Survivor's Guilt

I spent my life longing to be unrelatable; to push the envelope of the unorthodox; to reformulate the extraordinary. I would one day be a rock star, a poet, a writer, a legend. It's amazing how easily the term legendary is stretched and confined and unremarkably unconsidered. At the end of every day, I am my handicapped brother's sister. I fight for him. I long for his love. I yearn for closeness and normalcy with him and for him. It seems though, that the further I try to distance myself from his story, the further I become from myself. His story is mine and every detail of his life is an extension of my own.  This is the one part of my life I can't talk about without feeling ashamed and confused and heartbroken. It is, in fact, completely unrelatable. Now all I want is normalcy, to be able to talk about this part of me without shrinking and withering into the vastness of His life, His losses, and His heartache. I am survivor's guilt, aging, shattered, and powerless.

I Was So Young

I was so young. Foolish young. Idealistic young. But my world seemed filled with possibilities of anything and nothing; it was safe and exciting. I was so young.

I may have come into myself at 36. Although, it also pushed so much out, trying to fit properly within the realm of my narrowing perception. Yet we all still experience emotions, they are driven by this new belief that what we have in front of us is so much more important; vital life coming at us in neutrals and grays, no longer a prism of wild, vibrant, shooting stars moving at speeds beyond our consciousness, or attention span, it’s hard to say at times really. But so little matters the way it once did and I’m not sure if I’m wiser or I just don’t care.

Is this adulthood? I sat at the table with Paul and my family today eating brunch and opened up about the changes I’ve been experiencing, it dawned on me how odd it felt, how it never used to feel this odd really, to talk so personally to my family about my life. I thought we did once, but maybe I’m remembering it wrong, it wouldn’t be the first time. But nowadays we’re all so glued to our phones, intimacy doesn’t seem possible anymore.  We flutter in and out of conversations at our own will, demanding little of our need for connection. We laugh or we ignore each other and little by little everything we ever wanted for ourselves shatters at our toes, we notice it no more than the open wounds at the bottoms our feet as we bid farewell and walk through remaining shards of our broken dreams. How badly we need connection and I can’t obtain it from the people I once most depended on it for.

I wonder if this was all my doing. Years of pushing people away, perhaps I put a giant wall between us and I can’t seem to break it down no matter how hard I try. I grew to understand what a truly lonely life that was, but perhaps far too late.

I see an aging woman when I look in the mirror and it scares me.

Perhaps I’m overreacting, but I want to write more than I ramble, and I want to make beautiful music, not just listen to it, and I want to go into my moments where I am uninterrupted with an intention. But my brain wanders like a blind girl lost in the woods, it’s not graceful and fluid, but rather hopeless in their findings, reaching desperately for the trails of thoughts that came before, but seeing and feeling nothing.  And life moves so quickly, I want to lay down and clock out of all of it; to let it happen because I’m so fucking tired of pushing and searching, thrashing against the current then wondering why I'm not going anywhere. 

Transitions...and Not Writing About Them

Transitions. Maybe that's why I haven't written. Have my growing pains been too ugly to put on paper? Or perhaps just too scattered. They haven't been words even, but rather an explosion of letters, a punctuation shower on parchment, fading images on a high-speed train into my forgettery. When did the moments go from moving too slow, to moving much too fast? Friends, lovers, jobs come and gone. Then marriage. Children? It seems that in retrospect, our lives are always the same, a few of the greats will have an untold story, but I am not meant to be that kind of woman. I don't know how to write without crisis. I built my life around being troubled, obscure, feigning to be unrelatedly lovable.

How do I create a story in simplicity, from simplicity, about simplicity? Looking back, my longing to be unique put me in the center of a steaming hot mess in Cliche Town. Sure, my mess might have been a little more sparkly than the ones you'd find on the barrage of reality TV shows my little sister loves so much, but, stripped down to the bare bones of it all, I was still just that, a hot fucking mess.

Please tell me the best writers were as unnoticeable as I am. Tell me the words will come back soon. I miss you old friend.

Dear Woman Inside

Flaps of skin.
Beneath my pits
Above my Tits
Where my ass sits

blanketing my seat
shadowing my eyes
bordering my smile
A beauty in disguise.

My body changes
but a child inside
I search high and low
where that woman hides

She's supposed to be confident
She's supposed to be ready
Her stance courageous
Her eyes steady

I await her fury;
The paradigm afire
To tell me I'm perfect
To steer my desire

Where is the woman?
I long for her still
There's a hole in my image,
I need her to fill

I'm a girl with dark circles
A skin tag at my ribs
A writer in theory
and a waitress to live

I'm a girl, yet with crow's feet
Crow's that scramble and loom
They balk at my sagging
My impending doom

They squeal at my misfortune
Like twenty-two on the fly
Where is this monumental woman
Who holds her head so high?

I'm a girl; I'm afraid
I don't know where I stand
I hold neither money or photoshop
in my wrinkled hand

I have warts on my feet
and acne scars on my cheeks
I'm imperfect, and I'm strong
See me cry, hear me speak

This is my body,
And this is my soul
I appear put together
But I'm not in control

My supposed to's are weary
My desires still sound
I'm searching, I'm stunning
I'm not easily found

May the magazines be used
As fuel to my flames
I'll set fire to the pressures
of the woman untamed

Come out, Come out
Where you claim to reside
Come to me
Dear woman, inside

Throw that Word Around

What the hell happens when you stop believing in yourself? What next? I can't help but despise all those dickwits in the world who mistake melancholy for depression; those unenthusiasts who just need a trip to the gym, or a day off, or a good lay or a laugh or a fucking night out on the town, some chocolate, some sleep, some down time, some up time, some, god fuck you and your glumness.

When you don't want to live, really, truly, want no part in life. When your dirty and hungry and smelly and pale and you can't laugh, you're too tired to move your mouth, throw that word, that filthy, loathed depression around. Throw that word around. There is no such thing as the functioning depressed. When the meds, the nights out, the exercise, the good laugh and the chocolate is no longer doing the trick and all you want is for it all to end, throw that fucking word around.

Your blue is not my black, your frown is not my agony, your sluggishness not my hopelessness. No, I don't think I have it worse than anyone else, I think I'm lacking. I have nothing tangible to display, to bring forth your sympathies. I am not a pretty face or a falling legacy. I'm just an everyday person, a pair of feet on the pavement, a woman in line at the grocery store buying tampons at exorbitant prices from greedy men's fingers and better cover up for my wrinkles and acne and bags and sadness and inferiority. There is nothing poetic or nobel behind my tears. Basic and breathing and filled with regret and ashamed for those passed too soon, not ready to go, I would give them my body and my health and my beauty, gladly, gratefully, to see it all in the hands of the deserving. Gladly. Gladly.

Why the hell am I here?