This time, hannah, write something pretty.

When you wake up with your mouth open and the word “write” on your tongue you know it’s been too long.

I want to wrap you up in it, me up in it, everyone who writes or plays the pain away, all twisted a wound my comforter. And in the dark, we’ll go take flashlights from the kitchen and pull it over our heads and sit in a mishmash circle telling stories that we can’t give empty replies to. Only hugs and tears and kisses and knowing looks and hands held tight. We will open the mouth we close when fear brushes by, and those of us that keep him on our shoulder will turn our head and speak like the words will make us braver. We will not numb and we will not distract, because this bed is big enough for all of you in footie pajamas pretending to be children. I have six pillows but we can share. I want us to speak. Speak. Because it’s so hard sometimes. And I’m proud of everything you accomplish. The night are getting frigid, darker, and I cry as I write because I want to love better but with people who will be gentle with my heart. I want to get better. I want to hold you, all of you, tighter.

He said he didn’t want to hurt me, but I said I don’t mind, to which he responded that people don’t say that. I want him closer. I want to hear his heartbeat, and feel like being alive is so much more than living against your will.

We can keep a little summer in our hearts, I think. Though we live inland the ocean is alive in our teardrops that sometimes don’t make it out of our eyes. Sometimes, someday. I am okay with these indefinite words, if I can feel everything living between the summer and the winter, the child and the adult, the naive and the confident, the breaking down and the building up. Dumbledore’s army, that’s what we are. Trying our best to make patronuses to scare the fear away. Praying harder. Lingering longer. Recognising that self love is sometimes as simple as going in the bathroom to breathe, and loving other people can be getting them a drink and then holding them tighter at rehearsal. I want to be myself. Nerding out a little bit over here, pulling you closer than most. That’s what autumn is about, accepting change by seeing the beauty in the world and in the people nearby. I could be named Autumn, Nina, Paris, Aubrey. But I am Hannah tonight, a pantheon.

Don´t talk to me; my words will slur. Don´t look at me; my eyes will shut Don´t touch me; my hands will shake. I´m more unstable than you think

via — thewindowfacingthesun

Hannah,

You were always afraid of choices. Of solidity, of not being able to go back the way you came. You’re leaving breadcrumbs all across the states and not even you can follow them home.

Home. A word that right now belongs to his arms, since the holes inside of you, though cavernous, are so repulsive you leave as soon as you can.

You don’t know what you want. You don’t. And your mom is jealous that somebody knows how to make you feel loved better than her, better than her husband can make her feel. Plus she’s scared for you. She wants to keep you safe. Sheltered. Protected.

This time you’re going to choose action over inaction, kissing over cutting, holding hands instead of running away. These things you pull around like a raincloud, these threats, they’re not healthy.

But you use them because your hands are shaking and your voice is wobbly. And you’re a child. A baby. An innocent, fuck that, no, a freaking grown woman who has the power to choose things for herself and live with the consequences.

You’re angry and you’re lonely and you’re tired. The summer death brushed by, and you turned up the heat in your room before you slept, that was one of the only warm nights for months. The cold’s creeping in. You can see the warning signs.

Don’t sink. Don’t sink. Pull yourself together. I love you. Your heart may be a teacup and your lungs may be two water balloons. You are more than the things you tell yourself on repeat, more than the tone your mom uses when she talks to you, more than the nasty voices in your head.

Close, close, close. The antigravity of me is something to be admired.

Love,

Hannah

My mom’s having boy troubles, again. I don’t know who to talk to, so I’ll tell you.

I don’t like moving, and I don’t like leaving, and I don’t remember how many times I have held her shoulders, her sobbing and shaking and me internalizing the pain.

I told him to kiss me and tell me I’d never end up like her. I’m afraid, though, that it’s not something I can control: whether or not I become like her. She’s not that bad, honestly, but all that pain, all those cracks running through her body and her mind.

I read the stories of insane women for the same reason that he listens to men yelling into microphones. Insanity comes much easier to me than rage.

I want to be laughed at

And talk to someone who loves quills

And typewriters, oh

And big libraries with big staircases

 

Who understands that I need an equal amount of

Banjo, capture the flag, and evergreens

I exist best surrounded

With art being created, with my ideas taken seriously

 

It’s not that I need Clark Fork again,

But the people there have lungs stained

Green with leaves and white with snow and brown with smoke

Twirling from the chimneys

 

I always liked the way the needles that fall in September

Were the exact color of my hair

I’m proud of the good I’ve been a part of

The church building, the new teachers, our choir class

 

I didn’t like it, but I understood it

Who was who, where I fit, what I wanted

I’ve cried in almost every classroom there

clocked hours shaking and weeping in the bathroom and the locker room

 

They are cracked and broken right now

And I feel like I should be there to try to heal it

Because I feel like I have ownership over those hallways

The fragile freshmen I should be there to love

 

I’m okay to be here, I feel slightly pressured to be

Know what I want?

I want to wrap us up in a blanket and sit in the park

And watch the sunrise and drink vegan hot chocolate

 

I’ve given up on people caring for me like I need

So at this point I’m just asking for bodies close to mine

To distract me and fill a few holes inside

To care for each other like our parents never did

running running I don’t know running running running

and the tempo of the music is too slow for the tempo of the blood in the pumping of my heart muscle

suicide; a definite word but it has to be heard

when the girl from my old school ends her own life

and there is pain

And I just want to run and do my homework and rip up paper and try the last few days over

because I handled everything all wrong

And the universe is sending us into winter, with blizzards in our heads

Afraid of upsetting my family, or trying to love them better?

Afraid of him leaving, or trying to love myself first?

Afraid of not being able to control myself, or trying to respect the wishes of my religion?

Afraid of being okay, or trying to stop lying?

Afraid of embracing light, or trying to finally beat the dark?

Afraid of being normal, or trying to stay understandable in my own head?

Afraid of becoming happy, or trying to control my life?

 

Apparently it’s the good inside us that we’re most afraid of, the possibility and the expectation that comes with freedom and expression.

I told my friends and I told my sisters, and they all said that I was making the right decision, that I wasn’t making too big of a deal out of it. I think they were trying to make me feel better. I can’t think they really believed what they were saying. I’m really good at lying to myself. It translates into the stories I tell those who love me.

Maybe I was trying to be honest, maybe I was overthinking, maybe I was trying to hurt us both. My favorite Twenty One Pilots song is Guns For Hands. I cried to it as I walked to school, swore at myself in the shower this morning.

I’m not letting myself be happy. I think that it’s the right decision, but I feel like it’s all wrong. I don’t know whether to trust the head or the heart. They’re both wrong at the same frequency.

 

Hush, little baby, don’t say a word,
Mama’s going to buy you a mockingbird.

If that mockingbird won’t sing,
Mama’s going to buy you a diamond ring.

If that diamond ring turns brass,
Mama’s going to buy you a looking glass.

If that looking glass gets broke,
Mama’s going to buy you a billy goat.

If that billy goat won’t pull,
Mama’s going to buy you a cart and bull.

If that cart and bull turn over,
Mama’s going to buy you a dog named Rover.

If that dog named Rover won’t bark,
Mama’s going to buy you a horse and cart.

If that horse and cart fall down,
You’ll still be the sweetest little baby in town.