Maybe you just have to live for the small things, like being called pretty or someone picking up the pen you dropped or laughing so hard that your stomach hurts. Maybe that’s all that really matters at the end of the day.
harry: alright! this hagrid guy’s taking me away from my abusive family to a magic school where i’ll learn to be a wizard! i bet this is going to be a fun adventure!
[seven years later]
harry: everything went wrong, the headmaster’s dead and now hogwarts is in pieces
vampires always like “i could kill you if I wanted” like? yeah? so could another human being. so could a dog. so could a dedicated duck. you arent special
We stop at the dry cleaners and the grocery store
and the gas station and the green market and
Hurry up honey, I say, hurry,
as she runs along two or three steps behind me
her blue jacket unzipped and her socks rolled down.
Where do I want her to hurry to? To her grave?
To mine? Where one day she might stand all grown?
Today, when all the errands are finally done, I say to her,
Honey I’m sorry I keep saying Hurry—
you walk ahead of me. You be the mother.
And, Hurry up, she says, over her shoulder, looking
back at me, laughing. Hurry up now darling, she says,
hurry, hurry, taking the house keys from my hands.
getting used to the idea that there are people who will actually respect my boundaries is so hard. like, i’m allowed to change my mind? i’m allowed to stop things if im uncomfortable? i can disagree safely? i can talk without being criticized? i can open up without being torn apart? like okay. all of that sounds fake but okay
she asked me if i believed in god and i told her that when i was four i almost drowned in a public pool and in my panic mistook a stranger for my father. i clawed my way up his leg. four years later he’d send my parents a picture of the scars alongside a tin of cookies. he said, “i hope she’s still okay. i carry her with me. it isn’t every day you save a life. it isn’t every day you feel like you were here for a reason. when it does happen, you have to cherish that memory. for once, i had a purpose. just being there was enough. she tore me open but she taught me a lot about love.”
i am in pain
