September 5, 2026

writing exercises
that rely on memory
and childhood
always piss me off

the parts of my childhood that i only have
the foggiest of emotional memories of
were absolutely idyllic

the parts of my childhood
where i can actually picture
outfits and items and hear words and activities being done
those are at least shadowed if not fully enveloped in
approaching tragedy
and/or soon to be
trauma

don’t ask me to remember things
my brain has no clear memory of

and don’t ask me to partake in a “fun activity”
when everything i may bring up
may bring the room
down

[it is not a compulsion i’m working against —
it is simply the facts of my own
past]

September 1, 2026

raise your hand if you’re a grand schemer
who grew up with parents who supported
and encouraged your ideas, and had plans
of their own that you saw never come to
pass because of some combination of time
and effort and sickness and death and now
even though you still have such lofty goals
you know deep inside you that you’ll never
ever ever achieve them because your whole
life is predicated on the fact that plans
never
actually go through and get done to the
endings as wanted and though you still
try to start things you are aware that the
learned patterns and subconscious trauma
makes it almost impossible for you to
see anything through at all ever in your life

or is that just me?

August 28, 2026

of course it’s when avoiding one thing
that i’m finally in the mood to do
another long avoided task

is that human nature?

is that the trauma?

is that maybehd?

could it be
all three?

June 25, 2026

i wish i could think of all the words i can’t think of right now

i wish i could recall all the vocabulary that’s in my head
but they’re stuck behind sticky mind-doors
where the mental wood has warped over the years of trauma
and protecting myself against trauma

the maze in my mind
simply to find
a fucking synonym
is atrocious

[i measure out how detrimental it is to the poem
if i should sit and think, and perhaps get lost in my own thoughts
or stop and look it up on the internet, and thereby lose the spell i cast
on my own poetry being sans-internet-influence,
or ask my kip
or set a reminder to go back and check
at a later time…

usually i set a reminder in the way of brackets around one word
and hope i can find the exact alternate
i thought i could think of
at the time of writing]

May 15, 2026

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…’]

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]

August 20, 2025

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

August 3, 2025

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]

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.