The only night I remember is the dinner
of neighbors at which a man I never
had met before said I don’t fear dying—
look at the past, people have been dying forever, and—
then he stopped and shook his head—
I drank too much. I was almost saying
that people have died forever and all
of them survived, but of course—he made
a hard laugh—God, of course they didn’t survive.
by Audre Lorde: And when the sun rises we are afraid
it might not remain
when the sun sets we are afraid
it might not rise in the morning
when our stomachs are full we are afraid
of indigestion
when our stomachs are empty we are afraid
we may never eat again
when we are loved we are afraid
love will vanish
when we are alone we are afraid
love will never return
and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid
So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive.
All of the people in this Chinese restaurant are going to die some day. The deaths will not affect me, i don’t even know these people. I do not know the lady in the collared shirt who keeps looking at the ceiling or the dad talking with his teenage daughter who says “like” too much. I’ll never know the waitress who gave me my water or the young boy seating people up front. But other people know them, other people have loved them, laughed with them, seen them grow up or grow old. All of these people in this Chinese restaurant are PEOPLE, they have lives and jobs and personalities. They have dreams, and faults, and secrets they’ve kept to themselves for years now. I’ll never know all of these people, they’ll never know me. They will all die, and others in their lives will be affected wether that’s a mom, or dad or child or girlfriend. But for right now, everybody is alive, and laughing, and bonding, over this Chinese restaurant that they found on google or heard of from a friend. Life is incredibly short, we are limited in time, yet we’re not limited in love, every human has the power to love someone with all their heart, and sometimes the best way to display that love is sitting down after a long day and talking at a Chinese restaurant.
But now she stands there, perfectly still. Not a twitch, not a blink. Just a statue carved from grief or guilt or something colder. You’d think she couldn’t hear them. But she can. Of course she can. She hears everything. Sees everything.
And she says nothing.
There will be another dream tonight. I know it. The kind that comes soft and fast, like a knife, like a whisper. His face, or what my mind says was his face. Was it him? It doesn’t matter. It was him. It was his friend. That’s what matters.
I don’t know if they’re still together.
God, I hope not.
But I hate myself for hoping.
I wish I were like her. I wish I could stand so still the air forgets to move around me.
Not a flicker of emotion. Not a crack. Not even pity.
Meanwhile my head is screaming,
fuck off fuck off fuck off,
but all I do is smile.
genuinely believe journaling has saved my mental health but doing it in public alone is such a better alternative to going on your phone and also if you have a pretty notebook it's a great conversation starter
if you expect everything you make to be a masterpiece you’ll never get started on anything….let yourself make “bad” stuff in order to get to the “good” stuff