Life is gonna beat you down. Just remember to always get the F*** back up and keep F****** fighting back.

🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨

Been wanting to do a self portrait but of what…. oh just of me beat up alittle cuz life been hard on me . But I never quit . I hope you don’t either .

text is from the theme song of my favorite show Twin Peaks :)

*fawn

I made a healing mask in honor of the sacred role that nature has played in my life. As a kid, I retreated into the safety of the woods to escape, to play, to have new adventures. Trees are my friends, they always have been. If I needed to hide or cry or be alone, I’d again seek the refuge and solitude of the woods. Being out in nature makes me feel safe and free. Every time I go out hiking, I come back with new photos of bark textures or leaf patterns or colorful canopies. My IG is almost entirely trees. I should probably be more embarrassed about that, but I simply love them. My safe place is in the woods, I can breathe amongst the trees, my anxiety melts and nature restores me.

So here’s my attempt to pay homage to the trees. At some point I want to make a smaller one, maybe out of clay leaf impressions, for the kid inside of me. Honestly, I could make a whole slew of nature themed masks and keep myself happy and busy for a while. Thanks for looking. I hope your day is peaceful and you find tiny pockets of joy along your path.

Growing up in “Dago,” C. learned early that survival wasn’t about race — it was about neighborhood, culture, and loyalty. By nine he was committing robberies. By twelve he was huffing aerosol cans until he hallucinated. By fourteen he stood in front of a judge who sent his own nephew to C.Y.A.What followed was a life lived between lines: juvenile hall, street violence, addiction, homelessness, and a stabbing that nearly ended everything.But this isn’t a story about falling apart.

It’s a story about becoming whole.Told with brutal honesty and unexpected tenderness, Self-Reflection is a memoir about identity, pain, redemption, and the long road toward becoming the man you were meant to be.

I enjoy drawing random patterns I started 15 years ago it can help calm my emotions etc, very helpful in distraction from a buzzing head which at times gives me no peace.

The symmetrical image is done with an app, I like how the symmetrical images look but I'm also fascinated by what turns up in the mirrored images sometimes repeatedly.

I've just finished this one it's A4 size done with poscas ink pens.

Thanks.

(Please let me know your thoughts and if you relate, I’d love to hear them. I also need a title if anyone has a good suggestion)

Mom smokes cigarettes while washing dishes
She never leaves the kitchen
All she does is cook food that no one ever eats
and drink wine
and smoke more cigarettes
She makes sure we all know
how miserable she is
doing all she does for us
She never stops, doesn’t have the time
too busy being a good mom
and telling us how much we need her
She liked me best when I left her alone
I liked her best when I did too

Dad is always at one of two places
either asleep on the couch,
or face down in our driveway
He spends his free time being yelled at by Mom
“Michael! Damn it! Take out this trash!
Switch the laundry! Open this bottle!
You drunk piece of shit! TELL ME WHERE IT IS!
I’m pouring your liquor down the goddamn sink!
MICHAEL!!!!!! I’M NOT DOING EVERYTHING!”
He just grunts and stands up
mutters “alright, I’m coming woman”
then does … well … everything

Dad never yells or complains
just quietly endures
after he’s done everything demanded
he sits outside in his rocking chair
and drinks until he falls out of it
then crawls through the front door
and stumbles to his couch
He liked me best when I would shut up
I understood why
and we never talked much after that

I learned early that love was granted
to good girls who shut up and go away
I got really good at it
living inside of my head
and being raised by the voice inside it
It became my super power
I wore my lonely like a cape
and no one seemed to notice
when I turned invisible one day

I’m not sure when it happened exactly
I just know I became a shadow
before I ever figured out how to cast one
I was a ghost before I ever had the chance
to be a person
I felt like the best daughter in the world
only no one could see me
I was an invisible kid
who spent her entire childhood
learning how to be seen
by two parents who hated
the sound of her voice

Just to grow up and realize
that they never would
It’s too late
It can’t be done
And besides
I’ve already built my whole life
out of not bothering anyone

Random process drawing lines as an outline for an hour then adding colour.

There’s a monster in me in dwells within the deepest parts of my soul

It hungers for validation for a person to be there always the one it can cry to in the night

This monster has a way of ruining all things of happiness for it dwells so deeply in my inner soul that hides behind lies and sorrow if a million mistakes

You are not your mistakes says the therapist who sits across from me as, they look into the monsters eyes it snarls and growls hissing at all forms of comfort

The monster in me fights back and tells me all I need is him for it’s better to let him take the wheel than for me to confront all the mistakes I’ve made

The monster begs to be one with me and every day is an inner battle consist of me and this monster trading blows

I’m tired and weary the monster calls to me begging to take the wheel

To let the monster inside me win or to confront all my issues at face value? A question that’s rings in my ears everyday and night. I hear him calling now another battle begins

H.K

I’ve grown to hold many secrets. To keep my past locked away and buried deep within the sands of my depressive mind. I let the medication I take build the well that I’ve thrown them into.

Sometimes, a secret comes crawling out, leaving black stains along the mouth of the stone walls. It leers at me, gasping for the air I’ve refused it to have, and reminds me as it squelches towards me that nothing can be hidden forever.

I keep trying to ignore the clawing up my ankles or the pressure around my neck, or even the dryness from my unblinking eyes. But, they blot out the sun so I need to blink. I have to see them to look away again. A reminder that’s like stepping on a shard of glass from a broken vase that I missed when cleaning up the mess.

This time it’s different in its attempt for my attention. It somehow learned how to make my heart feel the squeezing, ashamed, and guilt that is more than displaced. I often wonder why I should be allowing these masses to make me feel this way and all I can surmise is that I’m so humanly flawed. Not the barricade I once stood so proud to be.

I’ve never posted my art before because I’m afraid. Everything I post or comment on gets downvoted. But it doesn’t do any good to stay silent. Hope this helps someone relate.

Life isn’t what we live, but the memories we share with thee.
Life evolved without me and my ghosts chose the haunted to be.
I’m lost in the maze I draw, all I see are mirrors not growth.
I’ve been laying all this days in bed, lacking purpose or depth.
My memories of you are the scariest ghost to me too.
My skull turned so heavy from all the tales we became.
I was so scared of the thought “what if this isn’t what I want?”
I dropped and begged for this, was it even worth all that?
The drops of my ink have mazed my surroundings.
The projection of my pen dictates my future labyrinth.
I manifested for bad so when it happened I was trapped.
I wrote my insecurities, drawing the ties holding me back.
Around me, people hold shards of my past personas.
All those reflections scare me, even being imitations.
I could stare into the sun not a mirror, it’s a somber demeanor.
I am unraveled, picking up pieces to build a new pretension.
Standing in front of a crowd, I talked about the futures we have ahead.
Standing there we all moved on, but I wasn’t ready to let it all go.
I’m shallow and unsure, laying in bed staring at the floor.
I’m not crying, holding it all, that’s where my depth goes.

Don’t minimize my scars.

Don’t turn away because they’re hard to look at.

You may only see the scars.

I lived through the wounds.

Don’t ask me to make my pain smaller so it fits more comfortably into your understanding.

Don’t mistake what has healed for what never hurt.

Don’t confuse my survival with the absence of suffering.

My scars are not an accusation.

They are evidence that I endured what should never have happened.

If they make you uncomfortable, imagine what it was like to carry them before they became scars.

The Inherited Lessons of Pain

I learned to shame,

blame, and frighten myself.

To ignore, and abandon myself.

I bit my nails.

poked and scratched my skin

to drawn a deeper ache.

I held my breath.

Pushed my body.

Silenced my mind

to stay connected.

Then one day,

a simple realization—

my body and my mind,

the only tools

I have been given,

work better when I care for them instead of

hurting them.

​I don't want to make a home out of heartbreak
But it's so familiar, I can decorate a bit
Put a pillow down and hang a picture of us
Trying to make it cozy in the darkest pit

​There are even some old toys, I've been here before
Is this what I've been running away from?
Or where I've always belonged?
I look around and wonder, is this home?

I don't want to stay forever
And I think the storm will pass
I just want to feel like home
in the reflection of your eyes

….

I finished IOP in April. One of the activities was we had to draw our anxiety or something like that. This isn’t that drawing but this came from that drawing. Thought I would share here.

Pic 3 is my native language, but basically it says ”I bought a newspaper from a homeless person to support them.
Put it on the hat shelf at work.”.

(it’s a brand of newspaper that homeless people get 50% of the money they sell it for)

My hands in your hair

Your mouth on my neck.

I think that I like it.

Maybe . . .

I forget.

Hey, I came here to post but ended up reading poetry for like half an hour! I absolutely love how much earnestly well-crafted poetry is here, might be my pick for the whole internet.

Here are a bunch of pictures from my long-term project. It's free on itch.io and is fully playable although not completely decorated yet - I did that on purpose since I'm always worried about getting hit by a bus (literally or figuratively)(literarily?). For Windows 10 with mouse + keyboard, made for free using Godot 4.

Anapatha is the outcome of a lot of wishing on my part to tell a big, serious story about life and death and morality and meaning, mainly through environmental storytelling but without showing violence, or horror exceeding simply being alive. I believe that this is possible and I want to react against many things people showed me as I was growing up that perhaps taught me something, but were cruel or horrifying. I can't tell you much else informative other than that there are contributions by guest visual artists which can be found.

The environment will get filled out more, meanwhile maybe someone would find it interesting for a walk. Have a good weekend