more (time)

 

Today is (would have been? I never know how to phrase that..) my mom's birthday. And I'm giving myself permission to be sad, or nostalgic, or whatever it is that I need to feel. Do me a favor, if you're reading this, do something good for yourself today? Anything. Just something you really enjoy.

Why

 

.

 

birthday wishes

When you somehow manage to write things that you aren't really ready to say...

I cried so hard writing this that it's a wonder I didn't short out my tablet. That's like, cathartic, or something, right? I don't know, it just made my head stuff up and my face hurt.  But, I'm pretending really hard, I am, that I still somehow, somewhere have the capacity for hope.  And that maybe someday it'll be something other than just a trigger. So, somebody remind me to update this next year, okay?

christmas tree lights

 

I'm not saying  that all this holiday cheer has made me lose my mind. 

But I'm also not not saying that.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

•merry and bright and hungry•

So, funny story...when my dad died several years back, I was sick as hell. Worst case of flu I had ever had. I couldn't cry. Because if I even got the least little bit teary, I literally couldn't breathe. And with my family, well, gallows humor is definitely not off the table. Were we at one point sitting in the car in the funeral home parking lot cracking jokes about necromancy?  Maybe. And if that did happen has it become a kinda fucked up running Zombie Dad narrative in the years since? Yeah, seems reasonable.

Merry Xmas & Season's Eatings Y'all 😉😈😏

click for bonus spoken word version

 

•solstice, sorta•

 

dead roses

 

•take heart•

•i hate the word together•

i want to believe

Written for a challenge, this isn't really what I meant to write, and I don't know that it's actually finished.  But it's done for now, and that seems somehow fitting.

•phobia•

crushed

reflect, refract

i'm not

Unexpected early morning arguments and unresponsive anxiety meds are not a good combination for anything.  Except angsty poetry, apparently.

funerals

...

please reply

Dear Mom,

I know you thought it was stupid how people wrote happy birthday posts to dead loved ones on social media.  "People don't care about birthdays when they're dead.  And they're surely not checking facebook!"

Yeah, I know.  It's the new version of talking to gravestones (Yes, I know you thought that was stupid, too.  That's why I phrased it that way).  But, the thing is, I finally kind of get the mentality.  Maybe those people are alone, and not sitting well with it.  Maybe they don't have anyone they feel they can grieve with.  Maybe their loss is still too big to be contained.

I don't want to tell you happy birthday. 

I wanna tell you how hard this year has been.  And all the stupid shit that's happened.  I want to tell you that I feel stuck, and I don't know how to get out.  I wanna tell you that I'm scared, nearly every day, waiting for the next catastrophe, and they seem to always come.  I wanna ask you where the fuck your keys and and my damn birth certificate are.  I wanna tell you that I haven't managed to burn the house down (yet), but it came close a couple times. I want to ask you to hug Mamma for me, to tell Nothing and Elwood how much I miss them.  I want to tell you to ask Dad what the hell that weird noise is that the car is making.

Only...really, I don't want to tell you anything.  I just want you to hug me and tell me everything is gonna be okay, even if it's not. 

Fight Fire With Words, day 2

Day two of the #fightfirewithwords symposium.  Full disclosure, I almost skipped this one because I've written about grief so much in the past year.  I'd like this to be more hopeful...but I'm just not there yet.

Please consider donating to either of these very worthy charities:
www.wires.org.au
hhttps://www.gofundme.com/f/help-thirsty-koalas-devastated-by-recent-fires

Check out the event page:

https://m.facebook.com/events/2198352437140522

You can still join the symposium here:
https://coursecraft.net/courses/z9ZMb

breathing fire

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