This constant state to recreate

Dominates the majority

Of the human race.

But perhaps this is the way,

This constant striving, trying, reaching...

To just be,

That is the blissful way, yes,

And it holds sometimes, for a bit.

In my pangs of want,

I'll think, maybe I could do it better.

Make me better.

But I like surprises.

And I'm waiting to see

What I'll become.

I am intuitive and intelligent, able to see situations and speak with authority effortlessly;

but I am the first to deafeningly tell myself that I don’t belong in any room, imposter syndrome invariably louder than my own voice.

I am passionate and loyal, no one would question my love or intentions;

but I’ve never learned how to break the cycle of constantly breaking my own heart when I don’t know when to let go.

I am affable and affectionate, always willing to lend my advice or my support or my world-famous hugs;

but I am solidly in middle age and still haven’t mastered recognizing when I am being taken advantage of until it’s too late.

I am confident yet doubtful; I am unyielding yet breakable; I am tranquil yet anxious.

I am Human.

Blinded

amid all creation

{the nonstop}

Cyclopsed

with finger

stuck

Octopi

everywhere

even,

in the third eye

*

For all attention

of detail-ed minutiae

Two feet in front

of us, the fog

**

It's not that I want

to tell the Future

something

or grab

the illustrious

knees

of God

I just wish

to see the lights

and fireflies

Not streaming

tears,

exploding

in the yard

***

Stranger danger

fades somewhat

when one

canst

look a looker

in the eye,

but maybe

that is why

it is wisdom

in this blind

strength

and sweat

having

a hand in

kerchief tied

****

I wipe our glasses,

press my lids,

like Aldous Huxley

and sigh

I am I and you are you

But you're not me and you're not us

People like you are not like us

That's the truth as I see it

Not as you see it

We see it

You do not.

And we don't care

I am I and you are not

You are you and I am not

Goo Goo Goo Joob

I am I, and I wish I weren't.

Cunning eyes, waiting for life,

words filled with lies,

skilled actor hiding behind to be loved,

the mask I own is selfless,

to hide my flawed selfish self,

to be beloved.

Psych ward 2011, refusing to eat the Chinese food my aunt and uncle provided while I sat on the hospital gurney, waiting to be processed, like cattle, or a criminal.

It contained rice, which was carbohydrates, which was bad news, if you were me in 2011.

Ever since I was sixteen, I have had the desire to rewind time. At what moment did it all fall apart? More likely, there were many moments; a trail of bread crumbs leading to some witch's manor, where I was to be in bondage - forever. Instead of Hansel and Gretel, I was completely alone - and the impending desire of the witch to eat me alive was my cross to bear, my penance and my life sentence.

I dropped out of college, spectacularly, if we rewind time to right before I was being processed like just another patient, a Young Girl With Depression And An Eating Disorder.

The nurses probably scoffed in some secret corner, while I judged them for their love handles almost hanging out of their tight, polyester uniforms.

My aunt detected right away that I wouldn't eat the Chinese food because it contained rice. "Rice will fill you up," she said, rather icily. That, right there, was the problem: when you have an eating disorder, you remain perpetually hungry, because fullness means you have failed on some fixed, spectacular level.

Here's the other problem: the judgement.

People judge young women, or probably anyone, with depression, with an eating disorder. They thing they're helping you (actually helping you) with their repeated attempts to get you to eat, to get out of bed. I found that other women were the worst example of this. Their bitterness, perhaps that it couldn't be them, with that level of self-control, with their thighs rubbing together and their relentless crusade against exactly what they would want for themselves: being underweight.

You're probably thinking, "Who's judging who now, bitch?"

But it is, in fact, relentless. And the only person you have to blame is yourself: you know this, like you know that once you are processed by the doctors, you will lose all control, eating sugary jello and hospital soup one bite at a time like the prisoner you were processed to be.

It's only you, honey. It's all in your head, and when people point fingers at you, they are 100% correct to blame the person who dared stray from the herd, the person who ingested weight loss commercial after weight loss commercial and dared to believe the message, that women are inferior, required to be skinny - and then hated for being so.

It's a cycle, like laundry.

I think back to sitting on that hospital gurney, refusing Chinese food, and my skin crawls. Did I really think I was some kind of martyr?

I don't know, what subliminal messages are women getting?

Ask yourself this: if you are the problem, how can you also be the solution?

Pogo put the people into a little box.

He tried to be so clever, just like the gold-haired fox.

But then the tide did turn and the fox became the king.

And Pogo lost his freedoms and all that freedom brings.

They took away his pension and his doctors’ payments too.

The fox just kept on smiling but he really was quite cruel.

Those who had invested leveraged all their stocks.

But the fox only rewarded all the warlord hawks.

Then he called the army to take up all their guns,

and he set them on the streets at home to arrest everyone.

They rounded up the parents and the kids who were in school.

And Pogo then watched the fox get up upon his stool.

“I’m going to force you all to make America great again.

And those who do resist me, I’ll put inside the pen.”

The fox‘s painted ladies served him

on the run.

And Pogo felt he’d screwed himself before they had begun.