like i know a blind spot,
like i know it's there,
like i know it's real
      but i can't see it to believe it

that's how i know you


when the pain catches us
at the foot of the year
i start to believe
in a feeling

and let it grow inside me

when we realize what happened
that we can really see each other now

we are startled,
And let go.

And start to begin,

and end all the same.

i began to lose myself very much like a thunderstorm
that wasn't in the forecast
that came unannounced
but in hindsight, all the people around it would say
"we were due one anyway"

i saw myself in the sudden downpour, in the grayness that
so quickly consumed the atmosphere

i saw myself in the headaches that came as the pressure dropped
in the ache of pre-emptively, and unconsciously adjusting to imminent change, even in the moments before it seems to show up

when the wind of change reaches us, it is how we brace ourselves before we even feel it, that knocks us down first

i saw myself in weary window watching. i saw myself in changes of plans. i saw myself in interrupted growth, in uprootedness, in the disheveled and crooked sprouts that i call attempts for stability.

i saw myself in the rush of people scrambling for shelter
trying to get out of the misery of having their clothes wet

mostly, i saw myself in the panic with which they scatter, in all directions
and i see myself, too, in the people who couldn't get out in time

nowadays, i resign myself as a passive recipient to the storm before it begins. i will likely get caught in it, and i accept that fate for myself now

when i found myself one morning gazing upon the city, noting
the lack of gray clouds, thinking i had found myself a respite in the
middle of the rainiest season i'd ever had

i would feel a sense of longing, for days when i could enjoy them for the fact that they are so beautiful, rather than the fact that they represent a brief culmination to the most recent torrent of storms.

when the leaves started to lose their colour
this year
i felt a sense of softness for them. because they seem to hang on so much better through so many kinds of weather. and they turn all the same.

perhaps i believed my resistance and my surrendering could never go hand in hand. but i see myself when i see change now

and i am turning all the same.

nowadays
it is like trying to breathe air
from the same room
you've been in for months.

it is like needing something
to stop the feeling
of lightness in your hands
and lightness in your step
and heaviness in your head.
but finding every breath
even less satisfying than the one before it
when every breath, no matter how wanted,
feels laboured
and void of relief

as i try and shrug off
the way this hill of
unsatisfying breaths
has rolled far too long along this coastline
that we call a timeline

but time hasn't moved in a line for me in months.

when it feels like walking in molasses
when it feels like someone has been pulling threads out of your head.
when you can't place a memory to a place, or tie together details anymore. when the names of objects you use daily just seem to escape you.

when you talk to your grandma and you complain of the same ailments. when you talk to a cancer survivor and you feel heard. when you hurt, and you hurt, and you hurt.


these days i find myself nursing myself.
and i am trying to be the most patient patient.

but the words to soothe myself escape me. the actions to self-care exhaust me. getting up to feed myself is fatiguing. picking up the phone to call a friend is suffocating.

when you become your own sanctuary, because you feel sicker trying to keep up with the world around you.

when you try and forget even breathing reminds you of what has changed. people offer distractions as though your body will let you escape.

nowadays,  in these hardest days,
i am both hurting and healing

what I did!
and what you did!
then, what I did!
then, what you did!

this is how we go! this is how we keep up the
charade! this bed that we made.

this is how we
fight into the night! this is our grand scheme at its height!

this is how you
rob me of sleep! this is how i
keep you from peace!
this is how we
intertwine. until there is no more me or mine.
  
until the only way i seem to know you iswhen the anger hits your bones.
and i lose all sense of cool. guess you could call me love's fool.
i just have no sense of chill. i try to hold still.
but i can't hold still

so, i don't, and i spill out, and
i cough out, and i
run out
of ways to say
how deeply i have started to despise you

how to come clean, of all these thoughts, that sully my brain?
unless i share my pain?
what's the saying about fighting fire with fire?
but you called me a liar!


so i finally wanted it out
i just wanted to have it out on the table
and there you go again you call me unstable

but i'm honestly just tired.
i just need to sleep first,
and i'll call you when i wake up

sometimes you ask the right questions
but you still don't get the right answers

and sometimes the right questions escape you
and you find yourself knocking on doors
you didn't want to open

this is called a body scan
one, two, three
chest rise, hold...
now imagine your breath
going through every part of you
find where you have tension
and relax it...

so I find my hands
over my eyes, hiding the sun
blocking the light
so subtle I almost don’t realize it
and I force them to come down.

i have to open my eyes, to open my eyes
i want to look and see as far as it goes
i worried before, felt sore ahead
a feeling of dread
pushing me to look away  

But this time I have all I need
what I don’t have, I have learned to ask for
and when it is denied to me,
I have learned to be grateful
and to let that feeling take over
my visual field

so that it is always
what is on my mind
that is in my view

so that I see
what I want to see more of.

inhale, exhale
one glance at a time.

i wish i could bring you back
to the form that you once held
as it fit so nicely
into my head

but instead, i find you now
in the the form you take

and i look at you
and i see familiarity
faded by the years, faded by the hurt
faded by the ridge growing between us...

and i begin to wonder if i would care to lose you
and i know just by the fact that i am engaging in this
once-absurd, now-regular line of questioning
that i have lost you

and i check in with myself at this point... if i care about what is happening?
but it is too much like hearing a dial tone

and feeling no urge to call back.