October 12, 2025

another night
of waking up at 1/2/3/4 in the morning
to stress
to discomfort
to the panic at the state of the world
and the state of my mind
and this would all be fine
if i could just
fall back
to sleep
like i so recently used to

but apparently i’m back to
high school
college
teenage
early 20’s hj
where i struggle to fall asleep
and i struggle to stay asleep
and every moment i wish i was asleep
i panic about not getting enough sleep
and everything
always feels
so much
worse
in the nighttime

i considered waking kip up
to talk with them
hold them
have them hold me
to see
if having someone right there with me
would be any help at all
and i think, if i had panicked myself any harder
any more
any longer
i might have

but somehow
i finally
fell back
to sleep

how did i survive damn near a decade
like this???

[i was miserable the whole time
that’s how]

[i don’t want to be that miserable
again]

September 28, 2025

i’ve ignored the outside
for too long
for not long enough

it’s still impacting me
it’s still making its way inside

what’s wrong with living a life
pretending
all of humanity
is actually
kind?

[can “fake it till you make it”
apply to expectations
of others?]

September 13, 2025

i tried so hard to keep up with the news
and the world
i really did

and it impacted my mental health
so hard
i could hardly stand it

it was like i had leapt off a pier
and dove headfirst into the
first bad mood my body could find

and i know i should be more aware of the world around me
i know this
i do
but sometimes
sometimes
i think my reason for being here
is to have the impact of utter kindness,
and i don’t know if i can do that
if i know how cruel the world really is

i already know
logically

i already know
hypothetically

but if i avoid knowing the real reality

perhaps i can be kind to someone
who might have been mean to me
and perhaps change their brain chemistry
for the better
[but if i knew to avoid
their face/their clothes/their demeanor
would that not increase the division between us?]

[or is it only my people
my kinds of folks
who need my kindness
now?]

[i honestly don’t know…]

May 3, 2025

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?

December 11, 2024

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

September 22, 2024

the disappointment i feel in my own government
in my own daily interaction with the people of this country
or even the world

maybe i should start writing fiction more
just to be able to be around the people i enjoy
and in spaces where i’m not
constantly hounded by the existential depression of
“this could be so much better
but it just
isn’t”

May 16, 2022

here’s the thing:
i’ve been stuck for weeks,
more than a month,
and i cannot tell
if it’s depression rearing its ugly head,
or exhaustion with the state of things in the world,
or a normal human reaction to the sadnesses that have befallen
me/us
as of late

i can’t tell if my disinterest
in my chosen profession
is an actual drifting away,
or a lack of momentum needed
for this particular drive,
or that damn depression once more

and, like i used to beg and plea
for the universe to send me
some sort of sign that
the choices i was making
were ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ for my life,
i wish to all goodness that
i could simply know
which it was

(but here’s the other thing:
i bet it’s a bit
of everything,
and that nothing
is as black and white as i see it,
and there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in my life,
because my choices are mine
and my own to deal with,
so every decision splits a universe apart from mine
but is there one
where i’m
happy?
all/
or at least most/
of the time???)