You talk to yourself when you think you're alone (March 2015)
by Alice Pleasance Liddell
Q: Everyone tells me I’m too quiet. In my English class a boy asked me if I had vocal cords and I couldn’t say anything back to him. Is there something wrong with me?
– Violet, Bowling Green KY
Bless your stillness, you have a small god resting between your jaws, I know it's hard to pull him out.
Q: My boyfriend keeps in touch with his ex, they constantly meet for lunch and go to shows together. He promises me that he loves me and would never cheat on me but I just can’t trust him. Should I break up with him? Is this a sign?
– Tatiana, Brooklyn NY
You're baring teeth in the mirror, you're going to bloody your knuckles on someone else's innocent bones, you're making all the wrong enemies - you're swallowing him whole but letting his ribs stick in your heart, it's fruitless
Q: I’m horribly depressed and I can’t see a way out of it. I have tried for years, medication, therapy, yoga and clean eating but nothing has changed. Am I doomed?
– Hal, Boston MA
It is mandatory that you wake up at some point after sleeping, you don't have to get out of bed, but you do have to open your eyes and read what's written in the spaces around you, there are messages hidden in all the walls and some I left for you, go find them
Q: I’ve been married for three years now and our sex life is getting stale. It’s reached the point where I’d rather eat a pizza than get naked. I want to spice things up and am thinking about trying out some sexy roleplay, but am not sure where to start. Any ideas?
- Lucille, Tilbury England
Okay I'll be the moon and you be the tides I'll make you swell
Q: I’m in an abusive relationship and I don’t know how to get out. I’m afraid of him but I love him so much that I can’t stand the thought of being away from him. What should I do?
– Ginger, Montgomery AL
Just ask yourself where your kindness should stop
Q: I’ve been with my boyfriend since I was fifteen and I’m seventeen now. We love each other and I think I’m ready to take the next step in our relationship, but I’m nervous. We’ve talked about having sex with each other but we’ve never done anything more than kiss. How should I go about initiating it with him?
– Amanda, Calgary AB
Take your clothes off and you'll be perfect - the funny thing is that there are things much more intimate than saliva like eye contact for example; soul infections
Q: I’m a twenty-three-year-old virgin, and I have never been on a single date, or kissed a girl. I was homeschooled by strict religious parents. All my life, I wasn’t allowed to watch movies, listen to mainstream music, or hang out with kids outside of our sect. I always felt like I wanted to be free, I was never happy living this way and I just recently got the nerve to leave the family a year ago. Now, I’m finally going on my first date with a girl from my office, and I’m terrified. I don’t know what to do, I’m afraid I’m going to mess it up and that she’ll see how strange I am. How should I act? What do people normally do on first dates?
– Conrad, Charleston WV
We start off shy, we start off unwilling to ask for presents because it's neither of our birthdays, and it's not christmas, so we keep our hands to ourselves, walk with fists clenched in pockets, no body touches in the first two hours, we have to wait
Q: Some days, I don’t want to talk to anyone at all. I stay in my room, in my bed, I keep the curtains shut and I turn my phone off. My roommates are getting worried and saying I should see someone, but I’m not sad, I just need to be alone sometimes. Is this abnormal? Should I listen to them and go see a therapist?
– Evan, Vancouver BC
I think I understand your silence; there is a certain unraveling that happens after a while and you need to recoil, same as me. I like to sink in baths and dissolve pills in my tea, I like to crack rainbows with my teeth.
Q: Recently, a coworker made a joke about rape and I walked out of the room. My friend told me I was being too sensitive and that he wasn’t serious, that he was just shedding light on an iffy topic. Can anything really be made into a joke? Do I need to just "chill out", in the words of my friend?
– Joelle, Marion OH
Some things require mouths shut at all times. Some things should stay in the dark back room when you were six years old and they wouldn't let you leave for three hours until you stopped and you were hungry, you hadn't eaten for two days, raw-throated and ribs that left bruises on your skin. Or when you were walking home alone and you saw the small boy cornered by the skinheads and you kept walking, you were small too, he lived next door, you cried alone. You touched the needles you found in the playground. You let his hands find you when you hid under the bed, and years later his hands kept finding you, you sleep with the light on. You have to keep quiet about these things because you didn't laugh then, you never laughed back then.
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