XVII: Undone

XII: Untitled

thoughts

of

excesses and inadequacies of self

flooding and exsiccating

a great tidal pull

as sure as the moon hangs in the sky

a fevered scramble, to paper

the cracks, plaster on

a borrowed face

(a better face)

oh! a sea-change

about-face

drowning to desiccated

turn away, turn down, turn

inside-out to be less

XI: On Dissociation

I touch a previously undisturbed stone

Something moves in the undergrowth

I slip

Once

I hold on

Breathe, see, trust

(Please)

We move onward

I slip

Twice

And the world feels loose

I grip to right myself

Point my feet toward the floor

Or is this up?

I forget to breathe

I see only white hot shapes

Of what I should be seeing

I am lost

X: An Unfortunate Happenstance

Some days

The wind passes straight through me

No resistance, no substance

They’ll say, she fell through the cracks

They’ll say, it was nobody’s fault

Just a collection of maybe-mistakes

Half-choices

Nothing worthy of an apology

No great indictment of an unfit system

No affirmation of oppression

An unfortunate happenstance

At most, a passing regret

Forgotten on the wind

[That passes through the next someone]

And if that day comes,

Don’t let them say she didn’t try

Rip her name from their mouths

That they might understand

What it is to scream

(Even if your scream is barely there at all)

Into a room of blank faces

IX: Untitled

I have spent my whole life

Building walls

Not to keep you out

But to keep me in

And I am one hell of a builder

(Brann’s got nothin’ on me)

So high I can’t imagine a world beyond them

So thick nobody could ever hope to hear me

My fortress of self

Is a labyrinth so meticulously crafted

That the excised fragments

Couldn’t find each other in a thousand years

I have spent every waking moment

Avoiding that which now fights

A way out of my mouth

Given up every inch

Of my clutch-able sanity

To never let in even an inch of light

So maybe it’s ok that I’m afraid

To even touch a brick

Much less dismantle the whole fucking fort

But lend me a sledgehammer anyway

If you have yours to spare

For the hint of an idea I’ve been quietly nurturing

And a reminder that there exists another way

VIII [unfinished?]

I want to breathe

(Break your bones)

I want to move

(Break your bones)

I want to rest easy in my skin

just for a moment, just for a time

You’ll never be free

There’s no reprieve

Break your bones

Break your bones

VII: Take Your Shoes Off

The room is white, bright

The air is thin

I arrive, but don’t always leave

 

Everyone worries:

Is it safe, will it last.

Someone speaks:

“I don’t know”.

 

I don’t know how to fill the space

Be ok, I will myself.

See. Breathe. Trust.

I will, and will, and will too hard.

 

Perhaps, instead,

it can just be awkward for a while.

I can just be awkward

…for a while.

 

Turn away.

Take your shoes off.

Be uncomfortable!

You do not have to be good.

A Thursday

I have been struggling in a new way. An awful way. I have an idea that I know what this might be, but that would mean taking something to a psych and saying “maybe it’s this” and fuck knows how they do not like that. I don’t know how to broach something like this and I don’t know how to talk about it and I don’t know what I’m going to do but something has to give, I can’t carry on this way.

Still

I still sit in the bath and weep. My stomach still lurches when I pick my phone up, the place she existed in my world. I still wish it had been me, not her. I don’t talk, I feel alone in a way I never have before. All the hope she carried for me, whilst I had none of my own, evaporated with her. It’s a suffocating, overbearing, hideous way to live and I no longer have any desire for it.