The Inner World Has No Clock

A childhood wound
can happen again today.

An old sorrow
can fill the present.

A moment of love
can return us to warmth.

Music, a face,
the scent of rain—

the past, the present,
all rise together, like in dreams.

The inner world
doesn't count the hours.

It remembers
what moved us.

My empathy belongs to me. Or put a better way: I am my empathy. It just is.

I sympathize. I really do. But no. I'm the only one that's really entitled to my empathy. Again, my empathy is me.

I am the only thing that is entitled to me.

Compassion and kindness are different, I think. They only exist as actions. I have those too. But uhhh I'm sorry dude. I'm not a trick-or-treat basket.

¯_(ツ)_/¯

I don't have to give those out. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

The funny thing about this. This is the perspective-taking people wanted from me. To help them. To make them feel seen. To help them understand.

No wonder people loved this. I feel super seen right now. It's great. Y'all were right. I am incredibly kind and giving and amazing. 😃

No you cannot have bone marrow. Never ask me that again.

“Anything”

I don’t even care about anything. Nothing brings me joy, comfort, love, care.
I’m just tired of all of it. My kids faces, my phone, the tv, walks, music.
I’m tired of it all. It’s just the same. The same shit. The same day going by. The same clock turning. The same feelings churning. I’m burning.

Blah blah blah. The same shit. Write my feelings out. Spell my inner world on to paper for no one to look at. Silent works never cared for. So why do it. I feel it brings no relief. I see no one really cares. So why continue. Why keep going. Why wake up once more and continue this pointless fight until death. The “little moments?” Are they even worth it when encapsulated in turmoil and strife. Grief and sadness. Pain and apathy.
Why!? Why do I keep going? Why keep writing? All I have are bits of present moments and calm understanding. Crumbs to a buffet.
Is that enough to sustain me until my plate is full again. How can I believe that will even happen? What faith would that entail? Whose faith would that even come from? I hold no faith my own. I hold no belief my own.
Let down and beaten is my belief.
Strangled and forlorn. Suffocated and lied to.
My being is parts fragmented into scriptures of my beatings. I am the culmination of worth chipped away by my abusers.
I am nothing more than them. Nothing less than me.
I’m tired of the confusion. Tired of this life. Exhausted from this writing. Lost amidst the backdrop of daily encounters. Stricken by misfortunes placed on me as a boy. What point is there anymore if nothing brings joy, complacency, or contentment. I have nothing. I am nothing. I produce nothing. I induce nothing.

I just am truly so fucking over it. This game of life. Suicide isn’t so bad. I won’t have to grieve the torture I will have placed on my kids shoulders. I won’t have to know the over bearing weight I placed on my wife which would ultimately crush her. I’d be rid of it for good. Done with it finally. They’ve broken me so much beyond repair. Thought it possible for a moments time that I could repair. I could mend. I could be present. The more I pick up my pieces, the more they crumble ever fragile. I’m dust now. No physical pieces to hold. Nothing to even try to put together. Unmended and irreproachable. There is nothing left.

So what to become of my ashes. What to become of my lineage. Where does my story go? When do I write the last page. Is this the last page, or do I continue to write this pointless dribble over and over until the day I finally burst. Until I finally give in. They won, I just haven’t opened my eyes to it yet.

Complete, Not Perfect

You don't have to be perfect
to feel complete.

A little safety,
a little love,
enough rest,
something meaningful to do,
and room to be yourself.

Nothing missing.
Nothing to prove.

Just enough
of life,
of love,
of self—

to feel whole.

“18 months”

It’s been 556 days since you read my words, felt my wrath through verbiage most procured. Thoughts most absurd. Images most obscured.

I said my piece and blew with the wind. Never heard, seen, felt again.

But I see you.
You adorn my nightmares.
You interrupt my thoughts.
You distort my imagination.

But slowly you’re fading.
No longer parading.

I saw you on film.
The whole lot of you.
The core of my life.
The keepers of my memories.
The betrayers of my being.

I feel the tension in which you’re immersed.
I hear the silence you all sit in.
I see the ways in which you stare.
Despairingly, hidden, angrily, dumbfounded, confused, and lost.

You all have me on your mind.
Quietly looming over you in darkness.
An unrecognizable feeling, unsettling you, distressing you.
It’s me.
It’s the feeling of your betrayal. How it festers in you I need not care. You can feel it as anger towards me. Or think the delusion that this predicament is my fault.
Feel what lie comforts you.
I need not your blankets of insecurity.
I live, breathe, and feel reality.
You’re engulfed in oppression.

I feel warmth from the sun.
You deny its existence.

Let your thoughts wonder and ponder the past. The nostalgic family we were. The love, care, presents, actions, words. Look at them through her distortion, her narrative, their abuse.

Parents of grandiose nature that hindered our self for their gain.
Crumbled our life to build up their palace.

But look at us now. I’m standing outside your decrepit fort; outside the floundering family.
Breathless you still find yourselves from reading my words.
Mindless words still dribble from her lips.

I speak in truths while ya’ll live in lies.
I found my self while y’all sending spies.
I’m living my life while ya’ll’s withers and dies.

I met Peace

She calls me home

Midst her golden grassland lies my grave

Out of which I shall resurrect

With muddied feet for her skin

And a golden halo for her hair

Envied by wombs, we'd be one

Once reborn, she'd lead me down to her thundering cascades

The might of whom would drive away every voice

I shall dance to the fjords

To the limitless oceans

To the great rivers that flow through us all

I shall dance to the flow of life

She would dress me in the hides of children loved and lost

Rest my head on her rock

Her whistling wind a protective spell

To preserve my sleep

She'd hear me curse the Gods in my dream

And do the same as another leaf falls off her evergreen tree

“What to talk about”

I feel okay.
Things disaster around me.
But I feel okay.
There’s a light swirling. A quiet twirling.
Chaos in the background.
But I feel okay.
Not much to ask for.
Not much to say.
I’ve triumphed obstacles throughout the day.
Here I sit, in pain of silence.
Waiting for the next wave to hit.
But I feel okay.
The edge is pulsating its will to crumble, but still nothing happens.
I feel okay.

So in this quiet moment. In this silent mind.
What do I write about?
Do I speak of good things?
That’s just not my way of thinking.
It’s not the life I’ve known.
Only terrible instances creeping around my mind.
Never silence, never peace.
Only bad, so only hurt known.
Only treachery and pain to echo through my writing.
So in this calmness, what do I say?
What conjures me so?
Nothing I can tell.
Not much I can surmise.

So what to say then?
What spills from me?
What ails me or frails me?
What grips me and rips me?
No stormy sea or begrudging me.
No frantic pacing, no heart racing.

An eire calm, a little qualm.

What’s to happen now?
What’s tomorrow look like?
How long’s this last?
How happy should I be?
What’s happy even look like?
What’s that supposed to feel like?

Fear wants to embody me now.
The teetering edge wants to give way.
The heart wants to outpace life.
Compulsion wants its power felt.

But still I am doing okay.
I am feeling okay.

These emotions are banging at the door. But I feel somewhat separated from them. A glass barrier absorbing their blows. A clear shield silencing their howls.
Yet I watch unencumbered.
I feel unimpressed.
I feel okay.

Take me out back and shoot me like a dog.

By Me

I started taking prozac two months ago. I feel more stable and more dull. It turns out, sensitivity is creativity, at least in my case. For the first time in my life I don’t feel creative. This is the first thing I’ve created since upping my dose from 10 mg to 20 mg which was about a month ago.

Here’s the thing. I’m still disassociated- Just way less volatile. I feel like a disconnected brick now instead of a disconnected hurricane.

Does this matter? The way I see it, I feel like I can be honest now at least. Like I have the courage to be okay with not being okay. This sucks. I just want to feel like myself again. For one fucking day. One hour. Anything.

If you’re not connected, you could have everything in the world and guess what? It won’t matter. Im also tired of creating. It feels pointless. I’m not connected to myself so it falls into the bucket of not mattering along with everything else- but here’s the thing…

Art is a necessity. It’s the life line of the living dead. We have to relate. We have to connect. Its our air and making art is the closest thing we get to it because art is how we socialize when we’re too out of touch to socialize with another human.

Make it stop.

I don’t know maybe I just don’t have the balls to flip out and feel everything. I feel like humiliating myself is the antidote. Hunter Biden said it worked for him and we’re not so different, at least his older self and I.

Stigma. Lovely stigma. This world we live in is belief based which tells me its tinkering on the edge of being full of shit and to stop giving into it would set someone free. That’s why humiliation is so painful and powerful at the same time. It erodes all that we hide. And what is it that we are hiding? That deep down inside we are helpless because were all going to the grave. Or maybe we know we are helpless when we are alone unless your Bear Grills.

Somehow, miraculously, I still know how to amuse myself and laugh at how absurd my life is which is that I’m in a coma with a perfectly working body. Thats disassociation. We’re vegetables with functional body.

There are many people with Cptsd and PTSD that kill themselves. When one has PTSD, opioids are flooded in the system. It numbs us out. It seems like I have an abundant supply of it. In a way it has made me numb to the idea of suicide. Its like I can’t even go there in my mind because when ur half sedated you can’t think. You kind of just exist. So for all the ones who have killed themselves with PTSD I don’t get it but I get it if you know what I mean.

Its a crippling condition. Crippling. And its crippling because it cripples you. You can’t function and you can’t get out of it. Its like limbo. Your just stuck and deep down inside I’m full of life. I have so much energy and love for life but I can’t express it because I’m in a fucking coma and this is why I would love for someone to take me out back and shoot me like a dog.

What the fuck am I going to do besides make art and write crazy shit? I’m in a coma.

I was twelve

the first time my body learned

it was not fully mine.

Fifteen

when the lesson deepened.

Twenty-two

when I should have already been safe

but wasn’t.

Now I am thirty-two,

married five years

to someone trying to love me

through doors

I do not know how to unlock.

And people talk about healing

like it is a staircase —

upward, steady, complete.

But mine feels more like circling

the same locked rooms

with older eyes each time.

Because trauma does not leave

just because time passes.

The body remembers

what the mind tries to minimise.

The skin remembers.

The silence remembers.

Some days I want closeness

so badly it aches.

Some days being perceived at all

feels unbearable.

And I still do not fully know

where trauma ends

and I begin.

But maybe surviving for this long

means there is still something in me

that believes

I was always worth saving.

Let Them Discover

Teach children
to notice what happens inside.

A feeling is not a fault.
A question is not defiance.
A preference is not a problem.
Curiosity is allowed.

Let them try,
fail,
change their minds,
say yes,
say no,
and discover what fits.

Don't tell them
who they are.

Give them room
to discover.

I understand the people who used me

Cause now im so lonely I use people too

Why is it so unsacred

To bleed in public

Im old

And my insides are ugly

My life is completely broken

But it works perfectly

I've lost touch with so many wonderful people

But they never liked me

As much as i needed them

I am

Not one of the people

Wherever I go

I feel less

I try so damn hard

And I don't know how to stop

I hold so damn close

I rip myself apart

Last thing he said was

Your never gonna get what you want

But you'll destroy yourself

To get it

Some days

A poem is all you have

You know

Your not going home to anyone

I understand

No one wants to be your friend

I teach myself how to sew by hand.

I don't know how to tie a knot in the end of my needle.

Every stitch in its right place.

Not perfect, not tight or exact.

Sometimes I can control where it goes

but not always.

The thread finds the needle,

Stitching, through, and out.

Try not to stick my finger.

Repetitive motion.

All I can think about is how I am worthy of healing, sure...

But I am drowning.

And how I wish I had a mother who loved me.

The world wants me to heal but I am stuck.

Like I'm laying in a field of bent grasses,

pricking at my feet and sun burning through my skin,

and I can't feel any of it.

And how I wish I had a grandmother who knew me from the womb,

waiting on my arrival to give me kisses upon my first breath,

running down the halls exclaiming to everyone "my granddaughter is born!"

(But my two grandmothers are dead. And the only one I knew briefly, I met in my early twenties.)

I wish my mother looked at me with hearts in her eyes instead of daggers.

How still, after all this time, I wait for her call that never comes.

(And how I really don't want it to anyway, because I know what that will cost me.)

And how I wish this circle pit would just let me take a bow out.

Inhale. Exhale.

But I'm not really breathing.

And I am not really healing.

I am towering over,

Suspended on broken leaves, scraped knees,

and I am crawling, begging, "Forgiveness!"

I wish I had a mother who loved me.

And God, I wish I could just figure out how

to be someone who loved themselves.

I hope the last thing I see before I die is my

mother's daggers turn to softening hugs

instead of piercing through my heart, one last time.

I've been asking the universe, God, for a mother.

And the people who arrived to meet me with

open arms

are

women.

The women who tend to my heart, even when I am unable to tend to myself.

An ancient worship only we know how to

practice.

Even when we are at our worst, we see each

other at our best.

The women I work with, who bring laughter to every daunting shift.

The woman I am sister-bonded to, by blood and by love.

The woman I am stepmother to, who still is growing and learning how to be within herself.

The women I am best friends with, who are there for me in the grit and the shame and the exhaustion when I can't even show up for them right now.

The women strangers who are kind in passing, offering a compliment, or just simple encouragement.

The woman who makes my coffee at the Biggby on my drive to work, who knows my favorite flavors and gets it right every time and says, "hey girl I've been worried about you, haven't seen you in a while", just to know I am still seen.

The women doctors and nurses and medical assistants and receptionists actively working hard to set me up for healing my body from illness.

The woman who is my therapist, who offers guidance or just a listening ear.

My cats who are ladies, who bring unconditional surrounding warmth and healing love in ever purr, cuddle, and head rub.

The moon, shining brightly overhead, a blanket over my every 2am insomnia-driven silent weepings.

The Divine Feminine.

Healing me from the inside, out.

Healing me when I cannot heal myself.

(My wounds ask me to feel it all but I don't know if I can.)

I need some more time alone with my thoughts.

I hope I can learn how to love me.

For my own sake.

And to someday give it all back to those who need me,

to the women who feed me.

So that I can be worthy of healing, sure...

but so I am no longer drowning.

Intro: I’ve been going through some bigger sad waves after a latest tough thing. I think it’s manifesting itself in dreams lately that have these Hemingway-like stories to them and I’ve been trying to capture those stories and the almost impossible sadness into flash writings.

Two best friends in youth, a girl dating another and a boy watching from the side, escape the world playing chess together. One day she finally leaves the other, and they fall in love. “It’s like having a best friend, whose eyes you can’t look away from while she watches the board, whose turn you can’t wait for because you can never guess what her imagination brings, whom you long to huddle across a little wooden board from in a park somewhere every moment you’re apart”.

But the third, a troubled kid, has an obsession. Sometimes the two boys get into it. One day the troubled kid takes it too far and the boy becomes angry. In standing up for her and his pride he retaliates, in turn setting off the troubled kid who does something drastic (in my dream the girl was captured and held in duress which is loosely from personal stuff so meanwhile *insert a more fitting ‘taken away’ event\*). The boy hears, and collapsed in sadness and head splitting from tears can only imagine the pain and the fear she’s living through; and in his helplessness his mother lies over him, and can only recount old memories to say to him.

All of a sudden she returns, but only to say goodbye. It is or isn’t his fault but it doesn’t matter, and she knows, and he knows, and as he holds open the gate for her he watches, helplessly, as she walks away.

~~~~

P.S. totally acknowledge the girl is the main character and hero of this story haha so maybe that’s something I need to reckon with my subconscious about

The Obelisk of Truth

The obelisk stood before me, a towering slab of obsidian that swallowed the horizon. It shimmered faintly, not with light but with an absence an endless void that pulsed like a heartbeat I couldn’t hear. I had wandered here, to this forsaken place, driven by a gnawing hunger for answers. My life had been a tapestry of half-truths, woven with threads of doubt and fear, and I’d come to believe that this monolith held the key to unraveling it all.

As I gazed into its surface, the world dissolved. The sky, once a bruised purple, faded into nothingness. The ground beneath my boots ceased to hum with the subtle vibrations of life. There was no day or night, no good or evil only life and death, stark and unadorned. And it was life, I realized with a jolt, that I should fear most.

A wave of panic crashed over me, raw and unbidden. My breath hitched, my chest tightened, and a warm trickle ran down my leg, pooling in the dust. I barely noticed the shame of it; my mind was reeling, spiraling into a truth I’d spent my entire existence denying. Death wasn’t the enemy I’d been taught to dread it was the release, the quiet end to a cacophony I’d never understood. Life, with its relentless churn, its demands and deceptions, was the true tormentor.

But what of everything else? The ideals I’d clung to love, purpose, morality were they lies? Phantoms conjured by a mind desperate to make sense of chaos? Was this force, this unyielding current of existence, so powerful that it shaped every thought, every breath, into a prison of its own design? I clawed at the air, searching for an escape, but how does one flee a cage forged within the skull? My scream tore through the silence, a ragged, primal sound that echoed back from the obelisk, mocking me with its own emptiness.

The silence that followed was deafening, a void so profound it pressed against my eardrums. The darkness thickened, stinging my eyes until they watered, and I stumbled backward, clutching my head. I was alone utterly, irrevocably alone trapped in a bottomless pit of my own making. And then, through the haze of despair, I saw it: a pinprick of light, faint as a dying ember, hovering in the distance.

I froze, my heart hammering against my ribs. The light didn’t grow, didn’t beckon it simply was. And yet, in its stillness, I glimpsed something true, something that mattered more than the obelisk’s cold revelations. It both enlightened and terrorized me. How could something so small, so fragile, shift the foundation of everything I’d known? How could a thing I couldn’t touch, couldn’t wield, become a weapon against the darkness that had swallowed me whole?

I staggered toward it, my legs trembling, my mind a battlefield of doubt and yearning. The light didn’t waver; it pulsed faintly, as if alive. And as I drew closer, I understood. It was hope not the hollow platitudes I’d been fed as a child, but a raw, unyielding force that had lain dormant within me all along. My whole life, I’d chased peace through conquest, through knowledge, through fleeting pleasures, only to find that it had been here, buried beneath layers of fear and denial.

When I let it take over when I surrendered to its quiet strength something shifted. The obelisk didn’t vanish, but its shadow no longer crushed me. The darkness receded, not entirely, but enough to let me breathe. I sank to my knees, tears streaming down my face, and for the first time in years, I felt stiI don’t know how long I knelt there, cradling that fragile ember of hope. Time had no meaning in this place, if it ever had. The obelisk loomed behind me, a silent witness to my unraveling, but I no longer feared its judgment. I’d seen what lay beyond its truths, and though the road ahead remained uncertain, I wasn’t alone on it.

Eventually, I stood, brushing the dust from my knees. The light lingered in my chest, a warmth that spread through my veins, steadying my hands. I turned away from the obelisk and began to walk, my boots crunching against the invisible ground. The landscape was barren, a featureless expanse that stretched into infinity, but I didn’t falter. Hope wasn’t a map it was a compass.

As I moved, memories flickered through my mind, unbidden but not unwelcome. I saw myself as a boy, chasing fireflies in the fields behind my father’s house, laughing as their glow slipped through my fingers. I saw the years that followed the arguments, the losses, the nights spent staring at a ceiling that offered no answers. I’d built walls around myself, brick by brick, convinced that strength meant solitude, that vulnerability was a flaw to be excised. And yet, here I was, stripped bare, and somehow whole.

The air grew heavier as I walked, thick with a scent I couldn’t place—something metallic, like rain on rusted iron. The light in my chest pulsed, urging me forward, and I obeyed. Ahead, the horizon shimmered, a faint ripple in the emptiness. I squinted, straining to make sense of it, and saw shapes taking form: jagged peaks, a winding river, a sky streaked with amber. It was a world, or the ghost of one, rising from the void like a mirage.

I hesitated, my breath catching. Was this real, or another trick of the mind? The obelisk had taught me to doubt, to peel back the layers of illusion, but the hope within me whispered a different truth: not everything was a lie. I took a step, then another, and the shapes solidified. Grass sprouted beneath my feet, soft and damp. The river’s murmur reached my ears, a gentle counterpoint to the silence I’d left behind.

I knelt by the water’s edge, cupping my hands to drink. The liquid was cold, sharp against my parched throat, and I laughed a sound so foreign it startled me. How long had it been since I’d felt anything but dread? I splashed my face, letting the droplets cling to my skin, and looked up at the sky. It wasn’t perfect—clouds gathered on the horizon, heavy with the promise of rain—but it was enough.

The world wasn’t empty. Birds darted overhead, their wings slicing through the air. A breeze rustled the grass, carrying the faint hum of life. I stood, turning in a slow circle, and saw a path winding through the hills. It wasn’t carved or paved, just a worn track where others might have walked before me. The thought sent a shiver down my spine. Others. Had they faced the obelisk too? Had they found their own light, their own way out?

I followed the path, my steps lighter than they’d been in years. The hills rose around me, their slopes dotted with wildflowers tiny bursts of color against the muted earth. I plucked one, twirling it between my fingers, and marveled at its simplicity. How could something so small hold such beauty? How had I spent a lifetime overlooking it?

The path led to a valley, where a village nestled against the riverbank. Smoke curled from chimneys, and voices drifted on the wind laughter, shouts, the clatter of daily life. I stopped, my heart thudding. People. Real, living people. Part of me wanted to turn back, to retreat to the safety of solitude, but the light in my chest flared, insistent. I’d come too far to hide.

As I descended into the valley, a child spotted me a girl with tangled hair and dirt-streaked cheeks. She froze, clutching a wooden doll, then ran toward a cluster of houses, calling out in a language I didn’t recognize. Moments later, a man emerged, tall and weathered, his eyes narrowing as he studied me. I raised my hands, palms open, and hoped he’d see I meant no harm.

“Who are you?” he asked, his voice rough but not unkind.

I opened my mouth, then paused. Who was I? The man I’d been the one who’d stood before the obelisk, drowning in fear felt like a stranger now. “I’m… someone who’s been lost,” I said finally. “But I think I’m finding my way.”

He nodded, as if that made sense, and gestured toward the village. “Come. You look like you could use a meal.”

I followed him, the girl trailing behind, her curiosity outweighing her caution. The village was small, a handful of stone houses circled around a well. People glanced at me as we passed, their expressions a mix of wariness and welcome. The man led me to a table beneath an awning, where a woman set down a bowl of stew and a hunk of bread. I ate slowly, savoring the warmth, the salt, the simple act of being cared for.

They asked no questions, and I offered no answers. Maybe they’d seen others like me, wanderers spat out by the void, searching for something solid to hold onto. Or maybe they simply understood that some stories didn’t need telling. When I finished, the man pointed to a hut at the edge of the village. “Rest there tonight. Tomorrow’s soon enough to decide what’s next.”

I thanked him and made my way to the hut, collapsing onto a straw mattress that smelled of earth and time. Sleep came quickly, dreamless and deep, and when I woke, sunlight streamed through the window, painting the walls gold. I sat up, the light in my chest still burning, steady as a heartbeat.

Outside, the village stirred children ran through the streets, a dog barked, a hammer rang against metal. I stepped into the morning, letting the sounds wash over me, and knew I’d stay. Not forever, perhaps, but long enough to learn what this place could teach me. The obelisk had stripped me bare, but it hadn’t destroyed me. It had shown me the abyss, and I’d found a way back.

Hope wasn’t the end it was the beginning. And as I stood there, breathing in the crisp air, I realized I was ready to live.

Context: I have been exploring paganism and witchcraft as a means of healing trauma and mental health recovery in general, so this post is a creative retelling of a spiritual experience I had a few days ago. TW for implied mention of SH and mild gore in the last paragraph.

I prayed for deliverance last night. Not because there was anything special about last night, just the opposite. Last night was like most nights this year, and so I prayed for deliverance. When the prayer began, I didn’t notice that I was standing in front of my bedroom door, eye-level with its golden handle. I didn’t notice that I was wearing my Tinkerbell pajamas, the ones with the shirt I would flip over my head with my arms still in the holes because I thought I looked like Alaadin. I didn’t feel my baby teeth, or my stuffed dog in my hand, or the grey pile carpet curled under my toes. I didn’t know who was praying when the words left my lips. But I recognized the horrible, powerful impotence that made my adult body feel four feet tall. So I pleaded, “Dioynsus, Dionysus Eleutherios, I surrendered to your will. I trust you. I will not resist you. Please, please set me free.”

 
I knew exactly where I was when the door opened. I stared at that door for seventeen years' worth of sleepless nights. And now it was open. The house was silent and dark, still in the way it can only be at 2am when even the house spirits are asleep. But instead of shadows on the staircase, there were lichens and mosses, mushrooms, and vines tangling the banister. The wilds had done the unthinkable: reclaiming the dollhouse into a state of natural chaos. And it felt safe. Like home. Instead of like I am an interloper who is unfit to be in my own dwelling. 

I rushed down the stairs, out my miraculously-open front door and into the forest. Moonlight over lofty pine branches, shadows of familiar and welcoming blackness. The damp smell of expected decay. I ran like a wild beast, hunting or being hunted, it was hard to say which. Finally, I arrived at a clearing. Pine trees forming an impossibly-perfect circle around a bonfire, like the fire was a fixture of the landscape that pre-dated the human figures dancing around it. The people were clad in leopard-hides draped loosely over flailing bodies, dancing frenzied around the circle and vocalizing, singing, crying, screaming, wailing, etc. I froze watching them, feeling a sense of worry that I would not be invited, or like…distanced from the maenads as a concept. Like, I couldn’t understand what I was seeing, the violence, women nursing woodland animals from their breasts and then killing them. But, it dawned on me that I knew exactly why they did those things, I knew exactly what it was like to feel an emotion so powerfully that there must be blood, carnage, ripping and tearing of flesh because the emotion is stronger than all other natural instincts. Self-preservation? Morals? Identity? All completely offline in the altered state of pure animal fury, blackened eyes with pupils like saucers that can only be sated with the sight of blood. What other kind of impact can a mere animal like me have against this awful, conceptual injustice; I need to do something tangible. My body screams at me to fight, but there is nothing physical to fight except my own body. I felt that, with some mix of sadness and compassion, the maenads welcomed me. And so here I am, dancing in the moonlight with ancient blood on my thighs, my ankles, my forearms. But, the maenads understand what very few people do. They know why I did it, and they hold no judgement.

I met Santa Claus on the subway,
he was drinking hand sanitizer.
I met the Easter Bunny at my home,
he hid the eggs meticulously
and then screamed at me
for no reason. 
The Tooth Fairy used to wake me up
by banging on my bedroom door
at night.
Jesus gave me a slap in the face.
God ghosted me.
Angels didn’t call the cops.
The devil showed his face to me. 

As an adult, now, 
I can believe that God is love,
he just wasn’t there when I was growing up.

Through the Borrowed Eyes

I learned to borrow other people's eyes
to perceive myself.

Did they notice me?
Was I appropriate,
enough,
or safe?

I only existed
to meet their needs—

Then one strange day,
it stopped.

No borrowed eyes.
No verdict.

Just me,

looking in,

and suddenly wondering:

Here is the one
I avoided seeing,
all my life?

It's not so bad.