submission(s)

These are some excerpts or short writings, lately

reflecting! and writing! journaling without journals! preparing for another writing class! writing whatever is in my head not meant to be judged or picked apart or sifted through for secret meanings (mom!)

---

Please will u put chains around me (unsexual)

i wish that someone would put chains around my hands to stop me from clawing after whatever will hurt me most.

i can’t be trusted to choose peace when peace is in front of me or choose satisfaction when i’m satisfied or choose joy when i feel joyful. instead im always after anything that will remind me that we are never truly safe in feeling peaceful or satisfied or joyful.

and so id like someone to put chains around my hands. sew up each of my fingers so that i look like im wearing mittens. and glue my arms to the side of my body and my hands to my thighs. that way i can’t try so hard to learn the things i was never meant to learn. with my chained hands and my sewn fingers and my arms glued around me i cant reach for the evidence in the truths that pulsate around my head.

instead all i can do is stand or sit or walk and wonder what it might be like if all those things were true and maybe i’ll cry and maybe i’ll scream and maybe eventually i will be left with the feeling of okay well that’s that, what’s next. and i hope that what’s next is the unsewing of my fingers and the tearing of my arms and the melting of these chains that I asked someone to, please, put around me.

Bed bugs (everyone has been waiting for this )

writing more lately, but writing none at all at the same time because my journals live in bags in the freezer to kill the potential bed bug eggs that might live on them. so they will stay there for another week or so until i can shake the fear of letting myself play stupid for too long.

so i can shake the fear of waking up with bites. so i can shake the fear of friends not talking to me. shake the fear of sleeping alone. of losing all my money. of waking up in an empty room with empty walls.

bed bugs ruined my life. ive been saying it in a funny way. in a lets make light how i let this happen way. in a self pitying way. in a say you’re sorry for me way. let me get away with not working so hard lately. not being a good friend lately.

more angry. more upset. more irritable. saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. or too much all the time. a little drunk, probably, from soaking up overstimulation with cheap wine. i feel like a teenager, one i never really was. like i’m going backwards, making the mistakes i never did before. like being irresponsible. getting mad. drinking every day of the week.

because really the bed bugs did nothing but remind me that im always scared. im always living inside of a psychological shelter i built for myself where i act as if discomfort and being wrong and being scared can’t penetrate. until i have bugs biting me hands and my face and my neck every night

and now im starting to bleed and im still pretending

it’s not happening.

Gay (something softer)

i wonder what my life would have been like if i had known i was gay when i was 15 or 16 or 17. it’s confusing because even when i was 15 or 16 or 17 im not sure that I could have known — i loved love like i always have. i loved connection like i always have. and i loved, more than anything, to be loved. to be accepted. to be praised. to be needed. how would i have known it would feel so much better if i wasn’t trying to do it under some male gaze, really under some social gaze. the type of gaze that only exists in high school, and for many of us into college. both places we are constantly being perceived and picked apart and projected onto over and over again.

my journey into myself is a coming home that reminds me of what it feels like to be a kid again. to act in my desire to be myself without questions. to be silly and crazy and sensitive and gentle. to sing little songs and dance little dances. to stand in the kitchen and put both my feet on top of my girlfriends without even realizing i’m doing it. leaning into the desire to be close.

my mom used to call me her velcro because everywhere she went i would be right by her side. she maybe said it one time, but the memory is locked into my mind like an identity. how wonderful to be someones velcro. to be fastened. unable to shake. safe and secure. perfectly connected. to be me feels like accepting myself as velcro. as having the desire of being close of being loved of being cared for. giving myself permission to let go of my fear and give in to the need to be deeply rooted to the people i love.

queerness has meant a million things and also nothing to me. it answered questions of fear, discomfort, disgust, why things never felt natural. why they might now.

and sometimes they still don’t! and that was confusing too.

but what does make sense is to fall in love. to miss someone. to want to spend every second with them. to feel jealous of everyone who knows their love. to feel scared of loss. to feel excited for more.

what does make sense is that this is so easy. it feels always good and also sometimes really bad and really hard and harder than a lot of other things, and so, that makes sense to me too.

being myself as much as i can as often as i can is all that really matters to me much anymore. its the only thing i really can do and the only thing i’m really good at considering i’ve been doing it for 26 years longer than i’ve done anything else. being loved is still so hard, even when that feels like a need (i.e. water, food, sleep). im not sure how many of us are really truly open to being loved because sometimes i wonder if it is this hard for everyone, why are we all doing it or looking for it or yearning yearning yearning. but that’s a different voice in my head who sometimes i have to ask to take a seat for a minute.

and to come back later please.