and god laughs
i wonder what you would do. i wonder if i couldve protected you the way i can protect dear sir. in the backseat strapped in safe. checking in on you. cleaning up your vomit and telling you it’s ok. everyone vomits. and i still love you.
the most surreal thing is literally losing all my close friends through this. i talk to new people and i feel so far away from them. i feel no connection whatsoever. mistrust is the only vibe. what’s wrong with me.
what was it that i wanted from you? why do I lean onto a future when i know more than anything, i know that there is none?
lean on the glass, fall through the counter.
i went to the rock pile and laid in the gravel looking at the stars through my tears. wet falling into my ears.
“you left me here”
is what i said
a boat that bumps into the dock so soft, i bump into situations that should arouse anxiety but i feel nothing. i shut off my alarms, i miss meetings, i hear your opinions of me. the fucking church clock with its noon bells finally pulling me out of my tedious nightmare of storing my cast irons in a room. THINGS: i gotta hold onto them. they make me legitimate.
look at an older person’s picture and imagine the choices they made that got them there. inane choices, self-serving. in the end falling down that funnel, plopping onto the sandy pile of discarded meta-thoughts like everyone else. like everyone else.
that’s what is hurting a lot this week. how “everyone else” everyone else is. but you, you were different, and im not just saying that bc you’re dead. you filled a room, but you always tucked your shoes out of the way. you folded your shirts immediately. i picture you insisting on sleeping on the floor so your mom wouldn’t spend money on a bed for you. your long body. you, cheery, relishing the floor. you, always, needing none of the comforts, none of the THINGS. you existed purely as yourself, you didn’t need materials or credibility. you were so used to being stripped bare that you just were. you were great and i loved you and you looked into my eyes and said you loved me. so many times. you loved me. and that makes me feel like i could keep going. even though without you the loneliness is resounding. i will become that older person in the photo. ppl will see me as if i never had a past. ppl will see me and not see you, not see the echoing loss of you.
i think a lot of that sunday a few days before you died. “i feel like im gonna die soon.” how did you know? why did you tell me? how did you leave me here?
it took me a week but i cut my xan intake in half. last night i took one, no benadryl and i slept so heavy, barely able to keep my eyes open reading.
i didnt go to marys party at my own house i dont know why exactly, i just couldnt. i walked through so ppl knew i was there. i just couldnt be there. `
i wonder abt 2020 now. like will i really ever have the courage to live the way i want and need to live before i die? im not sure. this pseudo safety life though… this absolute lead filled horizontal existence. no.
it’s portland af today and the grey is just too much. i was so proud that i woke at 830 am but then came home and napped for hours. hours. it felt so good.
today was actually joyous af
i only got through 5 sun salutation A’s last night before I was overcome with nausea, yet toda i woke with my thighs burning. am i really starting from the beginning? today i pushed through to sun B and told myself muscle memory. is a thing. my body would remember how to be well. my body would become aroused by the contraction of my muscles and slide into the memory of tautness, strength, happiness. it was hard. i do feel that my mind gets all stuck in my head and when i exercise, i spread out. i remember me throughout my whole body. but now, all my clothes are tight, my breasts are full, a cup size larger than usual. my belly falls to the side when i read in a way that reminds me of lovers that i’ve secretly judged. all my valor about being thin is coming up into my mouth now. just force yourself, make yourself and then it will click. all the little adages i told myself to tell my future self, to tell me, now. they echo heavy, ironically, cruel. i want to heal by doing nothing. i want to heal with naps and baths and calling out sick and laying in the sun. i want to heal by not doing the work.
every room i go into is pleasant and then, it isn’t. it’s taken me many rooms to notice the common denominator is me. i make rooms unpleasant. this place was full of light and now it isn’t. i brought the dark. the dark is in me.
i know bc i keep thinking it’s the place. like, “i have to get out of this place” my room, my house, my office, my classroom, puerto rico hostel, perfect beach, warm cafe, bustling library. then i go to a new place and well here i am. the dark creeps in. it only take a couple hours, at first i am joyed at being in the new place. i jump up and down even. i make sounds of pleasure and contentedness. then, it comes in. fuck! “oh no, not this place too” i have thought too many times, now I know it is me. i bring the dark. i am the dark.
and in this place at this time again, i turn to face my dark. i turn to face myself in the most terrifying rawness.
i admit i do think that if you were here to love me all the dark would melt away. why didn’t i protect myself from your love? every moment i am pulled further and further from the memory of you. your warm skin, girly hips. the way you’d look at me through those impossible lashes, your lips surrounded with holes from abandoned piercings. god i wish i could remember what we talked about. i wish i could recall with ease, the energy that hung between us. it was love. we loved each other. right? did you love me? the doubt is the darkness. blooming inside me fast. it takes up all the space of me. it takes up the spaces im in. fucking free me.
it’s hard to remember days but i remember feelings. i remember last week i felt peace i felt my power. i bought silly shoes on royal st. i ate a bagel alone on the river. biked through saints traffic to broadmoor to drop off cigarettes and books to a, to no avail. that was monday. dec 16. 2 months. i thought the pain left but it still comes. in different ways. in different times. i stopped taking my wellbutrin for a week, maybe 2, im not sure. i want to feel it dissipate the cloud of depression. give me energy. unintended side affects.
i know the dark, ay, no doubt i know the dark. it’s not here right now.
i guess ive been gifted a sort of numbness? i cannot feel and i feel far away. but i can do some other things. im glad.
less dependent on xanax. the pain is manageable, the shock is gone. their death is a fact. oo but even as i write that i feel a sting. ok, maybe it’s not a fact yet.
their voice fades. “i love you” i wish i could hear it. come to me.
my horoscope told me to learn how to lucid dream. as if it’s just like that. but- i do believe this brain is all i have and it’s more than i can imagine. robert is in there, loving me. i need to get there. down liquid melatonin and pray to the dark to take me there tonight.
i sat heavy with my pain in puerto rico. i had to approach the cop in my head with a machete. robert saw me, yes, but what did they see about me that i value so much? i invest so much time into worrying about forgetting. assuming i have no self left already. when it’s all i have.
i almost do things and then i don’t and i ask myself, why not? for what are you bowing? every checkpoint is gone. there is only yourself standing between you and freedom.
aphorisms that mean nothing if not read in the right time.
ive changed before and ill do it again.
i will not your love for me define me.
you broke my trust in the most painful way. all signs point to give in. but im not this place. im not that person or their love. im not my friends im not my job im not even my experiences.
ive lost my confidence before and i can get it again. i can taste the lemony edges of it. that almost-arrogance, that unshakable boldness. i am almost upon it. coming into my own. it will save me.
people make plans 