Focus on being a human being.
NOT a human doing.
Sit with any uncomfortableness. Sit with who you are. BE who you are. BE.
Be.
You deserve to exist. To thrive. To be aware of you.

Explore Your Soul
Focus on being a human being.
NOT a human doing.
Sit with any uncomfortableness. Sit with who you are. BE who you are. BE.
Be.
You deserve to exist. To thrive. To be aware of you.
love
is exposing
the soft
fragile
fleshy
belly
and hoping they don’t
tear into it
it is a mad dash
to expose your throat
before your head reminds you
you’re made of paper machet
all it takes
is a tiny little
blade
to open your throat
bleed you out
again.
love
is knowing better
handing them your secrets
anyway
heart throwing down
that gauntlet
head standing on the breaks
when you’re alreading
in the fast lane
afraid
it might be too late
to slow down
now
you might cause a head on collision
getting in the car
shrugging
love
is unzipping the skin
from your bones
while standing
in a live minefield
abruptly aware
your neck is on the line
moments to decide
moments to decide
but your thoughts
are not
thinking right
lungs can’t remember
the best way to
breathe
trying to paint you nails
in a sling
on a bus
in an unfamiliar country
where no one
speaks your langauge
love
is splashes
of paint
linking the cemetery
you
keep
visiting
almost a silent prayer
don’t leave my heart here
again.
waiting just under
the over hang
one person’s smile
making your umbrella
seem ridiculous
stepping into the rain
faith that the rain will
stop before
your courage runs
only
now you find
it’s not rain
it’s hail
the size
of fists
opening the cardboard boxes
you duct taped
into your closet
but funny you should ask
my closet never had any
water
damage
and i’m saying
you
again
instead of me
love is like that
new neural network
which you thought came with schematics
blueprints
an idea
a plan
scribbled onto a napkin
at the very least
something
a smile
into the vast
void
simmering underneath
your eyelashes
in between your joints
settled in muscle tissue
and decorating
or maybe love isn’t decorating at all
it might be
it could be
perhaps love
is raking desperate claws
down your
wallpaper
exposing the canker
and pus
so you
can pull it out
finding all your seems
picking at the ends
until the
mismatching thread
becomes
obvious
so you can buy
some new colors
let the old ones go
taking all the dust
in your vaccum
making a pillow fight
out of it
so you can sweep it outside
this
time
breaking the ugly dishes
you don’t know
why
you kept
they have cracks and memories
in them anyway
now you can
make new ones
from star dust
and black and white stills
burning all your trophies
so you can finally
see they were chains
flaxen cords
oxen’s yoke
keeping you tied
bound to ghosts
causing cold spots
and nightmares
it’s okay
love states
i killed them for you
they cannot stalk
cannot hook your collarbone
to grave markers
cannot stuff your comforter
with lead
not anymore
i removed them for you
they cannot stain
cannot moan into your ear
while you drift into slumber
cannot speak your name
and pull you under
not ever again
i will guard the
holes in your armour
it’s okay
love declares
they will never own your
sobs
again
now you can
wipe them away
I will sit in the
expanse of unknown
right beside you
and when they bring their
pitchforks
and reason
i will hand you
your heart
from within my chest
so you can battle
your demons
with the truth in your gun
one in the chamber.
love is
trying to forget
what love is
because hug it close
now
and you might
have to sew
its dead jaw shut
put it in a box
in the ground
again
love is
creation and decay
and the moment
the moment
you recognize
love’s seed
you have
a moment to decide
a moment to decide
ironic little moments
they
never tell the
full
truth
love
is
the moment
the very moment
you flatline
and the
forever
you wake up to
By Daphne Shadows
How to enjoy your NOW.
Don’t fall into the trap of…. when I achieve ________, then I will be happy. Or… when I get _________, then I will be good enough.
Because it is. A trap.
We constantly place our happiness on things, people, goals, and/or… well, fill in the blank.
If we aren’t happy with who we are, we won’t be happy with anything we achieve. If we don’t already believe we’re good enough, nothing we do will ever make us feel good enough.
We’ve been talking so much lately as a society, about loving our bodies and where we are in life, what we have, what we can do, etc.
But none of this is going to work if we don’t like ourselves.
If you want to have happiness, you need to know how to love your life now. The only way you’re ever going to love anything about your life, is if you love yourself (to a healthy degree).
So instead of setting your sights on that goal or that weight… begin with you.
What makes you strong?
What have you struggled with and fought your way through?
What have you survived?
Looking inward with honesty is not exactly the easiest thing. Sometimes its extremely uncomfortable. But you owe it to yourself to treat yourself with dignity, respect, and love.
(this completely excludes people in abusive situations where they have no way out. different conversation entirely. i’m not telling anyone to enjoy abuse.)
It’s a funny word, trash. What’s trash to one, is treasure to another. Pointless clutter to yet another. Retro decoration in someone else’s mind.
It’s an odd time, right now. Different ideals and opinions, pains and joys, opportunities and road blocks, tugging us in opposite directions, all wanting our attention and backing.
Maybe take a moment. One to yourself. Just breathe, look around. What trash is holding you back? Whether it be physical or psychological. What trash is actually treasure in your life? Something you thought could only be gross and pointless, an unneeded weight or ugly, but in actuality holds a gift in it’s hands for you. A lesson, an idea, example, hidden desire, etc.
Maybe you’re not sitting in a dumpster. Maybe you’re the King of Buried Treasure.
I keep coming back to this one quote.
“I understood myself only after I destroyed myself. And only in the process of fixing myself, did I know who I really was.”
– Sade Andria Zabala
A few months ago, I decided to say screw it.
I’d had to quit my job. My health was terrible and I could hardly eat anything at all. I was feeling like I’d never be any good at my YouTube channel, even though I put in so much time, effort, and money. I ran out of money. I was obsessed with the fact that I’m turning 29 this year and I’m still not financially reliant.
My health had destroyed me. I couldn’t see any way out of my constant struggle to work with my health issues until it tore me apart and I had to quit.
How am I supposed to be a person when all I am is the impossible restrictions my body places on me, as it tries to stop me from living?
When bipolar depression and anxiety slither into every split second?
When the doctors’ only answers are, “I don’t know what else we can try”?
When I feel no enjoyment, only physical and psychological pain that I can’t escape?
So I gave into it.
The hopelessness, depression, doubt, and pain that swam just below the surface of my every moment, every thought, every forced smile.
For a good month, I probably wasn’t the funnest person to be around.
I’m glad.
Because I’m sick of caring about everyone else to the point that I don’t exist.
So what if people are uncomfortable because I’m not faking a smile or pretending to be happy and peppy?
I BLOODY MATTER TOO!
I’d gotten fed up with putting on a face. Being what everyone else needed. With being so wrapped up in feeling like I had the responsibility to make others happy. Or that I was a bad person if I wasn’t in a good mood all the time (even though it was quite fine for others to have their mood swings).
Hadn’t I learned this lesson already?
So I spent a good month being depressed. Mad at God (knowing I was wrong to be mad at Him), fighting with myself over everything I felt, despondent. Hopeless. Angry. Crying. Sinking in emotions I hated, didn’t want. Wanted free from. 100% negative. Drowning in terror that this was all my life would ever be. The back and forth from Hell.
No matter what I did. No matter how hard I fought.
I got wrapped up in me and all that I’d been ignoring. Letting all the sickness I ignored take the driver’s seat. I was swallowed by the pain I’d denied.
I can’t pinpoint exactly where I came out of it.
But I know I needed it.
I feel different.
More solid.
Trying to pretend I didn’t feel all these things, feeling ashamed that they existed inside me, and shoving them down – it hurt me. Gave these feelings power over me. And caring so much about being what others wanted just made it a harder trap to escape from.
I feel like too many of us feel like we’re a burden. A good vibes killer. A downer. Too much to love. Hard to love.
That’s absolute crap.
We are strong. We have so much to fight through. To deal with. We are not bad or wrong for feeling how we feel.
We don’t owe anyone a peppy attitude.
I mean, there’s a different between focusing on negative thoughts and bad things in life – and feeling your feelings instead of burying them.
There’s also a difference between feeling your feelings and taking them out on others.
There’s no reason for us to feel guilty or ashamed for having hard days. Hard weeks. Struggles. Pain. Doubts. Fears.
When we try to pretend we don’t feel these things, we give them a certain power over us. And they fester in the darkness of our souls. Until they’re bigger and stronger than us.
We don’t owe anyone being fake.
We owe it to ourselves to live inside our own skin.
Either that, or we lose ourselves.
What have I learned?
…
I’ve never been one of those writers who stares at a blank page and doesn’t know what to write. Even if I didn’t have a plan, a plot, or so much as a character in mind to write about, I could go on and on, creating rampages and mysteries and banter until I fell asleep or someone waved a chocolate in front of my face.
Funny. I’ve been staring at this blank page for hours.
What have I learned this year?
Something I didn’t already know…
How do you take a year of life and ball it up and hand it to someone? Better yet, put it into words and splash them across paper?
Perhaps a few more hours shall pass before I know the answer to that one.
What have I learned? …
I’m worth it.
Filled to Empty
Once Again
Just so you can
Poke holes in me
Shaped into something
Beyond
Recognition
Soft thumps
Abrade the inside
Of my rib cage
And something odd
Flitters through
My chest
It isn’t life but tubing
Left there from
When I hated myself
A little less
Electronic beeping
Reminding me
To pretend I am alive
I am not.
Not today.
Not inside this skin.
Not inside
This mind
That falls down
So easily
Sometimes it seems
So silly
That I ever thought
I could be real
To walk without oiled joints
Or charged lights
Behind my eyes
From which everything
Was stolen
(by me)
(something whispers)
I forgot
I was the one
Behind the mask
Wearing the gloves
Leaving no trace
I forgot
I was the one
Who let this happen
Who roused from slumber
And did nothing
Who watched from behind
Serpent eyes
And let you die
I wonder
If it would hurt less
If I was never human at all
Simply a stain on the porcelain
The sand slipping down the time
Shivering down the hourglass
I forgot
How to tell the truth
Or which it was
I forgot
How to speak
Without a tongue
How to see
Without a spine
Can I walk
Knowing the many times
My very breath crawled
Why?
Why do we torture ourselves?
How many of us are there
In here?
This one little body
Pieces hiding
Shuffling about
Slipping behind curtains
Fixing smeared mascara
Redressing so no one notices
Their stories
Are shuttered up
Dust chokes the sunrises
Moonlight can’t hide
The shadows
I forgot
How the tip of a fingernail
Could hold so many
Dead skin cells
They aren’t all mine
(yes they are)
(something whispers)
Â
And I deny everything
Black lipstick that doesn’t
Smudge
Or leave
Photos behind
And no, I wasn’t
Made by accident
Why does everyone ask?
We all clamber around
Waiting for a story to be
Unfolded
It wasn’t an accident
We remember
I shake my head
We know
Our skin
My skin
We feel
It’s like they can see
I’m made from
Different coincidences
Kissing beneath the
Atom bomb
Waiting for something
To change
Or someone
To notice
The shadows
Etched into my bones.
(can anyone see me?)
(no, I don’t think I can)
(something whispers)
By Daphne Shadows
Do I make any sense or do I just go on and on? I change my mind a lot. No, I believe I change a lot. It’s not just my mind making the decisions here, not only my eyes see. I’m thinking my heart has much more to do with it as of late than I realized. Maybe not so lately. Perhaps I’ve always been this way. Purview chance and taking into account all the madness shuffling about inside – and I can take all of these interruptions. Breaking into what I think is going well, stranding the sameness in a dropout as the bottom falls out and I realize, slowly, strained, that nothing was what I thought.