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stumbling-after-happiness · 2 months

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Threading from page to mind

My books are my tapestry weaving through time

Each word a hole I’m threading through from page to mind.

Flowing letters set down by past hands,

Mingling the black and white marks with my experiences.

And I’m thinking, millions of us read the same words,

Yet, our minds are fashioning different visual textures.

How beautiful that books are the threaded needle,

Ready for whoever picks them up and starts sewing a new story.

The outlines are always similar, yet each sparkling detail unique.

Through reading on, the patterns rest in hazes, shifting from distinct edges to impressions.

Its making space for us to feel finishing memories

And start creating anew.

#poet #poetic #poetry #poets on tumblr #poem #poems on tumblr #reading #books #words #creative writing #writing #literature #literary #freedom #adventure #love #creative #life

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stumbling-after-happiness · 3 months

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Sleeping Jury

Losing time feels like falling into the mattress,

While holding hopelessness.

My fingers wrap up in themselves,

Waiting for a day when

I’ll rise confessing a smile.

My body is tensing and unclenching,

Cells pacing in anticipation

What day will bring the best verdict?

Will I release my last fist and spread my fingers to the morning?

The jury is running lines into my forehead.

Docking my body under covers

Watching light speak for time passing and

Locking my victimhood into my muscles

I lie, sheltering by my lover.

With straining eyes I notice the dawn,

Heaviness yawns through my fingers

It’s getting harder to overcome the lingering pull

As tiredness takes me forward.

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stumbling-after-happiness · 3 months

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Before dreams

Sleep was tugging at my body, hoping I’d sink to the other side of gravity.

I wanted to let it take me to the deeply lightening place, where dreams gallop wildly across untamed plains.

Thoughts would lasso my mind soon enough and I’d be struggling not to let ideas buck me into trauma.

That’s the thing about my nightmares, with an eternal opportunity they would keep carrying me through the heat forever.

I tucked up my hands. Then, the buckaroo began.

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stumbling-after-happiness · 3 months

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Grandfather with his grandson, Eldridge St., 1983

Bud Glick: NY Chinatown 1981-1984

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stumbling-after-happiness · 3 months

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TW- my experience of doing a witness interview for the police as a CSA survivor

I was preparing for months; self-therapy daily, sleeping enough, and speaking to my therapist. I knew the interview was coming, and I worried about not saying what I wanted to.

The hard thing about going through the police process as a survivor is that even though I have people supporting me, no one can truly understand the pain I feel. So, it’s a very lonely thing to do.

I knew that no matter how hard talking to a stranger about deep trauma is, I was choosing my right path.

My body was shaking from the inside out. It was like the cells were telling me to run, find a hole and hide in it. The cavewoman survival instinct was howling through me. I ignored my thumping my muscles.

Picking me and my boyfriend up in a grey car, the policewoman gripped the steering wheel. She drove us to a beige house teetering on a small hill. The plain brick walls housed windows that were gaping with glassy mouths. It was like an alien pretending to be a home. Not quite passing.

Inside, the touring began. Another police lady showed me the place. I guess this was to help with making me feel comfortable. As a trauma survivor, closed doors, dark corners, and unexplained rooms start looking like danger.

Upstairs, blinds hung in neat strips between beige walls. The window was looking out over fields and the peacefulness reminded me about my beating heart.

My boyfriend was settling on the sofa, the other police lady in the control room. The computer and recording device betrayed the pretend-home feeling. That was okay.

Sitting on a blue foam chair, like something from an office, I stared at the camera. Its half-globe blackness glinted at me like a giant’s unblinking eye. It was waiting to capture my words.

The fake-wood table was uncomfortably bare. Stretching in a circle, its coldness sank into my hands. The interviewer sat across from me, her face like a moon. She was looking with awe inspiring quietness. I could have easily missed her expression, but once I saw it, I found myself fixing on her features.

After chatting together about the recording process, we sat down. Changing with a door clicking, her body seemed suddenly suited up. She was speaking like we hadn’t chatted, asking me what I wanted to tell her.

I lost feeling in my feet. It was like the floor wasn’t there.

I was forcing my answers, pushing them up and out. Syllables were breaking out like boulders. The giant’s eye was staring.

The lady kept asking, her navy slip dress rumpling as she spoke. On her lap, she was perching a binder thicker than a brick. The table was glacial, grinding into my view occasionally.

We decided on taking a break. I fumbled upstairs, wandering to my boyfriend, to the window. There was a very round Robbin sitting on a viburnum outside. We were giggling about its cuteness. It looked like a tennis ball with little feathering neck rolls.

The interview continued, I managed about 40 minutes this time. The lady was talking to the other officer every now and then. It seemed like they were working out what to ask me next.

Drooping skin started betraying the lady’s face. She was sitting rigidly, watching my lips unzipping.

My mind was wandering. I was focusing on answering in the format she’d shown me. I was anticipating what the defence could pick apart if it got that far.

My vision fading, colours dulled. The chair was hardening into my back. I was staring at a crack in the paint. I forgot about the lady. I was hauling out words in chunks. Stumbling from topic to idea, I was fidgeting with my hands.

The two hour recording timer went off. Doors started swinging open. The lady hurried off to restart the clock. I was swimming in beige carpet, beige walls, and beige blinds. A hallway showed me about living outside the trauma.

I ate a breakfast bar. I drank water, whilst frowning into memories.

Then the lady was moving in her chair, raising her eyebrows. Times up and thank you and we’ll get you upstairs and driving is so handy and insurance is so expensive.

My boyfriend was sitting with his back against the sofa. His smile wasn’t touching his eyes. I was signing forms and washing my glass and looking into concerned faces. Then it was into the car and listening to how I’d done well.

The police lady dropped us home, we thanked her. And we were wrapping ourselves in our shock. Before long, I was climbing into bed and looking at the ceiling.

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stumbling-after-happiness · 3 months

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stumbling-after-happiness · 4 months

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Carving into rock bottom and creating the highlights

When I don’t know what to do and I’m feeling my way over my life’s base, that’s when.

When there’s nothing but concreted pain pushing against my body.

When I’m trapped in a deep, drained swimming pool, searching for anything to lift me up.

That’s when I find myself scratching words into the barrier as though with broken nails. I let out the emo and the pain and the bad grammar.

I carve out concrete to prove that I can go lower.

And in this graffiti, I realise I can make words from depressions. That shadows define letters. And the letters mean I exist.

And I remember that these highlights wouldn’t be there if I hadn’t created them.

So I type myself a ladder, and I get the fuck out.

#writing #creative writing #freedom #adventure #life #ptsd #abusesurvivor #mental health #self care #love #cptsd #healing

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stumbling-after-happiness · 10 months

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TW (CSA)

A hard thing for me about being a CSA survivor/victim is that it can be like living a double life.

I’ll stand in the supermarket check out line like I didn’t have a seriously effed up childhood, holding some discounted fruit. And no one around me knows that I’m trying to cope with the earth-shattering knowledge that my own mother and father were my abusers. And most other people seem to be waiting in line with their supplies as though they have no idea the pain that someone can inflict on another.

Some people sadly probably do know about this deep pain. However, we just wait there with our waiting faces, trying to get our food and go.

It’s like I’ve just survived a horrendous ship wreck and I’ve pulled myself to shore. My hair is matted, clothes hanging off, pale skin, dirty nails, shivering, no shoes, and a wild desperation in my eyes. And the people around me are just walking past.

The invisibility I feel as a survivor is no one’s fault, however it’s so strange living in a world where many others have no idea of the suffering I’ve experienced.

And the expectation is there that I should be a fully functioning adult with a job, neat little life, and average levels of happiness. When I’m still coming to terms with what I lost in a storm.

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stumbling-after-happiness · 1 year

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What will we remember?

If we’re old and grey?

Will it be the telling off from our boss on a random Monday in April?

The to-do lists completed,

The unnecessary seriousness about marketing meetings,

Or the pressure over making an event graphic?

Does it matter? I ask myself, curled up in bed.

Realising that I’m not saving lives through promotional LinkedIn posts.

So why is the corporate world so keen on stressing that these things are of the upmost importance?

Why does my boss lean on his chair and look back at me with beady suspicion?

My job, his shirts, the keyboard, his glasses, his stares, all washed away through time’s purity.

I like seeing health as something most important.

I had a health scare a few years ago and realised that the suits and ties mean nothing without baseline wellness.

So I gained a new sense of chill.

The sort of chill that sometimes manages to override whatever corporate bullshit is shoved my way.

The chill that is bemused at passive aggressive messages from my boss.

It reminds me that life is more than desk-ing.

I hope you feel your chill, too. And I hope you remember during a stressful work deadline that healing doesn’t always look like following the herd.

xx

#love #life #freedom #quote #world #art #me #artist #mental illness #creative #living #free #cptsd #writer #help #creative writing #poetry #adventure

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stumbling-after-happiness · 1 year

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Misunderstood

TW: depression

Why is it that depression confuses those lucky enough not to suffer from it?

The blame culture vibrates through words,

Unfair expectations,

Explanations unheard.

I sit across from my boss,

Letting him know that it happens every now and then.

When the depression is hot,

I can think I can power through when

All of a sudden

My body has taken over and I’ve overslept again.

How do I explain that I can’t even think about communicating when I’ve slipped down deep?

When sleep is an inevitable tsunami,

Taking me

Under.

It comes on quick.

The whole thing is that I can’t communicate that I need time off.

Because my brain is hijacked by illness.

It’s rough.

So I sat there and took the telling off with a surprising calmness.

Because I know that no matter what I say, I can’t stop the depression from claiming me.

When it comes, I can’t think about the necessaries,

I can’t think about wanting a career, pleasing my boss, producing work.

I can only try and stay alive, even if that means that my body sends me into sleep.

I lose control in the fight, staying alive becomes the only thing that matters.

So, as I sat across from my boss,

I told him that it just takes time.

And I hoped to myself that this illness

Would spare my ambitions.

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stumbling-after-happiness · 1 year

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Side By Side

Cupping your relaxed fingertips

Feeling the reassuring weight of breath through your tummy, pressing against my back.

The trust in falling asleep on one another

Vulnerable to our love.

It surprises me, how we subconsciously let go in sleep,

How we surrender completely to being held up by another human being

How I don’t question that you won’t let me fall even when I’m unaware of your support.

I wish more movies spoke about the undeniable intimacy of simply slipping into sleep with someone,

Of waking up and finding yourself resting a limb on them.

Of the growing feeling of their skin as you wake up, exactly in the right place.

And you realise that you don’t want to go anywhere or do anything else,

That calm acceptance that you exist away from stress, complications, and societal expectations.

That in that moment, you are two human beings, connected by biology, as natural as other species in your aliveness.

I wish for everyone to experience this basic joy.

When you share the space where you both come to rest.

What a privilege to witness someone’s rest at the end of a day, to know they trust you enough to take off their daily necessities of professionalism and society.

The beauty in someone letting you see them in their rawest form, feeling their breath ease when you gently snuggle them in their sleep.

What a lucky thing, to have felt love with our bodies.

To shrug off physical insecurities and let ourselves hunch, scrunch, and fold.

To forget about the toxic narratives about weight, skin, and gender.

To hold a place where we both know we can come to simply be ourselves.

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stumbling-after-happiness · 1 year

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Crying from one eye (she’s grieving)

Side lying, one eye crying,

Reality trickling down my cheek.

Waiting for grief to end.

And I wonder when I lost her. When her actions turned from sweet to twisted.

When she started scheming

Drawing elaborate mistreatment from an alien place.

I’m wondering when the bows in her hair turned to arrows for chucking at my heart.

When she stopped hanging from a climbing frame, fell, and started clinging to having all eyes adoring her.

When she turned from flinging her body upside down into a handstand

To tipping up the base of a cider can.

Was there a moment when it all flipped?

Or was it a gradual turning, like glass slowly grinding into sand until

It becomes a beach of moments,

And no one notices the individual grains,

Only the shifting mass and what it represents.

The parties took hold, the booze, the other drugs

And with the years, her body became more slumped in the chair, skin less elastic, eyes colder with the sheen of moisture like the side of a refrigerated beer.

And it was clear that she couldn’t give enough goodness, couldn’t break through the act.

Trapped in her own doing, I had to turn my back.

And now I sit on a different stretch,

Each grain carefully crafted to do better than the last,

Building the precarious yet robust entity we call life.

And though the waves of her bad behaviour run on the horizon,

I sit safely behind and mind my own actions.

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stumbling-after-happiness · 1 year

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stumbling-after-happiness · 1 year

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It was a Wednesday

When I’d had enough.

I wanted out, to run from the everlasting maze,

Messenger groups,

Manipulative messages sent by a friend,

Guilt tripping me up.

I crafted an escape tunnel with words from my therapist.

They let in the light whilst building up walls.

I edited it like a legal document. I rewrote, I tweaked. I even put it through Grammarly.

Clicked send. Then block.

Then blocked the fiancé, unfriended.

Years of hope laid to rest.

Years of trying and not being met in the middle of the darkness.

Waiting to be guided out by a friendly face, a light.

How can someone we knew at 3 develop such bad behaviour? When you’ve seen someone with ribbons in their hair and innocence in their eyes, where does that goodness go?

I finally let the memories lie, not filtering the present with their positivity. Letting the facts brick themselves up.

The grief hit me, rumbling louder and louder until surrounding me with rushing thoughts.

Thankfully, I was prepared. Although I know nothing can fully prepare me for grief.

I realised her actions were causing the very darkness I was asking her to save me from.

It was all a terrible secret.

A cruel laugh in the cold.

So I stood up.

I felt the wall and let it guide me out

Into the open,

The fresh sunlight,

The peaceful air.

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stumbling-after-happiness · 1 year

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stumbling-after-happiness · 1 year

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Where’s grief?

I saw them in the stranger with pale skin, a ginger pixie cut, and glasses. My soul stopped, whisking me off out of time.

I saw them whilst looking at a red-pink cardigan and skinny jeans. A guy who looked depressed next to me at a checkout. In the emo vibe that stood with clung-on uprightness.

You were in the heavy rock I listened to. In the Nirvana playing and songs I don’t even know if you heard.

You were in the peace I felt from a comfortable and loving silence between a friend and I.

You were in the sadness in my school friend’s eyes. In the unspoken grief over a salad lunch. In the guilt we ate with cutlery.

You were in the sympathy from a stranger I once sort of knew. As he waited on our table. As he gently placed a plate down. As he forgave me with his wrist.

You were in the acceptable wildness I felt. As I wanted to dance and not care about what people thought.

You were in the freckles and puffy hair that my uni friend had. In the throwaway smile. In the natural, stringing fashion.

I saw you in chocolate icing. As I ate it from the mixing bowl.

I saw you in scars belonging to my partner.

In therapy, you were there in the air. As I talked about delayed grief and my therapist told me it was okay to cry.

You were my sofa. You were my nap. As I was curled up. As I couldn’t get up to work.

In concerned faces and kindness from strangers.

In extra long hugs from my partner. In the way he held me like he’d been waiting for me to let the tears out so he could hold me. In the comfort that was so welcomed and slightly surprising.

I saw you in wood-chip wallpaper and white gloss paint.

And in an old school friend’s face on Instagram.

You were in the blue-green hairstyle I gave my character in Stardew Valley. Before I’d consciously made the connection.

I guess I miss you in objects, people, places. Your body is lost yet somehow you’re still here.

#grief #poetry #poem #freedom #me #quote #writer #creative writing #cptsd #loss #grieving #friends #artist #art #mental illness #mental health #world #creative #love #life #free #adventure

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stumbling-after-happiness · 1 year

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It's absolutely more than okay to deviate from the life script your parents mapped out for you at birth. You don't have to have children. You don't have to have lots of children. You don't have to have biological children. You don't have to get married by a certain age. You don't have to get married at all. You don't have to own a home. You don't have to stick close to your hometown. You don't have to do what your parents do/did for a living. You don't have to live as the gender you were assigned at birth. You don't have to practice the religion you were raised as. You don't have to practice any religion at all. You don't have to keep people in your life who aren't good for you. You don't have to say "yes," when you really want to say "no."

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