poison apple

Growing out of once-beloved authors is worse than any break-up I’ve ever experienced. How do I reconcile who I am now with the stories I used to love, when stories are so much of what defines me? If I cannot trust my library to evolve, how can I trust myself to stay true to my own ever-changing doctrine? I’m tired of her talk of shoes and skinny people fucking and angsty pale-skinned druggies and dresses that are beautiful but completely impractical for women who have to get dirty every now and again.

Her stories are pieces of candy that once satiated me and sat heavy in my chest, but now they make my teeth ache when I try to chew. I now filter my dreams through fiberglass logic and together they fuse and form my shield. I don’t want armor made from glitter that sparkles so brightly that it blinds you but breaks on impact. I want beauty to be hard-earned grit that seeps from the spaces between words, slithers into drains and emerges into moonlight, poisoned and luminescent like oil.

I don’t want to be embraced, cocooned. Infiltrate my heart.