recently i’ve been feeling this thing growing horrible inside of me like a wedge between all of my bones. a violent, cruel energy. the sharpness is unfiltered, the voice is wet and furious.
energy cannot be created or destroyed, of course. this one feels horrible to carry, the kind of unshaped potential that demands a release. i have tried kinetic responses; have done my running and my planks and my holding on. i have tried meditation and soothing behaviors. i have tried it all.
i still feel that claw, an unspent scream in its most horrid little state. the skin of which is ugly, raw.
once, when i was like this, i cut all my hair off. once, when i was like this, i ate so much i threw up. once, when i was like this, i ran into traffic. once, when i was like this, i did so many bad things to myself to get it out that they had to take my hands away from me. it’s like i have to get it out by pulling, and the pulling is so violent, there’s no way to remove the splinter without also removing me.
i tell my friend. i’m gonna have to go into the woods and yowl for hours on end. then i will turn into a werewolf and run around and get leaves in my hair and you’ll never see me again. or if you do see me, i’ll be running amok in a cvs, holding a dead squirrel in my mouth, looking for vengence.
he covers my hand with his. “when you go into the woods,” he says, “take me with you. we will both scream, and scream, and scream, and then we will go home together. you can be a wolf in your own bed.”
so i will be a wolf in my own bed. we will find a way to get it out without opening my ribs. we will remove it under a full moon, and we will be feral, but we will no longer kill the girl wild on the altar of her own bones. we will raise her instead.
i am always checking other people’s body language. my therapist says this is a normal conditioned response to what i’ve been through, she says - you like to see a problem before it becomes a problem.
i like to see a problem before it is a problem. if i can solve the problem early, then there will never be a problem to exist. if i can’t solve it, i’d like to leave, and if i can’t leave, i don’t know how to handle it. so i watch, and i wait for things that might not happen, and i duck out of parties early, and i don’t let people too close, and i don’t believe you like me, and i say i am happy on my own.
my therapist says - with all this watching, don’t you worry you might misunderstand a signal and end up seeing rejection where there is acceptance? don’t you think you might be giving this a lot of power over your existence?
with all this watching, she says. when do you get to actually experience?
but i do think of things in shapes. i used to feel everything, all at once, vague and daunting, but lately i can sense them, one at a time, rise up and make song. saturday’s soup dinner is a round hum. sunday had a lunch like the back of a fawn. today’s shape is my tongue at the roof of my mouth. today’s shape is a held breath before autumn. today’s shape is canned tuna.
i am so familiar with the calloused hands of dread and the salted forest of depression. i have been in their beds so often that i am always finding their hair in my teeth. i am always picking their splinters out of what i eat. i am always wondering when they will be back with new treats.
but i am, slowly, learning the shape of harmony. the wren lungs of a good morning. the sweet candled night, and legs and porches and warm air and laughter. the thing about learning the shape of joy is that i will know it better the next time i go looking. she just always surprises me. she is so small. but so darkly, excellently shining. joy like a fairy. joy in a boxed heart. joy in calligraphy.
the tiny shape of joy, quietly slaughtering the mountain of my empty.
where am i, where does my identity begin. can i playact a happy person in all my friendships or is that manipulative. can i take this personality test honestly or am i trying to pick things for a specific end. is this something i actually want or am i just bored and looking for anything. do i really feel like i care about my horoscope, or am i just looking for how others might see me. when i get dressed am i actually dressing for myself or am i dressing for the illusion i’m complete. am i actually seeking answers about who i am, or am i trying to shape the answers into who i want to be. am i real to myself or am i lying.
shh, i am still in love with the mundane beauties of this world. while painting my cabinets, a perfect star splattered onto the back of my hand. there is a flower at the top of the hill that always seems too colorful to be real. under the table, someone has scratched be well in tiny handwriting. the peanut butter spreads perfectly on my toast. we all stare up at the moon. the streetlights in fog, all fall leaves around us, the pattern on little parking lot birdwings. little life, little joy, little falling. little bit lovely, always.
