I have thinky thoughts
with my inky words,
you in that slinky dress,
pushing kinky nerds.
Tag Archives: writing
Before the Before
Life turns around quick
because only one moment
separates people from
a “before” and an “after.”
Only one trauma,
one car accident,
one slip up
and your whole life
can change.
And life is a
series of moments
like this,
forks in the road
where decisions
were made
for us
and we have
to learn to cope.
This is where
empathy comes in,
and the more
you know empathy
before the “before,”
the softer you’ll land.
CBT
No,
it’s not that
it doesn’t take
any skill
to do
what you do.
It takes
YOUR skills.
You just
haven’t learned
to value those yet.
Delirious With Sputum
I had a doctor’s appointment.
They gave me antibiotics.
It’s been more than a month
with this sinus infection
but I just kept hoping
I was gonna kick it.
But I’ve been in pain
and I was already there
for something else.
I winced when she
touched my neck.
Later that night
I massaged it,
and panicked when
I felt how incredibly
large and swollen
my lymph nodes were.
As I caressed,
tension released,
and I started coughing.
Delirious with sputum,
I researched
what was happening.
Turns out
lymph node massage
is a thing.
I massaged
until my skin
felt loose.
My double chin
had been storing
extra human goo.
I poked and prodded
the result,
staring at myself
in the mirror.
Was I manlier
with my skin
hanging loose?
And then I pulled
on myself,
enough to
tear my heart,
enough to
rip a seam
where I had
sewed myself together.
I often joke about
being 23 weasels
in a human suit
(It’s supposed to be 24.
Oscar is on FMLA,
he’s working through some shit.
It’s why I limp
unexpectedly sometimes.).
I pulled at the corners
and I saw behind the mask tonight.
The pilot, he feels trapped.
What I’m capable of
I can taste my skull
When the mint begins to rot
At the inside corners
And the edges of my teeth.
I can can feel my tendons
Gently sliding through
Stroking past each other
Buried in the meat.
I can sense my skin
Bristle under the sun
I can feel it augment
Tingle like it’s bugs.
I can think my brainmeats
Writing on these words
Making all new thought heat
Burning just for fun.
My love
You are stitched
from strands of pure gold,
my love,
and all your broken places
show where you’ve been
bruised and bumped before,
that just adds character.
You are twisted silk,
my love,
tangled with an acrobat
of deftly managed
quite queer feelings,
that is how we all maintain.
You are the waves,
my love,
tossed upon the shore
and teased at the surface,
your soft pale blues
that turn to black,
that is because
they don’t know
of your depths.
You are not lost
or unwelcome,
my love.
This forest is filled
with friendly trees
as family.
We are not menacing.
We want the best for you,
my love.
The Pit
I think one of the scariest things about depression is how alone that you feel. A depressed person is not only lonely, but lost and forsaken, feeling unworthy of love. It isn’t about physical presence, because you can be in a crowd and be the only one there. It’s not about mental presence, because you can be engaged with somebody, wholly involved in an experience, and still be desperately alone. It’s not even about emotional presence, because a depressed person can still be a functioning partner in a relationship.
It’s about the pit.
I imagine an endless gray landscape, dotted with abysmal pits. I imagine a smattering of trees, and a thick fog. This is where people go when they are depressed. All you can see is the inside of the pit, the clammy, rocky walls of the pit. They are rough, jagged, hopeless. Far above, there is a pinprick of light. The opening. There is nothing comfortable about this pit.
It is not impossible to get out of the pit, but it takes help. Help that IS OUT THERE because DEPRESSION LIES and YOU ARE NOT ALONE. There are people that love you milling around outside that pit, wondering the best way to get you out. Waiting to help in any way that they can. You can’t see them, though. Because you’re in the pit. You don’t have the right perspective.
Maybe someday something magical starts to happen. Your medication starts to work. You’ve started ECT. Something clicks in therapy. Suddenly, there’s a rope being lowered into the pit. You don’t know whether to trust it, but you give it a few yanks and it feels solid. So you start to climb.
It’s hard work. Everyone is looking down into the pit and cheering, but their voices bounce off the walls, seemingly turning into mockery. Depression, you see, has a tendency to distort everything. But you climb. And climb. And climb.
Maybe you get out this time. Maybe it takes a few tries, a few rests, some time to strengthen your muscles. But you make it!
And shockingly, there’s all your friends and family. You just couldn’t see them before. I’m looking around right now, on the cusp of genuine okayness if not wellness, and I can see that the droning that was driving me mad while I was in the pit is my support system excavating a staircase down to the side of my pit. These are my skills and coping mechanisms, now out in the light and ready to be practiced daily so that I may learn them truly. So that future visits to the pit can be a lot easier to get myself out of. So that they can come visit me.
There can be something comforting about the pit. If nothing else, it’s yours. It’s a safe place. A place for you to feel miserable, but safely so. It is so devastatingly difficult to leave, but so easy to return to, especially if you are afraid to make a new normal. The kind of bravery it takes to get out of the pit is nothing compared to what it takes for the first few steps to the land of new being. That’s where unhealthy coping mechanisms get analyzed and shed, where toxic relationships pass into memory, where bad habits meet their demise. Replacements for all of them are forged, and you become a stronger, healthier being.
Wherever you stand today, friend, I would like to encourage you. Do not succumb to the lies of the pit, nor those of the gray landscape. Keep stepping forward.
Forgetting
My father called me, from inside the house. Asking if I knew of any zip ties. I reassured him that his guess what as good as mine. He asked me what I was up to. I said I was watching a show on Netflix with my husband. He replied “well that’s a priority.” before I hung up.
He called me back, a while later. Said that I was not to be forgiven for taking something as pure and light as thanksgiving and turning it into resentment. I had made it very clear that I needed to stay home and mourn Grandma in my own way. And then I went with my husband to the nursing home where his grandma stays, and endured the pain and vague atmospheric contamination of human feces to be, for a few moments, a member of a human family.
He called me again later and told me that he and my mother cried and stayed up at night, worrying about me and how I abuse them. That I should look for alternative housing solutions.
Which might be true. I used to think this place was all I ever wanted. But now it’s empty, and it exists as a pure vessel for pain.
He made an ultimatum during this last call. That I should come down there and talk.
He and I talk best during action. Neither of us are great at eye contact, and a helluva lot worse at seeing eye to eye. So I let him work on plumbing while I stacked wood. The only words he said to me during the half hour that I sweated? Asking where the air compressor was.
I left. I went upstairs. I tooled around.
I made a decision.
I heard him start to vacuum. I went out to my car and loaded my gun.
Today is the last night before my most hopeful treatment for depression, ECT. And I was ready to make it my last night.
I cried. And waited. And watched as his headlights flicked on and left.
It was the closest I have ever been to shooting myself.
If there’s any hope out there, it involves forgetting my family. I see that now.
Make it
Go ahead.
Make
my decision
whether
or not
to commit suicide
about
you.
Make it
determine
if you’d like
to get close
to me,
since
you are so
spectacularly
against drama.
Make it
into the story
you almost told
about your life.
Make it
into a
reflection of you,
and then
let me break
that mirror
and cut you
with the shards.
Grow or fail
When I
told her
I didn’t
deserve her,
she didn’t
pad my ego.
She only
told me that
she sees
the potential.
And I
can’t imagine
anything
more perfect.
She nuzzled
into me,
grabbing at my hoodie
every time
I tried to escape,
and I felt love
in each harsh tug.
It’s something
like comfort,
reminding me
that I am capable
of making choices,
waiting until I can
make a decent choice
all by my lonesome,
that I can
have goals
and succeed.
And she
kissed me
on the cheek and
let me leave and
closed the blinds
while I let
my tiny car idle.
I think tomorrow
I’ll put in some
job applications and
never ever talk
to my family again,
now that the only one
that truly cared,
the only one
who never made me
hate myself,
is gone.
It’s either
time
to grow
or
time to fail.
Rexicorn 