catharsis pt. dos

i never meant it
to stand by because i was too afraid

but here i am
wallflower with twelve foot roots
i can't hardly stand ~ to pull myself out
move to center
that would be suicide

so i let my roots rot deep
struggling without sunlight or space is easier
than uprooting this self
from this place and
this way of believing

i could choose to do this differently
is that a reality?
or a realistic fantasy
which i peddle to myself for guilt by the hour, roundtrip

i want to wake up
loving my skin
loving the flesh that grows and diminishes
and shakes
like a living thing

i want to wake up sure
that i can do this thing
that i can make pieces fit together
and grant my own wishes

but i can't

or don't

or won't

i hold my flesh between my hands
a thousand dissonant rhythms of how
i should could tried left altered incised exorcised gave up
because it rules me

i should love the skin muscle sinew that stands my feet on the ground nourishes my blood which pumps my heart and puts electric life into my brain to tell my fingers mouth face what to say

i could pretend that it didn't matter to be different to be ashamed to be used to be judged to be too much or not enough to be not right in molecular certainty

i tried to let life carry away a disease of decay and it pumped me up but i didn't say i wanted to stay, so i learned a new escape

i left hoping. and then i left hope when abandoned by myself every couple days, where do you go? i am so alone that i don't exist, you see, that's how i want it

i altered my vision of self to transcend a scope so narrow of all these expectations piled on, but the transcension itself became a self i aspired to be, i forgot to leave me out of the equation and those ego intentions burn so brightly i'm the moth now, ready to be burned by me me me

i incised a line into my stomach, and then my thigh, which reminds me that this is real but only that real is here and here is hell and its so intolerable that i cover my wounds in shame and put a smile on my face

i exorcised the left-ear-corner-clipping of a demon so large it swallowed me while turning inside out inside: a vacuous hole, its a trick to see a soul in my eyes and the lines of my face because i haven't been here most my life, i'm afraid, i couldn't let it go without going away

i gave up belief. which is life and to be, because i'd rather be free but when i got to the giving my body which controls me pulled me down and cried so loud i couldn't see

because it rules me

not poetry not prose

i sat there, still
the rain slid over the glass
leaving lava bubbles on my legs
the rain moved me
nauseous lost in an out of body
experiencing timeless sapphire night
lost to when

the last time i truly remember
being able to love who i was
more or less, before less was all i could accept
i felt nothing
which was what drove me to tears
as the taurus drove off, presumably i was driving
they were stingy tears
the kind that feel dry before they drop and leave
a burning bump in your cracked and aching throat

i felt nothing
i remembered nothing
a person here or there flashed through brainspace
a discussion
but the feeling was set in a capsule
which we buried; i was there
but i've lost the nerve
i've lost the energy
i'm not sure i have permission

the tears, dry.
and the nausea, wet
churning
of what came next
which i still feel
deeply psychoticly in limbs i tried to discard
i crafted scrambled love letters to death
like this one
full of simple cliches
to explain
that i think i'm important
just like you

and as each memory spitting
through a chugging wiry fan
slap plopped down my face legs chin hands
time caught my face in her grasp
in the eye telling me to get the fuck off it
with no apologies

still.
all i know is the numbness now
the buried things scare me
i hate to feel weak

blah

another day that doesn't exist

oops-freeflowing unedited-sorrryk

in the middle of the night

when the storm has sent cascades
through hours
lashing gracefully
dancing scathingly

when sets across these states
run from sordid screens
to whirring reruns
to blankly buzzing
nofalls

i no longer exist

because i told my story to
my night self too many times
and it has become background noise
like the splatsplatpatter
and the frrrrrrrrrrrzzzzzz
its the meeeeeeeeeeee
that has ceased

to be interesting
to be intelligible
to be being

beating herself to the punches,
punching herself to the rhythm,
rhythmically breathing in again and away
into all things

--------------------------------------

if it meant anything
i would tell you
i'm really confused; i think we all are.

the panic always emerges
sets the stage lights on my
poor quickening heart and
-it leaps out -
a failed entrance
a forced smile and a stiff half motion curtsy
where emotion might have been

had i the courage
to be the woman in my head
who i've kept in cages of all kinds and colors
sleek and shiny things harbor hideous beasts
she thinks

had i the courage
i'd have said something sacred
i'd have danced into center
lit up the perimeter and parted with
kisses so genuine
to accept is to accept
and to reject is to reject
and the outcome matters less
than what is clear

and seeing through
is being here

really?

it occurred to me that i could conceivably choose to not worry about anything but my own life. that might make things simpler, huh? haha. oh miiii oh my.

Coming from a dark place

it is an interesting mechanism of human survival that we believe about our lives and our selves whatever it is we need to in order to maintain hope and stamina. "i", for instance, having had an eating disorder, at some point chose to believe that recovery was possible. recovery necessarily meaning that life would be better in order for it to be desirable. it was a belief i chose not all at once, but in broken steps, out of increasing desperation.
desperation created by the pain of slowly killing myself, the pain of being scorned by those i loved, the pain of a complete lack of autonomy, the pain of isolation, and the pain of bringing disgust, despair, and disappointment to my family. these pains threatened this tenuous existence - i had to make a choice. either believe that 'recovery' was possible for me, or stop hanging by a thread and just let it snap. there are all kinds of pressures, internally and externally, to not 'just let it snap', and probably rightly so, assuming that we are all here to continue survival,right?

and so i made a choice. the limbo space between here and gone was quickly disappearing, so i jumped to one side. i chose to believe that my fears- fears that swallowed me whole, that kept me awake at night starving & lonely, that drove my compulsive routines- that these fears were simply not true.
i chose to accept that this would tear me apart, that i would have to reject every belief and foundation "my life" had come to be built on, to overthrow the driver of my brainwheel. to accept that every breathing moment of my foreseeable future would be an exasperating torture. to accept that any control i thought i had was imagined. to accept that the pain i would feel outside of my madly constructed bubble would greatly exceed the pains within the bubble, even those that had brought me to this desperate decision making place. to accept that despite this, somehow, it would be worth it, and i would get through it.
to say these are choices made on faith is a gross understatement. they are choices that create faith in order to exist. choices that exist only to maintain hope and stamina. yet, according to those around me, this was the only rational choice - the only one they could believe in - because it kept them going, and we are all here to keep going, right?

this was fucking hard work, done on faith, with very little immediate reward (other than lifting some of the burdens off of my family). they reassured me that it would be worth it. so far as i could tell, recovery in their minds was a field of butterflies, rainbows and daisies- the light at the end of this dark tunnel, and every other cliche of delite.
'professionals' saw more of my truth - they dealt with people in recovery daily, but they too reassured me that it would be worth it. most of the time, i still believe this is true. it gives me hope and stamina. i am 'recovered'. an ironic label, since i feel near constantly lost. what is it that i have recovered? i think i am what i feared. i would not have made this leap of faith to recovery if i had known this to be true. but am i sorry that i made the leap? i don't know. when you cross an unbridgeable divide, looking back and making calculations is the sort of futile act that is pure masochism - that kills hope and stamina. which may be why i am in this pit: from trying to make that calculation.
in the end it is irrelevant if i am what i feared, because the process of recovery means letting go of that fear, however tightly you think you need to grasp it. letting it go and letting the process of living be all that you hold on to; all that you adhere to.

back to the point, if there is any point to this, people choose to believe the things that they need to to carry on. no matter how analytical they are, they do it because they have to.
my family has always believed that my recovery would bring me greater contentment and relief. they are sure of it, they can not see how it would not be so. but the world does not work this way, it does not discriminate between "i's" and "you's" and "me's" and "my's". it doesn't care who my family belongs to. and it cares very little about my contentment.
this is not a cruelty, this is a great ambivalent energy, a fusion and division of matter without a mind for my petty existence. so there is no reason to believe in anything about how things "should be" or "will go". the faith i based my recovery on is a bunch of shit. my personal essence + my life experience + my culture of birth + my period of history may ≠ peace and contentment, ever. that is something to be accepted for the sake of continuing existence. or something to be rejected and resented for a life of bitterness, or for death.
or, if i'm half sane, i'll probably just continue to ignore it and choose beliefs that format my brain for hope and stamina. call it choosing ignorance. or call it a cynical outlook. but i'm calling it like it is; nothing more than a convenient choice, a mechanism for the survival of each day.
and that is recovery, take it or leave it.
i'm gonna take it.

s'all good.

rant from some time in April

Not yet HUMAN anymore

Often, feeling not completely alive, drawn to asceticism, but wounded,
lost, guideless, spiritless, then numb; me personally.
Working through this, still, as far as 'normal' as it comes
I am still not alive, more, I am heart beating limb moving
sentient, but not humanly fulfilled, where am I?
Where am I - We, what we are?
Pulseless.
We have too long been trying to be Gods; veiled forces behind
closed doors, impenetrable, infallible, invincible,
but our flesh knows the difference, our Earth takes the beat.
We have not yet mastered balance. We don't know We.
Back to the point, we are not gods.
Why play at bigness, to our own destruction and to all that is life?
At the price of a grave forgetting, to not know this
Human-ness that rises up in us & says
Breathe! Explore! Struggle! Hurt! Die! Breed! Sing!
Wear your Face in genuine mirroring of your Self.
Cultivate. Create.
We don't remember much about creation, collectively.
We are bigger now, inflated but empty; spinning heads.
We fly to something feeling more important, greater, Godlier.
Domination ~ Destruction.
Why? What shaped this sick string which brought HERE & NOW before my eyes?
Is it for comfort, a struggle for resources?
Too convenient a write off for the worst.
Power. Like Gods. Forgotten humility. Floating heads.
What inflates must deflate.
We.
Doesn't build; imposes.
Doesn't gather; takes.
Doesn't struggle; hides, obliterates, betrays.

I me conscious body space am Not immune.
I too, am greedy, forgetting, instant sensation seeking.
Non human ~ inhumane.
I too am disgusted at my animal body. Why not more like a god's?
And so concocting things, scrambling, mentally make it so.
Momentarily immortal, its all for believing.
But the screaming in me, the swirling gaping PLEASE
find this, more, US.
Still here.
Wander to the woods, I hear you.
Follow pound feet in moon's reflection, I feel you.
Breathe in heady scents and see how she makes things reappear, I see you.
Beating hearts connect in pace of demanding some real recognition of humanity, I'm with you.
Discover essences indescribable crawls beneath skins of carbon everywhere, I learn you.
I want to know you.
Still there.
But I can't seem to find you, to hold you.
Lost so long ago, the lines on this map faded by thousands of suns.
All I can find are your brittle old backbones, far away &
scentless, senseless.
I hope this is enough.