not my rosy self

I am rotting inside and out

in the name of being thin

in the name of being beautiful

and in the name of being someone I will never be

I can feel my sanity fading,

crackling and blinking and buzzing under pressure

like a house with faulty wiring

or a satellite connection in a storm

I would say life isn't made of what it used to be,

but it is

it's always felt like this for me

everything I am now has always been inevitable

I've been a disaster since I was born

or at least for as long as I can remember

I think of the child that I was

with all of my fears and all of my issues

And the way they exploded in the night

and catastrophized my days

I think about the ruin I would lay in

day after day and midnight after midnight

convinced that growing up would make it better,

forgetting that I was still the main character

in whatever story this was supposed to be

I'm not sure if I will ever fit in or have friends

or be loved how i have always craved to be

or if I will ever function in society

in a way that the world deems meaningful

And I'm not sure if I really like the things I like

or if I just want someone to like me

if I'm just pretending all the time...

if I've faked everything all along

I don't even know if I want to write

or if I want to be known

or if I'm even capable of anything that I actually want to do

and I certainly don't know if I want to watch myself grow old

I think I'm just too empty

I'm missing something

whatever was meant to fill me up isn't there

I waste away at the thought of you;

ringlets spilling over your freckled countenance,

burning bright and auburn

I often wonder at what point I’ll stop dying over you,

or if I ever will

I fully lend credence to the idea that I may never stop

destined to spend all of my eternities

craving the smell of your skin,

and the weight of your body upon me

Speaking to you only in silent reverie,

forever haunted by the ghost

i mostly feel useless

i see no real reason to be here existing

i occupy space but i don’t occupy minds

or hearts

or dreams

i take in air

and i waste people’s time

and i sit and think about how it must feel to matter

but i have no purpose

life doesn’t stop for anyone

but how do you move forward without any plans?

i spent my years growing up expecting to not make it to twenty

and yet here I am

twenty and fifty-six days

twenty and fifty-six days of just… being here

being the last choice

being the bad choice

or being irrelevant and invisible all together

so what is the point?

will I ever know?

does anybody?

do we just live or die?

or stick it out?

meet our maker and have nothing to show for it?

if there even is a maker?

I think I’d rather just rot in the ground, anyway

at least I’d be fertilizer, as they always say

i’ve not fixed things quite yet

i’m still hoping and holding on tight

to all these words i’m leaving unsaid

out of fear of reaction

out of fear of you

but i don’t want this anymore

i really, really don’t

and i am very tired of being tethered to you

you are not my responsibility

and to be quite honest

i really don’t owe you a damn thing

what i want?

is to be weightless

i want to drift somewhere

anywhere

free of the chokehold you’ve had on my life

since the very first time

my mouth uttered the word “yes”

but no,

i don’t regret the way it was

who i was

who we were…

if i relived this life,

time and time again,

i would always choose you

and the time we spent together

but i just can’t do it anymore

i wish you could just understand

and free me from this burden of responsibility

because i have to choose me now

i have to

and i know you’re not used to that

but you don't love me if you expect me to stay

I miss how ephemeral it all was:

the wait

the nerves

the doors

the run

the success

i miss being pressed against the stage

beside humans that felt like new beginnings

and like a version of myself

i’d yet to discover

i miss the thrill of realization

that what i’m looking at is real

and the joy of knowing I did something

that I had always said i’d do

i miss the feeling of belonging

and the feeling of inclusion

and the oblivion of everyone around me

of just how much every second meant

i wish I could savor that feeling forever

of looking around at a thousand faces

and realizing

i can finally let You go

of realizing i don’t need You

or your friends

or your love

in order to do what makes me happy

i wish I could bottle it

and open it when I feel like I’m undeserving

of a healthy state of mind

and people who genuinely care about me

or when i begin to wonder

if I’m truly loved or if I’m just a nuisance

or when I start to believe

that this is all too good to be true

and that they’ll probably all disappear tomorrow

i want to remember

that no one can take those moments away from me

not them, not him, and certainly not You

this memory is forever.

it’s mine.

it’s theirs.

it’s ours.

and it’s finally not Yours to ruin.

i am whole,

with or without you,

I remember the day so vividly — walking outside, looking up to the sky, taking a deep breath, and preparing myself for the ride of a lifetime, wondering if you ever fully knew the gravity you held. I’m staring blankly at the trees and remembering fondly the days when you were only footsteps ahead as I look to the ground only to find the very last ones you’ll ever leave on this earth. I look out and see all of those familiar waves in the soil in front of me that, until now, always seemed so permanent. That’s when it hits me: this is the last ground you’ll ever till, the last seeds you’ll ever sow. I think to myself, “how fitting.”

I take a picture.

I feel the ache that had been washing over me since 1am Wednesday morning returning once again, in all it’s ugly glory, and stood there still and silent as I finally let it spill over.

Suddenly, I am five again. The sun is shining and the bees are buzzing and I look up and all I can see is your smiling face and silhouette and the only thing I know for sure is that you are the closest thing to Superman that there ever could be. I’m right on your heels. You’re digging up weeds, and I’m putting them back just as fast as you do, and you’re laughing at me. In that moment, happiness is no longer a work in progress, it’s just the obvious, and everything is infinite. Mortality isn’t an issue. It’s peaceful. You show me the seeds, you tell me what they’re going to become. You guide my hands as we set them in the ground, and it’s all just so exciting to imagine – how something can grow from nothing with just the help of our hands. Weeks pass and somehow my amazement never leaves. You find it amusing; it’s a story you know all too well, but me and my little wide eyes can’t help but feel like it’s magic, and I suppose, in that moment, it was. It’s like a little piece of divinity, watching something become. You get a front row seat to the miracle that is life. Constantly checking, trying to nurture it into something great, and always, always watching. Finally, after weekend after weekend of hoping, it happened! There it was! A tiny little plant! That grew because of me! How mind blowing! I was so thrilled. I loved the little plant. My own little creation. You were thrilled for me. From then on, it grew and it grew, and soon enough a little green mass appeared. It was a tiny tomato. We had done it, almost! Days passed and we waited and waited, you said it had to grow big and red! Then one day, it finally did. You got down on one knee beside me, and we picked it off. You looked at me and said, “Go show Mammaw what you grew!” I was ecstatic. Off to the house I ran. Mam put on her best show, making me believe she was more excited over a tomato than she’d ever been over anything in her life. (Serendipitous. Oh, the simplicity of childhood.) But soon, seasons began to change, and I noticed my precious plant didn’t look so well. “Grand, why does it look sick?” “Because it’s time has passed, baby. Fall is coming. Things are changing.” “What is that supposed to mean?”, I wonder. My little creation is gone? “We can grow another one next year!” I was devastated. My pretty little plant is going to die. We walk back to the house. I stopped feeling the same kind of joy going outside. It was still full of wonder, but I just felt kind of lost. “What are we supposed to do now?” “You keep going. There’s other stuff to do, other things keep growing even when something else dies. You can’t stop everything just because one thing ends. Endings are just beginnings of something else.” “I guess so, but what’s the point in beginnings if it’s always going to end?” “It’s the experience, baby.”

And now we’re here. And you are the plant and I am still the same lost little girl and this is definitely a beginning I’d rather not have to start. But you always were right.

It’s another 1am on another Wednesday in another year and it’s the beginning of another fall, and I look around my room and I still feel you. I see you in everything. In the sun. In the darkness. In the words that I speak and in the mirror looking back at me. And I hear you. And I know it’s time to turn the page. It’s time, once again, to become…. and it really doesn’t feel divine anymore. But perhaps it never did. Perhaps it’s the most mortal thing we ever do.

So I turn the page. I start to become, just like everything else. I just hope that you can see me, and that you’re watching, and that maybe you’ll think it’s as amazing as I did that little plant.

i am perhaps

far more average

than i’d always dreamed i’d be

and would like to be

i am perhaps

just the same today as yesterday

and maybe my light is dimmer

than it once was

and i am perhaps

a little behind

when it comes to the practical

and the tedious

but rest assured

i’m still scorching

with the same passion

that i’ve always had

and yes, perhaps

it’s not how you imagined

and perhaps

you’ve lost your faith in me

but perhaps

you should consider

that your certainty,

in anything i do,

is not a vital part

out of all the things I am,

and all of the things I used to be,

the part of me that’s exists

only because you do

is by far my favorite.

I want to make that part of me

as immortal as you feel,

permanently forged into history,

like the Dionysus you are,

and like the heaven you left within me.

I want God himself to smile down,

clearly aware of His magnificence,

simply because you are alive

and I am alive

at the exact same time.

I want the whole world to fall to its knees

every time you breathe or dance or sing.

I want you to know the gravity you hold,

and the light that you emanate,

better than you know even yourself.

I want you to look in the mirror,

and see everything that I see:

from the curve of your lips

to the curl of your hair,

to the firm softness of your very being.

I want you to know

that you make peace feel palpable,

that you make joy feel like more than a philosophy.

that you’re the last piece of the puzzle,

and you're the best thing I’ll never know.

and that you are,

and always have been,

the most beautiful thing about me.

rise and fall,

bend and break

these moments are fleeting

but this disaster is consummate

maybe we’re destined for more

but that’s hard for me to believe

things are just shitty

and progressively get worse

it’s not poetic anymore

but it never really was

it’s just dirty sadness

with a side of self lacerating humor

(to soften the blow)

nothing works

don’t let them convince you it does

synthetic happiness isn't better

it’s just pretending you are

trust me.

i’m still out here — spinning,

trying to straighten myself out,

and get things together...

year after year

but it’s all still the same.

empty.

but i’ll be alright

dizzy up the girl

but you can’t defeat her will

i’m here, i’m alive

and i’m breathing, still

even if it’s rapid and uneven

even if my hands shake

even if my eyes are leaking

i’m breathing.

10. 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1.

exhale.

things will be better

in the morning

if i can just

go to sleep

I used to love to do this.

until I met you

and realized I’m not any good.

you’re not even aware

that you told me I’m bad

at what I love the most

at what I’ve spent my whole life doing

and believing I could be.

you’re so unaware.

why am I bothered?

why does it matter?

nothing is real.

writing words with no rhythm

when I'm thinking it through

it’s trust without reason,

a fake sense of knowing you

should I call it insane,

or just hope in something better?

you’re a bright sunny day,

and I’m no change in the weather

she ignites like the fibre she’d set fire to with the sun on gravel roads with bare knees and a magnifying glass

she remembers that life and simpler times with open spaces and storybooks and fairytale endings

so she holds on to the idea of happily ever after and a starry-eyed prince charming, who never comes to find her

she was born between signs but I suppose it makes sense as she fights between scales and the beast sent to kill her

all her mirrors are cloudy, her looking glass tells her lies just like monsters under beds and she believes it

she says she only stays for me but I pray it’s not true that really the glitter in her soul is what keeps her grounded

she’s a champion of courage and a victor of adversity she’s a storybook hero and she’s all I ever want to be

she’s oblivious to herself and knows not what she does she hangs the moon in the sky but she’s too broken to see it

I’m in love with the idea

that you’re exactly how I’ve dreamed you,

that somehow through cracks of consciousness,

I’ve made it to your mind...

that you feel me like I’ve always felt you

crawling under my skin and living inside my bones;

filling my lungs with air

while my head is underwater

you give me life somehow,

but the truth is too heavy,

like bricks tied to feet,

and I drown anyway

you are something I’ll never know.

I will never be on your mind.

and you aren’t my ‘favorite record’.

you never really were.

what is worse,

to be forgotten,

or to never be known?

dreaming dreams

of better times

chlorine water

and moonlit skies

when i believed

in silly things

and ‘in a life

still permanent’

‘cause this summer haze

and misery,

lead the way

for you to leave

this world and me

taking with you

the only constancy

I’ve ever really known

even my nights

don’t feel the same

as they used to

it’s just an empty house

full of empty hearts

within shells of bodies

you left too soon

and i still can’t process it

or understand your absence

like a child who cries

after the fishbowl is gone

and the toilet is flushed

but I guess I’m just naive

like I never wanted to accept

I wanted to be grown up

I wanted to do it by myself

and maybe

that’s why you left

to show me

how far

I still had to go

but it’s just like everything,

I guess

just like you always said

and all is revealed

and shall begin and end,

wholly in due time

from people to trees

to music and stories

and all the pretty stars

in the sky

everything ends

so another can begin

I just hope you like

how my story

plays out

sometimes I fear the sunrise the night somehow keeps me safe wrapped in a blanket of blindness I crave the quiet it brings

anxious thoughts and a crying mind shadows try and comfort me they sing songs of love and hope but all I want is peace

dream me away from here cos your mind is my escape there, the heavy burdens carried, seem to sail away

my words never seem as fluid as they used to be they drag and catch and fall apart vacant piece by piece

but your existence somehow makes it easier to buy that someday far away from here I’ll finally be alright