I want to lean on you the way vines do

on brick houses. I want to drink you up

like sugar water, my mouth dunking farther,

deeper into your nectar. Together we swim

like bacteria in a petri dish. Won’t you grow with me?

Let’s coagulate. In my dreams, we fascinate.

We poke each other’s fingers through our wounds

and watch the blood mix, all dark and sloppy.

Let’s trade diseases. Jesus was sick, too,

but he still cured. When I’m with you,

my heart purrs, even when you talk nonsense

or lab rats, how we are all just on the hunt

for cheese. How scientists control our circumstances,

probably. You make me care less about the maze.

Overwhelmingly,

The darkness descends upon me

With no warning

And no control

I am swallowed up into its grasp

It chews me up

And spits me out

Leaving me hopeless

Broken and a mess

Lost and lonely

Bitter and depressed

When it goes

I am alone in its aftermath

Left to pick up the pieces

Of my shattered soul

©HeatherAnn

I like to tell myself everyone had their list of ways to die

but I believe it was just me

and my own imagination

the catalog was long:

pills and pools

blades and baths

a jump

some rope

if I could find any

but I never killed myself

and I believed I never killed myself

because I didn’t have guts

grit to me was the ability to write one last letter

but what really kept me from the dream

was the mundanity of it all

the everlasting question:

who would drink the milk if I was gone?

Her voice was airy, and she was blinking more than usual, which forced my blood’s temperature up. I refused to look at her while she described what happened on her date, listening intently while reprimanding myself for getting angry at her and trying to keep my temper at bay.

She asked me if I thought he liked her. I said yes. And as she stepped closer so I’d look at her pleading eyes, I sighed deeply to avoid escalation. Of course he liked you, I told her. You’re pretty, skinny, smart, funny, real, you can cook, clean, hold a conversation, and on top of all that, he’s interested. There are guys that close themselves off, if not to specific people, to everyone, but this is not that kind of guy. Show him you’re interested too, and you guys will be together, easy.

The analysis is always the easy part for me. I’ll tell you all the logic, but please don’t make me feel anything. Her expression finally faded as she considered this information with more rationality, and I could see I didn’t give her what she wanted to hear. I’m not sure what she needed me to say, and even if I did I’m not sure I could deliver. I could not make myself soft, even for my sister’s sake, because it’s so much easier to get hurt that way. By who? With what? Nobody’s looking to hurt anyone, you might say. It’s us though, not them. We hurt ourselves with our anticipaiton of future comfort or ease, and with no defined sense of what that means, we lose the sense of how to get there.

I saw in her my own raw hopes and delicate dreams and I despised them. Not because they’re emotional or irrational, but because they were fragile and I am very clumsy.

A smile can hide a thousand emotions, you just have to practice.

That's right come on, lift your head.... That's it. Relax your shoulders. If you're tense it makes the smile unbelievable and stiff. Now try to smile. Try pulling the corners of your mouth up more but not too much - if need be show some teeth and give a chuckle while you're doing it. If you practice long enough you can learn to keep this facade up all day.

The eyes are often the downfall though - a real smile can be seen by the emotion in the eyes. My advice is focus on the area under their eyes or even their shoulder. Never focus on their eyes unless you are sure you can decieve them. It takes a lot of time to be able to decieve someone while maintaining eye contact.

I have perfected this smile.

This smile protects me from the hurt that others inflict.

I can wear this like a cloak and discard it in the solitude of my home.

It's perfect.

It's useful

It's.... so

Lonely.

I am someone who falls in love easily- unfortunately this afflication has a mirrored effect- for just as easily I am able to climb out of it. I am sorry, to the trail of broken hearts, that I have left behind. I picture it like this, walking through a garden of lovers and picking a flower from each patch of persons, all different in shape, smell, and liking. With each I have spent precious times with, with each I would never like to forget, with each I drop a tear for I regret not being able to love for long. I am sorry for not being delicate with your hearts, for the slow rotting of the broken flowers falling from my hands. I am sorry to my own heart, for the torture of breaking ways with those whose roots had become entangled in yours, sorry for their new fences to keep you out. I am most sorry for the inability to explain the unintentions and yet the truth of the love that was shared. And yet, through the garden I continue.

I'm writing to you because I'm not going to your wedding so I'll probably never see you again. I mean, not that you would want to or care to. I'm not typically a skeptical person, but I know an afterthought when I see one. Or when I get a hand drawn wedding invite weeks after being ghosted.

You're probably wondering why I'm being so passive aggressive with you. I wondered that too, but then I asked myself if by the time you read this line, you reread the first paragraph because you proably didn't even detect any traces of affliction in my sloppy handwriting. Did you compare the script in the dozens of letters I wrote before? Do you notice how much deeper the indentation is in this one? There's no heart next to your name. There's no looping curves, or swirls, or little mindless doodles, or micro poems that once garnished my feelings for you.

Do little boys get drunk, Sis? I bet the korean suburbs never sounded so turbulent. But that's your flaw. I languished day after day in my emotions. I marinate in my own misfortune, because I'm society's decrepit, though I once had the potential to become something better.

Is that why you stopped replying after letter 4? When I told you sleeping is the blanket shielding me from my monsters did you look on because I still need a blanket, or because you were too weak to fight them off?

One thing I realized, while you were offline, was that I tend to blame others for my problems or associate my misfortunes or issues with uncontrollable realities. For example I never told you this, but I have a porn addiction. Not just any old used baggage either. My tastes are unique, because while someone on my phone is getting rawed, my head is thrown back and I can't catch my breath either. I'm in sync with the moans, with the thigh slapping, the final, definite orgasm, and then my screen goes black and I'm sticky and disatisfied, because I don't order samplers. I crave the full entree for myself.

So that's what I did. Porn became disgusting to me because it was forced, and I got no real pleasure out of other people's happiness.

I met a girl who when she looked at me I became a bowl of water and she was gonna lap all the fluid I possessed within me. I was going to give her everything I had and not care if she sold it to Goodwill, or mixed it with her own shit in a litterbox. I wanted to squeeze out every ounce of love I had on her face and on her breasts and then paint a future where her and I could forget about the would be lovers and risky messages we sent at odd hours to obscure genders. We would forget about the times we were scammed, the times we were stood up, or thrown down too forcefully, choked, raped.

I loved her those couple days. With every drop of sweat and every fire in my ass I loved her. The cellulite, the freckles, the big nose, everything you weren't. Everything pretty about you I sneered at and craved the opposite. And I loved her so much I didn't give any thought to my own needs. My skin wasn't speckled purple with her lips. My skin wasn't massaged by her fingers, wasn't carressed by her body, save for the moments our thighs or lips kissed. I didn't even come.

She zipped up, packed up, and I didn't even get a handshake good bye.

I realized that some time later while simmered in alcohol.

I realized, that I was a disgusting person, and no one wants to be branded with a rusty iron. No one wants to be associated with a defect, with the inept. You're a woman of God and that's were we came from, according to you. But somewhere in the recesses of your skull I'm a lower life form and you couldn't find a big enough cage for me so you adorted mission.

I was never the pure child you initially thought. I guess you realized that too.

Enjoy your wedding. Sorry I couldn't make it.

Signed,

Yours at one point.

A halo of steel circles widening in a blue oasis that quiver during sad movies and blink out droplets of the sea. You lick the salt away and wipe them one by one. A black hue has formed, caking up your crystal views and clouding the horizons. You close them gently. They are protected in a delicate compartment full of candy land dreams & diamond caviar. Once they reopen they will shine bright and cast out shades of cognac blue, surrounded by a myriad of black fringe. And nothing will stop them from giving you clarity, perception and a new life -except you.

I've been running away for most of my life. Running away from the fear, from the confusion, and from the anger that comes with it all. I've been running away from my emotions, and from who I am deep down.

In quiet desperation, in excrutiating agony; I pray. I pray that someone will hear this message. I pray that someone might come to comfort me and provide me with the well-needed support.

Until recently, I've been distracting myself from the things that matter most. It was just last week when I noticed an article on mindfulness. It's a topic too difficult for me to understand on my own.

I've spent my whole life running away from the present moment. Running away from the things that matter most. Why? Why was I conditioning myself to run away, hide, and suppress my true feelings? Am I really that bad of a person?

With a burning determination, I decided to rid myself of all distractions. No phone, no T.V, no friends, no family. I burned all of my books and sold most of my belongings.

I think I'm going crazy.

So now I sit here, with this pen and this pad, writing to you about my unstable self. What will it take to drive away this luming frustration? What will it take to free myself from this incessant suffering? What must I do to calm my mind, and embrace who I truly am as a person? How can I be happy?

-Sincerely, Me.

#happiness #mindfulness #selflove #distractions #justbreathe #calmthemind