Real and Imagined.

 

Better to break bones than to endure the loss of perceived love. 

Better to bleed internally to keep warm than to seek out comfort in another at the risk of feeling too vulnerable.

Better to die quickly than endure the memory of lost things.

What a way to live, to feel as though you should be gone already. 

Why am I taking up this space, rather than...

Why am I here when they are not?

Why was his voice, a voice of calm, clarity, vision, love, and compassion gone

and I'm still here. 

Why was his voice, one of crazed humor and fearless wit, gone from this world 

and I'm still here. 

Why will my family be taken from me slowly, in front of my eyes

and I will still be here to endure it ("if I'm lucky," they say...)

It's hard to be grateful for a time yet to be spent when all I can think of is the pain of future lashes.

I want to be grateful and present and standing in a glass pool with no ripples, 

but my mind is always far away and I am standing in the middle of an angry sea.

Mirror

Progress doesn’t always show 

Because were too close.

We’re the last ones to see the belly gone

Or the anger dealt with

Or a child’s gaze, in the 

back of our minds 

A little less on fire. 

I wish I didn’t have to ask.

I wish you were a mirror

For the good and the bad

But all I hear

Is wanting for more. 

And maybe that’s what you need. 

And that’s okay

That’s incredible

But stop hurting me to get it. 

I see progress in me.

I see the beginning of who I want to be.

Please don’t stifle that. 

Anon

I don’t believe it.

I don’t believe in happiness. 

I want to-

I never said I didn’t want to 

but I just don’t see it.

Not for me.

The idea of its purity seems like a sick joke, a ruse to bring you in, but leave you in a self-made prison wanting something else but just making do with what you have. Silent suffering.

I’m not quite there. I’m not quite here either. 

I’m not quite, but always looking for something 

that I can’t describe in words. 

Something that feels like bathwater without the razor... something that feels like the pain was never there. Something that feels like privilege and comfort and softness of hands and hearts. 

I want to feel, for once, that I wasn’t hardened by a trial of childhood. I want to feel worth your time... anyone’s time... I want to feel like I was a priority. Not a lost cause. Not a lost and found teddy bear. 

I don’t want to be the last kid waiting outside for a parent that forgot he existed- too busy watching TV with a third bottle of wine to bother with him.

I want to feel fake thoughts of myself as a young boy. Memories of giggling and running and scrapes from park swings and backyard hide and go seek...Not the real and imagined scars of the actual reality of that young boy. Relied on for everything, for love and support and a whipping post for when things seemed out of control. I was silent and dutiful 

I don’t want to hurt anymore thinking about a past that's still mostly blank. I want to talk to myself, hold his hand, my hand, and tell him that it’s going to be alright; tell him that someday people would see him as useful... but that child would roll his eyes. 

That child was tougher than me. He was living every day. Fighting to stay safe. Taking scraps. Learning to survive. He made the best of it. 

He never hoped for too much. He knew disappointment and hollowness and fear, but still, he got to school on his own- maybe late, but there, red-eyed from no sleep and hungry and distracted and alone in another way but he was there. 

I don’t want all that. I’m tired of being “one of those” stories. I want normalcy. I’m so damn tired of being a story of partial resilience, a 

I want my reality to be blissfully unaware. 

Confident.

Loved. 

But I’m destined for pain, forged in fire. Self-doubt, self-hatred, and self-destruction folded into the steel of my soul. A smile without a soul. Bullshit up to my eyeballs. 

Pete Townsend’s most famous line. Knawing. 

Meat Grinder

Does normalcy exist in the way you assumed it did?
what was it like?
what is the thing you want to return to?
is it a state of carefree?
a place where crime is low and people aren't in the streets?
a time where viruses and disease weren't rampant
was there food for everyone?
was there shelter for all?
and people didn't judge one another based on
skin
and gender
and sexuality
and education
and wealth?

Where was I?
Was this place available to me?

I don't believe you,
I believe if you looked hard enough that you would see
that the world was already on fire
but you didn't care.

You were wandering through,
BELIEVING
that you would make it to the next day because
you were too important
for issues to affect you,
ASSUMED that
you were immune to the disease

you had enough,
        certainly more than some people
you weren't racist
        you just didn't agree with some things they did
you didn't care that she was gay.
        you just didn't want to see it in a restaurant while you were trying to eat
you thought 'it's just fine if those people wanted to work those jobs'...
       but it's just too bad that they don't want to make more of themselves...
and it's so great that she wants to get her job back after kids
       it's just too bad that the kids won't be raised properly

But that was you existing
and not living.

That was you enjoying being part of a very old machine
a rusty, trusty meat grinder
and it's grinding to a halt.

Handy

There used to be more joy I think

In the fixing of things. 

Pride giving. 

A dangerous thing, pride, when en mass 

but

A “job well done”

Would be more than enough. 

“Look how it works, much better now”

Would send me over the moon. 

A helping hand would make me swoon. 

It all comes easily. After the years... A quick look, an “ah that must go there” a warmth when on the right track and the parts are coming together.

Better than new. That’s the goal.

Though going back and fixing mistakes...

That’s education too.

I don’t want to be this way. 

I want help. 

I want love. 

“I appreciate you”

I can’t fix that. I can’t make words happen or feelings occur. I can just hope in silence that the effort

...That I myself...

Will be noticed 

and maybe loved.

Then and Now

Feverdreams of childhood homes

Worst nightmares of EVERYTHING falling apart

And no one caring. 

Holes in the roof, no intent on patching

 and people sitting around a table 

happy to let the rain in. 

Mold taking root, insects chewing

Sun robbing of any youth in lumber, turning it all  to dust. 

Just before the rain comes back

And washes it all away

The driveway is always full of belongings. 

Things I’ll never see again but am always haunted by.

My childhood was in there. 

I think I had one. 

I remember so much good

But so much more 

isn’t there.

Thinking of that place more. 

Childhood home, something wants to be

Remembered,

Explanations not asked for

The universe is swinging around.

Fever dreams of childhood homes waking me up

To a realty where the roof is open

The rain is coming in

And no on seems to care. 

Panic

Hey, look, a new form of panic attack.

But the old ones were so enjoyable!?

What to expect when the world starts to offer you love?

That’s what it feels like. Like the world is prodding with a little kindness and you need to sneak off to a bathroom so as to not disturb your current life with

...being happy?

What do you do when you feel your feet slipping

Like you’re standing too close to the edge of a great cliff but

your legs are jello, and your brain is spinning as though you’re already falling.

Vertigo? Jimmy Stewart? Rear Window without Grace Kelly. 

Imposter syndrome, thanks Gaiman

thanks for bringing that ole’ chestnut back into view.

(I still love you) 

What do you do when half of you wants to thrive. To become who you want to be, but the other half. tells you to stay put and lean into the frustration  because that’s what you deserve... 

I’m writing again. Something about home. Something about starting to feel fresh again. 

But maybe that’s fresh like the cigarettes used to be. Exciting. Then smoked. Then crushed.