sometimes the pain is so searing,
so blatant

that it brings me to my knees
i felt that writing become a dagger
that i kept reinserting into old scars, open scars,
an implement that i impaled myself on
repeatedly

when i tried to explain and
communicate how i felt to others
by way of prose, by way of tears,
by way of sighs, by weight of grief

i felt the wounds scar over
the dagger still resting under the surface
continuing to hurt awkwardly
as i shifted my weight from foot to foot
to walk from my kitchen to my couch

i hated the feeling of it scarring over
my tears having already been given
no longer healing the scab that had formed

what do they call these fake scabs anyway?
it's just disguising the rot below.

would it not be better if i cried in fetal position on the floor?

it all hurts anyway.

i was hoping that sleeping would become easier with age
and exhaustion

money was always the problem but now that it's not, i
genuinely thought

my shoulders and neck would unwind and i would rest
easier

my neck twinges, protesting my naivety, my wrists
have stiffened


i am contemplating how better to grow up...

should i...

learn pottery?
drive a car?
invest my money?
go on dates?
find new friends?
lose some weight?
go for a trip?
eat some good food?
do something interesting?


i am sitting in front of the tv, i laugh

a funny joke, some good-looking people struggle
with relationships, stupid games, insane challenges


my mind wanders and i forget


now, the chill is in the air, leaves fall to the ground,
night grows longer, i am exhausted

my knees hurt, my back hurts, i shed more hair,
cannot down pizza like i used to before

my mind wanders and then, exactly when i need the sleep,
lands again in this **** hole

of picking something again

let's be more stubborn is my recent motto

let's love myself more, even if it's tough, especially when it's tough



to do that, let's start being more honest with myself, right?

i am going to lie to myself actually.
i am going to stand on my own side and defend my own feelings.


you? you are a joke to me!
you can defend yourself and justify yourself.

you believe you did the right thing?



good! good? good good!!
i also believe that i did the right thing so ***** you.



====

such a simple childish conversation, why did it take me so long to realize how powerful this is?

if I am not on my side, then who will be on my side? why do i always have to view it like others do?

why was i taught that i was bad if i hurt others' feelings??
what if they hurt my feelings?? is that right, then?

i am not sorry.
i do not want to feel a second's worth of guilt or hurt over it.
you hurt me and i hurt you back. you deserved it.

stop trying to take advantage of the fact that i am nice and desperate for people.

no one is really that important to each other.

not even lovers last!
divorces are ever-growing. no one wants to actually stay married. even john mulaney and his wife broke up. :(

parents can **** too!
orphanages keep growing in population, child abuse is rampant globally.

who says friendship lasts forever?
talk to all the middle schoolers and adults who have fallen out with multiple people over their short and long lives.

i call *******!
i was just taught to be a ******* doormat.

when did writing start hurting so much
being honest with myself so hard?

my words bled into sunsets, moonsets, dawns, dusks and the like
all my times were marked in some thing written for me to look back on

but when did it become so physically difficult, so heavy
to be honest with myself?

maybe it was when i realized that the mundanity of life is the
gravebed of my soul, having money to myself was not that great?

maybe when i realized that art for art's sake just reeks of desperation

and those younger than me became renowned and my age started to join
the generation meant for engagements, marriages, less social possibilities

and i then realized that i was lying to myself out of sheer desperation
but that i was desperately alone, desperately fighting scared,

flying was no longer a dream come true, and the worldspan measured
across the palm of my hand had already happened and i was an emu

left for extinction, my soul just a joke, an ironical metaphor
for the jaded cynicism that i had condemned and i read more and saw more

realizing i am frog at the bottom of a well and my victim mentality
was maybe a figment of imagination, and the hellscape of my perspective

being skewed drove around, round, round in my mind, such a frightening
possibility that what if?? what if?? i was just insane?? i was crazy??

was anything that happened to me that bad?? is there something wrong with me??

i was almost convinced and then i felt my heart truly shatter
i realized i did not actually matter

frantically drawing boundaries

a childhood filled with people louder and angrier

insults thrown across, boomeranging into stings on cheeks

loud nights, where breaths, laughs, tears were stifled



under covers, my escapes built on castles of words

so now at nights, i continue running across drawbridges

made of bitten nails, dry throats, cheeks already tingling

moats of cotton blankets, sweet moonlit tones



how did you learn when to stop caring?

how did you learn to care for yourself?

selfishness i never learnt

loving myself a concept foreign



now my brows crinkle when i think

of myself and questions naturally

arise when i consider doing anything

for myself



working to the bones, bank balance grows

why do i still not do anything i ever dreamt of?



shadows of insecurities and anxieties

rains of tears and never being enough



i never learnt how to be a human for myself



i look for the next avenue to turn

for others to care for



but i learn and learn-

no one really cares



i flail and panic, my arms lashing for the shores

sinking again into my dreams



my nerves keeping on asking, "if not not, when? when? when?"

echoing "when" in my ears as i try to sleep



i muffle it all and drown it in the neons of social media

television shows

drinks with people who won't remember my name

presents for people who have already forgotten my name

my shoulders sag as i head home



the heaviness of leaving and pain of my existence

now that it does not cost anyone else anything

feels less burdensome but why does it still hurt so much?



life is really not that bad anymore

why do i still hurt so much on the inside?



why do everyone's voices sound so sharp coming down the phone?

And a woman who held a babe against her ***** said, "Speak to us of
Children."

And he said:

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit,
not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you
with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;

For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that
is stable.

the familiar feeling of bile rising
from the pits of my stomach
all the way up up up

now at the bottom of my throat

-- i am basically gargling it now

some thoughts and fears never leave
my mind needlessly conjuring up
paranoid scenarios repeatedly

my imagination never failing me

that familiar choking feeling
closing my air passage
and hands shaking
inhaling and exhaling deeply

a panic attack overtaking me
black spots on my vision now
i try to forget the caricatures
drawn in my imagination

heart still racing, flecks on the
sides of my eyes, throat feeling torn

that familiar feeling of helplessness
solitude, loneliness, sadness,
righteous fury, despair, alone,
alone, alone, alone, alone

-- no one around

my walls are whispering,
my memories are ripped apart
every relationship, conversation
overanalyzed, brought to the forefront
of my mind's eye and every worst-case

brought up and the walls that
once seemed sturdy enough to hold
out against the world in my isolation
don't feel thick away anymore

my dreams, miles away, seem like the
worthless struggles of a coward
who can only run away, helpless
clueless child in some adult body

has not read the book everyone
in the room already read-  left
without pretense and a mask

cannot read the cues, hardly
knows when to move on and no good
at drawing lines or forgetting

my heart is pounding, numbness
falls over-- everyone leave,
leave, leave, leave, leave