Quicksand

inkskinned:

i am haunted by who i should be, a better star, a distant planet; the mirror of me with a better smile and prettier history

(via inkskinned)

inkskinned:

i hate waiting. i hate the in-between times, when my brain starts firing off every possible catastrophe. where i am not sure if i sent the message, if i have the right room, if i gave them the right phone number, if i understood the instructions clearly. i hate the way it feels like a fist is slowly clawing up my throat, i hate the boredom and the restlessness and not having anywhere to go. i hate these quiet moments where i suddenly realize i’m very, very lonely.

(via inkskinned)

inkskinned:

I was given 52 detentions for suspected cheating, almost suspended for it. The principal called me to his office, made some cheesy annoying statement about how this kind of behavior wouldn’t be tolerated. 

 Okay, I said. I’m sorry, it won’t happen again. It was a mistake. 

 Already that year I knew three people who were out longterm for mental illness. Already kids were high in classes just to get by them. Already what was tolerated was a bunch of kids having breakdowns. 

 It was a mistake it won’t happen again. I make sure that my answers are big on the science test. The boy next to me can’t afford medication for his learning disability and hasn’t slept since his parents split and if he doesn’t get a 2.0 he loses his team, the last thing he has left. 

 It was a mistake it won’t happen again. When I pass her my homework I ask her quietly if her mom was getting better. When the semester ends and we are in different classes, I start doing her assignments on the side. She sends me snaps from chemotherapy. 

 It was a mistake it won’t happen again. When I hand over the notes, I make sure there’s plenty of marginal positive thoughts. They haven’t smiled all month. I know what it’s like to be too tired and doing nothing at all. 

 It was a mistake. Your students are resorting to immoral choices because they have no other option. You make grades the be-all and end-all priority, no matter what else might be happening. You force them into situations where they can either fail and definitely have a permanent punishment, or cheat and probably pass - it’s worth the risk. Your students stand in solidarity, not to praise the might of learning: but to gather together in the right of living. You are the one who made the dichotomy of student/human. We are not both, are given “either like it or leave it”, are trained almost like robots. Do the work, don’t ask questions, don’t challenge the authority. 

 It was a mistake. It won’t happen again where you can see it. But I love learning. And if I can be the one who keeps your student in the classroom by giving them that extra push? Maybe I’m doing a better job than you. Cheating wouldn’t be a problem if we weren’t already being cheated. You can’t set us up to lose and then get frustrated when we rig the game, too.

(via inkskinned)

inkskinned:

it was only a message but i can’t focus anymore because i’m shaking so badly. the things he said feel like a little layer of grease on me, sliding around, getting in the way of things.

my friend asks, “why do you take things so personally? just delete it if you don’t like it.” but i can’t delete it. see it’s already read, it’s already hiding up in my brain to torture me. i can’t stop thinking about it.

another friend looks over my shoulder and crinkles her nose. “boys are gross,” she says. “don’t reply to him.” but i want to. i don’t know why. i want to say: who gave you the fucking right.

but i won’t. i’ll keep quiet. i am good at that, even though i am full of words. sometimes i think the reason i keep silent is because i am being the better person, because i am unwilling to waste ink on things like this. sometimes i think it’s because i’m a coward.

a boy hears about this and laughs. “you’re upset about that?” i guess not. i guess you’re right. it could be worse, so i don’t get to say anything about it. we aren’t allowed to speak of minor things (and we all know we’re liars when we talk about the big ones). i guess you’re right. i’ve lived through worse. been alive through worse. it’s just.

i read it. i shouldn’t have i guess. i should have been better at it. it’s just that this isn’t the first thing i’ve ever had to deal with. it’s just that i’m tired of it. i’m tired of the messages and the laughter and the bad things. i’m tired of having to be okay with it. to put all the harassment on a sliding scale of “do i deal with this.” on one end is “the little things” and you’re supposed to ignore them. on the other end is the bad things and you’re never supposed to admit to them. 

do i deal with this. well it’s a little above gentle harassment (that awkward stepping-over-the-line unwanted flirting where the girl doesn’t know how to express she’s become uncomfortable) but way under that stalker i have who won’t stop sending me pictures of myself (the police laughed. “he thinks you’re pretty, so what? don’t take pictures if you don’t want him to see them.”) it’s a little below being groped on the train, maybe. a little above when men put their arms on the back of my seat on buses. somewhere between a hoot on the street and when they start following. where do i classify my harassment this time. do i time how long it takes me to stop shaking, multiply it by the number of words that made me feel like vomiting.

i am tired. take how safe you no longer feel and divide it by how safe everyone else sees you to be. take how much of a human being you are and subtract it by: the size of your breasts plus the clothes you are wearing plus whether or not you’ve had sex. take the worst thing you’ve ever had happen to you and compare it to this little thing. take the little thing and handle it. actually, while you’re at it: handle everything. the scale never reads “put up a fight” never says “he was wrong and i am right.” 

the scale never says “you’re a human and you deserve to live without this shit.”

(via inkskinned)

inkskinned:

i want to feel beautiful. i want to be able to feel safe in clothes that show off my figure. i want to tower in heels and dance freely and sing loudly. i want to try hair dyes that might not work and not be worried. i want someone, just once, to look at me and lose all sense of their words. i want to be someone’s candid picture, good in whatever. but i am always awkward, always not sure i’m wearing the right thing, always slightly different, never pretty, never fitting in. everyone else dazzles so easily. i fade into the background. nothing matters when it comes from me.

(via inkskinned)

inkskinned:

we were little girls with messy hair who wanted to shoot lasers at the people who hurt us. we made our barbies fly, made them spies, made them as strong as we wanted to be. they could stand up to the bullies. when we were older, we would ask, “where are the female superheroes?”

“it’s just a movie,” we were assured, “and what’s wrong with being the girl next door?”

we were angry adolescents with no safe direction to lash out in. we were not allowed to be violent. those of us who turned to our playstation were embarrassed for it. many of us were bullied. many of us turned to fantasy. when we were older, we would ask, “why is there only one playable girl character in this whole game?”

“video games are art,” we were sneered at, “i’m sick of these fake gamer girls ruining our media.”

we were high school girls who were worried we weren’t being kissed fast enough, even at 15. we felt shame boil up around our ears when men leaned out of cars to sling slurs at us. we wanted to feel good about ourselves but were sent home for showing our shoulders. what were we telling people by being so in love with our bodies that we showed them off in any small way. when we were older, we would ask, “why does this advertisement for socks have a barely-18-year-old girl lying mostly-naked on a bed?” we saw our own 18-year-old self, who could barely kiss right and still trembled about sex.

“relax,” we were told, “if you don’t like it, don’t look. if you’re mad they’re selling you your clothes like this, just don’t buy from them.”

we turned into tired adults. we have our fires burnt out. we have explained and explained until our tongues turned numb why we deserve to be able to live without fear. we got sick of being teachers. any dent we made was quickly refilled. we were sick of trying to talk to people who would never change their minds about us. we were sick of it. and we still asked: “where am i? where are the people who look like me?”

i once was in a coffee shop sighing to a friend, “why don’t people get that not every girl has the same body or same metabolic system” and i was interrupted by a large man who has no idea how i eat or how much i weigh or how healthy i might be, and he loudly and briskly informed me, “Victoria’s Secret models have a more common body type than you think. If you’re so pissed about not being like the girls on tv, how about you change what you look like?” i had gone 6 days without eating. 

so we made it up. we gave barbie a cape and our spotted dog the ability to control the weather. we wrote barely-legible fanfiction about vampires who were also terribly in love with us - because we were perfect in this world, unlike the mess of what really was - we crafted entire sub-stories about how the main characters in our favorite universes were secretly girls in disguise. we made 17-year-old characters who would cut the throats of anyone who hurt them. we drew pictures of women in full, angry armor. we wrote bad poems about the girls we loved and the ones we were jealous of. we hurt ourselves often, were excellent at denying ourselves in the name of something. we only ate salad, we wouldn’t touch grease, we didn’t buy certain things, didn’t get dirty. we used things to fill the gaps. bath bombs. fussy boots. venti iced mocha half-caf.

we made it up. we flooded the market. we put up pictures of ourselves smiling, with messy hair and silly faces, with back fat, with smudged makeup. we made videos perfecting our lips. we made art of possible fashion - all with pockets. 

a few girls take selfies at a sports event. they are slandered across the news for it. 

can you imagine? can you imagine the selfishness? the audacity? the self-possession one must feel to take a picture of themselves where they control everything? 

we don’t belong. images of us have to be photoshopped. made in buildings with perfect lighting. a young girl in underwear. we don’t belong. we don’t exist. keep quiet. if you don’t like it, don’t look at it.

(via inkskinned)

inkskinned:

A girl is not a gun. A girl is too alive, a flowing passion, a threat that breathes. A girl is no one’s tool. She is possessed only by her own fingers, is too warm to be bare metal, is too powerful to be compared to a quick death. A girl is not a gun. She is her own law. A girl cannot be crafted by man. A girl is crafted by herself.

(via inkskinned)