Teen Idle

I’m so tired of forgiving and forgetting. I have been forgiving and forgetting for 18 years and a still living with the irrevocable damage. Yet somehow the pressure still remains with me because supposedly my forgiving and forgetting is the only thing keeping this family together. Why do I bother forgiving and forgetting for a family that long ago gave up trying to be functional, supportive, or stable. 

I want to let go of this obligation.

I stopped trying to protect everyone else when I realized I couldn’t even protect myself.

Open letter to my fellow manager,

1) you have never worked here before. You have zero right to be so condescending towards me and tell me how I should ‘figure things out on Photoshop’. Bitch, I’ve been on photoshop for years. Get your head out of your ass.

2) you are still building your legitimacy in this establishment, I suggest you stop making an enemy out of me. Try to understand the business you’re working with before deciding you’re the queen.

3) I had high hopes for you. I was wrong and the semester hasn’t even started. Get over yourself.

I’ve stopped reminding you about it because I’ve stopped caring what happens. Today you made ne realize my siblings will be just as ruined if not more so than me.

contrary to your apparent belief, I actually don’t appreciate you “sharing your opinions” and “being honest” when it makes me feel like shit.
“Honesty” is not an excuse for tearing someone down.

The fan sounds murderous with every turn, the bed is a rock, the blanket is as soft as burlap.
My brother is crying. My parents are lying. To themselves and everyone else. My sister is wallowing in crippling self doubt.
I ruminate again on the impossible. Worrying, waiting and over-analyzing. Plagued by the nightmares of an anxious mind. Worrying about worry. For myself and the rest of us.
We play this charade well, yet exhaustion does not favor us. We slip, we fumble, this is endless and unintriguing. Not what really happens. At night when we all pretend the walls aren’t so thin and our sorrow won’t seep through the air.
This house is not a home. For us, no house will be a home. We will always lie for the tip of the iceberg. We will never ask what lies underneath. We need not ever ask. We know it too well.

This is a family.

you’re still in high school.

well your mind is anyway. 

you think you have to be ‘cool’ and ‘aloof’. you’re not social. you don’t want to be either. you just want to hit and quit it. which is chill. do what you want. but you’re not really doing it with any joy. with any reason to. you just think this is what you’re supposed to do. you’re clever though. you know what you’re doing. 

to a point.

but you’re still stuck. you’re stuck in high school. you don’t see that this is a new territory. you don’t already know everything here. you’ve been here once before, but that doesn’t give you the authority. you act like you’ve got it all figured out. like everyone’s playing in the palm of your hand. like it’s all a joke to you. 

well guess what?

you’re the joke here.

Just spent the last couple hours talking to Faina and Aseel. 

We ended up trying to solve the Israeli crisis, learning about Indian fashion, trying to open up understandings of cultural appropriation, learning how to pronounce designers’ names, choosing the three places in the world we would each go to right now (Turkey, Burkina Faso and Sri Lanka), and going into a good background of Iran/Iraq history in the past ~50 years. 

We could have talked about anything, and honestly I would have been happy. But this was fun. I’m glad we did it.

from the pack of sticky notes I vent into at work

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Do you ever just sit there and go - 

“Man, she can do better.”