waiting to inhale. 713a, 3 january, 2020

I hate this. All of it.

I hate this president, I hate the people who elected him. I hate every single person who voted to put him into office in 2016, and every single person who voted to try and keep him there. Zero exceptions. I don’t care about anyone’s misogynistic, stupid, idiotic reasoning for voting for him. If you voted for him I hate you. I don’t care about you. I want you to disappear off the face of the Earth. There is no amount of apologizing, bargaining, begging that will help, that will ameliorate, there is no remedy. this is what you have done, this is all your fault.

I hate everything about him, everything he stands for, everything he is.

I hate. So much hatred that is dissolving me from the inside out. And goddess help the idiot who tells me that I need to let go of that. What the fuck do you think I’m trying to do here. there is no letting go. There is only purging. There is only excision. There is only vomiting up volcanic toxic spew. There is only violence and wrath and rage.

I wake up and cry because there is nothing I can do. I wake up crying because it wakes me up in the middle of the night.

All I can do is wait and hope that I don’t get sick and that I don’t get anybody else sick.

I wait on tenterhooks to be able to spend time with my partners. To kiss B, to snuggle with him and spend the night with him. To wake up with him and kiss him some more. I spent more time with him yesterday than I have spent with any partner in over a year. It was about twenty-two hours, total. I have no idea when we’ll be able to do that again. No time soon. No.

I cringe every time someone touches me accidentally without meaning to or just pushes by and touches me. It makes me want to hiss and bare my fangs. How dare you when I cannot?

I flinch when people reach out for my hand and I don’t want them to touch me because I don’t want to get sick.

I am sitting outside in my car, the engine off and the windows open with a rapidly cooling cup of coffee writing this so that I can watch the sun come up. It is somewhere south of freezing and I am waiting to calm down enough so that I can light my pipe and give myself some comfort.

I want to live in a no-news bubble where I don’t hear anything at all about how much he is fucking up the rest of this for everyone. All I want to hear is nothing. nothing.

I can’t wait much longer.

622p 12th december, 2020

So I have begun the mind-bending exercise of wondering how my dead husband would be dealing with life if our roles had been reversed and he was the one who survived me.

I have been caught in a dysphoric mania, ultra-ultra rapid cycling with depression all day,
working a full day with a full staff and a full store and less bandwidth than I can afford.

I am driving and it is night and it is dark and it is foggy and it is misting and the road is fast and usually this scares the shit out of me but tonight it isn’t tonight I just want to get home.

Why can’t I get up.
why can’t I just get up.

It lifts for a little bit, a little while.

then

it is as if I have taken an enormous swallow of pain
Inhaled lungsful of death
A huge blackness fills me, empties me
My eyes grow wide, wider still
tears filling them, pooling, overrunning them
splashing my glasses
running hot down one cheek
then the other

I just have to make it home.
Home.

Thirty-seven minutes of this
around and around and
around.

Home.
Sitting in my car, engine running, music on
anything to drown out the noise in my head but nothing is enough.
smoke. ease the knots enough to feel just how tightly my core is clenched.
my entire body feels as if it is collapsing in on itself, shoulders slumping, spine curving
jaws tight, the only things moving are my eyes and thumbs.

the smoke is taking hold, finally
i can lower my shoulders
remove my tongue from the roof of my mouth
breathe in
and out.
finally.

north of 4am

Up at four-something; the sound of an upchucking cat isn’t a noise to be ignored. Pushing him (gently) off the bed so I won’t have to wash the entire coverlet again. Tangled in the comedic/horror movie mess of giant bed + weighted blanket + CPAP mask and racing against the threat of a heaving animal simultaneously a thousand miles away and on top of me, I know that my day is going to be a fight.

The waves of depression and subsequent rapid cycling and eventual mixed states yesterday only subsided because I smoked myself into oblivion. I ate a shit ton of sugar and passed out. Took an edible to stay asleep.

Mojo.
DUDE.

I go to the bathroom, look at my phone, my email. I’ve been avoiding the actual mail and swiping left on my email like it’s a dating app. The email saying my rent is posting today.

Okay.

I’ve been looking at my balance, not buying things. Nothing. How do you get money?

You sell things.

You have things to sell. Good things.
You even have photos.

why, then.
why frozen.
Fogged.
Stuck.
Frozen.

I can do for Mojo, I can take pretty good care of him. If no one else.

It’s 6:14 in the morning and I realize I can’t go to work. I can’t control this today.
I barely could yesterday.
(there is no longer any thinking about what would happen if I had to, about how terrible it would get)

there is no longer any fear of safety.

that is a difficult sentence to write.
to digest.
I cannot breathe.
i cannot breathe.
.
breathe.
breathe.
.
What it means
what it means is that I can do what I need to do to care for myself without worrying about getting written up, or in trouble, or fired, or discarded. Left. Ghosted.
It means that I have compassionate people who care about my safety for my sake first.

My safety for me, not as an asset. A tool. A toy.

It is 6:27 in the morning and this is what that is, this rage, this dysphoria. This sadness, this depression.

This makes it so clear to me, finally.
The sheer disparity.
Reminders of how it felt.
The unpleasantness, the imbalance.
I don’t want that. Not ever.
Not even knowing.

So, now what.
Delete the playlist (again. It has one song on it.) Done.
Back away.
Understand this isn’t ever going to change. Really, though.
Understand you don’t have to burn it to the ground, either. Really. You can continue to walk away.

you know there isn’t always a trigger
but a lot of times, there is.

it is seven in the morning and I am inside as the rain begins to fall.
it isn’t, though, raining outside
but sure as a rainfall cools the planet
feeds the plants
smoke slakes my thirst, soothes my fear.

the sky is lightening, the grey becoming less so
enough to douse the harsh overhead light
and open the curtain.

Mojo in the foreground, backlit, sheer grey linen curtain gathered in the center. hanging from the window: a suncatcher in the abstract shape of a whale, made of driftwood and vintage beads, and a small astronaut 7:08am

I am worrying about how I will manage things
but right now the fear isn’t strangling me.
it’s sort of set apart, a bit.
It isn’t going to stay there, not today.
Today is going to be

(oh, Mojo)

better at home. Quiet, as I need.

it is seven forty-nine in the morning and
and there isn’t much getting done today.

That isn’t true, no. no it isn’t.

progress, however glacial a pace,
is progress still.

Things that have made me burst into tears today: a list

My own writing. I had to stop, and leave it for another time.

Driving to work and listening to the governor’s briefing where he assured everyone paying attention that taking the COVID-19 test was easy and that he would show us. And then he proceeded to show us just how easy it was. That there was nothing to it. He did exactly as he was told. He followed the directions and there was nothing to it.

Recalling to a friend on the phone the feeling of a neighbor’s eight-week old puppy in my arms. Taking two selfies with this sweet baby angel and not giving a single shit that the photos are not aesthetically pleasing but for that I am so motherfucking happy in them it doesn’t matter that I have like six chins and my mouth is doing something weird. And jfc what a run-on sentence.

The Peekskill sign on Route 9A when you come around the corner where it meets up with 9. I see it every single time and today, with the sun hitting it just right? Home. I am close to home.

These are the big things. A host of smaller things also, but these are the highlights. The ones that leave me stinging, wide-eyed-and-mouthed in a silent scream.

The only thing for it, as I was driving and couldn’t light up (as much as I wanted to dear gods if I could just. No.) the only thing for it automagically appeared. Dirty, filthy guitars filled my car. Fiercely echoing, I cranked it nearly to the top. Heartbroken, In Disrepair blasted from my speakers as I hit the straightaway on 9. I opened the windows, the sunroof. Flexed my calf, increased my speed.

Rosie, my red Juke, responded like a lover.
Rocketing up the highway wasn’t smart. Wasn’t responsible. I didn’t give a single shit. This is what I needed.

There was no one in my way, Waze showed clear sailing. I accelerated until I hit ninety, no strain, my curls whipping in the tumult. With the music storming all around me, wind buffeting my face, the depression finally broke. I felt it physically melt in my chest. My shoulders unclenched, lowering from where they’d been, up around my ears. I let out a long, low whistle, much the same as I have heard from lovers.
Release.

pandemic diaries: 10:55p 6 may, 2020

in desperation I tried to not be desperate.
(I do not think that I was successful.)

to your infinite credit you did not shy from my touch
you never do.
I stroked your cheek, your chest, your collarbone.
watched you inhale
exhale.
I tried to be in the moment, to get out of my head and simply feel.
Wanting to swallow you whole,
to be swallowed. Whole.

i could not.

breathing through my open mouth
so I would not sniffle
so I could control it (could I? Girl.)
so my breath would not hitch
so you would not know.
Right.

I had to stop thinking about
about not touching any other person
until I see you again
having not touched any other person since the last time I saw you
And the time before that.
no other physical contact no matter how wholesome.
None.

I am hoping that the intrusive, inconsistent noise from overhead isn’t disturbing you
anywhere near as much as it is clearly disturbing me.

i cannot sit with these thoughts anymore so I turn away
pushing myself back up against your hip to hide the inevitable tears that
are
Falling.

you know.
you just know as I just know, always.
You curve me into your embrace
resting your head on mine
dear, sweet thing.

You have given me exactly what I have needed
And for a while, it is enough.

pandemic diaries: 7:41a international star wars day 2020 | birthday thanks

“I don’t know how it’s possible, but I, I think my birthday this year was possibly the best one I’ve ever had. It’s certainly one of the most special, and I want to thank everyone for being a part of it. 52 on 5/2 I’m certainly not playing with a full deck it’s more like a deck full of jokers.
So thank you everyone for being part of it.”

for the record (and as far as i know you look it up if you don’t believe me) for the past fifty-two years it has been shitty exactly once on my birthday. That was 2001, the year I turned 33 and one of the years I was in and around dating Noel. I’m sure he had just recently broken it off again. Anyway.

my parents built the house I grew up in in 1970. A typical, split-level ranch. Right outside my bedroom window they planted this glorious cherry tree, a Kanzan Sakura, with the big, fat, pale pink marshmallowy blossoms. I love that tree, it’s my favorite flower of all. Blooms every year on my birthday.

I don’t remember how early on but it was early, I told Gary that when I finally owned my own home I would plant one of those trees in my yard. The first spring that we were in the house we planted our tree. We didn’t plant it in a good spot, it didn’t get anywhere near the kind of sunlight it needed underneath the massive canopy of maple and oak. I could, however, see the blossoms from my bedroom window.

Last year, after the house went into foreclosure, I knew that would be my last birthday with that view, of cherry blossoms from my bedroom window. And then the neighbor went ahead and chopped down the maple and oak, that gorgeous canopy of green that had been protecting my head for 13 years. A full backyard of sunlight meant that the cherry tree would have a chance to grow properly now, reaching up towards the sun instead of slinking around corners to find it. Only I wouldn’t be here.

This year however, with the world on pause, I got one last, magical reprieve to spend with my tree. So I went to my backyard, prepared to see admirers as any queen would, and enjoyed my day under the cherry blossoms.

pandemic diaries: 3:53p 26th april, 2020

i took two showers yesterday
one when i got up, thereabouts
another after i knew for sure that i was going to see you
brushed my teeth, twice.
(nothing is sure anymore.)
i hate having to keep putting myself out there to ask
hate being the one to put myself out there to everyone
this isn’t about you so much as it is about me.

i reach out tendrils
lengthening, sometimes to the sky, it seems.
feeling so very pushy, always
but now even more so since there is literally no one to talk to
every in-person conversation, interaction feels precious
hoarded.
turned over, inspected. saved.
i don’t want to waste any of it on anyone who doesn’t matter.
screens are one thing but it is no substitute,
so flat, so
cold.
so not real.

i had hoped for more skin time
more actual face time.
more hugging
more snuggling, curled up.
more of your hands in mine.

patience is something.
i know i cannot push you, you will stand firm.
and there is only so much that i can say.

i am thankful for you
as i know you are thankful for me.

as always.

pandemic diaries: 734a 25 april 2020

good morning.
it is a beautiful day
the sun is out, shining on my bared skin
raptors circle overhead
in the clear blue sky
and we are all thinking about death.

softness, poignant and melancholy in my ears.
rediscovered from a time of such darkness a hopelessness, back then.

i cried every day eleven years ago, every day.
always on my way to work.
often in the bathroom.
usually from relief in the parking lot.

“…lose yourself in lines dissecting…”

good morning.
it is a beautiful day.

pandemic diaries 224p 21 april 2020

i cant smoke enough today
cant distract from all the love all the
couples
all of the truly meant “i love you”s
not the sweet softness of friends or family but the true
deep, desperateness of a real love.
the kind of love that has seen pain, felt it within its walls.
heard its voices quake in fear.

this pain this
absence.
this lack.

the isolation makes it more intense more
invasive
the virus of loneliness manifesting and growing wilder still.

try as i might to quench this beast this
monster
i sit under the clear skylight
under the rain
no sound other than the shrieking in my skull
the purring of the engine
the staccato of the rain on the car.

six thousand
five hundred
seventy-eight days ago
on a day very much like (and completely unlike)
today
i saw your face for the first time
saw you wink
for the first time saw that thousand-watt smile
for the first time.
6,578 days ago i fell in love with you for the first time.
there honestly has not been a single day since
that i haven’t had the most incredibly complex thoughts about you.

i wish i could comfort myself with the belief that somehow
somehow you know all this
that in some way you are hearing me
seeing me.
still loving me in that complex, fierce way you had.

but this is how i know there is no god.
this
this is how i know for sure.
(nobody fuckin come at me over this you can fuck off and keep your smug shit to yourself i am TIRED)

unrequited love is BULLSHIT and it is roaring inside me like a furnace
oh it has places to go (well it used to, now didn’t it)
but it is held back
it is most definitely restrained

it doesn’t want to be.

everybody EVERYBODY
everybody says how strong, how brave, how resilient
WHAT CHOICE DO I HAVE.
no one is coming to save me. No one.

so i sit and i smoke and i cry and i hold my own hands.
and i scream inside my head all day long.
and when i do talk to someone anyone
mania takes over i have no control.
and i scare myself.

gam zeh ya’avor gam zu le tovah / this too shall pass and it is all for the good
i know I KNOW
but it is killing me NOW.

it’s been almost an hour that i’ve been out here, now, smoking.
my plant is finally drenched.
my medicine is finally working.
i smoked enough to take down a fucking RHINO.
there won’t be any ill effect from this, either.
my body knows what it needs, i feel clearheaded, if stoned.
none of the usual giggliness i usually do but most definitely
uplifted.
my medicine works hard,
i work harder.

pandemic diaries: 6:35p 14 april 2020

holding your own hand just isn’t the same.