down on me

that movie was, just what i needed. yes, i had to read the entire time, but it was really, truly motivating. enough of the pity party, at some point we all have to get over it and just move the fuck on.

so, here i sit, trying to reconcile my piss poor parenting with the myriad demands on my time and energy. i keep telling myself, i'm not the first person to go through this. i'm not the first person to attempt this. it can be done.

sometimes, this is not so helpful.

and i've had the personal dramas ongoing through the semester, the stuff i wrangle into words and becomes my poetry. my best friend said to me,

she has to know everything is fair game.

.

because it is. no thing is sacred in the writer's life.

and i just read a poetry book that spoke to me as a mother and person. this famous poet writes about the awkward untouching existence, unemotional existence, the extinguishing of her line, the family that is fading out.

and while, that is not my case, perhaps mine is the opposite, i'm touchy, too emotional, fiercely passionate and deeply in love with the people in my life. all the people who get close enough to me to dodge the flailing arms.

who put up with my bullshit ways, and allow me to put up with theirs.

i came to an understanding in her absence. and i finally articulated it tonight,

you think, perhaps my behaviour is exclusive to you. that i write poems to you, that i act this way to you alone. but my behaviour is exclusive to me. it is who i am.

i think, she understood. who knows.

the best we can do is try. to be present to one another and hope to reach through the bullshit of misunderstanding and fear. that someone will accept what we have to offer, the best we have to offer even if it is miserably shallow and frail. that they can understand the often herculean task of just making it through another day, and hold you in the dark cold of the night and whisper,

it's all right.

.
so often lately i've thought that i need to go off alone and be apart from everyone and everything. that loving is what does me the most harm. that caring is what weakness is.

but then i hear john mayer lauding the merits of love, and maybe it was mraz, both are so similar in my mind--and my morbid optimism rises up in me and i fool myself into believing someone, somewhere needs what i have to offer.

but i'm just so tired of feeling it is all a waste, of time, of energy.

i have bullshit assignments i have to complete. and i will complete them, but they have to come from the place where my waters flow. the depths of me. i have to incorporate these bullshit lessons into something that matters, because i do not write to fill a page. i do not write to get a grade.

so many words are needed at the moment, and my hope is, the well has not run dry. and being down on me is no way to start laboring through all that has need of my attention at the moment.

i may never write another poem, but i will continue to believe in life, in love. and in spite of how poorly i perform, how shitty a job i do mothering this child, that she is best served by my presence, flawed as it is.

it is all i can hope for now.

that somehow it all works out.

how does it?

it's a mystery.