I’m Trying To Hold Onto Myself.

She caressed her lover’s hair like a bird tending her nest; she saw only futures in the black tangles clinging to her fingers.

I feel pressure to act not as a person, but as woman. To fill every void left by our absence, too little leaders of us, too little comedians of us, too little scientists of us; am I meant to choose what loss to make up for with just my one life?

Even in its darkest hour, the world carries good people on it. And we must fight for them. Love is sustainable, a replenishing and revitalizing energy. Hatred ravages the wielder just as much as those it is wielded against. It can propel you, surely, but for how long? How long can you hold the fire before you, too, are turned to ash?

These teeth of mine, that I press my tongue against, will outlast my soul. I taste death, how when I die, my crooked jaw will linger here on this earth without me. It haunts me to smile and see a glimpse of what will remain.

Living with my mother is like living in my office. She is my boss, my judge, my jury—my executioner. I hear her performance reviews of me in the living room, sat comfortably next to her easing into the armrests. I however can’t afford to be comfortable, I live on the clock and there is only a pinpoint for my big toe to precariously perch on as I teeter in and out of her good graces.

And I am content to keep hurting. I am content to keep pressing my soft body into the recesses of his absence, if it will only bring me closer to his place in nothing.

Shadows cast under noses, in sullen cheeks and eye sockets galore.

Highlights on the rims of sharp roses, with thorns that grow ceiling to floor.

Nothing quite so soft and unforgiving, as the woman that waits at your door.

Is the joy of wearing anyone’s face, dawning any voice on command worth more to you than possessing your own? Then by all means act your life away. Express yourself in characters, distilled emotions and memories of yours, collect awards, applause, whatever it is you think will fix you, make you happy. And when the curtain is called and the limelight dims and you sit with your viewer of one and struggle to communicate to other people in real life without the hug of a facade, I want you to remember that you wanted this. You wanted to be shucked and hollowed out to be filled with the adoration of millions. Don’t step down now. There’s nothing worth returning to anyway.

-Diary of an actress

You weren’t there on the mountain

when its last glacier melted,

You weren’t there in the river

when it’s water ran empty,

You weren’t there by the ocean

when it’s body rested over much of the land.

You didn’t watch the dying happen, but nonetheless, it happened. And one sunny day, when the skyscrapers stand hollow, and the cars don’t run, and the world’s heart has beat its last,

You won’t be there.

I need a new wardrobe—I’m running out of time to be young and beautiful. For people to see me and not just look at me out of some mundane politeness. I need to be everything I am right now in these fleeting moments, or it’s like they’ve already gone.