— Alejandra Pizarnik, from “Diarios.”

— Narin Grewal

— Lurlene McDaniel, from “Breathless.”

i think i was born wrong. faulty, incomplete. something is inherently wrong with me, and i’m not sure if anything can fix me

I don't feel safe anywhere

i feel like i should just pack my things and disappear and move and never tell anyone anything real ever again. like i never even existed, like my life hasn’t actually happened to me

poems about u pt 2

oil pastel text i created today when i felt not good at all

i try to stop-and-look-around as often as i can. but.

for a long time now, i've just been pushing myself. candle-at-both-ends. late nights, early mornings. telling myself it's just for one more week. for a few more days. a couple more hours. that i can do it while i'm young, that i have an easy life in comparison to others. it always extends itself. the longest reprieve i get is for a few hours - and then it's back on my feet.

i have been crying a lot in my dreams. last night in the middle of one, i heard myself say: i'm just having a hard time right now. i don't have time, energy, or the opportunity for a breakdown. i woke up and forced myself through my paces. i don't feel like i am really drowning yet, just kind of bone tired. i feel like the water is scooping at the bottom of my chin. tantalus; i remain thirsty while barely treading ocean.

i have a really beautiful life. i am always so grateful for it. today i saw an owl in the wild. the other day i saw a black bear waiting to cross the road. on a whim i bought myself a tray of blue cupcakes that say dad! and have been eating them one-by-one, enjoying how they stain my teeth and hands.

i'm not supposed to be sad at this point. i'm supposed to be happy, and young, and doing well. to have joy sound in a ring around in my ribs like a bell, perfect and raw. i try to be kind. i try to look at the world through rose-colored glasses.

i want to lie down. i want to let the ache come up and over the mountain and dig her badger claws into me and lay me under the swamp. i want it to be quiet for once. i want to close my eyes and have no thoughts, no battering ram of noise. i just want to curl up and forget; to rest for a long and serene couple of weeks. maybe longer. i haven't decided yet. i don't want to put another oh, remember in my organizer. i don't want to get out of bed. and fuck every email i have been forgetting to send.

i don't have time to forget. i don't have time to mess around, to fall behind, to slip under. i cannot break down because there simply is too much to do and too much to lose, so i keep shoving all the ache into some dark sewer of my heart and slamming myself into the wall of every day in order to just make it through. in the shower, in bed, while driving to the next thing - all i can do is think oh, don't forget, you've got to remember, there's more to do, when you get there you have to -

there isn't time for the hurt. but i can feel it, is the thing. the snuffling motion behind the door, an animal without name. it will be soft, when it takes me. i know it is learning the latches, slowly. it is waiting for me to slip up just-the-once. it is waiting for me to really feel it, down to my core. it is patient. it is loyal. i saw it in the mirror the other day, and then i looked away before it could rip through the center of my nose.

feeling the ground swell up, her little musical voice: sleep, little one, curl up on the floor. and then i tell her hush. there's no time.

just a couple weeks more.

He kisses me and I am not her. he knows it. I know it too. He touches my shoulder and it does not feel like her shoulder. Mine is more rounded. At least, that is what I imagine. I have never met her. Never touched her shoulder. 

He kisses me and our teeth knock against each other. Sometimes, we are out of sync. It’s difficult to get used to someone else, he offers, gently. His fingers brush against my cheek and I let him. I imagine her cheek, her blush, her mouth. How did she love? How did she love him? I am not her and I am trying not to feel sorry about it. 

Sometimes trying to exist unapologetically is a trial in itself.

In the dark, I wonder if when he looks at me he only sees her absence. Are you okay? He says. I bite my tongue and almost apologise for my existence.

I guess im waiting for love that feels as comfortable as when im alone

— Kristie Betts

when Sharon Olds said "If I pass a mirror, I turn away, I do not want to look at her, and she does not want to be seen."

when Rachel Mckibbens said "It’s okay to wave good-bye to yourself in the mirror. To write, I don’t want anything. It’s okay to despise what you have inherited, to feel dead in a city of pulses. It’s okay to be the whale that never comes up for air, to love best the taste of your own blood."

but then also when Dale Cooper said "I don’t know who I am. We search and search, and always end up looking into the same mirror, at the same reflection, hoping that we will find something different. Heal … heal … heal … heal … heal … heal … heal … heal … heal … heal … heal … heal … heal … heal … heal … please."

— Porochista Khakpour on Learning to Own the Discomfort of the Body

it feels so heavy to breathe

“are u ok?” no but i’m pretty