Anxiety's a fickle creature

We all talk about anxiety and know it and feel it and contemplate it.

I get so frustrated how quickly it sneaks up on my consciousness and taps its little fingers on the windowpane of my mind.

So confused why its sudden on a razor sharp edge tension teeters me so closely to the oblivion it promises I am accelerating so quickly towards yet does not exist.

Anxiety bubbles up like a silent cancer, the victims of it as much afraid of that by which they create it as the things which it creates a fear of.

I am as much afraid of my hopes and dreams never coming to fruition as I am that those hopes and dreams are rested too precariously upon a mind which, as often as not, convinces itself those hopes are futile, weak, in jeopardy.

I am as much afraid of being alone as I am afraid that my fear of being alone is completely unjustified and constructed by chemicals gone awry.

I am as much afraid that love is false as I am that my believing in it's falsity has always been what makes it so.

Anxiety's a strange and fickly creature, prone to secrecy and quickness of heartbeat. A wishbone sudden snap crackling which shatters that which is not broken and calls attention to the lack of brokenness as proof positive you must be afraid it shall soon become so.

Sudden and all encompassing intensity of that simple 'wrongness' of simply existing in the moment is the epitome of anxiety. Conviction something terribly horrible is happening right now.

I am as much afraid that something is wrong as I am that my feeling of something being wrong is simply an illusion I am too crazy to stop believing.

But I do catch myself as I push myself over the edge.

Anxiety's a fickle creature, one moment quiet and withdrawn the next fullthrottlescreamingbloodymurderintoyoureyelids aggressive.

I wait. Wondering which right is wrong and how wrong it is to feel okay.

I catch myself as I watch myself falling and ask myself why I am like this-- 'what is wrong with me?' has been a mantra I am as of late consciously trying to say less.

Because nothing is wrong.

I am anxious that in asserting this anxiety will rear its insidious little head to remind me of all the reasons something IS WRONG, IS NOT OKAY.

But I accept it. I listen now, instead of trying to escape from something that just needs to be seen and heard to know it can go away for a while.

Anxiety's a fickle creature.

So I'll become its friend and observer, not a passive bystander being acted upon by it.

I am becoming too strong in myself and my higher consciousness (or something like that) to continue to be usurped by a little mean monster like anxiety who really, is just trying to tell me something I already know but is afraid to say it and scared I won't be able to handle it.

'Come here, tell me your story and I will listen but I might not agree and I probably won't act upon your words' I say to those emotions which used to paralyze destroy and cause me self-doubt up the ass crack.

Come here you silly little things, sit a while, tell me what you are so afraid of.

Come here so I can remind you who knows what's right.

So I can remind you that I'm much stronger than we've always been afraid I wasn't.

But even then,

I find I am as afraid to be right as they are profess I am, sometimes convincingly so

that I am wrong.

Hello there. Nice to meet you.

To the Girl I think I’m supposed to Be…

Should plus A equals…

A slang term for the conjunction of should

plus the past tense have, that,

when combined with ‘woulda’ and ‘coulda’

reminds you,

‘but you didn’t…’

To the girl I think I am supposed to be—nice to meet you.

I am endlessly envious of your self-assurance and grace, your self-acceptance in the face of all your flaws, and your hair looks so fucking healthy!

To the girl I think I’m supposed to be… I always think of you when I regret who I am.

You would not pity yourself as I do.

I often attempt to use this as motivation to remove myself from indulgent self-hatred, but this often backfires and perpetuates an even more vicious cycle.

Loss only has value of there is also something to be gained.

I feel in a constant state of mourning for the loss of you because I believe becoming you is something I must gain.

Maybe if I didn’t know you

I wouldn’t have to be reminded of my lack of being you

—but you?!

You have found a way to simply be you, irrelevant are loss and could and shoulds—

I envy you your erasure of hierarchy within the soul.

To the girl I’m supposed to be because

I’m supposed to be you eventually you can deduce from the chronology of my not being you to my becoming of you that I’ve acted out of fear.

A lot.

You respond, instead of react, with wisdom—how are you so fucking calm?

You can write poetry that takes breaths away

I am still frantically trying to catch my own between choking on cigarette smoke

and

lungs constricted by self-doubt.

To the Girl I think I am supposed to be…

You are teaching me

there is nothing wrong

with being yourself—

you’ve come into acceptance of such

your demeanor is as graceful as

as my listicles obsession preoccupation with ‘things you need to read if you’re a struggling 20-something’ is desperate.

You take in love and give it, willingly and whole-heartedly,

because you have enough within yourself to feel safe in someone else.

Body size and shape don’t contour who you are.

You’ve let go of obsessions.

You have in no way completely eliminated these negative thoughts

Yet you have gained freedom from them—

Can we just skip over how you got there so I can join you in this one?

Girl I Believe I am supposed to be

you are teaching me

Happiness is

what you’ve made it,

make of yourself,

happiness is when YOU

have made YOU

into a sacred home within your soul—

you promise one day I (we?)

will become secure enough

to let in those who deserve it.

Girl I believe I am supposed to be,

you promise me that pain is still part of our experience.

But you allow yourself to feel it, embrace it, and allow catharsis to heal it.

I am still terrified pain is the only poetic thing about my existence and thus seek it out as a means of self-created artistry, however frivolous and insincere and inconsiderate this logic is, it still dominates my psyche.

You promise me,

‘The future is promised to no one’ and you have

released idealized tomorrows

for the sake of not blindly living through todays.

You’ve chosen to live in each moment genuinely,

trusting THAT will create the tomorrow you need,

THAT will give you yesterdays worth remembering.

Girl I am supposed to be—

You value try to teach me that

passion, reciprocity, creativity, being mundane and average, bored and frantic, profound, angry, overly simplistic, Netflix benders or kicking some serious academic ass are not mutually exclusive.

I still call bullshit.

You try to tell me

being proud of yourself is not the same as an ego trip and being strong does not rule out moments of weakness and emptiness WILL FILL ITSELF UP when you give it the time and honor is deserves.

You tell me time is precious

but never wasted if you simply allow yourself to inhabit it.

To the girl I believe/ think I am supposed to be, hope to become, wish I already was, regret not being, might possibly kinda be capable of becoming…

Nice to maybe

Finally meet

Us.

she was, she is

was a lost configuration amalgam of heart spaces and too many nights spent agonizing over too many nights spent alone

was a particular friend to her worst enemy of herself, the lover of her own dramatized existence

was a perpetuator of her own subordination to inner turmoil

was a mis-directed mental contortionist rebelling against the very cause she kept fighting to believe was worth dying for

she is

a parallelogram fragment of simplicity
a judgement of ignorance wrought in endless confusion and apathy
a desperation of spirit asking itself why it keeps doing that which does not serve itself
a writer going on rambler trying to make something out of nothing in her head

This is not an apology, nor is it an answer.

Climbing the mountains of your self only to reach the top and still not know where else to go is difficult, confusing. Should do this, should do that, trying to figure oneself out in the midst of everything that could or should be I run myself ragged in my head running nowhere instead hoping for some sort of answer not yet (most likely never) forthcoming.
Professing love isn't so simple when love is convoluted into itself over and again. Love isn't so profound when you've lost the meaning and meaning keeps itself protected in its lack of structure. The structure defines the meaning and the meaning lacks itself an understanding to really come together within. Reflect on reflexivity and action breaking waves across histories of life in past and past creating future, present creating future lost and prison gained constructed into ideologies personified and personalized. Please leave satisfied in love. Just let it go. Just let it be.
Watching mindless mentalities re-invigorate themselves.
Wishing for meaning from something greater than who you are. Wishing for meaning in yourself that you cannot possibly define anymore because you are weighted down by the weight of all the judgements on yourself your brain keeps telling you you are the composition of your thoughts.
But you are more than that. You are not your thoughts, nor your actions, nor your past, present future as it unravels becoming and creating.

was a broken record playing albums of self-deprecation and unwillingness to empower herself
was a stagnant wish for something better constantly perpetuating something worse

is a person sitting a wondering how in the hell she can feel so powerless to her own powerlessness
is a numbed spirit here sitting reflecting on dull edged memories
is a 'healthy' 'well' woman body uncomfortable with itself

I am afraid because I spend so much time wishing to look a certain way I do not do anything to actually change that all this same energy could be going somewhere 'better' 'more productive'

is a girl who still calls herself ugly and fat and doesn't believe it enough to change it, doesn't disbelieve it enough to stop the internal repetition iambs of wasted emotionality

write a haiku go smoke your cigarettes and erase everything you've ever thought

become anew again, start over

she was

she is

still.

Slut

Too many bodies faces kisses touches embraces,
fucks
wish I could erase myself and re-write my body back into its own safety,
sacred
Look around wondering why I focus so much on how I think I feel
being
being is so difficult when you can escape yourself in sex

Not a slut but serial monogamist I deign myself no better
no worse
than anyone else or any thing else I a make a
wish
on lips and a broad chest that my head may finally feel at
rest
and I do.

Briefly,
wake up again and the mirror still hurts the light still too bright the contours too soft

Have I externalized the ugliness I feel inside with this dance
Or have I used this dance as an explanation for how I've always felt within me
Dirty
Slut
Broken

Whisper myself promises not to keep doing this
Waking up in another foreign bed soon after
Suddenly I am his girlfriend
once again a girl in relation
once again a girl in the context to judge myself against

alone and not so lonely, just scared and anxious
surrounded and so lonely, don't understand myself

Not sad, not destroying myself anymore
just so comfortable with certain
discomfort
so terrified of another kind
can't decide,
anymore
who I am
will be
what is right
just want to scream and tear myself apart
but I don't, because I need to have
a little more faith in
me.

Only Child

It has just occurred to me I will never be an aunty.

It's interesting how much your mind is willing to fill itself up with white noise Netflix T.V. shows, shoulds, coulds, maybes, 'why the fuck didn't yous?' and in the quiet of reflection is when things that actually matter to you hit you over the head--

I'll never have a nephew or niece.
My mother is an incredibly strong woman who had a life before me.
Looking at my estranged fathers facebook page and realizing he's kinda super skeezy.
You see so many sunsets in your lifetime.
I remember how much I've forgotten.
Music brings back sensory memories sometimes so visceral I want to scream.

Only child. I am an only child in the midst of a step-family. I am not lonely but I am alone. Remember when it was the other way around? You cry for the girl who was and you hope for the girl who will be, what about this person who is, right now, in this moment?

How little credit we give to ourselves just as we are.
How little we cry for the person who is, how little we laugh for the beauty of who we are, in this moment.

I've been in school for a week and my mind is more occupied than it was. I had hoped there would be no room for mindlessness.
I was wrong.
And that isn't such a bad thing.
Everything is so connected. Inter-- this that and another thing.
Inter-everything. All so woven together you can't for the sake of your sanity continuously try to make sense of it all. Philosophers writers poets poetry art literary theory homework studying mathematics science beauty language colors light and architecture mountains and concrete landscapes car sounds and screaming wanderers in the night.

And I'm sitting here watching Breaking Bad, realizing I will never be a biological aunty to my non-existent brother or sisters child. It am saddened by this.
It's hard to sleep because I stare at a computer and phone screen too many hours in the day.
I judge what I am doing because I am not fully doing what I am doing.
I am alone, but I am no longer lonely.
I am afraid, but no longer terrified.

We forgive our past selves trespasses, and hope for our future.

We don't give ourselves in this moment enough credit.

Or maybe I'm just trying to not feel so much guilt for how long I spent tuning out of my head today.
I am not sure, but I am okay with not knowing.
I aspire to read more and meander less. I aspire to stretch more and hate my body less. I aspire to play music and listen to music, less.
I blast misogynist rap music while reading my women's studies chapter on the social constructs and outdated binaries of gender.
I read about studying literary theory while numbing my brain with a dramatized show about the drug war.
I write positive affirmations on sticky notes on my wall and call myself cruel names in my head.
We are all fantastically paradoxical creatures.
Maybe the paradoxes of our existence are what grounds the paradox in it's validity. Maybe I've been reading about theory and think I know more than I do.

I don't really know, or care.
I'm just proud of myself for being alone and, finally, not being lonely.