Everything will be taken away, but I'm trying to hold you close and salvage the small town pigeon.
It's six twenty pm I'm at the Brooklyn Heights promenade, I sit on a bench. I haven’t been here in a while. I want a moment to myself, I need to breathe. It's so hot I'm glowing with sweat. I smoked a cigarette on the walk from the station, stumbling all over, they make me sick. I’m sitting and I'm trying to look around for once. I always feel unsafe in public, too many times do I stay locked away in my apartment too afraid to leave. I see miss liberty across the way. I'm surprised, I forgot she was here in front of me. I then see a soft sunset. I'm surprised, I never see the sunsets in New York. I'm looking down again, at my hands, I'm nervous of people seeing me. Being seen is why I don't leave my apartment. I pull out my journal, and start writing about what I can see. Maybe I was trying to calm myself down but it's also my favorite thing to write on the train and wherever I go. I want to provide accurate imagery for my future self. I look up, and I realize the city skyline is right in front of me, how did I miss it every other time I looked up? I honestly started to get upset with myself and it happened fast. It felt like my eyes were just glazing over everything without a notice, passively, I noticed nothing until I looked three times. I wrote this down. As I read the journal right now I see my confusion with myself. I look up again and see the Brooklyn bridge to my right, genuinely what the fuck because I didn’t see the bridge this whole time. Every time I looked up I found something new and only looked at that one thing, missing everything else. When I walk down the streets of New York I don't hear the catcalling or see the men staring at me, it somehow is always out of sight even when it's right in front of me. It's either a blessing or a curse that I miss so much everyday.
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I really want to talk to someone. Like really. Everything is so superficial these days or maybe I'm just superficial. All I really want is to talk about my feelings with someone other than my therapist. I waited all day for our session, anxious, bedridden, can't eat until it's over type of anxiety. All for no session, there was a miscommunication. I'm supposed to see her next week. It's alright, but this change in my day caused a spiral of emotions. I tell myself I can't do anything now, the day is wasted. I can't waste any more days, there's not enough time. But the pigeon says there is, so I will believe. And that's why I'm writing right now. I'm writing to you and to me. I'm always thinking of my future self when I write, I'm scared I'll hate myself forever. But I'm hoping there's love within me just for myself. I think the love I have for myself gets canceled out every time I smoke a cigarette, I never thought I'd crave it.
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There's been something on my mind, and I can't get rid of it. I saw this on tumblr,
This is heavy, I'm still struggling but I've never been this happy before either. I turn twenty one in august, I've always felt like I didn't start living till I turned nineteen. Forever have I felt unloved even when I am loved. But I'm trying to love myself even when I feel like an empty house.
empty house, empty house, empty house….
It hurts, but what I've been longing for haven’t I? I'm going to stop now. I don't want it anymore. I look at old photos and I see what's behind them and I'm upset all over again. I let myself down. I'm going to stop expecting things now. I read through the pages of my journal and see the pain in my handwriting. The exhaustion, just trying to write it down so it can leave my body all at once. I cried for the first time in months this week, there's little times I feel angry. When I can't cry or when I'm fighting with my mom. I cry after I talk to my mom though, so maybe every argument is a win. I think I cry once a month now, it's either the antipsychotics I'm on or I'm thriving. I honestly wish I could cry once a day, that would be good for me, but it's impossible, just as impossible as sleeping. I now have a sleeping problem, very little sleep these past few months. When I am sleeping I'm having a nightmare, I expect these nightmares every night. For the first time in a dream, I actually told everyone around me that it was a dream and no one believed me, we were getting kidnapped.
Growing up in California, my biggest fears were earthquakes and getting kidnapped. They were common. And I was watching the news everyday as a child, seeing scary shit. Now I'm a journalist and I'm in this scary shit. The earthquake last April, New York never felt more like home before.
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Floating thoughts…
Days are lost when I'm waiting to wait. I need a break from myself, how do I do that?
My bed is mine and I think of you when I'm in it.
You mentioned me in your future once, I hope it lasts.
I stay in bed till one pm from shitty sleep
And I wish you were next to me
I gave you the directions to my place
Make use of your knowledge
I'm in my own room
Alone with these thoughts of you
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When you live closer to coney island than anywhere else and no one wants to visit you. This used to be a problem, but now I have little friends and I don't invite them over anyway. My best friend will come over though, go read I know a story about a rose, on my site or on hot literati, a visual love letter to her♡
Are you still reading? I'm letting this be all my thoughts right now, they come as I write. I write as I write. My hands smell like cigarettes and I keep washing them to no better smell. Then my bed smells like cigarettes and I just washed my bedding today.
What should I keep writing about? That nagging obsessive side of me that destroys my life? The burden I feel being alive everyday? weird experiences I’ve been in? I could write about the good things in my life, I do on hot literati, not here, I can write happy, in the future. For now, here I am the sadness that has been fermenting in me forever. I keep forgetting THERE IS STILL TIME. It’s my first time wanting to be alive, so I get a little scared. That's all I need to hear, truly, the anxiety lessens. The sadness loosens.
my reading today
This summer I remembered I am loved, for in the season of snow I believed I was unworthy of it.
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I go back to California for a week in July, I know all of my wounds will open once again. There’s a lot I want to capture while I’m there, I’m sentimental to California.
Art I made of my small town and me♥
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Yours truly,
Hailey Cognetti
loved this piece! also i am also turning 21 in august, thought that was a fun coincidence :)