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.

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.

“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.

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.

13 January 2023/2018

2023
Each year that I read this (and it is now five) I am struck by how close to the initial feeling I still have, how it is now my core, how those first four months of aftermath set the tone for my moving forward.

The sentiment is the same.
I wish you could see.

I couldn’t be this person if you had survived, I wouldn’t be. I wouldn’t have to be.

I wonder if you knew the electricity and wonderment and sheer delight others know to be my truth; I have to believe we had that, too, once upon a time.

How good was my best back then? How close to this could you possibly have seen back then? I guess it must have been something because we met and fell in love and you told me so eleven days later.

I wish I could talk to that girl that I was that person who was running on full-blown mania 100% of the time. I have so much to tell her.

2018
Gary, my love.

Four months ago today you left this Earth.

There is not a day that goes by that I don’t miss you, that I don’t think about you, that I don’t have something to share with you.

I’ve grown stronger, and softer, and wiser. I’ve grown in ways you would expect, be proud of. Become even more resilient, because I’ve had to. You always had my back even when neither of us knew it. Even when it was too difficult to say so, to share so.

I’ve met people who you would like, who you would love, and I’ve told them so. I’ve made changes; some small, some not-so. Evolved, mostly. Become, more. The way The Velveteen Rabbit Became.

Anyone I let into This Widow’s Life has to measure up to your memory, is judged against your bar, and a very high bar it is indeed. I can reach it on tiptoe, in bare feet. You remain the smartest man I’ve ever met. The most difficult partner I’ve ever had. The most worth-it partner. You had to be, we had to be, for me to not give up, for us to not give up. And we never did.

I tolerate less, and more. Funny, that. I’m not afraid to speak my mind, stand firm, hold my ground. I give no quarter; this far and no further.

Those I have let in, those few, I think they know, I think they realize what a gift it is. You did. Even though it wasn’t until the very very end. So bittersweet; but I am not bitter.

I love you, more.

Always,
Glitter 💜💜

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.

integration. noon 10 october 2022

you know i wanted to be part of the conversation
but you switch it to things i can’t contribute to.

thanks.
bye.
it’s okay.

they’re not rejecting you.
they’re turning towards each other.
it doesn’t mean they don’t want to talk to you it only means they aren’t as invested in the every last bit of it as you are so please please please please just understand that please it isn’t against you it really isnt, it is okay you are okay.