4:10p 13 august 2024

If I could say all the things to all the people that need to be said.
All the things.
To all of the people.
All of them.
I don’t even need my questions answered.
I just want to ask the questions.
I want them to hear the questions.
I want them all to know why I am asking the questions.
I want them to think about the questions, and the answers that may never come.
I need to say so many things out loud, in the presence of these people.
Or in the presence of those who know them.
Those who might understand why I am asking.

I have so many unanswered questions.

been waiting such a long time part 2. four years later.

I know how close I have been to the end. I know how very very close I have come and if it weren’t for the fact that I was frozen in place and could do nothing other than think about the fact that if I could think myself dead I would, and then shied away from even thinking that because what if I was magical? What if I could just make that happen?

I know how close I have been. I know what the maw looks like. I have seen its gnashing teeth and its grasping claws. I have heard its seductive whisper.

And in the spaces and in between, I have seen glimpses, flashes of what could be, what can be, what is.

What is, now.
For now.

I live my life this way.
גם זה יעבור גם זו לטובה
“This too shall pass and it is all for the good.”

The only thing constant is change.
This is how I am able to survive the furthest of downs, knowing that there will always be an up.
No guarantee of how far or how fast or for how long but there will always be an up.

Four years ago today I had a psychotic break.
Four years ago today was a day of insanity
of despair so wretched, so deep.
An aloneness in this universe. Alone among others. Alone in joyful company.

Today,
today.

Today I feel the love of my community.
I feel the love of near-strangers I share my story with.
I watch their faces, see the hair rise on their skin,
hear them “yes please!” to “can I give you a hug?”
I see fascination and wonderment and joy and it really feels real.
I can feel it to my bones.
It permeates me.
I am living, proof.
I feel it as flowers feel the sun.

I am shining.

Mother’s Day 2024. To that woman.

I would not do this,
I have often said
I would not do this to another human.
I have said this my whole life and it remains true now, on Mother’s Day in my 56th year. I would not do this to another human and yet,

this is the first time that I have realized that it is not all my fault. That this some of this could have been avoided. That this is the person with whom I will do battle and then it will finally be over.

I would not do this to another human and yet she has.
If she had never existed, who would I be now?

550p 7 march 2024

feeling soft
and wounded
made smaller and out of shape, pushed
quieted,
pushed aside.

Tomorrow will be loud.
And tomorrow.

then more quiet, but mine, this time.

i don’t like that the shadow of the dog is in the scarcest corner of my view
barely even the hintiest hint of a shape
not the scratchy pointiness of its usual form, no.

an edgeless thing
sliding into/outof sight

I haven’t seen it for a long time
(it sniffs and slinks around the curves of things
seeking sustenance
)
I feel the whiplash of the day, days.
straining, strangling the happy hold I had on my present, my future
I saw a future.
A few days ago I would have told it,
“there is nothing here for you.”
(Of course there is, there always will be.
The wolf you feed, etm.)

I am trying to unravel the why, as always, as always
when I already know the answer.

There is no miracle, there is no magic bullet, there is no bulletproof. It is always there, lurking in the background like the black dog.

I can be grateful for the happy I have had,
I know there will be more.
I don’t, though.
I don’t.
I want to believe.
I have proof that I felt that way, I have proof of how good it was.
Even if I can’t feel it, I can watch it, over and over again.

My hope is that the resulting down is not equal to how good I have been feeling because I don’t know that I can survive that.
But forewarned is forearmed.

I need softness, I need quiet.
I don’t know how to get that.

a thank you to Léa, without whom I would not know.

I hope you know.
I hope you know how very much and completely how you are loved.

My mother tells me that this is how
my mother tells me that this is how people felt when I was born.
I don’t have access to that feeling, however, I don’t.
I look at photos from back then and I can see it but I don’t have access to the feeling.
I look at all of the photos that my father took of me, how lovingly he saw me through the lens, I know these things. I have physical proof of how he felt and yet it is so hard to feel.
I have photos of my mother holding me and embracing me and I can see the love but I don’t feel it.

I look at photos of our family of photos I’ve taken of you and your family and I see that same love and adoration and I know it must be true but I

don’t
have
access to it.

I am learning how.

I see you living in love and light and I know that that is all around me.
That that is there for me, I know this. I feel this.

Even in the face of so much so much, I feel this. I know this.

Forward, ever forward.

me and my father, 1970. photo taken by my mother.

no longer a day of infamy 7 december 2023

On what would have been our 17th wedding anniversary
(but can’t be)
I am happy.
On the eve of what would have been
in what was our favorite place
(is my favorite place)
I sat with a man
A man I felt a similar excitement about
a careful curiousness
now, impulse tempered by time.
Wanting more than anything to believe the words coming out of his mouth. I see his face, I kiss his mouth. I think I can believe them.
I believe him.

To life!

603p 19 november 2023

I feel frozen. I feel stuck. I spend my days off doing nothing. Resting without being restful. Even wanting to write about it has me sitting in my darkened car in the november night with the end of a joint, petrified, unmoving. It doesn’t help that I am in constant physical pain and that resting is what’s good for it because I don’t feel, and this is where the thought sticks in my brain and in my throat, I don’t feel as if I deserve to feel better, although that is really all I want is to feel better.
I gag at the very thought of the words I want to feel better. Breathing stops. I grip the lighter in my hand as if it will crush. There is stillness all around and none of it is in my head. I am so fucking fucking lonely.
I want to feel safe and sound. I want nothing more than to feel safe and sound. No, I want nothing more than to feel like I deserve to feel safe and sound, but I don’t. I feel as if I have nothing to contribute and I know that isn’t true but it is what every breath in my body is infected with. This is what you get, you know what you are and what you are not, this is all that’s there for you. Don’t bother wanting more. That isn’t for you. None of it.

I look at the dim light through my living room window and I know that my cat is inside and that I need to go to him.
It is getting harder and harder to show up. And I don’t know what to do. Everything takes so much. And I just don’t have anything. I am running at a deficit now.
Cruelty is everywhere. Hoping is impossible. It just keeps coming.
I feel betrayed, by my work, by my art. I feel nothing about what I want to do with it right now. I don’t want to make anything, there is nothing in me. I feel I feel like I just want to throw it all away. I know this is not healthy thinking I know this is not healthy thinking. I feel completely stifled and shut down. There is so much pain.
There is no one here to talk to. No one no one no one. It is so empty. No one here, to see, to bear witness. I only move to type, to smoke.
I don’t even feel like a person anymore. Just a collection of I don’t know what rotting mess.
How do you want to live? How? I don’t want this. It is so much. I am lost.

×

I am grateful that my neighbors are not blasting the loudspeaker with bingo like they did last night until two in the morning.
I am grateful that I have enough gas to sit in my car as long as I like with the heated seat on.
I am grateful for the company of no one versus bad company. To be the only person I need to escape from, although that is quite the feat.
I am grateful that I can write, that I can find it to say the things out loud.
I am grateful for the promise I made to Mojo. I am grateful for Mojo.
I am grateful for the deal that I made with myself to post things past the point of danger and to have that as my goal.
To post this tomorrow.
tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow.

I am grateful for the morning. But there is still so much danger.

To make it back home tonight. That is the goal.

1157a 72823

i hate wanting things

i hate thinking im going to make it the month without stress because I am not

but i want things want things

nothing expensive everything cheap everything good but I CAN’T AFFORD THEM

they are all good things but i dont need any of them
not a single one

i did fine without them
this is what happens
this is what happens
this is what happens

wtf were you thinking

What the fuck were you thinking.
What the fuck indeed. For those of you who don’t have the unmitigated joy of living with imposter syndrome, what the fuck were you thinking is a constant refrain. Those of you who have impulse issues for one reason or another, you will be familiar with what the fuck were you thinking.

And as I look at the progress I have made in the past two days on top of the past fifty-five years and then I look at this piece in the morning sunlight and I know the answer.

This is real. This is beauty. This is power. This is knowledge.

This is proof.

“I dream of who I am outside of capitalism.”

715a 17 may 2023

“I dream of who I am outside of capitalism.”

Maybe an odd statement coming from someone who sells their work, from a person who is trying to make a living, selling her work.

It has never been about the selling of the work. Not ever.

It has always been about the making of the work. I have found as perfect an outlet as I can for the noise the absolute noise and froth that fills me completely. My art, my writing. This is where it goes.

I don’t have a choice as to the making of the things. I have to. I have to work I have to work on my work. It is only by doing so that there becomes enough open space inside for me to breathe.

All of the processing, all of the talking, all of the telling of my story, all of the spiraling and twisting and understanding the eventual understanding the light bulb the eureka the oh!

Yes.

I pour myself into my work have been pouring myself into my work my entire life.
It is such a generous thing.
It allows me creation.
It takes on all of the energy all of that focused energy
Transforms, transformative, that focused energy.
It allows me to assess and reassess my progress in a purely physical way
Allows me to follow my mind on what has been Becoming a more steady way, a surer way
A more intentional way.
I see the evolution in my work as I see the evolution in my self.

That is how I defend my work.
That is how I know it is good.
It has taken everything I have and has survived.