Author: Lilly Flores

A comic I’ve been working on this past month for my mix media final. This is the first comic I’ve made that is larger than a comic strip so it’s not super great, but yeah. Click on the images to read. The pages are captioned because my handwriting is a mess. Content warnings: Hints of underage substance abuse and mentions of self harm.

The first person who ever told me they loved me, lied.

I feel like that happens to most people. Maybe it doesn’t. I don’t know. I’ve always been too afraid to ask.

I’ve been too afraid to ask a lot of things lately, and by lately I mean my entire life.

‘Love having @#@@^ in class, wish she would participate more, though’, is what the teacher’s notes would always say.

Too afraid to ask what that word means, or how to work this problem, or what the %&^^ two percent milk means, or how did you two meet, or do you still love each other?

Am I aloud to write %&^^ in a blog post? I’m too afraid to ask.

I don’t look afraid. I make people afraid, though.

Or at least, that is what I’m told. Chances are, I’m more afraid of you than you are of me.

Like a spider.

Maybe that’s why I like spiders so much?

I mean, technically I have arachnophobia, but I’m not afraid of spiders.

I’m afraid of Ticks. And needles,

but only sometimes.

Only when they’re taking my blood.

Its not like I’m afraid of blood.I just don’t like it when something takes my blood.

Maybe its because I was killed by a vampire in a past life? That might explain why I think vampires are overrated.

But, I don’t believe in past lives.

Or anything really.

But that is  not my point.

At least, not right now.

My point is that the first person who ever told me they loved me, lied.

I told him I loved him too, which was also a lie.

But, that is not the point.

Because, whether I lied or not, I was not the first person to tell him ‘I love you’. I know because I heard others tell him they loved him and he told them he loved them too.

I never confronted him about it.

I wonder if he lied to them as well, or if I was just special?

Special in the worst way possible.

I don’t care whether he meant it with them or not. I’m long over wondering why I wasn’t good enough to be his only one.

To be honest, I never really cared that much in the first place.

To be honest, I barely even liked him.

But I never really got over how he called me boring.

Or how he called me ugly.

Or how he complained about me not talking enough, only to turn around and tell me he didn’t care about my ‘sob stories’ the moment I opened up.

I think about how he called me boring every time I think about saying ‘No’.

I think about how he called me ugly every time I put on makeup.

I think about how he called me a ‘sob story’ every time I speak.

Every now and then,

I think back to that one time he told me that I am going to die alone, broke, and homeless

and wonder if those words somehow cursed me?

I don’t believe in god, yet I believe every word he said.

Pretty crazy, right?

He didn’t love me.

I didn’t love him.

But that is not the point.

The point is that his words still effect my everyday life,

while my words were never given a second thought.

Its always seemed pretty wild to me that someone can effect someone else so much,

but the person who is doing the effecting will never be effected in return.

I often wonder if this is all the reason why I only care for those who don’t care for me back?

Everything they do effects me so much, yet everything I do hardly effects them at all.

I wonder if it started with him or if it runs back even earlier than that?

Maybe requited love killed me in a past life?

Who knows?

I’m too afraid to ask.

they say you are what you eat

but what about what you drink?

I drank liter of juice

but I don’t feel anymore sweet

or fruity

like that candle you got me

because of my sexuality

thats only for men i tell you

you tell me that its half true

but only when its convenient

find a middle ground

or you can’t stick around

but i’m a fish out of water

and i don’t care if you want her

they say you are what you eat

but what about where you sleep?

on the top bunk of a bed

in a room where nothing is said

only heard

god i hope that was a bird

whoops

wrong room

in that room i sleep on the floor

and don’t do chores

i just sleep

and pretend to ignore

the knocks on the walls

and the thing they used to kill the lord

they say you are what you eat

but what about where you creep?

i’d rather put a bullet in my head

then have my parents say don’t let it happen again

it wasn’t my fault

i don’t care what they say

p l e a s e  l i l l y

die.

you’re the only man who has ever made me cry

i suppressed

and I folded

and folded

103 times

i looked at myself and realized i was dying

and suddenly every man was you

they say you are what you eat

but what about what you think?

i live with five people

and you live with two

we all share a bathroom

but you’ve never shared a day in your life, have you?

until you met me, that is

you share me with three people

and i share you with none

well, shared

loving you was like trying to own nice furniture in a house filled with cats

i will never tell you that

i’ve been told i don’t talk much

but no one really listens much

so i’ll just keep everything in here

playing my thoughts on repeat until i disappear.

 

 

When I was a kid my family used to put together letters for funeral parlors to earn some extra money. We’d fold the letters a certain way, put them in the correct envelop, and seal them. I always got a lot of paper cuts from doing this. The letters were then sent out to families who had an old family member. I remember seeing a letter for a family who had the same last name as mine once. Could you imagine getting a letter that tells you that you should probably start financially planning for your loved ones death? Or being old and getting one? A reminder of your mortality in the form of mail from your local funeral parlor. My uncle used to work at a funeral parlor. He was a mortician. He sells kitchenware now and is the type of guy to tell pet store employees that their fish are dead. I’ve had a lot of fish in my life. And cats. And dogs. And lizards. And rodents. Just a lot of animals in general. Having a lot of pets also means having a lot of pet deaths. My mom thinks a big part of having pets is to prepare us for the deaths of people. I’ve been to two funerals these past five years. Both of them were during the summer. The worst time of the year to have a funeral. I hope I don’t die in the summer. I didn’t  know either person very well, but their deaths affected my life greatly. Death has a funny way of bringing out the truth. The first person to die was my Great-Grandfather. He was the grandma on my mom’s side dad. I only ever saw him alive twice. The first time was at a wedding, I didn’t like him the moment I laid eyes on him. I didn’t have a specific reason to not like him, but something just felt off. The second time I saw him was when he was in the retirement home. He had Alzheimers then and pretended to know who we were when we introduced ourselves. He played it off pretty well, the only reason I know he was faking it is because my mom told me after we left that if he really remembered us he would have talked our ears off. When he died, I found out a lot about my mom’s side of the family that I didn’t want to know. I remember texting my cousins about everything , trying to piece it all together while I was at a friends house. I wasn’t happy with what we found. I didn’t want to go back home after that. I remember whispering something cruel to his casket. My grandma would have slapped me if she had found out. She believes we should never talk bad about the dead. Even if they were bad people. I used to think everyone deserved a fueneral before I heard about my not-so-great-grandfather. The second person to die was my Great-Aunt. I never saw her while she was alive. We were friends on facebook, though. My mom asked me to draw a  portrait of her to give to her kids. Drawing a dead person for five hours straight is kind of weird. Makes you think. Her funeral really made me rethink a lot of who I was. All I knew about her was what people were saying about her in their eulogies. They said that she loved God and talking, but how could I be sure if that was true? They could be lying. Or maybe they just only knew what she showed them? Maybe that was just a facade. What if she had a secret side of her that her family didn’t know about? People like me would never know.  I had a thought, “If I died right here, right now, would any of my family know who I really am?” Your family is an essential part of how you are remembered when you die. I don’t want people saying that I love God at my funeral. I don’t want them to read bible verses. That funeral is what made me decide I wanted to stop being distant. Up until then I was terrified of letting my family get to know me, because all my life I was  told that  they could never love me for being a heathen queer. But at that point, I’d rather die and be remembered as a heathen queer than die and be remembered as someone that I wasn’t. So, I came out to them. It went pretty well. I can be more myself around them now and I’ve never felt more free. Some of them didn’t accept me, but I was prepared to live with that. Death is a weird thing. It made me distant from my family and closer. It can destroy and build up. Like a volcano.

Being mixed feels weird. Really weird. I don’t know how else to describe it. I don’t really fit completely with one or the other. I’m too white to be Latino but not white enough to escape the racist Mexican jokes. I feel like most times I’m only one or the other when it is convenient for other people. I’m Latino when I’m the butt of the joke or on legal papers but then I’m white the second I call out people out on their racist nonsense. I’m always the one who has to apologize to people for feeling uncomfortable about their racist jokes so I don’t get labeled as ‘too sensitive’ or ‘over dramatic’. So I pretended to not acknowledge the tense silence that followed after my friend’s parents asked me if my dad was born in America and I said I didn’t know. So I pretended to zone out whenever my teacher thought it was a good idea to ask opinions on immigration. So I pretended not to think about the fact that some of my friends supported Trump’s campaign. Another thing that really sucks about being half Latino is the fact that I’m not fluent in Spanish even though both of my parents are fluent and get a ton of heat for it. I usually let it slide when a Latino person gets onto me for it but if its a non-Latino person I can’t stand it. People are always saying stuff like “I’m 50 percent Irish, 10 percent polish, 20 percent German, and 20 percent Italian” and then when they find out I’m half Mexican and can’t speak Spanish then I’m “not a real Mexican”. Like, you don’t see me saying they’re not real German or whatever they’re descended from because they can’t speak the language. When you can speak Irish, Polish, German, and Italian then you can come back to me and complain about not knowing Spanish. Go learn your Spanish curse words from google translate.

My best friend’s girl

You think you’re tough just cuz you can turn into a dragon, huh?

You don’t even have arms!

Alone at Steak Escape at 5:42 P.M.

this has all made me into someone i don’t understand

i feel okay

i feel okay too

pretty wild

makeup wipes

body wash

sequential art

Mitch Welling

i just feel like us getting back together would fix everything

it wouldn’t  fix me

i can’t believe i’m going to die a virgin

i can

virginia slims

elliot smith

daphodils

you’re all i have

i don’t want you to want me now that you have nothing else.

leave and love you

address mail as follows:

(name of student)

msa student life center

355 west monticello street

box(student box number)

Brookhaven, MS 39601

the only reason you were chosen is because you’re expendable. you’re invisible. you have nothing to loose. no one would care or notice if you died.

dissociating is like 80s cartoon interactions

good luck i am extremely hard to kill

carter kiss

everytime boy pablo

i guess my point at the end of all of this is that it’s not always your fault for the bad things that happen to you but its your responsibility to figure it out

end stage

xochipilli uses broom as weapon and hits quezlacoatl in the head with it

jamie’s friend tells her about the beat up gay kid

mom friend anxiety override

good manners

thelma

signature move

draw characters 80s anime style

fire flannel jesus

ganas de vivir

just when i thought you couldn’t get any uglier

sad jesus angry caroline

draw robots

i look like hell

feel like it too

don’t ask me why

just take a look at the news

while i’m getting older

your body will just be getting colder

F*** love

i’m sorry someone hurt you

this isn’t your first drink?

did you really think it would be?

i don’t really know what to think about you, tho i must confess i find myself thinking about you a lot these days.

do you now?

you’re always in the back of my mind.

why is that?

i was hoping you could tell me.

brat

chill

spoiled

pig

std

boring

sob story

not confident

sensitive

los lobos

angel thot topic

cheap demons lemons

9/11

get along sweaters

be wary little man, it is not god that listens when you pray for such things

:))))))) 🙂 🙂

yea one second let me ask my mom

 

 

I have my father’s teeth, but my mother’s bite

This makes me good at fighting,

And bad at everything else

I snap bones

Draw blood

Break hearts

And still I swear I’m more of a lover than a fighter

More of a loser than a winner.

The kind of guy that only wants you when you don’t want him

The kind of girl that wants only what doesn’t belong to her

The kind of guy you write angry poetry about

The kind of girl you write breakup songs for

The kind of guy you don’t take home to your parents

The kind of girl who can’t be owned

This scared you.

Fight or flight?

You were never a fan of heights

So  you hit

And you missed

And I dodged

And I fell

Deeper

And deeper

And you jumped in after me

Still swinging and kicking

Swinging and kicking

‘I’ve gotta keep you on your toes’ you’d say

But I had fallen head first

Deeper

And deeper

I was too old for fighting by the time you caught up with me

By that time I was good for nothing

And you were good for everything

‘When are we going to fight?’

When are you going to start saying what you mean

‘Hit me’

Kiss me

‘Don’t look at me like that’

Make me

You hurt to look at

Must be love

Or at least that’s what my friends say

I don’t think love is supposed to hurt

I don’t see a point in that

Other types of love don’t hurt

So why should this

We always end up in this position

With you over me

Gives you a false sense of security

That you’re the one in control

I let you believe it

I, a wolf in sheep’s clothing

You, an angel in disguise

Y’know

Like that song you like

By that artist I love

‘You’re lying’

If I was you wouldn’t be able to tell.

‘Does this mean choke?’

You know it doesn’t

‘Coward’

Maybe

Dog bites and bee stings got nothing on you babe

But you’re still one of my favorite things

Scarier than any horror movie

Scarier than that dream I had last night

Scarier than your mom

We would have never worked

But we didn’t need the cards to tell us that

Did we

I can only love in ways you don’t know how

Swinging and kicking

Even skeletons need more than skinny love

Swinging and kicking

Red and blue

Swinging and kicking

But your drop was shallow

‘I do like you’

Deeper

And deeper

‘But we could never be together.’

Deeper

And deeper

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was around four o’ clock in the morning when I heard it. I had been on the phone with my friend when the sound of something moving behind my dresser caught my attention.

“Hush,” I whispered.

“What?” Carolyn whispered back.

“I… think there’s something in the room with me. Be quiet.”

I listened. The back of the dresser faced a corner and I could hear something moving around in the space behind it. This corner also happened to be the same corner that I kept my bat in. This bat also happened to be my only defense I had against intruders.

Whatever it was had to be smaller than a person but bigger than a squirrel judging by the space it was in and the amount of noise it was making. I slowly walk across the room, not taking my eyes off of the dresser, then make my way down the stairs. I open the door to let a cat in to see if they can hear the same things I’m hearing. The cat that rises to the cause is our orange tabby foster cat, Katnip.  She runs up the stairs and I slowly follow behind.

“I’m scared,” Carolyn whispers.

“Why are you scared? You’re not the one in the room with an unidentified animal,” I hiss.

The cat examines the corner for a moment and then to my surprise, turns away.  I decide to man up and look in the corner myself only to find nothing out of the ordinary. I take the bat out of the corner. What could have been making that noise? Did it go somewhere else when I went down stairs? But the cat doesn’t notice anything. Maybe I’m just hearing things. I reassure Carolyn that it was probably nothing and continue our conversation from before.

It was really late but my nerves were too high to try and sleep so I decide to do a late night organizing spree. Still on the phone with Carolyn, I start to take down some old artwork from my wall while the cat sits at my heels. That’s when I saw some movement out of the corner of my eye near the bed.

I look over to see my shoes being slowly being pulled under my bed. There is a bed sheet hanging off of the mattress so I can’t see what is pulling them but I don’t need to, to know that I needed to get out of there.

I hang up the phone and race down to my parent’s room.

“There’s something in my room,” I say urgently.

My dad shoots up out of bed. “What’s in your room?”

“I don’t know it’s just something- I heard it making noise then it pulled my shoes under the bed! Just come on!”

I lead the way back to my room and he starts to search the room while I recount the story in more detail. He searches for ten minutes or so only to find nothing.

Where did it go? There was definitely something here. I closed the door on the way out so it couldn’t have gotten out unless it was intelligent enough to open doors. I don’t know what to think at this point.

My dad leaves the room and says that we’ll talk about it in the morning. I look back at my phone and see its blown up with messages from Carolyn. I text her that I’m fine and turn off the lights. I’m more confused than scared at this point. If there really was something here then how did it get in and where did it go? If there really wasn’t anything then what does that say about me? Am I loosing it?

 

12:00
A’s mom texts him to text me that she’s outside my house to pick me up. I roll out of bed and step into her car. It’s just us two aside from the baby in the back seat. She tells me that it turns one today and that he is named after her dead father. She talks to me about her dead parents and addiction. This is the first conversation I have ever had with this woman. A refers to the baby as a bundle of sadness and I understand why now, being that it cried the entire car ride.

12:14
I arrive at A’s house. The first floor smells but I can’t figure out it’s source. We take turns playing bad music and catching up while he straightens his hair.

1:00
We head down to get a drink and discover his extended family has arrived. None of them make an attempt to introduce themselves. We run into a woman outside who introduces herself as grandma. I don’t respond for 30 seconds because I was debating whether or not she would get my humor if I also introduced myself as grandma. I decide against it and give her my dead name then hide my Buddha necklace. Just in case. She says the place smells like pot. I realize she’s right. She tells me she knows because she had some earlier.

12:15
A man covered in tattoos starts a conversation with her. I wait for him to introduce himself so I can compliment his tattoos. He doesn’t introduce himself.

1:20
We head back up stairs and A tells me that tattoo guy is a felon. He is in awe of the fact that his family is getting high at his one year old brother’s birthday. Then he is upset that they didn’t share.

1:25
We head back downstairs to get food. No one reacts to me being there still. I wonder if I exist. I notice a vape on the food table.

2:00
A makes me watch a TV show about two old women that live together because their husbands left them to be with each other. I ask if the women are lesbians. He says no. I don’t see the point in it if they’re not. I watch anyways.

2:40
A gets us more food and tells me that his family thinks we’re an item.

3:20
A notices me text someone with the contact name ‘Novia’. He asks me who I’m texting. It’s my girlfriend. I tell him it’s no one. He gets quiet.

4:00
A tells me he’ll keep my secret, that he won’t tell anyone my girlfriend’s name is Novia. Novia means girlfriend in Spanish.

5:34
A notices me text my dad to pick me up. He asks if something is wrong. I tell him its nothing, that I have something to do. He asks what. I tell him Its just something. I don’t remember whether or not I told him I was going to the movies with my girlfriend or K. He assumes that I was hit by a sudden spell of depression and tells me it’s okay to admit it. I tell him that’s not it, and that I’ll explain one day. If I’m being honest I’m not sure I will ever get to.

6:50
I arrive at the cinema. I’m wearing a dress because all my pants are in the wash. I haven’t shaved my legs since October. Three people attempt to make conversation with me while I wait for K. I know none of them.

7:05
K arrives and we go into the theater. We realize 30 minutes later when a horror movie starts playing instead of a musical that we walked into the wrong showing.

7:40
We watch the movie like we’re friends.

9:00
The movie ends. We missed the first 40 minutes of it. I didn’t like the movie but I know K loved it so I tell her I liked it on our way out.

9:15
We go our separate ways like we’re friends.

11:00
I think about how much we aren’t.

Assuming that god is real, I think his biggest mistake was creating Satan.

We see god as  the light side and the devil as the dark,

therefore they are truly opposite which makes them truly equal.

Paradise is not always enough for people to give up their ways.

If you want someone to do what you want, you have to put consequences to their actions.

Majority of the Christians I have asked about why they practice Christianity they reply with something like “just incase He’s real”

and I know that He is not God.

Their faith is nothing more than a safety net.

But then again how can the devil even exist?

My parent’s church teaches that god is not a man in the sky.

God is what connects everyone and everything,

God is love.

God is what makes up everything,

which makes sense if god has been there even when there was nothing,

for what else would we be made of if not god?

If god is love then love is everything.

how could we get anything else but love?

how can there be hate when everything else is love?

where would it come from?

how could the devil exist in such a place?

how can you get vanilla from chocolate?

You can’t.

then how?

illusion.

where?

our ego mind.

what?

we are individualized expressions of god.we have to learn how to get back to him.

why would we be separated in the first place?

why?

why?

why?

what is it we are supposed to learn?

what is the point?

what is the point in being someone I’m not for someone who might not exist?

what is the point in making life choices for another life I may not even get?