Michelle K.

esp at the line “come out of the darkness”

aka shit I went through when I was knee-deep in writing

aka aka when this blog was my fucking lifeline

quite often, you all saved me. I was still really fucking sick and gross and fake and all of the other terrible things

but I was safe at a time that I couldn’t afford therapy/properly digest what was happening

I have a cute little tattoo over the scar I see the most

and I eat bread and cheese and don’t die

I am still working on falling in love without punishing myself

and sometimes, on a rare moment, I can still fucking write

this is a long way to say if you’ve been here for a while, you’re a fucking angel

and now, when I say I’m doing okay?

it’s the fucking truth

(and that shit is amazing)

pain is a sunset, and some days you will sit in your room waiting for it. others, you will forget it exists. you will wake up in the darkness. you will be okay.

get a cat. or a dog. or a fucking fish. they will keep you on the ground. they will save you more than once.

it’s okay that you don’t write of pain and loss and suffering. it’s okay that your art is a gentle memory—a museum to visit.

you are not your sickness.

you are not your mistakes.

for fucks sake talk to a professional. take a break from said professional. drink two large glasses of red wine, send emails, and write her all of your secrets.

the iron and salt of it all.

how I have forgotten the years

but taste the anger.

She and I do not speak.

She and I do not meet.

parts of you

energy

that I have decided to spend

in far more beautiful

I easily haven’t written new material in 6 months, perhaps even a year. I got very busy with work and grad school that I completely lost the balance in my life. Art—and the pain that came with a lot of it—has been evading me.

So here I am, trying to come back. I am trying to figure out what kind of artist I am as a healthy, functioning adult.

men who drag their feet

like matches

often find

women who will set themselves

on fire

just to taste the burn.

funerals

for every version of me

that did not survive.

I have prayed

for every last soul.

I have been

so many women

in such little time.