nerve endings can be dulled. did you know this? and your body can rebel against you.

we can create pathways and tread them and retread them over and over until they are engraved into the tectonics of our brains.

like a dried up river bed.

it’s crazy that he’ll do that.

life has no explanations.

I am made. I am a gristle of skin grafts of my shame.

on and on; the universe growing and informing. it tells me to accept the facts as plain.

there is a boredom here. an observation, a tiredness with the same

behaviors. I noticed it as I was doing. I suppose the universe would

tell me that the more interesting way is to face it

head on and metabolize the instance. the infractions on my

grafted skin.



I am here in my red dress because I have come to rely on another.

And I know this is too much to bear. So I am here. I do not think

she wants to be there for me right now. I have inferred this through

message frequency, instigating party, and degree of effusiveness.

My life, somehow, is sadder than hers. I know that this is insulting to

both of us, but it is true. I know that it is incredibly selfish to feel sorry for

myself and nothing more. I cannot help it. Place the tab of shame on my tongue

and watch it dissolve, please. So I will give her space. I will christen myself with

a dosage of unmercy. Immersive. Peace.



A sour amalgam of bile hits my core. It spreads and calcifies. Blood-pumping

systems work overtime to keep this thing alive. Do I want, or am I just a feature

of this range? Help me analyze. I’m doing really bad, and I could use some help,

but it seems like you maybe can’t do that right now. I feel bad for asking it of you.

I do not want that to be all this is. I don’t know how to be anything else. This is why I

try not to do this in the first place, you know that. You know this. How much help would it

be, anyway? What could you really say? It is not a matter of words. No great mountain of

smarts can change what I am dealing with. It needs simple. Care and acceptance, sympathy,

and it has to come from me. It has to come from me. Care is not coming. Care is not coming.

Care is not coming.



Can you do that? Can you fucking do that? Can you just give that to yourself for once?

Can you just be different? Be different. You fuck. Be different. I don’t care that you don’t feel

it. I don’t care that you don’t think you can. Can you just force it? Can you just make it fucking

happen so I don’t have to think about it anymore? Jesus Christ. I’m sick of you. Yeah, yeah,

the body cries out, we double over, the bile rises, we think we’re going back to it, it’s over,

she doesn’t want to see this, she doesn’t want to see this because you expect her to be able

to do something with it and that’s unfair of you because it’s not like you can either! You’re just

another way to prove the same theory. We know the answer already. So can you just fucking do it?

What is wrong with you? Why do you expect anything from anyone? Why do you give it over

like you’re limp and a ragdoll? You know it has to come from you. Anyone who says otherwise

clearly has not had the privilege of having it given over to them. That’s not the point. You know that’s not the point.

The point is that you have a better handle on it so that you can show them without obligating them.

That way they can do care and sympathy and all that other shit without feeling like they need to.

Fucking dimwit.

You need to show that you’ll be okay. You need to do it by your own hand. You’re falling behind. Do better!

Fight back!



there’s something after this, probably. some instance with a post-prefix. like maybe it isn’t

all so serious. you really are so damn serious all the time. and maybe you deserve care

or something because everything deserves care. or something. and maybe he wants it.

wanted it. have we considered whether he wants it? maybe he wants it. maybe it feels like

love to him. maybe it feels like acceptance. maybe he’s wrong for that. maybe he’s so simple

a creature that he exists outside the fabric of wrong and helpful and moral and false and true.

maybe he’s not so concerned with that. maybe he wants it all the time. maybe the floodgates

are open, the tectonics shifted, the mountain range set in place. maybe you can’t make him

otherwise. is there a way to take him healthily? or is that folly. doesn’t it feel wrong to presume

that there’s something to grow out of? that he must be funnelling a projection of traumatized

feeling into this behavior? are we not then projecting? maybe he just is. maybe he’s wonderful

and loving and we can just accept him for that.



not for public consumption