half-formed poems
catastrophizing stuck in my head
until i think i’ll burst if i don’t
say
something
and then it’s there stuck in my throat
when i remember
actual
catastrophes
all while i’m too tired to sleep
and too sad to cry
and everything feels like a clock ticking down
down
down
but to what
inevitable
terror?
[or is this simply life in late-stage capitalism/climate crisis disaster?]
i’m ecstatic
i’m scared
i’m electrified
i’m anxious
i’m invigorated
i’m apprehensive
i’m defensive
i’m meditative
i’m happy?
[maybe?]
i’m existential
i’m whatever
i’m apoplectic
i’m in shock
i’m winding down
i’m revving up
i’m lost
i’m found
i’m starting now
i’ve gone through so much
i want
i want
i need
i yearn
i spin yarn after yarn after yarn
but i never seem to learn
that it’s all part of the human condition —
there isn’t one affliction or emotion
better or worse than the others
when you look at one whole life lived
[and you’re not even near the end
as far as makes sense — why are you always
wrapping up your life in your head
to make the ending
an end
rather than a beginning
of a new era]
[you do you,
but also,
there’s more left of you
than you seem to act like
you
have
left]
at least there’s coffee
with the perfectionism
that stops my creative endeavors
at the beginnings of their journeys
at least there’s coffee
with my obsessive scrolling
and inability to
stop myself
at least there’s coffee
with the depression hounding me
day in and day out
and day out and day in
at least there’s coffee
when the world is dying
and humanity is giving me very little hope
that we’re anything but terror
on the earth’s surface
at least there’s coffee
at least there’s coffee
i think
my “problem”
is that i have big picture
thinking
with tiny detail
brain
and that just makes everything
overwhelming
all the time
~~~
like
i can see the whole planet
and each conflict
and how the systems lead to suffering
and how it
literally
doesn’t
need
to be
this way
but instead of just thinking about the systems
i then ‘zoom in’ and see
each country
each family
each child
each breath of the earth
suffering
suffering
suffering
and i am stuck
because i don’t want to look away
for fear i’ve cheapened
their individual
suffering
and story
but it’s hard to hold
hundreds
thousands
millions
billions
of people’s individual narratives
in a brain trained to only concentrate on one’s own
so i panic
and breathe hard
and fast
and when the feeling has finally passed
there’s the guilt
there’s the guilt
and i know it’s all going to happen
again and again and again
~~~
so how in this world do i utilize
my big picture imagination and individual compassion
without falling into
obsession?
without falling into the chain reaction of
‘i’ve decided to help one thing/cause/person —
‘but wait, this other person has it worse/’
‘but wait, this other cause is more just/’
‘but wait, this other thing runs so much deeper
and has its tendrils in so many of the other
horrors of this world…’
how do i stop my decision paralysis
when it comes to helping
human decency?
[i honestly don’t know
do you?]
it is only the second day
of the last month of the year
and not even winter
quite yet
and yet
the air has already started to taste stale
and my drive for surviving
ebbing away every minute
and i can’t see how
i’ll get through
next year
[was my premonition
as an angsty teen
just delayed by a couple of decades?]
writing to video game music
feeling the pressure of the world
of life saying
‘you’ve been here before
you’ll get out’
but all i’m hearing is
‘you’ve been here before’
‘you’ve been here before’
‘this has all happened before
and it will happen again’
and i can’t stop my mind from spinning
into the cycles and loop-de-loops
of life
and feeling so dizzy
i want it to stop
i want progress
not necessarily a straight line
but something
more forward moving
than this
constant
back again
back again
back again
it’s like humanity never learns
[and that may be our downfall]
my poetry skims
from hopeless to full of hope
from desolate depression
to wide eyed optimism
and i know i should really live
in the grey-based reality in-between
but dreamers gotta dream…
are these truly my only two states?
so invigorated
because of immediate trauma
and helping my community
and working so well
in crisis
and
depressed and sullen and scared
and just hunkering down
for nap after sleep after nap
until i don’t know where the years went?
i want something
in
between
i’ve been struggling
with ribs popping out of place
and muscle strain
and election anxiety
and generalized depression
and every time something feels
just a little too much for me
and i dissociate
and try to intellectualize
“why am i feeling this way?”
i just look around, and
there’s my answer.
jazz
big
full
jazz
sweet
funky
jazz
reminds me of nola
reminds me of halloween
reminds me of the 1920’s
reminds me of phryne fisher
reminds me of a time and a place and a storyline
when, maybe, i’d have wanted to be alive
kipventures 