I need someone to hold me gently and it's getting critical

instagram | mimosaboston

bro not the quencies (way of saying consequences if theres something deeply wrong with you)

A snake story, based on an experience I had while I was in Florida.

2023

1. COMMIT TO THE BIT

2. PARTAKE IN THE DIVINE ACT OF CREATION

3. LET THE SOFT ANIMAL THAT IS YOUR BODY LOVE WHAT IT LOVES

If I gave up on being pretty, I wouldn’t know how to be alive

tws// illness, body talk (vague), beauty talk (persistent), mental illness, recovery

Fairly often, I will find myself thinking, “at least I’m pretty when I cry.” Most usually, this pep-talk of an admittedly narcissistic mantra is welled up when I am towards the end of a tears-and-snot-and-screams, full-on mental breakdown. The cocktail of neuroses and deficiencies swirling around in my brain afford me the fortuitous qualifier of “fairly often”.

Most recently, however, I found myself solace-seeking in this familiar refrain in media res of an arthritis flare up; a few moments after I had hung up on fifteen minutes of crying to my mom about the unfairness of it all and right before asking my parter if she still thought I was worth all the trouble, I caught a glimpse of my red and puffy eyes in the mirror and thought, “damn”. At least I’m pretty when I cry.

I was diagnosed with Ankylosing Spondylitis, an inflammatory arthritis in the SI joint just under a year ago. While I had been on the hunt for this diagnosis since I woke up one morning at sixteen, unable to get out of bed due to the searing pain in my lower back, medical confirmation still hit me like a truck. For the rest of your life.

It wasn’t the first time I’d grappled with that thought: aforementioned plethora of mental illnesses ensured that I had already contended with the forever-ness of “chronic”. But, there was something sexy and young about mental suffering, at least in my middle school mind. Teenagers and young adults were depressed and anxious, never mind the fact that the 75+ crowd has the highest suicide rate. I could be mysterious and interesting and chronically ill all at once. Tumblr’s commodification of antidepressant aesthetic and glorification of suffering helped to solidify this idea, as well.

But arthritis? Buying a cane, yelping in sudden and intense pain, hobbling through the streets, clutching my back? This kind of chronic illness was unromantic, worse, it was ugly. “The rest of my life” moved from something abstractly heroin chic to something plainly, carnally real and full of pain.

And still, I try to find prettiness in the suffering. My instinct is to look at my puffy eyes, stained cheeks, and red lips and think “pretty”; my instinct is to objectify my suffering. I once told a friend that few things mattered more to me than being pretty. Sometimes I wonder if I agree.

There is no moral here, unfortunately. I hate my sickness not for what it does to my body, but for what it does to my image. I hate my pain for the mobility aids it makes me use. I am vain, I am narcissistic, I am horrid. But at least I’m pretty when I cry.

- Sylvia Plath, from 'Ariel'

"The Temptations of Saint Anthony" by Robert Auer (1917)

this article getting me real emotional

ow! ow! ow! my bones are going snap crackle pop and not in the fun way!! owie!

i love her n miss her

not gonna tweet about the girl i’m seeing but nothing is stopping me from tumblr-ing about her ‼️😵‍💫‼️😵‍💫‼️😵‍💫‼️😵‍💫

she’s so hot that’s all

You belong among the wildflowers / You belong in a boat out at sea /Sail away, kill off the hours / You belong somewhere you feel free

Run away, go find a lover / Run away, let your heart be your guide / You deserve the deepest of cover / You belong in that home by and by

it’s not even funny at this point EVERY month i will suddenly get very depressed and my little silly brain goes “oh ho what’s this? why am i suddenly relapsing i must be irrevocably broken and treatment isn’t working” and then the next day i start my period …. i’m literally just WALKIN HERE being afab is a curse

could you live a little life with me and my cannibalistic mind? — a collage by me

all photos from pinterest // lyrics from peace by taylor swift

i don’t think i’m someone who gets over things (isn’t that something like love?) — a collage by me

pictures from pinterest. // words by me

Gay culture needs to get genuinely freakish and weird again. There’s tremendous liberation to be had in that spirit. Fuck up gender binaries! Write weird erudite dramas and stage them in strange nightclubs and have drag queens star in them! Embrace both beauty and grotesquerie—in fact crush them together! See what happens! Experiment! Love the ugly, the unpolished, the imperfect, the clownish! Mock at the heterosexuals! Imagine new worlds and new ways of being! Imagine old worlds in new ways! Transmute yourself! Ridicule yourself! Everything’s wrecked, so take the pieces and build yourself a house or an erotic monument or a library or a garden or a bordello! More life! More life!