there's an evil calm that snakes its way through this house
a quiet light that's almost too faint to see
and as i lie here on my back
i look up at the twinkling stars
the reds
the greens
the occasional flashes of stucco walls
i feel myself rising up to meet them
even though i think i'm light years away
i can hear the upstairs neighbors yelling
because sometimes
sometimes
love
isn't the answer
and gravity is too hard to bear
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i find myself guilty of using this word way too many times. to be honest, i love this word to pieces. you can use it for literally anything.
last night i literally became a dragon.
i literally hate your guts.
i literally cannot even believe you told her that, you sycophant.
and etcetera. i think it’s just a stunning word and i will use it daily until the day i die.
i’m now rereading the prompt and i feel like it has a negative connotation to it, like it’s expecting us to write something that we may be inclined to dislike. i like when people use words and i think that people who get hung up on something being used by “too many people” would do well to remember that their opinions are literally subjective.
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Daily writing promptWhat is the most important thing to carry with you all the time?
besides my wallet and keys, i don’t really go anywhere without my backpack. i walk almost everywhere i go; it’s just easier to do that in a city, and i like having my backpack in case i end up getting something at the store, or i have to pick something up from the library, or like if i find a small kitten.
most days, my backpack is completely and utterly empty — i always just keep it around for what-if moments. i think it may be the physical manifestation of my anxiety that is a steady undercurrent of all my actions.
“gotta be prepared, joe,” says my anxiety as i strap an empty backpack to my back for absolutely no reason at all.
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Daily writing promptWhat’s the most money you’ve ever spent on a meal? Was it worth it?
the most expensive meal i’ve ever had was in las vegas at that restaurant that is inside the eiffel tower, on the strip. it just twinkles so nicely in the night sky.
i think it was close to $250 for my partner and i but it was so wonderful that i can’t think of any meal that tops it. the meat was just deliciously juicy and red — or maybe that was the ambience — and when we merely mentioned escargot, our waiter had said, “well that’s something we usually only serve at lunchtime, not dinner.” we were like, “oh that’s okay, thank you though!”
i was kind of bummed cause i’d wanted jacob to try it. i think it gets a bad wrap but i’d had many platters of it while in france and it had been years since i’d had it and my god i really wanted some more.
anyway, we’re nearing the end of our meal when our waiter came out with a platter of escargot and it was so buttery and garlicky that i couldn’t handle it. i was so happy. i don’t know how to use words to describe the insane euphoria i felt at getting to eat escargot again.
anyway the entire meal was delicious but i think i would have paid $250 just to eat those snails.
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i have a hard enough time thinking of 3 things that make me happy.
30?
here are some thoughts that came to me in no particular order.
- therapy
- my father
- my mother
- my sister
- my boyfriend
- my friends
- my job
- the internet (i know)
- youtube
- kingdom hearts
- a really juicy book. the kind that sits with you for weeks after you’ve set it down
- kool-aid in the summer (the blue kind)
- riding a bicycle
- singing in the car
- the enchiladas my boyfriend makes me (we can seriously get two dinners out of those suckers)
- music (especially the kind i like enough to buy on vinyl)
- falling in love
- traveling
- the moment i found my birth family in a rural little town across the sea
- dead by daylight (ok any sane person would never say this game makes them happy, but i love hanging out with my friends while we play)
- the mona lisa (i have no idea why seeing this in person was so joyful, it subverted every idea i had of it and i loved that)
- wandering around countries that are not your own
- that scene in stranger things where sadie sink rises into the air. you know the one. *chef’s kiss* superb moment in tv.
- when you showed me attention for the first time
- when you told me to never speak to you again
- my apartment (i seriously love the vibe we’re starting to build here)
- our cats, tucchi and wheezy (they are precious baby angels even if wheezy peed on my shoes)
- the moment when you realize the trauma is now just a part of you, and not your entire existence
- when we finally found the hotel in new jersey after walking from new york (why were none of the streetlights working that night)
- the fact that things like this give me a chance to reflect and be grateful about what i have in my life. that makes me happy.
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i can see you up there in the mountains climbing your way up to a life i've left behind it’s so weird to see your friends my friends once but i was just visiting wasn’t i? do you remember crying on the floor? not wanting it to be the end scratching my fingernails into the wood i'd hoped it'd hurt, but it had felt right you know it would have been a nightmare don't you? an awful twisting dark sleep paralysis on a never-ending loop dark forests in new england horse drawn wagon pulling us in warm breath swirling around us hot mead waiting inside and the snow was falling so softly a blanket i wanted to dive into but then i realized i didn’t love you for the first time and no amount of adventure or honeyed wine could change me i’m so relieved you’re happy and i watch on wondering what would have happened if i hadn’t been who i am
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i think i’d have to write that religion is a tradition i have not kept. i was raised roman catholic and it was sometime after the priest kept saying, “homosexuals will burn in hell” and my religion teacher telling me that i was “being used as a vessel of evil to destroy your family” that i became a little disillusioned with this particular tradition.
i think the ritual of religion, the meaning we place in repetitive acts and phrases and songs is beautiful. but i can’t ignore the hurt it caused to not just me but millions of other people. it’s not something i could continue doing in good conscience.
i remember i spent many years online trying to explain my faith to people. but it was really a way to try and explain to myself why i kept going back to a thing that hurt me.
sometimes bad things are just wrapped up in sparkly gift bags with lots of tissue paper, i guess.
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i don’t know. i’d like to say “oh i’m funny to the point where it’s like, can you stop please because did you know you’re actually really annoying?”
how i see myself is not how i think i appear because when i’m actually myself, people think something is wrong.
i remember one time my therapist quickly read me for filth and said, “so you do a character. an exaggerated, humorous version of yourself. you are constantly putting on a performance.”
i’d say that — i’m really good at creating this character. this (what i consider to be) massively transparent person who barely masks his depression with humor is like so faux cringe to me. but i can’t stop doing it! he’s gotten me through so much that at this point i think maybe it may have been me all along.
but the day i chose to just shed him off and be myself, i’m not joking, everyone asked me if i was okay and if i was depressed and if something was wrong and —
it just didn’t stop. it was so irritating that i decided i’d never do that again.
so anyway, if someone asked me how i’d describe myself i’d say that i’m whatever you need me to be.
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If you could bring back one dinosaur, which one would it be?
have we literally learned nothing?
i would bring back 0 dinosaurs because i have watched jurassic park enough times to understand that the hubris of humanity is what helps destroy the world.
we already have enough vessels for that to be carried out!
(i know this isn’t real, but i’ll die on this hill)
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i was just discussing this with a friend today, actually.
she’s about to head to new zealand and that’s the place i’d love to travel to the most. but alas, i am a poor human and travel to other places is something i cannot afford.
i fell in love with a boy there once — just through email, nothing crazy — but i always had this fantasy that i’d just go there and find him walking down the street one day.
i’d say, “sam?” and he’d say, “joe?” and even though we only last saw each other when we were 16 it would be like no time had passed and that every irreconcilable difference we had was resolved.
we’d enjoy the mountains together, taste cheeses, drink wine, and wonder why we’d left so much time lost to nothing.
his country would smell like mine and i’d think that absolutely everything i’d ever wanted from life stemmed from his approval.
unbeknownst to me, years later i’d actually fall in love, shatter my world into jagged fractures and hope that i’d meet another boy there. i’d try to get internships, look at apartments, figure out how to emigrate, all in the hopes that one day i’d stumble across a boy i was never supposed to be with.
i’m sorry if you’re still reading this. and i’m sorry that life can be so terribly sad.
i hope that one day i can visit this country that has connected me with humans who have taught me so many things and shaped me into who i am.
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it has taken me a massive amount of time to do these and i apologize. who am i apologizing to? i don’t know — the internet at large i guess.
anyway, i’ll listen to music at work. luckily a lot of what i do during the day allows me to keep headphones on and focus on one task at a time.
i’ll switch it up and listen to audiobooks every so often. right now i’m working through molly shannon’s, “hello, molly! : a memoir” and it’s simply wonderful.
it’s making me think a lot about the last time i was genuinely happy and i love it.
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if it wasn’t then it’s gonna be now tell me how how you think we’ll get out of this there aren’t many nights left of you and i i can feel it in my bones every inch of this place feels wrong forced like my smile in the picture when we picked apples you were so happy i never corrected you no one knows when i’m acting my crowning achievement i lost and left so much of myself back then i can’t remember what used to move me forward what made me wade through tides of uncertainty you always kept me anchored to shore so on the night it ended i can’t remember anything else except finally feeling free
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gratitude? i think that i am horrible at expressing it. there are a lot of things i want to say to people that i just never say because i’m worried about how it will come across. will they think i’m being genuine? will they think i’m being too corny and then not take me seriously even though i swear i am trying to be as earnest as i can?
i don’t… think i do a good job at expressing it.
not expressing gratitude, in the past, has often been used as a way to hold something over my head and because of that i feel resentful when i have to express it. like — what? you want me to say thank you for something you did for me absolutely every time i see you?
my head doesn’t work like that.
i am eternally grateful for every opportunity or kind thing someone does for me and i will let them know. i’ll thank them and i’ll try and think of ways i can show them kindness in the future.
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sometimes you just kinda fall off in life and i tend to do that a lot, hence why i did… 12 posts even though i said i was going to do 30. it doesn’t ultimately matter because there’s no one who has any expectations for me except me. i can just pick up when i feel like it. like today. hoorah. bye.
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What quality do you value most in a friend?
i absolutely need my friends to be funny and know that 95 percent of the time everything out of my mouth is bullshit.
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What jobs have you had?
i have had so many different jobs! i’ve been a dishwasher at a restaurant, a custodian, red cross office volunteer, a cashier, long term pharmacy call center representative (i don’t even know what i was doing in this position but i went to a hospital once and a woman patient winked at me in an elevator and told me she wanted to fuck me??) retail pharmacy technician, social media manager, radio DJ (for far too short a time), marketing department in a library, and other library worker roles.
i’ve taken something from every job and that means the good and the trauma.
i’m finally in a position where i don’t feel like my head is going to explode and where i don’t have to cradle a dying person in my arms as they choke to death on their blood — just one of the wonderful upsides of being a public librarian! those are stories for another time.
i’m happy where i am and i’m happy about the long and winding path it took to get here.
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Do you practice religion?
i’m really procrastinating these, aren’t i? this is … a loaded question for me but i’ll summarize it briefly by saying christianity harmed me more than any other force on this planet and my spirituality stays as far away from it as possible.
i’ve found joy, sense, and peace in the practice of witchcraft and that’s all i can write without diving into one million things i do not wish to write about at the moment! huzzah!
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What are you good at?
i’d like to preface this by writing that i’m only going to do 30 days of these daily prompts. the end.
next, i’d like to write that i’m very good at being direct, transparent, and chaotic. i think sometimes it makes people upset but i’d rather we all share our feelings openly and honestly. the world seems to be better that way; when we get straight to the point.
also, kingdom hearts. i’m really good at playing that game. except for chain of memories because let’s be honest — numbers and cards are my two least favorite things on the planet.
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What does “having it all” mean to you? Is it attainable?
“having it all”? i think that phrase is fairly subjective, of course. having it all is definitely not something i’ve ever strived for because for me it represents boomer american ideals of the american dream. i know that’s not what it really means but that’s what it is in my head. i can’t own a home and my student loan debt will never go away until i die.
“having it all” means living comfortably to me. getting by. not surviving, but enjoying the time i have here on earth. hanging out with friends, eating good food, seeing new places, and doing new things. those are the things that are important to me.
and like … i’d like to publish a book one day.
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Who would you like to talk to soon?
i wish i could talk to ___ ________ soon and apologize for saying that i didn’t like how i felt when i talked to him. it was a kind of awful thing to say and i know it was the nail in the coffin. but we’d already been six feet under for a long time.
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What personal belongings do you hold most dear?
my mother kept a journal when she adopted me from romania. their harrowing journey is well documented and is very special to me. i want to get it published one day so other people can know how incredible my adoptive parents are.
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Do you have any collections?
i feel like if i begin writing about all the horrible ways i’ve collected people and stories, i will fall into a hole i’ve tried very hard to climb out of. but that’s part of who i am and while definitely worth investigating the reasons as to why you should probably never do that — now is not that time.
instead, i collect a lot of material things and i won’t lie, i find great comfort in my legos, video games, books, and every other physical form my desire to escape takes. they’re parts of experiences i’ve had, or demons i’ve fought. when those moments should no longer be remembered, i toss the item into a donation bin or recycle it. i guess… i guess that i love collecting things.
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What is the legacy you want to leave behind?
i honestly just want people to be like oh that guy was pretty funny. and nice.
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How do you feel about cold weather?
i actually love cold weather. it’s when some of my favorite family and childhood memories happened. intense snowfall has always been such a big part of my life that i think snow and cold weather have weirdly … shaped me into who i am? i’ve never really thought of it before! i miss the snow. i miss not being able to find my car and having to dig out my car with my neighbors. gosh, even the not fun parts of cold weather are things i still weirdly cherish. anyway, i’m a big fan.
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i am going to start doing these daily. maybe. we’ll see. but anyway, i like these because it causes you to reflect and i don’t think we do enough of that.
i’ve never broken a bone, but i always say that i have? it’s kind of messed up now that i’m thinking about it, but when i was younger my sister and i were swimming in our neighbors’ pool. i was under the water and she jumped off the deck, into the water, and crushed her heel into my nose.
i think the nose is largely made of cartilage, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.
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i do this every so often — completely freak out about my digital footprint on the internet.
i then completely eviscerate any evidence i exist before rebuilding something.
rinse. repeat. i wonder if it’s a cycle i will ever leave?
tales from the cove 