Writing it Out

I love him with a grin,
with overwhelming serenity
when his fingers graze my cheek
when kisses land atop my head

sitting, eyes connecting -- simply looking
wondering, reveling in a moment serene
while my heart beats away furiously
wondering what he's still looking at

and then the kisses come, delicate this time
around, somewhat less sexual, not asking
but showing, gentel and whimsical.

Kisses for the sake of kisses, and nothing else.

And I love him with a grin, with the silly ease and
inexplicable joy, with comfort and serenity.

in the easy flow of love's current
the restful peace of partnership

but, I guess my life can never be so easy
that the good things in life must always
come with strife, trust is to be won
and then re-won, and re-established.

the tragic flaws, which follow along with essence
limit the scope of beauty and triumph

I wish we could have loved idyllically, but
 it seems that is not par-the-course

When does the crying stop? The despair?
I cannot do this, I just can't.

I need something, someone, I need this to stop.

I can't do it, I just can't.

I cannot sit in this bed, curl into a ball
 and continue to cry.
I can't fight for myself any longer.
I need someone to fight for me,
 I'm too tired, too broken, too insane
to help myself any more.

Its hard to let someone go. To know they were one there, right with you, the one person you would call when things got bad. My sin was that I didn't call. Instead, I caved upon myself when the world caved in upon me. When my pressurized cabin split beneath the pressure I wouldn't even ask for help. It didn't seem the natural recourse. What I learned before was that no one wants to be with the crazy person, we're too much pressure, too much work and not a lot of fun. I didn't want to put him through that, I just assumed he would leave at some point in the healing process -- and so I cut him loose before we got there, thinking it would be less painful. I may have judged too harshly, underestimated his patience. And now he's gone.

The person who always said "good morning" and "good night". Who listened to my rants about all the stupid shit in my life. Who believed I could get what I wanted. The one person I craved to be around, whose arms I wanted to wrap myself in daily, whose smile made the stars a little brighter and whose laugh held all the bad things at bay. It is this person who I have lost, my secret keeper and best friend. And now, I really feel as though I have no one. I am alone in my psychosis, everyone else sits in an orbit far away, and the man who stayed close by me is likely to want nothing to do with me.

And I can't decide if I did the right thing. I'm back to being officially unsable, brought on by nasty roommates, school pressure and Accutane (which, I realize I probably shouldn't have started taking in the first place, because, obviously, this was going to happen).

Last week we had a conversation where I said I thought he loved me more than I loved him. It seemed to me that he thought everything I did was adorable and that he'd never get mad at me for anything. We talked it through and I realized a) I had a big head, and b) we were about even. Neither of us "in love" but loving each other.  But then I spent the whole week in a state of neuroticy because I kept thinking he was going to dump me at any time. His text messages were short and brief, there were several mornings where he didn't text me "goodmorning" or "goodnight" which had happened every day for six months. He didn't seem happy to talk to me or that he even wanted to. So I let him be, I didn't want to smother or overwhelm him.

And then on Friday I had a pretty serious nervous breakdown. My friend had to drive me home, I called my mother in a state of utter panic and bawled for half an hour on the phone. I've spent the last two days crying every two hours or so and yesterday, feeling like he didn't want to see me, I broke it off. And I can't decide if I did the right thing or not.

So many things in my life are goign to change in the next two months. If we could have talked it out where I felt secure with him again I think it would have really helped to have him with me, just there so I knew I wasn't alone.

But that is a big thing to ask someone to do. To be with you while you're psychotic. I'm hopeful that it won't take a year like it did last time. Once I get the Accutane out of my system and back on an anti-anxiety and out of the townhouse I hope I will be able to be more stable. And maybe then I can call him. I don't know. I just wish there was someone here to hold onto for a bit.

Unexpectedly; my mind, still a little gorggy
 still a little filled with afterglow, jumped a bit in my skull
these were big words, important words, unexpected words.

Rationally, three months is enough time to truly love someone
 unexpected they ought not have been. But for a man who told me
he wasn't sure if he'd ever been in love, or loved, this was important.

But my little hazed brain, it jumped, spazmed and quivered.
 "What?" I asked, forever terrible with suprise's.

The last man who said he loved me, well, his love hurt.
 His love made me feel insecure, inadequate. As though
I needed to constantly be combating for his love--and that
 was my fault that I had to fight to keep it.

This man, his love comes easily. In the form of kisses, smiles,
 jokes or riddiculously cute behavior all to convince me to smile.
I feel almost as though I am too stoic for his love, not affectionate
 enough to match the level of his affections. And at the same time
I get the impression he doesn't care. Or if he does he knows this
 is simply not my way, and that I am trying to learn to change.

The truth of the matter is, he loves me. And I wonder what that means,
 how this plays out in life and our relationship. What reciprocal love
 looks like and how it feels. I'll admit, to being a little afraid.
But, the truth of the matter is, I love you too.

Begin again.

Breathe.

Summon that odd strength,
composed of years of pain and anger.
Misplaced and unplaced indignant, righteous rage.

Stand up.
Shake it off.
Refuse to be anythings bitch.
And begin again.

Pity party over,
melancholy discarded.
Shoulders back,
chin up,
face forwards.

Begin again.

where the world looms and appears despairaging
 when I wonder if I'll ever come out alive,
 and if it wouldn't just be easier to succumb
 to fulfill all the expected roles and quit

Quit fighting against the glass wall in front of me
 quit throwing tantrums no one is listening,
 quit pleading and crying over issues
 a very large majority can't see.

There are nights, where it all seems so impossible
 that I wonder if I wouldn't be easier to give in
 take the drugs they'd give me to numb my mind
 and float through life a Stepford wife.

If this is really the life I want. If I want to continually battle with my friends, relatives, peers, culture and universe. If I want a life with no husband, no wedding, no ring. No physical signs of stability and dedication past the very presence in my life. If I want to continue to refuse support after a certain point, telling myself that there is no guarantee -- ever -- that another person will be there for you, and so, you have to do things for yourself. I wonder, I wonder, I wonder. I sink into myself, analyzing what is important. What is achievable. If I won't just let all my ideals and notions of a better world go, and accept the benign. Accept that traditional, the easy, the safe. Sometimes I wonder, usually when I've gotten tired or overwhelmed. Usually when I need the support I refuse to accept. Refusing to let anyone back into that place because... eventually, everyone leaves. And I will not be broken again.

I attempt fluency, eloquence, all falls apart
 my words they do not hold, to attempt
and describe what is life is lunacy.

I will summarize with this -- it collapses,
 the pieces rearrange, and slowly...
a new picture forms, what was once
 a puzzle depicting green fields and
 wildflowers is replaced with bookends
and sunflowers; not what was planned,
 but somehow more unique. Mistakes,
need not always be regrets.

Its coming back together, coming back to center
 and it'll all be alright in the end.

i loose control,
 it slides from my aching hands
 flies off into the sunlight and i quiver
 as my life spins into catastrophe.

I’m realizing I’ve spent the last year or so climbing out of the bubble in which I chose to live. I knew there was a world outside of Private Liberal Arts Christian School, customs and cultures I was unfamiliar with. So I traveled, wound my way through Europe, read “banned books”, educated myself. I knew exactly what I was living in, had learned about what I was segregating myself from — and today I find myself at the border of the two.

I can choose to leave it, exit the fringes and live in what people have been “protecting” me from all my life. If I keep my head I can even do it “responsibly”. I seem to be at the crossroads of two biasies and deciding which I’d rather live within is confusing. I can choose what I’ve always known, but find lacking, sexist, controling and demeaning — yet comfortable. Or something else entirely which will probably land me in a state of near-constant confusion and axiety but seems, somehow better. I don’t know. Today, I sit in a very beige office thinking far too much.

there are days...

where all I desire is to stand on the old Irish hilltop and release the doomed screech of irrevocable, irrational bitter despair which would shred from the soul rendering me naught but ten thousand scattered pieces of sinew and bone.

This is one such eve.

I have not broken, I am not broken
 but I weep. I am debauchery, I am
sloth, I am weak and tired. I have lost,
 I will loose, I pretend this is not what I am

but there are nights like tonight, where I would
 close myself in the smallest crevice, rest my head
against cool, dark walls and release, melting
 as cooling wax within my minisculity.

I am lonely. And I wish for a moment, to let them go,
 these shields I have held to fervently; I wish only,
 to let their poisoned barbs hit me, so that I may
 finally sleep. I am lonely, and I wish to evaporate.

or spirits who come to call,
 sit down for tea with decency
 and proceed to draw my life from my breast

I would fight them, but I have earned this.
 my debts, my sins, my insanity
 has brought me here, to this
 tea-party ruling, my worthiness
 not up to par, mediocrity my pen-pal
 oblivion my sweet summer wine

I am tired, though sleep evades me
 flashes of heat and winters cold chase me

there are ghosts, not of regret but of dismay

its choreography, ballerina's and tap dancers,
 costuming and lights, an act - for entertainment.
                        whose?


My scene begins: with a sigh which begins in my toes
 all curls and releases with deadly weight; the head drops,
 brown hair wilts, neck curves and again-- the drop,
 towards the table, towards my center, towards the earth

Hello Earth, lips brush against grass, nose inhales dirt and life
 body gives in, relaxes, concedes; to the overwhelming power
 of the earth. Gravity, Physics, call it what you will.

I sleep, I grieve, I rest.

I agreed to go to Mexico. With a church. In a bus. With 40 High-Schoolers. I then later figured out it takes 36 hours to get to Mexico on a bus. I'm afraid. Of the high-schoolers. I realize they can never know this. Not sure why I agreed to this.

I change.
I change.
I change.

I scream.

I don't know what to do.

I whimper.
I wilt.

I can no longer cry.
Shame, pride, vestiges of dinity
they prevent tears.

I change.

All I know,
 is the core of this body.
The rest...
 arms, legs, fingers, toes,
   could be imagining.

The core...
  I cannot find it.
  I cannot define it.

 I long.
   for another body
   for another soul
   for assurance
   for saftey
   for the breakdown

for tears.

I change.
I change.
I change.

I scream.

I long.
  for tears.

I am pride.
I am shame.
I am pride.

and the longing for the breakdown
 I am too prideful to allow.

She asks me to describe my feelings, I use colors. She asks me to associate them with events, or time periods and I can only find two or three. The rest... it blurs together, like a hazy beige and dirties pale blue whirlwind -- only, it isn't fast or frenzied: it is slow; it is I who moves, not it. I revolve, too constantly to pin shapes down, voices spin about me and I know who they belong too -- but I can never find them. And I am waiting, waiting to quit revolving. Waiting for myself to settle, waiting to be able to identify shape, color, individual. Waiting for it too cease being so calmingly overwhelming. I am grateful to her, but I do not know the answers to her questions. I wish someone could just tell me. This round, is much more confusing because it holds less answers, than all the other rounds of therapy.

I just am. I think, therefore I am. That is most of the meaning I can ascribe to the now. The more conversations I have the more confusion I gain. There are no answers at this juncture in life. There are just things. Descartes -- thought, and extension in space. Neitzsche -- all is an elaborate struggle for power. Hume -- knowledge is gained through impression and relation of ideas. Meaning -- is a word I no longer understand. I simply am.

I would like to let this go, let us go
 this wary in between state, the hot
 and cold of our friendship, the deserts
 contrasted by ferocious seasons of rain

are confusing a mind that revels in stability
 you say you don't know how to be my friend,
 I find the conversation of strangers easier
 than yours, I've realized, and so, I would like
 to let this go, to let us go, if you'll let me.