Repeat

They are profoundly present,

an army of eyes

ever protesting, ever vigilant.

Beggar’s brown and puddle blue

I can never escape

their instinct to congregate.

–

They fear deviation,

the alternate view,

the unlit road

that winds itself

tighter than time.

Their sameness

is the same everyday

but it is without reassurance

or comfort that I slide

in and out of their routines.

–

All they know of me

is my nervousness, my downcast eyes,

my sideways trajectory.

To me they are as familiar

as the seasons or the weather.

I inhale them with every heartbeat

and in each step I touch upon

some mundane instance of them

which is and ever will be off-limits.

–

I exist but they would not have me

in the same room or any room

which they have inhabited.

Even their secrets are boring.

That is the worst part of it.

They have lived

the whole of their miraculous life

simply repeating each other.

–

Photo by M Liisanantti on Unsplash

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Vengeful Spirit

I could be a chrysanthemum

in the hands of a child

or a bronze bell

sitting stupefied in the shrine

of any number of saints.

But I am more like an unshakeable ferocity

that forms itself again and again

in the jutting of hips

and the gnashing of teeth.

–

My emotions are vengeful spirits,

torches burning blue

in the fanatical condolence

that is sleep.

A heart which is part stomach,

a pelvis gutted like a Jack-O-Lantern,

a fan of hands which sweep away

the remains of a day

that ended on a sour note.

–

Happiness is rage.

Sorrow is a kind of seething hatred.

Intimacy can only be found in softness.

To overcome me

is to breach the invertebrate shell.

It is the palest of deaths.

–

I have given birth to infinities

and to a thousand screeching indignities.

The waves are restless about me.

I travel beneath them

like a hunter whose only weapons

are that which can reasonably fit inside the body.

Blood, bones, and organs.

–

Vulnerability cannot be extinguished.

It is the best and worst of what a man can be

and the sharpest of blades.

I have tasted and tortured.

I have walked up the wall

and back down again

without a sense

of where I am going.

–

-Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash

Desire and desire alone exists.

Birth and death are simultaneous.

I have seen the spiral,

the ineffable,

the innumerable, existential sins

which empty false hearts

of their reserves.

–

We are womb-bound,

vestigial little strokes of nothing

imbued with genius.

All genius is, in fact, savage

in that it consumes

without remediation.

–

I have touched the inside out

brought forth the clay man

and wept for hours without reason.

–

In the dark our screams

are another’s crescendo.

Some people have a taste for fear.

I myself prefer the scent of butterflies

and the brittle light of a pencil

that catches unremorsefully

on my innermost something.

–

I could tell you that today

I was supremely ordinary

and that, in and of itself,

is an achievement.

I could tell you how

I lie awake at night

silently praying for an emergency

to justify my vigilance

but what I most want to say

is that I know someone

very much like myself.

–

She occupies the same

imperious suit of flesh.

She worries

that her desperate,

middle of the night tirades

have been witnessed

and that her body

is slowly but surely succumbing

to the ravages of her mind.

–

Dying isn’t such a big deal.

It is perfectly natural

and as subject to change

as any other state of being.

No one really knows

what goes on in the minds

of children and Gods.

–

Sea grass and fireflies

what more can one soul contain?

The primordial “oh”

that tears the seams of one man

and empties him into another.

I may be obsessed with love

but there are worse idols.

–

Photo Credit:

Photo by Mathias Reding on Unsplash

Volatile Constructs

Photo by Aziz Acharki on Unsplash

I turn indignantly towards

a tremulous room

and one by one

the ants resume

their impervious,

earth-bound march.

–

I am a solitary migration,

a winter broken in two

by the horizon.

Pauses yield to silence

and silences to rooms

thick as oil.

It is within these

volatile constructs

that my heart pretends

to sleep.

–

I miss you,

the dull, windowless ache,

the effervescence,

the sudden creak of a smile

falling into place.

I tug at your coat

as you walk away

but it is as all things

only air.

–

Somewhere a door closes

and the sudden shock

is as obvious as gun fire.

I have to let you leave sometimes

but it hurts enough to kill.

–

There are days when you love me

and days when you don’t.

I am never sure which day it is

but I am sure of the uncertainty

that moors my breath

and of a love that is

its own special kind of loneliness.

Black Hole

Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash

I am one of those witches,

full of resentments,

that mumble darkly

in the cradle of night

Love me, love me, love me!

–

Desperate women are dangerous

they carry hell within them.

They are, themselves, a kind of hell.

Wild as fire and rolled at the edges

they move as cold breath,

warm, white, and weightless

into the wounded arms of fate.

–

None despair so much in love

as those who desire it.

The oceans of loss

I alone have wept

could drown the stars.

–

I subject myself to death daily,

to the tortures of the unkempt mind.

I have terrible thoughts, thoughts

which gain weight and density through repetition,

thoughts which suck the marrow out of everything.

This is how a man becomes a black hole.

Crazy Does It

Today I want to bare my soul to you.

First things first on December 15^th I will be undergoing a colonoscopy. Recent blood work showed an elevation in both Eosinophils and Ferritin levels. This could indicate all sorts of things from allergies to cancer, from inflammatory bowel disease to diminished organ function. It could even be a fluke or a sign of a temporary infection. Lately I have been putting on weight. I have been constipated mostly. There were a couple of days where I experienced intense dread and hot and cold sweats when using the toilet but now it is just normal sluggish digestion. For me sluggish digestion is kind of my default state so in that regard I am “normal”.

I have started a yoga course. I have completed about 70% of 200 hours. After completing the course I am eligible for certification. I am not sure if this will open up any exciting job opportunities but I have found that just having a clear goal is rewarding in and of itself. The course is online. In the future I hope to attend a retreat. That’s the dream, at least, one of them.

I write intermittently but I haven’t really produced any finished work in some time. I feel like there is going to be a breakthrough soon, I hope so.

So now that the update is out of the way it is time to bare my soul.

My mental health has hit an all-time low. I have engaged in self-harm a number of times. I have intense outbursts of rage. I have suicidal thoughts. Sometimes I sob uncontrollably for hours. For a long time I tried to convince myself that it was trauma, PTSD but after years of working with my trauma and talking about my trauma and exploring countless therapeutic modalities for trauma I have come to realize that I am mentally ill. My maternal grandmother struggled with Bipolor and Bordeline Personality Disorder. I have skillfully eluded these diagnoses by directing everything toward the trauma and omitting certain details about my life and about my personality. I am 42 and I haven’t really had a job, like a decent, long-term job. I love my friends but I can’t honestly say that I am reliable or consistent (something I am sure you have all noticed). Romantic relationships bring out the worst in me. I am not sure if I will ever have sex again. I have no idea how to connect with other people.

My living situation definitely has its challenges. I am living with a man who does and doesn’t want to be in a relationship with me which is emotional torture. I won’t go into too many details about that now but suffice to say I am not exactly moving forward with my life as I had hoped. Worst of all my partner doesn’t want to move forward not with our relationship and not with his own life. Sure he has goals (lots of them) but he doesn’t actually want to heal. He’s had a broken heart for years and he wants to keep on having a broken heart. He’s not ready to let go of his own misery. The idea of having partner that not only isn’t ready but doesn’t even want to move forward in the first place is devastating.

A few days ago I had a conversation with my mom. She owns a tiny house. Right now she doesn’t spend any time in her tiny house. She has a serious boyfriend and things are progressing. She has offered to let me have her tiny house. It is already furnished but I am free to change it as I see fit. I only have to pay for the basic utilities. Living there would be cheaper than renting a single room where I currently live. Significantly cheaper. She also has connections and there’s a possibility she could help me find work. Recently I prayed for a tiny house and the significance of my mom offering me a tiny house within a day of my prayer is not lost on me. I have moved overseas three times. I have started my life over more times than that and each time it is terrifying. I am scared. My ex held my hand through most of my major life changes and my mom is willing to hold my hand but I have to get there first and that is really daunting for me. I haven’t told my partner yet. I have this intense, almost reflexive loyalty at times even if it is not returned. Even though I know he isn’t really serious about being in a relationship I still feel like I have to preserve the illusion that we are in one. I mean sometimes that illusion is very comforting and there are things I will miss. Like hugs. I am really going to miss being held through the night.

I don’t know if I can be a good friend to him but I know right now that we are in this weird predicament which leaves us both feelings uncertain and insecure and therefore possessive, jealous, and unable to really communicate in the full, rich, and meaningful way I had hoped someday to communication with someone. I see myself making all the same mistakes I made with Sam in the beginning. Can I actually function in a relationship? I am not sure.

I do, however, have goals now. Before I just sort of had shared goals. Now I have my own goal and that’s a pretty big deal.

Anyway this is what I am going through at the moment and I could really use some hand holding.

WIP

Photo by Claudia Soraya on Unsplash

She sits pale and sinister in our windows.

There is no escaping her, her hideous smile,

her gnashing bones, her nothingness.

On those rare nights when she is invisible

her phantom still rejoices in your great, hanging shadow.

She is your moon, the impenetrable heartbreak

which holds us hostage in a nightmare of togetherness.

Invisible Girl

Photo by Serhat Beyazkaya on Unsplash

There is a moon

in my heart

that rises up

in the darkness.

Silver and chaste

it trembles

like an enigma.

–

I can feel it swelling

in my throat

like a great, triumphant OM

and I want the world

to stop for a moment

and listen to my voice

not because my voice

is the most remarkable

but because there is

a message inside of me

that is more precious

than life itself.

–

My life is just one

eclipse after another.

I know where the pockets are.

I know how to walk

from one end of the hall to another

and align my feet precisely

with every shadow and prominence.

I know every secret,

trick, diversion, feint

and all I can say

is that I want to be seen.

–

I might run

from one end of the street

to the other with a wave

and a smile so light

that it catches in the breeze

when what I want is to sing

and dance and tell stories

about beautiful, uninhabitable places

like those inside of my own mind.

I want to be heard.

I want to be known.

I want to stay wild

even as I flit between

the domestic and the mundane.

Animal

Photo by Donnie Ray Crisp on Unsplash

In the half darkness

I sleep naked,

your body

wrapped around my body

like a fisherman’s net.

–

We fill up

the whole bed

with our animal heat

but there is too much

punctuation between us

to ever find that familar

animal rhythm.

–

I close my eyes

when you masturbate

because I usually can’t shake

the humiliation of never

being chosen.

–

The room

smells

as if it were

an extension of us

and most nights

you press your face

into my hair and breathe

in my scent

as if it were a drug.

You seem to love me

but not in all the ways

I want to be loved.

–

I miss you,

not because you are

absent

but because

you are not all there

you are not

in everything

you are half-way.

–

Some nights

I am so there

that I can feel myself

merging with your pulse

and the shadows

which crawl from one corner

of the room to the other.

In that sinister state

of primal alertness

I want things

to happen to my body.

–

So I sleep

and I dream about you

and for a little while

it doesn’t make any difference

that it’s just my imagination.

–

I don’t want

to stand still

forever

I need to be seen,

known, experienced

in order to feel

that I am alive.

–

Love is not a game

of paper, rock, scissors.

Whereby I am always paper

and you are either

abusing or abused.

It’s about communion

and there is absolutely nothing

unholy about sex.

Wildfire

Photo by Malachi Brooks on Unsplash

I am not a solitary flame,

a candle shivering demurely in a sedate

but nevertheless captivating darkness.

I am a wildfire that chews up

continents and constellations

without so much as a breath between.

I am the kind of fire

that turns everything

around it black.

–

My whole life

I have been a warrior,

charnel ground,

a crumbling tower of a person.

The kind of person

that consumes oceans

and hearts and stars

for the sake

of its own continuance.

–

Numbness is a lack of space,

a crowding together

of emotions and thoughts

which have yet to reach

the stillness of being.

–

You can’t squeeze an entire universe

into a poem, a suitcase, or even a body.

Emotions have no language,

no barriers, no bones of any kind.

–

My loneliness is so vast

and so obliterating

that I can’t even find

myself inside of it.

–

I am struggling a lot right now with abandonment issues and dysregulation so my emotions and thoughts are a bit all over the place.