have i been putting off healing?
god i fear i have.
why would i do that?
i think i spend so much time with my nose in my navel, trying to understand myself from the inside out, instead of looking out to the world. instead of remembering that healing can mean loving other people. can mean trusting other people. can mean going eye to eye with what hurts instead of destroying myself to escape.
i have no desire to confront what hurts me, but it’s time. it’s time now.
-
No comments on putting off
-
“When I do good, I feel good, when I do bad, I feel bad, that is my religion.”
Abraham Lincoln -
i would probably use more of the hundred notebooks i own,
i would yell my words from street corners,
maybe admire a flower or two,
and press four leaf clovers into the pages of old journals. -
breathing with a knife in my lung
searching through the gray
believing in a light
lifting a head after 3 hours of sleep
finding a reason
staying out of the hospital
looking you in the eye
saying no every time i want to
holding my heart with soft hands
speaking to myself with grace
saying sorry and not making excuses
forgiving myself -
oh god. what a question. something about it really hits me.
it feels almost too precious to try to capture.
it’s hard to say, but i’ve neglected my friends.
i’ve been so goddamn down that i’ve hardly see them.
that’s the truth and it’s sad and small and selfish.
i breathe a little better now, and i need to spend this precious time with the people in my life. i don’t know the next time my lungs will collapse.
my friends. my family, too. my mom, my brother, my uncle, my cousins. my god children whose birthdays i’ve missed.
i’ve cut off almost every connection i’ve had through years and years of mental health issues.
but they stayed. they all stayed.
and i’ve repaid them with very little.
(not that love is transaction, i remind myself over and over again. i don’t have to prove my worth. i don’t have to earn love. i do not need to earn love. people can love me just for who i am.)
i’ve sat on every leather couch, talking my throat sore about me and me, and them, but in relation to me.
and i needed that. i still respect that space.
but i need to stretch. i’ve been hunched over staring into my own core for the better part of a decade, and i need to unfurl. -
i want to make life my priority
breathing
being
touching
instead of the
half death of depression
god is it a cliché
but it would be nice to look at a flower
and see a flower
and not wonder if
i can make it poison
to say good bye
and not wonder
if it’ll be the lastbut i’m better now
i’m brighter
broken brain propped up
on a handful of pills
and a therapist’s couch
i stay away from knives
i’m excruciatingly sober
all the time
i just wonder what it would be like
to want to live this life -
tw: suicide
i work hard to stay alive
it doesn’t come naturally to me
every walk along the side of the road,
every time i slice an avocado,
shave my legs,
cross a bridge,
drive at night,
there is no place where death doesn’t casually ask me to stop by
and i get better and i get worse
but it’s never completely gone
there’s a non-zero chance every day
do other people live this way? -
Daily writing promptWhat aspects of your cultural heritage are you most proud of or interested in?
my cousin
who is a few months younger than me
had a child the other day
this is beautiful and precious and a miracle and
we were just eight years old in my grammy’s pool
doing our best to avoid the edges
where bees had made their homes
laughing into the ease of our days
we celebrated every holiday
sparklers leaving trails as we traced hearts into the air
each birthday a cake and a get together
i thought everyone considered cousins to be siblings
you just didn’t always sleep at each other’s homes
we baked the pizzelles
the italian cookies
the easter bread
we had pasta and sauce,
never from a jar,
and when i became a vegetarian at age 12
i got a side eye while
skilled hands make meatballs
we greeted each other
booming
the softness of my aunts’ arms
a kiss on both cheeks
the reverence we were told to have for our elders
while gray hair called me a piagai talk with my hands
loud and quick
and i’m expected to do the dishes
while the men sit
the women say
at least we have time to talk
and then go on to speak
about hard truths
and who was in rehab this time
and i’m writing this with a needle to the corner of my eyes
because i haven’t met my cousin’s baby yet
and we won’t have another christmas
because of their brother
their uncle
my father
and what he did throughout it all
and i love them i love them
but i was just a kid
so i separate from them
because i cannot separate them from
their own turned heads -
Daily writing promptList three jobs you’d consider pursuing if money didn’t matter.
- i’d be a liar
- i’d be a saint
- i’d be your lover
-
i could do more of silence
my mouth seeking vanity
security
your lips to my ear
so loving and sincere
me, changing everything i hear
to i love you i love you i love
i could do more of history
i restart my identity
every city block
i say the things that bother me
happened to someone else
i tell stories when i talk
as if i have never been touched by you
i could do more of waiting
every moment passed
is a gasp
i have no decorum
there’s a vibration through my hands
i need to know now
need someone to promise
it’s ok, you’re ok, it’ll be ok
i could do more of listening
i’m desperate
to have the last word
to fight my way to a seat at the table
when i sit
i scream
not knowing what they mean
when they say to wait my turn
i could do more of healing
ripping open stitches with my teeth
running on broken knees
slamming my fist into the meat of my thighs
sometimes
i think i want to hurt
i mean
what other conclusion could
all this breaking make
i could do more talking, more missing, more pride.
i could do with more acceptance, more opening my eyes
i could do with more denial of the dangers that i covet
i could do more of exactly what i want
i could do with more standing still
i could do with one more voice
saying
you’re in the clear
and i could do more of living in love
and less of living in fear