clutching the heart

you say it is

plain

as vodka day

that the hole

is big

and dark

flocked

gapping black

a mouth crimson

lining

burning lack,

a dying sound...

But no

I counter

no, no, looky here

slapping the paper,

an infant, metaphorically

the hole, as it were

strictly speaking

is off white,

a smoking gun

07.23.2024

The biggest hole in my life... challenge @dctezcan

Fill the void

so I do not feel

What is wrong

or what is real.

Dancing around

the endless gap

My feet grow tired

my mind is trapped.

A holes a hole

but to what extent?

Why had I

been so distant?

Should I want

or need or care?

My hole's a burden

Why don't I share?

I cannot be

my best self here.

I've been dancing

lead by fear.

Staying, clasping

trying to hold on.

I could let go,

but then I'd move on.

There is a place

I want to go.

But I'd leave here

with nothing to show.

Departing here

is my biggest void.

Arriving there

I'll be employed.

My job's a burden

but I should see.

This job is just

not right for me.

I am not as I once was. My skin is thicker, cuts white and banded beneath ink, muscle strong, brain more settled. And yet I think of you. Someone who caused me so much strife in my youth, were the cause for much of my shifting mind and bleeding skin. The reason my muscles are bigger then yours.

I haven’t seen you in seven years and yet I think of you. I am unsure if I miss you, or perhaps being a teenager where everything was easy to digest. How do I digest this?

Seven years of hating you, seven years of having loved you. Is your impact truly so big, that I will always feel as like I am mourning something that never died? Buried a living creature that causes me more grievance then something as pure as love ought to?

Why do I still feel a pounding in the back of my skull like fists on a one way partition whenever I kiss, touch, try to love someone else? It isn’t fair.

I wonder if I ever cross your mind. I hope I don’t. I wish I do. I wonder if you feel my fists on the glass reverberating when you kiss, touch, love others.

I wonder if it’s the horrible twisted strings of fate, or if I am truly insane like you once said I was.

Everyone starts with bucket filled with happiness.

For some, the bucket is made of glass;

Others might have a bucket of steel,

Or perhaps even a bucket of paper.

It doesn't really matter what your bucket is made of,

What matters is what happens when you endure traumatic experiences.

Trauma has many forms, but it does the same thing no matter what it is:

It damages your bucket,

Leaving holes that cause all the happiness that you started with

To drip, drip, drip away into emptiness.

Each type of trauma targets a specific region of the bucket.

Physical trauma such as abuse or sexual assault is like a gunshot-

It will puncture the bucket no matter what, causing a lot of damage.

Emotional trauma is more like a needle-

There's more nuance to it.

For a bucket of steel or glass, it just grazes the surface; you would need repeated instances to puncture the bucket.

For a bucket of paper, it easily pierces through and the happiness drains away.

Luckily, you can refill your bucket by doing the things that make you happy,

But you need to fix the damage if you want to keep it inside.

I would say that I have a bucket of glass.

I'm fortunate enough to have never experienced any physical trauma,

Unfortunate enough to have experienced a lot of emotional trauma.

Small instances do little to affect my bucket,

Especially when they are spread out across the different regions of family and relationships.

It scratches the surface, but I could've kept the happiness inside.

But there's a unique feature about glass:

When you do enough damage, it doesn't just make a hole;

First it cracks,

Then it shatters.

There's not just one instance in my life that made the biggest 'hole';

It was a series of traumatic experiences that I've gone through that built up.

Hairline fractures ran throughout my bucket,

Slowly leaking out happiness

Until my bucket couldn't take anymore and broke.

I didn't know how to fix my bucket, I couldn't even figure out where the cracks were

Or where they came from.

How could I have known when my breaking point would come?

It came about a year ago, and I've felt emptiness ever since.

There are fleeting moments of happiness, but until I repair the damage, it won't stay.

How do you fix a shattered bucket?

I've figured out that you first need to find the pieces,

Which is what I've been trying to do ever since.

But it's difficult when I can't remember what shards I'm even missing.

It's difficult when I find a piece, but then there's more emotional trauma

That breaks it down even more.

All I can do is keep searching for those pieces,

And try putting them back together.

Even then, my bucket will be more fragile,

It will still leak out happiness.

But at least I'll finally be complete again.

Another quiet uncomfortable moment

lost in a haze of memories,

your hands, my skin,

I find myself grappling

with the loss of

what we used to have.

Your presence,

once a familiar comfort,

your absence,

now a gaping void.

Finally, you reach out to me,

your voice tinged with little concern,

You ask me what’s wrong

as if you’ve forgotten how

to look in my eyes and

see straight through to my soul.

You know me so well,

but this pain, it’s universal,

even a stranger could tell

what I can’t say aloud—

I still love you.

The psychiatrist on call pulled me aside. I hadn't seen him before; it was a Saturday, and my "usual" psychiatrist - whom I had also only met once - was off for the weekend. The psychiatrist on call pulled me aside. "What are you here for?" he asked.

Maybe it was my calm demeanor, my anger, or my resolve. Or my heartbreak, fear, and bitterness. But those things always seem to go together, don't they?

"I got burned out at work," I said.

I couldn't even cut correctly. I couldn't bring myself to kill myself. I just slept, the entire time I was in the ward, and when the nurse came into my room to tell me "You will get out of here faster if you join group activities" was what finally made me get up, put on my hospital slippers, and draw the same line over and over again on construction paper put out by some art therapist who probably felt like she was changing us.

The psychiatrist on call asked me what medication I was taking. And - what were my symptoms? How long had I had them?

"Look," I said. "I'm taking ____, _____, _____, and _______. They work great. I'd like some refills to my local pharmacy. I'd also like to be out of here by tomorrow."

The psychiatrist nodded, typed some notes into his portable computer, and left. I was in the hallway, surrounded by bad art on the walls and no way to kill myself. I wasn't even sure if that was what I wanted. I was just fed up, angry, and only had complete disdain for a broken medical system that would end up costing me $22,000 for a three day stay (thankfully, I had health insurance and "only" ended up paying $2,000).

I had no love for a "psychiatrist", on call or not. I had no love at all.

Here's the thing: life fucking sucks. It hurts, and then you drink, or cut, or smoke, or throw up, or starve yourself, and it feels better for about three minutes. Rinse, and repeat.

I walked out of the hospital the next day. It's incredible, being surrounded by sharp objects again, traffic, people out walking their yippy dogs that have no idea what lies behind just three feet of concrete.

I texted my friend, the one who I had had a falling out with. "I'm out," I said.

No response. Not a minute later, not the next day. Just never.

Maybe it was my calm demeanor, my anger, or my resolve. Or my heartbreak, fear, and bitterness. I was alone, and what is there to do alone but drop off my hospital bag at my apartment, and stare at the wall, and drink, cut, smoke, throw up, and starve myself?

Covid hit one month later. As if God had an envelope, and lips to seal it, I was now completely cut off from the outside world.

It's not what you love that saves you. It's what you love that hurts you. It's what you love that leaves a hole in your heart that only destruction can fill, the kind you inflict on yourself, the kind that is not kind, at all.

My friend didn't talk to my again for another year.

Sometimes, we make mistakes. And sometimes, it's just you and your personality, a bottle of gin and a full pack of cigarettes. It's just you.

The psychiatrist on call had indeed refilled my prescriptions, and I picked them up at my local pharmacy. This was in March 2020, and CVS was selling masks and gloves, hand sanitizer and hazmat items. I laughed. So funny that a problem China was having could ever affect me, in the United States, in my own little untouchable world.

I walked home, and I considered the last two months. How they had left a hole in my psyche, in my very being. I reached up and touched a branch of a tree. It's probably infected with that virus they're talking about, I thought.

I laughed, and walked on. The hole in my heart was the size of China, the United States, the whole world. It was a sink hole, and I chose to fill it with prose.

I sat on my back deck and wrote. I wrote until the gin wore off, the sun set, the whole world was as silent as death. I wrote and my roommate laughed as I cooked eggs and poured the champagne I had been saving for a party that never was.

I had started writing, and the hole would soon be filled.

The hole would soon erase itself, as steadily as the backspace key, the bitterness evaporating and the vaccine helping everyone, the hospital a mere blight of sickness in the past, in my little untouchable world.

My heart, my soul carry

Freshly made echoes of holes

From all the missing pieces

Of life’s dreams and goals.

Diverse people not encountered,

Near and distant places unseen,

Divine music not heard,

Uncrossed moors of grassy green.

Pieces of art not painted

Or seen in wondrous display,

Stories not penned

In creative moments at play.

Animals not cherished

Nor kept safe from all harm,

There’s an abundance of creatures

Unloved in the circle of my arms.

So many faltered to slip away

Leaving missed chances at love;

Possibilities I hoped would return

One day on the wind like a dove.

Ships I’ve not sailed

All around the fair world

Planes I’ve not taken

When opportunities unfurled.

Words spoken on impulse

Or in a fit of pure anger;

Worse yet, words left unspoken

Due to moments of languor.

Caresses not extended,

Delightful kisses not given,

Cherished moments of intimacy

Left withering cannot be forgiven.

Holes as big as the moon,

Regrets tenfold, yes, I have aplenty

While I move through this life

In pursuit of so much and so many.

It’s so difficult to say

If all the holes in my soul -

Much like a blanket that’s worn

An ancient and damaged scroll,

Or a bug riddled leaf found

On atop a large, grassy knoll -

Will ever be filled with what’s needed

To solidify it, thereby making me whole.

was left by blood.

It has scarred me internally. Everlasting angst surrounding the word.

I‘ve been drowning in these ominous memories for decades.

Hate I carry that makes my veins bleed.

A love I’ve missed all my life is bound by barbed wires.

Chaos storms the bottom of my feet with every step.

The disgust I feel of myself in every mirror is a reminder I’m your image.

Therefore, I’ll always hate myself the same way I hate you.

S. L. Cline

Letters forming words

pierce the air, directly

in the path of the heart.

Pain builds up

in tears and lumps in throats;

they cannot speak emotions

coming to mind.

So much understanding,

met with adolescent knowingness; representing a say~all "truth ",

there is no point of challenging.

Giving up isn't a choice.

So, giving in will have to do,

while the eyes glaze over and stare

at the sad reality of loneliness,

and motherhood, creeping in.

I'm alone as a mother,

alone in the love I have for you.

Misunderstood,

misrepresented

missed marks ~

motherhood ....

quickly deteriorates

after 11, 12 years;

turning into empty backseats ~

badly ripped, cushions torn.

Edges and corners left,

of only hardened leather.

Unlaced stitching, poking ~

scratching sweaty thighs

in the summers heat.

Uncomfortable,

unpleasant retracts,

of an unwieldy teenager ~

ungainly silent.

Once at an arms reach,

now destitute of holding hands.

No more fond glances

from the rearview,

where you once sat ~

beeping seatbelts signal,

like sing-alongs

in long ago car rides

of vehicles long gone.

Baseless insults,

like garbage in wind gusts,

thrown about.

Belligerent sentences,

like a drunkard,

stoned in the night,

whizzing streams of

balky comments, pressed

and bleeding ink ~

leaving streaks.

Kneading barren wombs,

brushing away any

motherly remains;

a life-force connection ~

a cord cut and discarded.

....

I miss that little voice,

calling for me, "momma",

"just one more kiss goodnight".