Now the ocean on my back feels calm to the touch
Smoother sailing for them all
But everything still flows down here
Where I shiver beneath them….
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Now the ocean on my back feels calm to the touch
Smoother sailing for them all
But everything still flows down here
Where I shiver beneath them….
Today, everything feels different. A bit muted or muffled. Closer to “normal”, manageable. When things are getting out of control, everything feels so big. Extreme. Like a catastrophe, the strength of some kinds of bad feelings that are hard to pinpoint and describe. I’m starting to recognize the “healthier”, or more balanced kinds of days. I imagine the way things feel on these days is more like what normal/healthy people are feeling. For a broad example, thinking about all the unknowns and inevitable losses of future decades — in bad times, this feels so horrendously unmanageable, it’s a physical sensation I can’t describe and a near-terror level of fear that I will become “stuck”, unable to manage whatever happens or ending up in some miserable situation I can’t reverse. Sometimes to near panic levels of fear, dread. That, or awareness of my difficulties with connections/socializing/whatnot feels like something I just can’t get past. I think this gets into that “trance”-like territory I talked about before, that suicidal people describe when they’re in that moment. Once they get into that, it takes time for it to pass and the further into the trance you get, the less the conscious strategies work…
Waves still rise and fall
Anchors begin dissolving
I begin to drown
I love this name of mine,
This name of no other;
This name I can’t — won’t! — kill
Just to satisfy…
The clouds roll and spill their essence
White-hot and frozen on these unkempt strands
It’s wet and strange and ignored
Half-blind in this storm I can’t see
Half-deaf in this hurricane I can’t name
….
In the aftermath of the battle,
peace is woven with loose threads between embraces and kind words…
This war will only quit when I do. It’ll only fall still when my heart insists on the same.
I left my shoes behind when my feet got stuck in the asphalt
I had to leave them behind when I walked right into this mess that I didn’t see
Clear tides are hiding nothing tonight
Swirling about my feet
Rising past my ankles
Then tickling my knees
Slowly
…
I’m supposed to go home
But it’s so much work
It’s so far upstream
And I’m already so tired
…
A little more time
A pause
Life on hold
Pause, pause, pause
Many breaths
With enough breaths
A day has passed
And death is once again
As it should be
Reviled
September 1 – 4, 2025
Often, we just need to wait it out.