your distraction turned into the nightmare you’d been running from
(and I’m sorry for that.)
Author: writersamr (Page 37 of 45)
I don’t think I can do it.
I don’t think I can be the hero,
the writer who overcomes
everything to share her wisdom
and support with other individuals.
I can only be the writer who
attempts therapy through
self-indulgent poetry and writes
articles only through a drunken haze,
thoughts ablaze
with all the ways I’ve failed.
Add this to the list, this barely
started wander into the abyss of
self-help, so difficult I can’t even
help myself. I gave it my
best shot but my best shot was
still such a long way off.
I don’t know if I can rake this all up again.
It’s too close to the surface as it is
and requires no watering to grow,
there’s no need to hoe, and the seeds
were sown so long ago and so deeply
burrowed – I am borrowing memories
that never run out, I go back in time
every time I write a single line and
it’s scaring me so much right now
I just can’t.
I don’t know if I can do this Lynch syndrome memoir/self help book thing. I think it might be too hard. I’m going to try anyway, but I’m afraid I’m committing myself to something that is going to be more of an emotional struggle than it’s worth. I will press on. Just not tonight. Writing is hard for so many different reasons.
I’m writing a book about Lynch syndrome because there are like, none out there for people just diagnosed. I’ve started on it with a kind of self-help bent, but it already sounds too clinical. I think I’ll go more down the memoir route – still helpful, but putting my bad memories to good use. I think something personal will be more empathetic and appropriate.
Strolling through the cemetery,
we’re not buying, we’re just
window shopping, casually planning
which stone to carve our vitriol into.
I like the simplicity of white marble
but you prefer the gothic styles, black
and grey swirls reflecting how death
really is – the nothing offered to
everyone involved. So much nothing.
You consider an obelisk, something that
exudes a sense of grandeur you
never quite achieved in life. All
these years we lethargically aspired to
what we thought we should be, but we
never really tried at all – we just idly watched
as our ideal selves hovered vaguely in the
distance. I like to think I aimed for something
but I never had much hand-eye co-ordination.
We kneel in the soil and you scratch
our names into the dirt with a stick.
Illuminated by the moon, this is
the closest we’ll come to death today.
You may think that he’s a demolition expert
When he’s finished with your self-esteem
It may be true we all need knocking down a few
Come find shelter or your shelter with me, with me
– George Ezra, Breakaway
I love George Ezra’s album, but you’re wrong, George. I didn’t need knocking down a few. I needed building back up.
Don’t mind me; it’s been a bad week. I’m feeling sensitive to like, everything. So. Maybe next week will be better.
I barely found the words to say
only to find they weren’t worth saying
(They were just the right words,
said to the wrong person)
I can still feel the
bruises behind my eyes
Today I am very unconvincing.
Pretending to be happy is
too exhausting to contemplate
when I’ve spent all week being
put in my place.
It is too hard to answer questions like
what is left
who is left
I’m not so sure now.
I got it wrong somehow.
Sometimes when I’m trying to write about my experiences
I stop suddenly and smack myself on the forehead and
cover my face and just want to scream because
I can’t believe that this is me.
I have written this post for the writing contest: How Writing Has Positively Influenced My Life, hosted by Positive Writer. Click here for more info!
I’ve loved writing for as long as I can remember. It’s been the only constant thing that I have always wanted to do – thoughts of being a
teacher, a psychologist, and fleeting fantasies of being an actress or in a band, all came and went. But writing is the only thing that ever stuck, the one thing I’ve never doubted my ability to do.
