Wrong World you are a kind person in a cruel reality.
Drowning you find yourself sinking into the depths with no way up and out.
Mournful Mimicry you are unbecoming. literally. and becoming something else.
Chains you seek forgiveness for crimes you never committed.
"you have loved so many, and lost so many. each loss has defined as you as the loser. unless - what if you are not only nothing to be ashamed of, but a glow in the dark? a gentle & warm light? what if they are just as lucky to have met you as you are to have met them? what if they are losing you as you are losing them? what if you are also a loss? what then? it's sad. it still hurts. it is still like microdosing potent tragedy. but at least it doesn't have to tell you who you are, and what you are worth."
"in this beautiful and yet awful world you must hold onto your heart."
Stories / Lessons:
mine:
Joel Martinez (is not his real name): we met at community college, we were both in a game design class. he looked half-dead, he seemed so exhausted, so out of it. but when something got his attention, it was like watching a man come back to life. he showed just a small fraction of what went on in his head, and he was so smart. he was also an asshole. i liked that about him, because i was tired of people who were too nice, people who infantilized me. he was an addict & an alcoholic, and i was fine with that, honestly i was, because it seemed like he was far more miserable than he was prideful, and i wasn't miserable at all. 'no skin off my back. he and i would talk for hours and hours and hours, and i remember, in the early days, he was just as hooked on me as i was on him. he would take the bus for two or three hours from his apartment just to get to me. i felt so electric around him. i fell in love with him, genuinely, this state i was in lasted for more than three months. i was willingly steeping in his energy for half a year. he was my favorite asshole. such potent humor, such charm, such crazy stories, from his childhood, teenage years, many attempts at rehab. the way i describe him to people, most people expect what happens next, but i never did. to me, he was so wonderful, so wonderfully human. oh, i remember the way he smiled when he saw on my bookshelf a series of books he had as a kid, all the stress that had aged him beyond his years washed away. oh, i loved his smile. but i couldn't tell him. i had just come out of a relationship in which someone told me i talked too much, said it too much, so i resolved to hold my tongue as long as possible. the times he called himself ugly i nearly got so mad with grief i broke my silence. it was heartbreaking. the last time i ever saw him in person, he told me, as he was leaving, he was going to go drink himself to sleep. okay, now that's skin off my back. that's someone i love, and not only is he in pain, his own pain, he is at risk of death, which frankly would destroy me. he was my favorite asshole, remember? i nearly told him that night, too, but instead i just wished him good luck. i never saw him again. we planned to hang out after too long had passed, but he flaked entirely. that had never happened before. he'd been late, many times, but he'd always been there, and he'd always made up for it; being two hours late to my birthday party meant he stayed three hours later than everyone else. he did love me, too. but not enough. when he didn't show up, and didn't text, i did think he was dead. and then i really did go mad with grief. that's when i told him i had fallen in love with him. i told him a lot of other things, too. i apologized, and then he apologized, and then we talked semi-regularly again for about half a month, and then he was gone. just gone. the loss nearly killed me. and he did that on purpose. he became so legitimately cruel towards the end. 'discarded me like i was nothing. but i happened to live.
G (is his real first initial, but you're not getting any more than that): he was my first crush after Joel left me, a full year after Joel left me. and i wish i could say that i was completely healed by the time we met, or that i could pretend i was, but i wasn't, i couldn't. so much of the cycle repeated, from my feeling protective of him to the point of internally chastizing myself for doing everything wrong, and neglecting how i truly wasn't, to me simultaneously hiding how much i cared about him while also feeling rushed as though i was being cornered by some deadline. even the way we left things was hauntingly familiar. i would never beg out loud, but internally, i was praying for more time. but despite these similarities, G himself was different. he was really funny, our senses of humor actually fit together quite well, really flirty, really openly weird in a delightful way. he was an artist, and extremely talented at that, the first time he showed me one of his pieces it blew my mind. and he's very stylish, too, he's a pretty boy. sparkly. sparkly little lanky freak. but more than that, there is something so deeply beautiful & gentle & real within him. i still feel this way. i let him go out of respect for him. because he struggles with 'codependence,' too, he struggles with these love wounds, too. half the jokes he made were about wanting to be owned in some capacity, but i refuse. i refuse to own him. i didn't enjoy seeing him walk away without looking back, but if he hadn't, solely out of fear of being alone? if his boundaries were so porous he would like me a lot just for liking him a lot? i'd be horrified for him. i'm not glad he walked away, but i am glad he made that choice for himself. i'm not glad he ghosted me instead of rejecting me out loud, but i am glad i'm able to see that immaturity for what it is. perfection is terrifying, and projecting perfection onto someone you care about isn't an extension of that care, it's an extension of that fear, the fear of being alone. thank you, G, for showing me how human you are. i'm already grateful i was able to meet him, and make him blush & smile a couple of times by teasing the sh!t out of the guy. with his 'codepedence,' there was a color metaphor. blue was depression. but it was also his natural state, it was also him as himself. red was whoever the other person was. purple was a combination, but there was a chance he would fully ‘turn’ red, and i remember him saying he wanted to, he hated being blue. well, i disagree. i like the color blue. that's my way of saying i like/d him. i didn't like it when he was depressed, per se, his smile made me smile, but i liked him. i didn't, and don't, want G to be anyone else but G. i hope he meets someone red, someone he won't walk away from, who likes the color blue as much as i do, and will hold him to it. i wish that person could be me. but he walked away from me, didn't look back, and didn't text. he made his choice. i don't need to punish myself for it. instead, i should gather up my weapons again, not forget the shield, and kick the cage door out of the way. he is free. so am i.
submitted:
Bye, C - Anonymous Over those years, I wrote you a number of poems, awkward blank verse and failed sonnets, all of which I never shared. A notebook, full of adoration. Take this as my final soliloquy. Don’t listen, don’t; this tirade is not for you. This is mine.Does it come across as contrived? Dramaticized? I cannot discern reality from my own malformed conclusions, attributable to your reluctance to correct me. Our true story and the warped version I now propagate, disseminating it freely to strangers the same way your mother handed out proselytizing pamphlets, are one in the same. She did do that, yes? I can’t recall with certainty. I tried to put her out of my mind as much as possible, your mother. I would have never told you as much, but I resented her. I resented her for the way she made you feel about yourself, the way she made you doubt your instincts, your intuition, you. Most selfishly, immaturely, I resented her for being an obstacle. I thought, “If I could only get her out of there.” Out of there. Where was “there”? The house? The community? The whole town? Earth? How far would you have to go to get away? I always felt as if the world were just a little different, just different in one way, this one fucking way, or, just one out of a multitude of ways, if your parents were different, if the world were different, if I were born different. If I had been someone else entirely, someone lovable enough to warrant sticking besides despite the drawbacks. If I had been male. A man. I contemplated that, a lot. You made me wish I was something I’ll never be, am, simply, not. I hated, hate, really do, hate it. But, I guess that went both ways, huh? When you told me, after I had tried to speak honestly to you and understand, instead of only touching one another, you said, “I don’t have options, if I don’t want to go to Hell.” God, I don’t know if I could’ve felt more crushed. Not because I wanted you; I did, I did, and that’s part of it. But—did you hear yourself? Did you know how pitiable that was? Do you know now? I don’t ask out of ridicule. I am concerned, still. Do you understand that everyone who told you that, everyone, fucking everyone, your mother, your father, your sisters, your brother, your pastor, was, is, hateful and sick? Plain cruel? Do you know that? Do you understand? Don’t tell me that I could never understand. I lived ten minutes down the road. Still do. I understand. And, so, we live in a world where I didn’t have the strength to tell you that you were everything to me. I didn’t have the courage to show you the depth of my feelings. I couldn’t show you my poetry, not out of embarrassment, but because of my fear for you. If I had, maybe I would’ve been that person, the one you would choose in the face of danger. That’s a horrible thought. Yet. Two years of close friendship, with the tide of romanticism always lying below, the tide that came in high whenever we could steal a room and be ourselves for five seconds. Hours of late night texting whenever your parents weren’t so clamped down. Two years, and I guess it wasn’t enough. Because you stopped. Two years, and you didn’t say goodbye. Do you remember when you clasped my face, and you said, in a tone so sweet but all the while so very mockingly, “Why do you look so sad? Your pretty face shouldn’t have to worry.” And I smiled, and in every world I would have smiled, because it took only the faintest hint of sincerity on your part to accomplish as much. I must admit, you made me feel so special. You made me feel so real, less like the translucent half-person I’m accustomed to being and instead solid, tangible, warm. You made me feel like I was a someone instead of a something. I had to kill that part of myself, the parasite it became, when you left. And returning to half-living is not so fun once you’ve known the alternative. I’ve been so unfair. I have to say what you did for me. You did something people never do. You wanted to get to know me. Me. In person. My dead look, my listless stare (“the lights are on, but no one is home!”), my detachment. I could be rude, insensitive, short-tempered, single-minded, indignant —never meaning to be, but what difference does it make?— and you didn’t hate me. You went beyond toleration, and you sought me out, over and over again. You approached me, you deliberately tried to befriend me, and you were kind to me in so many ways. You know how rare it is that someone treats me this way, that they look at me, that they hear my voice, and feel the way you felt? That their first impression goes beyond thinking I am empty, emotionless, boring, strange, cold, distant, off-putting? That I am forgettable, undesirable in all ways, against the wall and on the fringes? No. I don’t think you do. Because you are so unlike me. You’re like light. Well. I still see you around, sometimes. I avoid you when I notice. I can’t imagine speaking to you. Please, don’t look at me. You make me feel so ashamed. As I walk off the stage, refusing any interest in an encore of our play-acting, don’t act as if you were part of the audience. You were more of a performer than I ever was. I’ll say goodbye now, as you deprived me of the privilege. Bye, C. Do what you have to do. Do what you want to do. And forget everything that troubled you then.
did the Codependence Love Oracle help you at all? do you have a story to submit? a comment or suggestion for the website? write in here!