touchedtheskytomovethestars

[touchedtheskytomovethestars]

ive joked for much of my life about being nina rosario from in the heights. then i got into one of the best universities in the world, a six hour flight across three country, on a coast where i knew no one. then i became the first person from my poor public high school to come here.

then, it was a joke.

then i had to work my ass off because “free” only means that my tuition and housing are paid. “full ride” doesn’t mean fully with your head above water. “no family expense” ignores the expense that you pay with your begging, your baggage, your lost sleep and lost chances, your make-up classes for the things your normal public high school could not give you. “everything paid” but there’s no such thing as a free lunch and i am still the one paying.

and so, i started getting worse grades. my reserves of sleep dried up, my tears stopped coming. i learned, clawing my way up, how to smile so that i am a peer and not an subordinate. but my grades faltered and fell. i cannot do both at once.

lots of tests, lots of papers! i laugh and smile while i’m home. i make it look careless, easy.

but now i’ve gone a step too far. i failed a class and in all the grace and mercy offered by this beloved, respected school, im being forced to leave for a semester.

i have 40 hour classes scheduled for the next two years. they will have my retake this class. i will have 60 hour classes for a semester at some point because in all the grace and mercy of this dream school, they cut you off after eight semesters. you cannot do five years. it is not allowed. i will die. do you understand that? i can gladly work my body like that but my mind will break and give out.

smile, wave goodbye and pray to the sky, oh, god

and what will my parents say

can i go in there and say

“I know that I’m letting you down?”

just.

breathe

#and this isn’t even considering the utter harassment by media and people who hate us for our school #so fuck the school that isn’t truly a school #and fuck those who hate the privileged just for being privileged #and i’m scared out of my mind to go home

[touchedtheskytomovethestars]

you say you get my intention but i don’t think you do.

it’s funny how you seem to think i’m that easy but babydoll i passed that marker back in middle school.

you lost my friendship the moment you were uptight. you lost my protection the moment you were unkind.

i think you mistake me for someone easier for you to categorise with your psychology terms and conditions. god, i could never have you as my therapist. you think you know it all and, in doing so, know nothing at all.

let me clarify myself for you. i smile because the world has the love and spirit that we give it. i laugh because life has the meaning we make for it. i love easily and openly and i welcome people into my life with allowance for kindness.

my belief in the goodness and good intentions is not something any person has ever to prove. but it is something a person can lose.

let me state this again so that you can understand this time perhaps: i wanted happiness so i made the choice to assume the best in people. this was not inherent to my nature. it was a choice i made. i am true to my nature when i tell you that you can fall from my esteem with the slightest unkind word.

at that point, you have lost my protection. i will not seek the best in your actions. i will not assume your good intentions. i will keep the secrets you explicitly tell me to keep because you are not worth my word but anything else you say is for me to use.

no. you do not understand my intentions. my intentions were not to clear the air between the two of you. you stopped being a consideration. my intention was to support them.

you are no longer as important as you seem to think yourself to be.

i am not your pet for you to assume my intentions.

[touchedtheskytomovethestars]

i was eleven when i was catcalled for my boobs.

my mother told me to stop walking like that. i asked her like what? i didn’t know i was walking any sort of way. i was eleven.

i was eleven and learning how to walk again because i was eleven when the me that those men saw as a child died and came back a grown up.

i had just turned one when i learned to walk that first time.

when i turn twenty one, i imagine i’ll have to learn again. i tasted it a few years ago then again last year, laughing in clubs, drunk on the illicit mess and novelty of it all and the wine white and dry and cigarettes bummed off strangers outside bars. paying them by standing still, letting them feel those boobs i had once died for. it’s alright. i’ll learn to walk again when i turn twenty one.

and again at thirty one. who knows where i’ll be at forty one. fifty one.

i don’t remember being one. i don’t let remember twenty one. but eleven i remember. i remember i was eleven. and my mother told me to stop walking like that. and i heard if i had walked differently, they wouldn’t have shouted at me. i heard it’s your fault. i heard those boobs, that body, that walk, your actions are shameful. i was eleven.

fuck those men.

the blame was never my mother’s. she knew the world too well. this is not an ideal world but it is the one we have and so she taught me how to be safe because i was eleven and not a warrior.

be angry at those men. the ones outside bars copping a feel of a sixteen year old’s chest and giving her a shot of nicotine in return. be angry at them because it was so hard for her to stop, because it had her coming back years later for a shot and moment with her body as payment. be angry at them because her body was theirs before it was ever hers. be angry because she was eleven and shame was the only path to safety.

[touchedtheskytomovethestars]

of course i’m fucking jealous, that doesn’t mean i love you less well

[touchedtheskytomovethestars]

i come from a place where kids regularly kill themselves for not getting into harvard.

i was just talking to a friend and we were discussing how weird irritating it was that people were so secretive with their college lists in high school.

then i thought about it after. is it any wonder we are so secretive?

look. i’ve spoken to people not from the area. they say it’s not a zero sum game. and they say you can all win. and they say it’s crazy that people die over not getting into a specific college. and they say there are colleges out there that are closing because people don’t enroll. tiktok says teenagers scare the living shit out of me.

i say that they can’t understand it.

we don’t talk about college. college is all we talk about.

we know about other schools, other choices. we cannot talk about them. it’s not about harvard.

it’s about this college won’t take more than three people from this school per year.

it’s about if i talk about it and they apply, who will get in?

it’s about love. it’s about fear. god, it’s about so much love. it’s about loving someone since you were five, eight, twelve, fourteen, sixteen. it’s all about love.

and then it’s about numbers. and about knowing that, here, kids regularly kill themselves for not getting into college.

do you understand what i’m saying?

i’m saying.

it’s funny that we are called cutthroat in our competitiveness.

i’m saying of course the college process is the biggest part of our life for years and years.

imagine if you knew all your life that you might kill the ones you love. or maybe ones you’ve never met. that you were meant to celebrate it. that they might kill you.

we’ve known all our lives that we will someday have a trail of dead bodies in our wake.

it’s not about getting into harvard. it’s that we got in somewhere and that someone is dying because of it. could you live with yourself after that? you don’t even have harvard.

[touchedtheskytomovethestars]

here’s something that you’ll hate.

i kissed them and i hadn’t broken up with him. i kissed them and it had been two weeks since we last talked. i kissed them and i was sober and i knew exactly what i was doing.

i kissed them and i danced with them, right up against the wall. i don’t know if i would have even called it dancing.

i’m not looking for your forgiveness. i don’t need it.

im just thinking about them and all those late night clubs and bars. i was underage. they were… i don’t even know. 30? it’s not like i ever saw their faces long.

it wasn’t like that, though. that makes it sound bad.

i knew exactly what i was doing. i was annoyed at him for ignoring me, irritated with him for reaching out, and furious at him and myself for his failure to mature. i didn’t want someone i needed to take care of, no matter how sweet and nice he was. i couldn’t take a man child. i want someone who cana me will stand their own against me. i read somewhere that parents shouldn’t teach their children to be fully independent; instead they should teach their children to find someone worth depending on.

so i was furious and i dressed for the occasion and i went out. i went to bars and clubs and places i didn’t know a single word of the language. i didn’t know what to do at first so i watched. i’m a quick learner when it comes down to it. every time they went for her instead of me, i stepped in. i bumped him toward her and he held her back. i redirected her. i stepped in and grabbed their hand instead. they don’t care. what’s the difference between one girl and another in the dim lights.

then i let them touch me and press their hands to the parts of me i left uncovered. i let them grab through fabric and rub and rub. i let their hands in my hair, their arms lock around my waist, their wet wet mouths on my neck, and i rocked in the space between their straining legs, right up against the wall. god, i smelled like the alcohol on their breath and their sweat and their clothes for what felt like weeks later. i think one of them was from london. i don’t know. i didn’t care. i was so furious. by the time i left their hands had been all over my body. and it felt better. even if it always felt worse.

he never found out. why would he?

i never broke up with him. that’s the other part you’ll hate me for. i just stopped answering. i forgot about him. i blocked him.

this story has a faster telling, too. he was sweet but he was a child and i was done picking up after him. so i left.

[touchedtheskytomovethestars]

the thing they don’t tell you is that, at the start, self destructing feels like being properly awake for the first time in years. it feels like freedom.

[touchedtheskytomovethestars]

if i did something bad, why’s it feel so good

#relapse

[touchedtheskytomovethestars]

i don’t get tired

i just take medication

it’s okay. who needs sleep anyway right?

#please let me rest

[touchedtheskytomovethestars]

kisses don’t inherently feel good.

i remember training you to like a kiss because it feels like a start. a kiss feels good because it opens closeness. it opens vulnerability. it opens intimacy. it opens connection. it opens into wandering hands that tug and move lower. a kiss is just lips and tongues and chins and teeth. but i remember teaching you how a kiss meant anticipation meant hope meant this will feel good.

then she kissed me.

i never knew a kiss could also feel like goodbye.

[touchedtheskytomovethestars]

let me tell you about myself for a moment

i was never a child who wanted things. or i was, of course i was but i always wanted things like books. pens. a sewing set.

i never was a child that wanted money or to travel or to go to the beach or to sit and play a game with my family. i never wanted things that could be real, that could mean something. i never wanted. i never let myself want.

i told myself i wanted plenty enough as it was. i told myself i was a greedy child and horrible for wanting as much as i did. i told myself that i was too expensive, that i owed my mother for raising me, for clothing me, for inducing me and buying me books and pens.

i could never want because i took enough already. i didn't deserve it.

but beyond that, i owed someone else and it was my life duty to repay them. i wasn't allowed to want. everything of mine was hers. i could not want because it would be taken away the moment it was given.

let me tell you about myself.

i can count the things ive wanted on one hand. most of the things i hold most dear to me now are not things i ever wanted but things that fell into my lap. i hated them when i realised they were there, realised they were things i might want now.

but things that i wanted.

for that moment when people saw me as incredible for doing that. that thing we've been raised to do where i'm from. that thing people will break themselves for and still not get. for that moment when i could rub it in her face that i can do better than her and i can make it look better than her. i could make it look effortless. i could do it and have people love me while she could not despite throwing people on the pyre. it was a dream and a fantasy. i wanted it but only the same way i want to follow a rainbow and find a pot of gold waiting for me at the end.

i didn't mean to want this but i was writing and it was like i woke up and realised i could want something. i did't want to want it but i did and i realised i could want something and want it and it might not be up to me. i wanted to have that and be that person.

this one hurts the most. i didn't think i was the type of person to want like this. this is still the only thing i've wanted like this. the only thing i've wanted so hard it hurts to breathe. this is the only thing i let myself want. this is the only thing i let myself think i could have. i thought i could have it. i could have had it. i had it for a moment, for a week.

for the first time, i let myself hope. do you understand what i'm saying here? i did that thing. that thing i was raised to do, that everyone would kill to do, that people spend thousand to do. i did it more perfectly than anyone could even imagine and i didn't even care. i didn't care because i didn't let myself want it. my life achievement and i didn't care. i did #1 and i didn't care because i wanted it but not really. this one though. it was the first time i let go of that string for a moment. for one week life was more than stick through school just to get to college. stick it out through college just for grad school. from there to a job. from there to retirement. then you can enjoy yourself while you wait for death. you don't have space to enjoy yourself, not when you have something else you need to work toward. just stick it out.

for one week, i thought i could have it and so i decided to let go of that string. i felt comfortable for the first time. for the first time in my life i thought i could trust fully. i let myself want and hope and i let go of that string and i saw myself wanting more things. i saw life. and i wanted.

the biggest betrayal of my life wasn't his walking out. it wasn't the order nor the violence nor the cops nor the broken promises.

the biggest betrayal of my life was when realised i couldn't have it. when i was told that i'd never had it. when i was told that that week i learned to love and want was just a game to her. it was never my choice anyway.

that was my biggest betrayal.

i have a new list now. i thought i knew it before. i did not.

no one hurts a daughter more than their own mother

the truest betrayals are ones you never see coming.

the thing about full, complete trust is that no matter who you are, you stop expecting betrayal from that direction. it is not a betrayal at its core if you saw it because then you didn't trust it.

i don't know how to trust something like that again.

it doesn't stop hurting. its a year and a half later and ive only just started to get through a day without thinking about it. its hard when it is by my side always, when i want it in my future, when i know i won't have it because im spiralling spiralling.

i could have had it. for a moment i did have it.

do you understand the cruelty there? i could have had life. not just an endless procession of get-through-it.

or at least. i thought i had a choice. maybe that's it.

[touchedtheskytomovethestars]

i’m so wrapped up in all of you

my playlist is from him

my camera roll is all hers

my eyes seek him in the streets

my ears listen for her in my building

my friends ask about him

my arms are around her

my fingers go to his texts

my clothes are hers

my rooms are his

#when you find a group of people #and you fall so deeply in love with all of them

[touchedtheskytomovethestars]

uh oh, i’m falling in love

oh no

i’m falling in love again

oh i’m falling in love

i thought the plane was going down how’d you turn it back around

[touchedtheskytomovethestars]

i’m feeling petty and pretentious tonight and honestly i love it

is there anything more petty than taking pleasure in your pettiness because you know you deserve it more than that one person you knew and hated three years ago? who hates you still? who you hate still? is there anything more petty than having a nemesis? if this was a book i would ship it. we are both too petty for that in real life. plus. enemies to lovers have to respect each other. they disgust me.

i am pretty and petty and pretentious and prideful tonight and i love it.

i also love being a child today. jumping both feet into puddles. the beach and salt water and rolling in the sand even as it’s raining. chasing seagulls and eating burritos and living and living and laughing and recording ourselves doing partnered stunts that we know will land us in heaps with skin scraped raw by sand and salt and ragged towels. i think we scared the high schoolers today because we looked like them and we acted as you would think high schoolers would—except of course it’s never the high schoolers that do they have too much care for the thoughts of strangers, too little understanding just yet of how those strangers are them: wanting and jealous and not yet confident enough in the idea that their reaction to cringe is their longing to do the same and fear that those they are with may not want to be the child along with them. dear stranger, we all want to be children again, give yourself and those around you permission to be filled with wonder and failure and lack of dignity and laughter.

dear stranger. i am not telling you not to waste your youth. i’m telling you that you are always young.

[touchedtheskytomovethestars]

at some point you just gotta redirect your heartbreak. is that cruel to say? i don’t care. redirect your heartbreak.

he won’t give you anything. focus on your only child who might give you something good in return.

redirect your heartbreak. forget about him. all you get is pain on both ends if you try to lift him up. he doesn’t want to be lifted up. he’s not ready for it. stop trying.

i don’t care if he is your son. stop trying. redirect your heartbreak. right now, he’s not worth it.

[touchedtheskytomovethestars]

i read in a fic not too long ago. let me quote it for you.

Ever since he could remember, he'd been completely and entirely jealous of Oliver and James. Not of them as individuals necessarily, but of them as a pair. Oliver and James were truly, in every sense of the word, a pair, of the kind Alexander had only ever seen in books, old, classical books that talked about turning a river into blood and defeating gods.  He hadn't even been aware it was possible for such a bond to grow in modern days, but whenever he saw the two of them bumping into each other and laughing, whenever he heard their voices mingling together like two violins in an orchestra, he realized it wasn't impossible, just really fucking rare. Rare enough for him to consider himself lucky to be able to witness such a thing.  It was beautiful. Inspiring. A walking masterpiece. The world seemed to glow and stand a little steadier on its feet when Oliver and James fell asleep on top of each other on their desk.

i remember i almost laughed. i mean, i almost sent it to you but i didn't. but i did almost laugh because of course its possible for such a bond to grow in modern days. achilles and patroclus right? god, if that isn't us. i start where you end and you breathe in when i breathe out. i haven't found another like us outside of books but other have to exist because we do.

the world settles when we are together. we are the world together. best friend, we are the world.

(fic: home is where it hurts by crownsandbirds)

#iwwv

[touchedtheskytomovethestars]

I LOVE YOU