Rosebud Salve!
Ignore the ridiculous title.
- Ceramic Ashtrays, Glazed Doughnuts and Empty Promises.
You’ve recently fallen in love with ceramic. Last month it was yarn and the month before that it was polymer clay. The link between these is that you love art, you love anything that guarantees you some form of distraction from the dullness and monotony of your own life. You listen to poetry as you would a sermon, willing the words to be credible. Because, what even is life without poetry? You like to lick the glaze off of doughnuts. You are not very fond of doughnuts themselves, but running your tongue over their sugary glaze feels like home (a home where you can afford to be wasteful and lick glaze off several doughnuts). All promises are empty promises, I tell you. What makes a promise empty? The mere existence of such a promise.
2. Conditional Love, Strawberry Lip Balm and Laughter.
Your mother has made it clear that she would have loved you more if you were skinnier, smiled more and earned more. It doesn’t bother you. You know that all love is conditional love. You worry, however, that somehow your life would start to resemble hers, that you would start to wear animosity on your sleeve. When you were 11, you had a tin of strawberry lip balm. The tin bore resemblance to the tin of Kiwi shoe polish your father used on his shoes religiously every morning. But it was pink and smelt fruity and tasted just like vaseline. You can’t help but wish that your life was as simple as it was the year you owned that tin of lip balm. You are battling depression and depression is winning. This is a running joke in your head. You have forgotten how to laugh. The other day when you saw the funniest meme, and you laughed out loud, the alienness of this sound almost startled you.
3. Razors, Bleach and Your Body Lifeless From Too Much Of Your Favourite Drug.
You’ve been having vivid dreams. You don’t want to talk about these dreams. You don’t want to talk about razors, bleach and your body lifeless from too much of your favourite drug. But what better way to continue this mission of self-sabotage than to bare details of your life to strangers on the internet? One of your recent dreams involved your body lying limp and lifeless from too much of your favourite drug. Which is admittedly weird, of course, because you think all drugs are beautiful and can’t seem to pick a favourite. The bleach is for your hair, not for ingestion. The razors are to sharpen your crayons, not to drag across your skin.
4. Remember To Breathe.
Tosin, remember to breathe. There is a lot to live for, don’t you see? You still have a million stories to tell, you still have a million people to love. Forget how bleak the future looks and just breathe.
5. Paris, Celadon Green and Bakeshops
You’ve always loved to bake. You’ve watched too many baking tutorials that your TikTok Fyp is now full of ASMR baking videos and videos of women kissing. If you die, you won’t get to bake again. If you stay, you might own a bakeshop as you’ve always dreamed of. The meme you laughed loudly at the other day was a coming out scene where instead of saying “Mom, Dad I am gay”, the figure says “Mom, Dad I am French” and it is captioned, “French people are people too.” If you die, you won’t get to laugh at French jokes anymore. Celadon Green like the tiles of your future apartment if you stay.
I know it is weird having to convince your soul to stay alive, judge me.
6. Sometimes, I imagine that I’m Achilles and the people I love are begging me to humour them and get off the roof.
7. “And I dream too much and I don’t write enough and I’m trying to find God everywhere.” — Anis Mojgani, For Those Who Can Ride in an Airplane for the First Time.
8. If you die, your brilliance will go to waste.
