my mood has been low so its time for a reflection

16/03/2025

i'm thinking about taking down my poetry page. i mentioned this a few entries ago but when i started this site, i thought it'd be a good exercise in putting my feelings out there somewhere publicly. i've struggled with expressing myself to others for a very long time. i'd like to get into this more in a post dissecting my relationship with my gender in the future, but for a cisgender woman i have a great deal of toxic masculinity built up in how i express (or rather, don't express) certain emotions. to bear open myself is something very embarrassing to me.

uploading my poetry was an extension of that. there are the usual concerns of course: i have such a deep love for the craft and i worry i have not done it justice, that my poems are bad (and i do think some of them are, or at least not polished enough yet), that people will think lesser of me after reading them. but it's also that i think poetry is a very personal form, even if you aren't particularly writing about yourself... i'm leaving a piece of me there to view, and the idea of being seen is !!!

this didn't bother me as much when i started the site. i used to be a very self-conscious person, but after working retail in the centre of toronto and being on seroquel for two years i've come out pretty uncaring about what random people think of me. if someone opened my site and read my poetry and thought me stupid, what does that matter to me? their opinion has nothing to do with me and i really don't care (unless they have actual, valuable feedback. i am always open and happy to receive constructive criticism). since starting the site though, i've made a few friends through the small web, and i am still deeply self-conscious when it comes to people i know. i'm not a paranoid person - i trust my friends and wouldn't do them the disservice of thinking they secretly hate me. but i also worry about being viewed too closely... its a weird thing to explain!! maybe they don't hate me right now but what if i gave them a reason to? something like that maybe?

this extends into another thing. the older i get, the more i realize i'm someone who is very hard to take seriously. and that subconsciously, this has been by design. i repeatedly tell people that i'm stupid and very rarely speak seriously about things i am actually smart in, instead opting to joke around in most of my social interactions. i've put guards around myself and i honestly don't know why or how to fix it. its started affecting my relationships with others, too. my boyfriend gets really frustrated because he thinks i don't tell him anything that goes on with me. and he's right. i don't. i don't know how to, or if i start i get so embarrassed and feel so stupid i can't lay it all out. my friends have noticed too, and i know they worry about me because of it. but when they express concern, i just make a joke out of it. they throw me a rope and i refuse to grab hold.

so i don't really have any great outlet. i keep it inside and drive myself insane. and i guess it can be said that i'm resigning myself to this fact... i know i could change, theoretically. and i need to. but i don't know how.

favorite (vampire) - nct 127