choosing pain when it's clean

that's a babehoven lyric that's stuck with me since I heard it on the song "I'm on your team." heard it in April of 2025. it feels like five years away. 

so many moments of my life have felt like the closing credits of a movie. you're safe now, you're far away enough from what last anguished you. hope is shining through somewhere. you're at a stasis.

and then as it goes, it gets better, it gets worse, you lose, it changes, something fucks you up and unbuckles ten months' worth of building love, a love so bright you saw it shine through years and believed you knew well enough you weren't being careless.

i've been neglecting the wound now. somehow the first couple weeks i replaced the bandages well and gave it ointment all the time and you'll have to forgive my excessive metaphors, i'm mourning, you'll have to forgive my sentences running away from themselves, i need my medicine. it's been one month. it's been one week since kissing in his car and not thinking about whatever boy he was going to fuck sitting where i was.

my eyes keep tearing up, my sadness and the ugly roots of it demand my attention. but I'm a roommate now. I'm a university student. where do i go to ugly cry or scream or beat my fists? i miss my big heavy stupid white truck that burned through gas faster than any other car i've driven. but i can't go back to anything now. all the roads and nighttime and places i'd go or rest my eyes on a drive are perfumed with a peace taken from me.

there's a reverse to so many sentiments that's so emboldened with hope and joy it's staggering, i'm just struggling to feel it today. i know with love comes grief and with pain comes relief. i know there's so much ahead. it just takes so much strength to get through a day like a real person. i know the danger of slipping though. i'll keep trying. i'll do anything.

i've been backsliding on the love

i know the wound doesn't go as deep, but god, it makes it worse

i'm angry and scrambling for dignity and soft through and through and through