it is december
it is december
i’m allowing myself these
twenty-five to thirty-one days
of holiday feeling
[perhaps it’s a mistake,
but,
in nyc i believe
i am not beholden to old memories —
this city makes new ones all the time
and i can learn from all of that
and all of those
and have an nyc holiday season
instead of suffering from memories
of midwest christmases
long since passed]
how
come
how come
how come i don’t reach out
until the last minute?
[i mean, i know why — it’s because i’m so scared of putting forth the full effort
just to be ignored or forgotten, as i have in the past, but this way if i can’t be seen
it’s all circumstantial and that doesn’t mean people love me any less…]
[sometimes i wish i knew less about myself]
i heard a stat the other day
that straight depression
[and also perhaps straight anxiety
don’t know specifically, since the show
was only about depression management]
is so much easier to treat
than the intertangled combo of the two
and coming from someone who has been officially diagnosed
with major depressive disorder
and generalized anxiety disorder
[at the same time]
and feel like i’ve never known a brain
without the two holding metaphorical hands,
this sounds quite accurate
what gives me distress?
is it the depression?
is it the anxiety?
i honestly have a hard enough time differentiating the two
since they seem to egg each other on
like the “bad kids” at the back of the classroom,
and simply identifying one
or the other
is trouble enough
how would i even begin to just take on
one
or the other?
[and, honestly, i also have to ask
how
in the world
someone even could have one
without the other?]
watch
in fifty or so years
they’ll change the diagnoses,
and my particular issues
will be called something different
[and maybe, by then, they’ll have come up with
a great treatment regiment…
but for now, i just keep trying to keep them both at bay
as best i can
with the resources available
to me/
to us]
uncertainty
in what to write
in what to do
at any given moment
day
or night
the uncertainty
is what freezes me
not potential good
or bad outcomes
but all the options
showing themselves to me
beat
by beat
by beat
until
the overwhelm becomes too much
that inaction is the safest path to take
[but it actually
never really
is]
i’ve hit a roadblock
in my own lungs
and i can only theorize
about stress and anxiety showing itself in my body
before it gets to my conscious mind —
that’s the reason i can only take full breaths
in very specific instances
and never using the full capacity
of what my lungs should be
and i’m getting enough oxygen
[probably]
it’s just a little more than a little unsettling
to know i have more space for air
and to simply
not
be able to get it
quiet the mind
just enough to hear the important thoughts/
the creative thoughts/
the thoughts that are often drowned out
by anxiety rambling
and existential depression blues
there may be creative moments
inside those diatribes
but i’ve heard enough of them to know —
it’s getting past them
that the true me
lies
[in truth]
i don’t know how to stop my kip
from staring at their phone
reading the terrible news
and feeling worse
and worse
and worse
as the hours go by
because
if left to my own devices
i would stare at my phone
and watch videos of
on the ground tragedies
and feel worse
and worse
and worse
as the hours go by
and neither of us feeling worse
will change the things happening
halfway across the world
or right in our own backyard
we need to fill our cups
and have the hope
and energy
to put forth change
that will help
others
and ourselves
but
how
how
how
when everything feels so important
and hopeless
in the palms of our
hands?
create a chaos demon in your head
and maybe the anxiety you feel
on a daily basis
will have some sort of
reason for existing
[maybe]
how do i tell
tomorrow’s me
to just go for something
without shaming
yesterday’s me
for not?
[how?]
[how?]
[how?]
pain
and depression
are linked for me,
for i can stand
a great deal of each
but the moment it/i reach
a breaking point
a moment when the pain is too unbearable
a moment when my thoughts get too dark
even for my somber self,
a moment when i feel at the brink of too muchness
and nothingness
that is exactly when the physical and mental pain
fades
and i am left feeling so silly
for wondering if
now
was the moment i’d give in
and just
die
kipventures 