You look so good that I get jealous of my own self for having you as mine

but, at any moment of the day, very little of this is about your exterior at all

It’s the kindness you show to me when I’m tired

I’ve never experienced that before

not in its real flesh—its real skin & bones, with absolutely nothing artificial dissolved into it

I once believed someone loved me because this person wanted to give me exactly what I wanted. Though as time went on, I realized that essence wasn’t precisely what I needed, and in any moment of the day, it wasn’t truly what I wanted whatsoever not even a little bit not really at all.

To not be scared of someone’s humanness. That’s a defining feature of my real self, I believe. But in a relational sense? I wouldn’t have bet five dollars this time last year that I’d find that in someone who doesn’t let me escape from what’s directly in front of me

which is exactly how I want it to be. confront me. stand on my doorstep and tell me you’ll only come in under one condition:

that I be honest about what is hurting me.

and then you blanket me, you comfort me, but you never conceal. never ever ever conceal. for my entire life I didn’t know what the purpose of concealer was, so I used it to hide blemishes. Somewhere along the lost sleep and shortening telomeres I developed dark circles beneath my eyes and thought — oh.

bedroom mirror at 5,000 Kelvin lighting because that’s true daylight

reminiscent of how I tell you the truth and you tell yours back to me. And we giggle, for hours, at intervals, over coffee, over white tea, over chamomile and added coconut sugar for sweetness we can taste the grains of (don’t stir it, you won’t be able, to tell, the way, she sits at the windowsill, so nonchalantly, yet so vividly, not somberly, evocatively, not melancholy, just peace, a holiness to her presence and to the fact that I get to exist in the same space, without worship, with acceptance, with infatuation that has transcended the initial stages of awkwardness and meeting your nephew who rarely visits six times by now)

We go on these long drives now that we have the time. You’re obsessed with Los Angeles because you’re new to it, and I reluctantly reveal that I suppose I do love it, too. Then with my fingers enveloping the sides of my face, I feel like screaming, because I was eleven years old standing on this very street waiting for the bus when nobody was available to pick me up from school. I was twelve years old when I went to this outdoor mall because I wondered where all the kids went with their friends. What did they do there? How did they know how to pose for the photographs they’d upload to the social media world we had back then? How did they know each other so well, or did they not at all? I remember walking around alone, so enamoured with all of the stores, and I came home to an empty hallway, empty bedrooms, but the warmth of having a TV dinner in the freezer that I could heat up using microwaves was fine, it was just fine. I was thirteen there, in that crazy neighbourhood that was way too dangerous for a little girl, but she wore men’s oversized XL sweaters (two) like she knew, like she knew. Eyes perched towards what was directly in front of me, don’t talk to strangers unless they’re kind but not too much so, to me. I learned how to distinguish between reality and made-up social conventions then, or so I thought. Because I’m still lost. but less so than then. though I felt insecure, but wouldn’t tell anybody I was afraid.

I’m recognizing street signs and noting all of the businesses that weren’t there when I was young, a young thing, so horribly amiss of what was to come, and I’m grateful for that. I did kind of know, I don’t want to admit that. such a cynical young thing. Where’d that come from? That I’d expect the worst, without ever coming to that point?

I watch as the city lights leave little streaks in yours.

you’re so kind to every single cashier. just like me. but not my twin. look nothing like me, talk nothing like me, just fit so perfectly next to me. I braid your hair and you re-do it and I don’t feel offended, because you’re better at the things you know and I’m fine with the things I know. I think we’ll be fine

then there’s the Hollywood sign

we park in a vacant lot. I warn you those are not as vacant as they appear, and eventually someone will come on over and ask us for about $25 in cash. Yet, with you, nobody ever does.

So you gaze at

all your dreams

engulfed into capitalized letters

and i admit

i felt it too

under certain types of weather

You tell me about home

say you may or may not go back

we have this much in common

I think you’d opt for a much more intriguing pose than the ads we see, up high, with palm trees in the distance

(Secretly dreaming I’d be the photographer, but there are more talented people out there, and you deserve someone who knows what they’re doing, to properly capture your brunette curls, your soft elegance)

I recall the longing, because I didn’t feel it all. But it’d be the biggest lie of all to ever say I felt confident that I had you. Didn’t think much about it—was that out of self-defense, I just can’t rationalize why (me especially) I was so chill.

Apple cider,

birth years fairly close to each other’s

stationary shops where we buy nothing but test every pen

then feel bad

like our business is so

important

and in public

you look at me constantly

almost obsessively

I don’t think anybody has ever looked at me so much in my entire life

without wanting to hurt me

devour me, set me on fire

get rid of me, ruin me, figure out how to dismantle whatever power I appeared to have

none, it felt like

now, I know

now, I know

now, I know

now, I know

We went to the beach. I wore my new cherry swimsuit. The freezing cold temperature of the water almost burned me with intoxication. I feel most free at the sea. I’d love it if I had that in common with millions, billions of people—which I do feel is true. But, there was nothing, like you putting your headphones on. Walking into the water like a woman from a watercolour painting. I stopped swimming. Started treading water. Like a golden compass. Like a fish in a gigantic tank. Wondering, how did we get here. Not wondering, for the first time ever, what are you planning to do with me. I don’t even care. You write what you write in your blue planner and I write what I write in my pink planner. We plan things, it’s what we do, and we write down the beautiful parts of our days—decisions we independently made for ourselves years before we met.

More things in

common

than I thought

Lavender lilac nails

Long

Coffin-shaped

Filed

Soft and elegant

Harsh when typing

Loud

Chaotic

Rain I’m wishing for

Overcast weather for a second

City smog overwhelming

That gets in the way

Of you properly seeing

The Hollywood sign

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Same as above: Paypal :)

Where my poetry lives: Lilac Dove <3

I think you are charming—alarmingly charming. and if you were a man, I would be afraid of the sheer fabric of that, the weight of a panic attack. Would consume me, wholeheartedly. but

you tie a long ribbon around a fraction of my hair. You don’t even have to redo it. Sometimes I put my socks on and I feel as though I didn’t put them on right, so I take them off and repeat the process. I have reduced the number of times I do that to six because I didn’t used to like the number six, but this new era we’re living in is remarkedly obsessed with growth (in a statistics sort-of-way). All the magazines and literary journals are writing about it. I don’t judge myself for my compulsions anymore. But I stand perfectly still like an obedient child, so busy marveling in awe because it only took you

one time.

I have shared, time and time again, how miserable my desire is to move back home to the Midwest. in response,

like a clever little child drawing something out of eraseable marker on a baseball cap,

you started saying, “the Midwest is the best!”

It doesn’t sound ironic. Doesn’t sound like you’re making fun of me. Intriguing way of supporting me, I will admit. But we know where this is going because we don’t know where I am. You should be alarmed—not charmingly alarmed—that the answer to our evolution of a heart-stoppingly-beautiful romance, is that I am two steps closer to leaving this town, this city, this confine behind.

I know you are scared. because you forget. that I once held a position where I had to get real good at counting someone’s bpm, using only a 30-second interval, and I practiced on so many people I was more than ready for my very first day

I don’t think me, talking about a place I’d rather be, excites you. I know it scares you.

I know that epinephrine and norepinephrine, or commonly known as forms of adrenaline, can lead you to lie through your teeth about the state of things, and it is, at very many times in the course of one’s life, genuinely difficult to separate excitement from anxiety. Especially when they could potentially, and often do, occur at the very same time.

but you are not excited. You are not looking forward to it.

I once told you a story about how I grieved so hard about missing Chicago, so I bought a Chicago Cubs baseball cap and wore it not only in public, but around the house. Then I traveled with my mother, and she wanted to take a photograph of me, but she dared to ask me to remove my Chicago Cubs baseball cap. Because, at that point, the frickin’ hat was interwoven into my inherent identity, I felt like she was directly insulting a sizable portion of the essence of who I was.

I wasn’t even androgynous back then. Just a girl in a pretty dress and glasses, on a brief vacation we couldn’t afford, unwilling (with such protest!) to take off the hat. Until I did. Because you reach an age in life where you are willing to give more than you take, and you come to terms with giving in to ideas you’re not even in agreement with. My mother wanted a beautiful photograph of her daughter, that showed her hair. So I undid my loose bun, and took off the cap.

For a second.

Post-internal-temper-tantrum.

Shared that with you when I had some red wine (my favourite), and stumbled upon the fact that I didn’t (not an ounce of me) regret telling you the story in much more vibrant detail, paired with dialogue, than I have exhibited here. I wondered, to myself. Why do I not feel ashamed? I have shared a story that I may describe to others as, “oh, perhaps it was a bit silly,” but I was lyyyyyingggg throoouggghh my caaaninneeee teeeeeeth. No part of that story was or is silly to me. A region can and is often times a defining portion of someone’s personality and self-concept.

you looked at me with blackberry eyes, and pulled at a piece of blonde hair on my left arm. “What are you doing?” “Does that hurt more or less than telling me that, just did?”

I could’ve thrown a book! For effect. I thought it was so sweet. Because you knew. And I know. You pretty well by now. Know you well enough to catch you watching me when I look inside my closet, upset that none of my t-shirts are baggy anymore (the way I like them to be). I can see you staring straight at me when you’re in the passenger seat of my truck and I’m filling up the tank, like a wife watching her big-strong-lifted-pickup-truck-driver-husband doing something super masculine and cool. You’re just watching me, and in that moment I feel so flawless, and I’m pretending to not notice exactly what you’re doing or the frequency of which it happens. I feel flawless. I might run my hand through my hair, for effect. I know I look exhausted, how tragic. Woman who has a tumultous sleep schedule develops eye bags and realizes the purpose of concealer, and the girl that is sitting in the passenger seat of her masculine lifted pickup truck doesn’t even care.

I applied. to schools. many schools. all kind of, sort of, concentrated in one region.

I think I almost teared when you asked, with this sour kefir feeling to it (like the mornings in Ukraine with my paternal grandmother—no sugar at all to the substance, so sour that anybody who claims to just loooooooove sour things, would say, “oh my goodness, what is THAT…….”

Sour belly-ache cream

“Did you apply to any in the west?”

“No”

“Not even in California?”

For a second I had a thought that I should change the expression on my face from something like, “omg, get real” to something gentler, kinder

but I didn’t have to

because I started tearing up

and later that evening,

(things I wouldn’t say out loud below this line)

Read more

I remember standing on the street in Downtown Chicago, watching the horses pulling the carriages. I felt so sad for them, and I thought about how beautiful marriage is.

Armed with two ounces of pink showy evening primrose seeds, I felt like an angel—I felt divine. Scattering them in little ribbon patterns, I’m so proud of my gardening. I wish so, so, so much that I was on an airplane right now, because I think best on them, write best on them. I don’t have to listen to anything, but isn’t it the loveliest thing in the entire world to have the window seat with the shade pulled up to see the behemoth sky, wrapped in the softest clouds you’ve ever seen. You could reach out and touch them—you could breathe them in, soak them in, pour them into the bubble bath just like they’re perfect little bubbles. I feel a lot like being on an airplane, like, all of the time. Would I hate it if my life went a different direction and I ended up being someone that travels for business? I never hated going home to my dad, the longest flights I ever took, my least favourite season, but the weather never mattered when I was there. The weather never mattered when I was there. The weather never mattered when I was there. Raising my little brother, seeing the younger one born too. If I disliked the weather, I don’t remember having that thought at all. Is memory so self-serving as to only retain the most beautiful, the most precious, particularly when it’s been taken away from you?

But, I’m fine here, right now. Christmas lights icy and fairy-like year-round, wherever I live. Take a trip to the hardware store and it always feels novel to me. The familiar smell of equipment I likely couldn’t name if I was asked. Admire it anyway.

I’m wearing a lilac sweater & I’ve never felt better

never never ever

felt better

than when I wear this lilac sweater

dried lavender behind me, in front of me, around me

Mary’s holding baby Jesus and they’re both looking in my direction

the softness of the nighttime creeping in like the snakes people are so afraid of

icy Christmas lights, cover me in serenity. say hi to me. come sit next to me.

I’m the best kind of friend for someone who doesn’t have many.

Kind of like a horror movie, wrapped up in sore eyes and idealistic paved cobblestone. Appropriate for the evening but yet, so, disenchantingly nonchalant. Tired of old escapist tactics—ready for something new, steady but not too secure—this balanced avalanche of round-the-clock duties, that beg your permission for at least some composition.

Because what are we really doing here? This day, this life, this essay. The lime gatorade on the glass dining table—bottle cap not screwed on tightly enough, prone to spilling, factory plant remains on the sidewalk of a boring building in a boring city.

What’s mine is yours to keep because I give myself away like perenniel seeds that bloom again & again & again. My roses trail up the fence. The neighbours see to it that it’s a fantastic barrier between our community and the riverbed, but I adore the riverbed. Its simplicity, its untouchability. How you can scrape your knees—not one, but two—falling off your bicycle and nobody is around to notice. The fragility of that aspect, too, but I’m always around in case there’s an emergency. I always hope that if that is to occur, someone isn’t afraid to call out for help. I’ll be there. Quieting nightmares.

Standing unaware in your tide pool.

Crimson eyeshadow only looks good on you; brunette curls untameable but you’re an embodiment of pure joy & freedom, and you know it because the ones that raised you told you that, like, all of the time.

Twirling my fingers around twine

Wrapping presents for a party I can’t make time to attend—give them my best,

promise I’m not careless. I just care so

much about the factory plants. the performance. the vengeance. the collapsing castles we built when we were little kids, and we didn’t mind one bit when they fell. we made new ones. little industrial units, monumental high rises. who were we to gamble with the sheer force of ocean waves, and they swept, they came for us, we ran like tiny little fleas hopping away from the flea comb I run through my Malinois-pit’s coarse fur.

I have this creeping fear that there will never be an oeuvre of mine. nothing ever published. not a single word inhaled by another human body, eager to feel something either so relatable one could grow sentimental, or even blanketed in a comfort by the finest cotton sourced so ecologically sound. termites like raindrops. your skin, too soft. but not easily disturbed, upset, or affected—an angelic remnant that I think I found at the simultaneous best and worst possible time. You came around. Mauve pink lips, like mine, painted brown for the evening dinners where we pretend we’re dining at an expensive Italian restaurant, even though that’s not what we’d truly want. We’re fine with boiled water poured into paper cups. Preservatives, fine, I’ll draw their chemical structures because it amuses you, astounds you. I think what’s most endearing is that I have the feeling that what you really admire is the fact that I am continuously improvising upon my work—my studies, my mind, finding it unacceptable to rest for too long and then I end up pushing myself a little bit too far, and then I end up so fatigued I don’t pay any attention nor care for what material my bedspread is made of. It’s bedding, I’m on it, I’m wrapped up, not excessively or unacceptably so. Patient, determined, and kind. I may not be yours and I don’t think that you’re mine, and for some unconvincingly incongrous reason I just don’t think it matters right now. like nothing on earth could dismantle my mandible. like everything is only as familiar as the shape of your shoulders. If a girl is crying, hold her. Just hold her.

I think there’s something decidedly special,

about how you choose your next project

in a nightgown,

in a niiiightttgoowwwnnnn.

There. is. nothing. conventional. here.

We. are. all. so. weird.

Little oddballs—cranky in the morning! I rise and I truly shine, haha, I really do. Goodness, I’m such a bundle of joy at four in the morning. But once it turns to around eleven, the bags under my eyes really start to show. Sleeping too little or sleeping too much or sleeping just the right amount, and yet—and yet! My age has begun showing, but I really do think I’m glowing, and, you know, I tend to be right.

In particular, when it comes to my feelings about other people. I hate to admit it because it sounds so far-fetched, but the only element that repeatedly throws me off is how detailed my first perception of something feeling off turns out to be, you know, true. I can’t make decisions for anybody that’s not myself—you know that that’s true. So I stand and face the skyscrapers and have this recollection of the way their faces changed in that moment. I still don’t know how to proceed with that. Is it better to have a network that doesn’t really feel like a community? For many, of course. I can even see the significance of that. Though, to me, it feels wrong. It feels sour. It feels distant. Acquaintances are acquaintances; neighbours are neighbours. But if we’re going to be friends, I want to be friends. I don’t want to have a reoccurring moment when nothing even too monumental is even happening (at least, not a story I’d tell), but I think back to the first time I had this idea of reserve. So mild, but is it? Constantly torn between wondering if I am still the teenager that intentionally pushes everyone away, or if I’m the young child with the blonde ponytail wrapped in white ribbon, pondering if it’s not in my best interest to stay.

dandelions & pearls

vacant tendencies

motels half-lit, sign barely up, television doesn’t work

microwaves are typically 1,000 watts

somewhere between 600 and 1,200

what’s yours?

Visited the most charming nursery today. I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t focus for more than a few practice problems to review. I took my teeny tiny dog along with me, because she loves to run errands. It’s the cutest thing! I could’ve spent hoooouuuursssss at the local nursery, but I knew I had so many other things to do. It was so hot. The dryness here is killing me. I miss the humidity of the Midwest. I miss the humidity of my father’s country. I can’t bear this dryness for much longer but today, I decided that I need to finally accept that life could not possibly be any more perfect right now. I don’t need to know exactly everything that is happening or need to be chronically at the top of my game, in order to be happy. Why is that so hard for me to accept? I wrapped my suntanned (peeling in some places) arms around my knees and held myself, unable to stop contemplating that. Then my teeny tiny dog came over toward me, and I smiled, and it felt so good to smile, it felt so good to smile, it felt so good to smile. I smile all the time, but oh my goodness, it felt so good to smile. I felt so alive, in awe, in sentimental tranquility. This life really is perfect, isn’t it.

I told myself I need to start really loving it, embracing it. I thought I have been doing that, and maybe that’s right, but perhaps it isn’t. Today was different in so many unnervingly calming ways.

toffee pecan soy ice cream

a little child’s best dreams

a safe haven for all of your jewelry and diamond memories

I’m fond of me, finally

I’ve found it out, it seems to be

I can

I can

swim like I’ve never swam before

melt into the waves like aspartame

swallow the salt and barely care about the discomfort

if I’m in the sunshine

and my arms are becoming nearly half as tan as my father’s were

I can

I can

be happy

so happy

I can be so happy here

I am so happy here

Why can’t I

accept

that I am so happy here

the dryness

it is

suffocating,

I guess.

If you made it this far, that is actually crazy. Thank you for reading! I would love if you left a comment, because I don’t really know what I just wrote.

choose love

document everything

let yourself be consumed by all of the things you love and show that love to others with an unwavering devotion to this world.

xx

Dove

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Where my poetry lives: Lilac Dove <3

Like blizzard sinking ships, I found you across the room

staring at me like a goddess, like a goddess, that you can certainly afford

Did I pick enough dandelions for you—softly, baby deer, enchanted basement flooring

I stand in your gazebo, pretending I’m made of old money

your sweet breath. sugar plums in the sky. a myriad of my favourite dreams. You, you, you are the girl I wanted when I was younger, when I was weaker, when I thought I could be stronger, when I grew tougher, when I escaped to feel the weakness and fragility of the air outside (3 in the morning, it was pouring, you came towards me)

Well, what am I to do? What am I to do with you?

We dance in my living room.

that doubles as a dining room

You know I’m broke

but that my heart, my mind, my bones are so full. so strong. so heavy in the morning and even worse at night—it all aches.

In the quiet of the night, I hear your truck

rumbling

towards mine.

When it’s chaotic and I think we’re all made up of cobblestone and bubblegum, weakened caterpillars desperate to make their way into a novel form of butterfly

You say

to

me

that I

am

so

beautiful.

You mean

more

than

just

my exterior.

You value

in me

more

than

anybody has ever seen.
And I know it, because I truly know it—I can tell what anybody thinks of me, without them having to speak.

It’s easier for me than poetry.

You’re like ephemeral sunshine, hooked up to the radio—you sing the tunes in your country accent that I couldn’t emulate on stage nearly as radiant as you, as you, as you

Split an avocado with me.

Transient, we are. You phone me up—you know I love telephone calls,

and dancing in my living room my dining room my kitchen none of it has a door because I am poor

but I’m not broken, and I knew that before we met,

but thank you for enlightening me, I joke, because I’m a snarky little thing. I’ll tease you all day because I tend to misinterpret pretty much everything you throw my way.

Clarify it, you do just that. Shoot it straight with me. Tell me what I don’t want to hear, which, as you’ve come to find out, is exactly what I’ve been looking for but have never found.

Get off of my blanket.

You look too pretty in the soft light that’s echoing horrible smoke screens on your silhouette. I could photograph you a million times. I do, yeah, I do. Film I don’t have the money to develop—you tell me, you’ll take care of all of that for me. When the check comes in, for telling me

you’re in love with me

I don’t want to be like them other guys, the ones I’ve met.

I don’t want to tell you not to say such wonderful things to me, because my heart can’t properly absorb it right now—but I want it, I crave it. Like a balloon. For a child, at a county fair. you’re too sweet. you’re not very nice at all. You knew I was busy. You knew I was trying to keep to myself. then, like a dagger, like lightning, like the most beautiful rose bushes that line your sidewalk—you infected me with strawberry silk. listening to me rant about the psychopharmacology of amphetamines. I keep going to bed thinking that you are,

playing a game. and this will end. Because it cannot, simply cannot, be real.

You are so elegant in this soft light; I could photograph you the entire afternoon

but, your bambi eyes, deep brown—just like all the boys that ended up breaking my heart. i’m terrified, to look too deep, to feel these things, and you listen to me rant about the psychopharmacology of amphetamines. their molecular structure and the way your body bends when it’s in bed with me. get out. you can’t shut the door. there isn’t one. you’ll never get paid. for being in love with, a fragment of a human being

an empty vessel, uncharted territory. I feel the weight of every bad thing that’s ever been said to me

You don’t know how that feels. At least, you tell me you do, but I don’t believe you at times.

Am I the bad guy in the room? Am I the one to avoid in the grocery store, at dawn?

Wake up next to me, dragonfly serenity. You’re more perfect as more light enters my, our, bedroom. Ours every time you occupy it—surely, truly, undoubtedly.

the most beautiful thing I think I have ever seen. I can’t let you get too close to me, but whoops, I slipped, because, you see

I’m not like them other guys

I wouldn’t know how to play a single game even if I tried, even if I researched all night, all week. Their names are now obsolete. You’re behind the curtain making silly faces at me. My best friend is calling. I answer, and I say, you know who I’m with. I can hear him smile even though he doesn’t make a sound. He’s ecstatic for me. I don’t tell him a thing when I end up seeing him to catch up, because I know I’ll never ever ever ever ever ever ever stop talking.

That’s what you do to me. Insanity!

Come over and we make vegan cookie dough and we eat it because there’s no salmonella to hurt us

I put some on your nose, you make me feel comatose

little grin like we’re little kids, the littlest of kids, on a playground, with nobody making fun of me

I feel free

I feel free

I feel free

I feel free

pure insanity!

I’m writing this on a Monday with you sitting across the dining room kitchen living room round table from me,

your knees. bent over each other, cross-legged, leap-frog. little kids, us. My roses are dying. You know I’m working on rooting new ones. You got me root powder for Amazon prime day and then ranted for 2 and a half hours about Jeff Bezos and how you’d never support him, and I think I kind of, accidentally, might have flirted with you when I said, “but, you know, you kind of just did”

Mad for a second, birthday cake icing, vanilla and cookies & cream & melancholic dreams & the loneliness that only hits me when I’m far away from my most materialistic of things

your existence is pure poetry.

Your shape, aligned with mine. We’re like a glowing billboard of body positivity—you with your crop top and visible belly fat and I love every single aspect of that. Me, with my short shorts digging into the depths of my thighs, revealing alllllllll of my cellulite. you love everything about us in public. Want to show me off. I don’t get it. I live in no makeup except occasional lip gloss and a Chicago Cubs baseball cap,

would you like to tell everyone in the room about how 1/5th of my personality is arched on the back of a city I only lived a few years in?

You could also dance with me.

We get so down to Taylor Swift,

you know all the lyrics and so do I, my whole life, my adolescence and teenage years and young adulthood and whatever stage I am at now where I’m reluctant to tell others my age, but you—

fresh paint on a page

nothing archaic about the way you’re not even mildly annoyed at how your eyes have developed wrinkles that surround them. So cute. I love. to look. at each one. I don’t count, because I’m, a nice girl—so you say. Make fun of me. Come over and make cookie dough. Stand in my kitchen living room dining room—there’s no door, because I’m poor, but I am so good at pretending my head is above water

unless you’re with me for the evening and then I can write—it spills out of me.

You don’t understand any of my experiences with men; it’s all foreign to you. You’ve lived a completely different life. Secure. So sure. A natural confidence I am only now learning to exude, all by myself. and I’m proud of that

Can we take a road trip when this exam of mine is finally over? Before I start my hypervigilant search for a research project that could sky-rocket me to the ivy leagues I may or may not even belong in?

You’re from Alabama—God, oh my goodness, oh my Jesus, am I hopelessly in love with your accent. Can we take a road trip super soon, super please, pretty please?

We can go to the discount stores and survive on Gatorade if we can afford it. Cheap knock-offs of popular soda brands. You don’t get paid often. I get paid never. And we can carve out this perfect little life, just you and me. Bambi eyes, you wear so much mascara, like, all of the time, it makes me want to cry because it’s so perfect—it’s so perfect. Waterproof, so when you cry out of joy (just like I tend to do), you still look like the 1960s icons. You know exactly how to line your waterline. but you do it with mascara. I don’t get you. You won’t let me see, because you want me to learn makeup on my own, but I know we’ll be playing dress-up when my exam is over. you can teach me lip liner, sure you can, yeah I’ll let you, might smear it all over you. I’m never sick of any of this. I can’t get enough of any of this.

I have Mary up on my wall, you know, she sees all the things we do

Sometimes I think she’s smiling about it to herself

Sometimes I think she’s smiling about it to herself

I have Mary up on my wall, you know, she sees all the things we do

I cover you in spiderwebs—you’re stained now, like my deep wine stains that I enjoy using this cheap old stain remover because, honey, my dear, do I impress you with the way I get out them trashy stains?

In my teeth

Arm & hammer, I brush your teeth for you because I think it’s so funny

end up laughing so hard I almost die, I almost die, oh my goodness, I almost die

Monday night

you brush my teeth for me, but you don’t do it quite right. you scrape my tongue, on purpose, over and over and over and over and over and over again

Mary is watching because she’s plastered right on my wall, and I’m plastered brushing your teeth for you. like little kids. we are. so. cute. I could just. photograph your silhouette in this soft, soft, soft light.

Keep asking me things like,

“When ya gonna make me your girlfriend?”

Oh, alright, now I’m the boy, I’m the man with the commitment phobia, like the one guy I knew that could have really gotten far but he couldn’t cut the tape right

I feel like some caricuture of Elvis, mumbling my words like: “but you know, I’ll be moving away”

What ya gonna do then? When we can’t go on road trips, because you’re glued to the town I hate? The land of opportunity, the place with the Hollywood sign

You can make it. I believe in few things more than I do, you. You can make it real big, and you will. have no social media, you stay far off the grid, yet you know all them model names and what they wore to what kind of week and what type of city. Point at it on my globe and I have to tell you, I am this close, to getting some water because

I can’t set you up in such a way that anything would hurt

Human beings—we can’t prevent this—this much I know. But I can’t do that to ya, not my Bambi-eyed, 1960s mascara, soft light silhouette queen. Laying on my puffy white bedspread with the vintage-looking water-coloured blue flowers. I can’t do that to ya. I can take plenty of photographs of ya, if we find the money to get the film developed.

French vanilla aroma, I want it all, I want the diamonds on your necklace and to take cute little walks to the little pawn shop by your place. I think I have a few things I can let go of, to make you a star, but we have too many things to think and talk about.

Social media? Umm, off the grid

Roses, I’m repairing their roots, I got the root powder straight from Jeff Bezos, that guy you hate so much it makes you speak

for hours. Keep speaking for hours. Get on the stage. Could wear whatever, but you seem to like my sweaters. We do little exchanges. you borrow my pink one so I can have your grey one.

You gave me your sweater, so I added you to my will.

You know I been workin’ on it because the people I loved the most, they left too early. Who’s to say that I’ll stay for all that long? You know how I can be, who I can be, the types of things I get into.

The sheer aroma of french vanilla, your perfume is like expensive cashmere, so you say.

When I have the time, I’ll get the time. I told you when. I’ll dress up in babydoll dresses, prove to you that I can be femme, too. More than just lip gloss. I can make it up, too. Wear heels, too, just not as high as yours.

Little baby bird girl, sweet roller curls, and endless John Frieda frizz-ease because it’s burning hot dry summertime

You know I am desperate to get so far from here

What we gon’ do then? With your Alabama accent, I can’t handle that over the telephone, not when I’m across the country. It isn’t fair to you and it isn’t fair to me.

I naturally put others in front of me. But, this is the first time. The first time. That I think about the both of us in an even split, 50-50. If it sucks for you, it’s going to suck for me, too. Probably more, but I do or don’t tell you that, when we make our vegan cookie dough. no salmonella in sight, you look through my fashion magazines and the collages I’ve made over the past few months. Tell me I should post them on

social media

but I’m so off-the-grid, I’m so hard to get rid

of when I run my fingers through your John Frieda frizz-ease hair, smell your expensive cashmere perfume

You could be on the cover of

any

fashion

magazine

Born to thrill, you weren’t born a dancer (I was.) But you’re a much better dancer than I ever was. Glad I never went professional because you’d upstage me, which you do every weeknight, and I can’t be there because I’m locked in my bedroom that doesn’t have a door, studying for this exam

that’s preventing our road trip from commencing

I twirl you around, spin spin spin, show you what it’s like to pirhouette, you picked it up just like that. Showed up wearing overalls, I laughed, cutest thing I’ve ever seen. Live not too far, not too close to me. So I space out how often we see each other

(Often)

My fresh cut roses are dying, I’m applying root powder to the bottom of their stems. Roller curls, and silk and satin interweaving in-between your fingertips; you carry a planner just like I do. We are cute when we plan. Nothing ever really goes according to plan. We FaceTime when I’m driving home from my shift, and I don’t even look in your direction because I am absolutely mostly positive that I would just immediately crash.

You’re not the kind of woman that anybody could spend a single holy second looking away from

I take in your expensive cashmere perfume, french vanilla whatever, wrapped up like

little kids

on a swing set

You’re currently asking me if it’s time for dinner—it’s 11:44pm.

I say,

“Yes.”

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Where my poetry lives: Lilac Dove <3

Setting:

Writing this at the park, with my large dog in my peripheral vision, at 7 in the morning. Wrapped in a light grey ‘Minnesota’ sweater my best friend bought me at the Minneapolis airport, with straight-leg denim grey-wash jeans on, & checkered vans (cobalt blue x mint green) that he also got me because he lost a bet (go Cubs!).

• Hair feels so clean & soft, lips feel moisturized from my overnight balm.

• Puffy mauve-brown hair tie on my left wrist

• a watch I haggled on the price of in Prague several years ago when I tried to meet up with my grandmother (I’ll eventually pen an essay on that)

• a ‘Be Kind’ bracelet composed of sheer teal beads & marble stone, that is falling apart.

If life gets any more beautiful, I’ll stretch my arms out & open myself up to it, breathing more deeply than I have ever before.

It’s not about winning or losing—it’s all about cruising

icanbesoseriousandsillyatthesametimeiloveitmorethananythingreally

• I finally found an emotional-support lip balm !!

• people keep singing, “She’s from Texas, I can tell” at me (it makes me feel so warm and seen)

• Commonly cited example of kinetic control: diamond. Although it is thermodynamically favourable for diamond to revert to graphite, the activation energy (energy barrier) for the process is so great that the conversion does not proceed at an observable rate. Diamond <3

• in luvvvvvvvvvv (so obsessed) with Rose of Sharon deciduous shrubs !! They are pollinators & attract hummingbirds, butterflies, & bees. I can’t determine which colour of blooms is my favourite…

  

  

  

  

  

• was gifted a cute little A5-lined notebook by one of my favourite people at my hospital shifts, to use as a little “knowledge book” for keeping MCAT information I want to review over & over & over again. I’m so happy.

  This was only a week after I expressed how I wanted to purchase one but couldn’t find one with the super thin lines at the discount stores.

  If my faith in humanity hadn’t already been there, it certainly would have been restored in that moment. <3

• I have countless drafts (~8 I can recall the topic off the top of my head) of long-form personal essays, but they do need to be edited. I rarely edit my work (if I do, it’s merely to break apart lines for my poetry, since I’m most often using the voice-to-text feature on my lengthy commute back home.) However, these topics are not only deeply personal & important to me, but they carry a tremendous weight, so I want to ensure I’m using my words best to communicate my ideas, experiences, & every ounce of reflective analysis that occupies my small frame, in a way I feel proud of.

• On that note, my MCAT date is July 24, and the final month is the most exhaustive but most rewarding of studying. Insert “paywalled essays coming soon but not super-soon, that I care so much about but are not ready yet” sign here.

• planted bright red California poppy seeds for my mother to enjoy, just in case I leave home (more likely than not). I found an insane deal on eBay for 10,000 seeds so I direct-sowed all of them. It’s not particularly poppy sowing season, but the landscape & weather conditions of California are

  a little bit more forgiving

  &

  a lot more loving,

  especially to its native plants :)

• I left my phone at home when I rushed out the door the other day to take my dog to the park—I was fairly blissful without it. I couldn’t choose my own music, so I turned country radio on. I found a song that I absolutely adore, called ‘Gary.’ I’m rather surprised it’s reached the radio, because the song is pretty dark, but silly at first. I played it for my mom the next day & she was very confused by the whole situation. I continued to quote it in the evening time.

• My new little addition to the family, a one-eyed Chihuahua named Lily, is so so so full of joy. She spins these crazy spins upon my return from taking out the trash for 2 minutes. Even lovelier than that, she absolutely adores my mother. My mom has mentioned here & there how empty it’ll feel when I leave for medical school (I am most likely moving to a different state or city—I only applied to three schools within driving distance, but the commutes would all be 1hr+, so even that would be dependent on my course schedule & the feasibility.) However, I feel like Lily is exactly the little bundle of joy my mama needs. When my mom comes home from work, the spins are a full-on stage show—extravagant, chaotic, and endlessly charming. She brings so much light to my mom. She needs that in her life.

• Again, at the park, I massaged my aching back against the bumps and grooves of a large, hundred-year-old oak tree. I suppose we’ve reached the age where we don’t even plan for these things, but when I leaned against it to smile & giggle at Gemma’s enamoured expression towards squirrels, it just… happened. I was with my mom that morning, so I showed her my new find, to her apprehension. But she tried it & couldn’t stop moving side to side, letting the tree relax the knots in her back. It was certainly a peculiar but sweet way to connect with nature. I wonder if the tree felt anything in return.

• If I could, I’d buy hundreds of native milkweed, white sage, Cleveland sage, Matilija poppy, buckwheat, and white + pink yarrow plants to introduce into my little community that I’ve been beautifying & introducing native pollinators to (along with several gals I’ve met that are so lovely). Perhaps it’s a good thing I’m restricted in that regard, because I’d be planting nonstop. It’s such a stress reliever, though, and you enter a state of non-thought (a topic I’ll write about in the future). Then, you get to see your plants growing & thriving as you care for them exactly how they want to be cared for. It’s simultaneously thrilling and deeply calming.

• I can’t settle on a background colour for my Substack. It’s bothering me…! I want it to be very, very, very light so I choose a light hex colour, but it looks so dark when I click on it. Heads up if you see my background colour continue to evolve

• Perhaps one day I’ll figure this one thing out, so that I can move on to the next. Because that’s how life operates. And, I’m kind of sort of in love with it.

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Where my poetry lives: Lilac Dove <3

I woke up and I thought, oh, I love you, I love you lots, but I’ll let you sleep—this time, I won’t tell you. This time.

I go to hardware stores and take several, like many several, as in hundreds of free paint sample cards (they. are. free) and then I come home & raise up stacks of them to take selfies with, like I’m holding countless hundred dollar bills, and I laugh to myself and send those photographs to my mother, who doesn’t respond

but it’s pretty funny

I write gorgeous notes on them in fine-point sharpie pens you took from work for me (which isn’t stealing because they’re your work pens, but it is stealing because they’re on my desk)

& I tape them up using half-effective tape a contractor left behind from working on a nearby unit to my apartment

have to use a ton of tape since he didn’t even want it either

but i actually do want it because my refrigerator is broken again and I had to ask a perfect stranger to help me cover gas when I realized my tank was empty on my way to my shift,

who schooled me on why everybody should be driving electric cars, not trucks (even though I believe electric trucks are a thing now, but I am not in possession of one, no, because I won this truck from a local raffle run by an auto dealership that was free to enter)

I was, of course, grateful, but human beings always find something to complain about

I think it’s because we don’t want to allow ourselves to feel one-hundred-percent satisfied for a sustained period of time

What good would that do? To bask in the sun on your lawn chair, ignoring how portions of it are tearing and it’ll destruct if you add any weight onto it, laughing when your dog jumps into your lap and that exact scenario unfolds, but isn’t it time to become frustrated when enough minutes pass by?

And me, standing next to somebody criticizing my choice of automobile, while he was doing me a perfect favour (of course I was beyond grateful, but if I complain, I lose your respect, right? And isn’t that what I want? To not have to maintain this perfect image I’ve felt the requirement to sustain so that nobody ever pities me or, conversely, holds me in such high regard that now the image is bound to be destroyed?)

I’m in love with being imperfect, with practically trembling carrying the weight of someone’s expectations of me, and then collapsing while laughing because I think nothing could be more silly

insert statement about how this doesn’t apply to professionalism or the workplace, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera

I’m in love with being a flawed human being

but you can’t be too flawed! don’t make a joke like the one you just thought of! that’ll rabbit hole you directly into the tunnel vision void of earning a lack of respect

but i don’t know or do know or will never know but wanted to ask if he had any respect for me at all—no makeup on my face except brow pencil I’m entirely unsure I used correctly

small, little frame. short block heels, but not kitten heels—not too feminine, not very romantic. subtle. little thing.

with this ridiculous truck in relation to how mouse-like she is. quivering, slightly, social anxiety, on fire, hate asking for help when it’s something so overwhelmingly vulnerable, need a teensy tiny bit of control, shaking, short block heels, tiny fingers, old engagement ring, no wedding band

young, but not too young. young enough to ask, perhaps. desperate but not too desperate, she said very little. quiet, young thing. small frame. lifted pick-up truck with a giant dent in the front that we didn’t discuss

scratch marks everywhere

parking lots tend to suck

best place to smoke

nicotine patch on my arm, visible because we live in a city where it’s already warm at nine in the morning

what kind of life is this? how badly i want to get out of here.

i did say that. something, like. how much i actually do love traffic. ooh, controversial. not trying to be. was accused of such. dismissed it. tried to maintain the gratitude. don’t make fun of the perfect stranger buying gas for you.

At the market—green apples, pink lady apples, red crispy apples. Admire, photograph, place back down because we’re living off dry cereal. The refrigerator is broken and apparently oat milk spoils, too. Contemplated why I lack fundamental knowledge of groceries while I pictured organic chemistry reactions mentally in lieu of physical flashcards

Spice rack. something spilled. not me. didn’t look.

Lana Del Rey air freshener in my automobile, that I have no idea what smelled like when I first bought it, potentially because that wasn’t the rationale for purchasing it whatsoever, added to the fact that the scent was likely very mild and subtle

swinging from my rear-view mirror

love to love to love to love you

I woke up this morning and I thought, haha, oh my goodness, how much I love you

but I won’t tell you. fast asleep, probably. didn’t check. watered the evening primrose I tore from the ground near Subway and transplanted into my yard. It’s better cared for here. They weren’t watering it.

thousands of paint samples and 6 roots of evening primrose, flowers trimmed so that the roots could have enough sustenance to take up space and deliver oxygen and hydrogen molecules to its leaves

so the pink, gone. and I loved it. and I love you. and you’ll wake up, without me saying it. For now, I have to keep things to myself, and take over caring for what isn’t cared for.

But if I don’t tell you, who will?

Who won’t?

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Originally titled: The Loneliness of Long-Term Ambition

1. Assumptions others make about you

• The assumption that you have everything together, perfectly tied into little ribbons. In case there is an obstacle, you’re so quick to remedy it and don’t spend time on your kitchen floor or walking in circles in the parking lot pretending to be on the phone, knowing you’re not losing your mind but certainly would say “10” if someone asked what your stress level was. But, they don’t ask.

  So perhaps I am to blame, because I tend to appear very put-together in social situations. I’ve got countless experiences in my own memory bank of preventing further damage and ameliorating a situation, but acquaintances, peers, and friends don’t even know that. I can count on one hand the number of times different people have asked me, “How are you?” in the past year (it’s almost June) outside of the casual formality (a misnomer, at best) but from a genuine standpoint of wondering how I’m dealing with everything that I suppose they don’t even know about. But how do you know what someone is going through if they don’t ask? Are we supposed to put up billboards or make large-scale confessions in Instagram stories?

• Something I find very curious which has logical facets to it, but still leads to distance between people, is when others subconsciously or not assign decisions you make in your life to the goals you’re pursuing.

  I wanted to initially write an essay solely about that. Though, I’d also want to pull from so much neuroscience and/or psychobiological research on why we do that. At the moment, I’m sitting in my truck waiting for a hardware store to open, intent on making this essay a quick read.

  A subtle example: I deactivated my main instagram account (which also deactivated my threads account), and um, nobody really said anything. They have my phone number. They know my dog account. Yet, (and I am fully aware I am making an assumption myself here), I would put a monetary amount into a bet that if people noticed my absence, they attributed it to my current intensive study schedule for the MCAT. The funny thing is, though, is that wasn’t the reason at all. In turn, I felt this loneliness from not one person wondering where I was or what I was doing. Granted, I’m not the most social creature alive, but I had roughly one hundred people that would regularly view my instagram stories. Some of them have my phone number or at least another means of contacting me.

  I didn’t expect to feel this way, and wasn’t looking for someone to notice my absence, but when it did happen… it was strange. It kind of reinforced ideas that did drive me to deactivate my instagram, and if this sounds silly, fine. But my Instagram was a visual display of my life, with a vulnerable column that highlighted my poetry, the column I was most proud of (that also received the least attention). What do you mean, you can disappear without anybody wondering why?

2. Not having anybody to relate to, with your specific journey

• I go back and forth with this one, because by nature, I’m deeply introverted and was always the little girl reading in the corner and contemplating interactions I’d observe the other children having. But,

• I deleted everything I wrote underneath the above statement. I’m leaving it as is. That’s final! Haha. Is it normal to write “haha” in a lil essay, or should I embrace that I called my Substack page “diary entries”

• Do other people write “haha” in their diary entries? Sometimes, I do. Or I’ll write “I just laughed about that concept.” It feels so, so, so good to be able to make yourself laugh.

• While laughter is a coping mechanism, I’m finally certain that I’m kind of glad I don’t have anybody to relate to about this process. This will drastically change in medical school—I hope to attend a school where peers are supportive and I develop enriching study group relationships and bonds with others.

3. However, in being alone through this—I romanticize the absolute Heaven out of my life.

• I have paint sample cards I take from Home Depot (they are free!!!) & I write beautiful sentiments on them as well as topics to review further and tips I think of to help me improve within my practice and studying.

• The one sitting next to my is named “So Blue-Berry.” It’s a lilac colour with a little bit of blue mixed into it.

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This is where I write diary-entry-styled paragraphs that I kind of love keeping a secret, but you can subscribe to read if you wish xx

Read more

A poem I wrote early April & published without editing on April 30th to my poetry website Lilac Dove

Wanted to share here too.

On my website, the background text of the long-form poem is a pastel pink, because that’s what I do when publishing love poems. Here, I’ll separate stanzas with dividers, and include photographs I like.

Feel free to comment—in fact, I’d love it lots if you would. xx

Love poem: Charcoal-Stained T-shirts on Porcelain Skin

To a home I don’t want to come back to
I have been feeling this stifling feeling of wanting to get away, to get away
But I don’t run away from my responsibilities
Something to be proud of
Dad, did you see that, all of these times, from wherever you have been relocated to
If there is a Lord, they are a God—genderless, liquid, solid, vaporous substance
Never parasitic
Always appreciative
Who you are, where you came from
They don’t see that in you
The people in your surroundings, the ones that make such
Wild accusations, to my peril it used to be
Until I found a form of insanity
That blanketed me in a comfort I truly feel is finally real

I must sound crazy to you
All of this I’m so aware of that I think it’s started to crack my skin apart
In tiny little precious spiderwebs
I collect
In a drawer beneath my queen-size bed
I collect all of my tiny, little, precious memories

Have come to realize that being blanketed in softness
Makes life feel finer than operating in a self-isolated cave
But I feel deprived of a human spirit
Perhaps it’s too much for me to think about, yet I still do
It’s not overthinking if I’m hit with the infinite branches of how deeply in love I am with you

Never want what I can’t have
I make my palette worthwhile if I’m going to move at all
It has to be at a target
As of late, it’s been moving at a frightening speed
Take my physics equations and calculate
How I could throw the baseball in such a way that it would land in my teammate’s glove
Belief in others
A steadfast, full-depth, incisive belief in others
Some of which I’ve had to let go personally
But never universally
Everybody deserves to feel half of the things I feel when I’m next to you

Typing this on a plane—carefully arranged composure
Your black Vans
How you don’t crash out when faced with shoelaces
They always end up bound in knots when I go to untie them
Can’t really figure out what’s wrong with me
You fixed it immediately
Fortunately for me, nobody can fix another human being
Finally evaded the line of thinking that the opposite could come true for me

If I am shattered glass, I just want somebody who comes
Prepared
Unafraid
Careful but not conscious
My eyes have started producing tears as of late—the dryness has resolved
I think about how I feel and immediately regain my composure
Charcoal-stained t-shirts from the clearance section
You said they looked good in relation to my skin
If I didn’t know it yet, my goodness, I’d have figured it out right then

Prepared
Unafraid
I know I can handle this
Haven’t felt it in so long
It’s been years since
I have felt
Like crying from joy when seeing a human being that is in my life
Not a musician,
Not a family member that will forever mean the world to me
Just a boy
Wearing black Vans
Shoelaces that perfectly untie
I wish I could watch our entire story on rewind

I won’t get lost this time
Priorities won’t shift
I’ll dance in my bedroom and my lifted pickup truck while I drive
Hug my children (the dogs)
Take care of things I’ve never dealt with for my mother
I’ll be alright
I won’t get lost in time
Wish I could watch our story on rewind
Go back to the very first night
I’d say, hi
Everything would turn out the same in the end
Me, on this plane
Wiping tears away, and you know it’s because I’m writing
Have no clue
Think I’m processing my stress
I’m not stressed about you
I’m miserable to be so happily in love with someone who

I could have been better to.

Thank you for tuning in <3

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Where my poetry lives: Lilac Dove <3

Diary entry is as diary entry does—girl contemplates internal question that is written all over the walls & the internal caves & cavities of her mind

I’ve pretty much mastered getting to places on time. In high school, I took two public buses, one that took me on a tour of West Los Angeles, and the other that introduced me to the starlit homes of the area I’m grateful to have received an education in. This adventure took over two hours to get to a school that was realistically only thirty-fourty minutes away by car, in what was not a very reliable schedule. I’d do my best to get out of the house at 5-5:15am to anticipate the possibility of a bus not taking passengers (due to being full, or broken) or never arriving as scheduled, but most of the time I was out there at 5:30 am. I had earned myself so many tardies (3 tardies = 1 absence) that I was deemed ineligible to graduate my senior year, unless I ate lunch with a teacher (3 lunches = 1 absence cleared), though I was limited to only 6 lunches per teacher.

One teacher had me mop during the entire lunch period. I became really good at mopping. I believe my reward for effective mopping was in the form of graduating high school. Please note that this was before the Swiffer Sweeper was even in its optimal form. Real mop and bucket, me. I was so good.

Now, I arrive to shifts early; I’m often the first to arrive at any event or meeting, and sometimes I feel the panic of being late all over again if there’s an unexpected obstacle, but I end up arriving exactly on time. My lateness problem has been solved.

My philosophy of life is that when you solve one thing, another one takes its place—this keeps things so exciting! Often, in retrospect. A prior problem seems so simple in comparison to what you’re now facing, and I see it as this step ladder of life. You think you’ve gotten past something, and then here comes an avalanche of six separate cascades, and that’s when your decision-making skills as to what to prioritize come in handy (an idea for a future essay I’ll pen, because this is a major topic I’ve studied!)

But

I’m always waiting for the other needle to drop

Just like it has before

Life is cyclical—I tell myself this all the time. Up and down up and down up and down and down and down and up because you had a lovely cup of frozen blueberries and plummeting down because a family member became ill

and up again because you found some time to write. What feels like leisure, but it’s not,

because it’s you unraveling.

In real time, for an audience that is unknown, but you’ve found time to write. So when will you ever be satisfied?

I’m drawn to simplicity, but I’m in my best form when presented with chaos. I’m obsessive about organization, but I also deeply love to organize. This implies that the environment I’m dealing with is one of disarray—tangled spiderwebs, and the spiders don’t really like that very much. They worked so hard! They want peace. So, here I am, trying my best to be so delicate, but there’s this determination about me that, currently, I’m doing my best to channel into taking my time to be more effective and thorough.

but the clock on the wall is loud, it’s so loud, it’s so alarmingly loud without even alarming—it’s a separate form of the avalanche, and I can’t help but glance at it because it’s in my line of vision.

I’d never take it off the wall, but it’s loud.

It asks me, “What do you have to do to be satisfied? Are you ever truly satisfied?”

It rushes me! It tangles me—me! The one doing the untangling! And it’s kind of fun. It’s thrilling.

Sometimes I watch extreme winter sports when I feel particularly anxious, because I’m astounded with the immense chaos coupled with the sheer brilliance of maneuvering down a mountain that’s working against you. I watch them in my mind, because with my current schedule, I know I’m prone to going down rabbit holes. Seeing snow—intense, reflective, powerful snow—I’d want to melt in it. So instead, I picture it. Somebody snowboarding down an actual avalanche, and the person is me. I gain confidence from this 1.4-second daydream I create in my mind.

I’m currently reading a book titled Atomic Habits by James Clear, in which Clear explains that setting goals, while at times useful, is not as important as putting systems in place in which you’re “improving by 1% every day.” Returning to my belief that life is cyclical, at first I didn’t like hearing that I needed to improve 1% every day. However, I changed what it is that I’m improving. This can mean taking a more restful day after becoming exhausted pouring effort into something that I feel I need to sit with. I feel proud of letting myself be productive in a different, often creative way, that utilizes the same skills I’m sharpening with my primary work: patience, dedication, and perseverance.

I think those three qualities describe my entire being, and who I want to be more of.

But, I get impatient.

Always waiting for the other needle to drop

As in, the other other other needle

The needle I didn’t see in the room

in the haystack

wherever spontaneous, unprecedented needles are found, according to American idioms

and I wonder, oh man do I wonder,

Will I ever be satisfied? And if not, what do I…

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Below this line lives the very personal aspects to the story that prove my collection of work, are truly diary entries. <3

Read more

Hi, I’m alive & well.

& kind of in luuuuvvvvv with making lists.

• Everybody wants to live longer, live longer, live longer. What if you just lived for right now?

• I spray white-floral (main element) perfume on myself before I study. It invigorates me & reminds me that life is so, so, so beautiful. The sense of smell is strongly connected to memory, but I keep changing it up & I haven’t looked up whether the perfumes I’m overwhelmingly grateful to own (they were all gifted to me) contain the same actual floral compounds, better yet the specific chemical structures because I don’t think the latter is made publicly available. For a future post… if anyone is as obsessed with scents as I am!

  • I must investigate. I must know the truth. Haha, I make myself laugh with my commitment and adherence to research, but I also love that so much about myself.

    • What can be better than being a lil curious?

• I want to be & feel alive, glowing, romantic, and approachable.

• Bottega Veneta, CELINE (especially sunglasses), pumps by Manolo Blahnk, dresses & perfume by Chanel = things I can’t afford but love to look at.

  • Maybe one day, maybe not. I’m almost too practical, but also a huge fan of making investments into things that are utilized so often (like taking extravagant loans to earn a degree, even though the pay-back process is quite grueling)

• So happy for my girl Jesse Jo Stark, who got 2 pages in Elle magazine. She really deserves to be on the cover, because I’d absolutely love to read a full-length interview and not just cut quotations, but I sure did cut out her lovely photograph & tape it to the wall prior to the closet’s entrance. I feel like that’s the perfect place for her in my room, because she is a creator in multiple ways: often linking music with fashion including shoes & accessories.

  • I got to meet her after her show in downtown Los Angeles, I think 1-2 years ago? I raved about how different songs on her record, DOOMED, make me feel & what I’m often doing while I’m listening. She was such a sweetheart and I was just spilling all my lil secrets, but she said things like “f*ck, yeah!” It was so cool to be able to do that.

    • Connecting with artists you admire and being able to literally tell them how their music impacts you is such a dream, and it’s surprisingly rare to have that experience, and have it be a positive one when you do.

      • The DOOMED album cover is literally displayed on my fridge <3 It’s so lovely, intense, bold, empowering, beautiful.

• Skepticism towards serotonin

• We took a walk in the gigantic, ethereal, forest green local park with the girls (my two dogs) today, for the first time in several weeks because both dogs got injured for unrelated reasons.

  • It was actually kind of sweet that they were recovering at the same time. My larger dog (significantly larger than a chihuahua mix, I’ll tell you that much) kept checking on Lily (the chihuahua in question). It was very maternal. So sweet. I love them deeply. They were so THRILLED to be outside on a long walk! A little too excited at times, pulling a lot & running in circles. They’re kind of like little children. Ahhhhh, they keep me young, and fit, definitively.

• I’m iffy about horoscopes, but this is what Elle Magazine says about my zodiac for May:

  • “Audit your to-do list as Pluto backs through your work and wellness region. Excavate energy drains: inefficient systems, stressful routines, a work dynamic that’s no longer useful. This reset will give your daily life a glow-up.”

    • I’m iffy about horoscopes because while I do believe in astrology (I have a specific theory about where it applies, though), I’m not so sure about the predictability of really anything.

      • Life is, at times, unbearably unpredictable. Then, like the horoscope says I suppose, you have to find a way to reset. Find a way to stabilize a bit, even if it’s one thing: one room in the house, or one relationship, or one task that you’re beginning to dread and perhaps it’s time to revisit why it’s weighing you down so much and if there’s a greater payoff in store of it it’s just pulling a mosquito on you and sucking the life force out of you.

      • However, I feel like I’ve been doing the first half of that horoscope. My routine has never, EVER, been stronger. Even when there are substantial, chaotic changes to what I had planned (such is life), I’ve been able to bounce back and figure out how to move forward. A large amount of that, I owe to balancing risks and benefits, of two separate pathways.

        • I should write an essay on decision-making :) It’s a primary topic I studied in undergrad!

• I have a light blue paint sample card (it was free from Home Depot, okay) with a colour name of “Sunken Pool” laying on my desk, where I see it more than I see most things in my bedroom, that I wrote “I can do this” with a drawn heart on, with a black permanent marker.

  • Because I can. I can really do this. I can really make my dreams come true. If the dream is hyper-specific, it likely won’t come true. If the dream is too vague, you’re opening yourself up to thousands, if not millions of possibilities. But to target a specific range that feels optimal, that feels possible, that feels even probable… it makes all the chaos and the mess less important. Things that would, in the past, bring upon a sense of “OMGGG WHHHHYYY????” are …manageable. & then you get right back on track. And life continues, and you do as well, and you see more love, life, wonder, and beauty in the things that surround you.

• In love with this new phrase I recently came across: “tying the bow.”

  • On a paint sample card by the name of “Cement Pots,” I wrote:

    • “I’m tying the bow—making dreams come true that I never could have predicted.

• Get a breath of fresh air, if you can. As in, right now, while you’re reading this. Go step outside if you aren’t outside already.

  • Remember to come back to read the rest & leave a comment :)

• I’m having a lot of fun with these paint sample cards, okay. I have a ton in my drawers. I love writing cute little notes on them, as well as using them as flashcards for my studies :)

• Phosphorus-32 is a radioactive beta-emitter used in the treatment of polycythemia vera (excess red blood cells).

  • My daughter’s middle name is in a medical condition. Sounds about right for my brand…

• Just tried a tester of Chloe Eau de Parfum & oh my goodness, it’s so refreshing, intoxicating, and invigorating. Perfume is truly one of my most favourite things & it’s entirely tied to how a scent makes me feel. It can change my entire landscape of being—bringing me motivation, comfort, and enthusiasm towards creating a life I want to live, or simply admiring the life I already live.

  • That’s what it’s all about anyway, right? To me, definitively. Embracing my current life as is while still continuing to refine it and build upon it is the ultimate essence of my very being.

    • It’s something I’m steadfastly committed to, and want to recognize more about myself & continue to embrace.

• Casually noting that it’s 6 days until the absolute God of rap/hip hop/r&b—armed with lyrical prowess & an evident devotion to continuously evolving, characteristics it may be too obvious at this point that I am doomed to admire—drops a much-anticipated record.

  • I’ve been working extra hard on my studies, attending to responsibilities and pushing myself when feasible while letting things unravel as they will in other departments, so that the reward of this record could be truly a reward in itself. I kind of am in love with that. Usually a record of this artist pulls me out from a deep funk, and I’m forever grateful for that. But this time I incentivized myself to work for it, so that it doesn’t come into my life until I feel I truly deserved it.

    • In the next 6 days, more like 5 since it’s already evening, I’m going to double down on reaping what I’ve sowed.

      • My organic chemistry scores are already going up; I’m seeing growth in areas that didn’t click for me for weeks on end. I changed things, and so what if perfume and one of my top 5 favourite artists served as inspiration for that?

        • The real inspiration was myself.

          • Organizing my life in such a way that I am maximizing the time I have, carrying myself throughout my day in alignment with my top priorities, and making time to document the process, is all I need.

• Side note: Dawn dish detergent literally has 100,000,000 different uses, using only a teaspoon or even less of it. It’s solved a major irritation of mine within my home, for a use that has nothing to do with dishes. What is this miracle fiber network.

I AM SO EXCITED FOR THIS ALBUM AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Love to love to love to love you,

Elle

Sometime in my adolescence, I began exploring my own lone wolf behaviour after becoming curious as to what both strengths and disadvantages it placed me upon. Throughout my reading and further introduction to the interweb, I kept finding a line analogous to, “you can only love others if you love yourself first.” I never agreed with that. I had fallen in love, deeply in love, still am to this day, and I knew one was not a prerequisite for the other. I was able to entirely appreciate another human being for all the flaws and crooked teeth he bore, despite enduring one of the most nightmarish fevers of insecurity and poor self-reflection. at times, it was my love for him that made me see the beauty in myself, transcending the physical.

If I saw him today, I’d either pass out from panic from reliving the adolescent-teenage years within milliseconds in my mind, or I wouldn’t say anything at all (pass him by). More likely than those two combined, I’d probably ask him, “what’s up?” without wanting any type of relationship at all. You can simultaneously be deeply in love with the fiber of one’s being without wanting anything romantic between you both, though the love is romantic in nature. That’s not really the purpose of this essay, but I don’t have to be linear in order to make sense, at least some of the time.

On my bedroom mirror (it’s technically that of the bathroom’s, but there’s no door dividing my bedroom from the sink, so) is a quote from an actress I’ve forgotten the name of, from a recent interview. It reads, “I know it’s a cliche, but God, you really have to learn early to love yourself.” With that, I agree. It’s what I’ll teach my daughter, what I hope she will integrate in the way only a child could—flawlessly, wholeheartedly, spiritedly. I don’t like to ponder much about past circumstances, unless they’re guiding my future, so instead I’ll take four sips from my freshly brewed coffee (instant, baby) & mentally hug myself for having come this far.

But what is love without trust? Surely, it can exist. Can it? I don’t have to trust in how you treat me, and that may be unhealthy. Although, I can trust in who you are. Your own person. Crooked teeth. Trying your best to fit in—succeeding, succeeding, by looking so cool with your headphones on, like nobody is allowed to utter a single word to you. Wouldn’t dare. You’re too frickin’ cool. Is it, to some? Most. But I trusted who you planned for yourself to become—just like we talked about, when we were much younger. You were so jealous that I was liked. (My turn, only lasted a few months—yours likely only amplified in magnitude.) A vision was created—all from your creation, and I watched that web be spun before my very own eyes, people whispering behind me about how cool you were. I’m smiling now, and I was back then too, but you couldn’t tell. We didn’t really, you know, interact after that one year. When I was liked, for roughly two months. People thought I was cool.

Now, I think I’m the coolest.

Oh my goodness, nobody else does!

It’s soooooo funny to me.

I’ll tell my mother things I’ve said to people in public, and she becomes destroyed, absolutely destructed by fits of laughter. “Who says that? Who thinks of that? Who raised you?” I tease her, “my point exactly, dude.” It’s fun. We laugh. Giggle a lot.

Yet, I trust myself like crazy. I’m certain of myself even when I feel unsure. I’m not so much confused with life, as I am confident that I’ll be able to handle it. I could potentially make an inventory of the hundreds of experiences that have led to this point, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that here I am, existing in my not-so-final state, but an alarmingly present one. I know what I like and I know I’ll like even more in my life, at a later time—more to be discovered, cherished: a musician I find & devour the entire discography of on repeat, my baby daughter, a future apartment, a new city, mine mine mine all mine eat it up consume it all breathe in fumes exhale from stress cry in little corners laugh on playgrounds run around town get on trains learn more complex pathophysiology drink more coffee add more granulated sugar watch my step and still slip write like this wrrriiteee likeee thissssssss find a new favourite pen document everything choose love document everything choose love document everything choose love document everything

because I trust myself

it allows me space.

it gives me reassurance and the reassurance that i can ask for reassurance even though I don’t need reassurance and the optimal partner is plenty of assurance that I don’t really need reassurance because I’m reassuring myself and then I ask for reassurance and then I laugh about that and then I laugh about that one thing that one guy said to me once that made me block him from my dog’s instagram account

because I trust myself

It lets me laugh

Absolve the stress from the past few weeks, allow photons to reach my retina where they’re absorbed by photoreceptor cells, thanks for the latte, can I have another

Nothing makes sense to people that don’t really want to make sense of you.

The ones that do, ask for clarification

Instead of, you know, assuming

Which is why, when the latter happens to me, I suppose I’m able to shrug it off. Unless the circumstance is monumental enough for it to be addressed. More often than not? It simply isn’t. It doesn’t breach my professionalism, my ethics, my boundaries, the strength of my friendships, my values, my character, the health & safety of my family, self, dogs, cat, and child

so assumptions don’t really bother me. As a naturally inquisitive and contemplative person, of course I’ll be open to discussing the topic. Run into it when I’m writing an essay about I don’t know what. (That’s how all of my poetry and essays begin, by the way—there’s never a topic that precedes the actual writing. I wish, lol. It’d make this more linear.)

Four sips of coffee. These are diary entries. I go on this website, click add new article, and I just start typing. That’s how we got here.

Do you trust yourself, and if you don’t, what gets in the way of that?

I love conversation <3

xx,

Elle

My dog’s instagram account as promised (now houses three pups!!!) I also post memes in stories <3 but follow my dogs!

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Where my poetry lives: Lilac Dove <3

Charming news for all of us

When I first created my website (Lilac Dove) to serve as a public archive of the poetry I was willing to share online, I was ecstatic when I received my first comment!

It was spam.

It is, approximately 999.999 times out of 1,000, spam. I have a plugin that includes a notorious spam blocker, and it’s remarkably effective, enabling things that make sense to me as a tech layperson like captcha codes, and other terminology I trust to work because my comments have reduced from thousands per day to one every so often.

But still: spam.

I thought I’d share some of my recent favourites. Note that I don’t publish them, and they don’t connect in any way, shape, or form, to my material.

Some of them, however, are strangely beautiful.

Let me know which one is your favourite.

I’m deciding between, “He didn’t even want to be in a silly play” and “Charming* news for all of us.”

With love and spam,

Elle

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Where my poetry lives: Lilac Dove <3

Here is a simple, easy-to-read guide that conveys how one is able to conclude that they are in love.

You just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know

you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know you just know

You

just

know.

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Take care of yourself, always.

Here’s the thing about having very few friends. The people that come into your life, become very important to you. It’s beautiful, in a way, because you become grateful for having met Steve at the dog park with his dry but witty humour, his adoration for both his silly little dog and your own little violent goofball. You find a kinship in how Rory attended the same university that is displayed on the ivory merch sweater you bought from the student store of a medical school. Knowing the virtual impossibility that you’d get accepted, you purchased a t-shirt, a thin long-sleeve, and a thick fleece sweater. All because the campus tour showed you beautiful elements of an academic institution that feel like home, that may be present in other schools where the chance of being accepted may actually be higher than the chance of getting converted to peanut butter that is popularized as a family cabinet staple item.

Winning the lottery was reading a book you picked off the shelf at the library on campus while your best friend played virtual chess with his lifelong friend who lives back home. And you glanced at him in admiration while he scrunched up his face, planning his next move as if it was being televised, because while your friend has his chess buddy and his friends from work—you only have him.

Interactions become more important. Not in a dramatic nor exaggerated way. The cashier that snarks at your country accent doesn’t leave a ripple effect on your day. That micro-interaction has an inherent humour in it, if at all. You laugh, and it dissolves.

But when you walk away with your bottle of Cabernet, you feel a pang in your chest because you don’t really have anybody to share that with.

And perhaps it’s by your own choosing.

You’re busy, you have responsibilities you’ve never had before, and you’re the best swimmer you know (at least secondary to your mother), but you’ve been treading water for so long in such a way that, while you know this isn’t permanent (because everything is temporary), nobody can tread water for very long. I don’t want to look it up, but I do wonder if that’s a method of torture ever employed for psychological purposes associated with fatigue. Under exhausting conditions, especially ones that begin to feel endless, your mind begins to consider giving up. That’s the purpose of torture. They want you to break and yell, “please, stop!” So that you’ll hand over what they need from you in the dire outcry that they’ll call it a day. And before they release you, they threaten you that if you ever discuss the experience, some form of worst-possible-outcome will be granted by the sheer mechanism of exerting maximal possible control.

But this one, you both do and don’t do to yourself.

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• Find movies and tv shows that were written by women. Preferably directed by women too, if possible.

• Don’t tell the people watching with you. See if they notice any differences without knowing what the difference is.

• watch documentaries on cool women

  • read about them during breaks in the day

• find women that inspire you to be more of who you truly are

• find women whose journeys are intriguing.

• find women who have overcome defeating obstacles, and weren’t defeated by them.

  • expect there to be a pretty brutal demise at the very end of their story, though. but what about everything that came before?

    • As they shaped their lives, who they drew inspiration from, what endeavors they attempted, everything that even came before whatever success is in that person’s regard.

• What did they do to break out of containment, tradition, or a box they were put in that they either metaphorically or literally kicked, screamed, and fought to escape, to really live a life?

• relate more to the women in your life.

  • Ask questions.

  • Build relationships.

• Since 80-90% of your energy right now needs to be spent intensively studying dense and complex material, redirect thoughts about the societal and gendered things you’ve realized, and focus on what’s lovely:

  • I’m a woman entering a male-dominated field and quite frankly, they need me

  • how aesthetic it is to use pretty, pastel colours in the few notes I take

  • how cute and “preppy” I am (like that teenage girl at the coffee shop called me) doing all this independent studying

  • how cute it is that I have this dedicated routine

    • hashtag virgo queen

  • my love for my dogs, of course, and how supportive they are in either helping me get outside for our long forest walks, or their availability for brief but consistent cuddles throughout my study days

  • how cool it is for such a pretty girl to be interested in this material

    • especially one that comes from nothing

  • how inherently funny a lot of the aspects of my study material are

    • (Globin? Really? It’s a globin?)

• Become literally obsessed with yourself and what you’re doing. Who cares? You do. This is FOR YOUR BENEFIT. It actually benefits you to fall in love with every aspect of your being right now, because love dissolves rage. And ohhhhhh my God, there is so much rage. There doesn’t have to be.

• Choose love

• Document everything

• Find peace in the chaos

• Find even better, sweeter parts of yourself in the process

• Become so inspired by other women that you form a little network in your head of motivation and encouragement, especially of use when that is lacking in your physical environment

• For the time being, avoid social media. Way too heavy. During any other time, you’re inquisitive and open-minded and resilient. But since the stress you’re experiencing right now is only growing in its vastness... I really hate to say this to someone who’s invested in knowing, understanding, and analyzing current events... but that’s not going to help you, in this current moment, do what you need to do to move forward in life.

• Listen to more Lana Del Rey. OBVIOUSLY???!!?!?!?!?

• Romanticize every single thing in your current life. Avoid anything that can’t be or ethically shouldn’t be.

• Whenever thoughts enter your brain that are emotionally and/or physically hurting you, redirect every single atom of that energy into self-love. Become literally self-obsessed, at least for now. I know you’re thinking, “waaahhh I’m way too humble to do that”—no, that’s actually what we’re doing. You are the center of the universe right now as far as you’re concerned. You, your dogs, your mom, and patients. That’s it. That is your current world. Nobody and nothing else is allowed to enter this space unless they show you pure kindness, warmth, and bring white roses.

Thanks for reading. If you don’t think I’m crazy, which you shouldn’t:

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This has been a test post while Substack works on my monetization. I spent over an hour fighting with the computer about it, because I want a free preview and don’t want my essay to dissolve into cyberspace, completely unable to be found. I write for a reason, and I’ve found a few more that I think make it even more worth it.

Things are about to get deeply visceral and personal.

Are you ready?

so sad

so frail

Oh, so tragic.

Oh, I won’t cave.

He and she and all of them, maybe it’s the pit in my stomach, the alarm bells disguised as windchimes—they want to see me succumb

But they don’t cry when things get hard

(I can hear them whispering through the walls)

And it’s not very violent,

but it’s not subtle at all.

Not remotely

People lack the hesitation to say what truthfully should qualify as something to be hesitant about

The flowers in my hair that I personally put there, found them face flat on the concrete

ask me if I heard that.

my shoulders tell me to grip tight and then relax

decibel level through the roof

For someone who perceives everything, like, all of the time.

So I decide to be soft and kind to myself.

I’ll move through this life with a delicacy that you couldn’t really taste.

You just feel it in my atmosphere—

My warmth, my haze

And I don’t mean to make people take so much space away from me

Stand neatly behind the danger ribbons, (this territory has been marked)

I know I have a bad habit of pushing people away, but I’ve changed so much in so few months it seems.

I have my best friend right by my side

and I’m so nice to myself throughout some of the worst of times.

But I can tell

because I hear

them whispering through the walls.

They don’t want to see me, you know, really get it all.

All of my dreams combined,

so what am I to do in real time?

They want to see the bleak happen again on repeat—that movie was so good, the thriller that dropped your jaw. you became so addicted, a fever dream, sprinkles of methamphetamine—only on the television, and that’s ethereal because you can just rewind

so removed from your own life

that it’s kind of nice to see someone else’s fall apart

is it? is it?

the bad,

the tragic,

the hilariously brutal, black ending, that separates the audience from i

On repeat

Red coquette ribbons, slashed across

Chunks of parchment paper hurled across the room

Bills that like to multiply, goodbye credit score, scarlet letter for the rest of my life

somebody proving to me that i’m so much closer to a forever-vulnerable than the irreconcilable concept of invincibility.

what a dream. silly girl. felt absolute. found out the truth. came back to my door seventeen times more, just to make sure the totality of my hardly-standing, though ethereal being, was engrained in my memory stores.

Slam directly into my lifted pick-up truck that normally could have withstood the force

take organs out of my smallest dog because they have grown necrotic,

ready to decompose. i’d like to see you in the flesh

Entire shelves from my favorite bookshelf, not standing anymore because it collapsed

This amount of funds is climbing up.

I stare at the top trying not to bite onto a towel to scream and cry.

No way to run, nowhere to go. not my cup of tea, escape tactics never worked out for me.

Can’t even go on a run because I have certain ear piercing jewelry that prevents me from listening to music,

So if I want to listen to music, I can hardly find the time to do it

And that’s fine because melodies play in my head

I don’t even need to hear a song to hear it play

I can start where I want to start

I can end where I want to end

They hate that so much about me.

I don’t even know who they is

Because I don’t remember people’s names if they’re not being particularly nice to me.

Except for patients, that’s the difference.

That’s the difference between you and I

I just lied

I remember absolutely everything.

Oh, I won’t cave at all.

I’m made of concrete and made of feathers

Made of little pieces of swan that you find on the corner of the freeway and you wonder

What am I looking at and who in their right mind found that to be proper disposal?

because you throw away what you don’t want, and then you tell yourself that you’re now armed

But you don’t think about it for too long

even though it does start to bother you

A lover of nature, a lover of women,

a lover of everything that has ever been sweet and kind.

And I’m in absolute love with the worst of it all too!

The psychopathy

the manipulation

the way some people secretly despise their next-door neighbours, their community, that one girl, the one who has the sharpest teeth, but the sweetest doll face

the way I can pick up on these subtle games.

The statistics and how they unravel and how I try (and fail) to prevent myself from finishing depressing articles

The secrets I keep because I know nobody else will believe.

I believe them,

I sure do.

Believe women, both tired (exhausted) and true.

You never know what could happen to you.

Even if all of it has happened, it can happen again.

And I’m so well acquainted with that line

But for now in my somber, transient, daze,

I woke up in an unruly good morning.

danced all around the kitchen as if I was on fire.

made my little bowl of oatmeal and I checked my fridge out of habit,

but the oat milk has spoiled because the fridge broke, and we don’t have money to repair it.

So luckily,

we have a cooler from my late stepfather and it’s full of bags of ice that neighbours have donated,

but everything is continuing to spoil,

all of our food.

And we donated all of our canned food to the charities a month prior

because we thought that,

of course,

this wouldn’t happen.

You don’t predict what happens to you—

That’s kind of the point of life.

So all of our food is spoiled

And I’m struggling to pay for my dog’s surgery that was on Tuesday and that’s going to be fine, I guess

Some other time.

But I won’t care if I have to behave, I have to act right

pull all of my weight, leave dandelions at a grave

I have to do what I need to do and make sure that it’s enough

It is enough, i am enough, I’ve had enough, i’m doing fine

bothered by when people think inaccurate things but at this point, it’s not under my control.

If they’re not in front of me and I’m not a provider, so much is so not under my control

I can live with that!

I can live right back <3

I can live in moody weather and I can survive the climate because, why?

Want to say I’m so used to it at this point,

But you never actually get used to anything.

That’s the funny part.

You never actually get used to anything—

So while it continues to get worse and worse,

You just have to find a song on the radio that you like.

I found mine—

What’s yours?

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Poetry website: Lilac Dove <3

So, I have found myself accidentally, completely unexpectedly falling deeply in love

sound the alarms!

(It already happened; now I’m drowning, and it’s gorgeous down here:

there are fish and there’s coral, and the green-blue is divine)

I don’t think there’s ever been a moment where I’ve begged and pleaded God to keep me safe and warm more

There are parts of this that are painful that I have to accept

But I forgot what this was like,

I’m simultaneously disoriented, yet so

COMFORTABLE

idon’twanttodiebecauseidon’twantthistoend

it keeps getting better

it keeps getting worse

and this experience is singular, meaning there’s more in store

but as of right now—april the eleventh, nine fifty-three in the morning,

a blissful Saturday

you slept like a baby

i laughed at your jokes

i’m eating vanilla coconut yogurt

filled with the hope

that if this is a glimpse into what life can be like,

Oh my God—my dear God, please don’t take me away from this now

icouldswimforever

icoulddrowninthisfeeling

you’re intoxicating me

smooth transitions, trembling child

nothing vacant, I am full

spiderwebs and tangled legs, play-fighting like we’re age ten

I need to study, but I’m finally breathing

it’s like what was ruined has become so pleasing

i think this is what they meant when they said to really start living.

I’m here now—I made it,

you fell asleep in my lavender bed on Friday evening

just move in

why not

i’ve been so focused on healing

with wound-dressing, careful patches, light-blue matches, counting my blessings

You’re sweet in the morning, and you’re sweet in the evening

drinking plenty of water so that i don’t pass out

spending every weekend with you

Please God—don’t even think about taking me now.

i have no reason to shout, i’ll be so quiet

please don’t look at me. let me be. let me enjoy neuronal synapses i haven’t felt in so long.

i feel safe. i’m still moody. everything is happening at once.

i don’t know who to thank—maybe everybody at the same time

ihavefoundsevenmorereasonsnottodieandthreeofthemarerelatedtothisfeeling

I want it for everyone, but i’ll keep you for myself

silly little creature, taller than my bookshelf

i could swim forever

i could drown in this feeling

you’re sweet in the morning, you’re calm in the evening

melt me like aspartame in a concave, cryptic glass

the only one I’ll let hold me when i have a panic attack

i’mnotreadytodie, pleaseGoddon’ttakemenow

not soon, not even later, let me experience fresh air

i finally feel alive, more alive than i can bear

but I’m so good at being

in love

with love

and life itself

and you, again

taller than my bookshelf

cradled like a baby in the soft but striking moonlight

When it’s pitch black, you reach straight for me.

What, could anybody, expect me not to feel?

So, I have found myself accidentally, completely unexpectedly falling deeply in love

I’m no longer scared of anything.

Note: I created this account to post essays and bulleted lists here. For whatever reason, I don’t feel like posting this to my poetry website. Perhaps it’s because my website is more difficult to comment on. I’d love your feedback. <3

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I’m preparing to apply to medical school, any donation is SO appreciated, as I haven’t figured out how to afford this: Paypal <3 Each school is $50 but anything is more than appreciated!

When I reach a certain amount of followers, I’m going to be transitioning to include paywalled posts. Those will be deeply personal essays that I would rather die than have the public read.

As stated above, I’m in a dire financial situation and am scrambling to figure out how to afford application fees, but I want to build a more identifiable aesthetic to my posts that could lead to an audience wanting to read my more personal material for a small fee. It would quite literally lead to more opportunities for me.

xx,

Elle

Poetry website: Lilac Dove <3

Listen to my audio poetry: soundcloud: Lilacdovee

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I have a strawberry garden. Actually, I have three, and they’re each located in different locations surrounding my living space.

The one on the patio is uncharted land. Only having room for a single piece of patio furniture and limited as to what dimensions I could accomodate, I opted for a chair that extends like I imagine the seats in first class do.

Little did I know, the fabric that cannot be separated from the onyx black patio chair I so proudly assembled by myself with instructions that contained no words but did conveniently include photographs that I don’t believe anyone on earth would reasonably interpret, collects dust like a magnet. It’s too late to return it, and the rising heat of the weather in my city makes me feel as I very well may be on fire.

Not in a Lana Del Rey ‘Shades of Cool’ music video way.

I water my outdoor plants as needed, but it slipped my mind that I planted a strawberry garden there. The snails have it out for me. I have no desire to hurt them, and most solutions for the snails-selectively-targeting-my-beloved-strawberries-situation inevitably do in one way or another.

With my responsibilities piling up in what feels like waking up daily to another unprecedented crisis that takes priority over gardening, I’ve let the snails devour my berries in what I wouldn’t call compassion, but deliberate apathy.

In front of my door, I have two strawberry gardens—one so adorably arranged in a vintage wheelbarrow, and another planted in what used to be a gorgeous tree, but external maintenance hired by my complex cut it down, yet left roughly a two-foot-high stump that I viewed as prime real estate. I filled what was vacant with dirt. In what was one of the most beautiful surprises of the year, in less than a week or two, my strawberries grew.

I even got to pick four and cover them (practically soak them) in granulated sugar until it dissolved like snow in Chicago that isn’t ready to fully transition to a liquid state. I got to experience the same slavic joy I did as a child.

Well, the snails (I assume a different group, but I am not the snail hall monitor) found their way to my wheelbarrow and that was that. I often find myself so exhausted from my day that I can hardly wait to enter my home & change into my comfy cozy house attire. I forget to check on the little strawberry stump. Over, and over, and over again.

How do I imagine the strawberries feel?

Neglected.

Neglected.

Neglected.

Does it matter that the human responsible for their care has what, if someone were to comfort me on the matter would say, valid excuses for the behaviour?

No.

That, is my point.

I have spent the overwhelming majority of my life, beginning from a developmental but still young age where I could begin to contemplate other peoples’ experiences and potential thought processes or states of being, focusing solely on that.

(This is where the disclaimer is extremely significant. I am going to be entering a line of work where these nuances are highly significant, and taking peoples’ actions at face value would be a detriment to the care I can provide. This is not limited to my chosen field, but I want to reaffirm that this is a personal essay.)

At certain times of my life, this was heavily destructive for me. I didn’t want it to be. I knew myself to be a caring, loving, open-minded, and accepting human being. I’m able to still honour myself on being able to think of a hundred possible ways why somebody would either do or not do something, because we never fully know what another person is dealing with nor their thought process. It doesn’t mean I’m right, nor have I figured anything out. However, I have given an unsurmounting level of benefit-of-the-doubt or a “likely valid reason” to conceal the fact that I felt hurt.

I prefer to keep this as mild as possible.

Someone didn’t respond to something that was very important to me. They’re probably very busy, and it’s entirely possible they don’t realize how meaningful to me what I communicated is. It’s okay.

Someone said something very rude to me that shocked me and fundamentally confused me as to why the language was so intense. It’s okay; they have a lot on their plate. Perhaps if I respond with kindness, I can feel better about the interaction and it won’t sting as much. It’ll be okay.

Someone disappointed me, and I did not expect this type of response. They have their reasons. I can think of a hundred of them. I’m actually struggling to think of even ten, but it’s okay because

Maybe I’m the problem.

I use these three examples to illustrate how self-defeating this line of thinking has been. I’m not afraid of confrontation, and I much rather prefer open discussion versus ignoring something and attributing it to a cause or reason I don’t even have evidence of.

But when I learned my late stepfather’s favourite quote/concept is “pick your battles,” I now realize I have fundamentally misunderstood the meaning.

A battle is something very scary, something that pushes you beyond your comfort zone and tests you in ways that you could not possibly have been well-prepared for, regardless of your training. You will see things up close, in person, raw, unfiltered, abysmal. It is something you fight for because you believe in it.

I believe so, so, so much in other people. I believe people are capable of infinitely more good than they individually could fathom. I’m able to look at someone’s “flaws” and accept them regardless. My mother frequently says that I can find beauty in anything and anybody, even if nobody else on the planet can. I’ve disagreed with that very last part, because I think every single person was created by God with their own nuances and distinctive features in a way that inadvertently unites us all.

Yet, I find it striking, that I have led my life dismissing pretty much every single mild to moderate action someone has taken (even inaction is an action) that has hurt me. These aren’t battles. And I am not averse to communication—in fact, I adore it! I am elated when I am presented with a situation in which I can practice and promote healthy communication.

But I have almost never taken actions at face value.

I’ve hypothesized reasons. I’ve provided excuses with rationale I may not even personally agree with, in an effort to understand other people.

And as of March 21, 2026, this weight is so heavy I fundamentally do not understand how I am still able to stand up straight without collapsing to the ground entirely.

It wasn’t until a dear friend of mine posted on an app we both love, how things truly changed for her when she paid significantly more attention to peoples’ actions.

I must have been an adolescent when I first heard the adage, “actions speak louder than words.”

But in my mind? Infinite possibilities for those actions screamed so loud in such a way that I couldn’t observe an action, and end there.

And end there.

Stop.

It’s not okay.

You don’t want to feel like this.

You don’t want to be treated like this.

That wasn’t kind.

That wasn’t supportive.

This is bizarre and doesn’t make sense and it is not your job to make it make sense.

You are actively hurting yourself by taking into consideration possibilities that overshadow what is directly in front of you.

It

is

not

your

job

to

make

it

make

sense.

Will I ever be able to stop myself from immediately considering where somebody else may be coming from? No. And I certainly don’t intend to. I would be destroying the most beautiful part about my existence.

But I can do that while also noticing actions, and deciding how I want to proceed in a way that doesn’t mitigate my feelings.

I have this feeling that this fundamental change will completely alter the level of support, acceptance, and consideration I receive from people in close relationships.

Because as of right now,

it makes me want to cry.

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