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The Glass Child.jpg

The Glass Child.jpg

THE GLASS CHILD
CHARLOTTE ERIKSSON

Author. Songwriter. Dreamer. Wanderer.

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Selected Writings ....

Books Charlotte Eriksson.jpg

5am
again,
drunk on someone else’s love,
or couch,
and I’ve never felt more at home.

I fled myself,
from the life I’ve built
because I’ve been inhabiting routines I don’t want to stand for.

Inhabiting skin I’d rather shed
but still took on
like a soldier serving his country,
for that’s what they told me to do.
But I was not
strong
or wise,
but young and foolish,
for what is this thing? Trading passions for a tiny bit of acceptance,

and I am not a Sunday morning inside four walls
with clean blood
and organised drawers.
I am the hurricane setting fire to the forests
at night when no one else is alive,
or awake,
however you choose to see it,
and I live in my own flames.
Sometimes burning too bright and too wild
to make things last
or handle
myself or anyone else
and so I run.
Run run run,
far and wide
until my bones ache and lungs split
and it feels good.
Hear that, people? It feels good,
because I am the slave and ruler of my own body
and I wish to do with it exactly as I please,
and living in this skin is hard and painful, most of the times,

because I never volunteered to take this on.

The daily sacrifice of heart over mind,
the forever on going task of explaining this and that,
and why I don’t want to look like this and
be like that
but still here I am and if this is the body I’ve been given I’m sure as hell gonna make it work.
If this is the place I’ve been given, I’m sure as hell gonna make this work.

So I fled the me that was never really me and I’m on my way. To newer lands and uncleaned streets
for I’ve had enough of childish safety in comfort.
Enough of all telling me to look and do, like this and that,

and I never meant to please anyone but myself
and you can call me selfish,
throw words like knives in the dark but I will not listen,
for not listening to sharp words brought me to where I am today
and I believe in the path I’ve been given. If my only task in this life is to walk it,
I surely will walk it
prouder than anyone else.

If this is the path I’ve been given, I will walk it
prouder than anyone else,
for no one else can.

// from my book You’re Doing Just Fine ☾

© Copyright 2023 Broken Glass Records

Charlotte Eriksson Books

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CONTACT

Booking & PR: lisa@brokenglassrecords.se

FREE EBOOK

Travel Essays on Leavings and Arrivings

To thank you for letting me write and tell stories ... I'm giving you the digital version (pdf + epub) of my 2nd book Another Vagabond Lost To Love as a free gift, from me to you. If you like it, please consider picking up one of my other books as a physical copy in my store, or just simply share the ebook with a friend ♡

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My favorite thing about life is how quickly it turns without asking. One minute you’re bored or fine or brushing your teeth and then something happens and you’re not the same person anymore. Someone leaves. Or shows up. You get the job, or lose the job, and something breaks in a way that can’t be fixed, only carried.

The biggest things were never planned, just sudden. You say, “what’s the plan,” and life says, “this is your plan.”

I wrote an entire book about talking to death like it was a person at the end of a hallway and at some point I realized Death is not trying to take me. It’s just trying to wake me up. Make me notice. I’ve been rushing through the good parts of life like they’re errands, believing I’m always on my way to something better and bigger, but I don’t want a bigger life. I want a slow one. Wide angle but sharp focus. I want the kind of Tuesday where nothing happens and nobody texts back but the coffee tastes just right and there’s a new book coming out from your favorite author and they say the rain will stop in the afternoon. Your body doesn’t hurt when you sit down and tomorrow you’re going to the seaside with someone kind and soft.

Maybe the only real revolution is to live like it’s not all content.
To go unnoticed from time to time. To make soup. To need less.
To love someone who reads the fine print.
Or just to wake up
and not think of what happens next.

I’m not afraid of the ending,
I’m afraid of not noticing the middle.

#charlotteeriksson

My favorite thing about life is how quickly it turns without asking. One minute you’re bored or fine or brushing your teeth and then something happens and you’re not the same person anymore. Someone leaves. Or shows up. You get the job, or lose the job, and something breaks in a way that can’t be fixed, only carried.

The biggest things were never planned, just sudden. You say, “what’s the plan,” and life says, “this is your plan.”

I wrote an entire book about talking to death like it was a person at the end of a hallway and at some point I realized Death is not trying to take me. It’s just trying to wake me up. Make me notice. I’ve been rushing through the good parts of life like they’re errands, believing I’m always on my way to something better and bigger, but I don’t want a bigger life. I want a slow one. Wide angle but sharp focus. I want the kind of Tuesday where nothing happens and nobody texts back but the coffee tastes just right and there’s a new book coming out from your favorite author and they say the rain will stop in the afternoon. Your body doesn’t hurt when you sit down and tomorrow you’re going to the seaside with someone kind and soft.

Maybe the only real revolution is to live like it’s not all content.
To go unnoticed from time to time. To make soup. To need less.
To love someone who reads the fine print.
Or just to wake up
and not think of what happens next.

I’m not afraid of the ending,
I’m afraid of not noticing the middle.

#charlotteeriksson

You know you’ve moved on when you find other people beautiful.
when you don’t avert your eyes but keep them steady
or when you stay the night, the last one at the party,
and you don’t feel sorry. or empty. or guilty
because whatever, where are you going anyway?
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
i used to sit here, in this same pub in this same city
7 years ago, writing another book,
like i am now
again
and i wrote myself out of heartbreak with that book
like i am now
i guess.
in some ways maybe i’ve written myself into heartbreak this time but i’m coming out of it.
at least i find other people beautiful again. they make me smile. maybe more than i have before and i have a good feeling about things.

You know you’ve moved on when you find other people beautiful.
when you don’t avert your eyes but keep them steady
or when you stay the night, the last one at the party,
and you don’t feel sorry. or empty. or guilty
because whatever, where are you going anyway?
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
i used to sit here, in this same pub in this same city
7 years ago, writing another book,
like i am now
again
and i wrote myself out of heartbreak with that book
like i am now
i guess.
in some ways maybe i’ve written myself into heartbreak this time but i’m coming out of it.
at least i find other people beautiful again. they make me smile. maybe more than i have before and i have a good feeling about things.

For the days gone by, the mess I made and the magic it was. 🤍

For the days gone by, the mess I made and the magic it was. 🤍

A reminder 🤍

A reminder 🤍

“Leave that room, kid. Shut the screen off. Take your dirty shoes, not the pretty ones, and go out to feel the wind. Touch water. Touch earth. Touch wood, touch skin, touch everything you can touch and memorise everything because that’s all you will live off in the end, and that’s all you will need.”

|| from my book “Everything Changed When I Forgave Myself” ☽ Link in bio, I ship worldwide (still!) 🤍
#charlotteeriksson #bookquotes #smallpress

“Leave that room, kid. Shut the screen off. Take your dirty shoes, not the pretty ones, and go out to feel the wind. Touch water. Touch earth. Touch wood, touch skin, touch everything you can touch and memorise everything because that’s all you will live off in the end, and that’s all you will need.”

|| from my book “Everything Changed When I Forgave Myself” ☽ Link in bio, I ship worldwide (still!) 🤍
#charlotteeriksson #bookquotes #smallpress

I suffer from hypervigilance and passive-defensive reactions. That’s what my therapist told me, twelve weeks in, after I confessed to lashing out at another airport security guard.

I’d prepared for six weeks—special containers, measured liquids, rehearsed unpacking. Still, she stopped me. Made me reveal everything while my hands shook with rage and shame. I spent the flight googling: Am I manic? Sociopathic? What kind of help exists for someone like me?

My therapist smiled when I told her. She always forgives me, like some believe God forgives them. Translates my chaos into academic terms as if it’s ordinary. “Congratulations,” she said once, “you’re one of us.”

The core issue: it’s always been me versus everyone else. Everyone’s out to get me. Nobody wants me around.
I walk into banks convinced they’ll ask me to leave. Sit in classrooms certain teachers grade me lower for being me. Arrive at boyfriends’ apartments apologizing for existing before crossing the threshold.

My therapist can’t pinpoint when this started. I suspect it’s genetic, coded into my DNA. So now, at the slightest provocation I believe I’m thrown to wolves. Fight for my life, then withdraw. Panting. I survived. Keep going.

But life isn’t a battlefield— they tell me. I don’t believe them yet, but someday I will. Someday I’ll enter rooms with genuine smiles. Tilt my head at confrontation and say “Interesting,” then continue my day. Someday I’ll be uncomplicated. Calm.

“What if the wolves aren’t real?”

She said that one day. My therapist. At first I didn’t understand. What wolves? Where? She didn’t say more, just closed her notebook as I realized it wasn’t a question but a statement. I left feeling confused and abandoned.

What if the wolves aren’t real?

What if I’ve been running from shadows, fighting ghosts, apologizing to empty rooms? What if the only predator stalking me through airports and bedrooms is the one in my chest—this inherited fear firing at nothing, at everything, at the possibility I might be safe?

What if the real war isn’t with the world at all? What if it’s with the stories I tell myself about it?

I suffer from hypervigilance and passive-defensive reactions. That’s what my therapist told me, twelve weeks in, after I confessed to lashing out at another airport security guard.

I’d prepared for six weeks—special containers, measured liquids, rehearsed unpacking. Still, she stopped me. Made me reveal everything while my hands shook with rage and shame. I spent the flight googling: Am I manic? Sociopathic? What kind of help exists for someone like me?

My therapist smiled when I told her. She always forgives me, like some believe God forgives them. Translates my chaos into academic terms as if it’s ordinary. “Congratulations,” she said once, “you’re one of us.”

The core issue: it’s always been me versus everyone else. Everyone’s out to get me. Nobody wants me around.
I walk into banks convinced they’ll ask me to leave. Sit in classrooms certain teachers grade me lower for being me. Arrive at boyfriends’ apartments apologizing for existing before crossing the threshold.

My therapist can’t pinpoint when this started. I suspect it’s genetic, coded into my DNA. So now, at the slightest provocation I believe I’m thrown to wolves. Fight for my life, then withdraw. Panting. I survived. Keep going.

But life isn’t a battlefield— they tell me. I don’t believe them yet, but someday I will. Someday I’ll enter rooms with genuine smiles. Tilt my head at confrontation and say “Interesting,” then continue my day. Someday I’ll be uncomplicated. Calm.

“What if the wolves aren’t real?”

She said that one day. My therapist. At first I didn’t understand. What wolves? Where? She didn’t say more, just closed her notebook as I realized it wasn’t a question but a statement. I left feeling confused and abandoned.

What if the wolves aren’t real?

What if I’ve been running from shadows, fighting ghosts, apologizing to empty rooms? What if the only predator stalking me through airports and bedrooms is the one in my chest—this inherited fear firing at nothing, at everything, at the possibility I might be safe?

What if the real war isn’t with the world at all? What if it’s with the stories I tell myself about it?

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Store
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Bio
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