how does it feel
to be so very afraid
that every dark cloud
will summon a monsoon?
how does the weatherman feel
when he sees the hurricane coming
but can do nothing about it?
how does it feel to know
that every leaden sky
could bring news just as heavy?
how will it feel when the
first raindrop rolls down the
side of your face like perspiration?
how will it feel to suddenly be
in the eye of the storm?
I wish I didn’t know.
be terminally honest
different to the point of a fault
while also
indifferent, somehow
be genetically and wholly unabashed
be careless and
care less
and want
and be so, so impatient
and impulsive –
tell yourself it’s
a good combination
love yourself
try
even when you don’t
give yourself a reason to
be shameless
know fear as a terrifying tool
open up like a lotus flower
or a bulging trash can
better out than in
talk to yourself
repeat things to yourself
get some good responses
appreciate yourself
don’t change
be unabashed
Yes, okay, I am
emotionally vulnerable –
and what?
I am tired.
Tired from bouncing from happily
oblivious to
diving headfirst into this minefield;
from straining to ignore this
and just being,
to taking ownership and weathering it and
raising awareness of it. I am tired
and I don’t know which way I will
bounce next.
your distraction turned into the nightmare you’d been running from
(and I’m sorry for that.)
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.
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.
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.
