stress

August 7, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

contemplating civil unrest
and violence
and propaganda
and slippery slopes
and all the things that my mind is stuck on
daily
alongside the silly things
i have anxiety about
as well

if only my brain could give an indication of
what it actually is anxious about
because, if it’s the very real dangers
that are closer than people would like to admit
[though i will be fair here and give credence to the
systems in place to stop a war from happening, but
the state-sponsored violence is scary enough
already]
then maybe i have a mind that is
realistic
and preparing me
for potential trauma,
but
if it’s just freaked out about the menial
mundane
teeny tiny things
[and i’d actually do ok
in even more “unprecedented times”]
then maybe a medical intervention
to my anxiety is what is needed
at this time

but no, my distress
and obsession
bounce back and forth between
what are very real, but probably far away, fears
and overreacting to daily issues
most folks seem to deal with
mindlessly

i don’t want to lose my ability to be prepared for any eventuality

but, damn, this preparedness is killing me…

June 9, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

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

May 28, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

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…

January 14, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

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

October 31, 2024

/ HJ / Leave a comment

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

June 17, 2024

/ HJ / Leave a comment

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

June 16, 2024

/ HJ / Leave a comment

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