Kristen Campbell
Bio
Hi, I’m Kristen Campbell, a grad student and stay-at-home wife. I love my pets, crafting, gaming, and traveling. After 5 years of teaching, I’m focused on learning, healing from trauma, and living life creatively and fully.
Stories (16)
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The Descent. Content Warning.
1 His smile made me fall in love with him and the sadness in his eyes, on his body, made me want to stay with him. To help him fix himself. He told me of the ways that his body was broken, the wounds on his soul. I learned of his reliance on medication to function. He showed me his scars, looking sheepish as he moved the webcam to make his knee, his arms, his chest, visible. His body criss-crossed with pink scars against white skin. He shared the new wounds that he gave himself, ruby blood streaming down his arms. It seemed like his outside matched my inside. I wondered if there was medication for the pain I felt every day. Thirty years of emptiness, loneliness, never being enough. I had accepted that it was my lot in life to be hollow. Still, somehow, there was that smile that seemed to light up the world, shy and insecure. I fell, head over heels, just like in a Disney story. There was light and magic. There was bliss. Every day I rushed home to see him across the miles and oceans that separated us. My loneliness slowly melted away, filling my heart with warmth, happiness, and belonging. I was no longer empty, but filled with light and joy which welled up inside me each time I saw his face. He became the high point of my day, the one who allowed me to be myself.
By Kristen Campbell8 months ago in Humans
Human Complexity
Sometimes I sit with uneasiness, its company filling the empty spaces, the empty silences. It pricks and pokes at the tiny holes between breaths, between thoughts, between the seconds in which I believe I exist. Other times I dance run wild with joy, laughter on the wind, my heart soaring as I leap from cloud to cloud. Occassionally I find sadness or comfort in my bed, and I am not always sure which one is laying beside me. Is the dark the result of sadness covering my eyes or because comfort has wrapped in too tightly in my blanket? My strangest companion is loneliness who exists but doesn't. Ever present in its absence. Each feeling a part of myself, separate and intrinsic, real and artificial, flat and complex. Contradictions that are logical and necessary.
By Kristen Campbellabout a year ago in Poets
Perfectly Damaged. Content Warning.
The trunk slammed banging hard against the suitcase that took up the entire space. Passport? Check. Boarding Pass? Check. Wrap? Check. Currency? Check. She had everything she needed. The sun was just setting as Pen set off to Los Angeles International Airport with her parents. She took a deep breath to calm herself. The flight was long but this was the start of the rest of her life and she was excited. Nervous, but excited.
By Kristen Campbellabout a year ago in Chapters
Perfectly Damaged. Content Warning.
28 inches, bright pink, TSA approved. Pen stared at the empty suitcase laying on her bed. It was enormous. Still, not quite big enough. Taking a breath, she looked around her room. Most everything had been sold at the garage sale and she had donated the rest. All that was left would have to fit into this one, gigantic, suitcase. She stared at the empty space, a bundle of nerves, butterflies zooming around in her stomach. The computer trilled from her desk and she went over to it, clicking on the green phone button. Blake's face burst to life on the screen and she smiled.
By Kristen Campbellabout a year ago in Chapters
Real Girl. Content Warning.
I feel like clouds of lightning in the dark, but the lightning is black. Static that is sharp and clinging to the binary in my mind. I am good. I am bad. I am angel. I am demon. Binary. On. Off. On. Stuck somewhere in the middle, between living and dying, like mushrooms born of decay. If I’m born of decay can goodness exist? My brain keeps telling me I’m broken. Useless. Deluded. Insane. Dead inside. But if I’m dead inside why does my heart hurt so much, so often. Like a gaping wound with him screaming at me from inside. Fingers clawing at me, trying to break out, to make me as broken as he is. Why is he even here? Why does he matter? Why are his nails so long, why do his teeth gnaw at me? Jagged stumps in bloody gums telling me I deserve this. I can’t get better because I’m not a real girl. I’m just a blow up doll filled with air and cum and hatred. Sit me on the couch and hold my hand, the squeak of rubber on plastic, of the air escaping out of the hole you crawled through, like a balloon stabbed with a toothpick. Thousands of tiny pricks. I look for blood to ooze, pour, spray, but then I remember I’m not a real girl after all.
By Kristen Campbellabout a year ago in Poets
Intrusive Thoughts
My thoughts come at me like a freight train and I’m stuck on the tracks. I try to run but my feet sink down like quicksand. Cement shoes holding me in place to shine a light on all the ways I’m broken. Shattered like the slammed storm door. broken like my heart when he said he could never love someone who looks like me. Self loathing and disgust packed on my back, making me heavy. I want the voices to stop but they play again in my head. An endless loop of not enough, rolling over me like waves at high tide. I can feel myself drowning, slipping down into the dark. the silence makes the voices louder, sharper. Daggers to my soul, cutting me like the thousand cuts I inflicted on my own body. Red jewels of anger seeping out of the thin lines on my skin.
By Kristen Campbellabout a year ago in Poets
"The Truth Is Out There": A Visit to the International UFO Museum and Research Center in Roswell, New Mexico
Let me start by saying, I’m not a person who believes that I've been abducted by aliens, and while I believe they exist, I don't believe that they visit humans, much less do all this probing that everyone talks about. I believe that there is so much universe and humans can't be the only intelligent life in it. That being said, I have wanted to visit Roswell, New Mexico for many, many, years. I love science fiction and couldn't help but want to visit the nerd-mecca that is Roswell. I finally had the opportunity last summer and went to visit the International UFO Museum and Research Center, even if it wasn't during the height of the tourism season. Adult admission is only $5 with discounts for children, military personnel, and seniors, and is open from 9 AM to 5 PM. I arrived with my mother around noon and parked in the free public parking. While there were quite a few people there, it wasn't uncomfortably crowded, even for me.
By Kristen Campbell7 years ago in Futurism
What It Means To Get Out
I was the victim of an abusive relationship for two and a half years. There were good times. There were bad times. In the end, it wasn't until I looked back that I saw just how bad the bad times were. I have always had self esteem issues. I have discerned my own value based on how I believed others viewed me. The problem is, when you think everyone only sees the worst in you, you end up only seeing the worst in yourself. What does that have do to with surviving an abusive relationship? I'm getting there. You can only see where you are when you see where you've been and how you got there and now... here. So I saw my worst and was blind to my best. I was desperate to be loved and accepted because I thought I was so worthless. I went from person to person searching for that love. My relationships were shallow and degrading. I accepted being the side girl when I wanted to be the main girl. I accepted being controlled and manipulated because I believed it was better than being alone. Over time, I accepted worse and worse treatment until finally, I hit rock bottom.
By Kristen Campbell8 years ago in Humans
Fat Girl Fabulous
Ink and Blood and Soul I've grown up writing. Putting thoughts and ideas and feelings down on paper. Now I go to school full time and I write even more. I'm about to go to grad school and when I get there, I'll have to write my dissertation. Writing is a part of my soul. Like breathing or sleeping or drinking. Maybe it's more a part of me than any of those things. Breathing and sleeping and eating are facts of life. I enjoy them. I need them. They don't really touch my soul, though. Writing does that. It offers expression to the inexpressible, like art or dance. Arranging words on the page is like writing a symphony. Taking note of every syllable and sound. The soft whoosh of sh followed by the sharp, clipped p in ship. When I write I try to take these sounds and arrange them in a way that makes my heart hurt. It is as though my heart is speaking. When I open my mouth to speak the words come out jumbled and out of order but when I write, it is the purest form of expression. I'm writing this article because I believe I have something to say but I'm really not sure how to say it. The thoughts are fractured and messy and beautiful as they are. This is my attempt to show you the beautiful, crazy mess inside my head, spoken through my heart.
By Kristen Campbell8 years ago in Viva
Grad School Application Guide
I'm just going to start this off by saying this is far from a perfect and complete guide for applying to grad school, much of what I have here is picked up from various other guides online. This is just the tips and tricks that I have learned so far in my planning to apply. Don't stop your research here but please feel free to use this as another resource. Now, hello. I'm Kris. I'm an English major and an Education major and I'm applying to graduate school at the end of this year. Yeah, November/December of 2018 and I'm working on it already. I am a first generation college student and I have to admit, it's pretty overwhelming to figure out everything yourself. I've made it through community college and I am doing well at University but I have to admit, when it comes to turning in grad school applications, I feel totally overwhelmed. There is a lot of work to do before turning in all those applications and because of the really, really, really, low acceptance rate at most graduate schools, I want to be as prepared as I can be. So here is what I'm learning:
By Kristen Campbell8 years ago in Education
