I always fall

for women who don’t want me

like a dog chasing cars,

a child chasing shadows.

I write my love poems

for muses and angels,

nonexistent beings,

glass dreams that shatter

when a strong wind comes,

so I need to forget false hope,

learn to be alone,

place my love in my children,

try to build a house

with a concrete foundation,

and though I may never find happiness

in the glow of another’s eyes,

in the comfort of another’s touch,

maybe I can at least be content.

Maybe the storms will end.

T'was the future held me back

Searching for true love

In the lie of romanticism

I sought the impossible

The more I searched, bullet lists extended

Until all life was eliminated

Reality spoke to me:

I wanted me!

Myself--no one else

But I wasn't enough

I searched for that someone

Who wasn't me

I searched for all the checked boxes

A search miserable and senseless delay

Of important things

A large, ugly toad

Leapfrogging ahead

Postponements I might never catch

Then, at long last

My search distracted by someone

Beautiful inside and out

Soft and kind and

Good to me

Were all boxes checked?

Alas, no

Should I await perfection

The perfect list? or settle?

My epiphany:

The obstacle holding me back

Lifted and making way

Communion with another

A lifelong process, the future reaching back

Into the past, out of order

As if it had always been

Timelines are irrelevant

When ascending above it

A new contender

Conceived in raw material

Tweaked and refined

Melded into a third being

Altogether

A Holy Trinity

If God is love

I turned from Him

Insisting on all of the assinine boxes

Boxes with as much

Relevance to the future

As unicorns

Love--

Between two hermaphroditic beings

--A time to interdigitate

I look back now on my choice back then

One of the great choices of history

Destiny recognized only when destiny realized

The future tethered to a past

Just as loving

Dragged into the present

Forever in the future

Where a priori countered by deja vu

Adds a loving dash of que sera sera

I am deeply grateful for the existence of our ability to forget.

There is no name known for its god in my own culture.

The gods we worshipped were of nature, of justice, of little else than these two fundamentals.

So I will thank that of the Greeks.

Lethe.

Oblivion.

Without you, I may not have had the strength to go on.

It is difficult to crawl into a future you already fear with the weight of past pains crushing your back.

And I will always carry them but

They do not burden me the way I have seen them bear down on others.

I am thankful for it.

She is a river, rushing over me, making me whole again.

Phobos and I have been many imaginary places, seen many things behind our eyes that could never have touched what would come.

But if you keep walking along the wrong path for long enough,

Sometimes pain will take too much hold

And the fear will fade away

And the exhaustion seeps into your bones so thickly -

A weight of bitter tar and the liquid gold the gods shed in battle -

That you have no more option than to give up on defeat and save yourself.

So I thank Lethe.

For the bridges I have washed away in my fragile memory

With her by my side,

Turning the pain into a duller ache

Gently, gently.

I thank her for her devotion to my health, even when I begged for retribution.

Gently, she comes to me.

Draws about me like a soft stream to calm my raging waters.

It is not real, anymore,

She whispers, lulling me into her open arms...

It was then.

And you are here.

And you are with me.

And you are alive.

Gosh. It's been almost a year now I've been out of a job. Thankfully, I finally got an offer after painstakingly applying to hundreds- no- thousands- of them. This was a particularly difficult time in my life because I had always been one to "achieve" if you will. Get good grades, go to a good college, have good mental health, have a group of friends, etc. These expectations for how my life should look made me feel trapped. By consistently reminding myself of all that I had done wrong to end up here, I could no longer look to the possibilities of the future. My locus of control was all out of control. These thoughts, mirrored by my parents words, created a cyclical effect that led to my usual optimism drying out as well as my confidence in myself drained.

Funnily enough, I don't necessarily feel better now that I have a job. Maybe it's because I haven't started it yet or because this headspace is my "new normal," but I think shame continues to play a role in my perceptions of myself and the world. I am having a hard time fully crossing that bridge onto the next, not knowing how to leave it behind. Clinging to these negative feelings about myself, holding onto that torch that will light that bridge, waiting for something, anything but the sound of mine own.

Maybe this was the hedonic treadmill forewarned. I have reached my destination, but my mind stays the same. To let go I must investigate why I don't want to let go. I suppose it is the feeling of fear-- that if I stop reminding myself how poorly I performed in this past year, I will slip into low productivity. That if I believe I am not good enough then I could never be great. Despite this deeper feeling, I know this is a great fallacy in thinking. I must yet again consider myself an entrepreneur of life, riding on self-created winds and not get blown away by a dust devil off my path.

i'm scared to forget these things

the pains that migrate from brain to body

and always back for the winter

i'm scared if i don't remember

that i will forget to be cautious

i'm careful with everything i do

i handle life delicately and kindly

i'm not sure if it's nature or nurture

and i don't know if it's good or bad

i think i want it to be bad

so that i have an excuse to hurt something

to be reckless with something

and save some care for myself

to scream that i'm fragile and hear nothing back

none of this will be good enough

my own standards are too high

and i know somewhere deep that it's a mix

it is my best nurturing from my mother

and my worst nature from god

to sit on the forest floor for a while

and allow the progress to stop

bridge after bridge is ahead of me

and a thousand fires for me to bleed on

let me sit in the moss for a day

and suck the venom out of my leg

'Not all scars show, not all wounds heal' - Lisa French.

That was her quote for the week. She wasn't much of a philosophical person, but with a lot of time on your hands, a lot of things can change. She closed her eyes.

'Yes.'

'Time changes everything'.

She just had to keep reminding herself.

She should have expected it. Nothing good ever lasts long. It was like she was back to when she was just five years old and her mother left. Or that one time her bike got stolen after she had just gotten it the week before. But she thought this time would be different. That they were perfect. That he was perfect.

Her heart still fluttered at the thought of him. His baby blue eyes that made everything else lose their luster when they brightened up. His messy auburn hair that refused to conform to the whims of the owner. His melodious laugh that displayed his white, perfect teeth for all who cared to look.

She adjusted her position on the couch, eyes still glued to the screen. It was a drama this time. (No more thrillers, not after him). She watched the female lead crying, shouting at her partner. Screaming for him to come back.

'Pathetic'. She thought.

Just like her.

She snuggled closer to the blanket she was holding. It was the one with their initials on it. She had done it after watching a few embroidery videos. It looked terrible. But he told her he loved it anyways.

'E&B ', It read

She traced her fingers over the tacky, golden needlework. It still had his scent. His favourite cologne to be precise. The one he got just after-

'No-' , She stopped.

She had left the doors of her heart wide open and let him into her world. But all he did was burn it to the ground and leave her to deal with the ashes and the choking smell of perfume.

She threw the blanket away. She would not give him the satisfaction. She glanced at the TV again. This time the female lead was in the arms of her partner who as apologizing and comforting her.

'I would always love you and nothing can change that', he said.

She turned her head. She had made her choice and she wasn't going to look back.

'I would never, ever, leave you'.

She curled up and cried.

Those freaking fur shedding hyperactive cats that I begged my parents to have a year ago as a counter for my random impulse to shot myself on the head.

That's what holds me back.

Or maybe I am the one that holds me back for making a plan to oppose my own, and for desiring to have a pet that would scratch my thighs and jump over my shoulder to claw on.