hyperion*

               i'm not quie sure why i'm writing this, maybe it's because of my sudden odd addiction to teen wolf, but i needed to put it somewhere, even if just for a little bit. it'll make me feel better. you don't have to read it, i swear. 

               i think the reason that i find myself in lydia and stiles the most is because i'm really nothing special. not in the sense that they're dull characters — not at all, but in the sense that they aren't the ones with supernatural powers (or not werewolf abilities, anyway,) they're the researchers, the ones with the plan, the ones who make the behind the scenes happen. whenever i talk with my friends about with characters we associate ourselves with the most, they always tell me who i should associate with, how i'm "absolutely nothing like" the characters i choose to fixate on and empathize with. this leaves me having to keep it to myself, but with lydia and stiles... i don't know. they are unarguably part of me. stiles — the silly one, who relies on sarcasm and quick wit to hide behind, effortlessly smart, but lacking all the drive. i find myself in him because my friends, the people around me, are the special ones, the cool ones, the attractive ones, the ones who don't hang back. me, i'm the one voted most likely to get pucnhed in the face for making smartass comments all the time. i find myself in him because despite stiles being the most ordinary, he's still well-developed, charismatic, believable. i find a connection with him because it makes me feel like i could be that sort of character, too.
                y'know, still important.
               and lydia. "places to do, people to see" lydia. i love lydia because she loves her sexuality, because people fear her for it. she is power. she is what drives the group the most from behind. this isn't really why i identify with her, but it is what i want to grow to be. i identify with her because everyone thinks she is vividly stupid, an airhead, creative but no good for intelligence. like doing jocks is what she does best. that is, until you truly recoginze what a genius lydia martin is. she understands languages she doesn't speak, knows the symptoms of any disease off the top of her head. knows how to make a self igniting molotov cocktail off the top of her head. i find myself in this because that is how the majority of my peers think of me. people asked me if my name got mixed up when i won a math competition. people tell me i get good grades because "the teacher totally has a soft spot for you." it's not like that. i can understand languages i don't speak. i know the symptoms of any disease of the top of my head. chemistry. astronomy. language. social issues. i find myself in lydia because while she hides it well, she breaks the box she has been put into. she smashes a fücking hole through it. she gives me hope that 'b' can be for both 'books' and 'boobs,' and that that's okay. that's okay. that i don't have to hide one half of myself for another. and stiles reminds me that it's okay to be ordinary, because really, as ordinary as you might think you are, you still really aren't. they tell me that i should take pride in who i am, and consider myself a gift, even though i might not be anything special or solid by anyone else's standards. 

she is sharp ankles
and rough elbows.

she is sunked eyes
and impassive brows.

she is glass bones
and cellophane skin.

she is burnt out lights
and broken windows.

she is ice-cold fingers
and trembling branches. 

she passes through life simple, unnoticed, in a haze.

a fog rolls with her.

she feels painful and uncomfortable to the touch,

but unlike the experts say,
there's more on the inside, 

if you were to really cut her open, 
you'd find dead butterflies inside, too.

my skin is as white as paper,
as ripped and gnarled as the pages of an old book,
and everything about me — 
is just the same.

i'm the torn up paperback copy in the bottom of the cardboard box,
at an endless succession of garage sales.
"25 cents, just 25 cents, only 25 cents;
actually, it's free,
just take it,
we just want to get rid of it,
we don't need it anymore."
and i just keep moving from one sale to the next,
price reducing, will reducing, always at the bottom, always waiting. 

but even for "only 25 cents!" 
no one bothers to even flip through,
to even pick it up,
to even glance at it twice,
because it's torn,
and used,
and ripped,
and old,
and absolutely useless;

because its pages are dirty
and its words are dirty
and it's dirty
i'm dirty
i'm used and i'm old
but of all of those things,
there's just one that the book is not,
and it's that:
it's not sorry,
for how it is,
but i am.  

i feel it gnawing on my skin,
leaving its bites everywhere.
not a piece of me unmarked,
unshown,
unbitten.
it shows on my torn lips,
and bleeding fingers.
it shows in my aching bones,
and my shaky breaths.
but it shows the most inside of me,
rattling around in a fury,
cracking me from the inside out.

darkness slowly seeping through
the cracks
it leaves,
in the sidewalks on my streets.

    "that's the thing though, i'm pretty lonely most of the time so i stay at home and cry in bed, and i don't even do anything anymore, so it's like i'm pretty much dead."

    "but really, you're not. you're still performing vital life processes, right? and you're still converting air into carbon dioxide. so scientifically, you're not dead, and when all else fails to please or comfort you, i think that should, a little." 

i'm not really scared to die.
looking forward to it, really.
i'm excited to see grass grow where my skin used to be
and i'm excited for my last breaths to be someone ele's first.
i'm excited to watch as the curls in my hair, become the knots and twists in the trees.
i'm excited to see the blues of my veins melt away into the blues of the sky, as night shifts into day.
i guess
i'm just excited
to become part of the world again.

 

When I was in the hospital
I was roomed with a schizophrenic
And she was the most gentle person I have ever met
There was a boy with a long deep slit across his neck
Who told very funny jokes
A girl who never spoke a word
Would draw the most beautiful pictures
The boy who shook with anxiety
Could hold the most intelligent conversations
Even the girl who screamed in her sleep and picked at her skin
Had a heart the size of the ocean
We are not who you think we are

appreciate yourself.
appreciate the stars that spent billions of years fusing to form you.
appreciate the nebulae flowing in your blood, filling it with wonder and difference.
appreciate the flowers that will someday grow from your bones.
appreciate the violets under your eyes and appreciate the sunrise in your lips.
appreciate your messy hair in the morning - the universe has a way of reverting to a natural state of chaos anyway.
find beauty in that.
appreciate the trillions of cells in your body that get you out of bed in the morning.
appreciate your will, the longest lasting part of you, molded from the miracle of creation and lucky guesses.
and appreciate the forces of the universe,
of the planet,
that put you together,
but most of all,
appreciate yourself.
for no matter how many stars died to build you, 
you are the only one who defines yourself;
especially in an existence where otherwise, 
we are all the same.
 

-a.e.s