It's who you know.

I never took the future seriously
Because I don't think
I ever thought
I would live that long
Now here I am
On the cusp of 25
And no closer to
Anything
Than when I was 18
I don't expect anything
And I am my greatest hurdle
And yet
I want more
I want to heal
But wanting something
Is not the same
As going
And getting something
And I have trouble
With the "doing" part
I don't lack ambition
I lack motivation
I don't lack intelligence
Or ideas
I lack resources
Don't tell me
All you need is
A modicum of talent
To make your way
In this world.
What I really need
Is a dish
Of privledge and opportunity
And a cocktail
Of prescription drugs
To take away my greatest hurdle
And to know
Someone who knows
Someone who knows
Someone.

A break up.

If heaven is a real place,

Then it exists behind your eyes.

But when you sit there

And tell me

You want out,

All I can think of

Is I'm living in hell.

I didn't see that coming

But being near sighted

How could I?

You don't even shed a tear

And I feel far away.

My emotions are banging

At the door

But my heart is in my throat

and I can't keep them from coming.

We speak civilly

But I feel like an abandoned fort

In the middle of a violent civil war

I don't want this

But I know if it's is what you really want,

I can't convince you otherwise

And I won't.

I won't.

I have been thinking.

I have been thinking a lot about this blog lately. I still write often. At least a few times a week. But my writing happens primarily in the form of journaling these days. It helps me deal with my depression and anxieties, my queerness and my hatred of this queer body, my relationships and my relationship with conflict. When I was at the bottom of the ocean and thinking I would drown down there, I wrote my way through the entire experience.

Even though it helps me with all of these things, I have been finding it frustrating to write in circles and not really be producing readable work. I feel as though I have lost myself and I have lost my craft.

I thought, when I first really stopped writing a few years ago, that I was growing out of it and I didnt need or want to do it any more. I dropped out of university. I was very focused on my music and then my job and then coming out and exploring that. I watched my life do a complete 180 and I found myself in a codependent and emotionally abusive relationship. It took me a long time to realize that I was isolated from my friends and family, and unfortunately from my hobbies and passions. It took a diagnosis and moving out of that relationship and then months of quiet contemplation to heal and really begin to unpack what happened. I find myself now in a stable place, in a much healthier relationship, and missing my words and my music.

My hands feel numb with disuse. But I am playing guitar again. I am slowly building muscles that I have allowed to atrophy. My prose feels weak. Like a bridge built from popsicle sticks and glue. I want to write again. I want to publish eventually. I find myself now a queer, nonbinary trans feminist with a lot to say, especially about these experiences. It feels appropriate now with NaNoWriMo in full swing that I try and begin that work now.

If this sounds whiny or annoying, it probably is. I haven't written this for anyone but myself. Though this blog is public and on the internet, I find it quiet and private, far away from the bustle and constant circling of vultures on social media.

Someone told me once that I cannot look to find happiness in another person. They told me I have to find it in myself. I was a little younger and a lot more brash and I did not want to hear those words. Even though I am in a relationship that makes me very happy, with a person I will probably marry, I struggle every day now to find that confidence and happiness in me and for me. I wish I had taken that advice seriously, because it is so much harder now than when I was 18,19, or 20. Here I am on the cusp of 25 (ancient, I know, I started this blog when I was like 16), and just beginning to understand happiness beyond the parameters of a romantic partnership.

Hindsight is 20/20 I suppose. I am here now, battered and a little worse for wear, but I'm alive and still sober and queer and hopefully a little smarter and thankfully ready to write again.

Nacreous Bottom

I let them take over
The small machinations
Of a part of my mind
That they said
Was better left unloved.
With every pinnacle
Every peak
Every jagged faced mountain
I've ever scoured,
You will always come down
At some point
And it will be
Ineffable
Inescapable
Unmistakable
A deep blue
a nacreous bottom
In some ways
Those moments
Make me feel
Nascent
Like I have just been born
Like I have yet to live
Like the last 23 years
Are a drop
In a river
And they drift away--
Nothing at all.

A Welcome Distraction.

I catch you
Slipping through
My mind--
Every day
I get distracted
From my thoughts
They feel contracted
Like water receding
From cool blue tide pools.
You are a moon
And your gravitational pull
Has me
So grounded in you
That my head
Sways and crashes
Like waves
On an ocean.

I never ran away but I tried.

My mother adds
A shade to my dark
When she asks me
If I remember the time
I tried to run away.
I wouldn't have
Gotten far
I had less gas
Than a parked car
Three packs of instant noodles
A fresh faced scar
And my favorite blanket.
She thought it was funny
But it also broke her heart
To know
The turmoil I was facing
Was not something
She could control
Or handle
Or fix
Or do anything about.
Our life was just a bunch
Of crappy circumstances
Exacerbated
By a fist's
Unruly advances.
It made me sad
To know that I hurt her so
Much.
I never wanted to.
I never thought of her.
I was just tired and scared.
And that's why I'm crying
At the dinner table
As she tells this story:
Because I forgot
How she was always there
And I wasn't alone.
Even if I felt it right
In the core of my soul.
I was never alone.

Hearts.

She could break my heart
into 1000 pieces
and I would pick
them all up,
number them 0 to 999
press them back together
with superglue
and bent up euphemisms
and drop my heart
right back in her hands.
She said
"I could never do that to you."
But you did.
Over and over.
Every day.
Until I couldn't find all the pieces
anymore.
And it wouldn't matter anyways
cause you can only fix
a broken thing
so many times before
it becomes unrecognizable.

Erode.

Why do you hold this power over me?
I am leaves ripped from branches
I am trees torn from the earth
I am erosion
Of soil and stone.
I hate that I let you do this
I hate that I can’t control it
I hate that my fate
Is to continue
To let you wear me away
Until I am
Nothing but
A never ending canyon
A winding river
The deep crevice
Of an underground cavern.

What You Do.

Her eyes cut through me.
A hot blade through cold butter.
Her eyes gut punch me.
A hammer to the head of a nail.
Her hands still hold me.
An anchor clinched around coral.
Her hands move through me.
An automatic rifle kicking out after firing.

I don't know if she knows.
I want her to want me.
I see that she sees
her special effect is affecting me.

After A Breakup.

I'm afraid to admit
I feel sort of out of it.
I'm just too tired I think
To invest the time
To step off the brink
I can't continue to lie
And say I'm fine
And turn around
And die every night.
Every night
A little bit of me dies.
Hi,
Do you care at all?
Hi,
Did you ever?
Hi,
It's been a while,
Want to catch up over coffee?
Hi,
Did you know you've damaged me?
Hi.
How are you?
I miss you.
I wish I could kiss you.
I wish I could forget you.
I wish I could relive you.
I wish I could be without you.
I wish I was whole without you.
I want to be whole again.