perfectionism kills
it kills creativity
it kills enthusiasm
it kills hope
and it kills souls
[if only my own words had any impact
on the chemicals in my brain that scream
‘that is true for everyone BUT you —
you are the one person for whom
perfectionism matters
MORE, it is
LIFE
OR
DEATH
and you MUST BE PERFECT
to survive…’]
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]
Annee
and Jini
and Lynnette
and Jane
each of you raised me
in your own way
and i still ache for you
every
single
day
as fall approaches
but isn’t quite here
not yet
not yet
the memories of late summers past
invades my mind
sans consent
[do flashbacks ever ask?]
and no matter how stable
and lovely
and mine
my life is today
i keep seeing
loss
upon loss
upon lost trust
upon that feeling of any control in life
fleeting though it may have been
stolen in an instant
and this current administration
certainly doesn’t help this
weird ptsd i’ve found myself in
everything seems to be
culminating in something
and i continue to avoid all emotions and memories
until absolutely
necessary
everything in my life
seems to be
on delayed reaction time —
processing traumatic events/
pain responses to any injury/
excitement and anxiety responses/
processing temperature changes in my body/
even my damn tarot cards seem
a little too far away from the reading
to the event they foretold
to be anything less than
delayed
[but, i suppose, that’s just how my body/soul
plays this little life game]
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.
“meanwhile
back on the farm…”
why do singular lessons stand out to me
when whole years disappear
in my sieve of a memory?
i can barely remember the good times
and only moments of the bad
and probably just what i made monologues of memories
is what still comes back to me
even after i’ve long since let go of that story in my repertoire
[what would it be like to have the memory
i was born with, instead of the memory
i was traumatized to have?]
was i a kid
who got lost in the cracks
or did i fall through a very deep
very obvious
hole
in my [parents’] social sphere?
and is that why it’s so hard to count on community now?
i can stare at pictures of me
and think
“what a baby”
while distincly remembering how adult i felt
at the time
now, i don’t know what i look like from the outside,
but inwardly,
i’m younger
than a baby —
a fetus maybe,
or not even yet imagined,
because i know so much less now
than i did
as a teen who grew up too fast.
when words are your art form
and you have trauma that takes away
the memory centers for language retention
what does that mean for
everything?
kipventures 