May 5, 2024

my head is all over the place
which can make for interesting poetry
when i cannot follow one subject all the way through
but fifteen different thoughts have already sped through
my racing brain
but the sleep is also tugging
and i have no way of judging
which direction to go
or how much to write
or let go
or just let it be
as it is
in this mess that it is in

~~~

if i actually followed the stream of consciousness/
the different trains that blast off from
the one station of *my brain*
i still don’t think i’d have words for most thoughts —
‘high speed’ ‘ugh, typing’ ‘that beat’ ‘coffee’ ‘food’ ‘puppies’
none of those words tell a story
in the way i’d want my poetry to express —
how i called it a stream, but i feel like my thoughts are trains
holding all the context for each word within each car
but they blast off like high-speed rail, something i’d love to have in this
fucking country, and sometimes i’m on the train itself, but sometimes i’m left at the station
waiting for all the thoughts to come back to me, eventually
[hopefully whole, with some new passengers/context aboard]

~~~

i feel like the more i write
the worse my poetry ends up
and i don’t know what to do
or how to think
about that.

April 21, 2024

the consequences of adhd
[or even maybehd]
are incredibly frustrating
because
i have no one to blame
but me,
and i want
so desperately
to blame somebody
[because it never works out the way i dream,
but sometimes it does get better than it initially seemed…]

it’s all a wild ride and a complete surprise
with maybe-ad-hd

June 2, 2023

i feel sixteen again
the air around me tastes louder
brighter
coloring with so much
i can’t help but squint

perhaps it’s the neural pathways
refusing to trim
perhaps it’s the music
and late late nights inspiring
deep connection again

April 26, 2023

procrasti-working
works for me—-
i get into the flow
of whatever work
isn’t time-sensitive
/finish up a project
that isn’t really necessary,
and i find myself
[usually, but not always]
able to continue flowing
into the stream of consciousness
of whatever thing i was avoiding
to begin with

[but i wouldn’t necessarily recommend this
to anyone else]
[except
maybe
maybe those
with the adhd]

January 23, 2023

they always say
‘follow the dopamine’
‘follow the dopamine’
but what if the desired dopamine
only arrives for a minute at a time–
you get a huge rush
of desire
of want
of an activity you know will
feed your whole soul
but life (or whatever)
gets quickly in the way—
you have to feed the animals
or use the restroom
or simply finish the one task you’re on now
but that tiny fraction of time
that it took to walk to the supplies
to fulfill that rush
of dopamine you followed
was enough to make it all
disappear

maybe i should start listening to
the ‘faults’ of adhd-ers
and use them as a blueprint
or some kind of a script
because this here is–
this cycle of almost-but-not-quite spikes
of dopamine
followed by long valleys of grand depression–
this is unsustainable
and, frankly,
ain’t
it.

December 7, 2022

i write
every morning
to warm up my brain

i write
every morning
to feel a little more awake

i write
every morning
to get the creative juices flowing

i write
every morning
to feel like i’ve accomplished something

i write
every morning
because morning is when i’m at my best

i write
every morning
to continue a streak
because once i set my mind to something
i accomplish it
and i vowed to write every morning
and so i’ll write
every morning
until i feel
i’ve succeeded

(and then maybe move on
to the next hyper-fixation)

December 6, 2022

precariously balanced devises
plugged in to cords that show all the wires
on top of older machines
and books and unlit candles and things
i feel like the quintessential
adhd
disaster

but hey
it does
work

February 9, 2022

organization
is not my strong suit
and i’ve watched enough tiktoks to know
that i’m definitely not neurotypical
but in which direction?

is my extreme self-reliance on what i can remember
(with mostly successful strategies)
simply a life-long coping mechanism?
is my delving into the human condition
and socializing within characters
a masking tactic that’s been going on longer than i can remember?
or am i simply lucky enough
to have a very, very slight neuro-diversity
that doesn’t necessarily fit into either box
that my parents were kind enough not to force out of me
(or did society hit where my parents tried not to
as it hit in other ways?)

would i ever get diagnosed if i saw a ‘professional’?
almost definitely not.
but
i know my brain doesn’t work the way the ‘majority’ of brains
‘are supposed to’
so where does that leave me?

[alone?]