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
frustrations
and stress
and an almost good day yesterday
which should have lent itself to
an almost good sleep last night
but instead, it was some of the worst sleep i’ve had
in a month or two or three
[or more]
i suppose i shouldn’t discount
the amount that stress
impacts my own nighttime
half-waking ponderings…
i do still want to do so many things
and it freaks me out
and stresses me
to no end
to know i literally cannot do
everything
everything
every thing
in the universe
writing
trying to outpace
the time it takes
to run down my laptop battery
and
the arrival of our breakfast day
a little adrenaline
to start
today
so
i woke up at 4:45
and played the game of
“what will put me back to sleep”
because my brain was too awake with
anxiety
so i learned some french
and sign language
and cuddled my kip and my puppy
and stared at a crossword puzzle
and the internet
and even tried
just breathing
but
by 5:35
i was still in my too-awake-era
and kip wanted to get up anyway
so we both placed some clothes on our bodies
and i bundled up with the dog on a walk
and fed both animals
and sat down to write
and now it’s just past 6:30 am
and it feels strange to stare at the outside
pitch black
and think about how i’ve been awake already
for almost two hours
but i suppose that’s what happens
when stress brain just won’t
turn
off
i want to write about halloween
and spooky times
and how much i love
this time of year
but i’ve been dealing with deep dark fears
of genocide
and our complicity in it
and how that makes political fallout
even more extreme
and i just want a candidate i can believe in
or a system i truly think is working
but instead we’ve got
this
[whatever this is
in terms of an american experiment
that probably shouldn’t have been tried
and we should have just left this land
and its people
alone…]
but i’m here
this is a fact
and there’s an ethnic cleansing happening half a world away
that i can see as i scroll in my own warm bed
another fact
and the choice between two candidates
two sides
of the same coin
still factual
and yet
one would bring about fascism
much
much
much
faster
[he has stated this in his plans all along — facts]
so i’m actually
for real
scared
afraid
for my life and liberty
and no, i’m not overreacting
[my favorite time of year
has been ruined by election anxiety
and i can’t even feel that affronted
because so much worse things are happening
all over
everywhere]
so please
vote
stress
and apprehension
and it not feeling like
an actual opening
and the stories we tell ourselves
about ourselves
when i tell myself these stories
it’s to try to solidify
who i am
because i have no idea
i have no plan
~~~
does one good line
make a poem?
is this my style/my curse?
~~~
my poems are making little to no sense to me
this morning
but i’m still writing them
i’m still dilligently typing
words and phrases as they come
hoping to find some meaning
some
time
soon
maybe don’t concentrate on morning pages
[though it is still morning
and we are on break now
officially now]
horrendous
i don’t know where i’m going
horrendous
i don’t know what i’m doing
horrendous
anyone expecting expectations from humans
when humanity is doing
this
oh no
oh no
i have
the stress anxiety
thoughts of impropriety
about everything i could be doing
but am not
or even the things
i literally cannot
i’m stressed
my stomach a mess
and nothing will settle
me down
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?
kipventures 