dichotomy

here

I wanna go home
but I don't know
where that is
because nothin
feels like home
anymore
I hate everywhere
that you aren't

+/-

Sometimes inspiration is the perfect storm of a holiday weekend, disaster,
inconsiderate people, and just one. too. many. empty platitudes

     +/-
     yet another trite saying
     holistic meme
     caring and helpful....
     you're not what you seem
     inspiration wrapped
     in the most perfect bow
     security blankets?
     for those of us here below
     a small change of mindset
     is that what it takes?
     to mitigate this damage
     put on the brakes
     for minds running rampant
     filled with pain and despair
     and your sugared words
     this shoddy repair

when the writing prompts get out of hand

{I've been playing around with randomized prompts, and bits of short fiction.  So when I pulled "violin" and "person covered in tattoos" this was definitely not what I meant or wanted to write.}

Ink & Strings

I am not who I thought I would be. Neither violinist nor person covered in tattoos. Do I want to be either? Yes and no. Had I had the money to spare in my late teens, early twenties, late twenties, early thirties, etc etc etc I might have gotten a lot of tattoos that I thought I needed--hard emphasis on “thought”--instead of the one acquired at 42. I have a list now. Of need versus want...and still no funds to accomplish it.  So, I could have been covered in tattoos, though they’d have been the wrong ones.

As for the violinist...as I write this, I sit under an antique violin case hung on the wall. An odd sort of family heirloom gifted to my father by the doctor who delivered him. It is not strung. It has not been played within my lifetime. It hangs on the wall, where it has been for as long as I’ve known it; not even a decoration, just a thing we had. A prop for a story. Valued...but in an arbitrary sort of way.

I would have loved to have taken lessons in my youth. But it was another thing we couldn’t afford, and the violin itself another low priority “should”. As in, “We should get someone to check it out.” “We should see if it’s still playable.” “We should see about getting it restrung.”

When I was a child I thought all of these should statements were things we were going to do. That’s what “should” means in that context, right? Something that you should do is important...?

As an adult, I think should is a curse word. Not like saying fuck or bullshit. A true curse.

I’ve been beaten down by so many years of “it should work” or “we should be able to do it”, “we should be okay on the bills”, “the life insurance should pay out”, “we should be able to get the car fixed this time”, and my all time favorite: “meh, it should be fine”. I flinch every time someone says it anymore. And I cringe and chastise myself on the rare occasion that it comes out of my mouth.

Maybe somewhere in an alternate universe there is a woman who looks like me. Maybe she is healthy and less angsty, and not crippled by depression and anxiety. Maybe she isn’t scarred by cursed words. Maybe she isn’t alone. Maybe she is calloused from years of the pressure of strings, and inked with artwork, only a few of which she feels the barest twinges of regret for. Maybe she has a safe stable house that she loves. Maybe she has a dog, or a cat, or a ferret. Maybe she has a husband or wife or both. And maybe they all have family dinners every month with both blood and bound.

Maybe she has occasional nightmares of another woman, one with her face, but none of her charm. Nights where she wakes in tears, and becomes angry with her bedmate for not understanding why the idea of “everything staying the same” is so heart wrenching. Nights where she wants more than anything to go back into the dream, to hug that other woman and tell her everything will be alright. But she’s also glad that she’s awake, that they are just dreams. Because she doesn’t really believe that it can be okay.

the aftertaste is odd

                    emotion measured
                    like exotic ingredients
                    in a long lost recipe
                    on how to be
                    socially acceptable

.contrary.

ow

"Who hurt you?"
"I did."
"Why don't you stop?"

how
how do i not be me?
how do i change
everything
that i fundamentally
know
about myself
in an effort to be
healthy

just FOCUS, please

Y'know those competition cooking shows where they throw together a tag team of people who don't work well together?  And the one actually working is just trying their best to muddle along?  While the other is screaming half formed instructions because they know exactly how to do the thing but really really suck at articulating it?  And everything ends up messy and all over the place because the person on the sidelines can't explain multitasking and the person cooking can't think about what they need to do while their partner is shrieking partial sentences and demands at them?

My brain is the one frustrated and yelling from the sidelines today.  And I'm the one frozen and scattered because I can't do ALL OF THE THINGS AT ONCE.

i don't know

how long

        if every loss
        leaves a hole
        how long before
        there's not enough
              left
        to hold together?

how are you

okay.

Y'ever have one of those days/weeks/lifetimes when you are feeling so stressed and overwhelmed and alone that it kind of plateaus into some sort of bizarre false zen and everything is just seriously really FINE?  Yeah.  About that.

moar words?

When you realize you've accidentally done the first two days of a challenge without meaning to.  Albeit in sort of the wrong way...

Lighthouse

Equinox

digging one hand

fingers deep 

down 

past soil

anchored in bedrock

trying not to shift

fault lines

other reaching

grasping for sky

I'll be your

p e n d u l u m

if you'll just

let me balance

day 5

#5daysoferos, final day ☺

day 4

day 3

     sometimes comfort is sharp
     or dull and thuddy
     sometimes the pain
     is
     what i need
     and sometimes it’s
     just the buzzing

     in my bones
     in my head
     in my flesh
     in my bed

     everything too loud
     and never the right
     kind
     of bzzzzz

     can hurt
     feel like solace
     can rough handling
     feel like home

     y e s

     the bruises are already there
     you just bring them to the surface
     this is how having
     you
     written
     into my skin
     feels

     #5daysoferos day 3

day 2

Hold

you think it's an erotic thing
i see your smirk
when you flash a little
forearm
just a tease
because you think
you know my mind
you don't understand

that this fetish
originates in comfort
that it's not
always about
feeling, touching
grasping

#5DaysofEros day 2

challenging, day 1

My entry for day 1 of the #5DaysofEros challenge (created by Fleassy Malay)

I would say that short challenges are pretty easy to finish, except #fulldisclosure I first joined this one two rounds ago...and have yet to complete one.  So...your guess is as good as mine as to how this is gonna go...

Scribbles and Scribes

Does anyone else absolutely loathe how terrible their handwriting has become over the years?  I suppose it's a sort of casualty of the electronic age.  And as much as it bothers me, it's almost a decent trade. 

I've gotten so used to scribbling things out fast because my brain works so much faster than my hands...but also likes to forget things, which isn't helpful, brain.  Between the fact that I type half the day, and that I have developed a weird staccato shorthand that often isn't even legible to me in order to try to keep up with my brain's insistence on "write this down NOW", it's no wonder my handwriting has fallen by the wayside. 

All that to say, here's proof I am making an effort to do the poetry and posting things:

giving in to my brain's demands

Confession:  I don't always follow my own rules.  Case in point, writing things in my head doesn't get them anywhere else.  (Yes, I did just link an old as fuck post that happened to be my first entry here.)

I've been in a garbage headspace lately.  Super surprising, I know 🙄  But I have been writing.  Thing is, it seems my brain is only interested on writing halfass notes on things I want/need to write, but is fully here for poetry.

As part of my brain's ransom demands I was forced to start a new instagram account (mostly) focusing in this...poem writing endeavor...thing.

Which I promptly ran away from. Again, I know you're just shocked at that behavior.

Honestly, though, fuck it.  If it makes my brain quit yammering at me, maybe it'll also send a little dopamine and serotonin my way.  I could definitely use it.

sign, signs, signing

I'd written it probably 800 times.  The name she gave me and my designation, daughter.  On every form, on every paper.  Verbally to every nurse and doctor, aide and chaplain.

But that last night something was different

One of the handful of things from that whole day that I remember with absolute clarity......sitting there only half listening to the hospice nurse telling me what was in front of me, what I was signing away, and how everything froze for a moment at that line for relationship.  I remember that it hurt, remember thinking this would be the last time.  I wrote the word daughter and it felt like a severing, an ending, the last.

It still does

Even though it wasn't

Since then, I've signed countless mortuary papers, and insurance papers, and bank account closure papers.  Every one of them with the requirement of who and what I am.  And every one has felt false.  I talk to bill collectors skirting the line between polite condolences and annoyance at wanting their money (yeah? me too. so sorry, there is none), and they all need to know who I am.

So do I

I know they question because I hesitate each time.  I can't not.  It doesn't feel right.  There are no grandparents, no parents, there is no one before me anymore.  There is no one to call me daughter but fucking bureaucracy, and they don't count, they never will.

I don't know what else I can say.  I know what people expect.  Even though it feels wrong.

In this instance, I don't know who I am.  I don't know my place in this world.

Can you still be a daughter when there is no one left to claim you?

Weighting

I always cringe when I see people who have staunch determinations of losing weight.  I know this is A Thing in Jan & Feb (all related to that new year's resolution nonsense); this pseudo-health kick that rarely lasts.

Real talk?  I don't like the idea of "getting in shape" either.  We're already shapes.  Maybe you're a square and you'd rather be a rectangle?  I'm pretty sure I'm technically a pear (which is confusing anyway because it's a fruit, not a shape), but I'm here to tell you, I have, and always will, self-identify as a hexagon.

Anyway.

My first thoughts in these scenarios are always "Why losing weight? Why not getting healthier?  Or wanting to become strong?  Why not focusing on self-care?  Or self-love?  Why not work on becoming friends with our bodies instead of resentful enemies?"

I said "always" there, but that's not true.  It's always before today.

Because today my thought was:  Yes.  I would like to lose weight.  The weight of the world's problems.  The weight of my grief and guilt.  The weight of poverty, of stress and fear.  The weight of this depression and anxiety that seem determined to piggyback me into the ground.  The weight of waiting for things I am not certain will ever come to pass.  Those weights?  I would dearly love to lose.