update

just when i think my wordpress is dead, here i am: foils in my hair, pajamas on in public resuscitating it back to life. (queue meredith grey asking for someone to push another “eppy”)

i can’t help it, this platform has been such a staple in my journey with sharing words i’ve configured online meticulously. i came on here in 2009 with a heart full of innocence trying to be someone else and now over a decade later i’m comfortable in my own skin and especially comfortable cursing to my heart’s content. which in today’s world, happens to be quite a lot.

it’s so funny, the journey from girlhood to womanhood, it feels like you never really transition from one to the other. unlike a metamorphosis i still see the same face of that 13 year old girl in the mirror. she’s just got a lot better skin, a new cute nose, and blonde hair. there’s a lot more to love i tell myself but at the same time, it’s always been there.

i’ve got girls my age (myself included) dressing like they’re still in the early 2000s because part of us really still identifies with that time. which is perfectly okay, basic bitch or not we are all beautiful and as long as your comfortable in your clothes who gives a fuck?

i wish i could make a point, i wish this was an article worth while that you could learn from but really it’s a reflection that i’m finally doing well. so much of this blog holds heart ache, and for that i’m thankful. i was able to make really beautiful things from it and still get off being a sad girl online. but i’m also truly stable and happy. for a bipolar person that has always sounded like a pipe dream.

modern medicine, trained professionals and lots of strong will have got me here and long story short i survived. look ma i made it! i’m nothing like you dreamed but i’m so much more than i could ever ask for!

all this to say, hello. i’m sierra smith. if you’ve known me for a while you know how significant this vulnerable post truly is, if you’re just stopping by i hope you get inspired to love yourself in a way that isn’t too prideful to ask for help. help is the best thing i ever did for myself. trying even when i didn’t owe it to anyone, that’s when i found freedom from it all.

love, me.

i like to write, i always have. i like making my feelings and experiences concrete and fluid all in the same sentence. i like editing more, going back and making things better than what they were so they come off as an even more enjoyable experience when someone glances by or skims the page, even though a lot of the time it’s just a screen.

the peculiar thing about writing is that it requires solitude, and i hate to be alone. the reality is that’s my most common feeling. isolated, alone and scared. driven by fears manifested in my head about how i’m falling behind. Life is a race meant for long distance runners and all i can master is sprints, in warn out, tired, and alone.

i do this funny thing with things i don’t want to lose, i lose them. Almost aggressively in a sense. i take what i love and i run with it then i enviably trip up, fall down, and it’s gone. lost in the rubble of the forest. i’m left with two pains and i don’t know how to heal from either one.

my problem with love is i fight so hard for it, so hard arguably harder than most have to and yet no matter how many punches i take i come up empty handed. when i look up his figure starts to fade in the distance as my tears blur my vision i wonder how ill walk this one off.

but that’s what you do, you get back up, shake it off and keep putting one foot in front of the other. not because you’re strong, not because it will be worth it in the end but because you simply have to. there’s no other option but forward in a linear universe and no promises of things coming back around.

learn to love yourself and learn endurance. no matter how many failures or deaths you must die be brave and filled with certainty that all will work itself out with or without you.

i want to forget

i want to forget

your rosy cheeks and the way i would kiss them until they turned a brighter shade of pink

the yellow that would burst from your pupil and the icy shade of blue that that engulfed the rest of your iris

your hands that held my waist and pulled me closer whenever i was scared of being away

your arms and how they would hold me as i cried or laughed incessantly

the comfort of your kitchen and all the dance moves and private concerts i would get, never worried about how goofy or sappy the night could go

driving in your car and you using my fist as a microphone as we both screamed along to hanging by a moment here with you as the autumn leaves showed off their colors on the way home

i want to forget hearing that you painted me out to be this crazy lunatic for having feelings for you still and holding onto hope you dangled in front of me like i’m some sick kind of joke. that when you let me stay with you for two weeks it wasn’t really working on things, it was having the comfort of a girlfriend while getting to paint out a crazy ex to all of our friends.

i’m trying so hard to convince myself that what we had was real, that this nightmare of a life i’ve come to without you isn’t true.

like i’ve told you before i’ve had the best so why settle? maybe relationships are meant to be just a dream for me. waking up is the hardest part of my day but i know you’re okay. you’re safe. you’re happy. you’re going to be just fine.

even if i’m not, i’m glad you are.

grandmother’s granddaughter

sometimes i get drunk just so i feel my face go numb

and i sit there waiting for some euphoric feeling but

it never comes.

I’m not funny,

I’m complacent

while the bottle goes empty

once more

i see daylight break through the cracks of a stubborn wall,

i waltz back into the same coping mechanism that my grandmother used, to rationalize and put her demons back inside their original owner.

there is this fire that burns in my chest

meant to be enchanting but alas

visions of jezebel ascend with the purple smoke.

lineage that can not be denied

she is seen and she is maleficent

spending old coins again, taken without permission.

never paying off her debt

leaching

shocking isn’t it?

that we expect normalcy from a little girl who was given ice cream as reward for surviving

an experimental treatment

to contain what asylums

could not.

the same sherry runs through my veins

the perfect aperitif

for someone who has no appetite

yet continues to feed on deception

in order to feel alive you must mute the wild fire inside

they say

your fumes

are suffocating to everyone.

i’m a sloppy adult

most of the time i make pasta and throw oil and vinegar on them and call it a meal. i have said meal multiple times a week.

my lizard brain runs the show most of the time, leaving lots of mistakes to try and recuperate from.

i bought lingerie online in a crying fit hoping it would buy me some confidence once i found the motivation to workout again.

i use way too much dry shampoo and cut my hair every time i’m desperate for change

i read every second i get, with audio books and physical ones. never ebooks though.

i run away from and walk home

i check my phone all day to see if the people i miss miss me back,

they don’t.

i’m inconsistent with an expensive makeup routine so i’m probably going to be wrinkly by age 35

arizona lost its magic, i don’t have a desire to go anymore.

my depression has manifested into an unorganized mess on my bedroom floor that i somehow have to pack.

home is an in between now and i don’t like it here at all

i have the biggest support system i could ever hope for but not one of their cheers can ever make it to my heart. no matter how hard i try to distract myself at the end of the day i am with loneliness, and i have yet to welcome her company.

the real kicker, the one that goes straight to the gut is that if my younger self could see me now, i know she’d be crushed. as she watched the inevitable, me, us, lose everything we ever wanted.

when you reflect you’re supposed to be in a better spot most of the time, some way some how. but if it were up to me i would be in last august instead of this one. and last august involved a lot of blood and a hospital.

i’m okay admitting i’m not okay. most days i try to be but most days i am not. love is a very hard thing to come back from once it’s lost, so….

we take it one day at a time.

rollercoaster

i have no training for what’s in front of me

i couldn’t pay attention long enough to gather information i paid for to feed me. ah, to be this person that knows so much and is so interesting, maybe enough for a job or a conversation over coffee.

i don’t look anything like that though. i don’t particularly like how i look either but everyone else seems to be more than okay with it. that’s all that matters right? even if i’m screaming into my pillow at 2 am with the lights out.

why can’t i blend into the crowd for the sake of security or comfort or anything?

all these questions distract me from the now.

there’s a tug of war between my past and future and i’m always torn on what i want more. i have this preconceived notion that once upon a time, there wasn’t a demon i battled inside me. when i was young, i was innocent. i was exactly who i was made to be. or maybe things will get better once i just master this, take therapy for this long or completely heal from the last disaster.

good and bad. pure and evil. it is who i am and what i experience.

now i’m just struggling to eradicate this superficial badge that was willingly placed on me. i trace the scarlet letter with my finger, i resonate with its consequences.

i am more than my brain gives me credit for

i am more than a pretty face that’s destined to fade away

i am more than what people say

i am more than books i can’t read

i am more

they say i’m getting better

but you see me 12 steps behind

cause every time you give me an inch i break the measuring stick and go spiraling out of my mind. why’s the progression have to be a jagged line? the back and forth gives me motion sickness, when i gasp for air i forgot breathing is supposed to be rhythmic.

then there is you making it seem easy,

like black and white.

but my mind only knows a spectrum of colors that are outside the pendulum of time.

I remember you said I can’t do this for you, I had to do it for me and in the midst of all my strongest insecurity your love stood out to me. the conditions melted away for a moment, and there i could see my ideal future again.

maybe someday.

I’ll let the melancholy music resuscitate my lonely heart between a bad and righteous man a perpetual complex in my mind. part of me knows my heart is in my brain, part of me does not.

desperate like a scribbled prayer on the nearest scrap of paper i’m delusional enough to believe that if i was broken enough god would see me and have some mercy. if he were to be what i’ve gathered him to be then maybe he wouldn’t have let someone so unstable get close to someone so gentle.

i got attached by needle and thread, captivated by the way you would weave me in and out yet it was my fault for getting attached.

and again

i fall asleep as the moon dissolved into a pink and peach sky, woke to the dawn breaking over the horizon. sleep feels more like a chore i choose to ignore now a days, a pleasure once shared like a queen sized mattress with a divot in the middle that i swear was unintentional. chase Depakote with zzzquil, just to find him in my dreams. at least there he’s happy, we both are.

i wasn’t strong enough to derail my one track mind. i’ve heard the love of my life screams echo nevermore in the chambers of my mind. reality for me is always skewed by emotion i don’t remember or feelings that can’t be subdued. i wish it could be different, i try my best just isn’t enough.

i’m just not what i thought i was. i’m not my many efforts or victories. no matter how many times i hear i am good and i’m getting better i can’t forget what i don’t remember. what he’s told me i’ve done when my vision goes red and my tongue ruthless with punches. i leave and we never talk. we never address the one thing, i didn’t even mean to say. so i’m sorry, and we go our separate ways.

bruises

it’s incredible the way our bodies take on unexpected impact if you really think about it. i was always focused on the scars on my body that i never really took time to appreciate the bruises and how much i overlook them.

the wind has been knocked out of me with a simple sentence. i’ve been taken down by a someone i love pulling a rug and have been left crying sore on the cold hard ground. let’s just say if crying were an olympic sport i would snag the gold by a landslide every 4 years.

i’ve also thrown some punches, with my fists and my words getting so heated that i lose who i am, something evil just takes over me and i no longer am the good qualities of myself. i’m this monster that hurts the people i love most and pushes them away and away time and time again.

either way the hit is always hard enough to leave a bruise, and here’s what i find interesting about them;

they usually take some time to develop although that area remains sore. so for a period of time your skin doesn’t look like it should hurt, you question yourself. am i over reacting (probably)? how hard was that hit even? am i just weak (although my corner swears i’m strong)?

then the next day comes and the purples and the blues surface. and you get lost in this cosmetic whirlpool of sadness and heartache. it was real. it did happen. and it hurt, it hurt real bad. and when people try to tend to you and make you feel better the touch, no matter how soft, brings pain.

they say time heals all wounds but what about when you keep getting hit in the same spot?

all i know is that i keep holding out hope that time will do what time does and bring out the colors yellow and green. i’ll smile and watch them heal with happiness, because i will move on. joy does come in the mourning of our past and the sins we bring to the river when we pray. i’m not an exception to reality and the healing course. sometimes whether we are ready or not, we just heal.

i’ve gotten to the point in my life where i ask myself, “do they see right through me?” because i see right through me. the mask of vulnerability has become weathered through life’s storms and i’m standing here with a bleeding heart begging the world to hear me. like it’s going to kill me if they don’t.

i guess this is all to say i’ve got some bruises, i’ve left some bruises. and i’ve reached out to heal those i’ve hurt and only hurt them more, i’ve turned away sweet people because i feel this overwhelming need to grow up and manage myself. i’m 26 and still growing up, it’s still just as painful as when i was stumbling into my 20s but i’m worth the fight and so are the people i love.

the next time a skin nebula protrudes, know that there are lessons to be learned and have the courage to want to learn them.

listening to the lumineers drunk in a living room

have you ever went on a date with yourself? got drunk in a strangers living room just to sing and dance as if alcohol was the influence? i never have until recently, i guess i never loved the idea of who i was enough to try.

truth is i hate myself a lot, i feel like an instrument no one takes time to learn how to play. i’m not mad at the lack of appreciation cause what is there to? i’m just a troubled girl with this idea that maybe if i could just be good i could be loved and i could live with a purpose that doesn’t make me question my existence every night.

but that’s not in my cards cause i can’t feel anything small, i have these big emotions that no one wants to take time to understand but maybe they do. but then they take them too personally and i end up hurting them anyways.