would you tell him

My heart breaks for the burden the world carries.


"And when you talk to God, do you sit at his table and tell him stories about the day I was born? And does he laugh with you like it's all a surprise to him?" -Levi the Poet

to save a life

They say I have one wild and terrible life to live, only one.
They ask what I want to do, how I want to live,
What I want to do for the rest of my one life that I've been given.
I'm silent, because there's too much noise inside my head,
There's too many words to say, too much pain.

But my heart is whispering those words over and over again.

"What do you want to do with your life?"

"I want... I want..." To save a life. I WANT TO SAVE A LIFE! That's all I've ever wanted.

And that's the one thing I'm not sure I'll ever be strong enough to do.
Because I've already lost myself.

So I shrug, force a smile, and say nothing.

wait for me there

I'll be home soon. I promise.

Let the sun kiss the horizon one last time before the darkness suffuses the earth, enveloping it in a cold cloud of shadows. Wait for me there, love. Hey, goodbye.

You're stronger than the golden beams of a flourishing sunrise. I know you may endure forever, but the pain won't let me stay with you that long. I wish I knew if you cared.

then you become real

|| from a favorite childhood story of mine... such wisdom in such simplicity ||



The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.


“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”


“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”


“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.


“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”


“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”


“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”


“I suppose you are real?” said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive.


But the Skin Horse only smiled.


_________


The Velveteen Rabbit
|| Margery Williams

the true tragedy

When my final post for NSPW didn’t come on time, or even a day or two later, I wonder if anyone cared. I wonder if you just assumed I was too busy to write. Or maybe you didn’t even check my blog, because you think it’s a stupid way to keep up with my life. Maybe you don’t care about my life anyway. But... did it ever cross your mind that I might have committed suicide, and my blog had been left empty for the wind to scatter like ashes? I don’t say that lightly, to get attention, or cause concern over my mental state. My point is simply that we take people’s lives for granted. We assume that they’ll always be here, just because we think they should be. That’s a true tragedy to me, because we say that people shouldn’t kill themselves because life is precious, but while they’re alive we treat them like their lives are worthless. We say that suicide is selfish, but we live our whole lives so selfishly, we make it painful for others to live. I’m not trying to justify suicide, but I think that we are so oblivious to why people embrace death so eagerly and give up their lives so willingly.

NSPW: Day Six

NSPW Day Six. Don't worry, Day 7 is on its way.


A letter, to you --

I think that sometimes the people that we choose to try and forget are the hardest to. Somehow they then become the easiest ones to remember, for better or for worse. Your heart becomes used to the thought of always having them near, in one sense or another, just hoping and waiting for a chance. But then you wake up one day and things have changed and you realize that now, you must force yourself to forget the person you loved. To shove everything out of your mind and your heart and your life and try to pick up the pieces of whatever’s left and move on. To live your life from day to day and act like nothing’s happened, but inside there’s still something missing, and you know deep down that it’ll never be the same. Somehow you’re still falling apart bit by bit because you’d built your life together at one point with the little pieces of that one person you’d grown to love, and now it hits you, that you’ll have to start all over again but this time without them. The pain of forgetting seems like enough to push everything away, make you want to end everything so you can escape it.

You wake up one day and friends have turned to enemies that hide in shadows, eager for the chance to slit your throat when you’re lost in thought. Friends, who you thought you could trust with everything you believe in, who show you all you’ve really been chasing is a shadow of an idea because you were so desperate for someone to love you. Those friends who now leave nothing but a bitter taste in your mouth. They’re forgiven, but the pain isn’t forgotten because it’s just not that easy anymore when you’re struggling to stay alive. They don’t think you’ll find out what they’ve done, they don’t think you’ve heard the whispers of your name and all the rumors they’ve spread, they don’t think you’ll notice that everyone treats you differently now because you were the girl who made the mistake of living and loving.

Now you’re back home and you’re sick and they might never see you again but all you can think about is the one person you wished you didn’t have to try and forget. All you can wonder is if all the words they said hurt him as much as they hurt you, and if he’s trying to forget it all too, or if there’s some part of him that just doesn’t want to let go of you. Even though you know the truth that it was all in your head and you should just disappear until the flames die down, you still blame yourself. And the voices in your head don’t help much at all to reassure you that it wasn’t all your fault, that you aren’t a failure, that you still have hope. But it seems like sticks and stones would be softer than all those things you heard spoken about you behind your back. And to think we used to say words could never hurt us.

Words cut like knives because what people forget is that it’s not just about what a person says but what the words they say actually mean. Words carry a lot more depth than a jumble of letters pushed together.

You tell a girl already struggling with depression that she’s fat; to her, it doesn’t just mean she’s not thin enough. It means she’s not good enough, and she thinks she might never be. She’ll wake up the next morning and look in the mirror, beginning to accept what you said as true, and then she’ll try to decide whether or not to eat her next meal. She’ll start to hate her body, not because she’s unsatisfied with it, but because you were, and she thinks that if you view her as overweight then everyone else must also. And who could love a fat girl?, she thinks. She convinces herself that losing weight isn’t a bad thing; that it just proves she’s strong enough to resist temptation, and that it’ll be worth it because people love people who are thin, people who are pretty; and that’s what she wants to be now. In her mind, she wants to be thin and pretty. But in her heart, all she ever wanted was to be accepted and loved for who she was, no matter what size her waist was.

You call a boy who’s already insecure, ‘emo’ or ‘gay’, and he’ll laugh it off then but at night he’ll cry himself to sleep, not because he’s weak but because he begins to believe that there’s something wrong with being the way that he is (regardless of whether or not he’s actually emo or gay). He’ll play around in his mind with the idea of suicide because he thinks that if he’s gone then he won’t have to listen to the taunting from the echoes of your voice in his head, and it’s not like anyone would care anyway because now he believes that no one could ever love him for who he is. But he’s not entirely sure that he’s ready to leave this world yet, so to put up with all that he’s feeling, while everyone’s asleep he leaves reminders on his skin of how much he hates himself. He wears that jacket now not because he’s cold but because he doesn’t want you to see the scars on his wrists that reflect the scars on his heart.

What hurts the most is not always the simplicity of bullying by calling names, but by name-calling contributing to the breakdown of an already-suffering individual. Yeah, it hurts to be called ‘fat’, ‘pathetic’, ‘weak’, and ‘worthless’. But it feels a lot worse when someone calls you a name that you’re already questioning whether or not you are. Verbal bullying is like negative affirmation. The last thing a depressed individual that’s contemplating their value as a person needs to hear is that others think there’s something wrong with who they are. Maybe it’s meant as a joke. But what those names tell him is that no matter how hard he tries, he’ll always be one step behind where he should be; left forever lonely and unlovely. Lost and wandering, wondering why his life even matters anymore. Those words -- ‘worthless’, ‘ugly’, ‘bulimic’ -- were enough to push him over the edge because they contributed to the overall instability of his heart desperately trying to hold onto somewhere he could call home, someone he could call a friend.

Believe me, I know what it’s like to be called names. I know what it’s like to hate every inch of yourself because you think that if you weren’t quite so different, other people might actually like you. I know what it’s like to wonder if anyone in the world will ever love you. But trust me when I say that you can’t let those thoughts take over or they will be what destroys you in the end. No matter how many times people tease you, no matter how much it hurts, no matter how much you wish you could die, don’t ever give up. Life is a gift, and you shouldn’t let mean people steal it away from you. Please, stay alive. Embrace who you are even though you may be different from the rest, and show them that your life is worth living. Show them that no matter how many times they beat you down, you will always rise up again stronger.

I promise, it’s worth the fight. And I’m here if you ever need someone to talk to.

Sincerely,

--
Scribbles

NSPW: Day Five

NSPW Day 5. I’m a day behind. Apologies.


A letter, to you --

It’s dark outside and I’m on my way to nowhere, driving down the road and wishing I wasn’t so worthless. The bright beams from my headlights illuminate whatever’s ahead and the blur of lights from the passing traffic in the next lane seems like shooting stars to me but I know that wishing for something I’ll never have is pointless now, no matter how much I want it. I don’t know where I’m going but the exit signs show me I’m far away from the place I used to call home. The painted lane lines give me some sort of direction and the static of the radio in the back of my head keeps me awake but I’m barely there anyway because of all the thoughts in my head drowning out the silence.

The cars seem to be driving faster towards me and I wonder what would happen if I were to stray too far to the left. I wonder if I would feel anything as my vehicle collided with another, if I would hear the crunch of metal hitting metal. I wonder if I would stay alive long enough to feel the pain shooting through my entire body and paralyzing me, or if I would be gone as soon as the glass shattered into my face, staining the dashboard a deep crimson hue. And I wonder what would happen after that, after I’m dead. Sirens would blare as they sped up the road towards the site of the accident. My lifeless body would stay there to be found and carried away to cry over. There would be questions, so many questions. There would be a few empty hearts, unable to understand what made me choose to end it. But I wish there would be at least one person wondering what had allowed me to keep going for so long without giving in to the pain.

And the truth is, for a while I didn’t know what kept me alive. But something, everyday, inspires me to wake up and choose life. I live for love. I live for hope. I live for a better tomorrow. Even though I’m broken, if I can help to make someone else’s life more beautiful than it had been before, that’s a reason to keep me here another day. We all struggle with the great questions of identity and purpose at some point in our lives. And I’ve found the answers to who I am and why I’m here. But that doesn’t change the fact that some days I wake up and wonder if I would be better off dead because I’m not making a difference to anyone anyway.

I can’t help but ask: If I died today, would you really care? Would it really change your life in any way? Or would everything there still be the same? From my point of view, your perfect little world remains within your command while mine spirals out of control, but maybe I’m wrong because I think I know better than most that the most important things in life are the most difficult to put into words. And sometimes they’re the things we take for granted. But I’m tired of having my life continually taken for granted and I’m tired of feeling like I’m not worth loving. I think it’s wrong for people to just expect me to stay here if they’re going to treat me so badly that I’m dying to leave.

I heard a speech once about how individuals could make a difference; could change the world because they were empowered to do so by Someone greater than themselves. The true inspiration of the speech wasn’t just what the speaker said, but how he lived. The seemingly shy boy who spoke those words has made all the difference, living as a light to a world drenched in darkness. He’s the boy who hides behind an arrogant facade, but I’ve seen pain within the depth of his cerulean eyes, because he’s the boy who many notice but few actually care about. He’s the boy whose heart seems fragile to me, and I wonder how many times he’s felt broken before. But he’s also the boy who inspires me to keep living, to push past the pain, because of his choice to continue breathing. His gentle confidence gives me the courage to stay alive; to believe that life means more than a heart simply beating.

What he will never realize is that he’s a reason I choose to wake up in the morning; he’s part of what stops me from the inevitable end. He is what makes me believe that it’s incredible to still be alive. He holds the power to influence the lives of others, and maybe I don’t mean anything to him anymore; maybe I never did. But he is enough to keep me alive.

To me, living an ordinary life is like being trapped in a nightmare. My dream is to live a radical life; for every hour to ride on the wings of the western winds. Every night, the voices return and I have to decide all over again whether to give up and forget everything or to hang on to hope. Recovery isn’t easy. I still look in the mirror every morning and struggle with not hating what I see. Every moment, I’m fighting to stay in this world because I know that it’ll be worth it in the end. And sometimes, I wish you would just hold my hand like you knew that if you let go you’d lose me forever. Because the tragedy would be finding out that truth the hard way if you really did care.

I’ve decided for tonight that I’ll drive in between the lines and keep my eye out for signs of the sunrise. Something so simple reminds me of how beautiful life is. Darkness always flees from light; it never stays and fights. No matter how dark the shadows of my heart, the pain can never be deep enough to defeat the light that love brings. I won’t surrender my life to death just yet.

Sincerely,

--
Scribbles


P.S. There are no words to describe how perfect this song is. That's why it's my favorite. Please, listen with your whole heart: Loved & Looked After (Acoustic EP) - Action Item