care of.”

“You think he wants to fuck you?”

“I think he wants to do a lot to me,” you purred, smirking at the sounds of Laura’s outlandish squeals from the other end.

Still, you didn’t think those explicit fantasies would come to fruition so soon. But the next night when you returned to Changbin’s house under the guise of babysitting his kid, there were no formalities between the two of you because you both wanted each other in a way that should be considered improper. 

Fortunately, you were tired of caring about other people’s opinions, and it only took Changbin a moment to pull you into his house before his lips were crushing against yours, holding you around the waist as he started working at your clothes.

If whiplash was a thing in moments like these, then you had it bad, trying to follow the taste of him as he backed you both into the bedroom, closing the door and enveloping you both in the gentle glow from the lamp.

“Get on the bed,” Changbin growled when he finally pulled away, reaching down for the hem of his t-shirt. You swallowed hard at the sight of his broad, toned upper form, stumbling backward along the floor, hopping on one leg to finish removing your jeans for him, leaving you completely naked as you lowered yourself onto the mattress. “Good girl,” Changbin cooed, and you shivered at the huskiness of his voice, rubbing your thighs together in anticipation as he blatantly traced the outline of his cock through his jeans.

“Changbin, please,” you panted, already so worked up from just kissing and feeling his hands all over your body that you were desperate for something more.

“What do you want, gorgeous?” he asked, walking slowly around to the front of the bed as you watched him with eager eyes.

“Want you to fuck me,” you said, heart thundering against your chest when he started working apart his belt, pulling down his jeans and boxers and allowing his thick cock to slap up against his abdomen, already so hard for you even though you had just started.

“Hands and knees,” Changbin ordered, and you were surprised by your quick compliance, supporting yourself on shaky limbs as you felt him climb on the bed behind you, tensing when the head of his cock grazed your wet opening. “Look at you,” Changbin rumbled, teasing you even more by running his fingers down your spine, allowing his other hand to reach around to grope your breast.

“Hurry,” you practically begged him, and it was like the metaphorical band had finally snapped, and you moaned when Changbin took a firm hold of your hips, manhandling you back into position. 

“Good girls say please,” he snarled, and your entire form light up at the abrupt command.

“P-please,” you stuttered, and there was an unholy line of curses that left your lips when he directed his cock inside, penetrating you so slowly that you could feel every inch of him until he was snug against your ass.

“Since you asked nicely,” Changbin chuckled, and you had never been so turned on before in your entire life, heart racing and blood pumping, bracing yourself against the mattress when he started thrusting, gentle at first, but then faster and faster as you egged him on, wanting him to go so hard that he split you in half around his cock. 

“Oh, fuck,” you gasped, struggling to maintain any sort of grip on the headboard. 

“You’ve been holding out on me,” Changbin purred into your ear, sounding perfectly put-together despite the fact that he was literally drilling his cock into you. “All those guys you’ve fucked before, I would think your pussy wouldn’t be this tight.”

“You’re just too big,” you managed, crying out when he grazed a sensitive spot. 

“Oh? Is that why this little pussy is leaking so much?” Changbin asked, and you had no response for him, clearly fucked out of all rational thought as his hips slapped against yours in a bruising meeting of skin-on-skin. 

It was undeniable: you had never felt this full before...like Changbin’s cock was somehow reaching all the way to your guts, and you reached down to place a hand over your stomach, imagining feeling the bulge of his cock against the distended skin.

“How does daddy feel?” Changbin whispered into your ear, and if it was possible for him to literally destroy you, then it would be from that heavily suggestive question.

“So good,” you sniffled, tears falling inhibited, leaving your face just as wet as the place where he was crushing himself into you, repeating the same motion of leaving just the tip before re-entering you with added urgency, cock forcing its way between the slick walls of your cunt. 

It was a beautiful melodic song after that (or, perhaps, hard metal would be a much better genre), the rhythm of his hips rolling against your own, hard and then softer, bruising and fleeting, stuffing your pussy on every upstroke, holding you in place by his pure strength. 

You could feel that strength everywhere, the force of his cock squelching between your pulsating walls, the way you moved up and down the bed by his control, and, when you reached back with one hand to feel his arm, the flex of his biceps as his arms worked to move you however he pleased.

“What will your mother say, Y/N?” Changbin asked. “When she finds out that her daughter fucked the man next door?”

Your mother would absolutely lose her shit if she found out that you were willingly spreading your legs for a divorced 32-year old man who had a daughter you were meant to be babysitting. She would be even more taken aback to discover that you loved and craved every second of Changbin’s cock tearing you to pieces, stretching you so good that you imagined that you would still be gaping in the morning, desperate to have him fill you again. 

“Her little girl screaming like a slut for me,” Changbin hissed. “Say my name, Y/N.”

“C-Changbin,” you whimpered, feeling him roll to a slower pace, merely grinding his hips in circles as if teasing you for the answer.

You flinched and nearly cried when he smacked the fleshy part of your ass, trying to look back over your shoulder to see what you had done wrong. “Try again,” he said, giving you a meaningful look that your poor, fucked-out brain still managed to decipher; although, you were burning in your own skin at the thought of saying it out loud....

“Daddy!” you moaned, and Changbin suddenly reached down to catch a fistful of your hair, pulling your head back and forcing your back into an even deeper arch. 

“That’s right,” he sneered. “And Daddy’s about to ruin this pussy, fuck it so full of my cum that you’ll still be feeling it when you go back home tonight to your parents and lie about what you’ve done.”

Your next moan was the loudest of the night, overwhelmed by the nasty things he was saying to you, feeling your orgasm gaining speed and traction the longer he kept fucking you, cock moving at a neck-break pace, and fingers wet and hurried over your clit.

The combined friction of his cock and fingers had you reeling, struggling to keep yourself up as he pummeled you into the mattress. Taking great liberties in the screams he was forcing out of you, realizing that if he angled his hips with one of your legs stretched higher around his hip, then he could somehow reach even deeper, kissing your cervix and threatening to steal the breath from your lungs. 

More and More. Faster and Faster. Until the breaking point was right under your nose...

The next thing you remember is a release that was so intense, you managed to black-out when it was all over, pussy fluttering around the distinct waves of pleasure, barely coherent as Changbin continued chasing his own release until he fulfilled his obscene promise to you. 

Three Weeks Later

You had gotten awfully good at keeping Changbin a secret - a dirty and scandalous whisper at that. 

For a while, your mother questioned your insistence on going over to your neighbor’s house to babysit, especially considering your history of being less than willing to interact with children.

“She’s not like most kids,” you lied, waiting for your mother to relent before grabbing whatever bag you needed consisting of your overnight clothes, trying to appear as nonchalant as possible when you walked over to Changbin’s house.

Your mother watched you, at first, standing on the porch as if ensuring that you made it the dozen or so feet separating your yard from that of your neighbor’s. Eventually, she gave up on trying to catch you doing something you weren’t supposed to, but you still kept up appearances, ringing the doorbell and taking a few steps to the side to leave enough room for the screen to rotate on its hinges, offering you the irresistible view of Changbin standing there in all his glory. 

“You’re early,” he remarked; although he seemed to take great pleasure in seeing you as early as possible.

“Is that okay?” you asked with a knowing look, and Changbin chuckled while giving you his most arrogant smirk. 

In return, you smiled back at Changbin, watching him open the door just a little bit wider in invitation.

It was all you needed before surrendering yourself to whatever delicious and mind-blowing ecstasy awaited on you the other side.  

Summer of 69 indeed.