posted by ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
selkie at 09:32am on 29/07/2004
selkie at 09:32am on 29/07/2004Call me Selkie.
I am not yet twenty-five.
I am a writer.
I am a misanthrope, a whiner, a cynic and a bitch.
If I love you, I will be fiercely loyal and perhaps too selfless. I do not often love.
I come from monsters; I thought I was a monster. I have finally found my place in the sun.
I want my own fame, and I love to show off, to garner praise, and to tell a good story.
None of what's in these lines is a story.
I can teach French to a child. I can sing in Yiddish. I can say my sh'ma and pray for my peace and the world's. I can rent a car in Warsaw. I can get a hostel bunk in Novosibirsk. And there are times when I have no idea what to say.
I know how to cook. I know how to bake bread. I know what to do when the bread won't rise. I know what to do when the cake falls and your younger sister wants cake. I know how to take challah. I have taken challah by throwing a pinch of dough out a dorm-kitchen window into the dark.
I have been kissed. I have felt it be more than fucking. I have had snowballs thrown up to my window in the lamplight. I have jumped out a window into a holly bush, and landed sort of on my feet, for a kiss.
I know how to be courtly. I know how to be kind. I am learning how to be wise.
I can balance a checkbook. I can make the groceries last a week. I can make the safe-fund count up right. I can lead by example. I scrub toilets. I take out the trash. I feed the cat.
I can ride, I can row, I can swim. I can stay up all night on my knees with a girl who has tried to do herself terrible harm. I can run, if it means my life. I have run for my life.
People say I have a talent, a pleasant voice, strong hands, fine eyes. Women put their hands into my hair. I have scars, and I can't be naked in the daylight. I cry in bed, after, most times; the crying is not because such things hurt me. It's about not being hurt.
My friends say I am strong, I am brave, I'm a fighter. They tell me he will never hurt me again, he can't, he's dead. He cannot touch me. I am my own. I am standing.
I know I am no coward, but mostly courage is in belief.
I don't know, if I have to face my death, that I can do it properly, with dignity, and quiet. I am afraid I'm scream, and claw, and kick, and run away. I am afraid to show my face without the mask; it would be red and white and stricken, with blood at the corners of the mouth. I bite my mouth, really hard, when I'm afraid.
I am so afraid.
I am not yet twenty-five.
I am a writer.
I am a misanthrope, a whiner, a cynic and a bitch.
If I love you, I will be fiercely loyal and perhaps too selfless. I do not often love.
I come from monsters; I thought I was a monster. I have finally found my place in the sun.
I want my own fame, and I love to show off, to garner praise, and to tell a good story.
None of what's in these lines is a story.
I can teach French to a child. I can sing in Yiddish. I can say my sh'ma and pray for my peace and the world's. I can rent a car in Warsaw. I can get a hostel bunk in Novosibirsk. And there are times when I have no idea what to say.
I know how to cook. I know how to bake bread. I know what to do when the bread won't rise. I know what to do when the cake falls and your younger sister wants cake. I know how to take challah. I have taken challah by throwing a pinch of dough out a dorm-kitchen window into the dark.
I have been kissed. I have felt it be more than fucking. I have had snowballs thrown up to my window in the lamplight. I have jumped out a window into a holly bush, and landed sort of on my feet, for a kiss.
I know how to be courtly. I know how to be kind. I am learning how to be wise.
I can balance a checkbook. I can make the groceries last a week. I can make the safe-fund count up right. I can lead by example. I scrub toilets. I take out the trash. I feed the cat.
I can ride, I can row, I can swim. I can stay up all night on my knees with a girl who has tried to do herself terrible harm. I can run, if it means my life. I have run for my life.
People say I have a talent, a pleasant voice, strong hands, fine eyes. Women put their hands into my hair. I have scars, and I can't be naked in the daylight. I cry in bed, after, most times; the crying is not because such things hurt me. It's about not being hurt.
My friends say I am strong, I am brave, I'm a fighter. They tell me he will never hurt me again, he can't, he's dead. He cannot touch me. I am my own. I am standing.
I know I am no coward, but mostly courage is in belief.
I don't know, if I have to face my death, that I can do it properly, with dignity, and quiet. I am afraid I'm scream, and claw, and kick, and run away. I am afraid to show my face without the mask; it would be red and white and stricken, with blood at the corners of the mouth. I bite my mouth, really hard, when I'm afraid.
I am so afraid.
(no subject)
So come back so we can.
I don't know you very well at all - the sentiment that I want to know you better, that you seem so very worth knowing better, is what I'd most like to express here. But it means there's very little I can say and be sure isn't wrong. But your words here are powerful, and demand recognition, and response.
I Hear You.
(no subject)
And I like the whole truth
But there are nights I only need forgiveness
Sometimes they say "I don't know who you are
But let me walk with you some"
And I say "I am alone, that's all
You can't save me from all the wrong I've done."
But they're waiting just the same
With their flashlights and their semaphores
And I'll act like I have faith and like that faith never ends
But I really just have friends
In only what I've read and learned about and from you, you are an amazing and strong person, and I look forward to meeting you and finding that out for myself.