19 ways of ripping yourself apart

it's been a while and this was originally for substack. i hope you enjoy.

Ⅰ.

I felt envious about a girl, that I kinda knew, getting accepted into a MFA program for creative writing. I felt envious about another girl, that I barely knew, being a better writer than me. This is the beginning and the end.

Ⅱ.

“Jealousy is telling you something.”

Hannah returned my words and how lukewarm they felt in my hands. I dragged my concrete feet back home wishing I didn’t feel hot with envy.

Ⅲ.

I began reading fantasy novels. I grew exhausted of memoirs; of people creative enough to write a pithy life story in the bowels of academia. I think about asking my college mentor to edit my writing. I draft an Instagram story bravely asking if anyone could edit my writing. It never left the recess of my mind. I imagine writing more than I actualize — A child playing pretend.

Ⅳ.

I’ve fallen in love with running and I can’t muster the courage to write about heartbreak. I’ve been running instead of writing, and editing instead of writing, and righteous anger bleeds out for attention, and I want to be known, and I don’t enjoy being looked at, but I like to run on the main roads, so I run instead of write because I heard that all great authors run six miles a day. Something about finding clarity in repetitive movement.

I fell in love with running because it’s a socially acceptable excuse to run alongside your demons instead of running from them. Heartbreak gave me wings and told me to fly.

I ran instead.

Ⅴ.

The acid hungry gnawing monster, that visits the depths of my stomach, moaned furiously, one day. “Get out, get out, get away,” and I knew exactly what he meant.

Ⅵ.

“Whatever happened to your poetry?,” and my face flinches like I was slapped by a white mother. I am my own enemy and this sometimes protects me. I haven’t read a poem out loud in eight years. I have a hard time remembering when writing was for me, when it was all that I had, when it gave to me and asked for nothing in return.

Naivete at the fore.

My writing wants everything from me as I age. Betrayal crawls out of my pores becoming parasitic.

Ⅶ.

I used to call myself a poet but then I got embarrassed.

Ⅷ.

I wrote poems when I was young and in love. I write prose now, in hopes of defying/defining time. I’m tired of running so I’m writing and praying and doing that repetitive thing that great authors do to find clarity.

Ⅸ.

There’s a particular grief, writing about breaking up with someone you wanted to build a life with, and there not being enough depth in the English language to do this.

Ⅹ.

I want to describe the day at Ravenna Park, when I asked her if she’d ever have a love ceremony with me. If she’d ever marry me. And she said marriage was a big deal and because of it she felt overwhelmed by the thought of it. I want to describe the burials I dug inside myself, when she said, “Why do we need to get married? We can just keep doing this.” I want to describe the day I sat in her bathroom while she cut her hair, drinking wine, “Thinkin’ Bout You” by Frank Ocean clinging to empty space. “Do you think about forever?” I asked. I can’t remember how she answered. I want to share with you about the drive back from a camping trip with friends, when I cried in the car, because I worried she didn’t love me enough to make art out of me. How about when we did acid together, our first Seattle snow day, and I kissed her feet while she explained something scientific to me, and I felt pure joy? How do I describe the time, after coming back from Mexico with my other partner, when I told her we had talked about my desires: to get married, to have children, to build a life with someone; and she cried saying she wanted to be my family? How I broke inside because she said it too late — after she realized I was breaking off a chunk of myself for another. How do I describe the space between Al Green’s, “How To Mend A Broken Heart,” and Prince’s, “So Blue?” The deluge of Bee Gees,” How Deep is Your Love,” and soaked tissues that built an altar near my pillow?

ⅩⅠ.

I moved into your bedroom, after you moved out, to be closer to you.

ⅩⅡ.

It’s almost been two years, a year and a half, one year, and I can finally listen to all 13 playlists I made with you in mind without breaking into: the child in me that felt seen by you and the 23 year old you helped heal.

ⅩⅢ.

I’ve reworked every word I can muster to write about what you mean to me. I’m ashamed that I’ve yet conjured the ability to do so.

ⅩⅣ.

“I need you to love me more

Love me more, love me more

Love enough to fill me up

Fill me up, fill me full up

I need you to love me more

Love me more, love me more

Love enough to drown it out

Drown it out, drown me out”

Mitski is blasting in my kitchen while I’m cleaning. Do you remember when I used to go on bike rides, in the U-District, listening to these lyrics like laundry cycles, crying and peddling and wishing I was different. Someone who didn’t love you more, who didn’t feel desperate, who was sure of herself, who listened to you the first time you said, “I don’t think I should be in a relationship.”

ⅩⅤ.

“Do you love me, love me, love me?

Do you love me, love me, love me?

Do you love me, love me, love me?”

I listened to “Sugar” by Brockhampton for 8 months after we broke up.

ⅩⅥ.

“I Can’t Make You Love Me” by Bonnie Raitt comes to mind and it’s perplexing to feel like the “I” and the “you” that she sings about. I believe we had an epic love story. The kind that inspires artistry. I believe we love each other simply, purely, wholly, and yet, it wasn’t enough. How do you describe the universal grief that love, sometimes, is not enough. It feels like being unable to answer a “why” from your child. It’s shameful how flat our brains are in this reality.

ⅩⅦ.

I followed the girl who is a much better writer than me on Substack. We might cross paths again if we both continue to write. In one of her pieces, she mentions talking about her exes a lot. Me too. Maybe I keep talking in pursuit of finding enough English words to honor what she meant. Maybe. Until then, I will continue looking in songs, at people who sacrificed themselves to something much greater than I may ever understand in this lifetime, making meaning from grief that cannot solely exist in words, but in a brief capturing of feeling. In the intimacy of wind caressing my face before departing. In envy.

XVIII.

The acid hungry gnawing monster impatiently claws his way through a bloody amniotic sac of insecurity. I imagine the first breath invoking some sentiment like,

“I am worthy of love that keeps my feet nestled amongst mycelium.”

XVIIII.

I run to forget, I run towards remembering, I run to avoid, and I run in hopes of finding new pathways towards loving myself. This is the beginning and the end.