we can't run, but we can go swimming

I think if you met me you probably wouldn't like me.

The truth is, if you met me, I wouldn't even try. It's been over a year since I honestly tried to have a conversation with another person, and I haven't made a new friend in I-don't-know-how-long. At a certain point it was just too tiring; at a certain point I didn't want to keep putting myself out there over and over again, letting strangers trace all my scars just to have an interesting story to tell secondhand to someone else ("oh I knew someone who...").

I rang in the new year with S.'s arm firmly around my shoulder, the surprising pop of champagne bottle's cork and the warmth of being at the exact place you want to be flooding my body despite the chill. That night I dreamt of being offered five choices, and as I made my decision I smiled in my sleep, assured as I was that I had made the right one.

"It's not a perfect plan / But it's the one we've got / Cause I make a living telling people what they want to hear / But I tell you, it's gonna be a champagne year" — "Champagne Year" by St. Vincent, Strange Mercy

put up your hands

I quit therapy and writing. My life kept moving past the point that I wanted things to change.

Things changed when I lost my best friend. She wasn't even that, she was a placeholder, a notion that I could hold onto, a bookmark on the moment in my life that I one day hoped to come back to. I trusted in a complete stranger, and she trusted me back. We might have gone on to become great friends, but I told myself that I could pause my life, retreat into my own world, and when I was ready it would be there again.

It has been three years since I hit pause. I keep waiting to resume that life that I had, I keep trying to recreate it. Was I honestly happier in that moment? Maybe there is some irretrievable naivete that made my life seem more perfect, when I didn't know for a fact that my mind was flawed and that I would have to try so much harder for the rest of my life.

Life keeps moving within that "pause". I thought I had lost a father, running out of taxi cabs at night and doing my best to not hear my name being called as I rushed to the front door. Instead my mom was running out of my house in the middle of the night, meeting him at the cemetery like teenage lovers, crying about the end of the world in Shakespearean dramatic fashion.

I left my home recently, I packed a bag full of every book I couldn't part and grabbed all the cash I had, I showed up to a friend's house and stayed in a dark corner in the basement where little insects bit me over and over again, leaving little polka dot scars all over my skin. My habit of being inconsistent with medication led to a thunderous pounding in my head and I was screaming all over Seattle.

In its own way, this year has been nothing but moving in violent, anti-climatic circles, a never-ending exercise in emotional tumult and disappointing endings.

I will be moving into my own apartment in October. I may never be able to un-pause my life and resume it at the exact point that I left off, but I am no longer willing to wait for the perfect moment to accept the reality of my life the way it is.

till we ghosts

I've kept this blog for too many years. I hope that retiring these old poems and posts may be similar to cutting one's hair or donating the majority of your belongings. The process feels transformative and cleansing, the immediate moment afterwards is one filled with awkward self doubt. My only hope is that it finally gives me room to start writing about the rest of my life, rather than dwelling on moments in my past.

your half smile doesn't scare me anymore

I don't even know where I am supposed to begin. Do I start with the antidepressants, or do I start with the fact that I haven't been home since Sunday afternoon? Just struggling to find a place to sleep or getting a shower or anything really. Literally everything that I do on a day to day basis suddenly requires an incredible amount of forethought and planning.

But anyways, this blog is coming to you from the basement of a friend's house. More news to come from the girl that is officially homeless.

i felt your shape

I dig my fingers into my forearm and press my lips together tightly. Was I always this numb?

These days, I am perpetually cold, I carry it under my skin six inches deep. These days, I am medicated, my mind buzzes slightly and then shuts down. These days, my words sink into my stomach, I dissolve them with diet Coke until not even the letters that once composed my real thoughts are left.

The things that I refuse to say flood my bloodstream with guilt and shame, until I can't even manage a simple conversation or sustained eye contact, they collect like platelets and clog my veins. I could conceivably take control of this, I could be better than I am at this moment, but instead I wait for the cardiac arrest.

It's only when I hit rock bottom that I know which direction to move.

set you off

By far, what reminds me I have this blog the most is not the actual people that read it but all the spam comments I seem to get. Last night I received 10 emails alone. Let me know if you need something called "sac burberry".

maiiim myyy biiitch

n e r d g l y p h | stephaniekwak

I swallowed my words, I bit my tongue. I waited til the edge wasn't so sharp, to the point that it came through the other side, the way everything goes full circle, looping back to the beginning when you wish things would be linear.

Just be positive.

I put these words in my pocket, along with two nickels, the key to the store and my bus card. They dissolve in my mouth and I am empty again.

The babes open their sleepy eyes in the glare of the headlight before the car speeds up and they are asleep again. You never saw your father as a smoker, a drinker, a man that would act as if he might roll over a car full of children, but this is a man that let go of the handlebars because he felt constantly "threatened" by his own family.

Be friendlier, because he might spend more money on you.

If it weren't for parents, people might actually grow up believing in love, that money can't buy happiness, even God.

die

Nothing really gets me more interested in music than listening to musicians talk about music. And nothing wakes me up from being down in the dumps than music.

I'd abandon words, and writing, I'd abandon it all if I could simply say, "I'm having a hard time," and have that mean something to anyone. Because I lay my words down like bridges but I'm the only person crossing them.

In my dreams, all my fathers forsake me. It leaves clots in my veins and a pounding in my head.

It's the same winter coat, with the same dead leaves and the same cloying grey. If, for half a moment, I can walk on a stretch of sidewalk soaked in the sun and imitate Christopher Owens' walk while singing "Honey Bunny", if I can listen to "Surf Solar" by Fuck Buttons on repeat with the volume turned up, it feels remotely like conversation.

In the end, the people I remember most in the last year aren't the ones that I've told, "I'm having a hard time". It's the Noah Lennoxes, the Avey Tares, the Owen Palletts, the Bradford Coxes, the Christopher Owenses and Peter Silbermans of the world that tuck me into bed at night and whisper, "Sometimes it's like that."

this is starting to fuck with my head (you can count on me)

At 21 it seems a little irresponsible to have already lost two fathers.

As if I might lift up the couch cushions and find him there, arms wrapped around my mother, spreading peanut butter on a saltine still.

You'll have to excuse the language, because I was 6 when I started saying "bastard" and I'd ride in my father's truck and ask the meaning of every curse word I could think of as he drove me to school.

There are certain things that I can't believe are truly over. I still feel like you'll be there, as you always were. Because that's what fathers do, right?

I guess I wouldn't know.

cuckoo, cuckoo

If I think about the last few years before the end of the world and can press my lips in a straight line, it feels remotely like staying.

I used to try and clean the driveway with a toothbrush, until the bristles wore down and the skin on my knuckles rubbed off on the pavement. You used to smile as you walked by.

If I sit with my head against the window of the bus and I remember you swinging me across the surface of the water, it feels exactly like we lost you.

I don't want to remember you like I'm trying to prove you were ever here.

Was there ever a good way to lose a father?

i wasn't made for anyone

I wasn't made for you, like the smiling doll with a set of pearls around her neck like a dog collar. A million little dollhouses, I pass them every night. I used to call my heart a home but that suburban dream was washed down the sink, along with the frog that she blended and every other problem we couldn't solve.

I want you to understand things. I've been standing with the suitcases packed since I was six but I've stayed because if one of us wasn't committed we would never have made it this far.

For your birthday I painted my favorite picture of the two of you, but my hands were shaky and I was tired and soon enough I mispainted, your lips transformed from a carelessly captured smile to a red smudge. I wanted to start over, to get it right, but I cut you apart with my own hands.

When I look closely enough, I can see the cracks now. If we stand far enough away, everything looks alright.

I wasn't made for anyone. I was made to stand far enough away until everything looks alright.

as young as yesterday

When I was a child I used to have a nasty habit of scratching myself. My arms and legs were covered in scabs, which I'd pick off to create even bigger scabs. Or, if I'd picked them all already, I'd scratch myself until I bled.

There was never any rhyme or reason to it; I did it because I needed to keep my fingers busy. Soon enough, my body was covered in a hundred scars, little circles, like someone had put a polka dot pattern on my skin.

It took me years to quit the habit, to turn the pages of a book rather than pick myself to pieces. It took even longer for the scars to fade.

Sometimes, at night, busy fingers scratch skin, until I wake up with new scars. Maybe I've just always wanted to tear myself apart.

I did it, I guess

Congratulations are in order, but unfortunately there aren't many people joining in the celebrations. I was reinstated at the University of Washington! It's a happy day, and a testament to how hard I worked this year and how much it sucked, but because I've been keeping most of that to myself, news of my return to school has had a fairly lukewarm reception.

Anyways, I'm happy for myself. And since I need to share this with somebody, I thought I'd share it with everyone that's been with me this whole long way, from being in college to being kicked to coming back. Thanks guys!

never tear us apart

If I could write my own ending to this story, I wouldn't be so damaged. We'd probably be talking, instead of the awkward silence between us that only I seem to notice.

The fact is, mistakes were made. Things were done that can't be undone. But my soul is weak, and things worth having require standing up for, and lord knows I don't have solid knees.

When you hold me it's the only time I can feel my old heart beating. More than anything I'd want to tell you that I've only felt alive when you run your fingers across my skin. But I've been spending my time suppressing screams, I've been living with ghosts and getting strangled every night.

I want to have something to offer you, but I don't have anything to offer myself.

magnolia

The word comes heavily, sitting in the back of my throat like a thick syrup.

Tonight I tried to bury you again. I washed you down the sink, I tucked you in a page of a book I never read, I clawed your throat of soil and gravel. Out, damned spot.

When I speak your name, the sound catches and I can feel all the times I drew you near, only to hear you whisper "Bitch" behind my back. Where I might have had gentle words, it takes all I can do to keep from shutting down completely.

Memories of you remind me just how much I don't want to be in love.

tell me what's the difference if i go back to normal again?

Things might be different in a house with a patio, sliding glass doors and vases.


Maybe if my parents held hands when I was little I'd know the way you and I could fit together. Instead I saw the suitcases packed every night, I recited the old dark stories, I remembered to run away.


I'd like nothing more than to hear you ask me to stay. I only wish I had an idea how.

or something like it

So I am winding up my clock, backwards. This time, M. will be jumping backwards, up onto the bus, unsaying my name. The blood will be flowing into wounds, the pills will be put back in the bottles. I will go through shrink spurts, the hair will un-grow from my skin. And I will wake up, happy and free and clean. All the things I ever did wrong, or ever will do, will fall up into the sky, they will clear up the stormy clouds in my life, they will un-evaporate and add their weight to the ocean. My exhales will be inhales, my rights will be lefts, my laughing and crying will be the same thing.

She says this is progress, we should keep the forward momentum. I can't tell if I'm just a really good liar or if this is real. This is happiness, or something like it.

My happiness is a firework. The synapses ignite, then go dark.

If this is happiness, I'd rather have something like it.

master of none

When I started writing in late 2009, I felt myself on the edge of something sinister. Writing became one of the few lifelines left to me; in the years that followed, I worked through complex emotions that I otherwise had no venue for exploring.

I've been considerably more lax towards posting, as my sanity does not depend so heavily on it. Sometimes, like remembering a kiss, I can feel myself begin to disengage in that old familiar way, but it's more difficult to tempt me back into closed and stifled rooms.

Though I'll forever be hesitant to say that I have healed from all that has happened in just the last three to four years, I have to say that for the first time in my life, things are truly looking up. It might have taken me over a year to shake the sound of the paramedics on the other side of the phone, the skin of my eyelids may forever be purple-tinted from the day she gave me a black eye and told me to pack my things. I may still be holding myself and sobbing in the basement of the library, or I may be slamming my head against the floor, screaming to get out. But these are only memories that have little to do with my present.

As always, I will not take down my website. It's important to work through whatever you may be facing, whether it is severe depression or anxiety disorders, whether it is just the hassle of growing up or growing apart. I look forward to starting a new chapter, and we will see whether or not that includes writing.

Sometimes I'm afraid I'll only write when I'm unhappy.

the universe is going to catch you

It's a very simple truth but it is hard to accept. The universe is going to catch you.

We tried once to do trust falls in the kitchen, but I could only think of the linoleum and I wouldn't let you catch me. You yelled at me, I am going to catch you, but I started to cry and you said that we could play something else.


I have been thinking lately about friends that I haven't seen in a while and friends that won't see me anymore, the ones I miss that don't miss me. As much as I'd like to make this about me, that isn't always the point.

You can blame yourself for building walls and drawing lines, for all the times you didn't answer the phones compared to all the times that you did. But in the end, you aren't the only person in the conversation. It's as much your choice as it is theirs, too.

There are reasons why I'd like to take the blame. I think to myself, if this is your fault, you can still fix it. If I can take all the blame, I'll have all the responsibility, and things that I don't like about my life will change if I can only change myself.

But changing yourself will only take you so far. You can still find yourself walking down a street in the University District crying by yourself when all of your plans fall through.


In the end, it isn't about how much people can like you, because as Facebook has demonstrated, liking something is simply not being committed enough to get to somewhere real. It isn't about changing yourself to be the type of person that appeals to others. It's about accepting that the universe is going to catch you, about leaving space for love to come into your life, about room for forgiveness and second chances. It's about doing trust falls in the kitchen when someone tells you they love you.

out of step

Things aren't ending exactly as I'd hope they would, but I'm getting more used to the disappointment.

As people may have read in the very few posts I have written since this year has started, I am struggling to "get better". I can't write anything without saying that phrase because I can't go a single moment without asking myself if I am still getting better. The answer isn't always no, but it isn't yes as often as I would like.

I realize that I am still a long ways away from being someone that is self sufficient. If given a chance, I would very likely spend all of my money on dark chocolate and secondhand books, which is a sign that I am still struggling to function normally. Every once in a while I just want to stop and stay at home, like I used to.

But it's been a year between then and now. When I couldn't leave the house and when I could. The difference is huge, and it isn't lost on me.

There are still mistakes that I have made, small missteps that have yet to be corrected. But there is a lot more to my life than before. A whole year has passed, something I am not sure I expected to see. I have yet to forgive myself the small mistakes, I have yet to lose that feeling that I'm already at the end and that I won't see anymore, I have yet to "get better".

In any case, I am quitting my job as soon as I am nearly out of debt, and switching from Cookies by Design to Specialty's. I will be volunteering, I won't be in school until fall. My life is opening up, not shutting down.