They travel together
All within reach of each other, never wandering far
Taking their turns
One then the other then the other
For decades
Simultaneously hating and guarding each other
I’m sitting in my hot car with a window down and a cheap excuse for a latte in my hand that coffee snobs would scoff at. I’ve been training with people decades ahead of me, who somehow haven’t given up on me yet despite my failures, and I’m tired in a good way, and I’m still sweating, and I’m disappointed in my weak progress but also kind of glad I haven’t quit yet, I guess. My guts are complaining, and I’ve got shitty music in my ears that most would hate but apparently some others out there, somewhere, actually like too, if the global play counts displayed are to be believed.
I feel so guilty just for being alive.
I’m not right in the head and I think I never will be.
I just need to get this out tonight.
The savage and I are at odds again today.
But, today, I’m not pacifying it. I refuse to play by its rules.
I will not coddle it, cuddle it, kiss it on its forehead today.
Today I resist. I argue. I rail against its every move.
.
June 3, 2025
“It’s too much. Again. Again, you go too far!”
I hear it loud and clear.
“You are too much!”
I am too much,
But — too much for what? Too much for who?
…
A friend a couple weeks ago helped me begin to think: “Rather than a defect causing difficulties, it’s a difference causing difficulties.”
Doubts whisper cruelties
as if my time is borrowed
and soon overdue
Late.
It steals laughs
It seals cries
It steals connections
Possibilities, futures
Faces from hands
Hands from backs
…
“I can choose to never feel this way ever again
With some courage and patience”
I wrote that yesterday
Seeing it now, a day later
It doesn’t mean quite the same thing anymore
24 hours can shift one’s perspective
Maybe tomorrow
It will mean something a little different again
Crying is blocked when others would or possibly could see it.
When it does happen, I’m almost always alone.