I don’t have a working title yet and frankly I don’t want to rush one or reveal it until it feels right. All I know right now is that I’ve been working through and with a lot of themes regarding mental health and cyclical patterns since my therapy session a few days ago and an interesting few poetry workshop sessions. So expect a lot of new work to do with circles and cycles! Maybe ellipses, too…hmm…
I do love a good ellipse.
There might be a poem in there, too. I really am quite eccentric (ha!)
I have some phone calls to make and I didn’t get much sleep last night since I was up until almost dawn watching Netflix – and not working – tragically, but I haven’t had access to my shows for weeks, so a good binge was in order.
More tomorrow. I’ve gotta run before my energy runs out and I lost my nerve.
at this time of day I could be anything as the inky blue remainder of the night holds me like a child. instead, I find I want to be nothing and everything but myself. I only pray I spend it well and that I am good company. not angry, but soft and gentle. my mask falls off because I don't have to dance for the eyes that do not watch me now and my hands and body are the right kind of firm and strong, if only for now.
at this time of day I want to be a good houseguest, a silent ghost, a near fugitive, stealing soft across the floor, taking in the joy of the wee hours of the morning like the thief I was always told I was growing up, but flipping the script this time. 5:46 keeps me safe from prying eyes and I keep its silence sacred in return as I would a lover, nurturing the ideas it gives me and even cherishing the hum of the fridge in the next room and the slow creaks of the house as the melodies they are. this time of day has always woken me gently, and I am remembering how to hear the music of the world again.
Hello, everyone. I want to preface this by saying that I have absolutely no fucking clue where this is going. I started a draft of this post in the Substack app, but the links were being odd, so I am starting over from the web editor and seeing where the night takes me.
For starters, I was really, really fucking pissed off at the state of the world, and still am. I was at the tail end of a five year and some long divorce process that I address in the poem “the jailer”, and I was stuck in a deep flow state, often in the wee hours of the morning, screaming my thoughts out on paper, kinda like I’m doing now.
I felt like everything in my life was in shambles, and, desperate to regain some internal sense of control, I wrote like my life depended on it. I’ve written my way out of holes like that for years.
I’m also often up for most of the night most nights doing what the fuck ever, whether I’m writing rambles like this, crafting zines like easy to hate, catching up on messages, watching shows, or reading fluffy fanfics. It feels like a fuckload is expected of me during the day, I go nonstop, and the wee hours of the morning is the only time I get to myself to just…be and have time to do whatever I want and actually feel like I have time to be a functional person. Nobody needs me at 2:27 AM (the time I’m writing this), and if they do need me, I know it’s truly dire. In a time when I still feel like I have very little agency over my life, this is heaven.
I think I’m gonna leave y’all with a few lines from “20 January 2025”, one of my favorite poems from easy to hate:
"I hail from the hellfire that raised me and the shadows that granted me solace Black as the Pit from pole to pole And I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul."
Go forth and carve some time out to relax today. It’s rebellion.
I see, I hear, I learn, I bend myself in pretzel knots and unfold my mind longhand
I traded the fire and brandy autumn leaves for you and instead we squeeze every drop of juice we can from this town with gusto and verve.
I might die tomorrow as my hand cramps and my heart races in time with the drums in the gallery, but in this moment, I couldn’t be happier.
I grew up with these sounds, asking myself if silence was indeed the question, peering through twelve bars and howling over blizzards (January 21st, 2016 comes to mind)
I became louder than choirs, louder than bombs, louder than death itself
but with you, I learned to cherish the silence cherish the vulnerable, unfiltered drop my volume, drop my sword, my armor, my fire and here, in this town, with you in this gallery, I see, I hear, I learn.
