Month: June 2021

Sleep walking

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I woke up yesterday with a profound sense of calm. I felt at peace. It took me a minute to realize what it was. I had no feelings of depression and no feelings of anxiety. I felt profoundly normal. Steady.

And I could not help but think, if this is what those without anxiety or depression feel like, then it is no wonder that their responses are so wrong. That they cannot conceptualize what it feels like. Because their variation from that baseline into sadness or into worry are a different reality.

It would take a open mind and a huge amount of empathy to see my normal. To see my real. And I don’t expect that from them.

It would be like asking someone who could not see the color green to accept that I can, when their society says that I can’t. When a community consensus of what is is reached, it becomes entrenched and rooting out that becomes harder and harder.

So I understand why they would not understand what I feel. Not understand me. But it does make me feel sad. Because now I know how they feel. And I think, their understanding is far from reach.

But worse, I don’t want that normal for myself. It did feel wonderful. But only in opposition to what I normally feel. Without the counterpoint, I think it would feel empty. And I’ve had quite enough empty,
Thank you very much.

Tired of living for tomorrow

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Long to sleep in a bed where the gulf of distance is impossible
Where the warmest of nights still means we touch
Even if just lightly while our bodies fling out
Searching for the slight chill
To wake beside my love
In the sure knowledge that we will sate our desires
Lasting an hour, or 10 minutes or 18000 seconds
That reaffirmation that we belong to each other
That we exist not just in the emotional heart
But to express that in touch
In deed
In words whispered across skin
To build a life of each other
The daily chore built on a bedrock of passion
Never losing sight of ourselves and the continued goal of us
To exist as pragmatic romantics
Knowing that there is work
And reveling in the building of a life

Hard to stop bleeding, running through razor wire

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Can’t listen to music
Even the sad songs sound too upbeat
Feeling that burnout
Feeling that feral thrill
That fuck it all
And watch it burn
Except it would be my life
And I don’t have the stomach to sift through the wreckage
So I lay in bed in the late afternoon
Wishing for that lottery money
Just so I can stop worrying all the time
I can rock in a crisis but when life’s a crisis
I’m just crush under the boulder
Just want some stability but what’s that look like
Jobs a job
Writing was the cure
But its all fled now
Why bother with anything
Why not light the match
All you can lose is a life

The endless grey

Pelgris9 Comments

I want to write something epic that grabs you by the heart and only let’s go once you are bleeding.
But I’m too empty now.
Too tired from working long hours
From still being at work 12 hours after I started.
Instead, I’m taking a beat to write this.
To decry and lament being unable to reach that aspirational dream of you, my dear readers reacting with the emotions that overwhelm me
But which instead lay dead like a caricature of a fish
Painting the page in reek
What is it to yearn to connect but only to find empty?
How do I after years of pouring out my lifeblood find I have so little left?
Is it burnout or just being burned?
Wondering if I’ll be able to steal some time before I sleep and it all starts again?
I’m trapped in this mess of a life
Some things cherished
Some things bad
And most just blah
Trapped by my own desires
By my own hand
What way could anyone see, when the path is empty, all
Destinations equidistant

To gaze unflinching at the self

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I used to get 4 hours of sleep and I was fine
Well, not fine
But functional
In that I could keep going through the motions
But during that time I was deeply depressed
Everything was nothing and even sleep was no refuge
As I pulled away from that constant state
I found my habits to be the same
And that 4 hours of sleep would set me spinning
I’d be fine until I became tired
And then I’d second guess
And everything was off
Nothing was fine
Everything felt like it never would be
My work schedule changed a few years ago
Forcing me to change my habits
I was always good
At least in the beginning of such a change
And my sleep habits shifted
I was getting 8 hours of sleep
And those emotional spinnouts occurred less and less
And then 8 became 6
And they started to happen again
Then 6 became 4 and it was again my new normal
Same as the old normal
And while its obvious now
I came to realize that I needed that sleep
And the corporate culture I was in prized my inability to sleep
To be able to function on 4 hours seemed like a miracle
And I still find it useful
Because sleep isn’t the only thing that kept me depressed
Stress will eat away at me
And I will punish myself
Subconsciously
Until its too late
And I’ll not sleep
Because not sleeping is within my control
And I need that feeling of being capable
To really function
But for me
It’s not really optional
I can tell the difference in my emotional state
Now that I see it
How can I keep hurting myself this way
Though, I know I’ll still push
It’s in my nature to push
But now I see
And I will sleep when it gets too much
Because sleep is again a refuge
And dreams are a whole life lived
And I’m so tired
Of not living