what i am now: some nuisance, some rot
to be treated, a half baked dinner left dusty in the oven
you never turn on
a spring birth, a simple child, not worth
explaining the world to 
now that we're done
a sty in your eye, slight cut in the web of your hand
a useless device, unprincipled slut
now that we're done the view
changes, a candy tray full of ash, a vase of stems
lantern on a bright day
guide on a lit path raising a hand
in a cacophony, inaudible and made invisible again
now that we're done
emptied toolbox, emptied mouth, drumsticks
but no drum head, all fury and no sound
what i am to you
now that we're done 

 march 23, 2021

65th & franklin

i wrote this because the system is not working for me, and you individually are the only one i can ask to hear me. the one thing i need you to do most is listen to me. it is not the layers of trauma that are hurting me. it is well meaning professionals who ignore me that is hurting me. i am not well, and i am not communicating well. but the resources i have right now are not helping me eat, sleep, keep my job, or function. 

last fall my husband became psychotic, then violent, then homicidal, over the course of two months, alone in my home with me. i fought with cop after cop after lawyer after cop, to force him into lutheran, where he was pink slipped and released without care after only 24 hours, St Vincent's, where they diagnosed psychosis and held him for a week then released him without aftercare or med changes back into my home, marymount, where again he was held for 72 hours and then released without a med change or aftercare plan, and then laurelwood, which put him in an IOP three days a week after i begged them not to go with an all virtual program. at every facility i told the social worker, i am not safe. he abuses me. i need help. what i should have said was, your willingness to follow release protocol blindly has increased the incidence of domestic violence in my home. i'm 33, educated, capable, well networked, ferocious, and an advocate for regular people against systems that don't work in my day job. i wasn't heard by anyone last year and i fear no one is listening now.

today i show up in front of you having been in the ER yesterday, after driving myself there because i thought i was having a heart attack and i'm too poor to ever call an ambulance. the pain i felt was lasting and severe, and women underreport heart attacks all the time, so i go and get an ekg and thank god there's a gay nurse who heard me long enough to get thru drug allergies and history of drug use, all of which you should have to know to prescribe me anything. and the ER doc took one look at my chart, said "i'm dr jon heavey, how's your pain, we'll prescribe you some medicine okay?" left and never seen again, didn't even say what medicine. he prescribed IV ativan, at least that's what the chart says, but ten minutes later they released me, i walked out, drove myself home, made my appt with you, fought with my boss about how to reassign my clients, still feeling so much tension and pressure, then i went and bought more ativan from a friend, thinking if the ER doc said it would help then he clearly got the dose wrong but i can fix that. so i bought three and last night took each of them about two hours apart between each dose, along with tylenol and marijuana. i was awake till midnight and got up at 3am. 

i take all my pills every day as prescribed. i am anxious, angry, frequently dissociate, i don't sleep any more, and i am very tired. i do not have the energy to fight with you. i do not have the energy to effectively self advocate any more. i think it's possible all drugs are placebos. i think it's possible the ER didn't actually give me anything other than saline. i think it's possible that i have bipolar 2 or something else you aren't thinking of. i think it's possible that none of you have any idea what is happening to me. but i know that i am not crazy. and i know that something is wrong. 

i'm trying to do it the right way. i was in therapy three times a week from november to february. i take what you ask me to take, i develop the habits you ask me to develop, i walk my dog, i paint, i have safe social contact with a few people who love me. 
this is not working. i am worse. i am worse at sleeping. my short term memory is gone. i am anxious with physical symptoms including twitching, the inability to sit still, and nightmares. i have expended so much energy staying sober during this. but the thought gets louder every day that a good high could fix this, at least for five minutes, and even a five minute deep breath sounds too good to be true any more. 

so i'm asking you to listen to me today. that heart pain yesterday was abnormal, among the worst pain i've ever felt and i got my tonsils out at 26 without taking any painkillers during recovery. something is wrong with my brain, and something is wrong with my heart. and i no longer have the energy to fight with systems like healthcare, cops, doctors, lawyers, pharmacists, insurance companies, and social workers. none of you can hear me and none of you have helped me. the only opportunity between us today is for you and i to take a deep breath, try some different solution, and gather additional resources. i need you to know that this is a high stakes situation, that this is the closest i have ever been in my life of rapes and familial abuse and religious abuse and abusive partnerships and two abortions, this is the closest i have ever been to the edge. i need help. because this is not cutting it, and i do not want to die. 

 september 9, 2021

me standing in the bedroom doorway
you standing naked in front of the closet in the hall
backlit by the window
holding up a tie
to see what colors were in it

you shaking a blanket out over the porch
you like this sappy stuff don't you
curled legs around each other
you kissing me
the sky mauve leaning purple leaning black
you laid back and smirking at me again
your hips grinding up toward my mouth again
your hands on me, you pulling apart my clothing inch by inch to take what you select
the wind

this was supposed to be simple 

 july 22, 2021

the problem with diagnosing rage as bipolar disorder is that you CAN address rage with mood stabilizers. at least, you can address the outward facing symptoms of it. so that i can combust internally, quietly, and out of view. 

 june 23, 2021

i'm so tired
i'm so mad 
i'm so sad
i'm so sick
i'm so tired of being all those things at once
while still handling everything
as i always have 

 june 20, 2021

when i kill myself

when i kill myself i'll use a gun. they say women opt for poison usually, overdoses, quiet ends. but i would add my body to the bearing of trauma on the face of this world.

when i kill myself the note will read "i have loved every single one of you since the day i was born"

when i kill myself i dare you to put on a funeral. i dare you to try to gather people who could speak in any direct way about who i am. i know already they will tell of the work i have done, and not who i am. 

this is who i am: pure, and purely terrified. scared in my bones of life, for life, against life. and also: capable of the most fearless decisions you ever had the fortune to witness. you're welcome. you're welcome. 

when i kill myself 

 may 31, 2021

in month eight, realize this is the new normal and will never change. accept that your life has ended and never ends. accept that your whole social circle has shifted because of the decisions of one person. 

 may 10, 2021

i know how to make you happy
so that's all i want to do
because i don't know how to do any of the other things weighing on me

i am never obligated to accept anyone else's caretaking or oversight

I AM THE ONE RESPONSIBLE FOR ME

i know me best
i do not pay for services which are damaging
i do not continue with practitioners who cannot see me or hear me
i do not believe any therapist could make it through CBT with me

i do not believe there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, i do not believe in the rainbow. 

 may 2, 2021

things you get from a lifetime of trauma that nobody talks about:

heartburn or nausea. all the time! sleep disruption, appetite disruption, and a strong desire for substance abuse. congratulations, other people did this to your body.

convinced that you are alone. all the time! there will never be another human capable of seeing or hearing you. sure, you'll love folks, and they'll tell you that they love you back, but this is a lie, and someday they will hurt you, and you can know right now that you are right and eventually be proven right. you will be proven right.

demonstrable proof that other people are shit. like, a lot of it. lists of it. other people seem to not keep these lists, which i don't understand.

ease of attachment and ease of dissolution. get ready for me to love you hard and leave you easy the minute you cross a boundary. 

oh also, boundaries. if you don't learn them, you'll die. and when you do learn them, the ecosystem you live in is so fucked up, they'll make everyone enraged or sad, so be sure to counterbalance with fawn behaviors.

i've been to move than ten years of therapy. group, talk, CBT, ACT, i've done it. i have survived an abusive family, abusive employers, rapists, abusive partners, two stalkers and growing up in a cult. who could tell me at this end of my life that i am wrong? 

 march 28, 2021

it is just so sad to be here without ray and without so many of the people i thought cared about me.

forest fires give and they take away; i write a lot about lodgepole pines, which grow their seeds in cones so brittle that fire is required in order to crack them open; but this is 2021, and the fire has razed too much acreage. 

 march 27, 2021

other people have written compellingly about their memory loss but i can't remember who or what they said.

cloud cover means the brighter nights, the downtown lights blanketing my backyard in an orange smoggy glow at 1am
i used to chainsmoke and let the nicotine decide how angry i was going to be, possums trundling past with fleas on their haunches
when i was a child i thought running away was survival, not identity

i think of Nikki, her times that were not meant for tree poems, i think Octavia knew who god was, i think i am
more like Stanley Plumly in an icebox, white stone laying on a black stone, the rot of the system laid bare in my times and on my body:
together we are a mouth without a tongue or teeth, saying
a thing of beauty is a waste forever. 

 march 7, 2021

when ray is hungry someone cooks for him.
when he is homeless someone takes him in.
when he is sober someone pats his back and when he is drunk someone takes him to a meeting.
for all the weeks that i have been alone struggling just to be alive and to function ray has had help cooking, doing laundry, getting thru daily tasks. and i have been alone. 

 january 29, 2021

anxiety is like if my bones were made of itchy clocks. depression is like if my body was a too-slow concrete mixer. 

 december 7, 2020

everything could make me cry if i let it. every song is either about our love or our loss, or a song you once sang to me in better days. i remember every word.

there are days when i can't hold it in and the grief flows in the shower, in the kitchen, in the backyard, in work meetings. there are days when i am so angry with you for abandoning me that i could burn my own house down, throw cinderblocks through my own windows, overfill my own tub, all the damages you didn't get a chance to do.

every emotional soprano is me, every solo cello line, every beat drop. i wish you could feel me still. 

 november 24, 2020

i will never forget the moment when ray said
DONT you dare do an intervention

at that point i had not even realized the extent of what was happening
but ray knew

how did i wind up married to someone who turns to facebook messaging mariska hargitay and then asks me to affirm that choice as though it was any kind of choice

no one loves me because i know how to find orion, or the story of cassiopeia
these are after all human stories
and humans do not love me

how did i wind up married to someone who calls the trevor hotline to tell them about me as though my behavior is the problem 

 november 19, 2020

even when it's grinding
even when it's slow
even when it hurts more than the original injury

you must heal.

it is your body's imperative:
to live, not to wonder
why you were left alive.

the planes overhead make no sense:
why wish for gravity's betrayal?

the stars overhead stay silent.

the clouds move fast:
the almost new moon still:
a sliver, waiting. 

 november 15, 2020

a brief list of things i like

when the clouds are a million different shades of blue-grey
when babies start to really look like their parents or make their parents' facial expressions
pets that have people names
creators named maggie (maggie rogers, maggie nelson, maggie smith, etc)
the friendship between megan thee stallion and cardi b
the way the start of an amaryllis bulb growing looks like its sticking its tongue out 

 october 13, 2020

i need to feel like i have a choice
i can't be condescended to
how dehumanizing it is to be told you have to be babysat
what should i eat
what time is it
should i take my meds
do i have to
can you say that another way
i control what i put in my body
i am not an alcoholic
i am not an addict
i am not sick
katy tried to kill me
katy killed tate
katy will kill my family

how good that someone else can make you feel as though you have choice
how good that you can decide you aren't an alcoholic while chugging beers on my garage floor
how good that you aren't sick in the middle of your manic episode
how good that you do not need to be babysat while you fail to clothe and feed and clean yourself 

 september 3, 2020

mostly i wish i could push a button and release gravity's hold on me
just me
and ascend slowly, a long last look at the beautiful world we're killing
slowly up past the treetops and the rooflines and the skylines and finally
letting even the shapes of the highways give way, the rising of the coastline, the thinning of the air
the vistas widening and the oxygen lessening and i would really only have to let my lungs deflate
as i rise through cumulus, stratus, wind like ether streaming over so cold skin
let my heart rate rise as the oxygen falls and wait for the sky to start
the surprising long minutes of clear ascension as the body panic climbs too
turning bluer, then blacker, the outer edges of where i know the end waits
and the whole planet tilts her forehead to me as i slide out of her grip
to the eventual loss of pressure, shape, and self

where i'll become a star
a body returning to the eons, carbon and nitrogen and my limestone spine
and the little bits of lithium i paid so much money for on earth
uncastrated and redistributed among the molecules of the universe
unbounded and reforming anew 

I fear so deeply the loss of memory. That I will make more mistakes, more repetitive mistakes, that I will relive the same stupid choices, in ways I can’t circumvent. That I will truly forget instead of forgive—that I will lose what makes me sure about who other people are, and any sense of who is safe or not any more. That others will reminisce and I will see blackness. 

 I don’t know what’s more traumatizing: what actually happened, or knowing that I won’t remember most of it in another year 

Don’t forget three showers a night. Don’t forget sex addiction. Don’t forget a quarter a day. Don’t forget cocktail of meds. Don’t forget Kristen threatening inpatient. Don’t forget you lost your job. Don’t forget him screaming, pacing, raging, crying, throwing, breaking, painting, hitting, lying, buying, using, lying. 

 I’m so mad about everything I have had to live through 

And it feels like I am continually asked to swallow more and more and more and more 

I go back and reread his abusive final words to me hoping I’ll glean what, some new sense of closure? To see if they’ll ever hurt less? To see if they’re finally meaningful? 

They’re not 

we have both learned the hard lessons:
both been razed and born again at our hands, with the strength of root systems we grew ourselves.
the doing and undoing, the pushing and stalling, the growing catalog of what we have swallowed, what we have righted for ourselves and others. 
still Eden does not open. i fail this catechism every day.

these are my confessions:
that i have taken pride in your presence, that i have been proud to make a gift of my errant mouth.
that i lust for you: that i write sonnets for your hands, couplets comprised of your eyes and mouth, gospel rhythm for the twining of your legs between mine.
that i am gluttonous: that i eat memories of you for every meal, stay hungry for the tracks of your hands across my burned skin.
that i have transgressed, and will transgress again: that i will violate history and geography and meteorology to arrive in the beautiful future where we are wholly ourselves, and full of heat and light.

bless me lover, for i have sinned, and will sin against any deity who denies me my faith. bless me lover with more: more grace, and all the time you will allot me. i am grateful for every moment. 

these years have meted their costs from my skin.
what good i had has evaporated out of my blood, leaving only
the discontent, the agonist, the lie. on this morning
the rain falls, drop by drop, and i run from each,
from your hands on my skin, from absolution.
between these pale grey walls i am struck, pinned and wriggling.
after years of chameleon tactics, camouflaged silhouettes,
here finally i am visible, and terrified. 
here i am searching, i am lost, lost, lost. 
your breath is a command and treks me closer to grace,
closer to heat, closer to god. there is always one path
i know i can find without light, reading only 
the direction of your hips, where all of me will bloom
then fall. in the white halo of my throat where your hands
pressed, left, and in the morning your name is in my mouth
a realized prayer all its own. i would leave a trail
here too: remember my wet. you are king of my mouth
and i am loyal, loyal, loyal. 

i have worked so hard and come a long way. i have lost much of my self along the way. 
i have journeyed hard to arrive in this place where you are:
this place where you can see streetlights and intersections and signals
and i am blind, deaf, mute. will you pull me through this city?
will you tell me who i am? after years, maybe i am willing
or, too tired to say no, too broken to work against the knowing,
learning hands of someone else. i wonder, does the work go to waste? 
i have been so afraid. i have been hard pressed to protect and preserve
these last pieces of my self. do i cede myself to this landscape?
what could that grant accomplish? and where i am land—traversed, seismic,
built and rebuilt in a thousand ways—you are
water, blood of my veins, spit of my mouth, working tracks
into the world around us. the river that is never quite tamed.
i could build bridges but i have known many storms, will not extend myself
for structures that can be torn down.
you make a canyon out of me. i am all echoes,
a long, low coyote howl of loneliness and discontent.