August 26, 2021

a little in my own head
a little outward reaching
a little writing for an audience
a little writing for just myself.

i spent years trying to quiet
the cacophony of my mind
and now i find
i’d love to hear just a tad of it
again;
the thoughts racing each other
to the finish line of my mind
my fingers scrambling to keep up
every moment a passing thought
could pass me by
so i sat by
and wrote,
caught
as i could
a word here
a concept there
and it made me feel
important
it made me feel
artistic
it made me feel
invincible
it made me feel
somehow
more.

and when the thoughts disappeared
when my head was no longer too much
but, instead, not enough
a blankness surrounded in mysterious anxious feeling
the emptiness louder than any giant conglomeration of too-much-thought
ever was…

i’m in-between now
the thoughts are fairly loud
but they’re not all-encompassing
nor would i call them a cacophony;
i still have moments of blankness
that scare me
surrounded by anxiety,
flitting worries,
depression,
but overall it’s much better than it was
(but i do miss
the racing
the hugeness
the cacophony
the need to get everything out in writing
that desperation;
it was like a friend.)

~~~

craft the words
pull them towards
needing to express
needing to relax
deep breaths
four counts
(why does that make me feel like i’m drowning)

~~~

my sleek black panther of a cat
with nary a speck of other color on her
(save for the bright amber-yellow of her eyes)
has developed
four
white whiskers
but only on her right side

and i suppose it’s a sign of aging
and i suppose i should take it as a natural indication of time
passing
and i suppose i should admit she’s getting old

but she still chases nothings
like a kitten
and yells at us
all day
and climbs on top of us
like she’s less than the ten-pound bowling ball she’s become
and meows and purrs on my lap
starved for attention
most mornings
and acts
in most fashions
like she’ll never grow up

and i love her so.

August 25, 2021

how quickly the tides
of the emotional charges
in my mind
tend to change

all it takes is one text
one friendly face
one reminder of external love
(when am i going to be able to get that same jolt
from the inside?)

but, as i knew/suspected yesterday,
i’m doing a shit-ton better today.
i have projects to work on,
and trips to plan,
and classes to look forward to
and a whole house (hopefully, knock on wood) to
make our own

August 24, 2021

went to sleep in a Mood™
woke up in a Whole Other Mood™
and i’m realizing how reliant i am on
the negative talk and self-sabotage and executive dysfunction
to truly be the blame for when things go wrong,
so when i am happy, when i do actually put forth the effort
to try to do things right,
and if circumstances just happen to breed the same outcome…
the low-key self-hatred,
the kind i can ignore away
because it’s always there
becomes loud
becomes bites with teeth
and those teeth are the “proof” from the external factors
which i know, logically, are circumstantial,
or i could have done something to change, but i literally didn’t know at the time
but damn if that bite isn’t sharp and deep
deep
deep down to my soul
till i start to believe the fanged monster
when they say
truly
no one loves you
and you are to blame
[look at all this proof]

~~~

and now we have the decision-making,
the ‘do i put this up on my site or not’-ing.
i’m truly fine;
i’m an adult, so i don’t have those crazy teen-hormones running around my brain and bloodstream
begging me to do something rash,
something stupid,
something irreversible.
and i am nothing if not an overthinker,
i can see the consequences of each and every action i might take
from here inside myself to externally to those i love
to forward moving in the future
and even back-ward looking to color the past

but that overthinking and knowing i’m too intellectual to actually do anything about anything
makes for even more frustration in the moment
there’s no outlet
no doing anything
just writing sad poetry
and waiting it all out…

so i guess
don’t take this as a plea for help
just take this in as my brain working some shit out.

~~~

just go read your own writing
maybe you’ll like yourself
one day

August 23, 2021

the highs
the lows
the devastation
the celebration
the joy
the sorrow
the feeling hapless and hopeless to ever find anything to fix this
and wanting to hold onto it, keep in it, feeling safe inside of it
and yet
(and yet)
knowing that finding healing will make my life better,
open doors i didn’t even know were there,
burst open a way to make beauty out of the anguish
(because, hasn’t that been the goal all along?
isn’t that why you[i] always [used to] say things like
‘i went through this
i can help you through this…’
putting forth all your[my] effort
to bring others up
when you[i] felt down?
why acting and poetry and art in general
are the aspiration
the hope
the dream that keeps you[me] around?
(well, that and spouse and cat and dog))

feel them
remember them
but understand them
and don’t think of them
as forever.

August 22, 2021

i [will i ever?] never do anything with my
‘Big Poems’
and i have so dubbed them because
they are (for lack of a better word)
Big™

there are many words,
the concepts are huge,
the concepts are also, often, risky
(as in, i’m leading with an opinion
or a statement
that has the potential
to anger
a whole group of
[already very angry]
people.
and as a bit of a pacifist,
that concept is terrifying
(both from a my-own-safety
and from a my-own-philosophy
kind of way)
but as a bit of a radical
anti-capitalist
anti-patriarchal
and 100% anti white supremacy
-ist
i should feel comfortable
confident
to speak my own truth
knowing
that to uphold life
above profit
in all things
is righteous
not wrongteous

it’s just that…
the other side is so loud
and my ears already hurt
from closing them to my own personal truths for so long
(but that’s another subject
for another poem
for another day)

today we are wondering
if i’ll ever bring those Big Poems out from my document
share them with the ten or so readers that ever traverse past this page

and even if i get up the gumption
what then?
they are saved and stuck for another reason,
and that reason:
they still feel unfinished.
but, as i think i’ve written before,
i’m bad at finishing things
i’m bad at conceptualizing endings
i’m bad at wrapping things up…

(but maybe that’s what the Big Poems need…
big ideas don’t necessarily have a nice ending
wrapped up in a beautiful bow,
so…
)

August 21, 2021

the calm before the storm
creates excitement for said storm.
it’s the weightless moment in circus beats,
that moment that gives you a peek into the idea
that time is a mortal construction:
that second that lasts a lifetime,
you can tell what comes next
and plan your attack,

and set up a nest inside which to watch the storm
roll by.

~

i wrote this
on June 12
originally,
and i don’t necessarily remember
that particular storm
but i remember storms as i love them:
nature’s fireworks,
conversing with the thunder,
dancing in my hometown rain
before i’d fly halfway across the world…

but this storm…
the calm
before
brings apprehension,
we’ve seen one hurricane/tropical storm
flood our [hopefully](soon-to-be) borough,
we’ve seen the devastation
global climate change
can wreak

and we hope folks stay safe
and we hope not too much damage is done
and we hope to have a nice meeting with this
Henri
but we hope to not keep him in our hearts and homes for long…

August 20, 2021

sitting down
to write my morning pages
my morning poems
my morning whatevers
and i can’t think of anything to say
(or at least, anything i want to put into writing
anything i want down on the page and out in the world
anything that i can actually analyze enough to translate into words)

and i think i should tell myself that
that’s ok sometimes.

August 18, 2021

it is approximately
one month shy
of the one and a half year mark
of Kip
going into work
physically.

and i’m getting all nervous
about them going into work
physically today,
though their work is vaccine only,
and mask encouraged,
and Kip told me they’d probably keep their mask on all day long,
but i’m still all nervous

maybe it’s because i’ve been the one to actually go outside
in this Global Patrick Stewart;
i’ve gone grocery shopping
and picked up prescriptions
and had doctors’ appointments
and circus classes
and marches
and protests
and Kip has accompanied me on a couple adventures,
a protest here,
a vacation there
(a vacation where
we still only stayed inside our airbnb the whole time)
so i’ve been out on my own
and Kip has not
and they are a grown adult
and used to make this trip
into physical work
every
work
day
arriving between 8 and 9
leaving between 5 and 9 (depending on after-work activities)
and they learned the streets of manhattan
around their work
and maybe i’m just nervous
that they will once again
have a life apart from our tiny Brooklyn living box
but i also want them to have their own experiences
so we can come together at the end of the day
and share our stories
together.

i have no need for them to only have a life as i can see it,
similarly, i enjoy their encouragement of my
circus classes
and acting classes
and film projects
and artistic endeavors,
but i’m still all nervous…

(i wonder if this is how they’ve felt every time i went in
physically
to an aerial space
over this last year or so…)

~~~

i know
it’s possible
to hold in one’s heart
the gratitude
that one has personally
dodged a bullet
as well as the support
and solidarity
of those who experienced it entirely

but i can’t seem to convince my physical form
that this is, indeed, a thing that can happen.

~~~

my creativity
is still part of me
even when i’m not actively
making up worlds
and writing new words
and surpassing my own expectations.

my creativity
never leaves
just sometimes
it might need
a bit of a
nap.

August 17, 2021

if i’m
contemplative
too much
i get
existential
and that often leads to
a
crisis
but without
contemplation
i’m left with
mundanity
which therein leads to
boredom
which in turn becomes
agitation
which stems from
anxiety
and
depression
which, while indulging in those
can become
too much
contemplation

[or at least i think those are the appropriate words for all that emotional muck i feel]