coffee and cigarettes
my daily analgesic
something to numb the pain
and get me through the day

but it's so much more than that or this
because with each sip or nicotine-laced hit
i am enveloped by waves of nostalgia
and taken back to better days
before depression hit me like a freight train and afflicted me with mental paraplegia

these two simple man-made things
remind me of so many good times in my life
like listening to jimmy eat world with my sister
or a morning ritual held in esteem with my "wife"
a late night relaxation on a back porch with family
or a distraction for me from the business end of a knife

for my turbulent soul
so often in need of soothing
nothing is more peaceful than the smooth roll
of paper-wrapped tobacco between my fingers
and the bittersweet taste of coffee lingering smoothly
as caffeine and nicotine
mix in my bloodstream
and i am finally home

i will never understand
what it is that drives man
to make some of the poorest choices
like having deep talks when sleep deprived
or listening to unreliable sources
and to say i've never dived
deep into misguided
conversation at inopportune time
well, that would be a lie
but at least i try
to be a bit more conscientious

... i wish you would, too

empathy
it's funny
something so necessary
for me to be
good at my job
can cause me so much pain

when you're an empath
so deeply connected
to those who you love
by virtue of your intuition
there are aspects that are
godly
a gift
a treasure

music drenches your senses
visual beauties are wild bliss
a sunset ocean is jewel-drenched ecstasy

but
there is a dark side
because we don't only feel the good
we feel it all
- sometimes too much

heartache, heartbreak, to us
it's like a visceral wound
something that causes a loved one pain
it leeches into you
with such voracious toxicity
like chemicals into groundwater
tension, conflict, and stress are like poison
straight down to the cells

so be careful what you wish for
because when it's out of your control
it gets real

love is like the smell of fresh-baked bread
and the crackling of the crust when it's torn
like cat fur drenched in sunlight
like fireflies in a starlit sky with the taste of wild strawberries **** and lingering on your tongue
the smell of a summer campfire
the crackle of fall leaves
it is everything

but heartbreak
is a wide, visceral, somatic wound
it is the veteran's phantom pains in a lost limb
it is walking into an invisible spiderweb
it is the sound of broken bones grinding together
waking up during surgery, suddenly able to feel everything
all the seconds leading up to a car crash, and then that terrible impact
seeing it coming
and not being able
to do
a **** thing
about it

my brain is a shooting range
where synapses and neurons
fire downrange
resulting in all these tear-soaked pages
where i chronicle
in great detail
the pain of my human condition

maybe that's angsty and over dramatic
i feel like that's one of my bad habits
but i try not to lie
(especially to myself)
and i don't want to glamorize
(that's good for no one's mental health)
so i slit the wrists of my emotions
and bleed out words and thoughts and notions
in the desperate hope that maybe
- just maybe -
someone out there who reads this will understand me

because my experiences are mine and mine alone
but that doesn't mean no one else has ever known
the way i feel and my innermost thoughts
and maybe even captured those feelings in snapshots
in the same way that i go about
putting pen to paper to chronicle this fallout

and there is something so magical about those connections
and knowing you're not alone, even in endless dimensions
so thank you, my darling, my friend,
for sharing your soul with me
and showing me how to truly live free
of the fetters and chains of societal expectations
so i can strive to be my best self and shrug off their predilections

when introspection goes wrong:
i thought too much and now i'm sad
should be the name of my autobiography
though there will be nothing but your name in the bibliography
as i tell my life's story interspersed with your wisdom
and hope that sharing your thoughts might help others as a mechanism
to living their best life and knowing
the difference between someone holding them back and someone promoting
them reevaluating the weight they give society's expectations
and instead taking that energy and devoting
it to self improvement and things that matter connoting
that they should be their own priority
something i could stand to learn from you
or at least take to heart when you tell me yet again

i guess
if i'm being honest
my "tired" looks an awful lot like
depression
if you hold it up to the light

and i suppose if truth be told
my "insomnia" looks more like
introspection turned anxiety
from late night over-thinking

and honestly, it's not that i'm "not feeling well"
it's that my executive dysfunction is getting bad
and that means it's hard for me to even function
on the most basic level that there is
and as much as it scares me to tell you all this
i promised i would always be honest
so here's the truth

i am just a ****** up girl
standing in front of a ****** up guy
asking him to hold her hand and tell her it will be okay
because
for some reason
i believe you when you say it

i love the feeling of
stumbling across something
i didn't know i was looking for
like listening to spotify and hearing that one song
or finding out the word "alexithymia" exists

"alexithymia"
the inability to experience, express, or describe
an emotional response
if you want the psychiatrist's definition
to me
it is simply
the inability
to put my feelings into words

and even if i did, the crippling fear that they wouldn't be heard
or if they were, but by the wrong person
and then what might they think?
seeing my words here in indelible ink
presuming that perhaps now
somehow
they know me?

no
you don't know me any more than
jon snow knows what's going on in westeros
you could no sooner describe me
than a dog could describe a rainbow
i am foreign to you - alien, weird
and as i sit here
i am paralyzed by fear

because what if i've lost the words?
the one constant in my life
my unerring ability to write
about the world around me and process it on paper
but now i sit and stare at a blank page
while trying to cling to thoughts that are like fleeting vapors

what if
what if
what if...
what if i lost the words?

i want you
in every way there is to want a person

from lazy rainy days
sitting around in underwear
wrapped up in the covers
enveloped in each other

to lustful late nights
high happy and in love
too absorbed with each other
to focus on anything else

i want you
and i see so much in you
that counting all your perfections
would be like counting the stars
there's too many to keep track of
and they just seem endless

i am utterly in love
with every inch of your being
every corner of your mind
and everything in between

i might not know what i believe
or where i'm going
or what i'm doing
but i do hope
you'll hold my hand
and wander blindly with me
because as long as i'm with you
i don't need a destination
you are the journey

i am simply enamored with your entity
captivated by your character
fascinated
infatuated
amorous
in love