July 8, 2026

writing has always been how i
come to terms with my emotions

even before i wrote poetry every morning
i would analyze things through personal essay

and even before i was intrigued by a writing major
i was writing-creating things
constantly:

scenes
lists of characters
concepts
a single piece of dialogue
just a whole bunch of names i loved

while those might not be the
standard journal-to-figure-out-ones-feelings kind of writings
i think they were my way of figuring things out
in my brain — lists to organize the chaos
constantly thinking in theatre
ideas upon ideas upon ideas

maybe that’s what i should do as a writing challenge;
find one of the concepts i created as a child
and see how far i get in the process of fully committing to it
and creating it
and making it come to life as a fully fleshed-out piece
[whatever kind of writing that may be]
as an adult…

that could be fun…!

June 5, 2026

doing twenty million things at once

i honestly don’t know if it’s good for me
or terrible
or i’m terrible at it
or even kinda ok to maybe good

but i can tell it’s kinda my default
[like chaos]
and maybe i should just find ways
to encourage what works
and have failsafes
for what
doesn’t

April 26, 2026

corrections
corrections
corrections
that’s all my brain does
it leads me forward to the point of
red-pen markings on
drafts long done

i wish i could just let it all be

not see the typos in friends’ texts
or my own poetry
or anything really

when i understand the meaning
and the world is itself is a liminal space
we’re all just visiting
just trying to make it through the day
why does my mind turn into the ultimate grammar-nazi
when we all know [or knew] that the nazis
are always
the bad guys

i’d rather be a grammar anarchist
a grammar socialist
at least grammar neutralist

but no, my brain functions in rules
[though i suspect my spirit is made of chaos]
and i just want to scream at myself
“WHYYY???”

[but i think we’re probably at least mildly aware of the why—

it’s the
trauma]

January 22, 2025

i’d love to be a
“yes and”
find the funnest stream
go with the flow
and see whatever happens
happening
kind of person

but raising myself from the time i was
approximately 11
gave me some sort of
perfectionistic
type-a-personality
care and careful
self-preservation
overly cautious
kind of vibe constantly fighting against my
natural chaotic state

and hey

maybe it’s the opposite

maybe my natural state is more type-a
and the immediacy of seeing how
life is fleeting
gave me the drive to try to
induce chaos and joy in my life

but whichever way the truth lies
the sentiment still stands:
i have one part of me in chaos
and one part of me trying for strict alignment
and the two parts are forever fighting
inside my mind/my heart/my body/my soul
and rather than tempering each to a
reasonable level, they simply
stop
all action in either direction
and so i am neither cautious nor chaotic
i am simply

stuck.

December 28, 2023

swirling in my mind
worlds and stories and epic tales
i cannot find
i can’t even look
for fear that the search
is what makes them disappear
so i seem, from the outside, like a normal
everyday
human
maybe a little weird
maybe a little queer
but otherwise fine
but inside…
inside the roiling mess, the boiling mass
of tangles of plot lines
and whole universes overlapping
to the point of chaos
and i want to pull at one solitary string
hoping
it’ll un-loose
and unleash
a story-worthy ~something~
but
i’m scared
it won’t
and i’m even more scared
the harder i pull at one
the farther tangled
the other ones will become
until i’m
all out of opportunities

May 7, 2023

when
did i become a human
who
enjoys the organization of things
but still prefers
the music
of carefully crafted chaos?

[have i always been like this,
i just didn’t have the awareness
of specific neurons firing
to step back
and see my views in this
way?]

February 9, 2023

is my autocorrect
sabotaging me?
filling in where i mean to leave off?
changing stances in stanzas
that need the awkwardness i placed?

my dear laptop computer,
please—
poetry is a delicate balance
of grammatically correct
and rule-breaking chaos
and i need to tread that line very carefully
so any help from you,
while appreciated,
is really not needed…

so no need to try
so damn
hard.