Work Text:
It's a bitter thing, isn't it?
But what thing is bitter? You? Your life? Your circumstances?
(all of it)
You're shipped out to live in a forest like some dangerous, unwanted beast from a story. To keep everyone safe from you.
Nobody kept you safe though, did they? From HiM--
(the only ones who really tried were your friends)
So yeah, you're a broken mess of sharp and bitter and painful things.
The only difference this makes
is now you'll be a bitter, broken mess in the woods.
(yipee!)
So you push your sharp edges, your sarcasm,
your cart of frivolous food.
(how long until your uncle snaps? he will eventually,
adults always do)
But.... he uses your name?
He gives you space, and hot cocoa?
He buys you oysters you don't even eat??
He allows your laptop in a restaurant????
He's been so good.
(it's not going to last--once he's done congratulating himself
for his patience with you, he'll put his foot down,
drop the other shoe)
He's being the eccentric uncle. the good cop.
the caretaker. (but he doesn't really care for you.
nobody does, knowing you for long. besides your friends)
Well, he can play his games all he likes.
(you know better than to fall for it.
your guard has come down before, and just look at you)
It's all a matter of time.
You have little power
over your own life, but you can work some power here.
So you use it.
(you burn with it, you cut with it, and you heal.
all are their own comforts)
They didn't teach you the pain that lies in healing, did they?
(they don't tell you it's like fire and ice in your blood;
that it's like screaming into a great uncaring world;
like tiptoeing around people you c a n ' t trust;
like aching for friends who are so far away;
like standing on a high branch and choosing not to fall)
No adults have ever told you it would be like this.
Nobody ever taught you how to cope.
But you get by.
(somehow, and by inches)
Somehow you get up and put on dark t-shirts and music.
Somehow you go downstairs and eat a bowl of cereal.
Somehow you wander through the woods,
and sit alone in your room, and write in a cafe,
and almost manage to act like a normal person
who feels okay.
And you only collapse under
the sheer agony of existing in your life
a few times!
(progress!!)
So you wear your scar, your distance, and your pride
in company. And alone, you wear your tattered heart
like the pleats of an old skirt.
You'll get through this, somehow, like you always do.
(or maybe you won't)
But for now, you wander the boundaries of this world
that will be your summer. And you work
with what power you have. And you take
each kindness with an ocean's worth of salt.
There's so much you still don't understand.
(but what you do know is that getting
lucky, finding something good, and having it last?
well, it's really not like you
at all.)