(ALSO this seems to be the op, on youtube)
Omfg the way the truck fucked up, fucked up perfectly
I am in tears omg
I ONLY JUST TURNED ON THE AUDIO AND OMG BEST DECISION EVEN THO I RBD LIKE 5 TIMES BEOFRE NOW
Yes it’s back on my dash!!!
Omg the audio
Who let you crush the spider?
Who let you play God?
You’re like a god to me; I’m down on my knees praying you’ll stay, and I hate myself for it. (via dollpoetry)
You wake in the night with your arm hanging over the side of your bed. It is still dark, and your bedroom is shrouded in deep shadow. Something unseen seizes your hand.
You grasp it tightly, knowing that first impressions are important and a firm, confident handshake will establish dominance.
A hollow voice echos under your bed, shaking you to your core,“You’re hired.”my dad has been riding me for, like ever. get a job, ash. like, okay but. have you even heard of summer. plus i’m tired. plus i literally don’t want to do anything but wear a rainbow bikini and bake on beaches.
“i’m serious,” he says, in Serious Voice, his hand on the door handle with white knuckles. “you can’t waste your time like this.”
“ugh,” i say, because, like ugh. he slams the door. i bury my face in pillows and like, “ugh” for a solid thirty second, limbs spread akimbo all over the place. without meaning to, i fall asleep. i told you i was tired, dad.
i don’t know what happens. maybe it’s all those times i had to stand in his office pretending to be official in white shoes and a pink skirt but when somebody grasps my hand, i grasp back. like lizard-brain response, i’m still half-asleep when i’m full-on up-and-down single-pump professional-style handshaking a demon. by the time i have bolted upright in bed and retracted my now-sticky (yet somehow also soggy?) hand, the voice is already speaking.
“you’re hired.”
excuse me? “I’m what now?” my voice in comparison is weak, slippery with sleep and fear, dancing all over the place.
i hear something shift under me. my heart is caught in my throat while there’s chuckles from the owner of the handshake equivalent of squeezing a taco bell meal. i’m having flashbacks to french kissing h.p. lovecraft in a bathroom in high school grade and i’ve never even done that.
“i’ll have to look at your references, obviously, but that’s a hell of a handshake. i like you, kid.”
like but. for some reason, a giggle rises in my throat. like okay. like. this is normal. i’m like. it figures there’d be something under my bed. like, with how much time i spent in the closet? who am i to even, like, judge.
“of course, orientation will be difficult,” the taco bell meal tentacle continues, “but you wouldn’t be the first we’ve hired like you.”
“like me?” like a woman or a gay woman or like a gay woman who’s really good at making hot cocoa or like
“a human,” taco bell says.
i’m actually almost awake now. like i’m pretty sure i’m awake and i’m talking to the CEO of creepy, incorporated. certified possible demon. sock eating friend of cerberus.
for a second i’m about to call for my dad but then i remember those white knuckles around the door handle and my white shoes and how much gas money is and how he once made me shake hands for an hour but didn’t give me a hug for the next four years.
i clear my throat. like, abuela told us about devils since i was old enough to threaten me with them and like technically i can’t “commune with spirits” but i also know enough not to upset a creature like this so i figure it’s in my best interests to take this in stride and maybe tomorrow throw a little bit more salt over my shoulder than usual. and like, i mean, at this point it’s just negotiating right. and if there’s something i understand from dad it’s negotiating business.
“hours?” i ask, sitting up straighter. i can’t see more than a writhing something that barely extends beyond the edges of my bedframe.
“night shift, obviously.”
“salary?”
“competitive.” a pause. “lucrative, even.”
well like. what else is there. “i’m in.”
“wonderful,” says taco bell, expressing with an accent i’m unfamiliar with and a form of joy that i’m uncomfortable with, “i’ll go get the contract. be back in a jiffy.”
like, the sound of hell opening up isn’t exactly a slurp-pop, but it does sound a lot like the way my seventh grade math teacher’s tongue used to sound when she was about to make a harsh comment about my homework. and like, for a second there i’m like. wait what the fuck did i just agree to am i in a horror movie is chucky gonna be my roommate now like does dracula sign my contract as a witness like am i really doing this. like? i’m a smart girl (don’t look at my love life) how am i even considering this.
it’s also when my dad opens my door. “ash?” even when he’s just woken up, he looks tidy. he’s wearing his wingtip shoes. never slippers on this man.
i’m like. coming around to my senses at this point. i hallucinated all that. i ate too many crackers with cream cheese and guava before bed. i listened to too many of abuela’s supernatural sightings. and like, i told you, i’m tired.
“dad,” i say, blinking in the light from the hallway.
“you were talking in your sleep, ” he says.
“oh,” i say.
“it is keeping me awake,” he says.
“sorry,” i say.
“you know i am a light sleeper,” he says.
“yeah,” i say, “sorry.”
“please control yourself,” he says.
“yeah … i… okay.” i say. “sorry again.”
“goodnight, ash,” he says, and he turns to go. he looks back at me and says “and ash?” and for a second, because i always have this moment, because i never learn, because i’m not a good learner, for a second i’m thinking - oh, he’s gonna say something nice, “in the morning, please get a job.”
“yeah,” i say, and my voice cracks and the door closes, “sorry again.”
i sit there, staring at the wall, saying nothing for a long time, or maybe no time at all. thinking about nothing. like the feeling you get when you’re thinking too much so it all just sounds like white noise.
then i hear it again. the crack-slurp of hell. i jump about like twelve feet. when i return from the space station my soul ascended to, i see the barely-defined outline of something, like the leg of an insect outside of a tentacle inside of a crab leg outside of the right back support beam of the eiffel tower. and like, a sphere of dull green light radiates directly above it, which, like, isn’t even the weirdest part of my night.
“howdy!” taco bell nacho supreme is back, “sorry for the delay, i was checking with management.”
“uh,” i say.
“just insert your hand into this here contract and you’ll be employed part-time, pending references.”
“hang on,” i say. i swallow. “you said the rate is… competitive?”
“we got wishes, monkey’s paws, souls, video game cheats… you name it, we pay it.”
“…. USD?”
“666 an hour to start. we do love tradition.”
i choke. “like six dollars and sixty-six cents?”
taco bell laughs. “you know what i meant. and we do direct deposit!”
i swallow. i think of my dad.
words tumbling out of me. “do i have to hurt anyone? is my soul forfeit? can i ever get out of this? am i gonna turn colors how many days a week do i work is there a retirement plan can i readjust the terms after signing is it permanent will it harm me in any way how many people die doing this when do i start what’s orientation who writes the checks and” i take a breath “is the boss nice?”
“no, no, yes! but two weeks notice. no, usually five, if you sign up for it, yes, no, probably not, not many people are doing it mostly we’re non-physical or extra-corporeal so you’d have to ask H.R? tomorrow if you want, loads of fun and free sushi, H.R again, and” taco bell takes a breath, “usually but particularly on wednesdays.”
i sit there and curl my knees to my chest.
“all this… because of a handshake?”
taco bell is silent for a moment. well, like, kind of. if eerie silence had a twin brother, or like the silence of a fast food restaurant exactly four minutes before the lights are shut off.
“usually, we come if we’re called by darkness. we deal in darker things than needs. i don’t tend to show up when someone needs something. but sometimes… the lines get crossed, that’s all. instead of your need heading on upwards, it called me instead.”
“uh,” i say, “are you admitting to the existence of like… angels?”
“anyway,” says taco bell, “yesterday Georurng self-terminated.”
“oh my gosh,” i say, “is he okay?”
“oh yeah, no, he retired to live with his six hivenests in west Berlin. we need new blood,” taco bell says. “of course, metaphorically.”
okay. okay. like. i could say i was bartending? in a few weeks i could buy a used car. out of pocket. like. if i needed to i could always quit. and like. honestly, again, how many chances to make closet jokes. plus, time at the beach. plus like. okay like how cool would it be.
“okay,” i whisper, “okay.” i try not to shake as i reach my hand out to the contract. it feels like dipping my hand into the inside of a cold turkey. i repress the shudder that runs up me.
in an instant, the specifics of my job write themselves over my eyes. they burn into the back of my brain. everything is spinning.
“see you tomorrow!” taco bell is saying. i want to puke. my ears are ringing. i barely hear the portal to hell open again.
the fire of the contract’s words fade slowly until i am staring into the dark again. it’s not what i expected. it actually appeals to my sense of justice. taco bell was right about being called by something. i’ve just agreed to be the thing that goes bump in the night. the one thing left against the people nobody else can fight. i’m gay dracula. i’m both a lesbian dementor and the boggart. i’m a rainbow-flag-flying boogeyman and i have a long list of people who i got a bone to pick with.
it takes me a moment to realize i’m smiling. sorry, dad, i’m gonna be like. ultra mega tired. but i got a job. doing what? oh, nothing.
just being the creature that lives under your bed. when bad men have darkness, we come haunting.
do you have writing advice? i feel like i hate everything i write
◥
Anonymous
read read read read read until you’re swollen with words. read advice from every author you love and read advice from every author you hate and read advice from the monster under your bed and read grammar books and read books from the black mountain poets and read books from modern poets and read self-published novels.
and once you’re filled up on ideas other people have given you, ignore everything you just were told and write what you want to read. if you’re absolutely in love with the luminous quality of alliteration, use it. if you’re amazed by the ability of adverbs to astonishingly and quickly multiply, flood your page with them. if you want to let every character die and come back to life, let them. if nobody dies and it’s 500 pages of people in a tea parlor talking, you just wrote a longer version of “no exit” by jean paul sarte and tbh it’s looking for an update.
the reason i end up hating my work is twofold. either i’m stuck and it’s just a writing block and it doesn’t flow like it needs to, or i’m stuck because i’m too worried about perfection. i need a passage to ring perfect, and i get so caught up in silly things like commas and splicing and never using “said” that i can’t put anything down without feeling like i’m slogging through letters. i forget that the best part of writing a book is how fun it is to write a book. how caught up i get in the story, how sometimes i can even make myself laugh with surprise.
write because you want to hear yourself tell the story. write with a good sense of humor, honestly. i’ve written five novels, and while they’re not for publishing, they were for fun. we forget not everything has to be marketable and serious. that the best part of writing is when you evaporate and everything becomes story.
and when you’re just blocked? go back to the first part of this. and read.
A recent study comes out called “The Evolution Of Female Same-Sex Attraction: the Male Choice Hypothesis.”
In this work, I am watching a scientist tell me the only reason I like girls is because it makes men hot. He postulates that because he asked men and they found woman-on-woman action sexy that bisexual women only experience same-sex attraction because it makes straight men more likely to find them attractive.
When I kiss her at a party I feel eyes on us like arrows through my skin. I don’t hold hands with her when we walk in public. Once, she kisses me as we stand on a mostly-empty street. Out of nowhere, a beer bottle comes flying. When later she will be wiping the blood out of my eyes, I will have one thing on my mind: how wonderful it would be to be invisible.
We drop our eyes on trains, we sit a little further apart, we don’t hold each other in public. We put space between us like a caught breath we release only in private. A man tells me he loves gay women because they have the best pornography. In the videos he sees, women with sharp nails moan into cameras and leave their boyfriends for a weekend of fun. The first time I touched a girl I couldn’t stop shaking. I can’t enjoy half of the women kissing in movies. Something about the way the camera watches makes me uncomfy. In real life whenever I see a girl I like, I try to be polite. Even with her, the moon of my life. I don’t want her to feel like how I feel every time we kiss outside; that knowledge of being watched, that sickness that spreads over skin, that feeling of being hunted.
Come here, doctor. Let me teach you about how her eyes change color in the sun. How her hands move when she’s nervous, how when she laughs she lights up. How she’ll listen to your story even though you know it’s boring. Let me show you the music that lives in her. How she carved out a space inside of me where it only grows trees. How I fell in love so quickly. Tell me then I’m only doing it because my ancestors selected for it when people like me can’t walk safely in the street. Tell me then.
Tell me somehow that the quiet yearning between women is still somehow about men.
In this work, I am watching a scientist tell me the only reason I like girls is because it makes men hot. He postulates that because he asked men and they found woman-on-woman action sexy that bisexual women only experience same-sex attraction because it makes straight men more likely to find them attractive.
When I kiss her at a party I feel eyes on us like arrows through my skin. I don’t hold hands with her when we walk in public. Once, she kisses me as we stand on a mostly-empty street. Out of nowhere, a beer bottle comes flying. When later she will be wiping the blood out of my eyes, I will have one thing on my mind: how wonderful it would be to be invisible.
We drop our eyes on trains, we sit a little further apart, we don’t hold each other in public. We put space between us like a caught breath we release only in private. A man tells me he loves gay women because they have the best pornography. In the videos he sees, women with sharp nails moan into cameras and leave their boyfriends for a weekend of fun. The first time I touched a girl I couldn’t stop shaking. I can’t enjoy half of the women kissing in movies. Something about the way the camera watches makes me uncomfy. In real life whenever I see a girl I like, I try to be polite. Even with her, the moon of my life. I don’t want her to feel like how I feel every time we kiss outside; that knowledge of being watched, that sickness that spreads over skin, that feeling of being hunted.
Come here, doctor. Let me teach you about how her eyes change color in the sun. How her hands move when she’s nervous, how when she laughs she lights up. How she’ll listen to your story even though you know it’s boring. Let me show you the music that lives in her. How she carved out a space inside of me where it only grows trees. How I fell in love so quickly. Tell me then I’m only doing it because my ancestors selected for it when people like me can’t walk safely in the street. Tell me then.
Tell me somehow that the quiet yearning between women is still somehow about men.
i feel like every future i planted was in the rows of your palms. how am i supposed to move on.
like. there’s a dog at my feet and a cat purring on my lap and i know that i’m supposed to be alive for better reasons than that but frankly there’s so few things that still make my heart warm that i’ll count them even if they’re small and inconsequential. okay. maybe things could be better. but i’m learning where i can find happy, even if it’s not where i expected.
i want to sunburn you with kisses. come blazing into your life and leave my name on your skin like lilies. i’m dedicating my entire novel to the curve of your throat alone. i’m like a vine, is what i’m saying. i know how to choke.
i’m not supposed to drink with a straw but i forget that a lot. i think sometimes i love you out of habit, like when you go on autopilot and drive to a house you haven’t lived in for six years. i turn to kiss you even though i promise myself i’m over you. i look to see if you texted even though i know logically no messages are coming. the only sad bit is that i like those three seconds before i remember. where i don’t have to recall how much pain i’m in.
small summer self-care tips from one mentally ill person to another, based on ur hogwarts house
slytherin:
- more books if you can, video games that are happy if you can’t.
- find one project you love and chase it doggedly, even if it’s fanfiction. ideally, work on this project w/other friends that are working on projects, so u have accountability and community.
- set small goals and crush them, even if they’re managing to get rid of the Depression Water that’s been sitting on the side of your bed for three weeks with a dead moth in it
- snack breaks
- whenever you hear yourself call yourself bad names, whisper “shut up, salasar,” and fix it. call yourself the most ridiculously pretentious and complementary titles you can think of
- every time ur brain tries to kill you, tell it you will succeed out of spite
- acrylic nails, regardless of your gender. sometimes they are 50 cents at the drug store. click click click
gryffindor:
- don’t get caught up in the wildness of summer, try to take a few steps back from friends when stuff starts getting dangerous. write down “we are about to do X” and decide if it’s something your mom would be okay with.
- blanket cape + make urself a paper crown
- for every liquor drink please drink 1 glass water. friendship hydration challenges are also a lot of fun, but as a warning, i will win them
- roller coasters will make u feel awake for a bit and that’s fun but friendships shouldn’t make u feel like you’re trapped on one
- courage is your crest. remind yourself of that when ur facing your demons. also, dye your hair a fun color.
- you’re not too much for someone to handle just because you’re energetic or whatever. this summer relish in not toning it down. take your meds with water and bite anyone who makes fun of you for them.
- give urself time to recharge. know your limits. sometimes courage is also saying “no thanks”
hufflepuff:
- the sun isn’t out all the time. you don’t have to always be the cheery one. if you fall, your friends will catch you. keep yourself around your loved ones. they’ll forgive you, even if you’ve been gone.
- cooking and baking for other people is actually so much fun, try and eat a little while you get it done
- watch children’s movies and shows. it’s okay. take a little while and let yourself feel like you’re seven and the world isn’t as loud as it is.
- dark scary makeup and instagram photos
- be patient with yourself. okay you’re not getting better right now but that’s okay. the slope is very slippery. it’s a long climb to the top, but you got badger claws. start with washing your hair. you’ll get there.
- when they are only hurting you, they do not deserve your loyalty. it hurts to say goodbye, but it will be better when they leave.
- hard work does include dragging yourself into the shower after six days without it, good job, you
ravenclaw:
- find something to be curious in every day, keep that mind working. it helps to slowly teach yourself something, even the anatomy of a bird wing.
- you aren’t bad if you can’t focus. neither can i and i’ve been a ravenclaw all my life.
- it isn’t about being “smart” and you don’t need to fit some neurotypical version of that to be clever; wit comes in all forms and if you chase something unconventional at least you’re chasing something
- tuna and rice is a good meal with a low price and v low production abilities. turn on TedED while it’s cooking and zone out to something vaguely educational. at least you’re learning?
- you aren’t and you’ll never be only good at things because of your disease. if someone says you paint beautifully because you’re sad, paint them eating their words. also, peaceful coloring.
- bird mouth from pringles chips. caw caw
- go outside. catch breeze, draw leaves, eat fruit, discover small happy.
laughing, i show her old pictures of myself. pink cheeks and missing teeth. i say, this is me at seven, wasn’t i so much more pretty. who knows what happened, i say, ugly just crawled inside of me.
she looks at me and something’s in her eyes. like she’s sad, deeply. “no,” she whispers, “you just used to be happy.”
For a long time nothing fucking mattered without you. One day I just realized what I missed is who I was around you. Like you made everything brighter, but nothing was stopping me from being my own star. Yeah, you brought out the best in me. But I forgot I was the one who walked me this far.
well i got sad because of all the small things, because i see too much and it gets inside of me. like my grandmother hunting for her glasses and missing the rainbow as it happened. she put them on minutes after it had gone. like my little sister trying to tell a story and getting interrupted so much she stopped speaking. like how people look when they realize nobody texted them. like the man at the train station who picked up the phone and found out his dog died, who sat three in front of me and silently cried.
people have pictures where everyone is smiling. i think we all feel like we’re all alone in the bleakness. our sorrows nobody else sees. but i do. and i feel them in echoes in me. how you looked when you accidentally broke that cd, when you dropped your favorite mug, when you missed the shooting star even though you were looking. these small moments we don’t speak of because they somehow belong to the unspeakable, the momentary melancholies.
sometimes it is worth it for the smile after it passes. i think of the man on the train and how, close to my stop, he slowly dialed his phone. “hey baby,” he said, “we’re getting a new dog.”
but my grandmother missed the rainbow. “you know,” she said quietly, her voice low, “life is like that. you got to see the good things. when you’re not looking, they come and they go.”
Tattoos That Turned People’s Scars Into Works Of Art.
I’m shooooook. Wow.
and then there’s the Vader one that I’m pretty sure is pen lol
