can’t let the creature
on the other end of the line
hear the fear in your voice
or they’ll know you’re one of those
millennials
scared of a simple phone call
and then they may
ATTACK
and who knows
what’ll happen
after that
[your imagination and
catastrophizing is very good
at making up the worst
in that situation, so you
kind of know, you
kind of know]
i’m feeling
a
type
of
way
and i don’t necessarily know
what type of way that is
but at least i know why
change
and staying the same
change is
show ending
kip starting a brand new job
[that, granted, is not in france
but still, a big change]
change is
going back to things
circus
friendships
that may have paused
while i was so damn busy
change is
fixing up the house into something i
might want to make [and perhaps film]
physical projects inside
[and make room to have it so that
kip feels at home in our home
as well/still]
and staying the same is
having a mess
as usual
and being too open for my own damn good
and not knowing how to interact in social
[and non-social] situations…
i wish there was an instruction manual for living
[but, let’s be honest, would i follow it?
or would i deem it too ‘societally normative’ and
literally and/or figuratively throw it out the window
or
or
would i want a societal manual just to decide
what is for me and what is not?
and that begs the question
even if i read
and intended
to follow, would i actually be able to
or would i still fall back into
what i know/feel best
which is how i act
and i just am who i am
and that’s all that i can be
and i needn’t be worrying myself so
about all of this?]
and the conclusion of this poem is that
change happens
and sameness happens
and there are no instructions for life because
we are all just who we are
and that is all we [probably] ever will be
and that is ok.
remind me of my past
the parts i like, i mean
and hang out with me into the darkness
talking
reminiscing
reminding
planning
hoping
scheming
and gathering new memories
for later hangouts’ nostalgia
friendship is so important
but why does it make me so
nervous?
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]
fearing
social interaction
but needing it
for life and living
how do i even survive
one friendship at a time
why is it that
when i am beginning to be social
on the social medias
i get so panicked and stressed and scared?
is the internet —
particularly the portion
with people one already knows —
really that frightful?
social events
breed
social anxiety
(and somehow there are people
who need this?!?!)
i stall
and wait
and put off
until it’s been too long
and it would be embarrassing
to point out how long it’s been since we’ve talked
and then i wait just a little bit longer
and maybe, by the time we do
end up talking, it will
simply be a nice
surprise
i don’t understand
how to be a person
interacting with other people.
i kind of understand
how to be a person
interacting with one other person,
and i kind of understand
how to be a me
interacting with only myself;
but multiple others???
i either am too loud
or too quiet
or too uncomfortable to do anything else—
so…what does that mean?
does that make me less of a person?
or more?
does it make me an introvert?
does it make me socially anxious?
or simply anxious all the time?
is my perception of myself based on how little others can perceive me?
or is it something else entirely?
or are these all questions
that only i can answer
for myself/
accurately
?
show went fine
(maybe even great)
and now i get to stress about
a whole new performance
in a month
(why am i like this?)
