safe, now

There’s a mixture of pain and adoration.

but emergencies are loud, and passionate, and hit the floor. you are not a lion or a hurricane, you just live in a pretty okay apartment and your back hurts. you wake up and drag yourself out of bed and banish what if i was dead thoughts like cobwebs. you pick out your clothes and try to stay active. you apply for jobs on the internet.

the anxiety is a wave, and the depression is a spiral. the other stuff keeps things "colorful." you mitigate your symptoms and take your meds when you have them and you try to hang out with friends. you go home and your head is full of riverwater. no matter how much you sleep, you still stay tired. you journal and practice gratitude and build from the bottom upwards. and still, the haunting.

you're not a 911 call or a shriek. you're just staring up at the ceiling and feeling the house settle into your bones. you feel you are playacting as a wolf when you're only a sheep. not quite dry and not quite drowning.

and running yourself into the ground because the back of your throat tastes like rotted fish and yet everybody wants you to get up and make a pretty dance about it and running yourself into the ground like a matchstick because if you're going to have to be here you want to blaze about it and running yourself into the ground like a darkened landing strip so the plane wheels spark up and your hometown finally disappears in the distance good fucking riddance

and running yourself into the ground because of some fucked up great-great-grandparent's hard work aesthetic and because you somehow owe it to your parents, who owed it to their own parents, because owing things is normal in your family, like love is a cost-value analysis and running yourself into the ground and getting up and pretending that, like, this isn't burning the candle at both ends. two days is plenty to get back into it.

you're not spiraling, you're just manifesting wealth and happiness. you're not spiraling, the radio in your chest just has low batteries. what do you mean that's the sound of distress. when they went out looking, they never found your pilot. you haven't been in this body for years now. you found yourself and put her into a box and then put her up on a shelf. she's still safe up there and she's still a kid.

don't be annoying. you want to write: i have never experienced unconditional love as an explanation but isn't that pathetic. in adulthood all love is conditional and it should be. you've been to too much therapy. touch grass. how sappy can you be.

but they don't reach for your hand while they're driving. they forget to ask you how you're doing. the call times no longer read 12:34:19. they're 30 minutes and perfunctory before she says baby please, i'm tired. i need to go to sleep. where in her life do you fit. why is it that you never fit into anyone's life very long. oblong creature with so many needs, spilling up and out and over everything. it's a fucking shame the first time she said she loved you it was for your independence. and now look at you.

hollow pit in your stomach, body shaking. fuck, not again. you're not going to ruin another relationship like this, codependent and toxic, spiraling. and in the other half of your brain: if that's your wife, wouldn't she want to hear it? wouldn't it be fine? wouldn't she just comfort you and you can both move on and nobody dies?

but you're crowding her! read another instagram Positive Vibes Only type of post that talks about calming your heart and your brain and your body. try to sit in silence. the thing is that you do have a life outside of her, remember? go back to it.

great news, your parents fucked you up and now you have no idea how to deal with love. you just keep wanting to be chosen. to be real to someone, all the way through. real and kept. held closely. seen as precious to somebody. why even is that? didn't you always swear that people can and should complete themselves? why are you so constantly driven to beg for love, doglike and barking?

i love you, get up, keep going.

posted a month ago on my Patreon and Ko-fi, original text by @inkskinned can be found here 💗

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