It's been three weeks since I went free. And I am still inside the cage in my head.
I took things with me from this place, and I carry them into my normal situations, hoping they will help me make it through the uncontrolled days of my regular life. They do little to limit the panic, the stress, the lows that fall down onto me from higher places, from people I've known and left behind.
Since my escape, I have learned that I am not who I thought I was to some people. I have been put in my place by one and pressured to follow a path by another. But I am committed. No pun intended.
These days are now all I know.
CURRENTLY LISTENING TO:
The Postal Service: Give Up
07 August 2009
26 June 2009
in a week of tests and tortures, i found myself at the bottom of everything i own, at the bottom of my baggage, at the bottom of my brokenness.
i sat in an er for 23hrs, in a bed, waiting to be seen, waiting to be told what i knew i would be told. i would continue to collapse they said. i would have seizures. i was addicted. i was exhausted. i was on the verge of a complete bodily breakdown.
this i already knew.
i did not know crisis would follow. plans would follow. and just the right person would be awake. i did not know i would be isolated from everyone. i did not know i am now someone totally different than i was just three months ago.
people tell me these things in accusatory tones. people tell me these things in ways that are both productive and cruel.
i cannot tell them what they want to hear. i cannot tell them what they need to hear. i am done pretending, and when i tell them this, they can't accept it. they tell me to reveal things judiciously. that's the word she used. but i don't have control, and when i try to exercise it, it takes all i have to do so. there is no more left of me when i wear that mask. and this mask is something i firmly believe is not right. and i cannot believe that people want this from someone they have called "real" and "genuine."
i only have one person on my side who is near me. just the one. and it's too much responsibility for her.
i am sorry for everything. i am. i have never been so sorry in my life.
CURRENTLY LISTENING TO:
Martha Wainwright -- Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole
i sat in an er for 23hrs, in a bed, waiting to be seen, waiting to be told what i knew i would be told. i would continue to collapse they said. i would have seizures. i was addicted. i was exhausted. i was on the verge of a complete bodily breakdown.
this i already knew.
i did not know crisis would follow. plans would follow. and just the right person would be awake. i did not know i would be isolated from everyone. i did not know i am now someone totally different than i was just three months ago.
people tell me these things in accusatory tones. people tell me these things in ways that are both productive and cruel.
i cannot tell them what they want to hear. i cannot tell them what they need to hear. i am done pretending, and when i tell them this, they can't accept it. they tell me to reveal things judiciously. that's the word she used. but i don't have control, and when i try to exercise it, it takes all i have to do so. there is no more left of me when i wear that mask. and this mask is something i firmly believe is not right. and i cannot believe that people want this from someone they have called "real" and "genuine."
i only have one person on my side who is near me. just the one. and it's too much responsibility for her.
i am sorry for everything. i am. i have never been so sorry in my life.
CURRENTLY LISTENING TO:
Martha Wainwright -- Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole
21 June 2009
easy to leave
i was dumped via email today by someone i once trusted.
i felt a gulf between us growing as days passed by these past few months, but i know now. i know who she thinks i am. and i am hoping she is wrong. i am hoping all the things she said were only cruel and not the truth.
but it is the trend in my life--to be left, to be deserted, to be slowly left alone.
i am growing used to these rejections, and i know now that i am the one who ends up on her own. i will become one or two things. i will become the funny old lady whose gotten used to her loneliness and is able to make fun of her own plight. or i will become angry and bitter and depressed.
if i live to old age.... which no one in my family ever manages to do.
i can't hold onto things, it seems.
i try. i have tried to hold onto people in the past, and they find that grip too tight, i suppose. they who do not know the realities of loneliness, who've always been connected, who've always lived in their bubbles of comfort and privilege.
yes, it comes to this. some don't get the world outside their own. and some don't get the one inside it. i can't decide yet which i am.
but i will figure it out.
CURRENTLY LISTENING TO:
Tapes by Alanis Morissette.
i felt a gulf between us growing as days passed by these past few months, but i know now. i know who she thinks i am. and i am hoping she is wrong. i am hoping all the things she said were only cruel and not the truth.
but it is the trend in my life--to be left, to be deserted, to be slowly left alone.
i am growing used to these rejections, and i know now that i am the one who ends up on her own. i will become one or two things. i will become the funny old lady whose gotten used to her loneliness and is able to make fun of her own plight. or i will become angry and bitter and depressed.
if i live to old age.... which no one in my family ever manages to do.
i can't hold onto things, it seems.
i try. i have tried to hold onto people in the past, and they find that grip too tight, i suppose. they who do not know the realities of loneliness, who've always been connected, who've always lived in their bubbles of comfort and privilege.
yes, it comes to this. some don't get the world outside their own. and some don't get the one inside it. i can't decide yet which i am.
but i will figure it out.
CURRENTLY LISTENING TO:
Tapes by Alanis Morissette.
04 June 2009
03 June 2009
the power has gone out three times in a row in our apartment, and it feels somehow symbolic of my physical state.
the power keeps going out on me. i am not used to sickness. i am inevitably the strongest in my family, carrying their damage bodies from place to place, saving them from their maladies. and here i am... no interpreter... no carriage. there is nothing to fix this but time, but time is a limited.
in one week i fly to an ocean state. i try to convince them i am the thing they want, but i am not sure how. how do you convince someone, someone who represents everything you have been taught to disdain, to let you in, to make you one of them, to forget your working class status, that you wore jellies in the summer because they cost one dollar at Dollar General? how do you show them that that is something in itself with great value, knowing what it's like to swim in a railroad ditch, knowing how to hike up your pants and walk through the creeks looking for crawdads?
how do you show anyone that you and your experience have value?
you have to believe they do. and it's something hard to do when everything places value on the exact opposite of what you are. you are woman, gay, poor, midwestern, rural... all these things equal less than their opposites.
to come from this place of in-between is a unique thing. the midwest is defined by what it is not. it is not the south (though many in my city home think it is). it is not the pacific northwest. it is not the west coast or the eastern seaboard.
it is place without identity for all those who have not lived it. what does it mean to come from a place without an identity? it means you make it up. you become the story teller. you explain how the rain fills the ditches and the gravel roads lead to amazing knee scars after trips and falls. you explain that the road commissioner of a town like yours is like the mayor of a city like new york. he controls transit, so he controls everything. when the roads are bad in rural communities, the people are trapped. they grow restless, and the violence that is easy to hide comes out into the open.
bodies race down sidewalks covered in ice, and the fall, split lips, only to be carried inside and beaten down further. with belts, with stools, with fists. this is not a place that is honest about its destruction.
at the same time, nowhere else can you walk through a cornfield at night. nowhere else does the smell of a harvest bring comfort along with its dust. nowhere else does green turn to gold so beautifully.
nowhere else do they grow people like us.
the power keeps going out on me. i am not used to sickness. i am inevitably the strongest in my family, carrying their damage bodies from place to place, saving them from their maladies. and here i am... no interpreter... no carriage. there is nothing to fix this but time, but time is a limited.
in one week i fly to an ocean state. i try to convince them i am the thing they want, but i am not sure how. how do you convince someone, someone who represents everything you have been taught to disdain, to let you in, to make you one of them, to forget your working class status, that you wore jellies in the summer because they cost one dollar at Dollar General? how do you show them that that is something in itself with great value, knowing what it's like to swim in a railroad ditch, knowing how to hike up your pants and walk through the creeks looking for crawdads?
how do you show anyone that you and your experience have value?
you have to believe they do. and it's something hard to do when everything places value on the exact opposite of what you are. you are woman, gay, poor, midwestern, rural... all these things equal less than their opposites.
to come from this place of in-between is a unique thing. the midwest is defined by what it is not. it is not the south (though many in my city home think it is). it is not the pacific northwest. it is not the west coast or the eastern seaboard.
it is place without identity for all those who have not lived it. what does it mean to come from a place without an identity? it means you make it up. you become the story teller. you explain how the rain fills the ditches and the gravel roads lead to amazing knee scars after trips and falls. you explain that the road commissioner of a town like yours is like the mayor of a city like new york. he controls transit, so he controls everything. when the roads are bad in rural communities, the people are trapped. they grow restless, and the violence that is easy to hide comes out into the open.
bodies race down sidewalks covered in ice, and the fall, split lips, only to be carried inside and beaten down further. with belts, with stools, with fists. this is not a place that is honest about its destruction.
at the same time, nowhere else can you walk through a cornfield at night. nowhere else does the smell of a harvest bring comfort along with its dust. nowhere else does green turn to gold so beautifully.
nowhere else do they grow people like us.
30 May 2009
i have taken the pills that put me out. i have taken them more than i should have. i am overusing this week, this week of aches and coughs and pandemic.
sickness does this thing to me.
i become a different version of myself, no less honest, just more visible. my holes are wide open, and i miss and miss and miss the things and people from the past. i miss being close to the green things that made me feel like the world around me was alive and not electric. i miss being close to the things that victimized me. i miss them like one misses an old story that's been told to them over and over.
i know this sounds like the story of someone who wants to hold on to the things that bend and break us. and maybe that is exactly what i want, to be connected to a past i cannot recover from.
years of effort have proven this true.
no recovery. there is only the carrying of this from place to place, from person to person, and i wonder how many people have caught the contagion of my traumas--these things that slowly send us down a spiral that never ends until we carry them out of this world.
i have taken more than i needed to tonight. i have taken just enough to make me forget for the night the ways i have broken others and myself. i am a natural disaster. it's true. these things, they fall from me and onto others, and i force them to withdraw. they withdraw for their protection.
i fight this. but i know it's fair. they should be able to run from the things that make them feel like their own personal safety is at risk. and i put people at risk. i put them in positions of pain and pity.
pity is not what i seek, but at the same time, i will take it. what i want is for someone to implicitly know what i mean when i say the things i say and do the things i do. i want them to know that when i say i am fine that what i really mean is that i am never fine. i am never who i want to be. the closer i get to that thing the farther away it seems.
i have these thoughts, and they do not match the feelings, so i sit and write, and i try to find out exactly what i want. this is what i know.
i want arms around me in the night.
i want to never feel his hands again.
i want to never think of his mouth on mine.
i want to always remember the white ash trees in the summer.
i want to smoke pot.
i want to not drink.
i want to finish this mess i have started with a better ending.
i want tikkun olam.
i want to stop wanting and start having.
i want the people who matter to me to live longer than i do.
i want to protect everyone.
i want them to want to protect me
i want them to fail at it.
i want them just to want to.
sickness does this thing to me.
i become a different version of myself, no less honest, just more visible. my holes are wide open, and i miss and miss and miss the things and people from the past. i miss being close to the green things that made me feel like the world around me was alive and not electric. i miss being close to the things that victimized me. i miss them like one misses an old story that's been told to them over and over.
i know this sounds like the story of someone who wants to hold on to the things that bend and break us. and maybe that is exactly what i want, to be connected to a past i cannot recover from.
years of effort have proven this true.
no recovery. there is only the carrying of this from place to place, from person to person, and i wonder how many people have caught the contagion of my traumas--these things that slowly send us down a spiral that never ends until we carry them out of this world.
i have taken more than i needed to tonight. i have taken just enough to make me forget for the night the ways i have broken others and myself. i am a natural disaster. it's true. these things, they fall from me and onto others, and i force them to withdraw. they withdraw for their protection.
i fight this. but i know it's fair. they should be able to run from the things that make them feel like their own personal safety is at risk. and i put people at risk. i put them in positions of pain and pity.
pity is not what i seek, but at the same time, i will take it. what i want is for someone to implicitly know what i mean when i say the things i say and do the things i do. i want them to know that when i say i am fine that what i really mean is that i am never fine. i am never who i want to be. the closer i get to that thing the farther away it seems.
i have these thoughts, and they do not match the feelings, so i sit and write, and i try to find out exactly what i want. this is what i know.
i want arms around me in the night.
i want to never feel his hands again.
i want to never think of his mouth on mine.
i want to always remember the white ash trees in the summer.
i want to smoke pot.
i want to not drink.
i want to finish this mess i have started with a better ending.
i want tikkun olam.
i want to stop wanting and start having.
i want the people who matter to me to live longer than i do.
i want to protect everyone.
i want them to want to protect me
i want them to fail at it.
i want them just to want to.
29 May 2009
on days when my head aches and i cannot breathe without expelling something from the inside, i find myself wishing for different releases.
i have red envelopes piling up, but my mind cannot focus long enough to turn them around, and i am lonely. no one can be near me.
this is quarantine.
i am aching inside and out, and i want to take something, some pill, some powder, that will make the ache go away, but there is none (for any of these ailments), and i wonder how long it will take until i feel like the whole me i was two months ago, two years ago, two lifetimes ago.
but then i remember that i was never something i am imagining, that i have always been broken in some ways, and this illness just makes it visible to others.
i have a list of ailments, and these physical ones are the least important. this is what i can still remember, coughing into a bag and crying because i feel like i have broken a rib with each shake and shiver.
and so i sign off for now... hoping to get myself back in order enough to feel something other than this.
i have red envelopes piling up, but my mind cannot focus long enough to turn them around, and i am lonely. no one can be near me.
this is quarantine.
i am aching inside and out, and i want to take something, some pill, some powder, that will make the ache go away, but there is none (for any of these ailments), and i wonder how long it will take until i feel like the whole me i was two months ago, two years ago, two lifetimes ago.
but then i remember that i was never something i am imagining, that i have always been broken in some ways, and this illness just makes it visible to others.
i have a list of ailments, and these physical ones are the least important. this is what i can still remember, coughing into a bag and crying because i feel like i have broken a rib with each shake and shiver.
and so i sign off for now... hoping to get myself back in order enough to feel something other than this.
To Explain This Feeling....
You need a little Neko Case
Baby, why'm I worried now,
did someone make a fool of me
'fore I could show 'em how it's done?
Can't give up actin' tough,
it's all that I'm made of.
Can't scrape together quite enough
to ride the bus to the outskirts
of the fact that I need love.
There were times that I tried,
one for every glass of water
that I spilled next to the bed,
wretching pennies in a boiling well
in a dream that it once becomes
a foundry of mute and heavy bells.
They shake me deaf and dumb
say, "Someone made a fool of me
'fore I could show 'em how it's done."
It was so clear to me
that it was almost invisible.
I lie across the path waiting,
just for a chance to be a spiderweb
trapped in your lashes.
For that, I would trade you my empire for ashes.
But I choke it back, how much I need love...
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