My depression feels like being spelled into a sopping wet blanket. I say “my depression” because I’m pretty sure everyone’s is different. But mine is heavy and uncomfortable. It’s hard to do anything in the wet blanket and hard to think about anything other than the wet blanket. It’s really exhausting dragging it around all the time, and I definitely don’t want other people to see me with it--I’m weird and powerless.

I take to dim-lit places so it’s not so obvious. It insulates me from everything else and I can’t engage with the world. After a while, it rubs me raw; I’m sensitive to noise and light. The sadness and isolation turn to frustration and irritability and then cycle back to the beginning, over and over. And then I’m numb.

All I want to do is throw it off. But some wicked witch has bound it to me. I end up sleeping a lot to forget that the blanket is there and to rest from carrying it. I eat sweet and oily things to distract myself from its presence. It’s hard to concentrate on any one task. My mind keeps wandering away from my body. Anything to be rid of the blanket for a moment.

Sometimes I think about all the sensations I'll never feel.

Her shaven legs against mine. The warmth of her soft hair in the sunlight. The small of her bare back as I embrace her close. Her delicate fingers brushing mine as we walk. That long-craved kiss, smooth and lingering, with a hint of mint chapstick. The tingle after seeing her silhouette through the shower door. Her generous, round breasts pressed against my small ones. Her sweet vanilla smell on the sheets.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy. I wouldn't change anything about the life I share with my boyfriend, my partner, my love. But sometimes I think it's good to grieve the parallel self I'll never know.

The crisp green that belongs to both

fall and spring is at the tops of the trees.

Have you ever noticed that spring spreads

from the bottom up, as fall does from the top down?

As if each lives out the verb with which it shares

a name. A certain few weeks each year,

photos can’t capture whether or not

the green is coming or going. All looks the same,

like pictures of sunrises and sunsets--I never could

tell them apart. Something about that sameness

in ending and beginning is comforting, I think.

#poetry #seasons #beginning #ending #freshstart

It's twenty-seven degrees farenheit outside and I'm sweating under my puffy jacket while my hands are numb with cold even through my gloves. How can I be hot when I feel so cold? It's frustrating to think one part of my body has too much while another doesn't have enough, and the one with much simply discards, radiating excess warmth.

But I know it is hard to hold extremes at the same time. I know what it is to feel too much and yet not enough all at once. I know that positives and negatives, fear and excitement, grief and joy often arrive together though I am never quite sure how to welcome them. Like being promoted in the accounting department even though I majored in English and never wanted this career. Or a best friend moving to Europe. Or my little sister getting married. Or my bedridden 88-year old grandma finally passing in peace.

I try to be kinder toward my body.

It’s a relief to have a companion,

a fellow traveler, a hitchhiker

riding along. A part of me,

but not me. How I imagine a mother

might feel for a child--brought

forth by pain, enmeshed, permanent,

but so distinctly chosen--a constant

in churning daily life, a marker

pointing “This way home.”

#ink #tattoo #firsttattoo

Of everything

it might be

the birthmark

on your left shoulder

I miss most.

What could be better than a Monday

at home with a lover,

ham and pepperjack

breakfast sandwiches,

October morning light, coffee,

and a window

to watch your dog in

the backyard and to

consider the spider plant with all

its gangly spreading life?