I CAN'T HEAR MYSELF

there hasn't been enough silence, haven't been enough silences
to hear myself
how is it this time already,
you're breathing like you're sleeping
i thought i saw you tonight, skateboarding down my street,
as i accidentally stepped in puke

reading about schizophrenia on
soggy, sagging furniture
denying a thing exists doesn't make it disappear
but spring comes early in the valleys

so terrified of the good being fleeting
i saved my rolos from christmas seventeen years ago for seventeen years
and never used my favorite body glitter,
now just resting in my childhood closet unopened
yet still so subtly starved for something good

JUST FEELING HEAVY TONIGHT

I didn't take my meds because I felt like writing. I checked my email, noted there is nearly half of my licensure paperwork I haven't completed yet, because the state of Illinois is so FUCKING confusing, so now I don't feel like writing and I feel insane. I decided my paperwork and loose ends can wait until tomorrow morning.

I learned about a girl selling her books on amazon for $0.99, $1.99, $2.99, respectively. I want to try that but I can't justify to myself selling anything I write. I can't come up with a good reason for why I would need to put a price on what I've done. Every author does it. I wish I could hear the conversation of authors with themselves about that. It's not worth .99 to me, it's worth my entire life, but at the same time, not worth anyone else having. What use is it to anyone else, it's self-indulgent and shitty, but I do have a sense of pride over it. I'm curious if I could still feel proud if I asked others to pay for it. Then it would have to be worth the $2.99 or whatever. What if no one would get $2.99 worth of enjoyment out of reading my years of shit. ( I should probably take my meds.)

I'm feeling triggered because I was at my parents' yesterday and I spent the night there. It's been 24 years and there's still no 'intentional' time spent. When your parents dont see you for four months, but turn down going to get coffee with you? then i spent the afternoon alone at their house while they were both going on with their every day lives. It's fine but around 11:00am i asked myself why am i here. It's actually not fine, i'm in a shitty mood now.

It's hard to explain to people how it is living in a new city. I've been in Chicago for just over 4 months, and it is really hard. It's a good hard, but life itself is just more difficult in a city. i.e. getting groceries, parking, driving, doing laundry, picking up packages, ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC every day i can do about three things and then the day is over because it takes such time to get anywhere and wait in line and shit. I love chicago. there's so much to SEE and DO and the people are so queer and friendly and midwestern. I love the lake. I love logan square. trees and green of the boulevards. the opportunities and experiences all available if i want them. life is easy in missouri but it also makes me feel dead inside and that's what people cant fucking understand.

ALEATORIA

i keep hoping you'll just show up,
and validate me like a parking ticket.

spent a few minutes flipping through books and reading excerpts to each other - i really liked that.
i spent a few minutes in the pizza restaurant bathroom, cleaning herbs out of my crooked teeth with my belt.

at my best, im a small pool, at my worst a sandbox
at best, an afternoon. at worst, an eyesore

comparing nerve endings, impatient for connections,
at nausea.
neon white and the struggle of the tangle

OUR OWN

i timed the walk to california; 13:35.61, so if i need to get out of logan, i can do it in about fifteen minutes.

im devastated by the world now, as usual, stockholm attacks at åhléns, a place ive walked by and around hundreds of times, an eleven year old girl, walking home from school was hit and killed by a senseless act. in egypt, christian churches were bombed on palm sunday. 44 dead.

i have left missouri, left kansas city, and can leave logan if i need to. but none of us can leave the state of, and reality of, our own world. there is nowhere in this world free of madness, and if convince yourself you've found it, you're even more mad.

YOUVE MADE YOUR BED

saying goodbye with a lemon tart and an $8 orchid. now i can hear the train fly past on north milwaukee from my room.

this is how we wrap up loose ends and unravel new starts; fall in love with a $69 painting of a geisha. thinking, 'if i don't think about it', i could be in new york. finding it is much easer to work with you and feeling i'm accomplishing half as much without. killing time in public spaces, wet benches, creaky hardwood, glossy white tiled exteriors outside of takeaway pizza joints, reflecting light from cars and sprinkles. ive tried every take-out, vegan friendly restaurant on fullerton ave., i won't have gas in my kitchen for another week, and this seems to be a successful way to get me out of the house, though briefly. i bought slippers for cold feet and cold floors, i bought floss and it's very shitty ive been bleeding in my new sink. today i watched an amy winehouse documentary, mopped again, repotted a plant from pots i found outside on my back deck, didnt have the energy or wherewithal to go get myself a coffee, so ive had a throbbing headache, and just took an excedrin at around 7pm.  so i tried to read a bit, but i fell asleep. tomorrow i will go get myself a coffee.

it's been gloomy out and raining every day so far, so i guess i feel like staying home, not too cold, just really wet. i'm trying to write again, but i haven't got much inspiration or need to write when im feeling okay. katelyn sent me $5 to go get a coffee, sophia keeps reminding me to write "write a poem today!", and i've thought about asking mackenzie to remind me to eat x3 meals a day.

it's not all good, i still find myself to be driven by fear of simply remaining, but i don't want to kill myself !

GETTING SPACIER THAN AN ASTRONAUT

i haven't been writing in awhile. i mean i've been writing awhile. writing nothing worthwhile in some while. ive been writing patient reports, documenting slow deaths, slow sips, slow symptoms of suffocation. polysubstance abuse, ambulance rides in the wrong direction, when bodies are all that's left. tubes for breathing, eating, pissing. every hour, vitals are documented. every night, you can't sleep. and as im shoving a fig newton into your palm, i wonder when the last time you remembered was.

last week, an 83 year old told me she lives with her mom and dad and that she doesn't have kids. i watched her drink water and i told her her view from inside was beautiful. good her kids werent there to hear that.

today i saw a dying man pull out his lines and refuse his medications. he will starve, and he will suffocate, and he will die a very painful death and the entire medical team was helpless then. i will never be able to help anyone as much as i want to. and neither will anyone else.

the year was busier than before. or im emptier than before. 

i'm moving to chicago in a month. 

for myself, by myself

i ask what anyone else is thinking about because im tired of my own thoughts.

there is such sadness in the smallest places, such sadness is the biggest spaces.

i feel sadness for young, unsupported mothers,
the idea of elderly people growing lonely.

i feel sadness for every generation who only knows violence. 

i feel sadness for every child who isn't loved in the way they want to be.

i feel sadness for everything that goes to bed empty

i feel sadness for the scared and helpless and hurt

i feel sadness for everyone living paycheck to paycheck

i feel sadness for everyone who feels imprisoned in their own masculine or feminine body 

i feel sadness for every young person who spends thousands of dollars they dont have on an education 

i feel sadness for everyone who has no passion

i feel sadness for everyone who has not known love

i feel so sad for corrupt governments, broken social justice systems, the treatment of animals, the treatment of criminals, the treatment of mentally ill 

i feel sadness for everything dropped down on a train track 

i feel sadness for worms when it rains

i feel sadness for bugs stuck in windowpanes 

i feel sadness for broken homes

i feel sadness for hospital bills

i feel sadness for lost photographs 

i feel sadness for all that is ripped, crumbling, burning, and forgotten.

i have to remind myself that it is not okay to feel the sadness of everyone and everything sad in the world. it is the hardest thing for me to do. 

SORRY, I FELL ASLEEP

loves, lately

winter, a frozen smoothie, nutmeg, a soft sweater,  putting my toes underneath my space heater on high, then a hot shower

to do to feel empty list

have sex with various people, in various places, whilst under the influence of various psychedelics

spend a week watching people at the laundromat.

make out with the girls in your friend group. make out with the boys in your friend group. keep doing that for years. never talk about it, never feel feelings, and never feel full.

feel like you're wearing the wrong things, enjoying the wrong things, and saying the wrong things, and surround yourself with people who make you feel like shit

wonder if the people in love are actually happy

sit alone on a park bench in the middle of the night and watch the crosswalk signs change colors in the silence of no one. 

write poems and recite them for free on the street. 

run until you can't hear straight anymore. 

choose your home based on proximity to the sea. 

PERPETUAL 4AM

during dinner every night, sit in different positions and in different spaces of the floor around the house. keeps mind fresh, things feeling different, and routine feeling far.

crisp apple at the bottom of the staircase with the lights off

black eyed pea soup in the foyer on red ripping carpet

crack a candy cane into a bowl under the dining room table

DISSOLUTION

resonating the past week: if you want me you can have me until the end of time.

it's finals week. it's almost been another year. back to the time of year again where i get panic attacks, feel isolated, lack a schedule and lack purpose--christmas break. i suppose i am one of the few who looks forward to mondays and looks forward to having routine and obligations and reasons to feel okay that day. everything-class, tests, lectures-is a distraction to feel okay. and i understand now how adults work so much; working so much is a better alternative to thinking at all.

i have been thinking about seeing a psychiatrist for awhile now and trying out medication. i think christmas break would be a good time to start medication and see how it affects me (i'll have time to see how it affects me) with limited distractions and more time to think and feel. i guess i should ask my therapist first, but i just sobbed a lot our last session, and before that, i just smiled a lot about leaving for new york. i already booked a flight back to new york in march for spring break. something to look forward to. i'm looking for jobs and housing there as well. another top distraction.

some things making me feel calm and comforted lately: looking for jobs and apartments in other cities, cooking meals with friends, discussing mental health out loud, crowds of people and feeling anonymous, comfortable silences, being in transit (in-between destinations), running.

i finally ordered some books about love addiction (not to be confused with sex addiction) which i heard suggested on mental health podcasts over and over.  i've learned this usually stems from lack of connection with caregivers in early age, i.e. inadequate or inconsistent nurturing, low self-esteem, absence of positive role models for loving relationships. love addicts choose partners who are emotionally unavailable and/or verbally/physically abusive. they choose partners who demand a great deal of attention but who do not meet, or even try to meet, their own emotional or physical needs. they participate in activities that don't interest them or go against personal values in order to please a partner. they give up important interests, beliefs, and friendships to maximize time spent in the relationship.

i have done all of these things. in every relationship. "my fear of abandonment is exceeded only by my terror of intimacy." hoping i can figure some things out.

anyway, i am in no place to be wondering about how a person feels about me or doesn’t feel about me, because i'm not secure about another person’s feelings, i know that i don’t want anything serious at this moment in my life, but something serious is the only thing I can handle emotionally vs being insecure about how another person feels. i feel like relationships right now aren't for the right reasons and that too many people act as an emotional catchall for each other. otherwise it’s not worth it to me, being only partially/sometimes/carelessly invested in each other because it seems like it’s for selfish reasons, like being falsely invested just because i'm lonely and lost.

depression is a blindness and deafness to hope and beauty, but high res and max volume on god damn nothing. if anyone is reading this, don't worry, i'm not suicidal, just deeply sad.

OTHERS, MORE

how could i have expected you to assemble any feeling for me or ever voice any idea of love
when even your orgasm was stifled and numb

"in another universe, you kiss my sunburned shoulders and in another one every gas station is a home and in another one you have your own sun and one of those is a universe where i never speak"

HEAVY/CLOUDED

self-confidence below sea level
i hope all the food i left in your cabinets is moldy

feeling heavy but not knowing where to put all the things making you heavy cause everything’s kinda clouded. i want to feel the weight of you, on top of me, accepting me. just feeling overwhelmingly empty. doing everything but still not feeling enough. just numb. but like numbness that you can feel in a terrible way.

i will be in new york city on friday. i can't stop thinking about paris, sadness, and the horror of inhumane humanity.

I'VE FALLEN SHORT AGAIN

I've been outgrown
hibernate

cloudy bright night 

beauty alone

not painful sad

small feelings abt big things 

we've been outgrown

a tiny spencer statement & vancouver 

PARESIS

1. drinking a bottle of wine before leaving my apartment just to be able to talk (2014)
2.  being social for the first time without needing alcohol to feel comfortable (2015)
3. crying in the middle of the street into the phone to you, and strangers asking me if i was okay when you didn't (2015)
3. eating only a grapefruit for a whole day, two days, and forgetting to eat all together (2011, 2012, 2015)
4. being so afraid to be alone with myself that fucking whoever seems like a better option (2012, 2013, 2014, 2015)
5. giving up on family (don't remember when it started and it hasn't ended)
6. loving someone and then learning who they are (2015)
7. not recognizing what i am (don't remember when it started, and it has gotten worse)
8. when, apparently, you remember nothing you did in an entire year (2013)