Waiting to be Taken

Misery is a muse and an easy way out of averting stagnation and boredom. I call upon it to give me depth and purpose leaving all the in between moments empty and meaningless. What am I if not on the brink of destruction? Just another face in the crowd dying to be seen but blending in with the sea of beige. Even upon careful removal of the crowd itself I can't pique the interest of a solitary person who chose my company in the first place. I sit in this inbetween place bubbling up on the inside with no knowledge of when i will overflow or what it is that boils inside. When the lid blows off will euphoric joy spill from the top? Filling the air with intellect, perspective, love and realizations. Or will the pain be what's waiting to escape, not like the manic steam previously mentioned but a thick, bubbling, tar like, depression that will slowly seep out staining everything in its path. A substance unable to rise and float away. I welcome either as I feel empty and unseen otherwise, though if I'm being honest I'm in constant search of that steam. That perfect moment, that long care free night. The sensation of no consequences and absolute perfection. It is a distinct feeling of "This is right, this is meant to be. This is who we really are. I am seen". Mourning it's loss before it's even evaporated, I painfully accept each time that it can never last as long as the tar like depression that will always engulf it. Bringing me back down to reality and then slowly sinking below that to a darker place just as unrealistic as the mania that preceded. However dark that place may be, I'd sit in it for a lifetime before living in this unseen limbo. A place where I am a forgotten nothing, parading myself about only to realize there is no audience. Desperately seeking a deeper meaning, a purpose, a place I belong. I reject this limbo and revert to the only safe place i know. My muse, my pain, my pit of tar.  It may not be ideal but at least I know the road there and I can see that I'm welcome to a solitary cell at any time i should need to stay. Because I can't find a way to anywhere else, and misery, unlike my joy, is a place I can find alone.

Filling a Metaphoric Hole

I close my eyes and try to clear all of the mess inside my mind leaving only you. Desperately seeking the words i can say to build a ladder out of the hole you've fallen into. When suddenly the light shines on the subject and I see a clearer path. Fill the hole. I can lift you out, throw you a rope, bring a ladder...whatever metaphoric band aid statement is best fitting here. However if the hole remains you'll just keep falling in, jumping in, or being pushed.
       Filling a metaphoric hole step one, define the hole: A place where you can see me but you can't reach me. Every thought you have to say or do the right thing can't quite make it to the surface. Draining all sense of reality and only leaving cold, dead despair. A place where you can merely go through the motions of necessity lying to yourself about how nobody can tell. Denial, fake faces, oversensitivity to things you might usually brush off or even enjoy a laugh over. But there is no laughter here. Even if you were to open your mouth to let out a sound of amusement nothing would come out. It's a frustrating place with no way to vent. You are not hidden in the hole, in fact your are more exposed than ever. The hole is empty, devoid of people, feelings, things, hopes, dreams, aspirations or optimism. Such things burn before anyone has a chance to throw them in. And when you look up to see the faces of the people you know you must love....the depth grows, the faces distort. It seems as if trying to escape only makes it deeper.
          Filling a metaphoric hole step 2, not falling in with you: There you are, like an inanimate doll of yourself propped against the wall. I look down in to what seems a few feet down and your deadened eyes look up showing desperation that would suggest a much further climb. Maybe if i just jumped in and gave you a boost, reached my hand past the line of contentment and into the pit...if only for a moment or two. But there is an uncrossable line. Toeing that line only sends me on an immediate descent into the very same pain. Wondering how I went from the upbeat hopeful helper to just another lifeless doll at the bottom, waiting to drag the next victim down. There is no safe way to approach this hole, but walking away seems like a lonely journey to my own painful prison.
          Filling a metaphoric hole step 3, figuring out what to fill it with that won't bury you: Pitiful smiles, awkward laughter, pointless excursions to places you'd rather not be. They all pile on top like dirt on a casket in a grave. I need fluidity, I need you to float. To comfortably rise above the pain. A pool with sorrow at the bottom that you can rest easily and unweighted upon at the top. What recipe of literal action or words can equal this idealized liquid metaphor? What magical combination will rise you to the top and eliminate the hole for good?
          Filling a metaphoric hole step 4, realizing you can't: There is no guaranteed method, no incantation or ritual to end the cycle. There is only time, patience and love. These are all I have to give and all I believe to have helped despite my desperate attempts and flailing about to "save" you in the past. Perhaps these three seemingly simple offerings will aid in the process, but ultimately it is not my pain to solve, it is not me who is lost, and regrettably I cannot be the answer to a problem I did not cause. If this bottomless pit of despair is to be filled you will find a way, if for no other reason perhaps to float up to me at the top. Because there is no amount of time I won't wait, no test of patience I can't withstand and my love is an all powerful electric force that no pain will ever come close to stopping.

Simultaneous Conflicted Points of View

How Can They Both Be The Truth





Surely I am dying. A cancer or poison or slow working illness is creeping in to finally remove me from a world I don't belong in. It's as if no one has ever felt this before and the loneliness of my pain will eat me alive. I am an embarrassment in all that I do, never able to choose the right words for the right people at the right time. I'll never be enough. Leaving me caught between weeks of trying so hard I exhaust every part of myself and others where I give up entirely. Wishing for death because I'm far too cowardly to consider bringing it to myself. Lying alone wishing to be surrounded by attention I know I don't deserve. Paralyzed between what I want, perhaps need, and what I am too ashamed to ask for. Knowing that I'm ruining everyone and everything that I am responsible for, I have the audacity to keep moving forward. Raising children I have no right to destroy and holding on to a husband that could have had so much more. Even my dog looks at me with eyes of "why me?". Clinging to my contributions that mean nothing to anyone as an excuse to keep dragging them all down. The pain is so real, so physical regardless of how it manifested that way or what emotional state it came from. Look at me, Look at me, Look at me. I beg like an attention hungry child hoping that someone will say something to convince me that there is something to see. My body twists and turns in the mirror like a warped animation. Never giving me a clear concept of what you all see, but somehow despite that uncertain view I manage to convince myself it is bad. Not horrific or disgusting, no exaggerations to deter me and remind me I must be elaborating on what's really there. Just a steady well understood...bad... I want so badly to rest my mind in a place of acceptance on a road to contentment but know all too well that place doesn't exist.


I am a healthy capable woman who suffers from well hidden, yet at times, severe anxiety and depression. Due to many different circumstances through the course of my life I choose to manage this without medical intervention and I am aware that I will be ok. Even with the darkest thoughts I can have I am still more than able to run a household and raise well adjusted children. My husband, while wonderful, is not "out of my league" and I know we each deserve each other. We are equally talented and flawed in separate ways giving us at most times a well balanced relationship. The things I do matter.I make a difference and without me life wouldn't be the same or as fulfilling for several people. We all deserve love and recognition and it's perfectly ok to point out your accomplishments sometimes. My appearance is average. Without the aid of vibrant hair color or eye catching clothes I mostly blend in with a crowd and that is normal and ok. Statistically I am slightly overweight but again, nothing noticeable amongst others. On occasion, if I put forth an effort I may even turn a head and attract positive attention about my appearance. I accept I am aging at a normal pace and everything is as it should be. The aches and pains I experience are relative to my activities or lack thereof. The stereotypical weight in my chest, the tingling in my body and the occasional racing of my heart are merely symptoms of my mental illness and if I'm honest with myself I should seek treatment. The illness itself causes me to second guess that and never take necessary steps. I will likely live a long life and people will recall me fondly when I pass at an appropriate time of a perfectly average cause. 

I am a plague of contagious misery

Waking in the morning to a sky which seems to be perpetually grey becomes a redundant and painful experience that i see you struggle even harder to overcome. I once pitied myself, selfishly assuming this was a weight that only I would ever carry. Time passed by and slowly eroded your stoic ability to remain my strength. Never realizing that with each descent into my pain I dragged you a little closer to that place where you can't climb back. Struggling to keep you alive, not breathing but truly living, it kills me more than anything ever could before. No bleeding wound nor moment of grief would ever compare to the feeling of watching all that i know you to be drain out like sand in an hour glass. Counting down the time until you can't see my love anymore. My fears and delusions run deep in these times, always exaggerating a situation that you can't help but deny and downplay. Electric rage for my own destructive nature beams out of me in a way you can't see but I can't not feel. It burns and it pushes back as I try to contain every curious question. Never allowing me to stifle my need to invade your personal pain. Is this Love? Is this devotion, or obsession or just a self sabotaging cycle I can't help but repeat. I can't answer to that but to say it is real, and intense and even in the best of times it hurts like nothing else....just knowing it can't be that good forever. The mania and wild passion will always have an expiration date and that time seems shorter the more intense the joy becomes. It is truly entering into the greatest love story of all time only to experience the end over and over in a loop that leaves you wondering if the next time it might not come back. What if your smiles all become fake and the deep rooted all consuming pain i endure in response never relents? I'll hold this burning ember of all our anguish calmly in my hand until the next flip of the hour glass. Never without the scar to remind me the sand always runs out.

The line

Like a child testing limits, poking bears that are sure to attack. I push a little further than i know I should each time. heart racing, mouth dried up and hands shaking beyond my control I toe the line of security. Announcing my secrets, airing the clean and dirty as if they were the same. Because there was never a secret that was far from being a lie that would someday be found out. I won't shame my pain to protect the world. I won't smile through my broken soul. We don't tell you "I'm fine" to hide ourselves, it's only to protect you from the awkward moments nobody prefers to experience. You are not my children, I owe you no safety. Pretending to be the type to alter my behavior would be unfair to us all. I've taken on the love of many who in their entire selves don't always please me but I didn't walk away.
        I am stifled, constantly on the edge of the next thing but chained down and unable to leap. Calm on the outside and running circles of shrieking panic inside. Trapped in a cage I built with you and now you're stuck inside too. Some days the sun will shine, the bars seem further apart and the cage seems big enough to stretch our legs...but I dare you to imagine a time when you couldn't at least see the bars in the distance. Knowing you're never truly free of the restraints we've made. Fearing when the sun is not warm and the space gets constricted. Painfully aware that the good is not permanent.
         

What's wrong?

A lesson that I fear I was never taught, most of my questions are better if not asked. Inside of my soul, though it feels like a physical space, there is a box or bottle or designated cavity meant to house the feelings, thoughts and questions that I'm not allowed to indulge in. Many of these things come from a place which I thought was full of good intention and concern for the well being of others. As I'm learning about many facets of myself, I was wrong. The people in my life that would rather I keep these parts of myself in a tidy and concealed space may change over the years. They come, some stay and some go. Sadly I recall that these people that seem to want to smash and destroy a part of who I thought I was, I love or loved each and everyone with every part of my flawed and obnoxious heart. For 31 years I've been a burden to an increasing amount of people. I'm not sure that I'm sorry, but I do know that I feel some sort of pain for that reality. The bottoms of my figurative feet are scarred from the past and bleeding in the present from the miles of eggshells I've walked upon. I bare this pain not for you or them, but for myself. without walking that path I can't fathom the loneliness and loss I would have had to endure. But where does it go? All of my curiosity, concern, inconvenient feelings, can they really just keep filling that bottle or box? Today as I feel a boiling within me, a trembling of unwanted feelings, I wonder to myself (and the rest of you I suppose) is the space getting full? Is this the feeling of it overflowing or simply that I've forgotten how making a deposit to the box of my less favorable traits can burn.