athousandmorningss

[athousandmorningss]

no one can ever accuse me of being a hard worker.

#Got about 2 days of laboring in me #And then I rest

[athousandmorningss]

my boyfriend has another person he's been seeing that he met before me. last night we were talking about her and he told me it's kind of been petering off--they both have opposite schedules and rarely see each other. i had a response that surprised me: i said "but you like her! i'm so sorry! you should try talking to her about it!"

i had no idea that i was capable of working through my own tendency toward jealousy and possessiveness in light of wanting my partner to be happy. huh.

#we keep growing and evolving over here #this is the least obsessive i've been about any relationship #probably because it's non-monogamous #and he's fucking wonderful communicative and deeply affectionate

[athousandmorningss]

Abundance of babies

#A pet blog

[athousandmorningss]

curious; challenged;delighted;intrigued;perpetually turned on.

#Man #💦💦🥵 #Ppl are sooooo interesting

[athousandmorningss]

Signs of aging include greying hair making its way into my bangs and neck wrinkles. What a startling, scary, wonderful things to bear witness to these changes.

#Being an aging woman is at once liberating and scary

[athousandmorningss]

A cat and her pillow.

#I got the best kitty in the world man #She's having a busy day

[athousandmorningss]

Emily Skaja, from Brute (Graywolf Press, 2019)

Aubade with Boundaries

You think you can choose to remember our story                                   however you want it. That you can run up your flag

                          & say True Love Lost & we’re even.

Even the whiskey, even the salt we licked from the table                                   won’t return us to our roles of wanted & wanting.

                           In an argument, it is better to be drunk than to be right.

When you screamed at me You don’t know everything about me                                 there was snow melting on my hair;

                           we were blackout drunk in a ladies toilet.

Black sharpie under the mirror commanded me                                  UNFUCK YOUR HOLE LIFE.

                          I couldn’t stop drying my hands. I was saying I’m sorry

but my mouth was obsessed with the word precedent.                            Girls are taught that adage early: To permit it gives permission.

                         How many implements of shame should I hold against

myself? Blight, motherfucker                                 is the introduction of a red bruise down one thigh.

                        Now I’ve learned to say remember like memory is not

the axis on which the world shifts                               & interplanetary garbage is not, like, just drifting.

                       Go back & go back & go back to the beginning is useless.

I can’t remember the chemicals for choking roaches                               & the roaches are everywhere.

                      Orange light slides over the railyard

where I watch the workers circle the tracks.                             They replace one empty traincar with another.

#poetry #How many implements of shame should I hold against #myself? #FUCK

[athousandmorningss]

my lovers like to cook, and i am being fed. yesterday morning, after a slow and tender session that eventually turned more rough, m. went to buy bacon and supplies for biscuits and gravy, tied his hair back, and puttered around to make it for us. today, r walked the small distance from his to mine, brought me wet cat food for teeny and some homemade mango mousse, tells me to come over later to get the bolognese sauce he's made. the new man that i'm speaking to asks what kind of pie i like and two days later, sends a photo of the ingredients he's gathered to make it for me.

and so there's a feed crys and treat her well theme going on in my life. but i feel so, so guilty. r. is a wildly intelligent person and i have a hard time believing he's interested in me, despite nearly eight months of daily communication and his continued assurance, namely through action, that he does. when i am with m. i am often quiet and unable to speak: i try to think of something clever or compelling to say and land on silence instead. i tell my pie friend that i am shy and awkward, he says he hasn't noticed this in our conversations. in person is harder, i note, I'm not a good performer. "I'm not coming for a performance," he says "I'd like to the real crys."

this anxiety isn't exclusive to romantic partners. on my trip to austin with my friend jennifer, I worried the entire time about being too much or too little: not talking enough, or talking too much, or being too excitable at the concert. i'm nearly forty and i don't know how to be around people: i have this continued feeling of lack, of not being good enough, and i question why the people around me are choosing to be around me.

my therapist reminds me that to not trust others when they choose to spend time with me can create a feeling of offense: of not believing them. there's a post i saw floating around here, too, about honoring the agency of others. and there's the thing my therapist said that all of this ultimately hinges on, "it's easy to be alone. you don't have to be vulnerable."

-

it continues to be such an uncomfortable, almost painful feeling to be in community with others. but i want to be, i need to be, i would like to turn toward others, to open up and be myself. and i can't do that if i choose the easier route of being alone. so, i'm trying to be brave. and it hurts.

#much of my fear of people comes from years of abuse and neglect #in my marriage but also from family #so it tracks that i feel this way #but it doesn't make it any easier to have empathy for myself #or to be with others

[athousandmorningss]

he is so funcking ugly look at my child 🤧

#Obsessed with this dude #The red lipped batfish #Is a real thing that exists in the world #Wow

[athousandmorningss]

#Music #Love ethics #This has touched my heart deeply

[athousandmorningss]

Pretend, for example, that you were born in Chicago and have never had the remotest desire to visit Hong Kong, which is only a name on a map for you; pretend that some convulsion, sometimes called accident, throws you into connection with a man or a woman who lives in Hong Kong; and that you fall in love. Hong Kong will immediately cease to be a name and become the center of your life. And you may never know how many people live in Hong Kong. But you will know that one man or one woman lives there without whom you cannot live. And this is how our lives are changed, and this is how we are redeemed.

What a journey this life is! Dependent, entirely, on things unseen. If your lover lives in Hong Kong and cannot get to Chicago, it will be necessary for you to go to Hong Kong. Perhaps you will spend your life there, and never see Chicago again. And you will, I assure you, as long as space and time divide you from anyone you love, discover a great deal about shipping routes, airlines, earth quake, famine, disease, and war. And you will always know what time it is in Hong Kong, for you love someone who lives there. And love will simply have no choice but to go into battle with space and time and, furthermore, to win.

—James Baldwin, The Price of the Ticket

#Love ethics

[athousandmorningss]

oh man 😍😘😍🥵

#I am deeply smitten #With a few people #I feel so well regarded and cared for for the first time in my life #It's...a lot #Yes my partners know about each other #Non monogamy is fun and freeing and complicated

[athousandmorningss]

"decide if this matters to you and then conduct your life as it does" is advice I gave to a student just now, and yeah. Yeah.

#I think I needed to hear it too

[athousandmorningss]

JOY HAS A HABIT OF RETURNING. BTW

[athousandmorningss]

I'm the bravest version of myself I've ever been.

#love ethics

[athousandmorningss]

Cats on couches. May 2024.

#Cats

[athousandmorningss]

#I'm so tired #Teaching