your favorite punching bag

Photo, posted without a caption

Signed deb

there are worse things than not receiving love. there are sadder stories than this. there are species going extinct and a planet warming. i told myself: who are you to complain, you with these frivolous extracurricular needs?

Signed deb

.

Signed deb

back to my coffee. back to my errands. back to pretending my heart’s not on constant high alert. it’s not that i’m afraid of love - well, at least not entirely. it’s that i’ve known the weight of wanting it. and God, wanting, really wanting makes you vulnerable in ways no amount of sarcasm or emotional detachment can protect you from. if i let myself actually want it. love, connection, anything real, suddenly there w…

Signed deb

but also i’m lying. just a little. the kind of lying that doesn’t hurt anyone except maybe me, when i’m alone and overthinking in the checkout line. because while i say i’m not open to love, i’m still looking for it. passively. casually. it’s like background noise to help me sleep at night.

Signed deb

i soak up the concept of love like sunlight. i read about it, i watch about it, i listen to it on loop. i enjoy listening to my friends who happen to find themselves lucky enough to find it. i’m the friend who cries at your engagement even though i’m single and vaguely bitter. i’m not looking. i say it like a fact, like a boundary, like a joke i’ve rehearsed countless times. “i’m just focusing on myself right now.” “…

Signed deb

birthdays are weird. i don’t hate my birthday. i just don’t feel connected to it anymore. it feels like a reminder of how much has changed, of how much hasn’t. of the people who used to call, of the ones who said “i’ll always be around” and meant “until it’s inconvenient.” i don’t mean to be a party pooper. i’m just tired of pretending this day feels good when mostly, it feels like a report card for things i didn’t f…

Signed deb

there is no great cosmic stillness reserved for your private sorrows. there is only this: life, humming and pulsing and surging forward, as thoughtlessly as blood through a body that does not know how to stop beating. and you, battered and broken and bewildered, are somehow expected to keep moving too.

Signed deb

how greedy. these days when you look around, how many little ways are you assaulted by the notion that it's wrong to need others. but the yawning in you doesn't understand logic or sound or reason. it only sees sundays, only sees what you do-not-have, only sees the look others share and that you so desire. sick with dread at it, sick at how it makes you want, how you yearn in no direction.

Signed deb

these days when you close your eyes, what else do you want but to be loved in a warm and permanent way. the open soft hand, the lowered voice, the blanket around your shoulders. you want to be loved like hot chocolate, like spring flowers, like dawn. you want to go to sleep protected and wake up fully rested. you want the wounds in you to matter, you want someone who is patient around your scars.

Signed deb

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Signed bob

i want him to be so bored he goes to play with my hair. twisting two strands together because he thinks that’s a braid, clipping the end with the first bow he sees. wordlessly appreciating me, learning me, like the first time you ever pet a cat. you almost want to pull away from how soft it is, it shocks you. but then you go to touch again, and again, your mind quieting to allow room for the pure, unconditional peace…

Signed bob