I don't even know where to begin with this one - nothing could have prepared me for you.
Nothing.
I KNOW mental health issues are real, but if stigmas are the rain-clouds baby you are a hurricane.
No, more like a tornado, I finally understand why you can only get a few minutes warning to take cover.
No one can predict the sudden build of pressure. It's palpable. Raises every hair on my back it is animal fear, all wide eyes, lizard brain and heartbeats.
You lash out with the coordination of a drunk at the bottom of a bottle, sparing no one in the crossfires
But as fast as it begins, it is over, and I am left shaking teary-eyed in the rubble and ruin wondering if that natural disaster was actually real.
I look around and I can't figure out if I'm Dorothy or the witch beneath the house. And can a twister even hold remorse?
I close my eyes and click my heels three times, wishing I was anywhere but here.
Jan 16, 2021
Jan 16, 2021 at 11:08 PM UTC
I've always thought about making a photo series of only people's hands
And sometimes I think of my own hands at different stages of my life
In childhood - filthy, bitten fingernails
That time when I was 15 and I decided I was done biting my fingernails so I painted my nails black every day for 3 weeks - only to immediately start biting them again.
The pick pick picking of the skin near my thumbs. Every partner I've ever had desperately grabbing my wrists, begging me to stop.
The actual hundreds of times my fingers had part time employment dunking in bags of molly.
Nervous hands slipping baggies and money in palms on the dance floor.
My sweaty palms when I get too high, fingers fumbling to get the **** baggie opened.
That time I sliced my thumb open when trying to learn to shave because I was too embarrassed to ask for help. I was 13.
My finger I re-sprained over and over again for 6 months doing yoga.
My fake knuckle tattoo phase - oh to be 2006 again.
My hand holding yours.
The first and only time someone bought me a ring, and I put it on my finger and felt nothing.
But I left it there.
Guess I'm ****** up/
Callouses across the top of my palm from 4 years of yanking on swan-boat pullies all summer long.
Sometimes I look at old pictures and I look at my hands and I swear to god I clenched my fists for 3 years after my father died.
I look at my hands and I think of the all the things we choose to hold on to.
And I'm always reminding myself to make sure I let go.
Jan 5, 2021
Jan 5, 2021 at 6:29 PM UTC
This twinging, this tingling, this sharp pinching
tugging from my right eye-socket to my shoulder
muscles, tendons, strings of sinew tensing, shortening, sticking
it's like a mosquito buzzing in my ear - an endless high pitched ringing
enough to send the tension spreading across my forehead, teeth clenching
I feel it, the anxiety, vibrating inside of every square inch from finger tips to my right ear.
Wrapping around to the back of my shoulder, pointed blade, locked in angry throbbing webs.
She called it the stress spot, and I can feel you pushing my buttons.
Nov 18, 2020
Nov 18, 2020 at 11:31 PM UTC
I have to teach at 6am tomorrow and it's 9:50pm today. My hands are throbbing from birth defects and surgeries and I'm not sure why I seem to think that the exact motion of typing which is my top agitator will somehow be cathartic.
They say don't fight the splint. My OT says
Don't
FIGHT
the Splint.
Splinting is not enough, you must rest. You must accept the shape and stillness to have any hope in healing. Every fight - the muscle spasms, the tendons tear, the inflammation swells. And it will never stop hurting.
And of course I think of you.
Jun 21, 2020
Jun 21, 2020 at 9:55 PM UTC
You asked me to write you a note in cursive when you were drunk. I'm not sure if you were serious, but I'm going to anyway because cursive is a dying and beautiful art, and I'm interested in what I'm going to say. I don't know if I'll actually give this to you because I don't know what direction it will take me. But I'll humor both you and myself and give it a try...
Even just starting this makes me worried that this is something you don't want from me. The flood of emotions and thoughts drowning my brain are overwhelming and disorienting. It leaves me speechless, breathless, unable to grasp the worlds I need to paint you the picture I want you to see. Meeting you was green, dark green, like sunlight dancing on moss. You were this endless, exciting, inviting stretch of forest that I wanted to explore. The more corners of you I discovered in those first few weeks had me wanting to grow my own roots there. But as I tried to plant my seeds I realized growing in you was like throwing seeds into the ocean - roots cannot form in something that refuses to nurture, cannot see or feel tiny, delicate tendrils in the coming tide. And it was just like that that I found myself hopelessly drowning in you, until finally I was forced to pull out my sopping, heavy, rotting roots, desperately coughing and sputtering for air. And although I limped away, tail tucked between my legs with an aching heart I realize now that waves do not make personal attacks on daydreaming, lovesick girls because they are not listening for love songs over the roar of the tide, they are not feeling for tiny seeds, they are being the ocean, you were being exactly you and I am not the moon.
But once a heart knows fear, it changes, and me a once wild creature looking for mysterious forest paths to call my name, I want to cover my ears, cover my heart and run the other way. I wonder if I can move my frozen feet, as I contemplate when bravery becomes carelessness. Each night I can't help but dream about you, and as I feel myself ripping at the seams in this inner game of tug-o-war I realize the only reason I feel these pushes and pulls is because there is a part of you I can't seem to let go of, I am still clinging to that slippery, soft, green, green moss in the woods of your heart.
And for this I have yet no conclusion, no explanation, no promises, no expectations.
Sep 22, 2015
Sep 22, 2015 at 10:59 PM UTC
Breaking down armor, bulldozing down walls accidentally,
Of course it’s only right it happened at 3am in my car, rain down pouring, unsuspecting.
The most vulnerable and raw glimpse of who you really are,
A taste of your core; crying, crumbling, chest ripped wide open for me to see
Your fiercely pounding heart; your blue-green eyes somehow more vibrant
Against red, puffy skin; dark eyelashes clumping haphazardly, clinging against
The storm raging inside of your soul, echoed by thunder on the highway; the quivering of your voice, your trembling hands, you surrender,
displaying emotion so deep, more powerful than any song
I’ve ever heard; a moment that took my breath away
Like nothing has before.
Jul 13, 2015
Jul 13, 2015 at 2:57 AM UTC
Groping for a lifeboat
In this turbulent tear-filled sea
I snatched the brown Aspirin bottle
Five hundred bitter
Small white pearl-sized wishes
Slide down my throat one by one
1. I wish I could forget you
19. I wish I wasn’t fat
37. I wish honeybees weren’t going extinct
113. I wish my mom would accept that I am not her
174. I wish I never tried it
175. I wish I had some more
212. I wish I planted sunflowers last spring
227. I wish track marks weren’t so hard to hide
251. I wish my throat wasn’t so dry
288. I wish I told you the truth
289. I wish you didn’t believe me
301. I wish I had a cigarette
333. I wish I could stop crying
342. I wish my cat didn’t run away when I was 8
396. I wish I went to your funeral.
403. I wish I didn’t bite my nails
417. I wish this concrete floor was warmer
447. I wish it wasn’t my birthday
448. I wish anyone had called
498. I wish I were dead
499. I wish I were dead
500. I WISH I WERE ******* DEAD
May 9, 2014
May 9, 2014 at 12:54 AM UTC
Listen, I understand that being happy isn't all that artistic.
That loneliness, anger and self hatred are trendier
than being content.
Unrequited love, jealousy and deep-seeded unquenched desire
mathematically recorded in clever metaphor and
unexpected similes simply sell better than stanzas
sifting and shifting to shape a smile.
But writing is a form of expression, I can only mirror myself.
If only I could express to you fully how amazing it feels
to finally look into that mirror to see me completely
with every flaw, every blemish,
every pimple, every crazy strand of curly frizzy hair,
every tan line, every inch of stretch-marked blotchy skin,
every pet peeve, every tear, every inch of stubbornness,
every reckless thought, every word I've desperately written,
every choice I ever made and truly love every bit of it.
I imagine it feels like moving the ocean; I'm a shining beautiful moon.
May 8, 2014
May 8, 2014 at 11:41 PM UTC
I remember when all of my answers fit inside a pill
Extended release, 30mg, tiny little white beads shake around loudly
like the panicked thoughts in my head
The amphetamines would run through my blood stream hungrily
looking for neuron receptors to prey upon,
sitting like crisp, new, heaven-scented virgins, fresh meat for the taking.
They'd disguise themselves as endogenous,
as if the body and the brain naturally made this happen,
wanted a gushing current of dopamine to start pouring out
of every synapse, wave after wave of artificial pleasure,
euphoria, focus, mania, sweeping me off of my feet
into a world run by pharmaceuticals. In my mind,
problems literally could not exist - the chemicals taking over
my midbrain would not allow it. Palms sweaty, heart pounding,
pupils dilated, I would be taken over by chemically-induced content-ness, a happiness high. And that was all I wanted.
Wrestling with addiction isn't fighting if you want it.
I was never fighting with Adderall, Ritalin, Vyvanse, or Focalin,
I was avoiding them: you cannot truly fight the ones you love.
And then I stopped wanting them.
They sat in my drawer untouched for days, weeks, months.
I found better pleasure centers that went beyond
the ventral tegmental area, the dopamine super highway present
in every human brain. I found meditation, I found dancing,
I found friends, I found yoga, music, incense, singing
bubble baths with scuba masks, picking apples in the rain,
smelling the sweet thick scent of flowers in the spring time
the taste of fresh pineapple on a summer day,
the crackling sound of golden leaves crunching beneath my feet.
These were answers to questions in the deepest parts of my soul
that went untouched by man-made substances inside a prescription bottle.
I felt like I had finally awaken in my life, I had finally arrived
in this moment: fully, freely, confidently and full of love.
People told me I'd be an addict forever, I thought I would always
be haunted by the demon voices that lived under my bed
when I was alone and unguarded. But here I am, the real me,
the dark, thick, medicated sludge covering my true self
has been wiped away completely, like snow melting off of flowers.
The only part of me that is upset is the part that knows that
the four final papers I have will not write themselves. But none of
that seems important anymore. Mostly, I am relieved. I am free.
I feel like I conquered a terminal illness, a fully recovered brain
cancer patient that never touched chemo and kept all their hair.
Who knew all the answers I thought were in a pill
were always right in front of me, in the now,
in the constant, colorful kaleidoscope of present moments
happening to me that I was ignoring.
The answers were inside my Self all along, all I had to do
was stop thinking, look closely, listen carefully, and trust deeply.
May 4, 2014
May 4, 2014 at 4:09 PM UTC
Life is Like a Tree.
A huge spiraling tree stretching stretching STRETCHING
toward the sky with enormous tangling never-ending roots
attaching it to the universe below,
the universe not just being dirt and clay, but you and I,
everyone and everywhere, connected and wrapping around
each creature, each animal, every single THING
every single everything that makes up the world, known and unknown.
The towering branches with their extended long thin fingers touch
every star, every planet, every cosmo
because we are all connected like such;
each bit of nutrients, water, life itself flows through all of us
in this rushing, bubbling, constant current.
You can hear its murmurs and love-filled whispers
if you are quiet enough.
Hush, be still, listen right now in this moment.
You can hear its gentle humming on the breeze,
you can hear it in each kiss the shore gets from the sea.
You can hear it inside seashells, or when a bird sings.
You can hear it underwater, and on a butterfly's wings.
You can hear it in the flowers and even in the snow.
Once we recognize this, we begin to grow.
We are so much bigger than we know.
May 2, 2014
May 2, 2014 at 11:00 AM UTC