burnout 819a 30 may 2025

i guess its fog? i feel like a veil of stupidity and slowness is upon me.
like i’ve turned into some dummy. someone who does things I would yell at

i would have no patience for me.

i know i feel i know i am frustrating those around me

why am i questioning if this is burnout? of course it is. of course it is but how do i shuck this constant shroud of disappointment?

that i am disappointing and unable to keep up my end.

it is taking so long

but it has taken fifty-seven years to get here.

please take some grace.

oh if I could just go 1131a 17 december 2024

oh if I could just go
If it could just be over, done.
gone.
finished.
please.

1215p

safe but uncertain
terrifying.

melting completely down desperately lonely and not wanting anyone to see me like this

1223

I am feeling very much that I do not want to be here anymore so as soon as I finish this joint which is no longer working I’m going to go inside and get in bed with Mojo.

1236 I recognize it now it is the desperate

1242 I can’t take care of myself

219 i have eaten a sandwich bag of stale crackers
drag myself inside to be in bed Mojo comes right along after I’ve fed him
sunlight splays across the bed and covers his brown/black fur pushed up against my face
and I am whole again.

food will come in parts and I am hoping to eat it.

323 I deserve to eat.*

318p relief.

*i write this line only after having eaten while still eating because I do not know if I deserve to eat. it certainly didn’t feel that way. crumbs falling on the dirt to serve the birds later.

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.

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.

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.

739a 26 may 2023

I read the things that I wrote when I know I was desperate
When the desperate was upon me
when it was the only thing near me, surrounding me
perched on my shoulders like a raptor
(waiting for me to succumb just the tiniest bit)
my already hard as stone flesh under the digging sharpness, not giving way
I am stronger than you in my pain
I am more than you even in my terror.

That pain, that terror, it lives in my body.
Just as I know that too many crunches or coughs or orgasms can make my body feel anxious even though it is simply muscle memory.

My body contracts when I am terrified; it attempts to make itself smaller
as if I could instantly transform a 228-pound half-ton-lifting body into something smaller

What if
What if instead of contracting I

e x p a n d e d
instead?
Took up more room.
Reached out for more explanation.
I know that
(you know how you get)
I know that I only used to have rage as a solution.
I know that instant inner and outer screaming was the only possibility.
I don’t feel that way anymore
(you know how you get)
I haven’t felt that way for some time
(you know how you get)
I feel so much more able to unroll the things in front of me
(you know how you get)
Keep the center fast
(you know how you get)

It is so much to shut out.
Take smaller bites, then.
Stop reading when you begin to go elsewhere.
Pull back.
Enforce your boundaries.

(you know how you get)

Yes, I do. It’s too much to be and still stay standing.

Let go of the things that hurt and don’t serve.

“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.