It isn't your burden alone

This resistance.

But to decide what's fair to us both may be mine only. Like I don't already know there's no such thing.

What doesn't kill you

Doesn't necessarily make you stronger but it does and will feel like sorry fuck.

Don't I know it, don't I know.

Just me, as I am

When I am lost
You shine a light for me
And set me free
When I am low
You wash away my tears
And take me through

The loneliness
And emptiness
Through the darkest night
Somehow I survive
Through it all

When you tell me I'm the only one you need
Sweet and tenderly
And your love
Breaks away the clouds surrounding me
All I have I want to give to thee

If I should fall
Your love is strong enough to lift me up
If I'm afraid
You chase away my fears
And take me to

A brighter place
Beyond the rain
And I feel alright
'Cause you're by my side
Through it all

You take me through
The loneliness and emptiness
And I feel alright
'Cause you're by my side
Through it all

You tell me I'm the only one you need
Sweet and tenderly
And your love
Just breaks away the clouds surrounding me
And baby all I have I want to give to thee

Want to give you all of my love
Now and forever my love
All I have I want to give to thee

What have we done to each other?

There...












Are no words. Only longing. And brokenness.

You've become me

I've become you.


What are we to do?

Sigh

"I never imagined I'd know it for myself. My heart... It feels like my chest can barely contain it. Like it's trying to escape because it doesn't belong to me any more. It belongs to you. And if you wanted it, I'd wish for nothing in exchange - no fits. No goods. No demonstrations of devotion. Nothing but knowing you loved me too. Just your heart, in exchange for mine."

Yvaine, Stardust

Deflated, defeated, depressed

Damned is what I am.

Dinner is...

Half a box of cigs and half a litre of coke. And other things that needn't be served on a plate.

Arm, throat, neck

Thank you for leaving scars that help me not forget you.

So here

...is where I find myself.

Uncertain. Lazy. Afraid.

This is going to hurt.
But I think it will do good.
Somehow.

How do you say

I'm sorry.

I'll remember.

Take good care.

You say goodbye

Now I am empty.

Thanks for the memo

So the brother shoves something from a pile that hasn't fallen for two seconds out of his latest Reader's Digest my direction and I'm face to face with a compliable card with the header screaming: Stress.

Right.

So I don't pin everything down quite so directly like that. Especially with the brother. Coming from someone I liberally water sticky topics of conversation down for and don't do deep, soul baring talks with, and with whom I on a single occasion this recent past begged stress as a wildcard for an excuse only to hear an incredulous: what stress? reply, I wasn't expecting this. 

But hey, I can still give the card a look over.

So there is a rendition of this girl sitting sideways with lines directed at her in three places accompanied by corresponding symptoms: head - anxiety, irritability, tension headaches, depression; lips - mouth ulcers and susceptibility to colds increase as immunity is weakened; stomach - digestive problems such as indigestion and IBS.

Right.

So as not to miss the warning signs: muscular aches and pains and general tiredness; skin conditions; heart palpitations and excessive sweating.

I see. Apparently, I'm all prepared for fight ot flight. 

So below that is a summary of what the culprits are: the most common causes of stress involve work, money and relationships.

Checked, checked, checked. Wait. If I have none of the above, then I should uncheck, uncheck, uncheck?

So I flip the card because it goes on, complete with a symptoms summary box, in case I needed further comparison with something not already mentioned: difficulty sleeping, leading to constant fatigue; poor concentration and increased irritability; feelings of panic or anxiety; lack of appetite, constipation or diarrhea; trembling.

So I'm a walking, talking, stressed PBL. Where do we go from here?

And now it's two

I'm not any closer to a coping strategy. My planning ability has gone out the window along with consort of choice. I suppose it'd be something to watch when desperate tactics are called for. 

Ardent stoicism

I just want to cut deep enough to carve out the pain. Where is the root of the root that hides from me so I cannot excavate? Must I keep slashing the surface to become numb to response, then limp and ragged for a time until distress flares again?

If severing need and feeling weren't options, at least grant me indifference. Then the pain wouldn't claw and swell so. Then it would matter not that I had to go through it, alone. Then dark, diseased thoughts would not vex me as they do.

If only apathy were more easily available over pharmacy counters or street corners.

Dear A

You're right. I don't know how I do it. I don't know how I manage without an outlet. Anything - everything - that happens I keep within, and it eats me up inside. 

I suppose the first thing to ask is: if without avenue, is it worth it? And if so, how to deal? Are there, realistically, even ways? If only the solutions were as easy to find as the questions that demand them are to ask.

I don't know what to do. 

In the quiet

He has the spooky ability to completely compartmentalise his life. I've had loads of arguments with him about this, over the years, and I'm sure you have too. If there's something bothering him or making him unhappy, he can just switch it off. Just like that. And get on with his life as if nothing at all has happened. I don't know anybody else who has that capacity. I've always found it very disturbing, that he can just put things in a box and shut the lid.

Maggie O'Farrell, my lover's lover

The thing is, everyone needs order. It's necessary for the everyday. The thing is, by whose degree do we rely? When is it too much; when is it not enough? The thing is, one shouldn't have to know more than one such character in their life. It is an over-allocation, and unfair. But this conversation is an open trap to discussions on significance, on demonstrable cost, and on true measures of value.

I do have thoughts on the matters. But really, I just want to stop falling asleep to the taste of tears and waking up with blood on my mouth. 

I know the problem

My analogies don't work because you're too confident. You're too secure in your position, too cocky about me, so of course my examples are all broken. 

Mind infection

You know those times you stare distractedly at the screen - unsure if you've arrived in the day after tomorrow or are still in the one before yesterday - the bright light straining concentration out of your eyes while their corners remain alert regardless on acknowledging every tireless blink of the cursor, that ever-living line that wills once every reincarnation for your brain to explode with intelligent matter and connect magically through a stream of eloquent articulation to your fingers to translate them into the words and ideas you come up with? You fuss, instead, for days on end over work that, if produced at all, is not satisfactory, because you want to say something of worth, not churn material for the sake of it. So you chase it like mist in the night, knowing that is it impossible, and necessary. By now, your body feels like the shell that it is - light and hollow, and running purely on a rotation of adrenaline, will power, and caffeine. 

And then, you find that that imp. That combination of inspiration and nail on head, and the pretty, dewy cobwebs that hold it all together. The mischevious thing that you chase in loops and lets, daringly, you almost grab the shirt on its back on occasion for the thrill of it. The one you've worked your days, life and eating habits around to the point you're unsure if occasion spells with one c or two, and only one s or more, or double for both because, really, the options are many. The one that reminds you with its taunting twists and turns how near but far you are to the end that you can smell, taste, touch it - just not have - until you outwit it, finally, possess total hold of its twisting vapours as the sun is absorbed into the horizon for the eighth day now, and so you release the little devil, at your control, one smooth bit at a time so your mind is fluid, your fingers flowing, and every word and idea you need to write pours forth, rich and easy as honey. Everything comes together, so quickly and so well you cannot type fast enough nor dare you stop, you must get everything down at all cost. A little voice at the back of your brain even says in her smiley voice while your fingers hit the keys surely, boldly, that you have so much material you're going to have to cull it. Nothing can stop you - you can even think at different levels about different things at the once - and you keep typing while that voice now notes the happy problem of having too much.

Fantastically, bizarrely, your brain freezes and you blink. Or perhaps the screen blacks out and then you freeze and blink. All you know is now a blank. 

Work through the denial, blame, anger, acceptance, it doesn't matter. The reality that nothing is retrievable sits glumly in your lap, and tears and tantrums aside, you have nothing.

This crushing disappointment is how I feel, having thought after thought after thought swim freely in my head, each an evil scientist plotting to overtake me. They're so vicious they are sharks circling my brain, which is prey. Only, they don't just attack and be done with it. They torment ceaselessly, probing and prodding, and I often will them to come together as a patchwork quilt, if not a neat jigsaw, to give me rest. Make no mistake, I'm no advocate for any kind of patchwork: they're far too happy and mismatched for me. I was never a fan of kitsch, anyway. And I've certainly lost my taste for jigsaws. But I need some organization. Already those torturous self-growing thoughts are given, and now I cannot fit them neatly into boxes for some semblance of order, or lum them together to produce some kind of meaning, some kind of value.  

If you've read thus far, you see what I mean. I haven't even yet mentioned those thoughts which mushroom fertilely inside and I'm already shooting myself in the foot. Either I need saving from myself, or I'm mixing with the wrong crowd and feeling needlessly misunderstood. Perhaps both.

One

Now three.