xo-to-infinity-and-beyond

[xo-to-infinity-and-beyond]

1•29•2020 xo for good

Tea: i could keep writing stupid ass poems explaining that I’m sad and back to my old bullshit only with a smokescreen to cover it up; or i could ramble about the staggering statistics of mental illness in creative individuals—modern artists globally, or my pipedream of living in Germany someday, the fact my hips did the same thing Nicole’s did, how scared i am to maybe really love him. I don’t want to use this fucking account to keep tiptoeing around talking to you again. If this was another heartfelt goodbye then let this die here.

[xo-to-infinity-and-beyond]

An encyclopedia of a burnout

D is for Dug-Out:

It was October when you dug your own grave, sealed shut with the locked bedroom window you climbed out of. Pronounced dead for 10 seconds, you announced with pride of all things, as your mother cursed my name for letting it happen. I wasn’t there. But I held your hand when you were released, I picked you up, shivering, when she threw you out into the harsh December winds. I watched when you went crawling back home to mother dearest, comforting you through every fight. Where were you when I was hurting? Screwing the guy I had liked? But I was still there when he left and you felt the earth split back open, attempting to swallow you whole. I was still there when you spit in your mother’s face-begging me to open my door to you. I did. Over and over again I bailed you out of whatever travesty had graced itself by your presence. And for a second, I believed you’d dig me out of my own hell too. -thank you Madison

H is for Hypocrite:

A toast to the one who pulled me out, for I too have been buried alive, thank you.

L is for Lexus:

It was that summer, We found refuge in that beat up white car. Her trunk was our dinner table, dripping ice cream as we sat under the stars. I saw love in the coffee stained front seat; beauty in her ornate gold trim-he saw freedom in her cracked mirror. And so we go.

A sunflower maze looming overtop: Armed with, bustling, black bees standing guard. Damp palms warped the thin, paper map,as we navigated a blur of yellow and green.Sweaty hand in sweaty hand. And so we go.

Lexy welcomes us with scolding leather and no ac, yet we are grateful. I hang out of the open window video rolling. With a deathgrip on my phone, I take video of everything in motion--

The East Saint Louis Bridge,

The Gateway Arch,

Love’s Travel stop.

A rare event at the art museum:gaurded by heavy glass doors, laid antique cameras and anxious photos. It was eerie. It had felt almost sinister: to keep someone here--their memory marked with one damned word. It was as if time had paused, and we had moved on;and so we go.

Back in our white and gold chariot: we sit still, comforted by her warmth-- still smelling of this morning’s iced latte. We hum, as Billie Joe Armstrong’s Jesus of Suburbia fills the car once again.

The highway’s winds ripple through the car: a warning sign. A red sedan mindlessly swerves through three lanes of traffic.We are going eighty miles per hour. His right hand searches for mine. Horns sound as the car straightens itself out,

and he doesn’t let go.

M is for Meth Head-Skinny:

You meant it as a compliment of course. Congratulating me for becoming such a beautiful—thin girl. Laughter rang throughout the halls of my little house. But you couldn’t have known your brother was only laughing at the irony in all of this —he always thought I’d be O.J.

N is not for O.J. Simpson:

Being compared to the black sheep of the family is hard when you’re nine, O.J , my father would say to a hysterical little girl. He’d say how much they hated her,it was a matter of time until I was her carbon copy. The same woman who bares her teeth in fear--shrieking something about burning the house down, her child inside. The same monster who abandoned her fucking son for a handful of pills and the glimmer of a crackpipe.

Dominick turned five this year; this was the day we took him to the pumpkin patch because neither of his parents ensured he would get to carve a pumpkin before Halloween.

S is for Starving:

When the bell first sounded four years ago I heard sirens. I felt as if the world would split in two,Engulfing me, if suma kum lade was not in my future. I dug my grave for a good grade, at fourteen years old. When I had tears streaming down my face for the first time in an english class, and I needed someone to swaddle me in a blanket, to softly ask when was the last time I slept--which was 36 hours prior. When I needed someone to kneel down, and reiterate my grade point average is not a way to quantify your love, dad. Or my goddamned potential. That there is so much an exam cannot measure:innovation, motivation, compassion, and my self worth. That college isn’t for everybody, regardless of how many schools want me. That my tax bracket was not necessarily tied to quality of life--a starving artist. I simply needed an anchored palm wrapped around mine, paired with a calm voice to remind me: the future is in my hands, and my hands were meant to create.

“Brain Food” oil paint on canvas paper, 2018,

T is for Therapy:

A copy of something probably written by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Currently The Beautiful and the Damned) lies open with a yellow highlighter jammed in the middle, balancing on a tower of unfolded laundry.

-i guess you knew most of this huh?

[xo-to-infinity-and-beyond]

Tea: i could keep writing stupid ass poems explaining that I’m sad and back to my old bullshit only with a smokescreen to cover it up; or i could ramble about the staggering statistics of mental illness in creative individuals—modern artists globally, or my pipedream of living in Germany someday, the fact my hips did the same thing Nicole’s did, how scared i am to maybe really love him. I don’t want to use this fucking account to keep tiptoeing around talking to you again. If this was another heartfelt goodbye then let this die here.

[xo-to-infinity-and-beyond]

I’m pulling out my teeth to prevent baring them, yet your cigerettes are put out where my heart should be.

-day 5 of being awake

[xo-to-infinity-and-beyond]

“We were both standing on the very edge, awaiting our doom. It’s not that I wanted to. It just happened. You stared at me with wild eyes, kind, but wild. Through all my pain, you saw life. You told me to hold on tight and helped me up and over onto the other side. You saved me. I held onto you tighter than ever, but I just wasn’t enough. You were slipping. And suddenly you fell.”

— Life//inspired by Jennifer Niven//nicoleparker//nap

[xo-to-infinity-and-beyond]

““You could have physically ripped my heart out and I would have still apologized for bleeding ””

— - a little girl who loves too much (a.j.)

[xo-to-infinity-and-beyond]

““ I think I learned from a young age I was attracted to toxic things ; When I was four years old my favorite place was my grandmas country house, I loved the way the trees seemed to stretch on forever and the stars covered the entirety of the horizon; however the trip there made me sick - yet I loved it all the same. 11 years later and I’m staring into a pair of blue green eyes and I see the same stars I did back then. And just the same he made me heartsick -yet I loved him all the same ””

— -this time my stars are falling (a.j.)

[xo-to-infinity-and-beyond]

“the cadence of suffering has begun”

-day 3 of being awake

[xo-to-infinity-and-beyond]

fuck u for only missing me when I’m not around

fuck u because u stopped talking to me and i am very sad and u keep popping up in my snap chat memories and ur not fucking here it was supposed to be us forever

-I’m not high u are

[xo-to-infinity-and-beyond]

fuck u because u stopped talking to me and i am very sad and u keep popping up in my snap chat memories and ur not fucking here it was supposed to be us forever

-I’m not high u are

[xo-to-infinity-and-beyond]

I don’t write anymore, maybe that is because i don’t really have time , but if I’m honest it is because i am desperately trying to pretend i have nothing to write about. That i do not feel the way i do all the time.

Today i let salty tears smear yesterday’s makeup as she told me to go to hell, that i was my father. I told her if i didn’t take free time I’d kill myself, she said it looks like i already want to.

I couldn’t say anything, words got caught in my throat and tears poured down my cheek. We pretended like this part of the fight ceased to exist.

I have so much to write about, i have so much i do not want say, but here it goes:

I think i need help

[xo-to-infinity-and-beyond]

all too serious lil laugh

[xo-to-infinity-and-beyond]

1.i cannot write poetry about black moods

2.i cannot breathe in the dark,it’s suffocating

3.years ago you were my nightlight

4.the bulb burnt out and i can’t see clearly anymore

[xo-to-infinity-and-beyond]

I’m golden :)

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“you’re selfish . you told me you didn’t think love was real which you may believe . but you look at him like he’s 24 karat gold and you’re a theif. you never looked at me like that. you once told your friend when he put his hand on your side it felt like you caught fire, how come you were so cold with me? you told me i looked jealous, that it would get real bad if i didn’t say anything. at the time i didn’t know i should be but I’ve never seen your smile bigger than when you’re with him . darling you look at him the way I’ve always looked at you. How can you tell me you don’t think love is real when you’re clearly in love with someone else? ‘

-a letter from the one i broke. I’m sorry Jeremy .

[xo-to-infinity-and-beyond]

you missed the time i laughed until i cried at one am . over everything. over nothing.

you missed the time my aunt went off the deep end and abandoned her son, the day my dad mother fucked her. the day he compared me to her.

you missed the day my parents started fighting again. the tightness in my chest because i thought he hit her, his face when he told me everyone hates him.

you missed the day i got 80 letters from different colleges. when i decided i wanted to go to art school—to follow my dreams. the day i told my mom, the day my dad found out.

you missed the day i swallowed 87 pills. i finally decided i was done, it would never get better.

you missed the day i didn’t only get sick when i was anxious, or sad after i ate. when it started happening whenever i ate. when i got sent to Osborne and she told me i was an attention whore.

you missed the day i got a boyfriend. my first honest to god. you never knew that he calls me beautiful like it’s my name, or where he parks his car when we go to makeout.

you missed the blackness that has over taken me once again. the fact i said tonight and i quote “ I’m glad i threw almost every memory of you away, because everything in me already wanted to call you”.

-there has never been a day i have been “good”; and i still cannot believe you broke your wrist doing something so goddamned stupid.

[xo-to-infinity-and-beyond]

I. I ACT LIKE IT DOESN’T MATTER BUT I WILL NEVER STOP SEEKING OUT MY FATHERS APPROVAL.

II. CIGARETTES ARE ONLY TO BE SMOKED WHEN THE BLACK MOODS REAPPEAR—FOR THEY TASTE LIKE GIVING UP.

III. THE BLACK MOODS WHICH WRECK MY LIFE WILL NEVER STAY AWAY, I LACK THE ABILITY TO EXIST IN PURE YELLOW.

IV. THERE’S RAGE BURRIED DEEP IN MY BONES, SOMETIMES I SCARE MYSELF.

V. ROSES ARE FOR MOURNING— A DEATH SENTANCE; NOT FOR SHOWING LOVE.

VI. MUSIC SAVES PEOPLE.

VII. HE DOESN’T—AND NEVER WILL, LOVE ME.

VIII. I LOVE TOO MUCH AND NOT ENOUGH AT THE SAME TIME.

IX. THERE ARE EXACTLY 1062 MILES SEPARATING ME AND MY BESTFRIEND.

X. LIQUOR BURNS MY THROAT BUT JUMPSTARTS MY HEART.

XI. “FAVORITES” DON’T EXIST, THERE ARE SO MANY GOOD THINGS IN THE WORLD HOW DARE YOU SAY ONE THING IS BETTER THAN THE THOUSANDS YOUVE NEVER EXPERIENCED.

XII. TRUE LOVE DOESN’T EXIST.

-A LIST OF THINGS I KNOW TO BE TRUE . (AJ)