even now i get the brain zaps when i wait too long

between my doses of ssris.

even now i do my makeup perfect before walking baked goods to my neighbors.

even now i know the best way to make a beautiful green bean casserole

(my grandmother's best kept secret recipe.)

i am welcome and inviting and full of boundless love even for the monsters.

- i have a baby bird for a heart and its always chirping in its need.

i long for connection or emotion, to connect or feel anything

that doesnt feel raw, or performed, or fake.

i long to flay myself open at my ribcage's lace edges and rifle around in there-

make sure i actually have a heart.

sometimes i expect to be missing a heartbeat, even though i know i bleed.

it's the dissociation, i guess. i still have to check.

i need to sleep more. i need to sleep less. i need to feel rested.

i am so tired of holding up the weight of so many worlds that my shoulders

rattle around in their joints. im so tired of being so tired

that the bags under my eyes are plum purple and

days of sleep leave me feeling exhausted. tired of viewing everything sharp as an opportunity.

tired of feeling only absence, only empty, only the lack of something,

i see a mommy in every gas station clerk who

calls me sweetie and every nurse who holds 

my hand when they stitch up the weeping

holes inside of me. i cry when my phlebotomist 

lays her hand on my forearm before she 

extracts the cherry juice for my labs, i hug my

teachers just a little too long. i am a gaping

hole of motherhood. when they told me

i am infertile it felt like a dam broke inside of me 

and i havent stopped crying since, i dote on

broken and needy things like itll leave a legacy

behind me. i stopped asking my mother to care 

for me back in 5th grade but sometimes

when she was sad i would pray she would come 

into my room and lay her hand on my forehead and 

ask me if im okay. thats why my therapist thinks 

im sick, because i was always sick. chronic 

illness meets neglect and then the baby 

never feels okay again. i want to  be a mother

like i want my mother to by my mother 

but something is broken inside of both of us 

except mine is physical and hers is somewhere

deep inside her brain and the worst part is 

she thinks she did so good and starts

scream when i tell her otherwise but 

the little me that cried in an ice bath and 

overdosed on fever reducer and begged

her to just tell me she loved me one! time! please!

and hug me and used to cry like a baby at 10 years old

when she would treat me like a daughter and 

why im so reliant on her loving me even 

though she fails me time and time again is that 

noone else wants to be my mom. noone else 

wants to cook for me and teach me how to clean 

and hold me, even though she wont. 

my therapist has her own kids, the gas

station clerk doesnt even know my name, the

nurse sees me as a problem patient for an hour. 

i will b motherless, unmothered, feeling empty and 

devoid of something crucial and important forever. 

i will b something needy and sick and empty:

i will cry at 3am over baby videos and scream at my 

mom to be better to me fully knowing she never will

but something about telling her she failed

feels better than just pretending things are okay,

someone sick and monsterish like me who used to

excise their skin and take too many pills and 

see monsters in the corners could never have

known a mothers kind touch. could never have 

had their needs met as a baby, been rocked and held.

the parts in me that ache cry out to every mother i see

and the only one who isnt kind to me is the mother

sometimes in the thin flickers of light

i think i see it, maybe. shuttersnaps quick

of hope, and purpose. the wagging 

tail of knowing who i am

and not turning away, finally. 

footsteps through snow show me

that i move forward, usually, a path

towards a destination of self- of substantiality. 

of completed thoughts, of setting down

the smoky effigies. letting myself

breathe, sometimes. trying.

nagging trickles, mostly in the silence.

time passes too slow, the wall holds

too many shapes that shelter in 

my paranoia. i turn away from things that

echo in the dark, i push myself into

that which i loved as a child. it never feels

the same- but i still try. and my therapist 

repeats, like a broken record cycling

that im doing so much better, that there 

is progress in these little things- 

that the rotations of my habits in cycles

that lead me farther down are trying.

that im okay, for now, rotting, just as long

as i keep looking forward. there's a step im missing

i know, the actual first step where i

(i as an entity, as an idea) admit that

i could do more. that the opportunities 

i disallow, these chances i deny, are all i have. 

to seize the bull by the horns is to acknowledge 

its potential to destroy : to disappointment.

to be rejected with my hands held open

and my guard down is to be known.

there's an exposure therapy for this-

there's a way to withstand this i havent found.

placing myself at someone's feet, like a penance:

theres a fine line between boundary and boundless.

i do not need to be whole in people's 

understanding of me. you can have this left corner, 

and i can keep the middle pieces.

its safe to hold things to my chest, sometimes.

i am still whole in this, scattered like stars

i curl up marginally tighter, stay in bed.

the numbers on the clock climb while i

linger in slow moments, in hazy smokescreen

flushes. im fenced in, isolated from the bright

by the space between us: by the rotting

fruit flesh and the slick layer of sweat that lingers

on my skin. i turn away from being known.

i am unthinkably empty. there is nothing here.

the rainbow flashbang of trash tv and hours of

empty consumption paint me beautiful colors.

filling me is inconceivable: i still lie caged in

the bloom of his hands. the rabbit in my heart

wants for hay, gets sedated instead. when

the sun rises, i set. time has not passed for

long enough that i see myself in the mirror

star-eyed and mountainous, backwards.

the me that meets my gaze is illogical: a

hodgepodge mix of features that don't fit.

there's so much to do and no space to start.

so i flounder in the creek behind my old house

every night for weeks, waking up gasping.

there's no help for this, only more longing.

i reach, believing there's anything to catch,

to pull myself onto the shore. anyone to throw me

a rope. but always fall short: always know

its my problem to solve. my genes to untangle.

salt over shoulders to keep

the ghosts out of my eyelids. knock on

woodwhirl oakswirl to make

the worry stop. when i check if i

left the door open i secretly hope i had-

if only to give the fear a purpose;

to give my shame a name.

window eyes see the colors of my

wanting- the numbers shudder and tremble.

five turns to five turns to eleven and

the engine turns over until it feels right.

my skin itches with the urge to cleanse

myself of the fearsmell, the caverns. 

bleating bleeding seeking- the comfort

of surety. even if i know, the knowledge

never lasts. even if i reflect it, the neighbor

comes knocking. apple cored and empty, 

the clarity fades when i squint.

the circles i swim in are storied and 

engraved into gray matter, splattered. 

the infection is systemic- on a monday,

the world gravitates on my shoulders

and the weight of my patterns.

id rather throw myself a bone - 

my stomach glitches when i think

about disobeying. the rules are 

melted and weaved into my self evidence- 

grapevine wound. i know the

contradiction of knowing mine own

ridicule and i listen anyway, laughing

the streetlights illuminate my fleeting Thoughts like

plankton in the water

water in the middle of the ocean and it's dark

and it's so deep that it looks black

and there is an oil rig humming through the water

its so scary

Loud

Of the same thought

The same moments

That left me broken

Left me open

Left me hoping I can

Find forgiveness

For the pain you caused

In myself.