This figuring out of things this Figuring out of how things came to be Things came to be me how I Became.
It is overwhelming in every single way in all three hundred sixty degrees.
It is inwardly and outwardly and upwardly and completely bowling me over and tearing me apart
no it is never too late to learn I just wish you were around so I could show you what I’ve learned who I am who I have become.
Who I am still becoming.
I am sitting in my car and I am smoking and I am shaking and I am full of fear and full of love and they are the same thing.
They have always been the same thing.
As I am parsing all of these things as I am As I am. As I am uncovering all of these separate very distinct very discrete things As I am peeling back the layers and understanding implicitly very explicit differences in things I am filled with patience and sadness at all the time lost in between then and now.
Knowing that I have the rest of forever to be well.
Having promised you the rest of forever to heal.
I had the rest of your forever. and you have mine.
think i had a psychotic episode today. i don’t know for sure. it was while i was driving.
what i do know is that the fear and terror that i felt was as bad as it has ever been terror and fear so huge that it overtakes everything but there was no pain no physical pain to be afraid of just the fear that always accompanies it no looming precipice in front of me nothing different about the day. nothing.
what i do know is that approaching ten thirty this morning while i was driving while i was driving i was filled with overwhelming dread i mean serious fucking dread like a tornado sky out of the clear blue. arguing with myself over what to do really, i mean come ON wtf look at the complete lack of signal how much further now? not much i pulled over as soon as it was safe enough hazards on, music on into the deep we go i had to tell someone what to do, it became clear. i pulled over, made a short video. said what i needed to say that i am okay (i do not believe that for a second FUCK no but i don’t understand what’s happening, either) my phone pin. my master password. again that i am okay but i need to tell, i need to say. in case. so no one is sitting there with my dead hand in theirs trying to get into my phone the way i did. the way i had to. i have no plans. no ideation. only the nearly ever-present need to fight to stay connected to the earth.
I look at this it looks like a cookie i wanna eat it I look at this and I think you might have liked it. Like really liked it. It has that stone boulder-type look that you loved you made your file folders and icons all have it It has that riveted, homemade robot-type look to it that wonky, wabi-sabi ancient technology look. something you could have unearthed on a dig or found in our backyard, sticking half-up out of the dirt. You can see my fingerprints in it, for now. You can see the literal hand of the artist. The linen cloth I use to protect both surfaces above and beneath.
I had to come forward this far. this far. Three years. I had to come forward this far to make something I truly think you would like.
I think so much that you would like it.
but why am I trying so desperately to please my dead husband?
i do not want to be alive right now i want to be not here right now i do not want anything other than to not fucking exist right now but i can’t write that and post it now because everyone will freak the fuck out so i cant post it i cant reach out i cant scream i cant tell anyone i just have to not do anything not do anything not do anything just sit with this and struggle and scream inside my own head and not do anything nothing nothing nothing
nothing. it is all i can do to sit and type and the stench of that motherfuckers cigarillo is in my fucking apartment and all i want to do is punch him in his fucking dumb face
nothing. nothing i cannot do a thing i will scream and scream and scream and not stop and i cannot stop i have to do nothing.
i know if i open my mouth i will scream and scream and not stop so i dont
nothing.
nothing. my shoulders are tense and around my ears and tight this empty this noise this noise this noise this noise . there is no enjoy there is not any enjoy.
i need to smoke. i need to smoke but it does not last my plant is so thirsty she needs so much attention i cannot give her the attention the care she needs she is suffering.
i take great big gulps of air but it is not enough there is not enough air..
i am going to go smoke and maybe it will be enough if i just smoke enough
nothing is enough my brain is on fire and falling into a crevasse there is no end to the fire no bottom in sight
it is a relatively quiet evening even with the idiotic clapping of some fucking asshole for some fucking reason even with the assault of garbage music that competes with blasting television noise no yeti-footed neighbor upstairs (took his black-and-tans and split) stop with the fucking clapping for fuck’s sake already
i don’t want music i don’t want noise i want silence nothing interfering
my eyes are dry, for now core unclenched, shoulders still tight, but lower i can think about packing a bowl now try without becoming frustrated, fucking it up easy to do in general, yes but nothing is easy and if that asshole doesn’t stop clapping soon
finally a spate of cooler weather of breezy weather. easy-breezy chicken francese cooler head less on fire brain, still convoluted and badly tangled, untangling. thoughts racing and tangled more, faster but less I don’t know less what? Less rage, more anger. Less fury, more sadness, and disappointment. Less fire, more ice.
More clarity.
There is no “what did I do to deserve this?” or “I didn’t do anything to deserve this” No. Those thoughts begin to bubble up and are stopped at the first word. Silenced. No. No. I say no. I will not begin to embody those thoughts. This has nothing to do with me. Not ever again. Nothing. No thing.
it has gone on so long now that there is no coming back. there is no balm, no quiet murmured assurance, no comforting touch that will ever, ever save me. Save you. Not from this.
I thought I knew you. I suppose I do. You know what you have lost. I see now what I have gained.
it's so hard to be without you
lying in the bed, you are so much to be without…*
it is a bit north of nine am and i am driving i am driving back up to the pottery, we are firing we are firing and i am needed i am needed. i have promises to keep on my way so i do.
(i don’t remember whether the windows are open or closed;) i am trying to remember whether it was the air conditioning or the wind that made me question question whether i was hearing what i was.
(a few days ago ((five)) a few days ago i was insane insane and unable to stop it
a year (?) ago i made the decision to microdose psychedelics a couple of months ago i decided for true, and asked for help. a few days ago i began. i wept, shaking, shared my fear, and help came. i did as i was bid. i am nothing if not a good girl.
rattles in my head that empty drum filled with doubt
Everything you lose, the wisdom will find its way out
i am driving. i am listening have been listening. i am hearing more? somehow the music is filling the cabin differently, more, more separately? more. i can discern and follow discrete instruments and still pay attention to the words, and it is as if the more i am noticing this the more complex it appears while remaining fluid and whole.
i am driving home, we are done for now. i am driving and have restarted the song having remembered that i have this to write, to explore. the guitars are so ripe and juicy and it is as if i can taste them. I am heading home to Mojo. I am heading home to no one to share my day with. there is no one to see my face, to watch my eyes flash as the overwhelming love i have explodes I am balancing that thought with conversation, albeit one-sided you aren’t there to tell you aren’t there. the instant, truthful thought that makes me swallow my thought as the breath to express it escapes my lips but you were never happy for me you were never excited for me. but what if you were? in the end, especially the very end but that last year you began to see me really see me maybe the way you did when we first met. maybe for the first time in a very long time.
Every night is lonesome and is longer than before
Nothing really matters anymore
It's so hard to be without you
Used to feel so angry and now only I feel humble
Stinging from the storm inside my ribs where it thunders
Nothing left to say or really even wonder
We are like a book and every page is so torn
Nothing really matters anymore
It's so hard not to call you
So I do.
Thunder's in my bones out in the streets where I first saw you When everything was new and colorful, it's gotten darker Every day's a lesson…
The noise without no longer scares me. It’s the noise within that does, always has. But maybe hearing the separations, the pieces untangled maybe maybe that is how i untangle the noise within.
This different kind of imposter syndrome, what would you call it? nothing reliable, nothing real no sure footing feeling fake all the time, having to adjust my face, my mask
The thing that most gets me through is knowing (this tiny, blurry, hazy beacon in the fog) knowing that it will indeed end, that it will shift because it always does. not always for the better and many times for the much, much worse But change, indeed, will happen. Change always (eventually) for the good for the evolution for the revolution. let go or be dragged.
I am long enough into this diagnosis, my clinical history starred and asterisked and underlined drugs and cocktails of drugs given and discarded I am long enough into this life to know that I am a compliant patient. I am long enough into this life to know my own body, and what feels right for it. I have never misunderstood the importance of taking all the medicine. Following the directions. Being a good girl. but what happens when you do everything right, when you do everything you are supposed to do and still nothing works? When you “soldier on” as opposed to what? You wait patiently for spring, then summer to end. You lean on your friends, your lovers as much as you think they can stand always risking oversharing, overeverything reaching the point where it is your literal life on the line and you are Depending on
I can barely breathe for the tension I feel not wanting to overstay my welcome not wanting to overwhelm others as I am completely overwhelmed the noise in my head is unending
the thing that keeps me here the knowing that it will shift that it will change that it won’t always be like this. Until it is again.
this fucking shit is tearing my body apart raking my flesh scissoring my veins shredding my bones…
it is rendering me jellied, puddled.
my body knows this feeling this d e p r e s s i o n. it isn’t the right time for it not like this. all of this laying around and doing nothing AND BEING TOLD ITS OKAY. this is what’s different. i’m not tired i am active. alert. pointy. with no release. no way to let go. no way to succumb.
So I smoke.
and i eat.
and i smoke.
and I have a rich fantasy life and when I do venture out it is with dire regard like a fox I am so aware. I crave human interaction I crave I crave. i need voice. a face. a touch .
i sold the thing that kept us warm, kept me warm at the end.
i sold it for three hundred dollars. it cost us three thousand.
(i do not recommend when someone you love dies, when someone with whom you have a complicated relationship dies i do not recommend that you be the one to sell their things. it is heartbreaking to hear someone argue that five dollars is too much for the leather belt that held up your husband’s jeans. that isn’t holding up his jeans anymore because he is dead. i do not recommend it at all.)
i took the steampunk raygun out of that girl’s hands being very careful to not snatch it or be angry or upset knowing that my word was law that i could say anything to anyone that the regular rules of retail Did Not Apply. that i could tell her, carefully, breathing very, very carefully, the sensation of broken glass in my lungs “no, honey, I’m sorry you can’t have that.” she looked crestfallen. i don’t care. it was mine to keep, mine to give to him. mine to keep. still, i felt craven as i clutched it, remembering his vicious long-ago comment about my “grubby paws” (meds clouded my memory back then so all that remains is his proclamation that i am, was craven, grasping, sub-human.)
feeling like setting fire to the place would release me of this finally every single thing i keep putting aside to take still, rooms with piled treasure (is it, though? is it really worth keeping?)
The Salty Widow 