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badviolet · 2 years

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6/25/22

Two friends are visiting. Today is the pride parade in salem. I am in a coffee shop. It is nice to write here. I haven’t written in so long. Do i still know how to do it? Apparently so. There’s nothing to it really. You just tap tap tap whatever comes out. Sometimes it’s hard to get into a good writing position physically. But i just do it anyway.

What to say now? This coffee shop is noisy but in a way that doesn’t bother me. I like the people around me. They seem kind. I was listening to the podcast Your Undivited Attention this morning while I put on my mascara and one of the episodes said we were heading toward civil war.

I can feel my brain disintegrating. I think feeling hopeless and scared and stressed and in pain for long periods of time without respite must make you dumb, too. I’ve gained weight, too. But at least I’ve started a new job. A job that gives me a lot of autonomy.

My grandfather is dead. I can’t make it better for my mom. There are many things I can’t make better. Why am i doing this? Because I believe it will help me get through the days. It’s a way of being mindful. A way of processing. A way of letting my thoughts come and go. A way of letting go in general.

I cannot reproduce. I cannot have children. My mom wants to be a grandmother very badly. She gets a visceral comfort from holding what she calls “fat-bottomed babies”. When are you going to give me some fat-bottomed grandchildren, she says?

In a different time and place, i wouldv’e wanted to have children. But everything feels sick and diseased. I am scared for us on the daily. Wherever i look, i see pain and chaos and things that wrong. Disintegration. People are cracking up. Technology has alienated us. People can’t deal with the prolonged stress on the daily, myself and my family included.

At least Ben and Isabelle have each other. They are happy together, and don’t fight, and have bright futures. They love each other and make each other laugh and have lots of friends and good jobs.

Dont’t stop writing to drink your $7 iced coffee. Keep writing.

Two friends on busses to meet you in downtown salem. Then we will go to see the pride parade.

I feel mentally ill. We all are. i feel physically and mentally unwell.

Small, humble goals. Eat less. Just practice not eating food. Lose weight. Walk for an hour a day. We need to keep our physical body healthy because our capitalistic healthcare system cannot be depended on. I saw the way it treated my grandad. I miss him. I wish i could’ve soothed him more. Cared for him. I tried my best to be there for him when he died. It was my first time i’d been around a dying person. I held his hand while he died. People were speaking but i didn’t have anything to say. He never had much to say either. He was too wise for words. He was above them, beyond them. Other people were saying lovely things. I did say a few things to him while i was alone with him for a while, but the words started to feel hollow and false so i stopped them. I stopped and i just squeezed his hand and petted his head. And in my brain i sent powerful waves of love and comfort to him, and visualized him on his journey to a new and better place and i wished him well and i sent him everything good i had inside of me to take care of him as he went.

6/19/22

It’s father’s day . i am writing for the first time in a while. I have been in salem for weeks. My grandfather has died. I have left my mother with her grief. I tprobably wasn’t the right thing to do. When i was younger i was sheltered and privildeded, it took a long time for the pain to come seeping in. but it always does. It catches up to all of us at some point. I am grateful for the money and kindness and care that was lavished on me. My mother protected me and advocated for me. Even if other times she hurt me. I matter more than anything to her.

I could have, maybe should have, stayed home from my vacation this week. Stayed with her. But my staying wouldn’t bring him back. And i was afraid her sadness would swallow me. I am fragile myself. And i know the force that was in my grandfather would want me to live, to become strong. It is raining today. I will apoligze to my mother. I will swallow more advil. I am tired still after three cups of coffee. It is raining. I am a dull instrument. I am struggling to write with longer fingernails.

I watched my grandfather die. It was unceremonious. I don’t think he was happy at the end of his life. But are any of us happy? Happiness is a lot to expect. We have unrealistic expectations.

Now it is coming up on a time when i may choose to reproduce.

It is my privilege to abstain. I will abstain out of love. I will love my children who won’t be. But by not having them, i am caring for them. I am loving them most. Maybe i am a coward, who would rather hide than play the game. But i’ve had enough pain. And i struggle every day to care for myself. I could not fail a child. And i could not bear to have this in this world that i am unsure about. The world doesnt feel safe enough. And at the end they would just die like my grandad.

Tring to figure out if i can write comfortably like this. I guess it works. Do the keys on the keyboard work? I guess o. They seem very responsive.

5/13/22

I didn’t get the promotion I was counting on. The worst thing happened. How many more worst things?

And yet I am here. Sitting on this blue carpeted floor. And I can hear the timbre of my step dad's voice downstairs. And my mom’s higher pitched one. And the sound of the birds outside through the open window.

And she has fixed my door. And bought me two new shades. She wanted to know if I wanted a tory Burch purse. No, I wanted a promotion.

I am bringing her down. I’m sorry mom. I’m sorry I've been so heavy and sad. I’m sorry I can't stop crying. It’s wrong to keep going to you. You need to have your own life too. To focus on your own happiness. But I keep going to you thinking maybe you’ll have the answers. Maybe you’ll be able to keep me safe.

After this, I'll go to a spooky lake. I’ll run a bit. I’ll kick the gravel dust and try not to think about my decaying joints.

There are so many large things that are wrong.

But maybe I can try to just live this day with pleasure.

Maybe I can just slow down. And begin, simply again.

A setback doesn’t have to mean it’s over.

It’s not over for me.

I still believe in my life.

And the life of my un-had children.

If it’s safe to someday have them, I will have them, and I will cherish them, and protect them.

And if it doesn’t feel safe to have them, I won't and I will love myself and support my decision either way.

Start with the basics. Fasting. Exercise. Aromatherapy. Sleep. Organizing and clearing through your possessions.

Going through your amazon.com orders.

There is no promise. No promise of better things to come. No promise that I'll someday feel better.

My mom doesn’t tell me not to kill myslf. Maybe she resents me for even bringing it up around her. Maybe she thinks in a way it might be a good thing. I know she loves me, but she can tell I'm not happy. Maybe, though she won’t say it, can’t condone it, she thinks, too, that it would be a solution.

Maybe she just doesn’t know. Maybe I've come hard up against the questions she always wondered about, the feelings that always plagued her. Maybe she never found an answer for them either other than distraction and her children. This is why I won't have children. Because I don't have an answer to these questions.

My questions are why people turn to god. But we are in an increasingly secular society.

I’m not going to lie to you. It all seems pretty bad. It doesn’t seem so bright.

So maybe I can become a very simple creature.

Maybe I don't have to be some grandiose or magnificent upstanding and impressive pillar of society.

Maybe i can relax and sink into and appreciate and even find a way to love and cherish what it feels to be a 29 year old woman outside the city of boston living with her parents who are in their 60s.

5/12/22 Killing yourself is a way out of compromising Which I have been doing all my life It is extreme it is final it is a hard line All day long I dream about killing my self All night long too They tell you that you’re not supposed to do it They beg you not to do it But who is my life serving? Who is serving who? Suicide has an economic cost Suicide is an economic fuck you The train ticket checker smells Maybe he wants to kill himself like me Or maybe it’s the person behind me who smells Moldy No one takes care of me No one is taken care of me No one has taken care of me I have a need to be protected I have a need to be respected I have a need to be loved I will focus on my breath I will lean into the venom of this day I won’t try to get through it I will let it try to get through me Everything in me hardens and turns venemous My mother is shocked by the vitriol in me There is nothing in me that is understanding Today I will take him to some dumb overlit white room And I will smile and say first of all thank you for being here I am gutted I am wounded It was too good to be true wasn’t it? Too good to be true That something good might happen to me Made too much sense Given the trajectory of my life If my life were a story it would make sense That something good After all this bad would happen My life is not a story My life is nothingness I don’t want to be here On this train With these people Fellow, enemy commuters Their plastic slack expressionless faces They don’t feel like the same species as me At one point in history we were communities We held hands and danced around fires I don’t know the last time I felt the presence of a community I don’t know the last time I felt held or protected or part of something There isn’t much time left Isnt much time for me Yes it is the cranky asshole train man who definitely smells Every time he walks by he leaves a trail of stench I am so tired of being at the bottom and smiling and begging and pandering How I would love for someone someday to “feel free to throw something on my calendar” Fuck you, asshole. I don’t want to be here. On this train. In this state. In this body.

5/11

It is the same thing every day But at least you are not wearing a mask on this god forsaken train Speeding into the billionaire’s steel city on an evil fast train that makes mean, cruel squeaks In your $12 work appropriate black capris That you got from savers And laundered twice Broken jaw and a broken heart At least you slept well last night I don’t know what it was That caused us to sleep so thoroughly I must refind myself esch day Stay close to her The woman behind me is sneezing Now I am fat again Must find a way to carve the fat off of me Let the bones and tendons and hungry eyes gleam I suspect it will come down to not eating Which I suspect won’t be so hard this time Suddenly not eating seems like a thrill A fuck you to the world I eat to delay my anger To not eat would be to luxuriate in my anger I look forward to the hungry focused luxuriating I look forward to seeing who I become when I don’t numb out Will I survive the rage? The grief? The nothingness? I hate the train. I hate this city. I hate the money everyone around me has: I hate the lack of spirituality. The lack of values. The lack of community. Off I go on my way to work like a good wage slave Like I said at the beginning of this At least I’m not wearing a mask on this god forsaken train At least I can breathe I’ve run out of words to say All these people are going to work and I’m going with them I have nothing to say My jaw is bothering me again It is my nightmare My nemesis How to do deal with it today? It started acting up during my presentation yesterday I can’t deal with it It deals with me I hope I can stop being sad for my mother My jaw is gluing itself together, resealing,’growing tight and hard in a way o didn’t consent too I’ve started drinking coffee again But mostly stopped the gum chewing My jeans are a size 14 Pants are the first thing to stop fitting when you get fat You have r the least leeway with them When will I be done? Fifty seconds left Say something good Or bed if you want to You weren’t supposed to check Will I ever be ok? Probably not Keep your jaw very still Pretend you are a corpse 6 fr under the ground with the moss, the lovely moss growing over you Move your jaw like a dead person does

5/10/22

Her whole life has been spiraling toward this moment. Spiraling to this moment when she asks herself if it makes sense to reproduce. She doesn’t get so much time to make her choice. The question is asked of her as she still lives underneath her mother’s roof. If she is ready, willing, able to become a mother.

What a complicated question. And yes, a silly one.

The answer is no. she is not ready, she is not willing, she is not able.

Could these things change in the few years she has left? Yes. perhaps. But not likely. And even if they did. Even if she was ready, willing, able, would the world be ready, willing, able to be a place to house her child?

The answer, she can almost guarantee, is no.

It was never ready, it was never willing, it was never able, to house her.

So the answer is simple in that the answer is no.

But if you’d asked her if she’d wanted kids, she’d secretly always assumed, in the romantic way she’d assumed everything else about her life, that she would have them.

But when you assume you make an ass of you and me. And she’d assumed she’d have enough money by now to live, to not feel so trapped within her life. She’d assumed the world would be healthy, feel healthy. She’d assumed, she’d assumed it so much she’d taken it for granted, never considered otherwise, that she would have energy, that she would have purpose, that she would have vigor, that she would feel capable, that her actions would have meaning. She’d assumed she wouldn’t feel alone. She’d assumed she wouldn’t be scraping by.

She’d assumed she’d have fallen in love. An epic, wholesome, red, robust love. She’d assumed that the pain she’d felt as a teenager would one day make sense in retrospect, and make her ultimately, a more interesting person. But she’d assumed that one day the pain would stop. And she would have time to sort and process and package the pain, and turn it in to lessons that she would feel ready and satisfied about presenting to her child. And she would feel ready, willing, able to have a child. That she would feel confident that she could protect it. Keep it safe, secure, soft.

She does not feel confident. She does not feel sure that she could protect it. And it makes her feel like squeezing her legs together. It makes her feel like howlng her loss the moon, her un-had child, her un-met lover.

In a different dimension, she would have been a powerful queen, she would have met a powerful man. She would have respected him and loved him. She would’ve trustd him, and not gotten tired of him. Life would be an adventure together. They would have time to explore and celebrate their life before introducing children into the picture.

But in this dimension, her current one, that she has not, and not for not trying, figured out how to escape, there is no time, there are no resources, there is no man.

She always held out for the hope that the fairytale was around the corner. That if she could last a little longer, it would be ok, it would feel ok, it would make sense.

What to do when you have lost faith that things will get better? What if you even feel, suspect, are worried, that they might get worse?

Do you keep on lasting? Do you last just to last?

What if there are no resources? No great love around the bend? No one to trust who can hold her?

5/8/22

Sit on the hard floor. The blue carpeted floor. There is a shallow pool of water around you. It stretches for miles and miles. The water is cool and thin and slippery, soft and blue. It is cool. It cools you. You are a lily pad. No. you are a woman sitting cross legged. In a thin blue pool of water. On a blue carpet.

A woman wrestling for her life back. Wrestling by sitting peacefully. Except for every few seconds when she grunts and lets out a breath. She’s been told she holds her breath when she’s writing. A glass of black iced coffee two thirds gone in front of her. Guess she’s back to that.

Come heavy, my darling. I can can hold you. I have ears for you.

Your trauma, your pain, you don’t have to make it pretty here. You don’t have to make it make sense.

You can be the hole. And the moss growing in and around the hole. You can be the moss stretching and crawling and aspiring to grow over the hole.

This is your special, secret hidden place. This is the place i guard for you, have keep guarded. Guarder, protector of your heart, and your softness, and your wounds that do not heal. That do not scab over, that bleed, that bleed. Protector of your broken jaw. Protector of your softening brain. Protector of the valiant, powerful little girl you once were. And equally the mushy braindead woman you have become. And the dust you can only aspire to be.

Is this depression. Is this what would warrant a medication. I don’t trust what america deems to be an affliction. It’s in these pages i scream my animal scream. It’s in these pages i dream my unlived dream.

These pages, that are a flat white, blurring screen.

A tear rolls down your cheek. Thank you.

Give me your tears. I am hungry. I have been looking for you. You and your sweetness. You and the girl who was not so dead inside, emotionally, or mentally or otherwise. The girl whose rage made her alive

We will be dead soon. Dead soon, hopefully, enough. But today, in this moment. We write. We write with the force we can muster of our wretched life. We write with our worn out tired, flattened brain and our inflamed, deteriorating joints.

We write and we weep for the children we were and the children we won’t have, because there isn’t any space for them on this warming, crowded, noisy, ugly, violent planet. A child is a precious thing. Have you seen the roundness of their cheeks?

A shower after this. And returning to your physical form and all its demands and all its responsibilities. How much time is left. The tiredness overcomes us. The electrolytes are kicking in.

5/5/22

I am the wind outside of your window I am everything that never was coming back to being again He hasn’t text me It’s ok i can handle it My jaw is healed and i can handle anything Sing, sing, my jaw is healed Will it be healed today? I don’t know but the way it feels today it feels like it might be. How i have missed you. How i missed writing.

I’ve hd 29 years and i know what i don’t like and don’t mind I know what i find just fine And this place is pulling me there This place of green and tress And my brain is moving again The birds are rising in me again This listless corpse is rising again I will be the next, best haunted thing Salem’s newest, oldest haunted attraction I will have my own little witch house And all my witchniness will unfurl And maybe i will have a balcony And maybe i will have big flowerpots And maybe i will have a little kitchen And a little table And maybe i will have a man over And i will have a little couch, not too soft, not too stiff And some sort of funky accent chair And my knick knacks all over.

4/28/22

Don’t try to focus. Instead, feel what it feels like to let all focus go Become the bubbling crystalline syrupy bubbles in your jaw let them have their way Stop your fighting You don’t always have to be ontop Making your point You don’t always have to look good Or be bright You can turn it on But mostly You can turn it off And off Off Off Who will ever read this? Do we want them to? No The bubbles are coming back The bubbles are winning

4/21/22

I have been trying to find her pulse again Found her buried in the forest under a blanket of leaves Put my fingers up under her chin

What do these people want from us What does this tall rich man want from us Hasn’t he had enough? Aren’t his accumulates riches enough Does he have to have the small hard jewel I protect Buried in my heart Buried in my chest He wants to have the deepest parts of me He hasn’t earned it Does he expect me to rip it out of myself Covered in blood Hand it over to him So he can feel close So he can feel like everything is right in the world Even tho it has never felt right, no part of it, to me

Awkward bumbling man Tall crusting dying man Die why don’t you Die away from me You didn’t listen to me that the first three times Now I won’t even speak But my wishes for you come sneaking around the corners like tendrils or snake I wish for what you’ve got (money) and I wish you to be away from me

Maybe not hurt But somewhere you can’t hurt me You are not entitled to women’s emotional energy or labor You douchebag You doichebag You sexist coward It feels like a waste to be mad but I am What hasn’t been a waste so far The train is late again I stand at the station orange glowing barrettes in my hair I don’t know how to blend foundation into my skin It’s never the right color And my hair is always flat and stringy like straw Big gaps in it, showing the space through Looking like a half dead woman who has lost half her hair Betraying what I am

You don’t get the best of me No you don’t get the best of me You were rich and you got just about everything But you don’t get me

It’s not worth fighting with him It’s not worth telling him why he’s a real asshole Just let him fall and flail All the riches in you couldn’t keep him happy anyway Even if you gave him your bloody jewel The best thing you have He would tired of it quickly Would t appreciate its worth after he’d demanded it so thouroyghly Would leave you dead And go off to sulk around the house again And drive your mom crazy He is driving your mother crazy

She is off on a train to dc Good for her We are on two different trains at two different times I hope she finds a piece of herself like I am trying to do too This perilous Thursday morning I hope she finds her breath What he animal breath sounds like when my stepfather isn’t around demanding she pay attention to him What to say now A man sits down in the seat next to me I write words they can’t see I feel like myself with these barrettes in my hair Brave and dark and spunky Even if my foundation isn’t blending in Even if my hair looks like grass that dyed on my head There is still more to me This guy has a real attitude problem What to say in the last 20 seconds I can’t promise my mom that she’ll find her breath But I can put all my focus into finding my own

4/20/22

I had what they call big feelings They were too hig for her Around her I had to make myself less and less Less and less all tied up nice and neat for her The oceans In me wanting to come around corners rolling I wanted and needed to flood whole villages To raise the water so high the trees were fruiting fishes I needed to start new fresh They don’t understand that looks like emotional violence They dont understand that looks like death They wanted me nice and neat Before I had any time to process How am I supposed to make things nice and neat When I haven’t felt out where to put things Where things belong It was artificial nicety Artificial neatness A shallow organization But I crave an organization I can feel in my bones And I crave to be alone And I have been my only home The place I keep struggling to come back to Just the sounds of her breath The heat of her neck The movement of her tummy The rush of her laugh You don’t have to make sense around me darling You can be as nonsensical as you like You can spill around corners whooping and hollering You can drown them all out with noise Rest here Die here Breathe here Stop here Enough, here They were always so focused on the living On being, fighting, achieving What about stopping? What about dying? What about falling through the edges of the earth? The bottom of the forest floor? What about saying no more? What if I did t want to die, What if I just wanted a break? Did i think I I had to kill myself to rest? Did I think I had to put a bullet to my head? Could I find a quiet place to hide? I keep thinking of quiet places to hide Envisioning them Safe places to stop and rest and heal and breathe He is texting me long things about how to find a partner The loneliness in me seems like it doesn’t have a bottom Like some primordial thing that has existed since the beginning of time The stretches through me and down me Right through my core They keep asking me to do things They don’t know me Only small floating glinting fleeing shining bits of me I need to be alone I need to be alone And yet I want to be with someone Someone with a depth that matches my own And I need to find a home A place that I can afford I don’t have anything to say Now I am empty How to live in this world that demands I don’t feel When I am so filled to the brim with feelings Where do the feelings go when they aren’t welcome Where does my true self go Where does she hide I miss her I miss her She is the only one who can comfort me The only one who can make me laugh The only Who knows what it’s like

4/17/22

Her bones are reabsorbing themselves. She will be the boneless girl wonder. Coffee moving through her veins. It feels so good to type again. To move. To breathe. To be. To feel. To finally say. It feels like this. I am the boneless girl wonder. I am defined by my suffering. That’s what he didn’t have enough of. The One she rejected this morning. Suffering.

You don’t like me you just think you like me. Grow some hair on your lip, get some ache in, then you might know what love is.

It is easter morning. She eats painted sugar cookies. Happy, colorful. Rotting in her teeth. Her jaw is broken. She is a woman with a broken jaw.

Don’t come after me. Don’t come after me looking for connection. I have nothing to offer you but dead eyes. A heart that is already broken. I will break our eye contact. Look away into the space that asks nothing of me, that says nothing, and needs nothing, and doesn’t ask for me to be anything to it.

The Space and i are frends in that way. The truest friends. The friends who don’t need each other. We share each other’s solitude. It is the only place i feel at home.

I keep looking for the Spaces, Spaces, they aren’t.

But everywhere there is a mark of their destruction.

A car speeding by. A noisy group of people. A paved road.

I want to be alone with the soft earth.

When i go to bed, i spray lavender mist on my pillow, and i close my eyes, and i pull the soft blanket over me and i pretend it is moss i am pulling over myself, i pretend i am becoming one with the earth again, i pretend i am dissolving into earth, dissolving all around, growing and stretching and seeping and relaxing, and i open the window and breathe the cool outside air.

I don’t have to try to be anything. Finally i am free from trying and all its Failing. Finally, I Am. I just Am. And that is all of it.

There is nothing to do but Be. and I have Been. and am Being.

As she walks along the city streets with her mom and stepdad she imagines laying down on the tracks and having the train run her over. She has thoughts of self obliteration. She pictures blowing her brains out.

It is not about wanting to die. It is not about wanting to hurt herself. She doesn’t want any of these things. She wants to Escape. She wants to Relax. She wants to be Away from all thse people who are bothering her. She Wants to Be in a Place where she doesn’t have a heavy, hurting body. Where her jaw is smooth and free as oil.

She loves plants. She wants plants and trees and green all around her. Green is her favorite color.

4/10/22

Her bed absorbs her. Her brain has lost the essential spark. She thought this was a phase before, not so long ago, when she still believed in life’s essential meaning, that it was just around the corner, evading her, but only temporarily.

Now it is a sunday morning and the birds are tweeting softly outside and the sun is still soft and bright as it was all those years ago but now she has a new consideration, and the light has gone off in her brain, and she she thinks to herself now, a whole other preposition: how do we finish it? Life? How do we finish this sad state of affairs. It is all so fucked and she is not going to make much of a dent in it.

It’s been so long since she’s written. She used to be certain there was a point to it and now she’s almost certain that there isn’t.

And still she writes. On this lonely cold sunday morning. When there is the promise of nothing. She still opts in to say something. To make her mark. Her cold dark mark of having been her. Her small resistance.

It is all homogenized, sameness, and sameness you have to buy. None if it is unique or interesting. And it is all so very expensive. There is a gap of wealth and education. People are struggling, suffering, and it is apaprent. There is human shit on the streets. There are bad bumble dates trying to steer each other out of walking through the shit. It is one bit of candidness. Their one honest reaction. When one of them reaches out to the other and shoves him: “don’t step in that!”. This is one of the most expensive places to live in the country. No one, including herself, can afford to live here. And there is excrement, human, not dog shit, on the sidewalk.

There are hardly any mom and pop coffee shops. Her iphone gives her a list of starbucks and dunkin donuts. A few cafe neros. None of them have places to park. She is tired. She hasn’t not been tired in a long time. Coffee or no coffee. Her jaw makes a deliciou cracking noise. She swallows advil like candy. She needs to set up some kind of desk in her room. Some sort of place to do work.

She needs to fill out the deed restricted housing applications.

And tomorrow. Work again, and she’ll chase after her carrot for her crumbs of pay. In hunt of a bigger crumb. She’ll stand at her desk, on one foot and then the other. As people call her she’ll throw her stress ball into the air over and over and catch it. She’ll make faces at herself in the mirror, watch herself talking. A portrait of the artist as a corporate drone.

This is what adulthood is. This is what getting real is. This is reality. This is the coming to terms. She understands why she avoided it for so long.

The joy is gone, the things she used to love. The sense of adventure, of things being different from town to town. She used to feel that the world was full of things she didn’t yet know, full of romance and discoveries and things to uncover. Now, more and more each day, it appears the same: endless exhaust, and speeding cars, impatient, tired, hardened people.

3/11/22

Two cups of coffee in. she started to write again. Sitting cross legged on the floor felt right. Her fingers were clumsy but persistent. Her body was heavy and sore. There was a tiredness behind her eyes. A concerning stiffness in her jaw. A back that couldn’t figure out if it wanted to be straight or bent. She was racing toward 30. But felt a million years old.

She started to feel old when she was 14. That’s when she realized she was what others might refer to as “introspective”, and others were not, necessarily. Not where she grew up, at least. She was always ahead of herself, dreaming up big plans of a time and place she would later get to and realize was disappointing. But in the present, it saved her. It kept her going, the dreaming. For so long, it was all she had, and she made castles out of it. She crafted mountains and rivers and oceans, whole landscapes and forest and kingdoms and storlyines. She created a world that was richer and kinder and deeper and more exciting, more interesting than her own, and she was happy there.

She was not happy when she had to come out of her world. Back to school with its disappointing people. She floated to the top of her class, barely trying, zoning out through most of her classes, writing poetry on the back of work sheets. Her teachers praised her hard work, but she’d never worked hard. She was a dreamer. Her hands were soft. Emotioanlly she was strong. Made of tough, resilient stuf. She had to be, to get to where she was today. To endure disappointment after disappointment.

But sometimes, she knew she was just here passively. Because there was no non-violent way to not be here. No way that would not leave a scar where she had once been. No way that wouldn’t hurt herself or others.

As she got older, and the gap between her real life and dreams deepened, mercifully, her dreams began to dessert her. She became a simple woman, of flesh and blood, not so floaty, with splotchy skin and a fucked up jaw, a typical woman, a woman who ate her feelings, was always battling the budge, or really, not battling it at all, just eating, just succumbing.

When she was younger, she used to like to have sex, and pride herself on being attractive. Those were two carnal pleasures she took part in in the real world.

If she had to be here, in this ugly world, could she live skillfully? Could she finally learn how to compromise? How to take a little and work with it? Could she polish and care for what she had, what she was, the friends she knew, the family she was lucky to be with, could she exercise and care for her body knowing she would never be the fittest, could she exercise her mind knowing she would never be the most brilliant, could she put a little effort into the way she looked knowing she would never be the most beautiful? Could she find a mate, knowing he wouldn’t be perfect, and she wouldn’t be perfect, and they wouldn’t be perfect?

3/2/22

My jaw hurts. Or does it. It fills with liquid and crystals. Pus. and sharp things in the pus. Sticky goo. Congealing my jaw together. And in me. The fear that my body isn’t healing itself the way i should. Can i trust my body to heal? Should i?

In boston, we build body parts. And food in petri dishes. We grow meat from cells. Could they build me a new jaw?

In a few minutes, i will walk down the wooded street, to the large steel train, the screams through the air. It offers a relatively smooth ride. It is a relic of the past. It is $8.

The parts in me are shifting. Moving around. Reconfiguration. Moving to different places. Some are moving to the front. Some are hiding in the back for later, maybe. Some are slowly dissolving. Other things are growing. Sharp foreign things. I don’t know what these things in me are. But i don’t know what this world around me is either. It is a sharp foreign world, and i am growing parts to deal with it. It is amazing, our ability to adapt. I grow entirely new parts.

This is a strange world, a meta world, but hopefully not facebook’s Meta’s world. Someone will get to the vr market share first.

How to live our lives? Should we pursue monogamy? Have children?

But maybe that’s too big of a question. I have always been concerned with the big, sweeping questions.

But how to live this woman’s life today?

Wretched woman. Small, but fat womam. In last years close. A zit blooming and reddening on her neck. Why her neck? A headband that conjures rosie the riveteer. She is a working girl after all. Now at least. Finally. In spite of herself. She has submitted. The stubbornness was driven out of her. A professional outfit that says, promote me, clearly, but plastic orange earrings that say, i’m fun, i’m approachable, i’m still a little creative and zany, i’m not too big for my britches.

The apps are life draining. It is so hard to guage attraction to someone over the apps.

And so last night the statement floats through her head. Maybe love, like they told us it was, like it used to be, isn’t natural anymore.

If it’s not happening for her, should she force it? Maybe children are not the thing. Maybe she needs to let them go. All signs point to her not having them. Time is alreadying ticking away from her.

Rob doesn’t want her. Won’t commit. She is too fat for him. And maybe there are other things about her he just hasn’t mentioned.

She sits cross legged on the blue carpet and writes this. It is quiet. Her parents are gone. Off in the palm springs desert.

The train costs $8. $8 she doesn’t have. Not in the longterm. She did just move back in with her parents after all because she can’t afford on her current salary a suitable place in Boston to live. But also it was because she needed help. She was feeling sick and weak. She was feeling scared and confused and alone. She missed her mother’s comforting voice and touch. It was a need that welled up in her and seemed obvious. Everything around her was shiting, changing, but her mother was still there, still rock steady, solid.

But even her mother is not impervious. She is getting older. The fear of her dying. But this is life. Real life. Not the impression of it.

2/22/22

We pack my things into boxes which remain in the garage spread out over a tarp. Mom vacuums the items individually. They stay out in the freezing cold for nights at a time. I move to a different position where I am able to write better. I write better on my knees. And yet I won't suck cock. I have some sort of attitude. I refuse to serve another. I know what I need. I know what I must have. I won’t suck cock if I'm not cumming. If I'm not loved. If money isn’t being spent on me. If I'm not secure and pampered. I won’t run myself ragged for a career. I will enjoy my work. I won’t be incentivized to let it eat away at me until there is nothing but bones.

This is about day five without coffee. My jaw looses up except for now when it is acting up again. Again, we change our writing position. Now we are more hunched over. I really should have kept my other desk.

I shouldn’t have let mom convince me to return it. This is so annoying. I can’t find a place to write. I need a work desk and a creative desk. I need the two separate spaces. This is not working. Can I train myself to write like this? I will try. But for today, I won't, can’t expect myself to, hit any sort of creative flow. It’s a shame because I really want to write.

It is time to take my lunch. I write and complete my mediations. My stuff is still in the garage. There is too much work to complete. Where will my creative desk be? I’ll say it again. I shouldn’t have let mom make me return to that desk. I would’ve put it in my room and used it.

What now. Perhaps if i sit up straight in this chair and write cross legged it is better. It is a little bit but not entirely. Hmm. sitting on the ground cross legged seems pretty good. But I do detest the scrnched up posture. It’s so hard to write today. I have gotten so fat.

This is all such shit, the writing today, but i know that someday, some days, it won’t be, and that’s why i do it. It’s a discipline. I wish the Is were capitalized. How to get back to writing. I am slow now. Physically and mentally. Need another large cup of tea. I’ll make that after this. Then what? Dive into my work. See what needs doing. Covering other people’s dashes sucks. It’s too much tedious work. I’m never going to have enough time to finish the team meeting or look into data u. Prepare your questions for your time with susanna. This sucks. This is supposed to be my break and I'm still thinking about work. I need to get paid more. Way more. This morning I felt creative and energized but now it has left me apparently. When will the timer buzz? 30 seconds. I can write until then. What shall I say. I have a third date tonight. Bring cheap white wine he said when I asked what I could bring. My stuff is still in the garage

2/16

Coffee and weed. Pull it together. Brain farts. Jaw rice crispies. A shower. To wash hair of straw. Hair that doesn’t look good whether it’s clean or dirty. Tomorrow. Back to work in person. I am afraid of the other people. They make more money than me. Can they see i’m a fraud? Can they see i’m desperate in? Can they see the heaviness in me that is sinking sinking sinking? When i talk to them their eyes sometimes gleam They look at me like i am human Everyone wants a piece of me Inviting me here, inviting me there But how do i get money? How do i get a lot of money? I hate this place. I hate the world. I hate my jaw. I hate the inefficiency of being alive. The pendanticness of it. It doesn’t feel sacred anymore. If it ever has. Pastries for breakfast. The novelty of a cute new french bakery. Then the slug hauls herself to her computer. Logging on, on. Hours past as she does want routine task after another, squinting at the small text on the computer screen. Outsider the slug’s window, her sun rises and sinks. Remember when it felt like the world was made for you? How to become a useful member of this economy. So many things to do: calling tmj surgeons, scheduling an appt with the dentist, meditating, showering, getting the forms back from the tenant, doing your taxes. Life is tedious. A date tomorrow. Does he expect me to pay? I’m not going to. It will be awkward. Call mom and ask her what she thinks. It’s a brewery situation. Am i done with this writing yet? Need to call mom. Need to call mom. Thank god i am getting out of this apartment. What is the parking like in downtown boston? I just want to start doing other things. Last night i slept deeply, thank god. I don’t want to deal with the discomfort of tomorrow’s date. I’ll feel fat. And he will expect me to pay. And he will have to realize i’m not reaching for it. Any maybe he will think i’m a bitch. Maybe he will think i’m a fat bitch who’s not pretty enough to act this way, to demand these things. But you have to pay if you want to date me. If he wants to have a convo about it, we can. He makes a lot more money. He owns a house. If he has a problem with it, i’ll apologize and suggest he date someone else. He doesn’t have to date me. I just don’t want to have the conversation. The fact that he said you get it next time is already a bad sign. Have to get better at not bringing up the subject of who pays, not being awkward or self deprecating about it. I already ruined it because he said “you can get the next one” and i didn’t say i didn’t want to. I let the words get stuck in my throat. Now what. Now what. I don’t know what to do or tell you. This is too much time to write. Should i tell him beforehand? The pay thing is such a point of contensipn. In 20 seconds you can call your mom and ask.

2/13/22 first date

What is that Clambering forth from the horizon A clumsy speck Stumblnig closer It is a dead girl She is not so menacing Look at the smile on her face to meet you Look at her arms outstretched, holding up to you her offering in good faith Her amrs full of dead flowers Fresh when she picked them; they didn’t make the journey. And neither did she. She was alive when she started.

Do not, please sir, be so quick to dismiss her. I know there are girls with colors in their cheeks. Warmer girls. But can you appreciate how far she has come to get here. And maybe you can make a new life together. And maybe you can help her. If there is generosity in your heart. She was alive at one point. And her heart was so alive it was magnificent.

Please do not judge her. She has lost control of most of her movements, forgotten most of the human language. When she was alive, she was quick to move and talk. Now she feigns at humaness for you. She tries to be a girl you might like. To remember what an attractive girl might say, how she might move. It all feels fake to her. Can you come closer. Can you let her know it’s ok.

What is a first date. I’ve been on so many of them. It feels like cruel parade. Wash my hair so he can reject me. Look i know i don’t look like much but i can better than this, better than this With you by my side

You suggested coffee and a walk I suggested the museum I didn’t want to do coffee because my last coffee date rejected me My last two coffee dates actually I don;t seem to do so well over coffee I probably won’t come off well over a museum visit either If a friend or family were reading this, they might say, think positively! You will be fine on your museum date!

But it feels so good to set the bar low. It’s the only thing that seems to comfort me these days.

What is first date conversation. I don’t know the correct level of intensity. I am silly or i am crying.

Point at something and say look at that. I want to get close to him. I have always used my body to force people to be close to me. Afraid that if they maintain the proper distance they will notice all my flaws

How to have a date. Is there a point in going. The odds of this date leading to anything good are bad. None of them have led to anything. Can i do something different? Can i tell him Listen, i was once alive, and i can be alive again, but i need some help. Can i say, hold me, be kind to me. Can i ask for the kindness and mercy in the world that i need. Does it exist? I have never received it before.

What man wants a girl like me? An overweight, slow, poor, sad girl, a heavy girl. Listen, give me a chance.

2/12/22

Who am i Who are you The dog has peed on the blanket Why is the dog peeing on the blanket? I will be out of here soon. I have been flying through my work. On the way to being promoted. Maybe i can play this hollow game after all. Maybe i can make some wins. Will any of it feel good ever again? He has red hair. He suggests coffee. I suggest the art museum. Lunch after? He suggests. I suggest the place. The rules are changing. The landscape is changing. The way we live and breathe and move and eat and love are changing. Do we love? Everything is interrupted by our technological interpreters. Interpreted? Interrupted? Have i given up my dreams? Has my portal to the other dimension closed it’s door? I hope so. Stop giving me glimpses of what could have been. If things were different. If things were better. Just let me live in the mud. If this is where i have to stay, don’t give me glimpses of how it could have been different. Let me be a tough earnest humble mud worker. Little insect. A 40 hours a week worker with health insurance. Let me work. Let me swipe. Let me date. One unsatisfactory man after the other. Probably thinking the same of me. I hate boston. This city doesn’t feel like a jewel. It is not a cozy city. It is a rich man’s city. It is a developer’s city. There are resources here, sure. My job is here. And i guess my job matters. At least i have job. Think back to months ago when you didn’t have a job. When you had no idea what direction to take. I would love to get out of here. Where to? What to say to you? At least i am writing to you again. The ping of someone messaging me. Ping. ping. Ping. I’ll get up in a second. Remember when the world felt new and big and open to you? Now it feels closed and hard. With every adult move i make, i become more hardened. My trajectory bceomes clearer. I am a normal american woman. On the cusp of 30. Living on the skirts of a major city. Slightly overweight. Single. Dating. Burnt out. Gunning for a promotion. Developing skills that don’t matter to her. Pragmatic skills. Adult skills. Skills of survival in a capitalistic system. Remember when your eyes were full of stars? Now they reflect the snow outside, rained on and melted and frozen again, hard and crispy and sharp. Tinged with dirt. This is the city. It is not your friend. People are starving here. People are falling through the cracks. She is not. She is holding on and has caught her footing on a ledge somewhere. Still she is wondering If she should abandon her trellis and jump Make peace with the swirling doom below her If it’s a better doom, a more comforting doom, a sweeter and a more solid doom Than the doom she clings to without dignity Is there anything better than this?

2/10/21

I am alive in pain Alive in flame How to stop the hurting Trying to stop the hurting is a different kind of hurting Marching towards my death She dreams of frenchpatisseries An assortment of cakes in bed She wants to get them for herself if she gets through this meeting But life doesn’t stop She’s supposed to be meeting friends tonight at state park She feels like a zombie Tired, sore, out of sorts Kissing him isn’t how it used to be This is how it always happens She falls all the way through them Build a life It’s not glamorous. But stick with it. You find a partner and you do your best. I don’t really know. Why am i talking like i know. My jaw is honeycomb. That’s what i get for sleeping on the wrong side of my face. How to convince megan i can be a business analyst. Read natalie’s text, Write your pitch. Think honestly about what she will ask you. Find something nice to wear. Be prepared. Take some advil. Because it’s happening again. Youre in pain. Think of her as the hero. She is not the enemy. Convey your honest spirit to her. Your love of problem solving, your vitality, you passion for longterm thinking It all feels fake. I want to be done with this writing. I want french pastries. I do not want to go out. If you are going to find a man, you need to keep it thin and trim. Delight in your beans, and am running. I am tired. Noting feels worth it. There is not joy to be found here. I want to melt away. I am not so attached to this life. It feels so good to confess that to you. I have a headache. Try not to move your jaw. Just rest it. Just rest it. Take some advil after this. Plan where you’ll go for your lunch. Caramel. The french patisserie. Go there and then go to dinner after. You can do many things at once. Find the best desserts in boston. Fancy stuff. Stuff you didn’t eat before. We have money now. Well, at least a little bit. We want beautiful pastries when we binge, not dollar tree snack cakes. We’ve come a long way. The short somewhat handsome man is interested in you. You slid into his messages, outlandish, teasing. He took the bait, and chased you, after the game grew tiring for you. You’ll see him tonight. Pack some gin in your flask. Fly away to state park. You’ll pass on the pastries so you can feel confident. There’s no way you’ll be able to see him if you don’t feel confident. Now what. We were full of winning. I don’t even know what i am saying. Is this over.i am a working drone. A servant bee. Is there anything in me that want sto be alive anymore? Do i think this world is worth living in? No. no. not really. It’s so clusrered off, small minded, divisive. I know why sylvia plath killed herself. She killed herself because it was all shit, as far as the eye could see. She kept trying to tell herself that it wasn’t. But it was. It was.

2/8/22

The blood in her dissolves It is wretched Imperfect A travesty A tragedy Who’s game for trivia? There is ringing in her ears The man who wont’ be her boyfriend nicely told her she was fat today Her laptop is not making sound She is moving out of this smal apartment She will be 30 years old and back living with her parens Can she get promoted Her jaw is feeling a little better now at least but she doesn’t trust it She doesn’t trust anything to feel good long She is miraculous; a miracle seed Doesn’t look impressive on the outside. But you don’t know the hell she’s walked through. And still walks through. She is numb to it; deregulated Her body stepped down to save her There was too much stress so her brain went dull and smooth All she could hear and see and feel was the delicious soft hum of nothingness There was nothing there anymore Her brain removed itself The problem was not going away by thinking and so her brain stopped thinking Now, she wishes that someone would be with her She wonders if she’ll be able to find someone Pawn herself off of on them She deosn’t know what to write She hasn’t written in so long It’s all fake It’s all gloom What’s the point of being alive She doesn’t feel like a person She doesn’t feel like someone things happen to be The joy and the spark and the thril in her finally got sucked out of her And there is nothing left She is waiting to die When, when will it be her turn? How much long must she suffer through this tedium? This idiocy? This disappointment? When she was a kid she assumed adults were smart and responsible and doing things to save the world but they aren’t It’s all sick and malformed There is nothing pure or good or sparkling or holy How to live here? In this barren, dry, dead, gray, cold place? How to live the rest of her days? She drags salmon she fried in a pan across the oil and salt on her red plate Her jaw feels better. But she can’t trust it. Won’t trust it. Don’t move it. Let it be. It feels good. So let it stay there. When she was a teenager she was worried about mental illness. Now she knows mental illness is inevitable. Mental illness is a consequence of living in this reality, this sick world. Does she even want to write anymore? She doesn’t want to do anything. She wants to curl up with her loved ones and loved things in her arms and die. Take them all to some other place. She is supposedly approaching fertility. She should not feel like this. She should be full or virility. You try dealing with this jaw and feeling virile. She needs to brush her teeth, run, shower, floss, mediate, finish working. Work was a drear today. Her life is a nightmare. She wasn’t meant for this world, this life, this narrative. How to move forward, advance. Get some money. Get a lover. Someone who wants to marry her. Get her family close around her. It’s not about telling him what he can’t do. It’s not about closing his possibilities. It’s about creating new possibilities where they weren’t before. It’s about building something solid and smooth and good, even just ok, in a world that is recklessly indifferent to the both of their lives. Crack that jaw. Oh yeah. That’s the stuff. Don’t look at me like i’m a writer. My brain is as slow as a slug. Accomplishing simple thing

1/5/22

I need someone to hold me because I am coming out of my skin.

My phone holds texts from two brokenhearted people, long paragraphs from both of them.

One of them, a man I don't have feelings for. Another one, a new friend who got her feelings from someone else.

I want to soothe them.

But the texting cucks me.

Texting doesn’t make us feel better.

Being in person physically in large groups that meet regularly makes us feel better.

I need someone to hold me cuz I am coming out of my skin.

I woke up at 5:40am this morning. It was supposed to be 5am but I slept for another forty minutes.

It was cool when I woke up. I turned up the heat. I drank a large cup of water. And a large cup of instant coffee. I turned on both my SAD lamps. I danced around in my room for a few minutes while I gulped the noxious coffee.

I tried to find some joy in my body but it was nowhere to be found. My music sounded hollow. It found no resonating echo in my body, no response. The nerves in me had fallen silent at last.

It scares me when it’s like this. Deeper than any fear I could try to tell you about. The stress of these past few years has hurt my vocabulary.

Will I survive this? Time will tell. Swinging to the next minute with as much grace and dignity as I can muster given the circumstances becomes my new prerogative.

I write slowly and thoughtfully. My fingers press down on the keyboard hard. My stomach hurts. My chest hurts.

I am sitting on a chair in the living room. I wake up at 5am and leave for work at 8am and my roommate is snoring the whole time. On days she stays home from work, when we both work from home, she will nap intermittently through the day, her snores permeating the whole house.i turn on the white noise machine i bought from amazon, and also the white noise on my phone when i’m in the living room, which is closer to her room.

It still doesn’t completely drown out the sound.

Modern life is depressing. It sounds like she is choking. Every day, she does things that exacerbate her sickness, and I don't blame her. Really, she’s trying to comfort herself, and the best way she knows how, in the desperate way that makes sense to her at the moment. She watches tv and eats (she is very obese).

Life hurts. It hurts and feels cruel and unrewarding. Especially these days, when we are poor, and lonelier than ever, and disease floats through the air, and people have lost the incentive or the ability to make eye contact with each other.

It doesn’t feel like life is worth staying alive for if we’ve lost the ability to physically connect, with our bodies, not just our words.

I want to find a group of women and tell them I want to have Embodied Parties. Parties where we focus on getting back into our bodies.

We were meant to live in our bodies. If my heartbroken friend wants to talk, can we get a drink in person?

1/10/22

I am ready to come back into my broken body. It feels like whatever I do I can't win.

But I am ready to start all over again.

I am ready to try again.

Don’t ask me too many questions. Shh, I get shy.

It’s fine; you don’t care anyway.

Let’s not do the caring dance. Let’s only care when we do.

It’s hard to find Caring in this world. Aren’t we all too tired, too beaten down, too stressed about a million menial things, to care about anything big?

Listen, I am just an aging woman with the start of wrinkles and some sagging tits. A few extra pounds. But my pussy still gets wet. My pussy still gets wet and you like it.

Someday, you might find a more deserving girl. I think this is what you are hoping for. You like me. You do. I don’t doubt this. I would even argue that you respect me. For some reason beyond my comprehension.

But there is another woman you were picturing.

And I understand: there was another Man i was picturing, too.

Maybe you are picturing someone small and petite, who makes you feel big. Someone with quiet confidence, instead of an insecure bumbling loudness, like I possess. Maybe you wanted someone who played harder to get.

So what we are is friends, i think. True friends. I think we are truer friends than some other friends i know.

Because when I am touching you, I am screaming to you that I feel like I'm dying.

Touch is the only way for me to say this.

And since I don't touch my other friends, there lies a distance between us: something they don’t know about me. How desperate I am. How scared. How hurting.

You know. I think you know.

You hold my injuries with tenderness.

You do not want to hurt me. You do not want to hurt me. And I believe you. I believe you.

You cannot hurt me more than I already am hurting. My heart is in too many pieces for you to break.

Maybe you can stay with me, in this quiet secret place, while I glue myself together. While we wait for the ones for us who may not come. My strapping tall gentleman, and your tender, sweet petite love.

Maybe you can offer me a place where I can be real with my feelings. Maybe I can heal that way.

You ask nothing from me. And I ask nothing from you.

It feels good to touch. It feels like enough to get by. And we offer each other absolute freedom.

One of us will probably eventually say that We’ve Met Someone Else.

And if i had to guess it will probably be you.

And then I will be sad.

This will not be the last time a fuck buddy moves onto A Girl He is More Serious About. But Doesn’t Want to Hurt Me.

It’s ok. I have a job. It is not a lot but it is enough to save a small amount and to take care of myself. I do not have children, so I am not so jeopardized. I will not be made more vulnerable by having children.

So I'll just have fun. I’ll just talk to the people I want to talk to, when I want to talk to them, and I will understand that none of this will last, whether someone will Commit to Me or not: I will die alone, have been alone, and will always be alone.

A partner is a pain. True, they are someone to take to parties. Someone to let others know that you are Okay, that you are not Drifting. But a partner is also a sacrifice. Would a partner mean I can't talk to other men? Would someone who wants me also want me to be monogamous? Could I do that with my needy hungry heart and oversexed body?

1/11/22

It felt weird. He’s slipping through my fingers like everything else. Hunker down. You are about to hear the thoughts of a crazy dying woman. This is a terrible job. How do I get out of it? I am no longer unemployed. I am something only slightly better. Employed in a tedious job. I am still working on ways to hack it. Ways to get my time back without coming off as lazy. Cuz i need them to promote me.

I fill out the mentorship form the hot young data man sends us and allow myself to be earnest and vulnerable. Yes, I would like a mentor. I would like to move into product management. It has been less than three months and I have already made my intentions known. That’s progress, Cass. That's progress.

Nothing feels good.

How to tell Rob I don't want to kiss him too deeply with morning breath. He said he wouldn't notice mine at all. The sex was too rough and too careless. Rough in a lazy way.

I felt awkward, leaving him. He said not to worry about it. We will see each other on friday. Maybe I will just ask him to be gentle with me. And I won't drink this time. I’ll drink tea. Drinking isn’t good for me. It makes me sad.

I need to organize these returns into boxes. Absolute hell. How to get my time back. How to make more money.

This is my life. I spent 10 years wondering, resisting the rat race, indulging in bohemia and romanticism. They were painful, but great. This is a new type of pain. I feel like an unglamorous little rat. Before I was poor, but floating above it all, too good for it all, unscathed. Now i am making slightly more and have grown up things like health insurance, but i feel like a hardened little rat.

How to get to a job that is secure, that allows me to work with cool people, and that allows me to flex my problem solving skills and creativity? A job that promotes mindfulness. Does any job promote mindfulness now that everything has become digital? The ping of incessant slack messages makes it hard to get anything done. Someone is interrupting me every five seconds and yet I am more alone than ever in this small apartment.

No one is going into the office today. Boston is sick. The whole world is sick. I am deeply depressed, deeply. How not to be? This is a depressing way to live. I want to be around others, dancing. The phone rings and disturbs me. Who is calling me? Must not give homeowners my number. I don’t know what to say. How to heal? How to become strong again? I message some guy back on bumble. He is “out of my league”. tall . handsome. Makes great money. He will meet me and reject me. I want love badly, but I'm too crazy now, too sick, too bent out of shape.

1/22/22

It’s warm and dry inside the apartment. Cold outside, I'm sure. Sound of construction. Both the roommates were out today. And it was nice to have the apartment to myself. The dog is sweeter and barks less when it is just me and her. She knows I won't stand for it and is much more demure.

Finished letters home by slyvia plath. Feel sad for her and her mother and her children. She really tried so hard. It does seem like it was the separation of herself from ted. She was so vulnerable. She was hard on herself. She wanted to be the best. It does not seem she was able to settle gracefully into failure like I have been able to.

Settling into failure has been a success, actually. It has marked me resilient. Without doing so, I might not have been able to survive my disillusionment; I might have become Plath.

These past few months i was on a plath bender. Ordered her diaries, her letters home, the collection of poems ted wrote about her, the bell jar, and two of her own collections. Also ordered the memoir sexton’s daughter wrote about anne, and the collected poetry of anne sexton.

I wanted to understand the mad woman poet. To see where they went wrong so that i wouldn’t go there.

Suicide wouldn’t be so bad if it were more elevated, more dignified. Like they have it in parts of Norway I think. You can die with dignity. They will kill you painlessly and you will have your family and friends around. You can say goodbye the way you want to. Instead of hiding away and doing it in secret.

Is it really death, or is it just a lack of interest in living here? Maybe they do want to live, but are just uninterested in doing so in their present circumstances.

I am hearty, though I don't always feel so good.

Lots of things are to be desired. Jaw’s not better, no boyfriend, have gained weight, am not exercising as much as i should be, we are in another practical shutdown.

I miss people and friends and my family.

I have worked from home all this week. It’s good to get good at the job, to learn how to streamline it. I work in bursts so that I get a lot done and then have free time, though I am worried I am going to get found out and scolded or even worse, fired.

I made my desires to move into product clear on the mentorship form I filled out but have heard nothing back. I doubt anyone has, but, because it is so important to me, and I need it so badly, I feel vulnerable about it. I will say, I feel good about …I don;t know. I forgot.

Seeing rob tonight. I am worried he won’t want to see me anymore either.

I want my jaw to feel better and I want to be promoted. Am going to try to run to Rob’s tonight with my new running backpack, even though that is probably a crazy idea. The idea makes me happy.

Have to slap my hand on my work keyboard every so often to keep it from going idle. 1/15/22

To live is to beg And maybe I would like to be free of it The sinking sinking sinking Maybe I would just like to float again Like when I was above it all Brilliant untarnished unscathed Wise then, though now I’m smarter I got duller, duller, duller My sharp edges work thin Nice and smooth now, like the rest of them A bore now, dolt A dancing clown for money I used to be a genius; what could I do Geniuses don’t live long And I chose the living I committed myself to living and my genius slid through my fingers

Here I am, a normal heavy earthen-stuck woman Pragmatic, focused on money like the rest of them

and now i lost it lost the shining stream that gleam that’s the thing about soaring can’t get used to it if i believed in wishing i would wish for the gift of being able to switch back and forth between soaring and crawling the visions of grandeur come back of a physical world in which i moved my body through nature and commanded armies

here, things are less imminently threatening no enemy armies fast approaching but something worse: a malaise, an undefined oppressive force it’s global warming, it’s the dating apps, it’s my aloneness and poverty and the aloneness and poverty of all the others its the incessant presence of the screens and inescapable technology the threat of AI the lack of privacy, the lack boundaries, the lack of solitude, and yet, somehow, also, connection

i don’t make big lofty goals anymore. i don’t plan for the next year. i plan for the next hour. finish this cup of coffee. brush and floss my teeth. get my hat, because its less than ten degrees out. get in my car and drive. explore western ma. a place that isn��t here. my small apartment. my jaw clicks. there is debris there. my goal is to be by myself today. to be in a place with sticks of trees reaching up into the cold air, and fewer destructive people. if i was going to kill myself, this would be a good place to do it. a private, quiet place. too bad i can’t clone myself, create a girl to keep living in my place, to keep my family comforted. couldn’t abandon them. we all have to finish this hellish living together. my parents have a few decdes left. me, a longer road. how gross it is, how sick, how funny that the animal instinct rises in me to have children to love a man, and be loyal to a man, and build a little sweet solid steady life with him and love those children into being something wholesome, and innocent and previously taken for granted, contrasted with the hard reality i am almost 30 i have 7-8 child bearing years left i am poor as a dog and work just as hard i have no partner the apps are painful they rub my isolation in my face i have an incessant jaw problem and and the world has an incessant pandemic problem capitalism is rampant and gross and destroying the planet and our lives

1/18/22

Write motherfcker Write like a moterfucker It's cold when you wake up so you turn the heat up and now it’s too hot You stay in bed for an extra hour cuz it doesn’t feel like there’s any reason to get out of bed A relic of the person you once were is remembered The person who listed lots of Shoulds: all the shoulds necessary for a happy life The sound of a garbage truck The chortling groans of your roommate’s noring The small dog who cuddles beside you You have to move her so you can get to writing Writing against the constraint of the clock Work that starts in 30 minutes Teeth to be brushed and flossed Clothes to be put away A dishwasher to be emptied Laundry to be done A shower to be had Notes to be re-written And work, tedious work to be done I need money A lot more money I need money because women can’t depend on men anymore

The computers aren’t going away For a few months I tried to live like a luddite I bought mechanical alarm clocks and timers I tried to turn my phone off for hours a day But it’s a painful battle to fight on my own Against forces that are bigger than me Why not just go numb to it Maybe i don’t have to, shouldn’t always do the brave, noble thing That’s not what they teach you in fairytales But my life hasn’t been a fairytale And i guess what i’m deciding is i care about the living And the living comes first And i’ll do what i can to live And that means not being a martyr That means not fixating on and obsessing over things i can’t change, gross and unjust as they might be I can’t change the pandemic. I can’t start it or stop it. I can’t change the computers that have come to replace basic faculties of life. So I sink, heavy into it. I can’t make my grandfather less lonely, i can’t force my dad to be comforted, i can’t make my mom feel more secure in her empty nesting. Life is so imperfect. I will focus on emptying the dishwasher. Let someone else save the world. *********** When i have a little more power, a little more wealth, a little more energy, I will try again Perhaps If i feel like it I was wondering what would happen I was wondering it as i packed my bags and left LA As i left LA, I left my ideals of being a professional creative And by professional creative, i mean a paid, full time creative It didn’t feel sad, it felt mature, practical I do believe it was the right choice. I missed home. My family. My mother. My father. My brother. The trees. And it was an easy choice also because i did feel, knew i was not Abandoning being a writer, An artist I write on this most mediocre morning, as certain as ever that i am still an artist, still a writer Perhaps much more a writer than ever. I have endured, and changed, and adapted, and squirmed, and changed, and sacrificed, and done what the great sylvia plath couldn’t bring herself to do: compromised. I am reading her journals, and her letters to her mother, trying to find where it went “wrong” with her. She was romantic, idealistic, perfectionistic, hard headed, stubborn, a black and white thinker like me, like me But, at 30, she killed herself, unable to reconcile her ideals with the disgusting realities of the world around.

Whereas me? I tucked. And i rolled. And i let all those romantic things go. Unsure of where i would be, what i would have left, when they were done slipping through my fingers. Only convinced on one thing: that it was the living that mattered. That it was poetry enough to be living. And it was better than poetry: it was life. At 26, I felt it coming, the reckoning, I knew in some abstract way what was coming: the reconciling of ideals and reality. I was not ready to face it yet, but I knew it was time to prepare for facing it. So I packed my bags, ready to move home. Ready, when I was ready to admit it, that I would not have my ideals, to be in a place that was safe, home.

And now, after having let it all go, the poems, and the romance, and the hope, and the tenderness. I feel tendrils growing again, under my fingertips.

1/19/22

Sylvia Plath was waiting for life to be perfect before she could start living, but I'm not. Look at me go.

Look at me work my shit job. My little fingers and beady little eyes clicking away and squinting away, flying through one contract review after another.

Look at me. I don’t have a man. No man who wants to hold me, step up to love this fat, floundering woman, this whale. But look at the whale writing. She doesn’t have her own apartment. Not even a shitty one in the poorest part of town. She doesn’t even have that. Diddly squat. But look at her hunched over in her bed because there is no where else to sit. Look at her hunched over writing, her terrible posture. Ideally she would have more space, an office for creative works, a desk for her to set up her writing station that promoted good posture, but she doesn’t. so instead she sits over here, vertebrae curling, writing with angst and with teeth. The room is dark, the sad lamp is bright. The outside is cold. She is fat.

Fat and hairy and she smells. Let the hair grow over her. Let the stench roll off of her. Who is she trying to impress? The man who doesn’t mind fucking her but won’t step up to live by her side? Why should she do anything for him?

It’s gone. There was a lot to say but it’s gone.

My fat roommate, fatter than me (but not for long), outside coonig to the useless dog. Cry you whale. Poor whale. Worrying your mother. Good. i want someone to worry about me. Need it. i’ve been so worried on my own. Why isn’t anyone else worried???

Good, good. I need you to know i’m struggling. I can’t, won’t struggle on my own.

A child would be a lovely thing but nothing has been lovely. Another me in another life, another dimension perhaps, another universe would have a child. She would be thin and kind and she would have a fulfilling career and high income and a loving, supportive partner who wanted to be a good dad, and her famly would all live nearby and they would have a nice big horse and a nice big yard and lovely gaggle of friends. And there would always be time for things. And she woulsn’t feel like she was going to snap in half. And she wouldn’t always be crying. And money woudln’t always be pinched. And there would be enough space to live. And the world wouldn’t feel, like moment by moment, it was ending. And so she would have a child, and it would make sense to have a child. And she would love a child into being.

My love would not be enough. I wish it would be. But it is not. My love is grand and great and really something but it is not enough to overcome the structural inequalities and injustices put into place by forces that had nothing to do with me.

Why should my child suffer in this terrible world?

I will protect her and keep her floating in a safe, perfect place. I will never forget her. I will think of her often. She is safe in a place where i am safe too. I can’t be a good mother if i am not safe. And i am not safe. This world is not safe. Not for me. Not for a child.

I will control what i can. Iwill execute what i am able. I will make tough choices, hard calls. And like this, i i will live some sort of life. The best that i am able.

1/24/22

I keep falling asleep at 8pm. When the work day is done, I am worn thin. Need to wipe my computer completely clean. Drop it off somewhere to replace its battery. Brush teeth. Floss ‘em too. Put dishes in the dishwasher. Shower. Wash hair, arm pits, genitals. Shave. Apply deodorant and and don running clothes. Makeup. Spray perfume. Meditate. Put clothes away. Try to stay up til at least 10. And wake up at 6. And go to a cafe and read.

What did they say at the all company meeting? Are we going to start having to go back to work again? Who to ask for a promotion? Craig seems very invested in inclusion. But you want to move into product. Maybe you should move into BI if it makes more money. I hate being hunched over like this. Write loser. Maybe someday I'll have a better writing desk. I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to write alone. Life’s a grind and then you die. You grind you grind. You die. At least my desk isn’t wobbling as much anymore.

Life is passing me by and I don't think I care. We’re all supposed to be such passionate zealots. Maybe some of us just aren’t that interested in being here. The couch stinks. It smells like my roommate. The dog barks. The heat warms. And costs us a lot of money. I don’t have anything poetic to say. Life is straightening me out, ironing out my creases and quirks. I am becoming a pragmatic, adult. The world is forcing me to do so. How to be creative and cool and a rebel outside the confines of work? This is not such a bad company. The work life balance is good. They promote internally and let people switch to different teams. Work it and run. It’s easy to be disappointed knowing you’re only making 46k but there is potential for you to live here.

Save your money and buy a small apartment. It will be shitty and in some place like Chelsea but at least the couch won’t smell and the dog won’t be barking. Save up your money.

Release fear of being alone. Look for someone that love flows naturally toward. If you have to force them along, or coax them with a sugar cube as if they are a horse, let them go. Let them go.

Men don’t pay women’s way anymore, so what are they good for? If I can stand out here on my own two feet and pay my way, keep a roof over my own damn head, keep myself out of debt, feed myself, even save up money for retirement, then what do I need you for? What do I need you for?

We punish women financially for taking time off of work to be with their kids. So I won't do it. What do I look like, a sucker? What do I look like a martry?

This is where you were wrong.

I am not afraid to be alone. All dried up. A crone. A barren frozen woman. Watch me live it with zeal.

Watch me punish you. I am getting my footing. Moving slowly and quietly,

1/25/22

It’s uncomfry writing this way bt it makes sense to. Let’s see if i can get used to it. If i could get used to writing here at the standing desk that would be great. Because i like to stand and it’s bad to sit. Sorry, because this is a physical maneuver, it may not be able to reach any standard of poeticnes today, seeing as it’s hyscially hard to write this. Had to stop to crank and lower the desk. Din’t pause the timer. Bad girl. Remember when it felt like there was a point to all this? Like your life had a storyline, a track? I don’t know what type of writer i am anymore, or if i am one at all. I wish i i’s would be automatically capitalzied. My mouth is dry. Does weed make your mouth dry? I ate some of my roommate’s cannabis mints when i was using her printer. It’s a nice feeling. I can see why people like beig high. Will take a run after work and then go to trivia. Maybe. Will meditate after this. I finished work early today, or tather there wasn’t much to do. Still felt like a lot though. The room is sweilring a little bit. This is fun. Apparently i’m really high. Can’t eat hot fudge sundees on my own. Must be a waif. Thinness is power. Attractiveness and money are both power; i must procure them both. I’m not sure i like reading or writing anymore. My identity was based on those things, but now that i see my identity was based on interests that don’t pay, i guess it’s seeming easier than i thought it would be to let my identity change. It wasn’t an overnight switch. It was a change that wore me down slowly. These days, i’m so practical, so boring, so normal, that i don’t have time to be as theatrical or imaginative or whimsical as i might have been. And so iworry about what i am losing as i was being polishd. Am i losing the parts most dearest and nearest and fabulous of me? I don’t know how to be happy or if i am able or if it is even possible to be so in this world. Working from home is so lonely. I know sugar makes you feel better, but you’ll come to with even more problems than you had to start. I am so high my head is heavy, my hands are having trouble typing. Keep writing. Two more minutes. Table is even lower. It all seems so useless. I don’t want to write anymore. The drive doesn’t rise in me. I type nothing. Typing feels fake. It all feels fake. Am i going crazy? I look for comfort. My room is too small. There’s not enough room to move in the house. I don’t want to google what’s wrong with me. I don’t want to consult another screen. Things aren’t real anymore. Nothing feels real. Everything is going to be digital, artificial vr, a relic of, a reference to real physical objects that have once been. I feel like i can’t be sure of any of my words. It will be too much for me to read this when i am done. Everything feels comfortable and bad. Is it ok to feel this way? Should i try to make these feelings better or should i let them be? Which causes less pain.

1/29/22

I am empty now an expanse of a woman But I seek company The emptiness seeks others I would like be around others and be empty Not prentend that I am full Of plans, of happiness They always wants to ask me who I am, my backstory Everything I ever thought I was turned out not to be So now I am empty My mother is worried about my emptiness I can move home on the condition that I be happy I must be responsible now I must be a woman who holds her emptiness Contains it I must stop spilling tears Tears are not true emptiness It has been a stranger few isolating years Climate change, the pandemic, online dating, this shitty apartment How much coffee do I have to drink before I feel like I can live this life the weekend comes, the time I am free supposedly But I don’t know what to do with it What moves to make So I sink into this couch with the dog on my lap and at least a little sun streaming through the windows My body feels heavy My mind feels blank There is no impulse in me to reach for anything, to do anything The synapses in me are quiet Once I liked dancing and comedy and writing and fashion and design I still like those things but my life, our collective life does not foster to them The pandemic is not over I am lonely and scared and shriveled up Is it grief anymore if it is just your general state A date tonight and what to say to him I want a partner but I am almost certain he is not it How to build a life with someone Find someone safe who wants to build with you and bring them around your family Living is hard Living is not easy They don’t tell you how to do it I need money A lot more money than I have now And I don’t know how to get it And now I don’t know what to say I feel like it’s futile And because I feel like it’s futile it feels like a waste to move or stretch If we’re just all dying slowly and pathetically anyway why bother Why bother But life is all about bothering Scooping yourself up until it is your turn to die How and who do I speak to To tell them I’m scared to be in my body I’m scared to be in control of this poor girl And her future She deserves more And has suffered so much And I don’t know how to get what she needs to her or make her feel better I am so heavy So full of unmet needs I miss laughing, I miss dancing, I miss music I miss feeling light I miss not moving my jaw over and over again I miss when my life felt like I was on a track Like I had a future I was moving to My brother lives with his girlfriend Where is my boyfriend Maybe there is something wrong with me I will be the girl people thought would end up with someone but didn’t I will be an older woman who haunts places alone I will continue to have casual sex that will feel to me like more than that but if you had to put a label on it would still be called casual sex I will continue to have causal sex until my body is too wrinkled and no one wants to have sex with me

#writing #writingexercise #creative #poetry #end of world #apocalypse #experimentalnonfiction

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