But now it’s got filters, captions, and a logo.
I wasn’t out here posing cute in soft lighting.
I was self-imploding in parking lots.
Screwing up job interviews with nervous sarcasm,
ghosting people who loved me,
and speed-running bridges like I was allergic to stability.
While everyone else was arching eyebrows and curating angles,
I was backstage panic-scrolling WebMD
trying to figure out if what I was feeling was anxiety,
a blood clot,
or divine punishment for telling my mom the truth.
You know how some folks take mirror pics?
I took memory snapshots of every failure I ever had
and replayed them like a trauma slideshow at midnight.
Caption:
“This was the time I almost let someone love me, but instead I said ‘lol k bye.’”
I didn’t glow up.
I blew up.
Emotionally. Existentially. Online.
But here’s the twist:
I gave it lighting.
I gave it captions.
I gave it branding.
Suddenly my breakdowns had their own font.
My coping mechanisms had merch.
My worst habits?
They had hashtags and a f*cking waitlist.
Because if I was gonna keep sabotaging everything good,
I might as well put it in a newsletter.
So I stopped pretending.
Started documenting.
Named the monster and taught it graphic design.
Now?
People think I’m thriving.
I’m not.
I’m just exceptionally good at curated collapse.
I don’t do selfies.
I do survival screenshots.
Raw. Blurry. Unedited.
But damn if they don’t hit.
Because when I post now,
I’m not fishing for compliments.
I’m dropping proof of life.
Each like?
Is a receipt.
Each share?
An altar.
Not for vanity—
for evidence.
That I made it through
another day without deleting myself.
Because even if I’m still a bit of a wreck,
at least now?
It’s a branded, platform-verified, algorithm-optimized wreck.
And that’s progress, baby.
I Don’t Do Selfies. I Do Self-Sabotage
Mirror says “pose,” I say “nope,”
My sabotage has better scope.
Skip the smile, I light the fuse—
And make my trauma TikTok news.
No filters here, just truths that sting,
A selfie? Nah—I crown my cling.
But now I brand the sabotage—
And sell it back as self-montage.
—The Funny Phoenix, crashing ring lights with raw vibes
