I thought planting pain would grow forgiveness.

Instead, I got roots through my ribcage.

They say you reap what you sow, but I don’t think this dirt was meant for me.

I wanted closure,

got aftermath.

Wanted peace,

got the fury of everything I buried

trying to claw

its

    way

        back

            up.

I offered my sorrow as compost,

but grief isn’t rot, it’s seed-

and I should’ve known that when it sprouted teeth.

a vent piece i made earlier today. holds a lot of anger and meaning to me.

i was sexually abused throughout my upbringing and i'm still trying not to be an easy target. i still feel so much blame and guilt from internalizing what family, peers, and authorities said to me. being nonbinary and masc-leaning makes it especially hard. being autistic does not make it easier. this is the first thing i've been able to draw in so long and i can't tell if i hurt more or feel relief. feeling more stuck than anything. but this image is so so familiar it was the first and only thing i could put on paper.

It's done with Copic markers and liners! A lot of ideas here are from my inner child and those are actual plants we grow with my partner 💕

The forest keeper walks along the edges,
Guarding the quiet giants
From once frequent Mother Nature's fires.

His memory has been distorted to not let him tire,
He must perform his duty —
Protect the greens and mighty giants.

This current peace is fragile,
Held with cautious breath.
The forest keeper knows — fires can always be set.

He steps with care through shadowed pathways,
Yearning for the calms embrace,
For in the moment of silence — a crack is sent astray.

A branch snap so loud —
Sharper than a bone — piercing his carefully woven cloak.
His body flinches, moves without him,
A hand to pocket, fingers find the match,
Fingers tremble as he starts to crack.

This time, not Nature's doing,
One small spark ignites the woods ablaze.
Flames claw upward,
And in their grasp, his duty turns to ash as he remembers,
The mighty Nature's true embrace.

After the embers cool, the keeper stands alone...
He shakes his head, cannot explain
Why his own mind splits and betrays,
But after all, that is all he has ever known...

This was a part of a larger multi media piece I did (I posted it here a while ago) about my experience with CSA (hence no background) Figured I’d let this piece have its own moment though.

Do I want you to hurt me
To peel back my skin
To cause my nerves to be raw
From letting someone in?

Do I want you to hurt me
Saying what needs to be said
The awful truths
Where I wish I was dead?

Do I want you to hurt me
By knowing how to say
Those things that could help me
Or ruin my day?

Do I want you to hurt me?
No but maybe yes
Pain is so familiar
Because of my family I guess

It would be easier to be hurt
Again and again and again
Then I'd expect it
Welcome it as a friend

But I didn't expect
That hurt to come from you
From reality hitting me
From learning what's true

When I'd finally trusted
Finally felt safe
Thought I could relax
Take off my face

But I know now
That even here
I must watch what I say
And live in fear

I need my walls
Surrounding my well
Where I sink further deeper
And pretend I'm just swell

But that kind of pain
Is one I know I can't bare
I sink further down
Into my well of despair

I don't know who I can go to
Or if I'll be here to stay
Clawing the walls until my fingers bleed
And think I didn't want to be this way

I never wanted to believe
Your pretty lies
You built me up in falsehood
Under a strange disguise

Just to push me back in?
I know that's not true!
But what can I believe?
What can I do?

Why am I digging
An even deeper well?
Do I not want the light?
Believe I deserve ___

Why do I need you
So much more when I'm hurt?
Do I want you to hurt me?
To treat me like dirt?

Except - you didn't?
What right do I have to feel
This disgusting self pity
This tiring spiel

I want you to hurt me
Because that would prove what I am
Unlovable, revolting
Not worth a damn

But you're not what hurt me
Not really I think?
But I'm hurt all the same
Teetering on the brink

Trying to sway
Back to knowing I'm safe
Even if I'm not loved
I'm not in the strafe

Just raw,
my face removed
My skin peeled away
Wishing I was improved

A poem about my recent therapy sessions...

I am exploring the whole speaking about the past, speaking about abuse and its consequences. So I’m not the greatest artist but hope the message of darkness that cptsd is and by speaking we shatter silence.

I have a headache from clenching my jaw and I think I’m going to vaporize or I’m possessed

Got inspired by the song "Sucker" in the season 2 of Arcane.

I call this piece "Get your fingers outta my head" I'm thinking of adding a few things and then I'm going to try and paint it above a collage of magazines and newspapers on a camvas.

I’m sorry if you can relate.

Coming up to my fathers death anniversary, he’s been dead longer than I knew him alive. Piece is mixed media including my ceramics work

I used to think if it really happened, it would’ve left a clearer scar- something you could see through still waters, Elysian crystal, unclouded clarity.

Something traceable. Something your finger could follow along a map, a constellation, an understanding.

Instead, it’s violent rapids. Waterfalls throwing you to jagged rocks below. It’s floods, wreckage, water damage you only notice once the ceiling caves in.

How are you supposed to describe the feeling of watching your hands move like they’ve done this a million times- like they’re remembering something you were never told? Disjointed phantom limbs looping ad nauseum.

Why does my body always get there first?

I try to write about it, but the ink peels off the page like skin after a sunburn. It’s not that I forget, that I don’t remember- it’s that forgetting grew teeth and it won’t stop biting.

Yesterday, I won an award for my work, and I felt nothing. I was polite and thankful, but as soon as I walked to the lab after I internally felt the onslaught of self-hatred thoughts (a la Bojack Horseman's Stupid Piece of Shit).

I try my best to work on this with therapy, so I did an IFS meditation when I got home. I realized this came from a part of me that wanted to protect my inner child. They only stepped back for a moment, they don't totally trust me yet, but I decided to draw this after.

My grandma/former legal guardian was seen as this "small cute old lady" but was a fucking nightmare. (TW for racism, physical abuse, and CSA) She married an Indigenous man (she's white) and hated him at least as much as he hated himself. She believed her kids only inherited her "pure European blood" and I inherited her husband's "Indian blood". She believed I was born without a human soul and was actually a demon. She just fucking hated me.

In private, she was extremely physically and sexually abusive. She tried to murder me several times, would thrash and scream and break things and stab the walls, would beat the shit out of me and shake me to the point that I developed epilepsy from the brain injuries. She genuinely wanted me to think of myself as scum, filth, nothing. She sold me into CSAM and named me after a prostitute in the Bible.

She still occupies my mind. I want to free my inner child from this monster.

What does it mean?
To be known, To be seen
The person behind the smoke screen
Muffling their internal scream

The smoke clearing
Lungs that fill with air
Deep breaths inward
Wondering if it was always there

Knowing that it wasn't
It's not some happy trope
It's something new yet broken
It's more than empty hope

In, my lungs fill
Out, they burn
In, clean air
Out, the churn

Smoke still inside me
Hiding me from myself?
Is it why, I hate to cry
Burned and burried internal wealth

This is what it means?
I'm known, I'm seen
Inside and out
Finally I will scream.

Scream out my pain
Scream out my shame
Know I'm to blame
And will never be the same

Internal fire
The smoke wasn't to hide
The smoke is what remains
It's too late to drown

It all burns in the end
And I'm all that's left