Recharge

Reverse

Replenish the life lived out too soon in frantic imaginings, in anxious anticipations, lives spent on what-ifs, fantasy phantasms dancing along intrusive thought trains-no track in sight

Where did it begin!

How to find present mindfulness of a projected existence?

Personas twisting to fit the never-ending-trending of whatever passes for authenticity in this passing momentous motion FORWARD!

TO THE FUTURE!

Uncovering the REAL reality!!

Revelling in the destruction, desecration dutiful in its all-encompassing resolve, ruling over the few places we thought:

Maybe we could be safe?

Safe to pause

To breathe in through the nose,

out through the mouth,

but breathing becomes the next arena of innovation, reconstruct this living organ I drown within. Please explain to me in your new fangled fables of fabricated facts, use the words I don’t know, defined hastily-opportunities snatched forth-NEW AND IMPROVED!

EVERYTHING YOU COULD EVER WANT!!

I will believe you, fall to my feet, stretch out my debt stained credit card, paint rubbing off from its frequent use-no flyer miles for me-no recipts please!

IdontwanttoknowthecostcausethenImightnotbuyit!

But how can I not buy it, when I NEED IT NOW!

And happy waits a tap/swipe/insert away....

I WILL BE HAPPY!

I can’t stop myself, these hands you trained to grab, take, want more complete their task given subconsciously understood as livingthegoodlife

And I-not only those hands-yearn for this enigmatic end of desire and desperation...

Want to RUN AWAY STOP Cry these suppressed tears from an instant satisfactory self-made authenticity

Waitingfortheothershoetodrop

Hoping praying wishing for permission to trust myself (?) again

(tofigureoutwhothatis)

Peeling layers of thick skin, social norms, cishetero-centric society’s deranged missrepresentation of a lifewelllived! IDEAL! A DEAL! They say...

GET IT WHILE YOU CAN!

Fingers dressing me in a depressive episode that reruns til it reboots to your version of reality....Anxiously anticipating your every evolution, empty emotions I must express to “function”, windup doll woundup, taunt strings strangling a scream I wish I could set loose upon this godforsaken excuse for modern society.

Modern enough to paint addiction as a crime

Modern enough to paint children as terrorists and casualties

There is nothing “casual” about someone’s child in the ground.

There is nothing “criminal” about chemical dependency.

Modern enough to ring-me-up for the bright colours you paint me in and LOVE my curves, and praise my confidence for saying “NO” for asking for human decency (whenhumansarebarelydecenttobeginwith)

for asking to be listened to, for asking to exist-without my existence being policed in its practice...

Please don’t tell me this is my reality.

Don’t say “This is it.”

“C’est La Vie” does not make up for decades of dissasociation, dissonant cognizance, depression, dresses drunk fondled in the dark.

Powerless pleas for paradise lost in bottles beds and backseats

ifItoldyouilovedyouwouldyouevenbelieveme?

Maybe you could give me a moment.

It’s been far too long since I last sorted through my thoughts.

If I had a moment maybe-

Maybe what??

Maybe I could remember my way back to that room when I was a preteen and woke up to you.

Maybe I could go back to the couch when the dishwasher flooded the floor.

Maybe I could confirm this nagging feeling I have that something was wrong in the way you treated me.

And then what??

Is it really worth the truth?

Will it set me free?

Sometimes I wish it was just me.

That you could live

with a nostalgia less stained in the sour taste of foulplay and eclipsed memories

If that was all it took to save you...

...

But isn’t that too sad? The self-harm of wishing to take other’s pain away by inflicting it on yourself?

Isn’t it shameful-in a way-to assume that I would understand another’s pain, when I have barely cracked the surface of their selves, their experience.

To assume that is what they want.

That they could be happy if only I suffered, a little more...

Also too hopeful in its simplicity to solve the tangled pain held within each other with more pain?

Wishful thinking that my sacrifice-if I could even(would even)offer it forth-would wipe clean the slate?

Selfish to wish for an end to the complications of healing and self-acceptance...

My desire for ease and peace manifests masquerading as your saviour, selfless protector

becausethetruthisIamafraid

Afraid of your pain, I never learned how to sit with another’s scars, without trying to fix the unfixable, in harmful and often unwanted ways.

I want to be there for you.

A shoulder to cry on...to hold you through your waves of emotion, yet a childhood of buried trauma threatens to burst forth.

I am trying.

But maybe I need to try harder to just stay in a moment with you

Maybe my rush to SOLVE SAVE STOP is a defense mechanism I need to unlearn so that I can truly help you the way that you want, in the way that you need me to.

Maybe then we could make a moment together,

a safe space,

a thoughtful place,

Maybe then we wouldn’t sacrifice ourselves to save each other,

Maybe then we could just save ourselves together instead.

Sideways in my reading chair

legs draped over its arm

head tucked against its frame

Snuggled with my squishmallow

I close my eyes

Trying to remember a time I felt safe

in someone’s arms

To recreate the feeling

holding myself softly

Cosy as can be.

leaves steep, scents swirl

ceramic cradled in my hands

warmth, a tentative sip, an enthusiastic gulp

fills me connecting the dots of my .f.r.a.g.i.l.e.f.r.a.g.m.e.n.t.e.d. existence

whole in its embrace

...

the name on my lips is

a clutteredhuman centipedecontortion of identity

a parent calling for their child, stringing together siblingsyllablesoup

a name no longer separate from me/you/him/her

-the whispers in the night

-hands (grasping) bodies

-voices jumbled chorus of confusion

She says your name,

the name on my lips,

and you burst forth

separate

cleaved, cut into clear consciousness

I see you

A stranger walking past with her

You are what growing up is supposed to look like:

like love

like certainty

like the future just beyond my reach

like your name on my lips once more, at last.

Bittersweet in its reality.

I mistook his VILLAINY for love.

His /s/l/ a/s/h/ i/n/g words

D-----A---SH-----ING form dan ~~~ cing

-always just beyond my

//////r//////ea//////////////////ch//////-

yet (nearenough) to give

c h a s e chasechasechasechasechasechasechasechasechasechasechasechase

ll Me/ 1, 2, 3/ 1~dan ~~~ cing/ 2~dan ~~~ cing/ 3~dan ~~~ cing~/ his waltz :ll

Now

only...

s s

s s

t t

r r

i i

n n

g a g

s /\ s

tep p( .up. ) pet

upon

cut

s /tring\ s.xIxtxixexxxmyxxxfrayedxedgesxXxtoxxyoux.

My

(g)(r)(a)(s)(p)(i)(n)(g)

hands

v i

e o t o

Drag you along in playful re olut ons,

e o t o

v i

Instinctively I tWiSt

and

)(t (u (r(n))

ll Following in the footsteps of his love :ll

/=====(!)====\

\trapping you/

Tangled in unwanted bonds; XboundX and masked in memory.

pl h

I am still more him in my mis AC miss APe sense of romance

ed n

^

then you could ever be: /l \

/ l \

/ l \

-Afloat-

\---------/

,~,, his ~,~,,watery~,~,,intentions,~,~,,

,~,~,~,~,~,, ,~,, ,~~,~,~,~,, ,~,~,~, ~,~,, ,~,~,,

,~,~,~, ~,~,, ,~,~,, ,~,~,~, ~,~,, ,~,~,,

enamoured with his(my) VILLAINY.

I say something, and the look of confusion you give me is an ice cube falling down my back, I recoil reavaluate and find a synonym that you will understand.

And the more we talk, the more I simplifiy summarize and my vocal vocabulary steadily decreases, my sentances shorten sounds are used to imply interest

You leave and I am left in a mess of half-baked hap-hazard phrases, I have spent so long translating my expressions that their expression is lost to me

Through simplification my thoughts have been simplified at their source

I am left wanting wandering over ghosts of words I used to know, now only echoes strange sounds with meanings both present yet disconnected

My mind a dictionary, with definitions but no words, only letters, syllables, and impressions remain.

I am left floundering frantically finding what used to be self-evident to me

Relearning relishing in the wonder of words

Reminding reaffirming the value of my knowledge regardless of your understanding.

I do not have to change so that you can understand me

I do not have to simpify myself

I do not have be anything other than what I am.

-My expression is not for you-

If you cry, they’ll find you.

KEEP QUIET!

Don’t move my darling.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way...all that’s left is your survival.

I will go with them

Do not cry for me

I would have you gone, oceans to part us, walls to guard your heart.

You can’t stay and I won’t ask you to.

So run, far away from me, before the breaking takes us together

Now is not the time to prove your love

This is not your burden to bear

I will fight it, until scars are all that remain

Yet for now RUN

GET OUT

There is nothing for you here, but pain and disappointment

If you love me, you will run.

They will come for me in the night, sleepless unforgiving shadows

They will haunt me once more

Once more I go willing into their arms

-for my last surrender?-

I set you free from whatever threads we’ve woven into our live’s tapestry

Cords severed with my own two shaking hands

I will not look back

Forward is the only thing I know

Tomorrow dawns too soon,

too soon I am lost to myself

Go before the dawn

Go before even midnight strikes

Magic fading into fantasy

I cannot bear the weight of exopsure

Not even to you

Let us both keep what little remains of ourselves

Run away my darling.

KEEP QUIET!

If you cry, they’ll find you.

You will not recognize my remains.

Yet you are all that truly remains of me.

loving me won’t save you from my shadows

When I feel like I want to die I ignore the thought

I know that it is a feeling that will pass or at lessen when I awake and there is so much beauty in the world for me to share

I think “I want to die,” and my thoughts stumble fumbling for a proper response. Trying to convince myself it isn’t so, listing the reasons I should remain:

1. The difficulty of suicide

2. The physical pain of Death

3. The cost of funeral expenses and incidental fees: Rent, School debt, etc.

4. The people I would leave behind: My family, my girlgang, my friends, the coffee shop barista who always remembers my name, the local baker who said I was his favourite customer, the bus driver who chats with me about his family, the book clerk who lets me wander and browse in peace, the bass player who brought me lilies, the librarians who watched over me almost every night of my childhood, the history buff who only cooked trout when I came over, the teachers who believed in me, the bartender who read philosophy and poetry with me, the uber driver who gave me the moon,

still the intrusive thought remains, “I feel like I want to die”

My feelings are valid and should be respected. I have stopped trying to argue them away.

I hear the voice as it grows softer over time, fading in and out of my mind. I wrap it in a blanket and sip hot tea. I hold it gently in my arms, siting beside it so that it can lay its head on my shoulder

I try to accept it not to hate the feeling for a feeling cannot help itself, to tell it-to tell me-that it is okay that I feel that way.

I can still love myself while feeling I want to die. I must love myself while feeling I want to die, to live. It may seem like a contradiction but the 2 things are not mutually exclusive, at least not for me.

Parallel lines

traversing my small city

-not small/mine anymore-

meeting to protect my childhood haven

A moat for a manmade fantasy

Merrit Island

Day Camps and Community events

literary adventures

early morning 5kms

family picnics

fishing, manhunt

Beautiful Island of Willow banks

Blackberry hillsides, crab apple courts, bitter blue grapes

Tarmac paths and wooded clearings

A safe place

A welcoming oasis

A neverending path to wander and explore

A place to think

To be not-so-alone for a moment more

A place to be in nature

breathing in pine, rotting leaves, spring flowers

fingers running along rough willow bark, soft grass, cool water

eyes drinking in the beautiful sky, living painting of animals and plants

ears tuned to birdsong, children’s laughter, barking, brief greetings:

“Good morning!”

“Beautiful Day!”

Water splashing the docks, coarsing out the treatment plant, weaving through oars, flowing through the veins of the city, sheltering the life within

Water wanders seeking us out

through filtered taps, leaky roofs, rain showers, spreading roots of river systems

It sustains us

Within and without

shaping terrain and feeding crops

cleansing our bodies and clearing our minds

Water sweet lover of life

guardian of humanity

We drown in your generosity