We’re all just bits and pieces of other people.

My father gave me his cheekbones.

My mother gave me her trauma and her paper doll genetics. My maternal family is beautiful and fragile, with rips and crinkles and torn bits of ability. I am structurally unstable art like them.

My grandma gave me a love of crafting and taught me to bake bread when I’m heartbroken.

I’m like my stepfather when people need something, or when I feel like being irresponsible.

My first best friend instilled a love of horror. A boy I talked to for months in 1998 online but never met introduced me to Midwest emo.

My uncle taught me to hate cops.
(He was a cop.)

My first boyfriend made me realize my worth when he dumped me after first period only to ask me back later on in the day. I looked him in the eyes, which looked colder and more rat-like than before lunch, and I said no.

(Then I went home and made bread.)

My ex fiancée made me question my own relationship with my gender when she came out as a trans woman.

My ex husband taught me how to be really good at skee-ball. He also taught me not to invest in relationships that flow like flash floods instead of rivers.

A woman I don’t talk to anymore taught me to be careful who you trust and to be even more careful who you let into your home.

My sense of humour was probably developed by my friendship with @martini.

So much of me is other people that the things I came to on my own terms feel most dear to me - my wild imzginztion, my love of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, my love of books, the feral soul who’s never been tamed.

(My love of writing trite, overly wordy 1 am essays exposing myself on sites where I post boobs, because it’s only soft core unless you bare your soul with your ass.)

What is uniquely you about you? What part of you did you come to on your own terms?

(photos by @matsunny )