incipient. ineffable. erstwhile. ephemeral.

i've been known and what a horrible ordeal it was. how horrific it would be to be known again. my bones miss the weight of yours. they ache with the knowing.

some people just know you better. they understand things the way no one else does without you having to explain yourself. they listen though, to the things you can't explain, to the things you try to. some people grow beside you, some people grow into you. you should be so lucky.

i want to be doing things. i want to be enjoying myself. i want so badly and yet i am too hot, eating on the floor. in your childhood kitchen, next to the dog your parents treat better than they did you. you aren't here anymore but i swear you're down here beside me, laughing on the floor. maybe i'll do things tomorrow. maybe i'll just enjoy the cold floor.

IT IS NOT BRAVE TO EXIST. IT IS BRAVE TO EXIST DESPITE AND IT SHOULDN'T HAVE TO BE. LET ME SAY IT AGAIN, IT SHOULD NOT BE BRAVE TO EXIST; I SHOULD NOT HAVE TO BE BRAVE TO FUCKING EXIST.

a renaissance yearning. the way i know the season by the sun-smell the baked carpet has midmorning. a chip in the ceramic of your favourite mug. how to turn off the faucet so it drips less because it will never stop dripping. grief in the shape of ineffable things. the lines drawn in digital sand where one follows but does not answer. i can't remember why love wasn't reason enough. it just wasn't.

she's the arched ceiling of renascence, achingly beautiful and she crashes onto a sticky club floor, aching and beautiful, what is it for?

barely three days into spring and i stood looking out over the backyard while downstairs the radio weatherman lied about the amount of snow in my driveway. the wind truly gives the college try at rattling loose the glass from the panes and the room shakes with the aftershock of its ghosts; a draft let in from the old, chipped corner of a wooden frame from the one time someone actually threw rocks at my window.

lately i’ve been trying to find the best way to get back the fondness that has bent in favour of shame. nostalgia is a thing i always hated the taste of. the thing i would pick off my plate and hide away in the napkin, hoping no one saw i had it in the first place. i was unwell in a way that gives no excuse but can easily explain my mistakes. if only it were so easy to hold that responsibility and ask for forgiveness where i wish to be forgotten. i start letters i never finish, type out texts i never send, scribble down poems and song lyrics that i never publish. how do you say i’m sorry when all you ever said is i’m sorry?

i crawl in and out of bed and weeks go by. there are stories in my head that i never write. i find one way that doesn’t hurt to pass the time and i keep it like a vice. it becomes boringly routine: feel less, hurt less, do less, lose time. rinse, repeat. i start to miss things. birthday messages, texts, plans, therapy. the pressure builds until i make a single mistake and the bottle shatters. i miss one dose of medication and the whole week my chest is inflamed due to stress, i can’t spend a hour without tears burning the backs of my eyes. every single, simple thing puts my stability to the test. i crawl in and out of bed and the seconds are immeasurably stretched. if i am careful about the next three doses, it takes about 72 hours of re-calibration to get back to regulation. at hour 48 i could eat the world raw and carve my every desire into stone with my bare hands. i want every single thing so badly i can't do any of them. instead i find myself in the middle of something spontaneous, probably reckless, usually ridiculous and (almost) never on the list of things i want so desperately. the world breaks my teeth as i bite into it, cracks my ribs to climb out of my chest. then i wake up the next day and crawl out of bed to find one thing that doesn’t hurt and clutch it until the time passes. then i crawl into bed.

i'm a fat cat asleep in the tall grass, i'm cornered dog baring my teeth but i only bite back. i'm the lone crow screaming for my bloody murder that left me behind again, i'm a sweet morning breeze when the summer's been too hot to sleep in the tall grass.

in the while light of day the city is ugly sharp lines and dirty streets filled with the pretty people who look good in everything and the regular folk who look at home in anything and i belong to it. this horrible, splendid city is no more mine than anybody's but there is a tiny haven of an apartment, too expensive to live in which i borrow from its building, that feels like a space carved out of the sky as the city melts into the glimmering windows and headlights of night and i belong to it. this wretched, wonderful place, i belong to it.

i read poetry when i need to see truth that i can not myself describe.

sometimes the most beautiful things can show me the darkest light. where does the soul come from, where does it reside, if not the dark.

i wanted to know, that was all. to know. to understand. to see. that there was more. that this wasn't all there was. that i could live outside of myself without shrinking back into the dark. that i was allowed the light. that i was, myself, both. i wanted to know, that was all. that was how i learned i wanted to live.

i'm still looking for pieces of you. i'm still looking for pieces of you everywhere and wondering where they could have gone that you are so far from me— that i am seeing you outside yourself but never again whole, never again but in pieces.