Sick Twisted Gifts

These last months have been painful.  I’ve often felt like a human doing a very poor impression of a butterfly. Unused to this kind of vast and unrelenting change. Unable to form a proper cocoon, and feeling utterly inadequate because of it. I live in a city, but I also live inside of my room, and my kitchen, and some days all of the restrictions are so tight I want to tear my own head of in protest. And some days I don’t feel them at all, because I’m off far far away from them. This among many other increasingly ridiculous and none ideas, is why I have started this blog. Because this kind of pain collects, it gathers and with it comes sick twisted gifts.

“where do you go?”

“lots of places, the tear in my hand, some days a beach.”

  “what beach?”

“one with sand, and waves and far far away from everything”

“are you alone there?”

“sometimes, mostly I’ll run into things on my way.”

“people?”

“sometimes.”

The anxiety is there, but I don’t like calling it that, so we’ll call it something else,

“like what?”

“I don’t know. Like Diane? “

“already taken”

“two entities can have the same name you know,”

“hmmm, just seems a bit lazy is all”

“fine, how about hopeless butterfly?”

“it’s odd, pretensions, yeah okay”

The hopeless butterfly is strong at night, and when I feel like it shouldn’t be around. But my breathing is better, and I feel safe most days. It’s getting easier but not better. Because sometimes the things you want most to evolve, don’t. or more accurately don’t on your timeline, but on their own.

Like so much of the taboo, people will pick and choose parts that are palatable and spit out aspects that aren’t, “you feel depressed today? Oh that’s okay” “you haven’t left your house in a month and your still depressed, your fucked” “mental illness” another word I don’t like.

“what about calling it modified eyesight?”

“too long”

“what’s wrong with mental illness?”

“it’s not an illness, makes it sound like were rotted, and broken”

“aren’t you?”

“yeah, but there’s more too it, it’s a sick twisted gift”

“twisted gift?”

“that could work”

An old therapist described it as a gift wrapped in duct tape, hard to open but once done, twice as rewarding. This twisted gift is another thing romanced by mass media. It’s relatable to those who don’t experience the most crippling parts of it.  Only romantic until you’ve been awake for too long and you can’t breath and your shaking, hard. When it stops you from living in the same way as others can, when enjoyment and fun become difficult, because there are no happy hopeless butterflies.

“what’s the secret!”

“there is no secret”

“that’s no fun, can I guess?”

“be my guest”

“the secret is it isn’t supposed to be, happy I mean, like there is no romance to panic attacks and hyperventilation but why are we looking for it anyways? ”

“go on”

“it seems people seek their whole lives for this thing called happy, they watch it in movies, they read about it and talk about it, but then while they lie on their death bed they wonder, did I get it? Seems like a waist”

“that’s’ a bit harsh, most people aren’t awake, it’s easier to be happy when your asleep”

“but that’s the problem, no? it isn’t supposed to be easy, all the full stuff the shit that’s meaningful, and wide. It’s all hard, painful, terrifying and time consuming”

“hmmmm”

“did I get it! I did didn’t I!”

Now more than ever in a global pandemic I find myself craving change, and then it comes and it’s so completely detrimental to me,

“So, what do you do when things change, and you don’t want them too?”

“you cry, and then it happens again”

“that’s maddening”

“it’s a sick twisted gift.” 

Here in this blog, in this space I allow and implore you to let some of your twisted gifts show, only when you feel safe enough to let them be seen. We will be waiting.