It's not fair I can't fall asleep with the trees every winter and only rise again when the distant sun returns being left abandoned in this windswept landscape is too much agony to endure year after year Left to live as a corpse in this cold darkness denied the sweet slumber offered to half of nature unable to escape into an expanded unconsciousness until I am awaked by the scent of spring flowers Half my life is wasted waiting for the thaw huddled into myself for safety and warmth where the beauty of the silent snow cannot creep into my veins Patience is a virtue I have not been artful in the ticking clock torments me and tears me down telling me I must rise and not let time slip by while my delicate soul continues to shiver
depression
January 2023
January punishes with pale grey glances punctuated by ragged breaths of sharp wind the air is empty of all familiar affection no more lingering, soft caresses from the sun The candles have all been extinguished on hearths and families that had gathered for feasting seem to have long since dispersed and dissolved back into this new year of silent, bleak darkness Expected to set goals while my soul is frozen over exhausted by the pitiful effort of just trying to get by themes of death thud against the weather worn door while paper crane wishes are swallowed up in icy oblivion Winter is a season where time stands still and all perspective on life is lost within waiting and the halfhearted insistence I'll feel good again in spring promise me this practice of painful patience will pay off
It Doesn’t Feel Like a Choice
Can a broken brain really fix itself? maybe it requires a lot of help but how can you seek out something you're already certain you don't deserve? I've tried relentlessly to turn the tides of my mind toward the sun but the familiar shore of rage and despair is magnetic as it resists every effort It's gotten no easier to resist this automatic under toe of self-defeating thoughts when it pulls my head below the waves so swiftly and with such strength Self-love practices that once felt like salvation have turned sour under the miasma of this mind shame and disappointment have piled onto the frustration of not being able to be different I had really hoped that it was a choice that I could decide to feel better but now I doubt that it's fully true there are more factors to change than sheer will It feels like an attack to keep hearing it's up to me when I've been trying my very best but it's still not enough to get by I guess I should be glad it worked for a little while
Christmas is Over
Soft warm light suspended in the brutal vacuum of snow one final day of indulgence before the empty months commence January is the longest part of the year a vicious nod to immaterial time that contracts and expands as it pleases to trap us in the cold violence of winter The sunshine tide will slowly ascend further up the shores of frozen evenings to melt the aching numbness of vitamin D and dopamine withdrawal But even the faithful repetition of 29 years cannot convince me that the trauma of winter will give way to green abundance once again and melt this ice inside my veins Waiting in this black and white is a reminder that I still haven't found the patience I was promised would come with age just more pain piled on with yearly practice
The Path of Least Resistance
I'm tired in a way I can't put into words the liquid soul I once housed with pride has slowly dripped away, now I'm bone dry Even the effort of asking myself what I want is more than I can manage anymore all I want is to want nothing This spiritual fatigue leads me to what is easy the path of least resistance is what I always pick regardless of the potential for happiness It just feels unlikely I'll ever uncover the strength to lift my head back up to face the world as I did and self-pity has become so sour on my tongue I want to be an artist and add my own beauty to life but my intentions get twisted and misconstrued distracted by the imagined gaze of unknown eyes So ashamed at the presumption of being worthy tearing myself to shreds to demonstrate to the world how aware I am that I'm not enough How can you ask for help when you don't feel you deserve it? how can you change direction when you're too tired to keep walking?
Lost Appetite
Certain seasons of life pass by in a painful haze of indifference all appetite for living has been lost a shade of sadness that turns the stomach and leaves you without even a taste for longing Sifting through the sterile earth the ashen grey dust of memory searching for even an aftertaste of delight hope can only sprout in the fertile soil of a desire for better things to come When even yearning has gone sour this prison of depression is complete the gaping maw of all consuming despair swallows up past, present, and future alike into the black hole vacuum of its belly Not even light can escape this sunken place inside a yearly ritual of falling head first into the black and white chasm of winter exhausted limbs clinging to a foggy faith in the coming spring
Burning to Be Enough
This ever-present emptiness aches as it echoes quick, shallow breaths catch on inner absence Wanting to wrap the words of others around my wounds in place of proper dressing no sentiments offered are ever satisfactory to sterilize this self-induced infection The inflamed ego agony of not enough cannot be extinguished by anyone else decades dedicated to feeding the flames leaves little room for course correction A wall of fire rising so high sometimes it feels like all that is left is to be asphyxiated by the smoke and silently submit to the blaze
Is It Practice or Pretending
Sometimes I miss the days when hating yourself was cool now that I was good at cigarettes and self harm underaged drinking and drugs from disreputable sources not caring about my future was a free fall into darkness but at least it felt free self-hatred had a shadow of pity and compassion I could wrap around myself at the very end of the day a full-bodied surrender to unshakable sadness Shifting perceptions of self care can start to feel like a curse when you can never live up to your own expectations shame and self-doubt stack up the irony of forced kindness metallic aftertaste of unworthy a constant struggle with the authoritarian arbiter of my own inner voice will it ever get easier to give myself grace now my shadow is self-criticism for being utterly unable to practice what I preach
I’m So Tired Lately
Lead weight of lethargy limbs made heavy by slow flowing blood cursed with a natural inclination to bow before gravity's siren song taking small sips of poison potions in search of a lightening elixir squinting eyes gaze at the sun soft prayer for this feather soul to grow glorious wings Sloppy frustration of trying to swim through water with baggy clothes saturated by the dense atmosphere of all the things that can never be known while holding the boulder of what is Energy wasted and unseen between tangled networks of misfiring neurons thoughts running thick like black ink spilling over and staining everything filled up with empty fear Invisible burden of a world on fire venom coughs from soggy lungs silent sickness of a sinking mind staring blankly upwards from beneath the dark rhythm of the sea
Different Shades of Loneliness
I don't know which is worse to be truly and utterly alone or to be alone with someone who doesn't even see you Is it really better to have a warm body that can never bare witness to your soul than to be emotionally and physically on your own in this over-populated, under-connected world there is a sickening angst that curdles inside bitterness and resentment grow in the shadows where the light of being known never touches sometimes disregard stings worse than rejection A fiery desperation to be acknowledged the falling sensation of a love without foundation an inner self left writhing under skin-crawling falsity rising in rebellion against half-hearted affection Disgust and denial say this cannot be salvaged but fear leaves me lingering in the decaying doorway memories of what I once thought this might become daggers that flare up passion in a desolate heart Nothing could be worse than the violence of indifference stepping out from a shelter that blocks all possibility of sun to submit myself to the endlessly overcast, unprotected sky not knowing if storms will come or the sun will rise