writingsforwinter:

I have a lot of thoughts about Tumblr as my platform and how it’s changed over the years - not necessarily the platform itself but the community I grew up with here, and how I changed too.

I actually started writing here at the very end of 2011, when I was 17. Now I’m 25. In 2013 my writing was at the height of its popularity and I had my first book published that fall, Survival Songs. The adrenaline and joy I got from seeing so many people post photos of my first book for Christmas was immense. I had been nominated for a Goodreads Choice Award for Best Poetry Book of 2013 and I was on top of the world. 

I was in my first relationship too, which started only a few months prior to publishing Survival Songs. I was deeply in love, both in the relationship and with writing. I followed so many other amazing Tumblr writers and was thrilled to see new work from them. I was writing and posting one, sometimes even two, new poems daily. Every morning I felt a jolt of electric excitement when opening Tumblr to check my messages.

I used to keep a folder full of printed-out messages from my readers. It was so thick. I wonder if I still have it. It might be in my desk drawer at home. I truly treasured that folder.

And then towards the very end of 2013, only about a month after publishing my first book, my partner raped me for the first time. And in 2014 my life went completely downhill because of it, and he raped me again. I know I posted and wrote through it all, but I also know that it was very, very clear through my posts that I was struggling and also very, very suicidal. I know I contemplated deleting my blog many times, and also wrote that on my blog. I did write Healing Old Wounds With New Stitches and The No You Never Listened To in short succession soon after, but nothing came even close to the success of Survival Songs.

Over the years, the writers I used to follow here have dropped off the platform. I can only name one writer who has remained on this platform the whole time. Everyone else has left.

And some of those writers have thriving writing careers that are their only careers - they do well enough financially off writing to make it their whole job. They do tours at colleges and universities and travel across the country for it. I can’t help but feel sometimes that I’m still stuck in 2014, my first book published, but so traumatized and frozen and alone.

I can never get my writing career back to the way it was. No matter how much I write or post, I will never have that kind of success again. 

The last “big” thing that happened to me writing-wise was in 2016, when “The Morning After I Killed Myself” blew up.

I try not to think like this, but I often wonder where I would be writing-wise if I hadn’t been raped. I fell so hard. At the end of 2013 I was on top of the world. In love for the first time, in college for the first time, first book, popular blog, and only a few months later it all fell. I struggle so often to feel that I am 25 years old. I so often feel stuck at 18 or 19, when I began college. A teenager in an adult’s body.

And I know that my writing has alternately grown because of it and suffered because of it. Even now, 6 years after being raped, I still struggle to write about anything that isn’t related to trauma and violence against women. 

Being raped has warped and shattered and twisted my sense of time and chronology. There are enormous gaps missing from my memory of college. 4 years there, and I struggle to remember so much of it. Some days I feel like it was only a few months ago that I was a student, and other days it feels like years. I feel perpetually stuck. 

I cannot adequately ever express how suicidal I used to be. At the time, I don’t know if I was consciously suicidal. I don’t know if I let myself think like that. Even now, terms like suicidal ideation and suicide attempts don’t resonate with me. But I know that in reality, I did attempt suicide many times and for so much of college, I was suicidal.

I still can vividly recall the five times I went to the hospital in the span of only a few months, and how close I was to death each time. Not a single one of my professors knew that I had nearly died multiple times. I still vividly recall walking along the sidewalks on campus and near the gym and imagining, in detail, stepping off the curb and into traffic. I used to picture just slashing my wrists, taking pills, and going to sleep. The only thing that ever stopped me was my own cowardice. I suppose I shouldn’t even call it that. The only thing that ever stopped me was my own fear. I wanted to die, but I was scared of the means it would take to do so.

I often wonder whether any of my readers here remember that time for me. I deleted so many of the posts I made during the worst of the trauma. I do recall that I would often receive worried messages from readers thinking I might harm myself. If you scroll back through my archive, so much of that has been erased. I always ultimately deleted anything that was too overt a display of my suffering.

I feel that I am rambling now. I am not sure what the point of this post was. It just strikes me sometimes, and I suppose today was one of those days, how utterly and completely traumatized I was then, and still am. I try to focus on my resilience, and I know that I won’t let go of writing, but all too often it is so easy to become stuck in this cycle of horrible, traumatic, senseless pain. I remind myself that out of everyone who has left Tumblr, I have stayed, and I have a literary and arts journal now that helps survivors like me. I remind myself of the importance of my work, how I still am capable of love and joy and safety. I try to let the resilience win. I hope it always does.

I have a lot of thoughts about Tumblr as my platform and how it’s changed over the years - not necessarily the platform itself but the community I grew up with here, and how I changed too.

I actually started writing here at the very end of 2011, when I was 17. Now I’m 25. In 2013 my writing was at the height of its popularity and I had my first book published that fall, Survival Songs. The adrenaline and joy I got from seeing so many people post photos of my first book for Christmas was immense. I had been nominated for a Goodreads Choice Award for Best Poetry Book of 2013 and I was on top of the world. 

I was in my first relationship too, which started only a few months prior to publishing Survival Songs. I was deeply in love, both in the relationship and with writing. I followed so many other amazing Tumblr writers and was thrilled to see new work from them. I was writing and posting one, sometimes even two, new poems daily. Every morning I felt a jolt of electric excitement when opening Tumblr to check my messages.

I used to keep a folder full of printed-out messages from my readers. It was so thick. I wonder if I still have it. It might be in my desk drawer at home. I truly treasured that folder.

And then towards the very end of 2013, only about a month after publishing my first book, my partner raped me for the first time. And in 2014 my life went completely downhill because of it, and he raped me again. I know I posted and wrote through it all, but I also know that it was very, very clear through my posts that I was struggling and also very, very suicidal. I know I contemplated deleting my blog many times, and also wrote that on my blog. I did write Healing Old Wounds With New Stitches and The No You Never Listened To in short succession soon after, but nothing came even close to the success of Survival Songs.

Over the years, the writers I used to follow here have dropped off the platform. I can only name one writer who has remained on this platform the whole time. Everyone else has left.

And some of those writers have thriving writing careers that are their only careers - they do well enough financially off writing to make it their whole job. They do tours at colleges and universities and travel across the country for it. I can’t help but feel sometimes that I’m still stuck in 2014, my first book published, but so traumatized and frozen and alone.

I can never get my writing career back to the way it was. No matter how much I write or post, I will never have that kind of success again. 

The last “big” thing that happened to me writing-wise was in 2016, when “The Morning After I Killed Myself” blew up.

I try not to think like this, but I often wonder where I would be writing-wise if I hadn’t been raped. I fell so hard. At the end of 2013 I was on top of the world. In love for the first time, in college for the first time, first book, popular blog, and only a few months later it all fell. I struggle so often to feel that I am 25 years old. I so often feel stuck at 18 or 19, when I began college. A teenager in an adult’s body.

And I know that my writing has alternately grown because of it and suffered because of it. Even now, 6 years after being raped, I still struggle to write about anything that isn’t related to trauma and violence against women. 

Being raped has warped and shattered and twisted my sense of time and chronology. There are enormous gaps missing from my memory of college. 4 years there, and I struggle to remember so much of it. Some days I feel like it was only a few months ago that I was a student, and other days it feels like years. I feel perpetually stuck. 

I cannot adequately ever express how suicidal I used to be. At the time, I don’t know if I was consciously suicidal. I don’t know if I let myself think like that. Even now, terms like suicidal ideation and suicide attempts don’t resonate with me. But I know that in reality, I did attempt suicide many times and for so much of college, I was suicidal.

I still can vividly recall the five times I went to the hospital in the span of only a few months, and how close I was to death each time. Not a single one of my professors knew that I had nearly died multiple times. I still vividly recall walking along the sidewalks on campus and near the gym and imagining, in detail, stepping off the curb and into traffic. I used to picture just slashing my wrists, taking pills, and going to sleep. The only thing that ever stopped me was my own cowardice. I suppose I shouldn’t even call it that. The only thing that ever stopped me was my own fear. I wanted to die, but I was scared of the means it would take to do so.

I often wonder whether any of my readers here remember that time for me. I deleted so many of the posts I made during the worst of the trauma. I do recall that I would often receive worried messages from readers thinking I might harm myself. If you scroll back through my archive, so much of that has been erased. I always ultimately deleted anything that was too overt a display of my suffering.

I feel that I am rambling now. I am not sure what the point of this post was. It just strikes me sometimes, and I suppose today was one of those days, how utterly and completely traumatized I was then, and still am. I try to focus on my resilience, and I know that I won’t let go of writing, but all too often it is so easy to become stuck in this cycle of horrible, traumatic, senseless pain. I remind myself that out of everyone who has left Tumblr, I have stayed, and I have a literary and arts journal now that helps survivors like me. I remind myself of the importance of my work, how I still am capable of love and joy and safety. I try to let the resilience win. I hope it always does.

writingsforwinter:

Don’t leave me don’t leave me don’t leave you’d always say,

even after I declared my undying love for you,

found your mouth with mine over breakfast

til our bodies were nothing but syrup and salt.

For you, a storm was never just a storm,

but a warning of the apocalypse.

I loved you then, I love you still,

wanted so badly for you to believe.

In Texas sometimes the skies open like hands

and I remember you there in the car, kissing my eyelids,

shaking, rain beneath your tongue,

saying how you wanted to always be the map

to my home, but were so scared

every single day that you’d forget the way.

I imagine you sometimes in the winter,

can see you turning your face toward the sky

to catch the snow, the blue of your face

and your breath calm, not worried

that you’ve done anything wrong

or that all your loved ones are just on the verge

of leaving you, not worried,

just for a little while.

I wanted to be your summer but just couldn’t

handle the constant changing of your seasons,

please remember that.

writingsforwinter:

Sometimes I would rather swallow the moon

than any more pills with beautiful names.

The wolves will outlive us all.

I loved that football player I dated

for just a little while.

I could see my life inside his body

and the way we stood inside the dark hallway.

Bess Houdini is the woman I aspire to be

if it means watching someone else

besides myself disappear.

As a child,

when my fingers wrinkled like prunes in the tub

I silently wished the rest of me would too.

My life isn’t sad.

It just doesn’t know how to be a life

that wants to be lived.

I paid off one of my subsidized student loans yesterday, which was super exciting, but I still have more to go. 

Every time I submit a monthly payment I always think about how, yes, I received an amazing education and experience and that is a true privilege, and I will always be grateful for that. 

But my then-partner raping me, who was also a student at the same school, overshadowed 3 entire years of my college experience. I had to request academic accommodations, I attempted suicide multiple times and ended up in the hospital about five times, I had to go on antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication, and I had to enter weekly therapy. It forever tainted my college experience. I met him on my very first day of college because he was my orientation leader. My very first day of college now has him integrated as a memory. 

I can’t help but wish there were a law that would require student rapists to pay for their victims’ student loans. I nearly died several times on the course of working towards my degree. I often wonder what my college years would have been like if I had never met him.

I know that more than anything else, he owes me an enormous debt psychologically and emotionally, but I can’t help but think he also owes me a financial debt too.

Anonymous asked:

a good friend showed me your poetry blog here when we were 13. we are now 20 and I still love your work and admire your bravery and with what conviction you create with. I have a few of your first books from so many years ago, and have a habit of lending them out to people I love. wishing you all the happiness and serenity in the world. thank you.

Wow, I cannot believe it has been 7 years already! Thank you for continuing to share my books with others and for supporting me for so long - hoping we will both reach 10 years together too :) Wishing you all the happiness and serenity right back! <3