In 2021 I want to chase joy and write love poems about mundane tasks and stitch magic into the fleece of my jumper and staple security to the curtains and bake up a storm and soak in the beautiful dappled sunlight on the walls and strive for contentedness of every day

I don't want to be curled on the sofa in a fit of teeth-crumbling, frantic panic. No more holding myself accountable to capitalism's death grip on my life as tangible outputs and numerical gains. Instead, next year will be about the secret smiles that hide in the corner of mouths for special someones and bursts of song while doing the dishes and too-tight hugs celebrating the random excellence each new day brings

I'm here. We're living. We're okay.

The panic sloshes messily
Churning my stomach
Scrambling my thoughts
There is nothing left in the here and now
Only past sins and future collapse
Ringing in my ear
Leading me to my downfall
Focus is a thing of the past
Or the present, which I am not
Stuck in an endless loop
Fear and self loathing
Manifesting beneath the surface
Energy unbound
Rattling my cage
Binding my jaw
Descent into blackness
Rotted and festering insides
Disarming my sense and perspective
Til all I can see is the chaos
Of my mind played out in
Every action and reaction
Cause and effect
So it's safer to lock, power down
Do nothing at all
And wait for the inevitable
crumbling
Destined, preordained
The writing was always on the wall
Fingered shakily with blood
From pulled teeth and ripped fingernails
Pleas and curses and promises
Littering walls of self preservation
I built my own crypt
Visitors shall not enter
No peace for the eternally ******
Slumber will not greet me here
This is the beginning of the end

Left behind, always
On the back foot
Running
Out of sync
Outside looking
In, disjointed
Clumsy and never
Sure of my place
Bending, breaking
Molding myself into
Something palatable
Something acceptable
Something other than
Myself, to please those
Whose disdain
And confusion and
Frustration with
Who I am
Cuts deeper
Than any barbed
Tongue I host
In my own mouth

When it rains, it pours
And the devastation fills my throat
Drowning in fears and apprehension
Hands desperately grasping
The rocks too slick to find purchase
So I sink beneath the waves
Fury and despair and regret dulled to blunt apathy
As the ice cold reality freezes my veins
Remnants of life dimming
My eyelids succumbing to the relentless weight
This ocean of grief pulls me under

a split lip, tongue dancing along
the rivulets of blood welcomed by gravity
downward, staining my white cotton shirt
finally painting myself with/of
me

there's something so visceral
exposing that which is to be contained
beneath an easily breached exterior
to the outside world and making
art out of horror and gore.
ethereal

a knife through butter
skimming stones disturbing water
your lips at my pulsepoint
and your hands in my ribcage
all natural (or nature?)
achoring me to the world while
relieving me of it

is there really much morbidity in
fascinations of the body
depravity in the infinite ways
to desecrate holy ground so
completely?

feeling skin stretch and tear
with a flash of teeth and dimpled cheeks
warmth spreads through my belly
aching for more; twisted confirmation that
i am, in fact,
alive

Another year, another milestone. I take stock, survey my self for signs of life, of death, of other, of the After.

My emotions have a strange taste, metallic and unknown. My body is a marionette doll with loose strings. I could sleep for a thousand years yet force myself to stay awake. I'm lulled to slumber only by tales of wizards and trolls and girls with silver shoes from my love's honey voice soft as lavender- sweet sandalwood-man dreams are summoned.

Grief is hard work. Tiring. Endless. And that knowledge is a comfort when little else in the world can soothe the blistering pains and festered wounds that lie but a layer of skin below. So I let the stories wash over, a calamine salve on red raw me. How else to unleash the worlds of hurt that live inside with the no-longers and would-have-beens unable to exist with him gone. The universe is full of possibilities, but not for him. Impossible adheres to my ribcage and Gone locks my kneecaps and Never stops the heart I demand keeps beating so the Left Behind of him might live on, if only to be heard in a breaking heart once in a while.

The grief-beast wakes different today.
This is not the cold, creaky ache of bannister limbs in winter
No, this time it's the warmth of my parents' rocking chair, walnut and familiarity and an exoskeleton of memory and fairytale intertwined with the weight of a loss that sits heavy on my lap, immobilising but I'm in no mood to leave the sadness of my seat.
And though it hurts and it burns and it erodes at my insides
I accept it, resigned for the moment and resolve to leave this safe coccoon another day when the world seems less formidable and my coarse exterior more malleable
to new life and fresh growth