A map of Reykjavik still in her pocket
She tightened her jacket and remembered she bought it
She pulled the strings of that money machine
With the walls caving in she let herself dream
bearings
sestina or something
You know what Tanya told me yesterday under the bleachers since she's my girl or something? Katie's with Carl, Alison's fucking Greg but Greg's still going with Katie and Alison plays for the other team John finished juvie and Claire finished Jim off but Jim's in the locker room with John in his mouth
Everyone knows because Gretchen's got a big mouth Bill got his appendix out the other day Honestly, we could tell something was off But today he's back saying "You got something on your face" like he always does. He's still on the team. He's always been our best and everything but things can change pretty fast, you think you've got a handle but Tracey's lips got sucked up into her mouth She's probably got bulimia but so does the whole cross-country team She couldn't get a word out in English today I wanted to say grow some lips and talk like a real skeleton person or something mean like that but that was before the bell went off I mean, Celia's dad's got cancer, Trent says he's gonna off himself, Chaucer couldn't write something half as good but Jane Austen could, not that I read that girly stuff or anything Jay stuck his tongue down Hannah's throat during mouth to mouth in health, John got suspended, haven't seen him in days Bill and Jim and Greg got with the cheerleaders just cause they're on the team only three people didn't make the team they let 'em on anyway, bench warmers. Just kill them off it's what Darwin would do, that's what my dad said the other day Some people aren't strong enough to stick around, isn't that right Bud? doesn't matter if it isn't because he always gets mad when I mouth off to him. Look at Bud, he thinks he knows everything. John smokes cigarettes, it's like a cool kid thing Can't have them or I'd get kicked off the team they say they can smell it on your mouth or something. You hear Trent finally kicked off? I wanna say I don't get it but It's easy to get choked by your own belt at the end of the day Greg bit his tongue clean out his mouth jerking off last night. I'd feel bad but we all knew it would happen one day
landmark 0
[first transmission]
the indefinite professor
skin
you’ve injected yourself into me
healed under my skin
like tattoo ink
the world could rip away every trace of your existence
but here you still would be here
latent in my flesh
and i would still be here
patiently
waiting
for the moment i can see you again
fucked up
my thoughts still feel much too messy for therapy
i thought the point of EMDR was that you don’t have to talk about shit
that’s what Kamala told me anyway
but the first part of it, “history” laying
just some fancy words for digging shit up
bullshit
if this shit were easy to talk about, do you think i would be here, asking for your help? fucking hell
There’s this safe place exercise i’m supposed to do
i try
but the first place i think of is a fictional RV i made up
okay try again
it’s the mountains where i grew up
fucking beautiful
i feel safe when i look at them
cradled
but my parents could be here at any minute
okay try again
the next place is a beach
indiscriminate
but here, I’m still me, ready to bolt at any second, always in fight or flight
never safe
so i try to go back to the RV
where i do feel safe
but apparently, i have to keep talking while i do
my mind short circuits
how can i tell you what it smells like if i don’t know yet??
how can i feel safe if you keep pulling me back?
why can’t i just be?
i slam the door on the RV
i will not
i refuse to
take anyone here
it needs to stay safe
you need to go
the exercise is called safe place
but i end it feeling unsafe
hunched over
clutching my shoulders
feeling once again too fucked up for therapy
because i didn’t fit into others’ ideas of what ‘should’ work
because i didn’t stuff myself into a box to make myself easier to manage
trying so hard
just to exist
concrete
You made me promise to talk to you. I don’t like to make promises because I don’t like to break promises. But for you, I broke the rules.
But lately talking to you’s been like screaming at a brick wall to move. Fucking useless.
The feeling of you used to be warm water and safety.
Now it feels like falling on concrete.
small disasters
I’m writing down all these things so I can tell you later.
I promised I’d talk to you, even if I was scared, but sometimes it’s so much easier to write than to talk.
Do you remember when I came to pick you up the other night? I called you on the phone because I missed the turn. I was so overwhelmed I could barely get a word out.
You could tell.
That’s the small stuff you said. I’d be great in a natural disaster. I said. But this stuff stresses me out. This stuff is my hell.
I’ve been thinking about that.
You see, I wasn’t with you then. I wasn’t in the car on the phone with you. I wasn’t on my way to Heritage days in Syracuse to pick you up. I wasn’t on Antelope Drive and 2000 W. I was ensnared deep in the webbing of the past.
Maybe you could tell.
My mother used to yell at me. In the car. My childhood is dotted with memories of people yelling in cars, pricked like a pincushion or a voodoo doll. And me unable to escape.
But the worst was learning to drive.
It wasn’t so bad with my dad. I learned with him first because he could more easily keep a level head when I messed up. When it looked like I was heading to disaster.
But I wasn’t protected forever from driving with my mother in the front seat.
I have a memory. I’m pulled over in the parking lot of the 600 S and 700 E strip mall. The one with Noodles and Co. and Tonyburger. I’m parked next to the Starbucks. The one that moved out and is a boba place now. Everything is pink and they give you a punch card, one free boba for every ten you buy.
I’m pulled over. I’m parked outside the Starbucks. I’m gripping the steering wheel. I’m crying. I’m overwhelmed. My mother is in the front seat.
And I do not remember what came before.
I do not remember what small error escalated to verbal blows, what tiny infraction what small disaster led to me being incoherent and unable to drive.
the reality
11-29-21
“I loose touch with reality often”
It’s a question on psychological inventories, the intake form, the one they ask me to retake each new therapist’s appointment.
I mark it high.
It scares me. This slipping away. This unmooring from the physical world around me. In favor of my ever deep internal world.
But why is this – this nebulous emotional world – not reality as well? Am I dreaming without my knowllege or consent? Maybe the real problem, the real pathology, is that I let others define my reality, draw these subjective lines for me.
“I often let others define my reality for me”
Ask me that question. Be concerned if I mark it high.
Nihilistic Porcupine 