therapy through writing

June 29, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

angst
existential and otherwise
feeds into my mind
my brain
my psyche
my being
and though i can take a step to the side
watch as my emotions fill up
saturate
overflow
danger levels
tell myself
to calm down
i’m still sidelined
in my own
mind
the angst
getting the better of me
(getting the worst of me)
(getting the all of me,
all of all of all of me)

and yet
what shows
is just a little bit of an
‘off’
ness
to me

(the wonders of dissociation)

~~~

(didn’t know i was feeling that way this morning
a surprise to everyone around me
including and especially me

again

the wonders of dissociation)

~~~

is there any happiness in my brain today?
or is this maybe the point of morning pages/
morning poetry
to get all this angst out before it hits other people;
if i leave the angst on the page
(on the screen)
(outside of me)
maybe i’ll be better around others
throughout the day?

June 22, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

in that strange way
i’m feeling very much a certain way

a solid emotion?
[that never happens;
i am a master intellectualizer]
i suppose my one emotion
is the burgeoning of emotions.

in therapy i’m asked
‘how does that make you feel?’
and i can follow my thought process
what it makes me think of
the connections i make with past/present/future
but emotions? what a laugh.

[is my go-to coping mechanism no longer humor?]

intellectualizing is a fine coping mechanism
for someone not trying to actually get in touch with their emotions
but as an actor, i’d like to have a whole toolbox to play with
not just ‘all good emotions’
not just ‘all emotions that aren’t too tough’
not just ‘all emotions that don’t make me feel out of control’

my biggest fear is going crazy, losing control on my concept of reality
and if i let the ‘bad’ emotions in, how will i ever be able to stop them?
how will i stay in control of where/who/what i am,
when i feel like i’m a pre-teen and in Ohio and totally out of control
when i feel even a shadow
of those feels

i know i should
i know it’ll be good for me
i know i won’t lose touch with all of reality

but that doesn’t make it any less scary.

June 9, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

a sudden
desolate
feeling

(from where?)
(is it fear?)
(is it unknowns?)
(is it this music?)
(is it simply brain chemistry
once again?)

~~~

i have scores
of unfinished poems
on complex concepts:
identity,
isms (race and otherwise),
individuality,
depression,
misgendering,
gender euphoria,
magical summers,
myself,
others,
and on and on and on
and i hope to some day share them;
feel confident enough in what i’ve already written,
come to some sort of conclusion that helps the poem
stay
important,
feel like the poem expresses what a
Big Concept
should truly express,
but for now i keep slugging along
writing little poems
about my morning
and hoping that
some day
i’ll feel awake enough
to really sift through
those big poems
again.

~~~

i have a secret to tell you
(shh, don’t tell anyone else)
i usually write more than one poem
a morning,
but i’ll save the poem that doesn’t have the right
‘feel’
for that morning
for a different morning,
a morning when i can’t express myself in poetry
(or a morning where i’ve expressed myself too well,
and the poems feel too personal
to share on this here poetry blog),
and i find a secondary poem
from a day long since passed (past?)
and i appropriate it
for that day
to have something to share
to have something to post
(and,
as an overly-honest person,
i wonder if i should make note of these,
write at the bottom
“this poem originally conceived of on ________ date”
but i haven’t yet,
because this poem a day thing is for me,
and posting for others is secondary,
so if i want a record of when poems were written
and when poems were placed elsewhere,
i’d write it down within my drafts
(i already do)
but maybe,
as this blog is a solid gathering
of poems i am ok with being public,
i could indicate this,
also for my own records
just in a different spot…?
maybe?)

June 4, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i think
i put things off
as a way to prove
that i am,
in fact,
a horrible person.

i am aware
that technically
this issue
stems directly
from depression:
‘executive dysfunction’

but that doesn’t stop me from observing myself
outside in
seeing the things i put off
the things i actually do
and making an educated guess.

and yes,
of course,
the depression absolutely affects the way(s) in which i view myself
and not only would i not have this executive dysfunction
if i didn’t have the depression
i also wouldn’t have such a low opinion of myself

but somehow i’ve decided that the two are linked
and that the effect is the cause, and the cause is the effect
because i can’t just see it as simple brain chemistry,
a result of this battle that’s been raging
in my brain
for years

that would be too easy
too simple
and it takes the blame off of my choices and actions
it puts those things out of my control
and if there’s one thing i have more of
than depression/anxiety
it’s control issues

so
instead
i’ve decided
that my executive dysfunction is not this ‘hard-to-quantify
direct mis-firing of neurons
in my brain’,
but instead it stems from my self-esteem
and my desire to be a good person
but ‘knowing’
deep down
that i am the actual worst
my worthlessness showing up
in my inactions

and that way i can blame my depression
as well as my whole sense of self.

May 23, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i feel so disconnected from myself
but i’ve had so many selves over the past 27+ years
am i disconnected from all of my selves
or just the most recent?
(because if we’re being brutally honest,
this is pretty close to the self that i had in late high school/early college,
complete with internal struggles
and external outbursts
and not connecting with anyone the way i might have wanted
or needed)
but i can’t place my finger on what’s different…
is it that i have better coping mechanisms?
is it that i have kip?
is it that i have beings to care for?
(and even then, there’s something stale and over-done in all of this,
even within the difference…)
i feel that need for a change,
the way i only get when i’m frustrated and groping for something to hold on to.
this would be the perfect time to get that tattoo;
i’ve been pondering it for the last five years,
so it wouldn’t be a stupid/rash/spontaneous decision
but it would probably fulfill my urges towards self harm
(but in a healthier way, and isn’t that what we want?
we can’t necessarily get rid of all our coping mechanisms
but we can choose the healthier[est] of the options…)

what i want
more than anything
is to be a kid again
to explore the woods behind our property
and feel like i have no expectations on me,
feel like i still have my entire life ahead of me,
because, damn, i’ve felt like most of my life has been over
since i was fifteen/sixteen,
and it hasn’t been true yet,
so why do i keep acting like it is.

May 22, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

fear,
longing,
loathing,
fright,
fear
fear
fear
new situations
new [old] people
new experiences
fear
fear
fear
stress
interpersonal relationships
consistency
inconsistency
adventure
reliability
responsibility
fear
past
nostalgia
future
expectations
present
moment
where?
fear
fear
fear.

May 21, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

should i still be aiming for a word count
if my goal is simply a kind of getting in touch with my creativity
my brevity
my word choice
my ability?

going through poems the other day,
in a frenzy to organize my most disorganized thoughts,
gave me the reminder that i once wrote five hundred words
easily
in one poem
my structure was simply
get the thought out
ponder it
in poem form
use the words
sparingly
but still explore
within words
what the concept means to me

do i not do that anymore?
or was the long form a new addition to the creative family
taking up residence in my brain?

kipventures poetry started out as shorter form,
some days only one to three lines
describing a whole adventure in a strange new place

so…why does nothing feel that familiar anymore?

should i explore what this family of creatives does
in my head?
or is that a one-off concept
simply useful for that singular line
and
(ope, another random memory
this time the apartment kip and i shared
in that house
in Pittsburgh
[what is it with Pittsburgh
recently?]
the sunlight streaming in through the attic bedroom windows
the weird mirrored closet doors
driving around
five below
dunken donuts vegan bacon on bagel breakfast sandwiches
that whole summer
stressful
and yet
such good memories)
what even was i talking about?

i went off on another tangent
in my brain
of when kip and i were first together
mowgli hadn’t even been born yet
but louka was living her
hard dog life
(in dog jail, if the stories are true)
and how do/will i feel about that?
if we do end up being able to adopt
and our baby is already born as of right now
am i going to look back on this time and think
‘i was so privileged, and our baby was so not,
what was i doing enjoying my life
while our baby was in trouble?’
but i can’t know that now
there are too many possibilities
to ponder
i know this is the anxiety
but it also feels like the worst super-power;
i can imagine and contemplate and see all paths,
past, present, future,
the possibilities endless
and they are all in my
stupid human brain
the insurmountable number
being
what makes my brain
damn near explode
(maybe i am super-human
simply from being able to hold all those possibilities
without any sort of fiery
boom,
but who knows;
it’s building up
it could happen
any day
now…)

May 19, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

my brain
(and bod)
are doing better than they were
the shaking and jittering
the depression and hopelessness
the overly-energized listlessness
are all but gone

but echos remain
and remind me of
whatever the fuck that was
that drove me damn near insane
(or, at least, reminded me of that time
my sanity was not quite a certainty)
and certainly
i’m still careful
traversing on the tiniest of eggshells,
wishing that the weight of what happened last week
would give me fodder for effortless poems
beautiful language
pleasing sounds in my mouth and ears and eyes
(and a sudden reminder of church lock-ins long since past
passes my eyes in a blink
and after being gone
in Pittsburgh, i think, was that particular church,
in less than a second
i’m back)
the creativity i used to have
isn’t gone
it’s just a little bit
changed.

(i mean,
yeah i wrote five million slam-poem-beginnings in high school,
but when did i write a whole ass novel?
that’s right, this year, damnit!)

May 17, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

everything
is getting grey
while the sun shines brighter and brighter
and i want to be able to see the sun
and the sky
and the stars
but nothing seems recognizable anymore

(and staring at the sun is real bad for your eyes)

~~~

humor
within
tragedy

is it a sign of good writing
or just deeper seeded depression

~~~

smaller poems
capturing
greater feelings

[isn’t/wasn’t that the aim all along?]