really really loud

i am currently in a writing class on loneliness! if you are finding that zibborazzi lately is sadder than usual (surprise!) it might be because 1. i too experience a world of emotions and one of them is sad! or 2. im deep diving into loneliness as a tool for creative engagement. maybe it hasn’t seemed different at all!

anyway, this is a further developed exploration of a prompt from class. <333

p.s. if you are feeling lonely today or any day — i see you! we can be lonely together & all will be well <3

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what does your loneliness say?

My loneliness can be really really loud.

although, it speaks in a whisper

what does this mean about you?

your value?

who will be there to take care of you?

are you lovable? can you be sure?

My loneliness likes to remind me that It is my problem and that It is an issue for me to resolve.

My loneliness likes to remind me that it’s not going away.

loneliness asks if i’d like relief

and if i nod, which i do,

it offers two options:

1. need no one

2. find all necessary evidence

   1. does everyone hate me?

   2. is everyone quietly plotting to leave me one day?

i don’t think that my loneliness likes itself much.

i think it’s afraid of itself. something i can understand.

afraid of what might happen if we all leaned too far into loneliness. would it be obsessive? and addictive? and incapable of releasing us? and so eventually would all we experience be loneliness or aloneness?

my loneliness wonders that sometimes.

my loneliness says prove me wrong. patronizing. show me the evidence. give me your worst. do your dirtiest.

loneliness laughs sometimes. it smirks at me and says, no really please, convince me that you are not lonely. that lonely is not who you are.

lonely is never how i feel. only who i am.

and when loneliness is in the conversation, anxiety is next door. or on speed dial. or already on the other line.

always with answers.

remember this? remember that?

it speaks quickly. not even trying to hide it’s own fear of being drowned out by loneliness. urgently. gutturally. anxiety has a job it’s not sure it’s qualified to do.

remember who called you? who chose you?

remember that you’re actually an unaware idiot? my favorite unreliable narrator. (soothing) you’re silly. remember. can’t be trusted. remember? (coos).

Anxiety likes to tell me that nothing I believe is real or true.

so, not to worry. you don’t feel lonely. you can’t feel lonely. not with all this love. alone-ness just can’t be possible. what you feel is wrong. (shhhh)

loneliness doesn’t like itself much. but loneliness likes anxiety even less.

if i were to respond to my loneliness and to my anxiety in the way that my therapist might like me to, it might sound a little different.

i might ask, when told that i am alone,

well okay and so what?

im supposed to ask myself so what a lot. that’s hard.

i guess i might say yeah you are alone. or you’re by yourself. but yourself is many iterations of self i suppose.

and so in that way you’re not really alone.

i might wonder about who inside of me is so afraid of being alone. the face of anxiety.

she can be a different iteration every time. younger. older. future me. yesterday me.

whoever it is i might ask to speak more, closely.

and so i might imagine myself on my childhood bed in the room with its lavender walls that i painted the day before my first day of high school.

and i might imagine myself, 26, sitting next to myself, the one with the face of anxiety, and i might reach out my hand and i’d ask to hold hers.

and together we might rest there and i might tell her that i’m here. i might try to look into her eyes if i can.

and i might let her be sad and be scared and be unsure. i’ll let her not recognize me and i’ll let myself not recognize her. but we’ll both know the truth.

she’s me. i’m her.

and in that way even when im alone im not alone because at least those two people are inside of my body all the time even when i don’t recognize either of them as the same and they don’t see eachother very clearly either.

but when the two of us are sitting together like that, in the back of my mind, in my stomach, in my heart, anxiety might feel quieter.

and loneliness might feel held.