Fuck it.

Part of my recovery

is learning to understand the true nature of events.

Don't pick up.

Don't pick up.

Don't text back.

Don't text back.

It doesn't mean that you're ignoring me.

It doesn't mean that you're with someone else.

It doesn't mean that you're tired of me.

It doesn't mean that you think I'm annoying.

It doesn't mean you hate me,

although you probably will

when I tell you what I think about when you're gone.

Fuck.

Ass.

I can only assume

that when you kiss me

it's because you love me.

Sometimes I think that maybe,

just maybe,

it's because you feel sorry for me,

or because you know it makes me feel better

or because you don't want me

to break down

and lean on you

and cry.

Oh, anxiety.

Foiled again.

Other Souls

I think

that you think

that I'm annoying when I talk about the past

other hands

other souls

that might have brushed mine.

But really

I wouldn't be upset

because I think

that I'm annoying too.

So what?

So what if I'm sick?

I'm fucked up, with a fucked up sense of reality, with a fucked up self image, with fucked up memories and fucked up dreams.

So what if I'm full of YOU- all of those fine ghosts I let slip between my cracks and taint me? So what?

I'm still me. I'm the me that those things have created. I'm not pieces of people and pieces of myself. I AM COMPLETE. I AM AWARE AS MYSELF, AND NOT AS DANIEL, OR MICHAEL, OR NAOMI.

I am a single entity, and I'm in control. I am my own god damned deity, in control of my own actions.

And I choose to be stronger than this. I choose to see myself as a person.

I choose to let myself be okay.

I choose to accept my current situation.

I choose to accept that I'm fucking scared.

I choose to accept that I'm not perfect.

I choose to accept that I need help sometimes.

I choose to accept that sometimes, I cannot be there for others.

I CHOOSE TO ACCEPT THAT I AM WORTHY OF LOVE, BECAUSE I AM.

I AM WORTHY OF SELF-IMPORTANCE. I AM WORTHY OF CARE, AND PAMPERING. I AM GOOD ENOUGH, DESPITE MY FLAWS.

I'm so scared. I'm so frightened of losing this, losing everything that I have, everything that I have come to love, everything that I have accomplished- to this feeling of worthlessness- this feeling that I am too flawed and fucked up to deserve this.

Please, please.

I choose to be strong.

I choose to be strong.

I choose to be okay.

I choose to be okay.

"I'm limp again."

My surprise at the readiness of those long fingers as they wrapped around my shoulder.

The boy who listened to my movement behind his sister's bedroom door,

and the way he laughed when I was crying.

The game I played with the boy I never really knew- Friday nights wasted in trembling.

While he prods and makes me feel guilty, I wonder how long it will last tonight, how long he will last, and I cry because I'm not ready, because I'm sick in my stomach and I'm a chest of drawers again.

"I'm limp again."

Your hands-

Your god damned hands, and the feeling of release they granted me.

Saved. Saved. Saved.

Save me.

Make me beautiful again.

Make me whole again.

Make me a person again.

Make me worthy.

Make me want again.

Make me desire again.

Give me back my organs, my beating, bleeding heart, my face, my fucking identity.


Tell me I'm not furniture.

Tell me I'm not hopeless.

Tell me that I'm not as lost as I feel.

Tell me that I'm okay.

I'm okay.

I'm okay.


Lift me up out of this.
I can't keep swimming on my own.
Oh, God.
Someone, help me.
Someone, save me.



You.

You all crept into me like strange, slow ghosts, and I invited you in. I let you poison me, I let you own me, and now you'll remain like some subtle disfiguration- a bent nose, a scar beneath my chin. When I look at myself in mirror, when I happen to glance at my reflection in the window, or in the surface of a spoon, I'll see you.

I'll see you until I die.


YOU DO NOT LIVE INSIDE OF MY MIND,

YOU LIVE BENEATH MY SKIN.

Oh, daddy.

The subtle differences between

“sorry” kisses and “I love you” kisses...

It’s so difficult to tell which ones I’m using,

when you hold me,

when you touch me,

when you tell me about myself.

I know I don’t disappoint you,

but you’ve spent so long a child inside the shell of a father,

that I wish that I was strong enough

to be your mother.

Finally.

The old way of growing them made them soft as fur.

I took them into my arms and pressed them into my face, the sweet smell of sunlight and dirt over-whelming to the senses and the softness like a bed I would have liked to lay in forever. I rolled over onto my back and looked up into the face of my companion, his slim features blocking the sunlight from my face, and I asked him why we don't grow them this way any more.

He took a swig from the bottle in his hand, hissed as it burned his throat, and he replied, nonchalantly, that we just didn't.

A rotund figure approached us on the horizon, waving to gain our attention but far too obscured by the heat rising off of the plain. The silhouette soon became a man wearing a tweed-colored suit, and he beckoned us toward him. My companion smiled down at me, and he told me that it was time to go.

We played games, really. Bombs exploded in our faces, and when dirt would fly into our eyes, they would water and we would weep for fallen colored soldiers. Side-by-side, the three of us walked the earth as gods of pleasure, because the more it hurt, the more we wept, the more we laughed. Alda drank like a sailor, but was always a gentleman, and Watson drank less, but was certainly a lecher. When twilight rose, we would wander back to the lake and we would dine on the spoils of our labor. They told me stories of their adventures, and when they were too drunk to speak, they would playfully make passes and then they would sleep.

I cannot remember what that girl was trying to achieve by transporting one hundred painted men by sea, or why she decided to tell me. All I know is that she was the antagonist, because every great epic requires such a character.

I was not that girl who explored and traveled and cried away the dirt on her cheeks, because I was in the audience all along, laughing with the rest of them at the absurdity of such a plot. Who would write such a thing? Who would end such a beautiful film with such an unrealistic, unbelievable twist? I thought this with intensity, but when I looked into the seat beside me at the figure there, who had been waiting for my gaze to affirm the strangeness of what we had just seen, I realized that the answer didn’t matter. Just asking the question, without the enlightenment of conclusion, would be enough entertainment to last me an eternity.

I laughed until I cried.