who taught you to fear failure?
despite my best attempts, it seems I've failed you
content warning: mentions of suicide, self-harm, sexual assault, & drug abuse.
Recommended listening:
Different, a kind way to describe my grandmother. You always picture grandparents living in kitchy little homes, knitting and going to bed at 7:30. Quaint and quiet. Fragile and loving.
Not my grandmother.
In my earliest memories of her, she’s wild. Tattooed from head to toe with short spiky purple hair and a handbag shaped like a bird or a butterfly. She wore Hello Kitty earrings and costume rings. She spoke with a thick city accent and an unmistakable air of fuck it.
Her house wasn’t the outdated, but cozy little cottage of my other grandparents. Her’s was, quite literally, a zoo.
Peeling wallpaper discolored by years of cigarette smoke lined her living room, which was filled to the brim with urns containing former pets, stacks and stacks of newspapers, chachskis, figurines, stacked bags of cat litter and dog food, photos from her life, and just about anything else sold by QVC.
7 cats
2 dogs
1 duck
1 hedgehog
3 parrots
6 hampsters
4 bunnies
and I can’t even tell you how many birds.
for the version of you that wants to go deeper
2x monthly essays not available anywhere else
a space to talk, ask, and be seen
the full archive, from the very first word
65% off your first month
