i think that unless you have experienced life while being actually dead broke or near it at least once, its hard to really grasp at how, in many places but in america in particular, ‘having money’ is the access card that allows you to participate, materially, in being fully human. even in non-crisis situations, situations where a paycheck is on the way, you have enough of some kind of food to make it, and you aren’t in any danger of losing shelter, even if you hardly spend any money when you do have it, the state of being completely without money is a state of being hyperaware, constantly, of how much smaller your world is all of a sudden and how many basic aspects of mobility and enrichment are off limits to you. its profoundly psychologically agitating to self worth and well-being even sans the trauma of worse states of deprivation, and i don’t think a lot of people who have lived comfortably without this experience understand that there’s a critical difference between ‘having less money’ and ‘having no money’ when talking about related issues.
Also a difference between known-temporary situations with a safety net present and clear end in sight (e.g. the “poor student” archetype), vs poverty as an existential threat with no clear end in sight.
A lot of people think they’ve experienced poverty when they only experienced the former.
The latter, even if we do eventually recover from it, is something that stays with us; both as a strength (+n resilience if we survived it), and as a weakness (-n security; constant wariness that it could happen again).
fucked up that saying “I’ve had it” or “I’m done” doesn’t actually do anything. you can be having the worst time of your life and get super overwhelmed and genuinely feel like your life is ending and you’ll be like “IVE HAD IT!!! I’m LITERALLY at my limit” and the world is just like okay. see you at your obligations ✌️
I have such a clear vision in my head of the next version of myself. not even my higher self, just the next version because it is one step at a time and I am leading with love
She doesn’t say “I love you” like a normal person. Instead, She’ll laugh, shake her head, give you a little smile, and say, “You’re an idiot.” If she tells you you’re an idiot, you’re a lucky man.
It’s the way I thought my restless wandering was over, that I’d found whatever I thought I had found, or wanted, or needed, and I started to collect my belongings. Build a home. Safe behind the comfort of these four walls and a closed door. Because as much as I tried or pretended or imagined myself as a part of all the people out there, I was still the one locking the door every night. Turning off the phone and blowing out the candles so no one knew I was home. ’cause I was never really well around the expectations of my personality and I wanted to keep to myself. and because I haven’t been very impressed lately. By people, or places. Or the way someone said he loved me and then slowly changed his mind.
no matter the time that passes us by; nor the years that make it feel like forever is actually a downright curse.
it’s when i think of love, i think of our hands entwined in your old ford pick up truck. i think of the many letters written of passion and intensity in your name. aimlessly walking down to the river, eyes caught up in one another, under a starry nightly willow sky. you see, when i think you.. i feel a certainty of home.
the hounds, the river, your green eyes, a summer breeze to a winters haze.
these letters are tucked away in a box in my closest. alongside the many handwritten songs in your name that i still can’t bring myself to play. two years feels like forever. but in those moments, i felt the most alive and more in tune with who i’ve ever been.
you always said the world was against us.
maybe you were right; a forbidden twin flame love.
but as we’ve aged, i think you cared too much of what people think to fight for what is real. i know you settle for what you already know because of comfortability. you have never been alone enough to love who you are first. which is how you stay in a toxic relationship. you’d rather stay than be alone. my darling i wish you could see the bigger picture in solitude.
i hope you think of me the way i think of you. and in some ways i know you do.
no matter the days that turn into months; that turn into a year, my love for you remains and grows naturally.
you’ll always be my Number One.
eventually, you’ll get the chance to hear these songs, read the tremendous amount of letters over piling through the boxes stacked in my closet. then you’ll know for certain.. everything between us was real.
that real love isn’t.. well, a bag of bricks.
i know you can feel it too. the energetic pull for us. i’m here. always will be.
Fuck anyone who says I have to forgive everyone, “for my sake.” I worked hard for this anger. I worked hard to love myself enough to hate them.
Shit, yeah, this is a thing that is hard to articulate. Some people don’t feel healed by forgiving the people who hurt them, because that’s what they kept doing over and over and it only led to getting more hurt. Sometimes you feel healed when you’re finally brave enough to say “This person was horrible to me, and I did not deserve that treatment, and I don’t have to be okay with it.”
ALT
