Just kinda here wishing i wasn't

[hiding-with-nessie]

[hiding-with-nessie]

I want to go back. I want to be the same person I was.

[hiding-with-nessie]

Gunflint trail, MN

[hiding-with-nessie]

Gunflint Trail, MN

[hiding-with-nessie]

Looking back

I've written more love poems

Than I thought I had.

I've written more words

About someone's smile

Thier laugh

This one's freckles

That one's pain

My longing.

Ive written more about these things

Than I thought I had.

Somehow

It feels like none of these were love poems.

Because they weren't about you.

Hiding-with-nessie

[hiding-with-nessie]

I am trying to be kinder

To the person that I am

So I can be thankful for myself

When I am the person

I will become.

Hiding-with-nessie

[hiding-with-nessie]

I can't even remember when the first time you told me you loved me was. Were we at the park in our usual spot under two trees I loved? Were we sitting on my lawn at an ungodly hour looking up at the stars like we did so many nights? Were we in your car listening to music I still have on a playlist but no longer listen to? I know you said it. I know it the same way I know facts I had to memorize for school. Something teachers told me that I can still recite if I remember hard enough. But I can't remember how or when I learned this so called fact. Maybe it's because I didn't experience it. Didn't feel it to be true. Like how I understood gravity was real only when I fell off the monkey bars. How I could not deny in that moment that I felt it with every inch of my body as I hit the ground. I know the iron burns because I felt it on my skin. I know that snow is cold because I held it in my hands until my fingers turned red and numb. But when you told me you loved me, whenever that was, it wasn't love. I can't remember. I know you told me. The same way I was told Pluto was a planet, and I had no reason to doubt. Of course it's a planet! Of course this is love! It wasn't until later that I found out such important things can be misclassified.

Hiding-with-nessie

[hiding-with-nessie]

I've been hiding my blemishes for too long now I don't know how to show you my truth. It's like I have somehow caked on layer after layer of makeup. I have forgotten what color my skin is. The scar on my lip. The freakle on the corner of my mouth, is it still there ? I've forgot the details about myself. They're lost under matte and white lies I pretended I never told. I thought I was better hiding parts of myself and now I don't know who I am.

Hiding-with-nessie

[hiding-with-nessie]

Sometimes it is just too difficult to believe that my soul has a purpose in this life. That there are people I am meant to meet, to help, to save, to cherish. It is unfathomable to me that I could be placed on here for a reason other than this day to day suffering at my own hands. My own mind. Who am I to become? What am I become? To accomplish? What is my truth? Everyday I wake up with the same questions about what I am doing with my life and why I am here and I can not find the answers around me.

Hiding-with-nessie

[hiding-with-nessie]

I use to have a lot of nightmares as a child. At night my father and I use to sit by my bed and offer a prayer to the heavens that I would not dream. That the monsters and demons and spiders would go away. Disappear. Maybe this is why I am the way that I am. I never learned to fight my nightmares. I just learned it's better not to dream.

Hiding-with-nessie

[hiding-with-nessie]

I just want anne with an e to have more seasons

[hiding-with-nessie]

At work I hide out in the bathroom during my breaks like a bullied middle schooler. I want to go home. I want to leave and never come back. I wish I could do it. I wish I were brave enough and crazy enough to make it in this world by my own charisma. But I have bills to pay. And I have dogs to feed. And I can't think of any dreams to chase so I am stuck here waiting for my lunch break to be over so I can go back and wait for my shift to be over. And then I can go home every day with the heavy knowledge that I have become a boring adult.

Hiding-with-nessie

[hiding-with-nessie]

Burbank, California

[hiding-with-nessie]

Gosh.... you ever just like... need therapy?

[hiding-with-nessie]

When I was little, I use to have nightmares about evil dolls and giant man eating bugs. When I awoke in the middle of the night I had to muster up all the courage in my little body to walk down the dark hallway to your open door. I knew nothing of how tired you were. I knew nothing of early mornings and aching bones. I did not know the difference between laugh lines and worry lines I only knew that it was your face and that it meant safety. I felt no guilt gently tapping your shoulder until you shot up in bed. I simply wanted your arms around me. I wanted to crawl under your covers and know that nothing could harm me. Many years have passed since then. I go to bed tired. I know you do too. I have met the aches in your bones on a few occasions and can still only imagine what it must be like to have known them for so long. At night when I can not sleep because fear grips my soul I tiptoe to the other side of the house. I do not fear the hallways. I do not fear the dark. The blackness of windows peering in. I quietly lean close to your open door. I hold the air in my lungs. I listen. Only your gentle breathing can put me to sleep. Your presence in this world wraps around me like a warm embrace just like back then. How I fear the day I hear silence. When I have no one to crawl under the covers with. To let me know,in that way only a mother can, that I am safe. I stand there listening for a while but it always feels too short.

Hiding-with-nessie

[hiding-with-nessie]

Am i actually sick or is it just anxiety??

[hiding-with-nessie]

My mother thinks our plants are dying because I do not water them. So she pours and pours and pours water on their soil trying to get them to grow, to bloom. When they continue to die I try to explain to her that if you give them too much water the plants drown. They become sick because of the dampness and they begin to rot at the roots. She does not believe me. My mother thinks that if she thrust me into adulthood. If she piles on responsibilities and expectations. If she tells me all the things that I must do and points out all that I am not. She believes that if she throws me into the deep end I will begin to grow with all the water going into my lungs. And when I tell her that my anxiety keeps me from spreading roots. That my depression prevents me from searching for the sun. That my self esteem has fallen to the ground like wilted leaves long ago and has refused to grow back. When I tell her, that the world keeps pouring, and pouring, and pouring water onto my soul and I am drowning in it. That my heart is beginning to rot. She does not believe me.

Hiding-with-nessie