prosesuggestion:

a while back someone reblogged one of my poems on tumblr with the tag “no one deserves to be atlas”
and it hit me pretty hard and i want to talk about that today

listen, you are not a life support machine, you are not to be expected to carry someone’s organs. it is easy to fall into the rhythm of building your life around people who hope they are already dying, but that is not healthy.

i know. i am no stranger to people like this. i have known people who swallow pills with a snakejaw, who drink vodka straight without flinching and pray quietly that it’ll kill them, who smoke on their roof at 2am while crying. people who starve themselves until they can barely stand, who burn or cut or bruise their bodies because no one taught them to forgive themselves and be soft with their own skins. i have been these people.

there is only so much help you can give. if you learn anything, learn how to tell them: i am sorry, i cannot do this today. i am aching from holding the weight of your sky, please talk to a professional.

i see a mentality a lot amongst middle and high schoolers. i see it in college kids too, in some of my closest friends and in the drug dealer i talk to on weeknights. and the mentality says “if you are not willing to drop everything for me, you are toxic and a bad friend”

i understand that mental illness does a good job of making you feel isolated and it makes you scared of losing people, but realize that your support systems hurt too, and in ways that you might not even know.

listen, no teenager should have to add “keep my friends alive” to their to do list.

it can be hard to exist sometimes and it is okay to need help but you cannot place your fate in someone else’s hands. they shake just as much as yours, they are not any safer.

if you love your friends do not make them be atlas. they are not titans. they are small and afraid too.