these are just words

you have scars
on your neck
like a
little tin cup
that's been dropped
too many times
on the pavement.

days like these, I feel ok

I can't remember anymore who the pretty one was. all I know is that it wasn't me. it was never me. I didn't get to be the top of anything. I wasn't the smartest or the fastest or the nicest or the meanest. I got to be crazy. I got to be chaos.
I got older and more bitter as I watched
everyone
gradually leave me.
I turned down the anger but upped the resentment. and I hated all the friends that left me because they couldn't handle my chaos.
the ones that stayed are the solid ones. the ones that don't have that flicker inside. they may create chaos, but it's not what they are. the people like me, the ones that are built around instability, they're the ones that had to go away.

I think back on my high school friends and sometimes I'm so bitter that they all left me. more than left, they abandoned and ignored me. every attempt at reconciliation they denied with their inaction. but I don't blame them anymore. how can I? I would have done the same in their shoes. I have done the same to others.
it's taken me years and years and years to mostly accept that. every time I want to reach out to them again, to ask again for forgiveness for being me, I have to remind myself that I would have left, too. when I think of the dozens of friends I no longer have, the ones that I loved and loved until it ate me up, until it made less of both of us, I feel hurt. I hurt and I want to reach out and write magic words that will bring them back. it doesn't work, though. people aren't like that. this isn't a game where, if I pick the right sequence of sentences, someone will be on my side again. we humans aren't so easily fooled.

how much have I changed, really? I think it's been a lot. but I still feel that core of instability. I will never be able to adhere to a schedule on my own. I will never be consistent. I've always viewed these as short-comings. I thought I lacked motivation, but really I just need a long time to prepare. I still have so much trouble being patient. when I am ready to do something, I need to do it NOW or else it's impossible to know when I'll be ready again. it is difficult for me to do something just because someone tells me to do it. it drove my mom crazy that I didn't just jump up and do what she wanted me to do when she wanted me to do it. she never understood that I just wasn't ready. but I also didn't understand her need for control.

I understand so much more about my mom, the older that I get. I think of all my anxieties, my endless bag of anxieties, and I see them all placed on her in retrospect. she was crazy as fuck but didn't know why. I know why now, because I have those same emotional problems. I just don't have a family to contend with. I get to focus on my mental health unimpeded. I am so grateful for that.
but a lot of mental health revolves around listening to what people are telling you, observing their actions, and being self-aware. this self-awareness also means noticing what you are saying to people and noticing your own actions. I think that is the difficult part.
We are endlessly fallible but also capable of forgiveness. it is, of course, hardest for us to forgive our own short-comings. but it's also hard to forgive people who acted out of self-preservation to the detriment of ourselves. the trick is to give them the benefit of the doubt. the trick is to do it for yourself.

I forgive those that I feel abandoned by. I forgive myself for not being what they needed. I can let it go for periods of time, and when it hurts, I can let myself feel that without closing off the pain. I can breathe.

an end to an end

the dreams have been coming again.
I get these flashes of them during the day time. misremembered memories. people that don't exist, or don't exist in the real world the way they do when I'm asleep. there's a cadence to these dreams. there's a rhythm. a melody. I hear it humming in the back of mind as I go about my day. I feel it thrumming, gently beating itself against the hollows of my brain. my hallowed brain.
I feel these people that I don't know, and these places I haven't been. I feel the secret rooms and passages I long to explore. the spider webs and crumbling walls. the slight smell of mildew. I find a fountain via balcony. I find books. I am alone.
I always want to write about it, about this dream world. about my dream self. all the feelings, and people, and places. my house that isn't, the friends that aren't, countless things that don't really exist. but they slide from me like water off grease. the tiny droplets sing of something that I can't entirely capture. I miss that place. I miss it, and I fear it, because of the times when I wanted to entirely live it (by not living).
I haven't been suicidal in a while and it feels really good.
I was in a good mood all day today and it worried me. it's been so very long since I haven't felt the crushing weight of constant stress that I wasn't sure what was happening. it felt so good to be unfettered. or at least less fettered.
there is still a road ahead of me with many bumps and obstacles.
my dreams are less of an escape than they used to be.
my real escaping is coming soon.
I wonder what I'll dream of then?

it's easier to dream now that I have hope again.

some emotions I found

there are still times in my life when I feel the panic rising, and the pain of loss, and I want to rage out against everyone that didn't make some effort to comfort me when my mom died. tears verge on falling, but can't seem to break the barrier that will allow them to cascade from my eyes. my chest is tight, and raw, and I feel an overwhelming anger. and I wait. and I grieve. and then I think about what I would have done in that situation, and I realize it is no different. I would have done nothing.

it is so immensely difficult to care for people, or even about them. caring involves a vulnerability that is difficult to bear. it has hurt me so much in the past. to remove the armor opens myself up to unfathomable pain. but to keep myself hobbled ensures my own defeat. I am nothing when I am alone. it is only through others that we can live, and feel, and breathe, and love.

try to let go of the anger and resentment. angry that my mom had not ever bothered to visit me before the weekend that she died. angry that she won't be around to see me graduate. angry at her husband for seeming to blame me for her death. angry at him for depriving me of what she would have wanted me to have. angry at myself, angry at my family, angry angry angry. ashamed. resentful. why didn't anyone step in to take care of me? why did everything have to continue? why couldn't the world just stop when she died, the way that it felt like my personal world stopped? the way I wanted it to stop when dru died those years ago. when ex-otter left me. grief and loss and solitude. constant companions, aren't they?

I don't know how to be friends with people.

I don't know.

fur-trimmed brain

feels like a thick blanket, not dense, but deep, and it covers me most of the time. it's warm and smothering and heavy. nearly impossible to throw off. occasionally it falls from me and I'm able to walk unfettered and breathe easily. but I always end up back under it.
these are my days now, just existing. the constant weight of anxiety and avoidance bearing down on my shoulders. eternal depression making everything, everything, harder and worse.
I eat just to have something to do. I've never been that way before. I sleep as much as possible. walking around makes me dizzy. it feels like there's an error in communication between my senses and my brain. I can't focus or figure out what's going on around me. I react, but poorly, and with delay.
everything in me screams that I don't want to be here, and the more I don't want to be here, the harder it is to continue. the harder it is to continue, the more work I miss. the more work I miss, the more I have to make up. the more I have to make up, the longer I have to stay. the longer I have to stay, the more depressed I get. the more depressed I get, the more I want to leave. it just loops and loops and I can't get out of it. I don't know what to do.
I feel like a failure, like I'm failing, like I'm lying, like I'm making things up. like it's all in my head. there isn't really anything wrong with me, I just am sick of dealing with life so I've made that emotional illness manifest physically. and I'm tired all the time. I'm so far behind in my major, in my internship, with my papers. I don't know what to do.
I want to cry. I want to give up. I feel rotten inside. I feel worthless and useless and I know with my head that I am not these things, but it doesn't stop me from feeling that way. I want to sleep all the time. I want it to be easy. it isn't easy. I wonder what happened to how I used to push myself. I don't know.
I'm so tired.
I just want this to be done.

I do dear, I do

now that I'm in a good relationship, I'm not supposed to reminisce about the shitty ones. I'm not supposed to miss people that hurt me and lied to me and left me. but I do anyway. I don't want them, but I think about them, and I feel sad.
because for such a brief time, Pants let me see what he was really made of. because for a while, he let me hold him and let me hear him sing and say stupid things. for a while I believed something could be there, even though I knew with the rest of me that nothing could come of what we did. nothing could come of what we did to each other, other than what has. a little bit of bitterness and a lot of melancholy.
"sometimes I cannot sleep for the greatness of my hate for you. sometimes I cannot sleep for I miss you." I wish there could have been more for us, at least for a little while. nothing could have lasted. I know that. but being with him made me feel so special. I was somewhere few people got to visit. I saw things few people were allowed to witness. I held him when he cried, and that is a memory I cherish.
I don't know what I would have done if he had loved me back. maybe I would have run as fast from him as he ran from me.
or maybe we would have burned to ashes in each other's arms before our abusiveness could undo us. what we had was not meant to last. it was built on uncertainty and desperation. we didn't know each other but pretended we did. I whipped him and bit him and he made me leave at 4 in the morning when we were done. and I did.
I was never really into the sex. I just liked feeling wanted.
I liked that he, specifically, wanted me. even if all he really wanted was my body.
I don't think I could have gotten close to him any other way.
I miss him. I do. but it's foolish. the entire thing was foolish.
the melancholy felt good sometimes.
still, I'm glad it's behind me now.