i thought the reason my poetry is almost never hopeful is because i was "too dumb to be happy" or just "overdramatic" but i realized today that that's probably just a remnant of living in a toxic household for tHE LAST TWENTY ONE YEARS what did i even do to deserve this lmao

and i also figured out why i feel unnaturally angry after a fight. all that unexpressed anger and sadness i've bottled up over the years is coming to a head. bit unfortunate timing for all this though.

parents, if you think your kid is a spoiled brat and needs to rein in their "anger issues" you might want to take a long, hard look at yourselves. maybe reflect on your childhood and what emotion you experienced primarily during that time.

if you suspect you're repeating any harmful patterns (like scolding your adult children the second they wake up, for e.g.) get yourself to therapy asap. otherwise your children will grow up to hate you. maybe they already have and you're wondering why.

writing all this with a raging headache because i'm hungry but i'm too afraid to go upstairs because i'll have to, you know, talk to certain people and they'll probably ask me why i "always get so irrationally emotional" again.

spent the worse part of my evening walk crying my eyeballs out because the enabler in my house said "have you considered you might be overreacting?" i mean, no shit, sherlock. she doesn't seem too concerned about my reactions at all, but constantly expects a listening ear from me

it's exhausting. i'd be the absolute last person to air my dirty laundry on social media (if you're friends with me on facebook, you already know i never post any personal issues online. usually i just deal with it myself, or talk to my counselor if things get too bad)

but then i realized there might be a lot of other people going through this as well, now that almost all of us are cooped up at home. for a long time when i was younger, about 10-15 years old, i was regularly berated for things outside of my control, like how i walked or how i

talked on the phone, or even how 'outgoing' or 'bold' i was (hint: not a whole lot). it was only after i started attending college that i met more people like myself, who were quiet/ introverted and totally fine with it, or were a little awkward in general that i began to think

it's alright to be who i am as long as i don't harm or otherwise injure someone. it's okay to be quiet during class because you can always ask questions to your professors when class ends. it's okay to ask "stupid" questions; at least one other person in class has the same query.

but the fact remains that if you've been told that making mistakes means you're an idiot since you were a wee little kid, you're probably going to have a hard time in fields/ jobs that require near-continuous learning. this can be overcome though, so don't lose hope.

back upstairs now. probably going to stay hungry for the next half hour because i'm tired of talking to people who really have no business telling me that i'm an illogical person when they're the ones who believe most pseudoscientific whatsapp forwards and conspiracy theories.

one thing i'm really grateful for is that at least i have internet, so i can talk to friends, and read, and watch twosetviolin on youtube. some people don't even have that. they actually have to listen to all the unpleasantness and dysfunction. so i count myself lucky there.

some of you might be wondering why i'm typing in lowercase. it's a reference to this prose poem titled 'lowercase' i wrote in 2017 where a troubled girl promises herself to be strong and help lead broken people into the light. i was an edgy 18 year old back then, so the poem

doesn't make that much sense to me anymore, but it's still something i hold close to myself. it's one of those things i would tell people about if they asked me to describe myself (maybe i wouldn't use it in a job interview though, unless my potential employer is a Plath fan

or a Dickinson fan. you get the point). poetry, literature, jazz, comedy, and chemistry are a few things none of the (thankfully) few toxic people in my life have ever been able to touch, and i intend to keep it that way.

in closing, i hope this thread will help someone who might be swimming in the proverbial dark, trying to find some flotation device to keep from drowning. my advice would be to avoid making other people permanent flotation devices.

instead, once you feel up to it, you should probably make the things you like your flotation devices. things that you can rely on. for example, if i'm pissed off, i listen to the doom soundtrack to calm down so i don't accidentally stab my finger while cutting open an apple

or throw my socks out the window or whatever. that wasn't a real life example, i was just trying to be funny.
oh yeah, also, happy pride month everyone. and hope you guys are doing okay as well in the lockdown. please wear a mask when you go outside, it's for your own good. bye.