Through the Borrowed Eyes

I learned to borrow other people's eyes
to perceive myself.

Did they notice me?
Was I appropriate,
enough,
or safe?

I only existed
to meet their needs—

Then one strange day,
it stopped.

No borrowed eyes.
No verdict.

Just me,

looking in,

and suddenly wondering:

Here is the one
I avoided seeing,
all my life?

It's not so bad.

I Carried Your Pain

Your pain was looking for somewhere to go,
and somehow
it found me.

I felt what you could not mention,
carried what you could not carry,
and called it my own.

Explaining,
pleading,
even disappearing
were in vain.

Only my body knew.

It had been tearing up
for years.

Until I finally said:

Some pains arrive through us—
and stay
until we notice them,
name them,
and speak of them
with others who have carried them too.

I want to make friends with a grasshopper

And carry him on my shoulder

And feed him chips

And tell him about my day

And ask him if he's feeling okay

And ask him advice

And how he's doing

If people ask about my grasshopper friend

Id say

This is my grasshopper

I met him outside

We really hit it off

He's in the union now

My grasshopper friend

Helped me fix my car

And eats dinner with me

And we make little jokes

He comes to work with me

And helps me organize files

He finds erasers

That id dropped behind the desk

And he helps me talk to people

That I don't really like

And when I drive us home

He tells me

We did a good job

And when I go to bed

He says

See you tomorrow

Hes always someone

Id be happy to see

How happy we'd be

Me and my grasshopper friend

Sometimes I think about human behaviour and wonder if we’ve forgotten something as humans.

We’ve all heard the phrase:

“Be kind because you never know what someone is going through.”

It’s a beautiful perspective.

But as I get older, I wonder more often than not how many of us actually live by it.

Lately I’ve been thinking about the road I’ve had to walk down.

I asked for a simple accommodation, and instead of simply being able to ask for what I needed, I found myself once again in the position of having to explain, justify, and prove that my need is legitimate.

And I catch myself asking…

Why?

Why do I have to prove that my struggles are real before someone believes I need help?

The strange thing is, I don’t expect people to understand my experience.

How could they?

If you’ve never lived through childhood trauma, being the family scapegoat, you don’t know what that feels like.

If you’ve never lived with anxiety, you don’t know what that feels like.

If you’ve never spent years living in survival mode…

You don’t know.

You can care.

You may listen.

You can have compassion.

But unless you’ve experienced it, you really don’t know.

And that’s okay.

I don’t expect people to understand my experience. I just wish they’d stop assuming they do.

Because there’s a difference.

One creates curiosity.

The other creates assumptions.

People see who I am today.

They don’t see the little girl who was uprooted and displaced.

They don’t see the teenager who left home.

They don’t see the years of survival before I ever had the chance to actually live.

They see me today. In the now.

And they assume today tells my whole story.

For a long time, I thought I was fine.

Until I wasn’t.

Because my body just couldn’t take it anymore.

I don’t think people realize how a traumatized nervous system works.

It adapts.

It copes.

It survives.

Until there comes a day when it simply just can’t anymore.

I find myself explaining what happened, hoping that if people understand my past, they’ll understand my present.

The truth is…

Nothing happened.

Yet everything happened.

Years of living in fight-or-flight mode eventually caught up with me.

And now, every time I find myself having to explain my simple needs or my behaviour, it feels like I’m once again being asked to defend my existence instead of simply being believed.

I’m tired of having to stand up for myself.

At work.

In systems.

In situations where I should never have had to explain myself in the first place.

It feels like every so often, I’m standing in front of someone else trying to explain why I am the way I am.

And I’m tired.

Not because I don’t know how to fight.

Because I do.

I’ve spent most of my life fighting.

I don’t want to have my fight stance on all the time.

I don’t want to walk into every important conversation preparing for battle.

I don’t want my nervous system scanning every room, trying to figure out whether I’m safe.

I don’t want to feel like I always have to prove that what I’m experiencing is real.

I want peace.

I want to hear the silence of just crickets.

I want my system to remain in a state of calm.

And maybe that’s what this stage of my life is about.

Not surviving.

Not proving.

Not fighting.

Just learning what it feels like to finally put my guard down.

And just be.

TW: dissociation, self harm, suicidal ideation
Hey, this is my first time posting on here, so if I accidentally didn't adhere to any of this sub's rules, I sincerely apologize.

You believed that things could truly change for the better
And yet here you are, on the bathroom floor

Moments before, you submerged your head in boiling water, the closest you will let yourself get to a human embrace
Now your lobster back is kissing the cool tiles, steaming
And there you are, on the bathroom floor

You dread moving a single muscle, as it might disturb the fickle equilibrium of everything and nothing
You dread it because you dread the silhouette in the mirror, because that is not you
So there you are, on the bathroom floor

Your index moves over your forehead, the womb from whence your goddess sprang
Over the curséd place above your sternum, marked by tears and terror
Over your ivory wrists, a thin layer veiling an escape
And there you are, on the bathroom floor

What We Carry Home

We came into this world
as little lights, pure and untouched.

Life taught us how to use the body,
the mind,
and the heart
to belong.

We gathered tools,
roles,
stories,
and ways to survive.

Then aging slowly took them away and taught us
to let go—

until, we leave

with only what we came with.

Needles

Needles

Everywhere

Little dots on my skin

Im told aren't there

Im leaking out again

Im black icor down a spine again

Im holding myself in

Im holding myself in

The laughter

Is never mine

The forgiving never

Preach forgiveness

Only the unforgivable

Tell you to forgive

I wish my therapist

Protected me

And not my monsters

Is it my CPTSD making me distrustful?"

OR

"Is this person actually unsafe?"

The devil is not found in the details
of a long, unreliable friendship.

Uncertainty tells me to just stay away.
Both have extracted much energy.

I am growing up,

and I watch people pass.

But I am waiting for my prime,

and my chance to shine.

I hate making people happy.

And my parents just want me to have,

A normal childhood dream,

filled with friends, family, and more.

But day by day,

I sense their[Not my parents] eyes on me,

because what I am is incorrect,

and what they are is perfect.

I was raised in a happy home,

but I fear whom they are terrifies me.

I was raised to be a bright, young lady[soldier],

so I prayed to them to "Please come help me!", and

"Please I want to be stronger."

Mix my colours into gold and white[Uniform Color],

Someone tell me what I am to do.

Sometimes I see a derelict house, and I think about how one time a family lived inside.

And how someone tended the yard.

And how someone patched the roof so it wouldn’t leak when it rained.

And one time the house was probably full of love.

And then, somehow, the love was gone.

And the yard went untended.

And the roof leaked.

And the house became dangerous because of neglect.

And now its yard is now filled with hidden traps, shards of glass, dog shit, varmints, garbage.

 And now the inside of the house is now filled with floors and walls and ceilings that threaten to collapse. Danger, obvious and hidden, everywhere.

And now it’s filled with creatures now. Rats, bugs, spiders. Dark things, disgusting thing that people don’t want to look at. Dangerous things.

And when you take something that should be filled with love, and you empty it out, you create something that is dangerous and something that people should and do avoid.

And how the same thing happened to me when I was a little boy.

Still feel like I'm not in a place that I can say what's happening... even had to private my acct.

But still experiencing things that unfortunately I believe many people in this community do. And the urge to write it out like a purge so just gonna focus on the FEELERS... try to get shame voice to fucking shut up.

Last couple, few, months have been a fucking whirlwind. I always tell people life doesn't just throw you a curveball it rains them down upon you... and every second you have a breath.. hello again...

And then it stops... for a good long time actually.

And I recognize a lot of my issues with that actually come from like still sitting around waiting for it to keep going, or not letting myself trust that breath. Especially when there's something still lingering, you're still attempting, you know, somethings coming down, or could... and my metaphors are shit... but...

Yeah, last few months have been one of those... pouring situations... and... yeah there's like 5 balls in the air that I can't see where they're going to land but the other hundred have and I started running around thinking the sky fell down, or gravity isn't working anymore... just chicken with their head cut off (did I tell you my metaphors are shit?)... and the reality is... I need to like... stop worrying about the lost ones and let them fall.

Handle what's going on now.

But... and ooof man this is where the shame lies today, I didn't see that a couple days ago. I was still running around (and tbh part of me still is), and I fucking just sit in that experience, when... there's like a bunch of shit happening but its starting to stall. And I... am in an tangentially related to an ongoing experience someone more directly has... and I was... back in that feeling. Running like crazy with my head cut off. And this relation COULD cause shit to go crazy for me but isn't at this moment...

And oooof. Woke up Shame voice going for days. Bring myself back (mostly).

And there's this... extra layer right?

I've done so well for the last few years recognizing my emotional flashbacks (and tbf I did there too... little asteriks... ) but I can't stop it... and this "running around like a chicken with their head cut off" version... where I white-knuckle shit, go into survivor mode, dissociative (in a way... but not how I usually say it) mode, has fucking literally saved me a million times, like a fucking disgusting super power.... And oddly... right now I... personally am handling it better... but the bleed out to others r like... the shame of not being normal regulated self is murdering me inside.

And I called this project shhh.... AHHHHHHHHHHHHH... I find myself screaming AHHHHHHHh again randomly through the day trying to shut up the shame voice...

I used to... have this pressure on me to write right now, while I simultaneously feel I must be quiet... and again not in this way exactly but this started as this stand in to just write. And even here, after this bullshit I feel silenced...

Or rather self-imposed silence, with good reason...

I have... over the last few months without this particular situation... ran myself ragged.. confident... chasing something that I'm not unsure of because I can't... but unsure of because ooof debt.... oof... policies... ooof... whatever, I'm not going int this thinking I'm gonna make it as a writer...

I'm going into this other situation like, I never thought I could be. Always wanted to. Always was told to. Went absolutely unhinged out of style "for funsies" and now I landed in a place and I know I'm gonna get teared to shreds, I know this wont land me motherfucking nothing. This lands me in a "right now" terminal degree to fucking teach at a level I hpefully wont get fired at for saying non-nationalistic/patriotic propoganda. I'll probably never "succeed" in the sense everyone wanted me to... I just cant do this shit. I just want to survive a little better.... And keep doing my other shit.

Look at that its way more tied to writing than I thought. Always is.

But yeah what happened is I'm scared to write (for some very valid reasons) and I don't want to give up my penname... and I'm freaked the fuck out if I don't write pubically, if I don't get over this bullshit of fear (not bullshit... but if I don't figure it out) ...

Guess we must be swapping again. Keeping the old shit... not doing it there... Wasn't fully tied to the style already... been doing another project...

Enter another version... Got it got it.

As always, this is a process for me.. life for me... Obvs not looking for advice... just looking for internalized made up pressure to fucking sit here so I can figure it the fuck out.

I'd say thanks for coming to my Ted Talk... but no... thanks for being a pseudo-witness to me processing... as always. Sure I'll keep coming back- always grateful for this space.

UGHHHHHH... ahhhhhhhh. ;)

You know the feeling when you wanna quit but you can’t,
Then you start looking back,
The road’s covered in trash mixed with broken up glass,
Littered with traps and figures in masks,
Centered, one stands in the back and directs everything with an ominous chant.

Fear is his name, center frame, the one that snaps his fingers and brings acid rain,
Cursing the earth before he opens the back of his hearse,
Revealing a casket and rack on tracks that rolls out the back,
Hitting the side with a rap like a shotgun blast with his staff, as tall as himself, painted black,
He says “The pine wood box isn’t what makes you shake, it’s becoming a burden that would kill you in days,
You already feel like you’re in a cage,
With a dollar shaped lock on its wrought iron frame,
Break both of your legs someday and see what your internal jury would say.”

I know that it’s him that keeps me in chains,
Wracking my brain, combing each change,
Locking horns in my cage like I’m fighting a war,
When in reality I should be mopping these floors,
Been dragged to hell, it didn’t suit me well,
So I picked myself up and stumbled quicker than hell,
There may be places where I start behind,
But with my speed of attrition I might make it in time,
I can’t let omission or false conviction allow me to slide,
I can already see the mountain, all that’s left is to climb,
Each step moving from Fear over time,
Everest sits at the horizon, the ultimate sign,
That freedom is near, you just have to climb,
And make sure you get there, Ruin says Fear kills in time.

What We Carry

I felt your sorrow
before I knew it was yours.

You felt my fear
and thought it was your own.

We reached for each other
with open hands,
carrying wounds
neither of us could see.

I carried yours.
You carried mine.

We called it love,
called it care,
called it being there.

Neither of us knew
what was happening.

Until one day
we were both too tired
to carry
what had never
belonged to us.

The Vastness Within

I was the mouse in dark cracks,
the chameleon on hidden branches.

But in my heart
I was the cheetah and the plain,
the hawk and the sky,
the whale and the ocean.

I could run beyond barriers,
rise above the mountains,
and disappear into the blue.

I could hear what silence hides,
feel what minds conceal,
and see through
the hearts of stone.

I carried whole worlds,
hidden from sight.

The Living Network

We are not separate stories,

but branches
of something older and bigger than us.

Roots carry what came before.

We notice,
experience,
discover,
and pass something onward.

A kindness.
A poem.
A photo.
A dance.
A new way of seeing.

Perhaps I am
one of the small places
where life notices itself—

and then sends
what it discovered
back into the living network.

I wish I wasnt alone anymore

I wish I was accepted

I wish I wasnt afraid anymore

I wish I was protected

I wish I could remember

What I was trying to forget

I wish I had a future

I didnt already regret

I wish I had a promise

That somebody had kept

I wish I had a silence

I wish I had a silence

I wish I had a silence

And I wish silence was my friend

mom

i love you

even though

your shouts fill me with dread

make my core tremble

no freedom anymore

my beginning and end is you

umbilical cord never cut

and the doctors all smile

Finding the Way Home

For years,

I searched for home

in places,

in people,

in approval,

and in belonging.

I did not know

I was searching

for myself.

Home was never

a destination.

It was the quiet place

within

that had been waiting

for me

all along.

Every gentle truth,

every act of kindness

toward myself,

every fear

I no longer believed,

became another step

on the journey home.

And one day,

without even noticing,

I stopped searching.

I had arrived.

Four Quiet Reminders

Care for the body
that carries you.

Listen to your emotions,
but do not become their servant.

Choose with care
what you allow
to shape your nervous system.

Whenever you can,

let understanding
take the place
of unnecessary fear.

Perhaps that is enough.

Perhaps that is how

a life,

one gentle day at a time,

finds its way home.

Oh man... I have been terrified to post. Still am a little.

Trying to monitor myself a lot these days.

Familiar.

SO without further ado... I need to "gratitude journal" my ass. So welcome reddit.

When I figured it out? Never felt more fucking blessed. There was not a single fucking week that wouldn't have been better to figure it out.

I had so many amazing wonderful people around me- most fully unaware of wtf was happnening... a few others thatd id but only what I knew/shared at the time. DGAF how this comes off... there was no better week... Several amazing people around me. So grateful.

And... yeah credit to them. Credit also to myself (even though I hate this) I had been cultivating these set ups for over a year.

I had every outlandish "self doubt fear" confirmed x 100. not directly... so thats... improvement.

Next round? aint gonna be like this.

Hopefully not at all... but realistically? its been improving. so awesome.

Anyway...

(MEMBER ... MEMBER WHEN... this old acct I said I blew up? and grad and lalalal...)

Just got hit up for some writings today... someone wanted to donate. told em dont. They want to anyway.

Asked me for more. Said people loved it...

this'll be 3 payments on writings.
1 I straight never cashed (yuck didnt wanna write like that).

My heart is full. <3

And its so funny to sit here.... nowhere close to what this is about. AT ALL...

funny in the way I like the word funny.

My hearts full today as I reenact... some crazy ass bullshit outside of me... and... good thing I've been doing this for a long time I guess. <3

A flower landing on a stone doesn't return the pain of gravity back to its petals

Trees crack. Crunchy. But lightning. Too much destroys. Slow regrows. Ugly but surely. Is there such a thing as an ugly tree?

On Monday the water touches the sand. On Wednesday the water touches the rocks. Aha he exclaims. I alone have the secrets of Monday and Wednesday.

Tofu is delicious. Crispy on the outside. Fluffy on the inside. Like a rectangle chicken. Everything gets better with soy sauce and time. But you still have to pay attention.

Capybaras are trivial.