E.S. Poetry & Writing

E.S. writes poetry and fiction for people who survived by adapting until it became a personality. Their work lives in the aftermath, examining quiet violence, emotional endurance, and the damage that forms when survival is mistaken for strength. These are not healing stories so much as psychological autopsies of love, power, and attachment. The tone is dark, restrained, and unsettling in a way that lingers rather than explodes. This work is for anyone who stayed too long, learned too much, and refuses to romanticize what it cost.

I Warned Them & They Stayed

The relationships that helps me the most are the ones where I don’t have to pretend I’m simpler than I am. Where I don’t have to translate myself into something softer so I’m easier to keep. These are the relationships where I can say the thing I’m ashamed of saying and watch the room not empty. That alone is a kind of mercy. Because most of my life has taught me that honesty is expensive and usually paid for with abandonment.

They help because vulnerability is allowed to be ugly. Not cinematic. Not brave. Ugly like saying I’m jealous when I shouldn’t be. Ugly like admitting I want reassurance even though I hate needing it. Ugly like knowing exactly why I’m like this and still being unable to stop it. The people who matter don’t try to spin that into growth. They let it be what it is. Pain that learned how to speak.

These relationships hurt because they see me clearly. Not the curated version. Not the version that functions well at parties. They see the intensity, the spirals, the way I love like I’m trying to make up for something I lost before I had language. And somehow they don’t flinch. Which is terrifying, because being seen means I can’t pretend I’m misunderstood anymore. I am understood. And still chosen. That’s worse, actually.

Dark humor is how I survive intimacy. If I joke about my damage and you laugh, it’s not because it’s funny. It’s because we both know how bad it really is. Humor is how I ask, “Can you sit with this?” without saying it out loud. When someone laughs gently instead of minimizing it or getting scared, I know they’re not here to fix me or flee me. They’re here to stay and witness.

What cuts the deepest is realizing I am loved not just as a project, but as a person with benefits. I bring care. I bring attention. I bring loyalty that borders on feral. I remember things. I feel things. I notice shifts in tone like a survival skill. The right people don’t see my depth as a liability they tolerate. They see it as the reason the connection feels real, even when it’s heavy enough to bruise.

The relationships that help me the most don’t save me. They don’t make me whole. They don’t cure the ache that lives under my ribs. They just don’t ask me to lie about it. They let me be complicated, painful, loving, exhausting, and real all at once. And somehow, in a world that usually demands I be less, that hurts in a way that feels like relief.

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