if i were to write
a letter/poem/something to my younger self
would it be
simply
“you don’t need
to protect
your whole sex/gender/age group”?
“you don’t need
to stick up for
all cats
everywhere”?
“you don’t need to
put the entire world’s burdens
on your tiny shoulders”?
and is that still
what i need to tell myself
today?
therapy through writing
July 22, 2022
i felt so motivated yesterday
(and the day before that)
and i know i did some of the things
on the to-do list,
but i did much less than
i originally
expected
and i need to be ok with that
i need to be ok with that
i need to remind myself that
i need to be ok with that
because otherwise
i’m just capitalism’s
newest victim
and fuck capitalism
~~~
fly
spy
in the sky
i wonder why
you need to fly
around our home and spy
on us
~~~
this
cotton
candy
coffee
is the silliest thing i’ve ever tasted
and it just makes me
smile
smile
smile
~~~
how do i absorb
the lessons i’ve learned
in trying to help others?
i.e. the advice i’ve given,
can i/will i ever
take it myself?
is there ever
a magical wand for
turning kindness inward?
~~~
the poems today
aren’t turning out great,
but they’re not bad, either,
they’re just there
and that’s all they need to be
at this moment
in
time
~~~
do you ever feel
so tired
and yet so hyped up
that you feel like
if you followed your energy
you’d vibrate until
your skin just kind of
shucked itself off of your bones?
…nah, me neither
July 14, 2022
oh no
the feels
where are they coming from?
my therapy was great
giving myself permission
to feel as others in my industry feel
but i guess i didn’t expect it to happen
the very next day
so what do i do?
—feel the feelings—
—breathe through it—
—don’t expect an ending—
—don’t expect anything—
—just feel—
—cry if you need to—
—feel—
—your—
—feelings—
(you are allowed)
(i am allowed)
(i am allowed)
June 9, 2022
how is my head
so good
at telling me what’s real,
but also
so sneaky
at telling me
what could be?
when my emotions are out of control,
when my logic has failed me,
my mind is the savior
who reminds me–
‘obsess not on the past
or the future;
life is life,
not a rehearsal,
not a rough draft,
chill here
and you will end up
enjoying it
i swear’
but when my emotions
are at the beginning
of fraught-ness,
my mind is the one
logic-ing me to terror:
‘even if this goes
the best it could possibly go,
there are still so many bad things
that could happen
as a result’
or
‘you’re feeling good–
need i remind you
that there are children starving
not just halfway around the world
but also down the street?
ah, i do need to remind you;
there are animals being uselessly abused,
others being wastefully killed,
the planet is dying,
and so are black people
at the the hands of those hired under the guise
of protection,
but now we know
that they are not legally required to do so.
but what of the people who still can’t see it–
as a white person, is it not your job
to tell those other white folks
how disastrous
and dangerous
their opinions plus their power
is?’
and on and on and on and on
my mind saving me from myself
and then serving me up on a silver platter
for my anxieties to take over
subject matter by subject matter
and the cycle continues
(and i at least know how much
i hate
circles)
May 18, 2022
staring at your phone
won’t make your boredom alleviate,
but i do it anyway.
procrastinating your projects
won’t make them arrive any slower,
but guess what i do.
stress dreaming about choreography,
about packing and school long since freed,
or any sort of event approaching at gathering speed,
doesn’t seem to help in the least,
but that’s what my subconscious thinks will help me.
~~~
i can sometimes feel the stress
in my forehead
when i’m contemplating life,
or doom-scrolling through each app
that brings me no joy, only sorrow,
and when i feel
my muscles tightened,
and my eyebrows furrowed,
and my body edging towards taking on
on a tenseness i haven’t felt since college,
i try to relax that part of my face
where the stress enters.
and sometimes it does help
(and sometimes it does not)
~~~
i make lists,
but sometimes i wonder if
i’d be a more mellow human
were i to simply
not.
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???)
May 15, 2022
how are we
already
halfway through May?
(i blinked and April was gone)
but nothing will ever compare
to 2020
and the collective pressing of time
lasting forever;
that March that took
approximately eight years
to pass
and past that
i honestly don’t remember
anything
until June
(it was all March, you see)
i joke that
“time is a mortal construction”
because of a show i was in
(i was going to say once,
but technically it was twice)
and 2020 really showed us
how much of our society
really goes in to
how we perceive
the passage
of time
(and the abolishing of dst this year
did nothing to help the case
of time being anything near
concrete)
(i read once
that the only true marker
that we have
for time passing
is entropy,
all the rest of it
is simply our
perceptions,
so…)
~~~
why
do i
constantly fall into the trap
of thinking that
i don’t deserve
a “big
ol’
breakthrough”™
in my depression
if i’m not at
rock
bot-
tom
?
i’ve looked back at times
in my life
in my time
with this struggle
that seem pretty near,
but i recall clear
as day and night
are far apart
that those particular times
felt like i could always go
farther
down
depression
looks different
for different
people
so why can’t i get it through
my tick-ass skull
that rock bottom
would look different
for me
than other people?
i am not in a place
of rock bottom now,
that i can guarantee
to you and to me,
but i do feel plateaued
in a way i’ve felt
for years and years and—
–i also shouldn’t fall into the trap
of thinking that a plateau
deserves breakthroughs
any less
than a drop past the
“point of no return”™
so why
do i
find excuses
in every place
i find myself?
~~~
the puppy
wants so badly
to be friends with the cat
she sits
as calmly as her little puppy muscles can muster
and waits
for a sign of friendship
the cat, on the other hand,
simply hisses
and growls
and hides
and sighs
as the dog takes that all as signs
that the cat is conversing
and she excitedly talks back
in whining yips
and barking excites
‘come play with me!’
she seems to say
‘let’s be friends! please!? pleeeeeease!?!?!’
but the cat
is already
halfway
up the stairs
to hide just out of plain sight
or tuck herself deep under the bed
and the dog still whines
and climbs on the couch
to wait for her to show her face
in another hour or two
and the puppy whines start up again
and the hisses too,
and i hope one day
they do
actually
become friends
but today that seems…
damn near impossible
May 12, 2022
does anyone else
treat this life like a dress rehearsal,
like a rough draft,
like some sort of practice run
and keep, in their minds,
a running track of all their regrets
so that when it comes time
to actually perform/publish/play
‘for real’
they can do
life
‘right’
?
(or is that just my trauma response?)
May 5, 2022
even though you’re feeling sad
drink the coffee
do the writing
even though everything feels hopeless
drink the coffee
make the plans
even though you’d rather sleep and sleep and sleep
drink the coffee
do the day
little bursts of serotonin
may or may not add up
into an almost livable amount
of serotonin
for one mind
but at least those little bursts of serotonin
will help
for a second
or two
so
even thought it all seems so pointless
drink the coffee
eat the cookie
write the poem
talk with the spouse
play with the puppy
get out of the house
and fake it till you make it:
life edition.
~~~
yikes.
(the feels that made
that poem)
~~~
wanderlust
wanderhome
wander to me
go right now
i am waiting
arms outstretched
to feel you in them
once again
wanderlust
wanderhome
wander towards
never feeling
so alone.
May 2, 2022
it became so much easier
to talk about my drive
to take care of others
when i thought of it as
a trauma response
from childhood.
when approached as something
stemming from the
‘goodness of my own heart’
something akin to being
‘just a good person’
or the source being
‘simply my selfless, altruistic self’
then the ache i felt when i wanted others
to drop everything
and care for me
(the way i did them)
stopped being so disturbingly
selfish/bad person/greedy-hearted
and instead became a warning sign
that i still needed to heal my inner child,
and the care i gave others
wasn’t, in fact, a choice or a personality trait
but was a compulsion driven from a place
of needing what i gave.
kipventures 