"There is no bad religion, only bad people, who hide behind the religion they chose."

121,645 notes

laninga:

one time my sister turned around with big ass eyes and said to me, “you know what’s so weird? we’ve never formally introduced ourselves to each other”

326,535 notes

"nothing is realer than your feelings"

55 notes

"

my father tells our dog, “don’t act mortally wounded, i barely hurt you,” and i fall silent because those words have been used in my childhood after slaps that left welts on the side of my cheek and a scream in my ears that has never stopped ringing and

i have my father’s talents i have his hair his eyes and i have his love for teaching and every time i lose my temper i am afraid of who i will grow up to be because what if one day my child will be at my feet begging me to please stop hitting

your mother has hair that touches her shoulders and you’re twice as pretty but she never feels like you deserve the spotlight so when we were thirteen the first time i met her she stormed into your room where we were working on a project and poured the cat litter out on your floor because you had forgotten to do your chores and you have her thin frame and her blue sky eyes and you can see other people’s weaknesses with the same sniper-like accuracy and you once cried in my lap for three hours because you hated being able to hurt people the way she’s hurt you

and my best friend never talks about her dad because her dad is never home until four years ago at senior prom when he showed up at the front door and spent one hour screaming in another room while we turned up the music and smiled broad at her like we were trying to outshine the darkness we saw creeping into her eyes and when he left again he slammed the door so hard the floor shook under us and she collapsed - she was raised with his ambition, his wit, his constant need to be doing something - she was in fifth grade when she looked at me and said “i’m never having kids”

and i am talking to a boy with sad eyes and he says that he thinks that we’re all messed up because our parents never really cared enough - he says “there’s a reason they call us the ‘me’ generation: it’s because we always asked for too much” because so many of us just never felt loved there was always something more important than us

we are raised in four white prison walls rather than outside, we are in schools that everyone knows are teaching us poorly, we are succumbing to more mental illness than ever and we’re still told it’s just a “teenage affliction,” we are clutching degrees that amount to a waste of time because there are no jobs there are no options there is nothing for us in a world that is burning

we were born to solve the problems that those before us built and we are called selfish when we ask for help - we are so scared of being like the ones who raised us we are so scared of messing this up we just want to do good we went to do well we want to stop fighting in the wars other men built

but what have we to protect ourselves in this wide world that spits our names like they are toothpicks what have we to fight our own battles how do we go forth into that dark place when they made the caves and called us canary

what do we carry
but the skeletons
our parents buried?

"

29,618 notes