In between   (a poem)
.
my mind struggles against its own illusion
nightmare tumbles out into still morning
light is heavy,
a fog of echoes...
and I am caught
.
day dreams the sunlight
dreams light the day
and I am caught in between
mourning echoes...
like a stillborn ghost
who can't take a breath in the present

….
  
I live on a tropical island and just want to go surfing with my husband, but the nausea in the early morning as I try to eat  breakfast and drive with him to the beach is so uncomfortable.  Day after day it makes even surfing a chore, and I consider not going anymore.  Background anxiety and unreasonable irritation interferes with our marriage, frustrates him enough to want me out.  

For me, a trip to the grocery store or meeting a group of people awakens the same dreadful fear as rockclimbing a cliff. Perspective has been lost in the extremes.  I try to gain some control over this hindering nuisance, seeking situations that bring the same surges of adrenaline so I can learn to master it.  If I can just push past the avoidance that would keep me inside doing nothing, if I can just ignore the feeling I want to throw up, if I can just get out there, I am rewarded with life’s potential beauty eventually.  Many days I do enjoy the thrill of mountain biking or connection with nature when surfing, but there are too many days of internal struggle that reduce what should be enjoyable to a relentless chore of wrestling inner demons.

The VA offers a few sessions of marriage counseling, and the doctor begins to explain PTSD.  ***, I’ve learned to cope with an unreliable brain, but now there’s this?  From what I understand (and that’s just me, an amateur philosopher) Sometimes the brain is so traumatized, that the memory is literally sealed off, encapsulated, protecting it from changing.  If later something happens that is similar, the brain triggers avoidance responses as a take-no-chances survival mechanism.  Literally the brain is protecting one’s self from one’s self.  This all-or-nothing strategy works fending off potential dinosaur attacks, but in our complex society, these automatic avoidance behaviors complicate functioning and well being.  Life becomes an attitude of constant reaction instead of motivated intention.

The website for the National center for PTSD says.  “After a trauma or life-threatening event, it is common to have reactions such as upsetting memories of the event, increased jumpiness, or trouble sleeping. If these reactions do not go away or if they get worse, you may have Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.”  

“Common reactions to trauma are:
• Fear or anxiety: In moments of danger, our bodies prepare to fight our enemy, flee the situation, or freeze in the hope that the danger will move past us. But those feelings of alertness may stay even after the danger has passed. You may:feel tense or afraid, be agitated and jumpy, feel on alert.  
• Sadness or depression: Sadness after a trauma may come from a sense of loss---of a loved one, of trust in the world, faith, or a previous way of life. You may:have crying spells, lose interest in things you used to enjoy, want to be alone all the time, feel tired, empty, and numb.  
• Guilt and shame: You may feel guilty that you did not do more to prevent the trauma. You may feel ashamed because during the trauma you acted in ways that you would not otherwise have done. You may:feel responsible for what happened, feel guilty because others were injured or killed and you survived.  
• Anger and irritability: Anger may result from feeling you have been unfairly treated. Anger can make you feel irritated and cause you to be easily set off. You may:lash out at your partner or spouse, have less patience with your children, overreact to small misunderstandings.  
• Behavior changes: You may act in unhealthy ways. You may:drink, use drugs, or smoke too much, drive aggressively, neglect your health, avoid certain people or situations.”   It lists four main symptoms: reliving the event, avoiding situations that remind of the event, feeling numb, and feeling keyed up (also called hyperarousal)”

Four words strung together: Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.  They’ve become a tired cliché, exhausted from the endless threat of random cruelty camouflaged in banality, weary of the weight shouldering back the wall that separates death and gore from the living.  Living was a reflex beyond willpower and devoid of choice. Control was self-deception.  The mind was so preoccupied with A: survival, B: sanity, in that order.  Rest was a cruel illusion.  The tank was drained, no room for emotions ditched.  Empathy took too much effort, fear was greedy.  Hopefully they can be remembered and found on the other side, if there is one.  Sleep deprived cells were left hyper-alert from the imminent, shot up and addicted to adrenaline.  Living was Fate and Chance, and meant leaving that time and place sealed in forgetfulness.  

Now PTSD is a worn out acronym, a cold shadow of what it feels like.  I try to think of something more personal that can describe the way it randomly visits me, now resigned to its familiar unwelcome influence.  It steals through my brain, flying ahead of me with its own agenda of protecting sabotage.  Its like the Guardian Trickster of Native American legend.  Its an archetype but real enough to make mistakes: Chulyen, the black raven.

A decade after the ER, contentment is found in a garden of slow tranquility as a butterfly interrupts a sunbeam.  My heart fills with bittersweet as I’ve finally found something I love and want to keep.  Just then Chulyen’s grasping black claws clamp my heart with painful arrhythmia and it fills to burst, tripping in panic trying to recover its pace.  The sudden pain drops me to my knees, in the dirt between fragrant lavender and cherry tomatoes.  Pain stops breath and time and makes me remember the ER, when my heart rebelled its ordained purpose for a week.  I had tried to throw my bitter life back in God’s face but He didn’t take it.  Now that I have peace and a life that I treasure, He’s taking it now.  The price for my mistake is due.  It was all just borrowed time and I’m still so young, my children just babies.  God with a flick of cruelty reminds me not to put faith in the tangible, especially when its treasured.  The sharp claws finally relent and I can breathe, looking up with a gasp and the Raven takes flight overhead leaving a shadow.  Bright noon warmth, unusually heavy and foreboding, seems to say ‘there will come a time when you will not welcome the sun.’   Doctors run an EKG and diagnose ‘stress’.

The bird perches on my shoulder two more decades later, always seeing death just over there.  So I sit on the porch just a little longer and check my list again, delaying the unavoidable racing heart and rush of tension when I fix the motorcycle helmet strap under my chin.  I know all those stupid drivers have my life in their cell-phone distracted hands and hope my husband knows how much I love him, and my daughters too.  

Chulyen wakes me at 3:00 am when autumn’s wind aggravates the trees.  His rustle of black feathers outside unsettles summer’s calm night.  He brings an end-of-the-world portent that hints this peace is just temporary, borrowed.  Tribulation will return.

Ravens are attracted to bright shiny things.  Chulyen steals off with treasures like intention, and contentment.  I don’t realize they are missing until occasionally I find myself truly living in the moment.  I guess that is another reason why I crave adventure, for those instants and epiphanies that snap me out of that long term modis operandi of reacting, instead of being.  The daily list of ‘I must, or I should’ can for a brief while become ‘I want’  and I am free.

My companion the black bird perches relaxed in the desert on the gatepost of a memory.  A bullet-scarred paint-faded sign dangles by one corner from rusty barbed wire:
    No Trespassing    
    That Means You
I have a haunted idea what's behind the fence.  Chulyen implies the memory with a simple mistaken sound:
a Harley in the distance is for a second the agitating echo of a helicopter...
or those were the very same words they said when...
or I hear a few jangling clinks of forks in our warm kitchen...
hinting a cold cafeteria at 5:00 am smelling of fake eggs and industrial maple flavored corn syrup,
and everything else that happened that day...
My cells recollect, brace with the addictive rush of adrenaline.  But the raven denies access to the memory, distracting with discomfort.  I trip and I fall hard into the gritty dirt of irritation at the person who unknowingly reminded me.  Anxiety floods in along with fatigue of the helplessness of it all, back then and still now.  I can't go further.  Chulyen’s tricking deception says Leave This Memory, you never wanted to come back.
But I already knew from just recognizing the bird patiently sitting there a sentinal,
recalling every other time he tricked me with nausea and depression.
I tried to tell myself again that behind that gate,
the past has dried up from neglect.
Disintegrated into dust,
Blown away,
doesn't
exist.
…


After everything else, how to work through this?  The VA gave me a manual, a crudely printed set of worksheets with a government-looking blue cover page:  Cognitive Processing Therapy.
“In normal recovery from PTSD symptioms, intrusion, thoughts, and emotions decrease over time and no longer trigger each other.  However, in those who don’t recover, the vivid images, negative thoughts, and strong emotions lead to escape and avoidance.  Avoidance prevents the processing of the trauma that is needed for recovery and works only temporarily.  The ultimate goal is acceptance.  
There may be “stuck points”, conflicting beliefs or strong negative beliefs that create additional unpleasant emotions and unhealthy behavior.  For example, a prior belief may have been “ I am able to protect myself in dangerous situations.”  But after being harmed during military service, a conflicting belief surfaces, “I was harmed during service, and I am to blame.”  If one is ‘stuck’ here, it may take some time until one is able to get feelings out about the trauma, because one is processing a number of rationales.  “I deserved it because…” , or “I misinterpreted what happened, I acted inappropriately, I must be crazy…”  The goal is to change the prior belief to one that does not hinder acceptance.  For example, “I may not be able to protect myself in all situations.”

(chapter continues with recovery methods)

Suffering stirs up the soul
In agony, there are new realizations
Right in the middle, starts a chaotic vortex
Draining up all the energy, leaving the body numb
The mind is aware, yet it can’t control the situation
Getting more and more ****** into the commotion
The uneasiness unsettles the whole constitution
Shaking the belief for some time, yet, takes a heavy toll
Suffering gives a new awakening, to life’s adversities
Sometimes, we have to silently and vehemently fight
Like a lone fighter, up against, so many enemies
The mind as a weapon, is all you have
Sharpen it and keep it agile, as it’s the only weapon
To fight the sufferings, that gets hold of you

Fear
Judged by irrationality
Hidden in accidental oversights
Feeding the dragon that leaks molten lava in salty streaks of regret
Fear
Empty wasted emotion
Saving ourselves from ourselves
Saving you from me
Worst case scenarios never included you punishing me at the sight of my weakness
Fear
You only love me beautiful
Love is a profound type of collective psychosis
Looks like strength but hides the truth
The truth that certainty is the truest delusion
Fear
On my best day, in the best possible scenario, I am still invisible
Open and still transparent
Full and still forgotten
Insightful and irrelevant my thoughts pour out unheard
Fear
In my demon's shadows lives the truth of my vulnerability
I am weak because I love you
I am a warrior because you love me
I am strong because I love you
I am a lamb because you love me
Fear
Spilling my unseen secrets
My evil self-talk, my mantra of honest lies
The purr of a kitten unsettles a soul beginning to believe it mattered
Pain dismissed in the peaceful snores of a tired moon
Fear
The sun shines in hope on the remnants of dream
On the nightmare of forgotten, overlooked, inconsequential truth
Empty apologies and the familiarity of beloved anguish
Herald the realization, that words don't matter
Truth or lies, faithless faithful, and a newfound silence
Fear
Invisible save for the ash lines that tell the tale
Of how I begged forgiveness for sharing my tormented and twisted mind
Only to be interrupted by the sounds of your peaceful slumber
Fear**
To be everything to your everything
and realize I am still........nothing at all

Lost all that there was,
No courage to build new.
Sweet Remorse!
Shadows cast do follow,
Guided by a source.
Fades away!

Being insane a cancer,
Sorrows feed on blissful memories,
Chokes the respect for life,
Death deceives laughter,
I am a doomed ******.

Sorrows imperishable bind the soul,
Graveness Despair rules my world,
Tearing Blades of animosity,
bleeds me to death,
I am a doomed ******.

Scary unholiness destructs all wisdom,
Melancholy songs strangle all smiles,
A streak of lightening burns the mast,
A single thought unsettles the mind,
I am a doomed ******.

I'm reading poetry at the cremation ghat
amid chanting of God's name
while ferrying and burning the dead.

The noise unsettles me a bit
as sets me thinking of my own death
that by all means seems closer than farther.

Yet I get the relieving feel
reading poems would heal
all the agonies of my flesh
and take me to that spiritual level
where I would take death as
passing into another dimension.

I'm not much of a religious person
but have always felt devoted to my kindred
seeking transcendence through them.

The best thing I'm hoping right now
is when I burn
someone would amid chanting of God's name
read poetry at the burning ghat.

I catch the monster in your heart
You catch yourself believing
It's the love I feel for you
That breaks the pain inside

That shakes the lonely night
That takes the hate beside
Shatters the illusion of ego
And unsettles like vertigo
The proud tower of love

But your touch is magic
Only when our fate is tragic

I have to make you see
You want to be free
Dominate me
**** me
Burn my body on the alter

Of love we shall taste forever
When I suffer

I still love you

I am the firm solid earth
The ground i feel to walk on
But i fear many waters
Great  vast oceans
For they smash against my edges
As they seek to drag me down
And **** me in  

I hold tight while closing my eyes
For I feel the wind building
Seeking to ******* away
Turning and twisting me
Against my lost self
Blistering and attacking

I fear all fire for it
Spits and burns my skin
Breaking and pushing me apart
As it unsettles my restful self
Destroying and consuming

As my soul clings to self
Like a frightened child  
It screams for fear
Of its own life  
STAY AWAY STAY AWAY
For i seek nothing
But my own council

As my soul fears lose of self
In the many day dreams
That others bring to me
Like a ferocious dragon
Jealously guarding his
treasure laden lair
I hoard all that is
Precious in me

But I am the stubborn earth
That pushes all away
As time passes I discover
My many deep caves
That lie within my mountains
As I rest in the comfort
Of my own home

I begin to call upon
The many ocean
To rest against my side
The wind to lie upon me
And the fire to rise up in me
For in the sanctuary of my tomb
I am consumed by the richness
Of all that surrounds me

Dust is lifted from me
As I am now as much
The vanishing wind
As the Anchored heart
Blown through the air
I smash against all  my sides
And  fall as rain on mountains
carving valleys and canyons
Or I am absorbed by fire that
Presses and pushes

Slowly I begin to guide
The many external forces that shape me
With this loose and loving cooperation
I become my own  craftsman
Learning to embrace all elements
And truly let go into the world of relating
You become the artist  of
Your own face in this world

I have not given up on love,
But how I love unsettles many,
The girl I am scares most.

I am the girl who can love someone after a couple days.
I am the girl who can love more than one at a time.
I am the girl who shows more love than some have ever received.
I am the girl who jumps back and forth, because this world is taught monogamy is the only way.
I am the girl who loves those that people think I should not.
I am the girl who makes people jealous by accident, because I give out so much affection.
I am the girl who has hurt people with my love.
I am the girl who holds onto love even if it's toxic.
I am the girl who chases love.
I am the girl who wants to make everyone feel loved.
I am the girl who wants forever with everyone I love.
I am the girl who will give everything to everyone.
I am the girl who is reckless when it comes to her heart.
I am the girl who makes promises about love.
I am the girl who breaks her own heart, but keeps on loving anyways.
I am the girl whose heart people want all to themselves, but that, I can rarely provide.
I am the girl that people want in their bed, but I don't understand why.
I am the girl that isn't safe with her heart.
I am the girl that freely gives her heart away.

Is it safe,
To be this way?
It's likely that it is not,
But I say risks were made to take.

We should never envy the happiness of others just as we would not want them to view us in
the same vein. How is happiness quantified? Who knows the extent of other people's happiness? How do we know whether they are really happy? Are we conjecturing?

Leave others alone. It's totally futile to make any comparison between our state of happiness with that of others.

Let us learn to be content with our happiness however tiny that is. Aren't we lucky not to be living in pain or sorrow?  To wish to have our happiness augmented is indicative of our discontent. A true malaise that would be.

No one can be totally happy neither can we have the same degree of happiness all the time. Our happiness has its ebb and flow and this duality we should always remember.

Happy people also have unhappy days just as unhappy people might have some happy days. Life viewed from this perspective is an alloy of happiness and sorrow.
With that in mind, we can assuredly say that happiness and unhappiness are not mutually exclusive.

If we can understand and accept that life is never perfect, that our happiness is only a contingency as all other aspects of our life are , we would have done away with that which unsettles us and would be a step closer to achieving contentment and tranquillity in our individual life.

Reading the words of a woman of flames
gone up into the sky at her will
with greater forces inside her than in a planet

I feel quietly disturbed

sad that I cannot help her
make her happy somehow
but she was smarter than me to be sure

smarter than most.
She knew what she wanted,
I only wish that it had been happiness.

I read her words sitting on a rock by the lake,
the rusty green water licking the large white stones.
I take a long flat leaf and tie it inside itself,
once straight, now making it form an L.

I toss it with some vigor into the water
but it only goes inches in front of me,
oscillating in the shallow,
wanting to come back to it's creator.

I knew that she saw beauty in the world around her,
I wish ardently that I could know why it was not
enough.

What great awful power must have pushed against her.
That I am in the same world that once carried her unsettles me;
that a world may be ****** and cruel by one's perception,
and not by another's.

I see a dragonfly with it's impossible wings
trying with all of its self
to go against the wind of an indifferent lake.

Into it she plunged
I sit but on the edge, looking.

I thought I had a thousand words
Folded, like cranes, to gift you
My mouth cannot make their shapes,
They taste of regret, which
Unsettles me, you
Once as familiar to me as
The veins that decorate my
Wrists that I offered you, soft,
Meatless and vulnerable, I
Handed you a cunning blade and
Prayed you would not cut too deeply, or
Too casually, with disregard, I
Took my time in concluding that
A weapon must be passed, with
The blade turned inward, toward
The one who would be wounded most harshly, were they
To stumble and fall upon the cutting edge of trust.

It's like a pit (a
massive gap in the thoughts that
unsettles you)

and (lest your resolve be crushed to
a fine powder suitable only for the most
tasteful framing)
saturates conversation like a
virus

but there's a problem with this
invitation, if only to

convince yourself the gap is
useful, (that it's a landmark of
sorts, a real treasure, why not
picnic next to it, make up stories
and holidays and marvel at the
obvious ingenuity of the earth in
creating such a beautiful loss)

at the end of the festival, (when the
streamers have faded and
the food lies stale, when the cars have
herded their people home for the
night and the moon reclaims
her sky from clingy weathermen)

it is still a hole, (and you might
fall in).

August
Even then, you know, you
were right about one thing-
I -am- insecure. That, which
unsettles me to my
core of worth
was the selfsame fuel
for pathos with you,
my foe.

September
See, I was all too willing
pressing my ear against floorboards
to catch echoes of smear, until
I bled crimson anguish.

October
I became infatuated with your name,
entranced by your body, identity that had
shared such a ferocious similarity with mine,
that we have both riddled our helpless portraits
in the heart of hazel eyes with the beautiful
terrifying wonder of *what-if-always?

November
The more ghastly your claims, the more
affixed I become for your passion for me, I
could feel your heat crawling from the coast,
a welcome malaise.

December
You know, often I've felt caresses though your skin.
A shallow breath as if against your neck-
wrapped as tightly as you must have,
and I wonder at how it must have been
such a
bitter
bitter
bitter
broken.

January
I pay attention to you, I
read what you write, I
listen to what you sing,
it's not a healthy addiction but
how could I possibly help myself?

February
I didn't plant a flag so much as
stumble over a root
I didn't steal so much as
find
I didn't dictate so much as
quietly ask.

March
Possible, that the heart of your extortion was envy,
though envy of what, I may only guess.
I suppose, the bottom line is, we're both imperfect,
good-trying people who are shattered with the terror
of vulnerability.

April
When I realized this, I could have
cradled you like a sister. I could
finally see through your eyes.

May
I'm not a viper.
I'm simply a piece of you, as you
are a piece of me.

June
In this way we will be
forever bound together,
hollow with each others' desolation,
Tossing with opposite bedfellows of doubt
Slowly ******* out the same poison.

July
The funny bit is-
in another life
we could have been friends,
and all I can do is write letters,
letters to miss Anne,
that I shall never
ever send.

The heart beats rapidly
An anxious mind makes a note of all that which is possible in the present at the present moment of time
The heart still flutters as the mind keeps racing to find something
All sorts of different thoughts come across the mind.

Something in the present has become much more conspicuous by it’s own presence.
A thing from the present grabs all the attention and takes hold of the present in the present moment of time.
Everything in the present has come to standstill.

Something in the present has got the key to open the doors of the future, which otherwise remains uncertain.
The mind zeroes in on that something and settles on what to do next
The mind focuses completely on that something.

A glimpse of what is there in the future unsettles the mind; however, most probably it does not disturb the mind.

An uncertain future invites the present in the present moment of time.
Now is the right moment in time to explore all the possibilities with regards to future.

Over a period of time it is learnt that experience proves to be a backup, if not a substantial support.
Experience gained over a period of time can be used and utilized in the best possible manner when the need of the hour arises.
Still it’s the present moment of time that matters the most.

All you have learnt belongs to past
All that you want to do belongs to the present moment of time
Always keep this in mind
It’s important to keep your feet firmly on ground and then move towards ascertaining the future.

All the time, all the way it’s not necessary to ascertain the future.
The only time it becomes necessary is when something from the future finds a place in the present,
then the future gets connected to the present,
quite necessarily in the present moment of time.
Hence it’s necessary to ascertain the future.

It’s an opportunity that has come along the way,
definitely not in the form of a risk.
Make the best use of that opportunity
In doing so you will find that every opportunity has got something in hiding.
It’s that hidden secret in that opportunity which will reveal the future in the present
Till then keep going along with the present moment in time to explore more and more possibilities with regards to the opportunity in hand.

It's another cold evening,
one of the coldest in December.
I hear the wind chime in the balcony above,
along with the voice of someone
telling her child to drink milk.
It reminds me of the good old times.
To forget that, I walk along.

You say poverty unsettles you,
but each cold night, you recount to me,
Amidst the usual tears,
the same old tale of how you raised me.
How, even this house here seems unreal.

You talk of how even milk was a luxury,
And how we didn't have a warm bed.
But you recount how you still,
sent me to a school well beyond our worth,
because you had high hopes for me.

You say poverty unsettles you,
but each time you talk,
I can only remember you,
working two jobs with vigour,
On a half empty stomach.
For as long as I can remember,
you barely had two square meals a day.
Sometimes I wondered how someone,
with so small a frame, work so hard.

Sometimes in a fit of sadness,
I tell you that you never understood me.
But regret is greater than anger and
It disappoints me to disappoint you.
So, I keep those accusations inside.

You say poverty unsettles you,
As you recount long summer nights,
Without a fan to our aid,
And evenings lit with candles,
Because electricity was a luxury.

You tell me how I was a delightful kid,
never complaining of the heat.
Eating whatever was given,
sleeping however harsh the weather was,
smiling and being cheerful.
And I wonder if I you'd believe me,
if I tell you the truth.

You narrate tales of all the shacks
that we inhabited and made our home,
only to move out again, soon.
You told me how your books,
were the only thing that kept you going.
You scoff at the idea of hobbies.
You say you killed all of them to survive.

Resting on this warm bed,
Sometimes seems so unreal,
That I stay awake almost all nights.
Maybe I wasn't made for this comfort.
You say poverty unsettles you.
But I wonder if that is what
Would actually settle me.

I purchased a ticket to your matinée.
You sold me on the storyline.
Boy likes girl,
girl likes boy,
live happily ever after.
Everyone loves a happy ending.

Here I am, front row and center,
popcorn in hand;
clueless as to why I am alone.
In this dark, cold, empty place,
I am alone.

Nonetheless, here for you.

The curtain rises, it's your time to shine.
It's just like you said,
boy likes girl,
girl likes boy.

There are no two hearts more in unison,
though it seems something unsettles his mind.

Thoughts of her lying,
Thoughts of her cheating,
Thoughts of her leaving,
bestow tragedy.

I am waiting.
Where is the happy ending?
I am here waiting to watch you love,
to watch you hold,
to watch you unite.

I throw popcorn at your deceit,
at your paranoia,
at your hysteria.

You ripped me off.
I now know why I am alone.
In this dark, cold, empty place,
I am alone.

Everyone is against lying
     but they whisper faded fibs to
          everyone they know, about
          everyone they know, and
          everyone they they used to know, and
          everyone they wish they didn't know
which is why lying is a cooperative act

I'm a liar,
but you should believe me when I promise
that I still won't tell the secrets that you told me in the dark
when you flaunted your character
You were stunning when
you licked my envelope lips and sealed them tight
     but I'll still chatter with my fingertips.
          (You know their babble better than anyone else)
And although you fastened my voice behind the doorway of my mouth
I still lie with my face
     because a smile is in the eyes
and you're lying when you look at my stagnant eyes
     and pepper your story with details
It makes me sick when I look at your words and see
     the duping delight of a monster that kidnapped my razzledazzle dreams
And with the growl of a monster
     you nod your head up and down while
     you repeat the word "no" with an O of the same mouth
          that with the curl and pull of an Elvis lip
               and the scrunch of a nose in disgust
turns your kindling anger to contempt as you go around flailing deception

This puts me in an uncomfortable mode
     of knowing that I was so full of hope that I threw it all up
          onto the trembling ground beneath my feet
Motion sickness brings me to my knees
     and unsettles the emotion sickness inside of me

***** LIES

And I watch these nauseating emotions in the puddle at my feet.

Truth be told,
I lied to you all along

Truth be told,
I'm crossing my fingers behind my back

In the morning
The sky
Is so beautiful.
The wind
sways the trees
And urges me
to dance.
The sun's rays
Shine with clarity
And the birds' songs
Invite the light.

I am at peace.

So.. I can be.

But,

Sometimes...

Swiftly...

Do you hear it?
There's a whispering...
Don't listen.
It's a trap.
There's no way.
There's no chance.

There it is again,
That fear.
The storm -
Here it comes.
Buckle down.
Id better hide.
Quick, try.
Before it sweeps
Me up too high...

But it's got my mind.
It's here.
Strong and loud,
This time.
And not slowly, but
Instantly, It
Sweeps,
Me,
Up.

I am thrown in.
I am lost within
A black space
With no boundary.
I can't find the edge.
And I've forgotten,
How,
To function.

I scream.
I collapse.
I cry.
I destroy.
I despise
Every bit
of myself.
And, still
I can't find
The way out of here.

The storm -
It thrusts
And sways.
Unsettles
And circulates.
Until it
Can no longer
Keep up
With demands.

The perpetual motion
Slows down,
And the winds
Begin to calm.
But the black
Smokey fog
Doesn't leave...

The dust
begins to settle
On top packages
Of self doubt,
Shame,
Guilt,
And worthlessness.

Then without warning
Gravity pulls me
Back
Into my body.
And in silence,
I am left,
Sifting through
What remains of me...
Shattered sorrow
Tired eyes, and
No light that I can see.

...

I am so angry
Because
The sky
Was so beautiful today.
And so was I.
But I wasn't bigger
Than the storm.

Not this time.

• Mica Light •

In all ways, I have lined up my scars and written them insincere apologies; each word — a mockery and a transgression carelessly thrown in the night. I have allowed dread to settle deeply between my collar bones: an arrow buried between antlers until it unsettles and chokes. I have sewn sadness into my skin, like a dainty, silk sundress; worn it to church and to the funeral mass of a little girl I had to ****. She'll never know how much I mourned her, how on some nights, I still do. In all ways, I have looked at my skin, my fingers, and calves, and tailbone and saw a body that's never known gentleness or summertime souls or the gentle falling of the rain.

So after all of that, how, then, can I hold my heart now, without ever breaking it?


Tell me — how long can I hold my heart without ever breaking it?

sailing for better shores, or abandoned islands,
      folding paper boats, destined for the mainland.
sat on a bench an hour and a half, out on that bay,
                                          watching seagulls scream,
walking through the dusty overgrowth in a daydream haze,
                                            drawing tiny recipes for loneliness
             out of the thin air.

                         for three days,
        haven't seen fit to eat or drink;
   all sustenance just unsettles
that terrible ache
in the pit of this assemblage of flesh,
        as long days curl into the crescent of
             such half-hearted lunar illumination

the sand always brings those thoughts back-
           how the lights out east
                         strangled the knots
                       in that mousey forest of hair,
eyes, opaque in the shade of half of a hand,
            watching the clock,
               with nowhere to be.

           she disappeared
like paper boats sailing out to sea.

I imagined myself leaving
someday.  Trading
plains for seas, exchanging
something loved for something
unknown.

And maybe it's the fear
of quietly whispering
goodbye that unsettles me.
Maybe it's the inevitable
end of familiarity,
like the sun's western descent
after a day that should not
end.
And when it does,
we all pack our bags
and say farewell.

Eventually,
I will trace new roadmaps on the
back of my hands;
I will find the familiar
creaks in the floorboards.

And when the sun sets,
someone will leave a light on
for me.

It's safe in daylight, you know.

I drive through my crumbling suburbia
Over all of its bumps and cracks
And feel so small, yet so
Infinite.
Feeling loosely connected
To every signpost,
Every stray cat,
Every filled and vacant house.
Part of a chain that runs its course
Across the entirety of existence.
I am a spectator, an observer of
Humanity though, admittedly,
Not quick to a level conclusion of it.

Yes, days are safe. They are familiar.

But it's dusk where the malaise sets in,
A disturbance that unsettles the muscles
Under my skin
And has me toss and turn for hours on end.
It's night where I trip barefoot
Over every folly,
Every small tick in the course of my life
In a path strewn with broken glass.

It's where the realms between your sanity
And where your demons sleep
Grow the weakest,
Churning your head with static and poison
And constantly reminding you
How easy it is to find your own faults,
How difficult it is to say,
"I love myself."

I wonder most nights when this all started.

I wonder every night when it'll stop.

I feel empty inside
Consumed by the lies
That you told me
You went and did it like everyone else
You cheated
You ******* cheated Cheyenne.
I tried to forgive you
I tried to push my anguish aside and look at you
In the same light that I used to before all this
Before my brain was torn into a million pieces
That all began arguing with each other violently
The sea of opinions and feelings could drown a fish
I treated you like gold babe
I wanted to give you the world
Or the little pieces of it that I could offer you
I can't stand the Idea of what you did
But its even worse picturing life without you
Such a huge impact in this two month period.
You became the light of my life
The sun to my earth
My troubled head always revolving around your center
A cosmological scale couldn't fit the potential we had together
So many unmade memories
So many moments that will never be shared
So many kisses of warm lips under a tangerine sunset
And that just unsettles me
I can't imagine the things that will never be now
Because forgiveness was never my strong suit
But we're taking time now
Because I believe in second chances
Just do this
Prove yourself to me
Because all I want to feel is your touch
And it's ghost doesn't satisfy
I miss the taste of your lips on mine
But I can only imagine yours on his
And it makes me sick.
Just show me I can trust you
I'm begging you , please,
Because the thought if losing you is petrifying.

I had a dream about you last night and that's something I never thought would happen.

We were sitting on a couch or agaisnt a wall and there was a blanket over us. You intertwined your legs with mine and buried your face in my neck when I put my around you.

Your skin was warm, as I'd imagine it would be.

This dream unsettles me, in a way.
We would never have worked.
I liked you, I liked you a lot and I think you liked me too.
It's a good thing you told me not to kiss you,
I would have fallen for you and I would have hurt you.
I would have hurt you with my inconsistencies and my inadequacies,
and you don't deserve that.
I would have hurt you with my drugs and my unhealthy diet and the only outcome of our relationship would have been pain for you and warm skin and soft words for me.


You're a wonderful human being,
I look up to you
and I'm happy you found someone to be enamored with. Someone who won't hurt you with drugs and unhealthy diets. Someone who will hurt you with soft words and warm skin