The Eighty-Fifth: 20-20 Hindsight

The realisation that you were...

... letting yourself be manipulated.

... barely enough to make an imprint. 

... not able to convince them of the worth you thought you had.

... just a notch in their bedpost. 

... a name whispered once in the dark.

... another face they'll forget.

... grasping at nothing.

better without them. 

The Eighty-Fourth: Up or Down

It's a hard thing, figuring out the things that you think you deserve. I mean, the term 'deserve' is so powerful. What does one have to do in order to deserve something in return? Is it possible to have gone through something so horrible that you simply expect something good to come along to balance it out? That you "deserve" a break? I'm not sure how I feel about the notion, but I've been told by good friends that I deserve better when it comes to matters of the heart. I think that's the most common sort of phrase used when talking about a bad relationship.

"You deserve better."

What has earned you the right to expect any better than what you've already had? Congratulations! You can go up a level now! You've passed 'shitty' and have deserved 'slightly less shitty' on the Deserving Scale.

There's a chance you might continue down the same road of not-that-great relationships, right? You could just be attracted to the same sort of people, not realising that you could have more than you've already had before. I feel like that's where I'm at.

I wish I could tell you that I did feel like I deserve something better, but I hardly think I qualify.

The Eighty-Third: Ink to the Past

I found the following passage in a private message to a friend on Facebook. It's something I wrote for uni when I was 18. I had sent it to her to look over and proof read. I'm guessing I wrote it for the Creative Writing unit. I'd completely forgotten this even existed, so it's...nice to read it again now. It's called..

Ink

The needle was nearly at my wrist now, pulsating at 100 times a second, ready to inject ink straight through my skin. Fear. The machine looks as if it was going about as fast as my heart. The sketch had been drawn. Panic. The careful hand of the artist has spent a painstaking amount of time getting it perfect before it becomes permanent. Regret. How did I even end up here, getting a tattoo in the middle of a raucous party, in a lavish double-story house, central Los Angeles? Another sound interrupts my thoughts above the booming music, followed by an image as I look down at the design on my wrist. 

The first letter is touched. The peculiar pain shoots through my body and I want to retract my arm, but something keeps it there. A conversation flows into my brain. The room swirls around me as it transforms into the kitchen of the apartment on Buckinghamshire Road. I can hear his laughter, his enthusiasm to have his little 17-year-old sister inked. "We'll both get a tiny little triangle, on our left wrist, just here. We can have matching tatts!" The laughter still rings in my ears as the bass of the next song rocks the light fixtures of the comparatively smaller room I'm seated in. 

I look up at the tattoo artist, a good friend of his. The young man's eyes glisten as he continues to etch the words into my skin. Anxiety. My mouth feels dry, but my eyes feel wet. More people are entering the tiny space, watching as my pure skin is tainted. I glance back to my mother, then shift my gaze to my sister, who both share the same apprehensive expression. Their faces haven't changed. They're still as they were three days before. I can see them, all of them, sitting at the breakfast table of the hotel. The hysterical laughter, followed almost immediately by shrieks of anguish. My own expression just reflected all that was inside me. Blank, numb. The conversation swelled, but it was from the present. 

Someone commented, "it looks just like his." The film in front of my eyes dissipates. I look at the source of the voice and see another friend with her hand over her mouth. Shock. The needle had stopped; the artist had finished. Appreciation. Relief. My eyes, refusing at first to take in the artwork that wrapped itself around my appendage, slowly came to show me what was now there for life. Pride. The same design that he sported, except for one changed element. As I rotate my arm to the words that lay underneath, I see the four words that hold a meaning, a meaning that he never needed. 

"Wish You Were Here."