unheroic

[unheroic]

my mother is sitting at the kitchen table, peeling the thin dry skins from the cashews. they crunch in her fingers and flake all over the table. i imagine they're as salty and as dry as pistachio shells and can feel the roughness on my teeth and the powder on my fingertips.

she's chewing the cashews carefully and thoughtfully. i can feel a reinforced layer growing under and i'm holding on too hard to my own, dry, flaky skin. a poor excuse for protection.

nothing longer than a "mhm" and "oh" escape my lips when she talks and i try to distract my hands with my psych lit review or the pink keychain she got me today. nothing works and there's still this weight in my stomach, like i've been fed too much.

even so, i snack on chestnuts, shelled and ready to eat, they're soft and sweet and melt in my mouth without the dry salt on my fingertips and the crunch that tires out my jaw. my hands are clean. the table is clean. there are no cashew flakes before me.

but she smiles and talks about childhood and the proudness oozes from the wrinkles around her eyes. i'm forcing up the bitterness but i only taste sugar the more she talks about her childhood. the more she talks, it's like the knot that is my understanding of life just gets pulled more taut. another loop is added, tugged, and there are no cute bunny ears or pretty bows though i try and i search. all the rules are broken, there are more flakes scattered on the table.

h.t.

[unheroic]

the wind sounds like the ocean.

[unheroic]

there are the protectors and the protected, the one whose held, the one doing the holding. the one whose helped, the one doing the helping.

this is all going to be some roundabout way of me saying i wanted to be protected, blaming the two people I blame all my problems on: myself and my father. I hope that's the only thing we have in common.

i wish i stood behind someone not staring at their shrinking form but seeing it there, staying put, staying put for me, staying put between me and the pain.

too much pride to flinch but still afraid, the only things that have ever stood to protect me were my own eyes. closed so as to not have to be there, not until it strikes me in the face and there's no way to strike back unless i look it dead in the eye. one of us isn't getting out of here alive, and it won't be me.

even though that were the case, i ended up killing myself anyway. the pain had snuck in between my eyelids and into my tear ducts, never coming back out until it feels like i've healed. it was already in me. it's been in me for eighteen years.

she tells me not to yell back at him when he starts it. but ma, who's going to fight for us if not me? sis stopped caring a long time ago, and i have a hard time believing you'll make it out of here alive.

i see the happiness of your old pictures with him, i see it and i wish i could be happy looking at them too. and yet it hurts knowing that those people don't exist anymore. i used to blame myself for that, i know it's wrong. i don't smile like the girl in the pictures used to either. not with him. not like that.

i want to be weak but I can't. i'm strong for all the wrong reasons, cold to all the wrong people. i want to fall apart instead of constantly picking up these damned pieces. i'm tired of seeing hope in every corner of this house, seeing home in how the sunlight scatters along the wall, how the christmas lights reflect the window.

-ht

[unheroic]

In spite of everything, I still believe people are really good at heart.

— Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

[unheroic]

denial always hurts when its not mine

and even if it is, i’ll never reap the benefits for it, always thinking about what things could’ve been 

love doesn’t exist for me, only the sex and kisses and burning hot bedsheets and the skin against mine

i would only be desired if i was like this, but i am not, what is to be done of it? should i lie for the both of us? 

look at me and tell me i’m not good enough, you cowards

you stupid fucking cowards 

-h.t. 

[unheroic]

today i woke up and heaved my head up as i do every morning 

iced my puffy eyes 

put on a sweater and 

shivered on the sofa. 

today the sky was grey and the sun was no where to be seen, somehow the garden was more vibrant without it 

the moment i thought of you again i found the sun in my eye sockets instead and the garage was empty and howling with whatever invisible entity was trapped inside. 

my skin must have tasted of bitterness, like leather and nicotine. you asked for black coffee every morning, it could’ve been piping hot and you’d still let me down your throat. did you enjoy it for what it was or for it’s daily offering of clarity? did you enjoy the bitter heat or the way everything else tasted sweet after a sip, even the air? 

today i promised myself i wouldn’t nap anymore because i thought one of us had liked me, but i hate black coffee and you couldn’t feel anything else until you had me. 

the moment i fell into slumber again i forgot the dream before having it. 

- you could care less for my taste. | H.T. 072421

[unheroic]

bring back the habits that made you happy as a child. there’s no reason you should ever have to give up harmless things that bring you joy. you don’t have to age out of having fun. finger paint. write mediocre fanfiction and questionable poetry. put chocolate chips in your waffles. sing in the bath, and while working in the yard, and while washing your hands. hammer tunelessly on a piano. spin in circles until you fall down. climb a tree. just because you’re now in charge of your life doesn’t mean you’re expected to give up on the things that make life feel worth living

[unheroic]

let it go everywhere. wherever you choose. wherever it goes won’t be understood now. maybe never. perfect beginnings aren’t worth stressing over. as is spotless, tidy, and neat progress.

progress is sweating in your backyard covered in dirt and mud crying because you finally got one of the crops you planted to grow after months of work and research, asking your neighbors for advice after some of their delicious oranges fell into your garden. or after your coworkers brought you lemons because they grew too many. it was a small, green tomato, but a tomato nonetheless.

progress is sitting in your bedroom, taping your paper on the closet door cause it’s the only place you can paint without hurting your neck. it’s when you finally get the color you wanted, mixing on the back of your hand and cursing yourself for not using more paint but being so, so, so happy it’s on your hand, out of all the billions and trillions of colors out there.

progress is suddenly playing the music fast and recklessly, smiling at how weird it sounds and finding another beautiful tune out of it. turning into a child again, trying to continue the song, pressing and singing it to yourself offkey, trying to match the notes.

progress is reaching your goal, only to find that its not what you wanted. it’s letting yourself pivot and keep looking.

it’s getting out of bed earlier and smiling after weeks of sleeping in and crying yourself to sleep, or being on your phone until 2am because you can’t stand the way your head and heart yell at you and yell at each other.

and sometimes your next plant doesn’t grow better, or at all. sometimes you keep missing the color you want. sometimes you never get the song you wanted to play, or you never let yourself pivot and keep sitting still in a place you hate for whatever reason. sometimes you still wake late the next day, or cry yourself to sleep again, or you’re on the phone yelling at yourself but nothing will listen.

progress isn’t perfect, neither are you. it’s not some upwards trajectory that’s flawless. you’ll win and you’ll fail. it’s messy like that. but it doesn’t mean it’s any less worth it.

[unheroic]

poetry is so weird. sometimes i read a poem and i’m like eh, and sometimes i read that same poem and start seeing shrimp colors

[unheroic]

I find that there is always a certain need that comes with writing. some of us are out for blood, to feel fire in our chests, to breathe cinder and ashes, letting off a smoke that fills your head and lungs and heart and soul with an asphyxiating weight.

some of us haven’t the single creative bone in our body, or we haven’t the patience or ability (yet), to create we what truly desire to put into this world. there are things we so badly wish to write about, to paint, or sing. sometimes the words, the pictures, or the notes aren’t enough to satisfy the dreamers in us. we wish to see flying castles, to be royalty, to live among animals and to be able to use magic and to be noticed as a god upon entrance. we wish we weren’t fairies stuck in nine to fives, or warriors left wondering why our numbers aren’t good enough, or highnesses who constantly let the crown fall and the scepter hit the floor, hesitating to pick it up because they feel they aren’t worthy. we write because we wish to see ourselves in a world where we don’t question who are and why. these worlds belong to us. in all it’s good and bad, it belongs to us, as this god-awful piece belongs to me.

and what better could a failure be if not mine?

[unheroic]

“From childhood’s hour I have not been

As other were—I have not seen

As other saw—I could not bring

My passions from a common spring—

From the same source I have not taken

My sorrow—I could not awaken

My heart to joy at the same tone—

And all I lov’d—I lov’d alone—

Then—in my childhood—in the dawn

Of a most stormy life—was drawn

From er’ry depth of good and ill

The mystery which binds me still—

From the torrent, or the fountain—

From the sun that ‘round me roll’d

In it’s autumn tint of gold—

From the lightning in the sky

As it pass’d by me flying by—

From the thunder, and the storm—

And the cloud that took the form

(When the rest of heaven was blue)

Of a demon in my view—“

—“Alone” by Edgar Allen Poe

[unheroic]

it is hard to be

unlovable.

Innate malice is hard to come by.

so you

are no exception

what will be seen by those on the outside are not in your control

there are several inevitablities that come with walking upon this earth and being perceived

and perhaps that is the pain of life

a lack of control

— H.T.

[032321]

[unheroic]

“Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how straight the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll.

I am the master of my fate;

I am the captain of my soul.

— ‘Invictus’ by William Ernest Henley

[unheroic]

“We had goldfish and they circled around and around

in the bowl on the table

near the heavy drapes

covering the picture window and

my mother, always smiling, wanting us all

to be happy, told me, “be happy Henry!”

and she was right; it’s better to be happy if you can

but my father continued to beat her and me several times a week

while raging inside his 6-foot-two frame because he

couldn’t understand what was attacking him from within.

my mother, poor fish

wanting to be happy, beaten two or three times a

week, telling me to be happy, “Henry, smile!

why don’t you ever smile?”

and then she would smile, to show me how, and it was the saddest smile I ever saw

one day the goldfish died, all five of them

the floated on the water, on their sides, their eyes still open,

and when my father got home he threw them to the cat

there on the kitchen floor and we watched as my mother

smiled.”

— Charles Bukowski, A Smile to Remember

[unheroic]

“My dear,

Find what you love and let it kill you.

Let it drain you of your all. Let it cling onto your back and weigh you down into eventual nothingness. Let it kill you and let it devour your remains.

For all things will kill you, both slowly and fastly, but it’s much better to be killed by a lover.”

— Charles Bukowski, Falsely Yours

[unheroic]

I fear that as the sun stays for long in the day

That I learn to hate it

I fear I’ll hate his heat

His light

His beauty

I’ll fear that I learn to hate his path across the sky

All the things I once loved

I’m scared of looking at it

Loathing

Feeling trapped and too kind to let go

Too kind to say

I don’t love you anymore

I’m scared

Less of being scorched and more of

Scorching

I don’t live to hurt. I don’t

I don’t live to cause anyone pain, i don’t want to hurt anyone I

I DONT WANT TO HURT ANYONE.

it must hurt to love me

To have to love all of me

To love this child

In its oozing pride

Heightened ego

Red hot eyes and

Reinforced knuckles and

Torn up voices and

Tear streaked cheeks

And nights alone

Alone only to realize that I’m

I’m the problem

I push everyone away

— H.T.

[031721]

[unheroic]

you bark so loudly at me some days.

when my eyes are slits and I am still,

partly hoping I wasn’t breathing, but you lie with me

waiting to strike again

waiting until puffs of glaucoma white smear along my walls

Until the sun is scorching my face and back

that’s when you run wild

You tug hard and far

and for too long

I grow tired of handling the leash

So much so that I consider letting go

letting myself think

Letting it hurt

Instead of training it

Training it to let me rest

And to let others be free of its bared teeth and bitter snarls

you’re jealous

and I am too, because you’re a part of

me

you’re a part of me

— H.T.

[031621]