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.

Every year, for at least the last several, by this date I'm done.  I'm just so fucking over the last 364 days that I cannot wait for this shit to be finished.  It's so easy to look back at the year, through the recent magnified lens of holiday angst and see all of the things left fucked up, unfinished, undone, or just not gone right.

The past week social media has been flooded with "fun" posts of the "list one thing you're proud to have accomplished this year" or "what's your happiest memory of 2018" variety.  And every time I scroll across one I sit and think.  And ponder.  And strain.  This year has been so awful, on so many levels, and for so many reasons that I have to truly struggle to think of ANY good things.

So, given my general end of year attitude, right now would normally be the time I am beyond ready to tack a new number onto the date.  The hell with 2018.  Burn it with fire, bury it in a shallow grave, whatever, just get it the fuck away from me.

Only...

Firsts are hard.  So are lasts.  I hate this year.  So much.  There are not words for how much.  But it's the last one I had with my mom.  And that makes me want to cling to this thing that I loathe, like it's a life raft that could, that might, keep my head above water.  Sitting trapped in this too quiet house, feeling the minutes ticking away, I know time does not operate on my whims.  I wish it did.  That it could.  If there was deity who could be swayed, I would beg for a do-over of this year.  Even if the outcome had to be the same.  I'm not ready for it to be 2019.  It's not a first that I want.  But I know, like with so many other painful things, that there is no choice to be made.