#inkskinned

I told myself this before I had pulled the blinds down, leaving the room drenched in an artificial darkness. I sat on the cold, half-tiled floor of our bathroom. They were words I would repeat over and over in an attempt to make them stick. Felix tried to help. After all, he was the one who instilled the theory of halves in me. He sat, slumped, back pushed against the door I had hastily locked when I tore into the bathroom.

L'ÉPHÉMÈRE REVIEW:  ISSUE VII: CREPÚSCULO Where anything and everything can happen.

Click here to read CICATRIX; short story written by Madeleine Dawn and published by  L'ÉPHÉMÈRE REVIEW. 

She always did go for the sad boys. The ones with sunken eyes and a slow heartbeat. Some might say she had a healing complex, but I don’t think it was quite that simple. Perhaps, instead, it was so she’d be focused so much on taming their demons that she could neglect her own for awhile. It wasn’t because she thought she could heal them, but because she was afraid she couldn’t heal herself.

That must be the most bizarre part about falling for a friend. I don’t think I ever really “fell in love with you” in the traditional sense. I think my heart actually loved you this entire time, it just took my brain awhile to catch up and say, “This is it, this has been the one you’ve been waiting for.”

The Wild Heartsis a network for those who have something to say to a love lost, or a love cherished. For those who are still in love with the art of a simple letter, turned into poetry or prose.

Paramount;
the importance of a moment captured or lost in time.

Monsters & their makers;
bound, chained and desperate for love.

Heavensent;
litanies of lust.

Tag your work with #thewildheartsnet, so we can find it or submit your work directly.

1. Forgotten love.
   
2. An evening of remembrance.
3. Caught in a moment.

Feel free to use any of these prompts or combine all three. It is entirely up to you. If you wish to submit anonymously, send an ask with your chosen pen name and it will be published. 

Make sure to tag with #thewildheartsnet so we can see your work, or simply tag us in the post.

The Wild Hearts is a network for love letters and the like.

This isn’t exclusively just a letter to a lover - it can be to a past of future self, a family member, a historical figure, a feeling - the list is endless, and is entirely decided by you lovely people.

The submissions so far have been beautiful. So, please continue to send in your letters, and if you’re submitting anonymously, be sure to sign off with a pseudonym or your initials so we know who you are.

You can submit via the submit link, or by sending an anonymous ask if you wish to stay hidden.

We are following the tag THE WILD HEARTS SERIES, so if you wish to just tag your letters with those, we will be able to see, and they will be added to our growing collection.

Members will be posting with thewildheartsnet to distinguish themselves.

Yours,

Wild Hearts.

inkskinned:

fucking hate it when the stuff everybody says “actually works” does actually work.

hate exercising and realizing i’ve let go of a lot of anxiety and anger because i’ve overturned my fight-or-flight response.

hate eating right and eating enough and eating 3 times a day and realizing i’m less anxious and i have more energy

hate journaling in my stupid notebook with my stupid bic ballpoint and realizing that i’ve actually started healing about something once i’m able to externalize it

hate forgiving myself hate complimenting myself more often hate treating myself with kindness hate taking a gratitude inventory hate having patience hate talking to myself gently

hate turning my little face up to the sun and taking deep breaths and looking at nature and grounding myself and realizing that i feel less burdened and more hopeful, more actually-here, that i am able to see the good sides of myself more clearly, that i am able to see not only how far i have to grow - but also how much growth i have already done & how much of my life i truly fill with light and laughter and love

horrible horrible horrible. hate it but i’m gonna do it tho

I think this relates to when advice is given in bad faith. It feels like losing against an attack on your intelligence because it risks validating someone who lacked the familiarity with the problem to give any other input than clichés we’ve all heard before, or, validating someone who acted like they understood your problems better than you do, who only gave that advice in the first place to invalidate the difficulties you were having.

Just exercise, just eat better, just be more consistent with taking showers. We’ve heard this all our lives, but mostly from people who’ve never been in a position to relate to how unhelpful/patronizing it sounds or how hard it can be to try. They couldn’t elaborate upon how those activities are relevant to mental health, or how to break them down into bite-size steps and make them habits, so “just do it” was all they had to say any further, they couldn’t understand how struggling to “just do it” was the problem we were having in the first place. It all circles back to how we’re affected by ignorance toward neurodivergence, mental illness or otherwise.

However reliable some advice may be, if it’s told in the context of dismissing the problem’s legitimacy or seriousness, it becomes an insult first and advice second.

But, and this is important, you’re now the one with the perspective to actually understand all that cliché self-care advice, whereas whoever you heard it from was probably just quoting what they in turn have heard before. Which advice actually works, the reasoning behind it (such as the correlation between exercise and fight-or-flight), and which advice is just a saying put into circulation by too many people not knowing how to help (just smile!).

“I know you’d rather have someone else

but I’m the city you slipped

into: the gardens, the beggars there.”

inkskinned:

writing-prompt-s:

You thought your superpower, always hitting your intended target while throwing something, was lame at first. Then, you began to realize your power was not bound by the limitations of space and time, nor was it a superpower to always be taken literally.

think about it. how many phrases we have for things like that. we say i’m just throwing things at the wall to see what will stick. we say stone’s throw from here. we say throw the whole man out. we say throw caution to the wind, wethrow a monkey wrench into things, we even throw someone for a loop.

you’re currently throwing a party. half drunk, one eye open, you’re googling how to make spaghetti bolognese with only two cans of tomatoes and leftover meat. when you type into the chrome bar how do i, the google search how do i get over a - comes up, and you have to put the phone down.

“i’m out of like, meat,” you say. “or like, anything.” (where did it go? did you throw it out? things happen like this, slippery).

tyler is slowdancing with himself, one hand on his face. “this is the best fucking party i’ve ever been to.”

it’s usually the best party anyone has ever been to. your mom thinks you could start a club, because she believes in you too much. “i want spaghetti bolognese.” you have to yell-talk; it’s too loud here. someone is chanting in another room. god, they better behave in there. someone else’s perfect night made your floor reek for like a week last time.

you pause and pull your stupid moleskine you spent too much money on (threw the money away on, ha!) out of your back pocket where you pretentiously keep it with its little bic pen. you write: data point request… can you throw a demon out of a body?

demons would have to be real first. so that’s stupid.

“i love your shirt,” tyler says.

don’t say it you stupid fuck. “thanks,” you smile with that same practiced grin. don’t say it don’t say it don’t - “i just threw it on.”

you have told exactly 1 person about this thing, and she’s… well, whatever. you’re throwing a party. that’s what this is, right? this is you throwing a good time. you’re having a good time. everyone keeps saying what a good time this is.

data point request: throw the thought away.

not helpful. last week’s datapoint (throwaway joke?) has been a success, though, so you can put a sticker next to that one when you remember. and yes, it only works in english. which is maybe a blessing, because you have a C- in spanish and you’re barely holding it together as it is. (top of page three, datapoint request: why the fuck only english? hello?)

you walk through the apartment, hold your hands up when they invite you to beer pong haha, no thanks, but it’s genuinely not fun when you can-only-win. people stop being cool about it during the third round - you just start looking like an asshole.

not that she ever saw you that way. fuck. for real, throw the whole thought out.

you go to throw your coat on. as-per-usual, people around you stop moving while you do this easy thing. you haven’t recorded a video of yourself doing this particular one, but like-everything-else, it always leaves people a little dazzled. just watching like they know they shouldn’t be tooimpressed with it, it’s just a coat.

you type into your phone again: how to mak-

the history from google: how to make her love you again.

Keep reading

that last line was great

inkskinned:

fucking hate it when the stuff everybody says “actually works” does actually work.

hate exercising and realizing i’ve let go of a lot of anxiety and anger because i’ve overturned my fight-or-flight response.

hate eating right and eating enough and eating 3 times a day and realizing i’m less anxious and i have more energy

hate journaling in my stupid notebook with my stupid bic ballpoint and realizing that i’ve actually started healing about something once i’m able to externalize it

hate forgiving myself hate complimenting myself more often hate treating myself with kindness hate taking a gratitude inventory hate having patience hate talking to myself gently

hate turning my little face up to the sun and taking deep breaths and looking at nature and grounding myself and realizing that i feel less burdened and more hopeful, more actually-here, that i am able to see the good sides of myself more clearly, that i am able to see not only how far i have to grow - but also how much growth i have already done & how much of my life i truly fill with light and laughter and love

horrible horrible horrible. hate it but i’m gonna do it tho

Are you living or are you just jumping from one obsession to the other to run away from yourself?

Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.

I’m always kissing you like it’s the last time / Always hesitating, stuttering, stumbling over my words / Trying to make the moment perfect / Thinking this time it has to be perfect / Because the thought of anything less is unbearable / How do I reconcile myself to the fact that I will never have this back / This moment where the light is hitting your face just right / Where your eyes are squeezed shut and I want to hold you for just a minute longer / Stay a little while / Stay just long enough to feel like I have made the most of this precious time / I have to know that I’ve loved you right / That I’ve tried / That I’ve been stubborn and unwilling to settle for lukewarm / That I felt the weight of our lives and tried to carry them anyway / Kept the heaviest memories in my pockets like stones / Promised myself to skip them over the water later / There has to be space for more 

nowadays, i dream of warmth. of fingertips against skin, arms around a waist, of a mouth against a neck.

i dream of entwined hands. of feet pressed together, of leaning against a shoulder, of hair sticking to cheeks.

nowadays, i feel like a dream. insubstantial. like if you tried to place a hand on my heart, you’d fall right through.

it’s getting colder and i can’t tell when i’ll wake. i smell smoke but i can’t feel a thing. if i try hard enough, i can remember what it felt like, to carry more than embers in my fists.

tell me we’ll never get used to it / that we never take our entwined hands for granted again / that we’re grateful for every embrace / every meeting that isn’t through a phone screen / that we dance for hours the first time we can dance with each other / cry when we can blow out candles on a cake together / hold each other’s faces and say i’m glad you exist / i’m glad i met you in this life / i’m glad i got to live through the good the bad the ugly with you / i hope we never stop being amazed by all this love / how despite everything, it survived

he calls her komorebi; sunlight falling through the trees. he kisses you and the word seems to get stuck between your teeth. 

you stuttering poet girl, nothing but a mouthful of other people’s stories. you, with your stained hands and bleeding heart. you, graceless and tripping over your own feet, trying to keep up with the music, with him. you foolish girl, hoping that you’re worth more than a verse. you, perpetually messy, all your love spilling out of your arms and onto the floor. you, damaged but never delicate. only filled with light when it falls through the cracks in your armor, only golden for a moment. 

you who will never be as perfect as the light falling through the trees, but sometimes you pretend, close your eyes and let yourself float down with the leaves.

i’m sitting on the kitchen counter listening to that song i reminded you of. i feel seen, and for once i am not scared, i am euphoric.

i feel beautiful in all my messy glory; so incredibly loved, flaws and all. my hair slipping out of my bun and my favorite t-shirt off my shoulder, and now i’m dancing by myself to this song. i’m smiling for the first time in days, jumping over cracks in the tiles and hitting all the right notes. 

i’m aware that we romanticize tragedy far more than we should, that the sad poems are often the most popular, but i want to remember this. capture this mundane moment in these lines. if the future is dark, i’m taking all the light i have with me, keeping it my pockets and diving headfirst. jump with me.

you say, “the world is ending,” and i laugh and say, “when is it not?”

there’s still flowers blooming and people singing and your fingers resting on the small of my back. that pink dress you like, my legs pressed against yours, your smile against mine. you said you’ll love me till the end and i’m watching you prove it. we’re dancing in the ashes, leaving our hurt behind with the footprints.

you spin me around and i watch our memories on your walls. if we disappear tonight, i want us to be remembered for how fiercely we loved, how stupidly optimistic we stood in the face of the apocalypse, how we kissed through the darkness and held on till dawn.

i want the silver linings, something beautiful salvaged from this wreckage. tell them the world got ugly but we didn’t let it touch us. that we refused to take our rose-colored glasses off.

tell them it wasn’t all bad. that we held something lovely in the palms of our hands, and it wasn’t heavy. not at all.

i haven’t written in a while because all the words lead back to you, all these unfinished poems lined up outside my window banging against the glass screaming, “do you remember?”

i do

i do

i do

but writing about us feels like the time somebody tried to put a camera between us when we slow-danced, as if that moment of intimacy was meant for public consumption.

this is private.

my heartbreak is mine alone. i’m tired of offering up pieces of myself, waiting for someone to see something they can understand. something they can carry gently and take home and keep.

i understand if this is hard to swallow. if it leaves a bad taste on your tongue. i have burn marks on my fingertips from trying to rescue it. there is nothing pretty left here and i don’t think i can be it. i tried to be your beautiful girl, tried to be your favorite memory but, all i can remember is the broken way i asked you if you ever loved me and how you said, “of course”.

as if that fixed everything.

and i’m sorry, okay, i’m sorry that this was not the narrative you wanted. i tried to make it pretty, i promise. i cleaned up the blood and bile and hurt. i kissed you instead of telling you i was losing my mind, because you didn’t have space for another mess.

but i don’t think i have it in me to clear my insides off the floor.

you can take your knife and go.

our story is not just one of transformation, of seasons passing. it’s also a story of passion. of a love that has teeth. of a love that bites back.

a story where you call me persephone, and i look you in the eye as i crack a pomegranate shell. where i feel each seed on the palm of my hand. feel the weight of my decision. where i hold it up to my lips and smile at the power i can taste. where i bite down into our future, and you can’t look away from my reddened lips.

this is a story of indulgence. where we sink into the world, where we stay intoxicated off wine and each other’s presence.

if they call this a sin, i will gladly be a sinner. if they call you a villain, i’ll let them see my claws. my sharp teeth. how i’ve never been the damsel-in-distress.

i’ve followed you into the darkness, and i’ll laugh and kiss you through it.

you tell me that i’d reached the center of your universe, that i occupied the space you walled off from everyone else. 

i try to tell you that stumbling into love with you felt more like entering a hall of mirrors. i kept reaching out with my hands like a child hoping to find something solid, something real, something other than my fear and confusion. 

like i could hear music somewhere in the distance but couldn’t figure out the lyrics. 

like every time i said i missed you, it was just my own mouth repeating the words back at me. 

like i cut my fingers trying to feel my way out.

like i left a thousand different images of me burned into this reality and still didn’t feel substantial enough for you. 

There is a boy looking at you, holding your face with his artist’s hands, and you want so badly to take your own and crush his heart between them because the way he just leaves it out in the open makes you more angry than it should. 

You’re angry because he has the audacity to wear his hurt without shame, when you carry the stink of it on your skin. When anyone else who smells it on you looks at you like you’re damaged. Like whatever is left is evidence of ruin. 

You want to tell him that you’re hollow and that you ran out of the words he fell in love with a long time ago. You stand in front of this beautiful boy and can hardly breathe through your envy because he has the words needed to leave his pain outside, and all you have is your rage. 

When he calls you beautiful, it feels like a joke. 

And maybe you want to destroy any traces of hope because why should this boy, who holds his pain in his eyes like he isn’t afraid of how you might use it against him, have any? Why should he not learn the lesson they forced down your throat? 

But he’s reaching out for you with those gentle hands and you find yourself holding them, anchoring him, and he says, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”, and your anger goes cold and you feel absolutely nothing, all iced out and empty.

That’s what you tell yourself anyway, but some part of you wonders what it must feel like, 

to reach out and be offered kindness.

today, you shimmy on the train while people shoot you looks from behind their magazines / you sway from side to side in your old shoes / accept that maybe you’re not okay but you will be soon / realize that you are not ashamed to feel so much / that you’re ready to let emotions flow out your cupped hands and paint the floor / leave a dripping, surreal mess / you want to lie down and make angels in it / you want to color this town with all the shades you have / spill outside the lines / forget about picture-perfect / everybody lives like they’re being watched anyway / and you’re tired of rehearsing for the show / you want to let yourself feel everything / with intensity that leaves you unsteady / but still laughing through it all

sometimes, love feels like a bloodletting.

sometimes a slow murder, like take everything until i have nothing left, take my breath away, make me beg for it and forget to give it back.

sometimes a quick slash of the throat. like go for the jugular. tear it out with your teeth as you go in for a kiss. make it feel like an act of intimacy. bring me to my knees. make a mess and walk away from it.

like make your victim walk in voluntarily, accept the blindfold and cross their arms behind their back. let them feel butterfly kisses on the nape of their neck as you lean in to tie the rope. watch the sacrifice lie on the altar like it’s a bed of roses. watch them reach to feel petals but come away with scarred fingers instead.

like here take my heart and promise not to crush it.

like let’s play russian roulette and pray i can catch more than lies between my teeth.

like dig my grave and still give me hope that you won’t be the one to push me into it.

you once told me i appeared in your dreams amongst the most important people in your life.

i asked you what i said and you said, “nothing.”

i was more disappointed than i should have been, but i guess it made sense.

there were so many moments when you were curled up in my arms when i almost dared to tell you about my dreams. about how my churning thoughts left me feeling sea-sick and i tried to look for you to find stable ground, but you were too busy admiring the waves.

you said i was fascinating. beautiful. even when i cried.

so there were cracks all over me, more visible under a certain kind of light, but hey, it was good for your art, right?

i was the perfect muse. didn’t say a word. sat still and let you take me apart with yours.

smiled when you asked me if i’d be okay.

it was kindness, right?

you wanted to peel away layers just to see what lay underneath. i tried to tell you that i already felt rubbed raw. like i was lying on the beach like a piece of glass. that i would cut you if you held me too tight. that i might catch your eye but ultimately felt worthless.

but i said nothing.

there is nothing left to say.

i’m saying goodbye to you, and i think about how this will be the last time i trace your fingers with mine, kiss the back of your neck, let my eyelashes graze your skin.

i think it breaks my heart just a little how my hands will never again find themselves pushing your hair away from your eyes, how my chin will never again rest on your shoulder, how body will never again lean into yours instinctively.

i don’t know how to get used to reminding myself to stop reaching out for you.

sometimes writing feels like trying to breathe underwater.

like there are rocks tied to my ankles and meaning is just out of reach, sunlight hitting the surface of waves.

like my fingernails scraping the bottom of a boat, leaving a message in frenzied scratches.

like catching a glimpse of your hand trailing along the water.

what i’m trying to say is that sometimes all the poetry is submerged somewhere with me, and there’s only time to save one. what i’m trying to say is, most times, i choose me.

we’re sitting on a balcony on a summer night, and you’re trying to light a cigarette despite the breeze. i cup the flame and in that moment, you look more vulnerable than i’ve ever seen you. 

you blink away tears, pick up a bottle to take a swig and hand it to me, let your body slide onto the ground and ask me to join you. place your head on my shoulder and ask me why we can’t just be happy like this. just the two of us running wild around the city.

you hum that line about party girls never getting hurt. it’s the closest i’ve ever felt to you. it’s also the furthest i’ve ever felt from you. i almost open my mouth, almost tell you how i nearly died the last time i was in your room, almost tell you about how i nearly gave up on my life on your birthday. 

but this friendship feels like a blood pact, one that i signed when i was somebody else. a version of myself that i stepped out of when i started to suffocate. when words started to slip out from underneath my fingernails, from the laughter lines on my face, from within my rib-cage.

there was no more space for the version of me that was too messy too intense too real too much. party girls walk barefoot on glass and do not flinch, and i think i was tired of the bleeding. 

you entwine your pinky with mine and make me promise that i’ll save my last dance for you. just for the night, i do.

they say love in an acceptable form of insanity but i am tired of losing my mind for you. 

tired of waiting in the rain for you. 

tired of walking through traffic blindly and laughing laughing laughing because my heart is stuck in my throat and i’m trying to get it out. 

tired of sitting on bathroom floors trying to convince myself not to call you, of trying to find pieces of myself after i gave you everything. 

i think i pricked myself on the edges of my smile, on the memory of a kiss, on all the shitty poems i wrote for you.

i don’t want to dance by myself and still feel your hands around my waist. i want to tear down every monument to us, i want to be too sharp for this tenderness, they always said softness never suited me anyway. 

i would rather be stumbling in stilettos than tripping over your promises. i wanna taste whiskey instead of your name on the tip on my tongue, wanna bite down on ice and bite back my words, 

they used to call me ice queen for a reason, honey, and i am tired of letting you melt me down.

today, i am ready to bear this all-or-nothing love. 

i’m ready to close my eyes and plunge into the world, to wander into tiny restaurants and hitchhike and sing on top of hills like a fucking cliché. 

i’m ready to believe in kindness and safety in vulnerability. 

there will be no hurt, no curling inwards, no bitter taste of regret on my tongue. just reaching outwards, giving everything this body can contain and knowing there’s something out there in return. 

believing that if i offer my hands, palms facing upwards, no daggers up my sleeve, maybe i can hold something beautiful in them. 

just for today, i am ready to let myself feel this ridiculous. ready to hold hope in my mouth, to flash my teeth while grinning and let you see it. 

i wish you lazy days full of dancing to your favorite songs with no noise complaints from the neighbours.

i wish lots of cheesecake for you. and sliding on floors in fuzzy socks. hugs that last longer than 15 seconds and aren’t awkward. quiet hours spent in a tiny café. books that have notes hidden from previous owners within the pages.

flowers. sunflowers to match your ridiculously sunny disposition.

i wish you empty seats on the bus. a perfect apple in the grocery store. running into puppies every time you take a walk around the neighbourhood.

good hair days and good lighting to match. opportunities to make puns that are so bad they’re good. rainy days when you want to jump in puddles.

i wish you happy tears. so much that joy that you almost can’t believe it

@inkskinned