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

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.

737a 4 may, 2023

The things that I would say
The things that I would say to you if I had your ear again

I mean of course how much I love you and fucking Christ I miss you but also
How much I miss massaging your hands the way you like
That yes please write my Etsy descriptions for me so that I don’t have to and
I am so sorry that I said no when you offered. What was I thinking??
I wasn’t.

If you thought I was scattered before
It’s like pistachio shells on the pavement now.
The ravens are noisy overhead, more so than usual
as I sit outside in the grey.

If I were someone who saw signs in things
I would definitely feel that you are close.

But I don’t, so what do I do?

Push past, through.
Know the next immediate steps for today.
Focus on coming home.

early morning 24 february 2023

Stay here.
Stay here stay here stay here
(repeating ad infinitum into the dark,
into the open windows of my car
out to the night
)
stay here
please
so much more for you so much more please stay.

I look out into the night, look into my mind to remember the things that are waiting for me.
please stay.
I know you feel unwelcome but please stay.
I know that you feel that there is no room for you and that you need to be by yourself but please stay.

Please stay.

I smoke and I smoke and I smoke and I smoke
I smoke until finally I find something that makes me laugh, I comment, “thank you, that finally made me laugh.”
knowing that it will only last until it doesn’t.

And now it is gone again.

Stay.
Please.

810a, 18 february, 2020 (wait until it sells, first)

there really isn’t time right now to write this but it’s in my head so I have to get it out.

Now that Mojo and I are comfortably in our new place, I keep going back to the house every night (almost every night) after work to get more things. Every night that I go, I wander through the place that served me (if not comfortably or well) for thirteen years. I wander through her rooms, through her twisting hallways. Wondering if I could just light a proverbial match and walk away.

I am resentful that I have to keep going back and collecting more things, like a rat, like a crow. I just want to be done, shot of the place. Shot of the place where no one lives anymore.

It won’t be long now; there is a plan in place to have an estate sale to make as much money as I can from the things I don’t want in my life anymore, the things I don’t need in my life anymore. The things that haven’t served me well for years if not decades.

I don’t want to go back anymore.
I don’t have a choice.

JFC

“If I didn’t see it happen in front of me, I wouldn’t believe it. Goddamn.”

That is what my witness said to me after it happened. I have proof. Finally I have a witness I have proof.

The place where I work was packed, busy even for a Saturday. My boss asked me to do something as I was sitting at the computer doing other things so I added it to the list of my tasks. One by one I got through most of them when my boss asked me if I had gotten to her thing. I replied “nope! Not yet! Haven’t had a chance I’ll do it right now.” And got right to it.

This woman. This fucking woman.

This fucking woman appears in front of me with her two children akimbo. I had helped the older one once upon a time, been very patient with her as she overcame a very difficult thing. Gently and successfully, much to her sullen, preteen resistance I might add.

This fucking woman.

This fucking woman says to me.

“Watch your mouth around my children.”

My head shoots up, eyes wide. “Excuse me?” Having zero understanding of what she’s talking about since I have said absolutely nothing since responding to my boss.

This woman. This fucking woman.

This fucking woman says
“You were about to say Jesus fucking Christ in front of my kids.”

And I looked at her.
And my witness looked at her.
She said it in front of her kids.

“I absolutely did not say that.”

This fucking woman said Jesus fucking Christ in front of her kids.

This fucking woman.
This fucking woman says:

“I am the queen of cursing and you were about to say it I know what you were going to say.”

I KNOW WHAT YOU WERE GOING TO SAY.

“I absolutely did not say that.”
My witness, shaking their head, shocked. My jaw just about hitting the floor.

The queen of cursing, you say.

The Queen.

This fucking woman thinks that I would respond out loud to a question posed by my boss with the answer
Jesus fucking christ.
This fucking woman thinks that I would respond in front of children
Jesus fucking Christ.
In front of her children. Jesus fucking Christ.

You want to know what was in my head? You think that banal bullshit was what I was thinking at the moment?

You have the audacity to think you could imagine what it’s like inside my head?

The things that I think, the things that exist inside my head would terrify you to a point where you would never, ever, ever say another thing again.

You really think you’re the queen of cursing.
You want to go head to head with me?
I guarantee you will not survive. I will make you rethink your entire existence.
I will make you question your reason for living; I will make you question whether or not you deserve to breathe on this Earth.
I will tell you things about yourself that you know to be true deep down in the deepest fucking recesses of your soul.
I will share with you the reasons your daughter hates you so much (it’s because she looks like you), you narrow-eyed cunt.
Every time she looks in the mirror she sees your face even though her cheeks are full and they’re going to be full for the rest of her life and you are going to shame her for her fat face. Every time she sees you look at her she sees your disgust, feels your disappointment. If you aren’t already saving for her therapy, you should do so immediately.
You ought to just give up on your son because he is going to be in codependent relationships for the rest of his life. He is completely neglected and wishes for a second that he would get some of the attention you give your daughter even though it’s all negative. Honestly it would be better for all involved if you let him go live with relatives. Literally anyone else would take better care of him. You simply don’t give a shit.
You take your anger out on me because you couldn’t help your child. You know that you absolutely do not have the patience to help your own child where I did.
Your daughter hates you so much because you’ve made your husband miserable and he doesn’t fuck you and is most likely fucking your friends. A quick look on dating apps would find him in a second.

You think you’re the queen of cursing? Come at me bitch. I’ve got you I’ve got your fucking number. I haven’t even gotten started with you.

Jesus fucking christ. You think I was thinking Jesus fucking christ? No I wasn’t. My only thought at that moment was how to get to the end of the day without killing myself.

It’s going to get a whole lot worse from here.

evidence

there is evidence of life all around me
physically around me
in my phone
noise and activity and adventure
and fun.
companionship.
i can hear it in the air, in the neighborhood
music and the leaves high up in the canopy
and the cars going by mostly in the right direction
in my messages is proof that life is ongoing
why do i feel so detached from it all

none of it belongs to me.

952am 6th september 2022

I am sitting in my car, unmoving
Right foot on the dashboard
Smoke nearly filling the cabin, rain outside
Grim and grey and compressing me into this small, flattish wafer of a person
I am so alone and I do not want to be so alone but I cannot go anywhere
I do not want to go anywhere I do not want to go out in this
The things that I know will make me happy I cannot find the energy to begin to think about doing,
There is too much preamble.
I think about curling up in the shower and letting the water beat down on me as I lay on the floor of the tub
I think about crawling back into bed and never getting out
I think about my hand my shoulder cramping as I clutch this pipe and cannot smoke enough weed to make me feel better no there is not enough to make me feel better

I do not want advice.
I just want some fucking relief.

1818

a photo of your author, smiling, eight days before my husband died..

If I knew what was to come
what could I change
what could I do
If I knew 5 years ago right now what was to come what would I do.
If I could see this moment right now where I am,
unshowered for days,
sitting outside in a public secret space with my coffee and my weed
the constant anxiety manifesting in different ways now.
I may look calm but I am not.

Everything is so heavy, so fucking heavy.
I could not change a single thing, I know that.

Five years. Five.

I need this time I have needed this time
I need more
time.

(((but where am i?)))

I lose sight, I lose connection
I lose my self

I am unsupervised and there is no corral
no border
no boundaries but the ones I hold to and they are so very shaky
the only (??) difference being that I have become better at holding to them i just*
let go of that terrible, engulfing need
(let go or be dragged.)

or am i just so tired that I cannot summon the effort

I need to think need to believe that this is something I have done that I have wrought within myself
to life, to life.

Salty tears fall; light up, breathe in.
Ex h a l e .

it is all I can do to keep breathing.

*just. as if.