a place for things i write

a place for half-formed pieces of what could be art if I actually honed my craft. pieces of my heart, sloppily strewn onto paper, now typed up for the world to see. // I follow back from @mustelidoot

[shitty-things-i-wrote]

[sorry does not absolve you]

[content warning: mention of being violated]

—-

I want to rage and scream until I vomit and purge this feeling out of me: at the sense of violation and presumption and arrogance, at the taking and the grabbing of my energy, and at even the frantic apologies, those rapid-fire “I’m sorry”s like a machine gun that are rushed to put a quick bandaid over a wound, instead of genuine apologies to gently wash and bandage it, let alone checking in with what I need — because Gd forbid we ask what *I* need, the one who has been hurt.

But no, let’s only focus on the feelings of the one who did the hurting.

After all, they said they were sorry.

[shitty-things-i-wrote]

[a story of seizures]

hands thrash and quake as I violently shake, eyes open but not really awake, yet I gasp and take a breath as diaphragm aches, then, like a storm passing, sudden wake and in this break brain muddled and I cannot make sense of who I am in all this headache.

trapped before the nightmare, falling into the shadow’s snare, I lay unnaturally still and can do nothing but stare, and though my worrying partner cares I fear that I’m slipping away and one day I will no longer be there when my mind and body tear.

[shitty-things-i-wrote]

[take your capitalism elsewhere]

I am sick of privileged people telling me to hashtag-treat-myself when I have to beg strangers for money just to get my medication that isn’t covered by insurance —

I am sick of privileged songs that tell me to buy myself flowers when I can’t buy myself food yet make too much money for food stamps —

I am sick of privileged advice telling me to spend money on trips when I can’t afford to buy the supplies I need to fix my house let alone have the physical capacity to do so, given the tools —

— but please, go on about how getting my nails done will make my life better

[shitty-things-i-wrote]

[priorities]

my world is ending

but pull myself together;

theirs is ending first.

screaming in my soul

but still ask them with a smile

“how are you doing?”

[shitty-things-i-wrote]

[on trauma therapy]

how many times have therapists said "oh you're safe now," "you can be in your body," "you can let go of your past," but my past is my present, my body is in constant pain, and I have not escaped the danger.

how am I supposed to finally heal from trauma when I'm still stuck in the middle of it,

and I'm still stuck in the middle of it because I cannot heal from trauma?

[shitty-things-i-wrote]

[broken glass]

I need people who will see my cracked self and not try to play the hero and not come swooping in on the wings of "here, cheer up" or the mighty flexing arms of advice but will sit next to me, and wait for me, and maybe, just maybe, if I ASK you to, help me sort out the pieces, while I glue myself together

[shitty-things-i-wrote]

[tick tock goes the clock]

People really be out there trying to plan their life, when I’m trying to figure out how to endure the next two days until my next infusion.

watch the clock go tick tock tick tock

How am I supposed to survive two days, when I gasp and cry and sob and scream, when all I can do is curl up on the sofa and endure for the tidal waves crashing on the shores of my mind? How am I supposed to survive two days, when I don’t know if I can survive the next two minutes?

watch the clock go tick tock tick tock

I hug my knees closer to my chest and wait for the time — a chunk of my life — to pass.

watch the clock go tick tock tick tock

Waiting for time to pass between treatments has become my life, and people expect me to find meaning in this.

watch your life every day go tick, tick, tock away

[shitty-things-i-wrote]

[educator feels]

Awake two goddamn hours before with coffee as my guide — Just waiting for the chance to show my PLC these slides —

Such frickin early hours we keep than normal working staff — we go to bed yet don’t get sleep and five o’clock’s a laugh —

The teacher life is one for me no matter how I whine —   We’ll work these hours beyond forty the tears just help us shine —

[shitty-things-i-wrote]

[at least it stares back at you]

When things get rough, I go numb. and things have been rough for a very long time. I think for too long, for too many years have I lived in this state, and I’m afraid to try to feel again, I’m afraid to open my heart like I have in previous poems, because I’m afraid that I will knock on those large locked doors, and finally undo all of the locks and hidden trap mechanisms, tug on their handles, finally pull them loose with a cloud of dust, and with a *squeeeeeeak* of rusty hinges as I open my heart, I am afraid I will stare into an abyss and find nothing.

[shitty-things-i-wrote]

[validity]

CW: transphobia, TERF mention, death due to non-acceptance, not accepting self —

I will defend trans identities to my dying breath, yes, even the ones I don’t understand! Through acceptance we will prevent more death, give courage to loved ones, keep blood off our hands. All enbies are valid, I say, regardless of shape; yes, AMAB enbies are real and definitely not men! Nonbinary and androgyny do not necessarily equate, yet for some reason, I exclude myself from this mindset again. I can’t bring myself to accept me you see, so I’ll fight TERFs to death while I question my own validity.

[shitty-things-i-wrote]

[on being an Israeli-raised American Jew]

**content warning: bomb violence**

—

I’m not a citizen of Israel, but I spent part of my childhood there— I never went to Jewish class, never got a bat mitzvah, but I took Hebrew classes, does that count? I’m not Jewish enough because I call it “poo-REEM,” and we never went to a synagogue on Shabbat. But I saw two bombings on Ben Yehudah Street — does that count?

What makes me Jewish enough, or not at all? Is it my knowledge of Torah, or that I cannot recite Talmud? Is it my grandfather’s survival of HaShoah, his raising of me in Hod Hasharon, or is the damning trait that he’s not my grandfather by blood?

Or is what makes me Jewish none of these things, not my recitation of prayers, not my studies, but the pull of tikkun olam I feel in my heart, and the feeding that radiant spark inside of my soul, that same piece of the Divine in all of us, uniting all the world, Jewish and goyim alike.

[shitty-things-i-wrote]

[a dichotomy]

It seems nowadays I write two kinds of poems: the hopeful kind that’s frankly feels full of shit or the depressing sort that has suffering be shown though of course I’m not allowed to give up and quit. But can both be true? Can I write happy words while lacerated by pain? Can I be determined one minute and hopeless the next? Am I strange chimera of turtle shell and lion’s mane, each moment shakily taking a breath as I try my best?

I will roar my courage while also begging for release, holding space for both suffering and so-called inner peace.

[shitty-things-i-wrote]

[2020 feels]

“Fine, how are you?” I smile politely and wait for the awkward moment to end.

Underneath it all, I am simultaneously sobbing from overwhelm and numb from the void.

*Creak* and *groan* goes my leg with each step as I walk away from the socially mandated interaction, my

Knee literally making these noises, as if I were a doll whose joints have gone rusty.

Then, spreading up my back, the fiery stabbing flare of pain, the leftovers of a car accident I’d rather forget,

Hidden away where I keep all the other memories that I can’t bear to carry anymore.

I am coming apart at all of the seams: physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, economical; all of them.

Somehow I managed to break myself in a million tiny shards all at once, each area of my life shattering against the ground.

Yet in all the chaos, the pandemic, the jobs lost, the lives — so many lives, perhaps soon someone I love — lost,

Every day I have to pick up and carry my own pieces, so that I can be there for my loved ones,

And that leaves no time to process feelings, no time to ease up on myself, no time to let down my burden for while, no time to rest.

Rather than taking care of myself, my sanity and spoons continue to slip through the cracks in my skin and leak out through words I lay bare for the world to examine.

[shitty-things-i-wrote]

[this haiku is an inside joke]

I’m not a kobold!

Wipe that look off your face and

Don’t touch my candle!

[shitty-things-i-wrote]

[things I say in the mirror]

Just a lost cause.

No matters what happens, I cannot let myself believe I’m Worthy of the kindness my friends give me. It’s a mistake to think otherwise; I am always Fucking things up and getting in the way, Even when I feel like I am Someone possibly worth loving. I cannot let myself forget that I’m Just an awkward struggling human, And in those times when I feel like I am Worth the fight, worth the dissociation, Worth the pain I bring to others, I get hit with the realization that I’m Taking more that I can give back. And I certainly am not Someone worth investing in— Again and again I fall apart, but I’m still Never going to get better, And far too broken. When I feel like I’m A hopeless cause I am not In the wrong; These mind-haunting self-beliefs are

Forever lurking in my mind.

(Now read it from the bottom up.)

[shitty-things-i-wrote]

[this cake is a truth]

content warning: sui* mention and implied theme throughout

.

.

.

.

I told you I was suicidal, and you wanted my emotional support.

I told you I had nothing left to give, and you demanded I dig somewhere to scrape out from the bottom of the musty barrel and find some drop of myself to give anyway.

This is why I have nothing left. I am a cake and all my pieces are eaten, the crumbs gobbled up, the frosting licked off the fork. I hope at least it was worth it, having your slice of me, when I am gone and digested.

[shitty-things-i-wrote]

the irony of boundaries

is that those who honor your no

are the same ones you want to honor

with your yes