Here

Tunes loudly in my ears.
I recenter the keyboard on my lap,
close my eyes
and breath deeply.
Look up and down my arms,
realizing I'm in this moment.
Ready to unwind and unleash
thoughts and musing and dreams
upon this medium, these keys.
Lady Gaga and laundry and Lara Croft.
I'm not in love with Judas, baaaby.
Not any more.
All the tension and fear I drug to and fro
has all but dissipated.
You've done so good,
done so good.
you've done it.
I splay my arms open,
acknowledging the immense relief.
Remember this. This space and sensation.
The breathing is not labored or calculated,
it just flows in and out. Out and in. In and out.
Wild hair, wild heart.
She's always here, always been here.
You can do this, Alex. You can do this.
You're doing this.
You've done so good.
Power mix, inspirational jams.
Who cares if this reads well or makes sense,
I'm alive.
I'm alive
after all.
Here. Just here. Thank goodness.
I'm here.

Focus. Try to focus. Write and focus.

Could I ever write enough to feel relief? No, doubtful. Because discomfort comes with the territory. Of being and breathing and being conscious. I write and write and scribble bits of this reality, this one I know. I woke up on time, gave the cat kibbles, and started a pot of coffee. I watched porn and fantasized and realized if used well, fantasizing can be a healing tool. I procrastinated and did things other than what might be wise. I contemplated more sleep and plans for the rest of the day. Work and structure can be helpful, but other times hindering. I do feel proud. I feel strong and accomplished and almost indifferent. It's good, it's all good. But even when it's not as good, it's ok. It's a continuum and I'm glad for the energy and focus to produce, to make this thing in this moment. To have the ability to think and dissect thoughts and ideas. To have the capacity for social connection and interaction. To reflect and know gratitude, even through the pains and aches.
I want to challenge myself, but not destroy myself. Hold myself accountable, but not shred my attempts at improvement or just getting by. Today is an off-day and a struggle, but not every day is and I've made positive and healthy changes. I'm in the midst of a med change. Focus feels out-of-reach at the moment, but I'll try more in the next few hours.

What Healing from Heartache Can Look Like: A Timeline

There was a stretch, immediately after, I found myself seeking a formula,

something to consult and reference for guidance. I asked all my friends and close confidants. 

Of ways to chop through the brush and breathe amid the noxious gas and poison.

I was looking to in-part, survive. To eventually thrive, but also to escape.

It introduced me, in big ways, to the intimate reasons folks use coping mechanisms and self-medication.I have my own ways, sure, but mostly none have impeded an ability to function. But now I understand, and more vividly understood why.

People share shards of knowledge, tried and true phases that feel somewhat infuriating in the moment. Time heals all, things happen for a reason, you're better off, isn't it better?, et al, et al. 

But...they made it. That strong person you know that was once broken into a million bits is standing, still. Look at them. One day that could be you. You'll get through. Just keep swimmin', just keep breathing. You're stronger for not being afraid to feel weaker. You hold your very heart in your hand, wondering how you ever found it a good idea to pass it along to a relative stranger, so unassuming. It's ok, really, it's a testament to the beauty and belief of love. There's little rhyme or reason, it's just a feeling that compels one to charge full-force, without reservation and over analyzation. Only later might you know regret or concern or fear for what you've done, the pieces of yourself you so willingly gave over. The unassuming pain of a love known and lost. It's just gone. And you hold yourself tight and dream of days when you might breathe again. 

Indeed, the first 6 months following the breakup were pure hell fire,

left me gasping and sobbing and burned into nothingness. 

I knew it was happening and hated it mostly all the way, yet embraced it.

Hoped for light on the other side, told myself this was a type of penitence 

and reckoning for traumas and trends never fully examined. 

Not that I deserved it, not more than anyone. But pain is painful.

And women in my line maybe thought they'd deserved it, too. 

A catharsis, in the way that happiness can be, too. 

I scribbled poems that seemed like emo lyrics, I wrote angry and impassioned letters to my ex lover,

ones that I never intended to send. But after realizing I couldn't do it in one letter, I started a notebook. It became a friend, something I held to and consulted when emotions boiled over.

In that time I learned what boundaries could look like, something I had never really practiced. Told him I couldn't text, couldn't talk, couldn't see him. And something I still practice now. Something I aim to do until I am at least indifferent. Indifferent to them and that past and dreams of what I thought I wanted and knew. All of it, gone. 

Made plans for myself, week-by-week and month-by-month. Things I'd been waiting on others to do or never believed myself capable or worthy. Planned more and more, made times just for me.
Haircuts and times of no cuts, just sitting still. Getting nails painted, having new experiences or old fears exonerated. Feeling angry at everything and then at nothing, because you start to see the waves just as they are. Not good or bad, just there. The only thing to do is to ride them. Design your board or piece of drift wood. Create a divot for your head and lasso yourself tightly.

Look to others who have survived and made it out alive. Remind yourself it won't be this way forever. It won't. And turns out, it didn't.

Months 7 through now, I grew sea legs and learned to start walking again.

Realized the time frame is much less noteworthy than what I do with it, what I've done. Kept thinking it meant something if I wasn't visibly healed or different or re-made. So much of this newness and growth is visible just to me, but still others see bits and pieces of the person I've morphed and come to be. The number of smiles I have to share or outfits I wear, the ability to somehow date again. I remember the moment I realized that's what my grief meant. Believed I had to be fully well and whole again to share time with others, but you get back to yourself ever so carefully. It takes months and months and sometimes years, still. It doesn't mean you can't open up to more people still and see yourself a bit in them and learn differently of what care and sometimes recklessness can be. Ah, those nights that fade into mornings. The ones you'll never call again, but are maybe glad to have stumbled upon either way. You're not that person that for so long you were convinced you must be. I would never, I could never. Turns out, sometimes you can and it delights your soul more than you knew. I'm wild and funny and carefree and indifferent and all so many things. Part-adventurer, part-homebody, all-Alexandria. All real. Part that person who might jump out of a plane or dance by myself and another time, got my car towed and cheeseburgers alone at 4am. All of her, all of me. Curious to so much, open to all and each situation, because what are expectations? I'm a Buddhist-inspired, open dating, come-what-may, dating goddess of the future. That's me.

And still, unafraid to be scared. So much so that when I encounter circumstances that feel so good and honest and connected, they are terrifying. But I don't stop. I take my pulse, gauge the emotions, communicate them, evaluate this moment, and keep moving on, feeling just as free. I speak of love and what it could mean, indulge in so many kisses and frantic grasps and longings, and fewer and fewer thoughts of who he was and who I used to be. Because growth isn't linear and the path might be wild, but it's filled with so much fun and moments to feel such freedom. In me. In living that early 20s existence or getting to know un-explored parts of just me.

There's this inconsequential and exceedingly sweet tactic that came to me, in a moment of pure fear and vulnerability and alone-ness. So simple you'd miss it if you were looking at me. I touch my own thigh and remind myself, "I'm right here, I'm never going anywhere. I'm with you and I love you. Always will." Nothing I needed from anyone, nor anything anyone could give me. That silly self-love that is touted and spelled out as a cure-all. Maybe it is real, but surely it looks different for each person, in each time and space. But these moments I have with myself, no matter who I'm with or not, I feel seen. I feel sweet love and joy and serendipity. "I've got you, boo. I'm right here," I say to myself, with a smirk.

And to think, this all came out of the biggest pain and heartbreak and anger and bitter and alone and hopelessness. It grew and got so big that I can no longer separate from who I am. Until you feel it grown in yourself, it feels impossible to ever believe it so. 

But I share this to even for a bit, help others know, it's possible. That feeling of worth and belonging and sense of oneness is there for the taking. Fake it in all the moments you don't think you'll make it. The phoenix teaches us something that usually feels corny to say and there's no exact image that might not feel tainted or sucked of real meaning. From fire and ash and nothingness can grow a new human, a renewed existence, a raging flame. To be, as they say, a wounded healer. To realize that often, on the other side of fear, there is freeeeeedom.

Thank you all for supporting me and seeing me through this chaotic and messy and necessary and self-making journey. In all the moments I felt so alone and impossible and far from reach, you saw and helped me. Thank you. xoxox Alex

Something More or Less

I'm taken

but not taken away or taken down.

See the clouds 

but not floating in them.

Feel the high

but am not high.

Grounded in the goodness

of the moment and space and person and place.

Is this what it's supposed to feel like?

Maybe even has,

I forget.

Grounded in myself and what I want or don't,

what and who I am just now.

Not obsessing and ruminating and wondering 

how and why and when.

It just is or isn't or will or won't be. 

Who is this I now am?

It's not with each person or moment or connection.

Nay, some drive me mad or leave me indifferent and feeling bland.

Out of my mind and out of my head,

directed by fear or misconstrued fantasy.

Who they are, where they've been.

Do they text me enough or mean what they said?

Let us not become some drug, some species to marvel at.

Let us not grasp in desperation, nor fear.

For each other and the connection we could so easily cling to.

I've attached here and there, 

I've attached myself everywhere.

To him and him and him and still more.

Don't leave me. Don't you need me?

Don't you want me? Say it's true.

Say it again, in every language and way you can name.

Lest I believe it, for certainly I can't be worthy

of love. Of connection and wanting.

It's not the way, 

not the way and path on which I want to walk.

Not in fear and with anxiety tight in the chest.

Easy and more carefree, perhaps there's something there.

Do we attract what we are? Maybe, perhaps.

But the concept of "deserving" is so damn fickle, who's to say. 

Love is a confounding concept and practice to grasp,

even more common to throw around, sensationalize,

something on which to capitalize. 

The broken road, it has blessed me, it's true.

All the trials and tribulations and looking at myself, straight on.

Uncomfortable truths and unsavory realities,

they're right there along with the most glamorous and shiny parts of me.

Dark and light and glossy and matte,

the color gradients and variances of the messy beauty I am.

We all are, each of us. 

There's nothing that hatred or shame or stigma can render clean,

the power in acceptance and letting it all just be.

Belief in a deity isn't necessary, even.

But there were moments a prayer or two saw me through,

shown some beams of hope into the most abandoned corners of my spirit.

I think now, more than ever, I see myself most visibly.

Clear in the knowledge that I'll change, 

things won't always be predictable or comfortable.

But that's nothing to say about me or loving or leaving

or the care and attention I want and will always be needing.

Digging that well deeper and deeper and filling it up 

with goodness and gratitude and forgiveness. 

I realize now the eagerness and receptiveness and general unattached demeanor.

We become what we believe we are and what we "deserve", eh? 

Perhaps some of my experiments and rewiring has gone through,

taught me new realities I didn't used to believe.

Take the lessons and leave the rest, 

don't employ the same tactics again and again and again.

Try it new, try it fresh.

Make yourself uncomfortable and explore what hurts or is wrecked.

Then, be absolutely and immensely surprised by what comes next.

Enlightening and precious,

something more or less.

Away

She moved, she moved
she fucking moved.
Away.
I remember the day she told me,
had put it off because she imagined I'd be upset.
Maybe yes, I am.
Because you left, always knew she wasn't destined to stay.
When you run and run and run away
from unpleasantries, things that don't rub you the right way.

In the middle here I see it rather crystal clear.
You had to go and he forever aimed to stay.
In the middle is where I shall stay.
Aware of that future I always dream and hoped for
and the reality I've been lucky to settle into.
There is more I could do,
make more money and help get her better.
The help it costs money, you see.
The power to arrange a life that feels best and right
heals her spirit and anxious soul, too.

But we're in that middle place.
Neither hell nor peace.
Without you in it, we survive any how.
And where are you?
Alive and well? Dying and compelled to hell?
I'm only as mad as this sentence is long.
Mostly I hope for better days and not feeling an arrow
when I hear your name.
Stuck in my chest and drops of dew upon my skin.
You're with me until my very end.
Not a day goes by I don't imagine you real and here,
even there and away.
Either way, as long as you're alive.

In my dream of dreams you'll return.
Back into this world,
healed and transformed.
Lessened of the anger that drove you so mad,
caused you to hear terrible and awful things.
But for now I'm just sometimes angry and sometimes grieved.
That you're there and not here,
out of reach.
Beyond the sanity and light and reach.
Be there as you are, we'll stay right here.

Where Does the Pain Go?

Where does the pain go? she asked me.
Since last night I've asked myself again and again.
In the moment I said "in my body."
I think it's in my body.
Where else could it go?
I've become so versed and confident in speaking of pain
like some familiar friend.
A person I know in and out.
Here, let me package this loss in a way that doesn't harm you,
doesn't make you squirm or generate looks that seem like pity.
I believe I've been dealing with it and processing it,
but it's possible some got suppressed.
In repackaging the complications,
I added new complications.
Muffled the way to my heart.
Protected others at the expense of my own processing.
It's entirely possible, I said.

Why do little things feel so hard?
Like getting up on time, doing dishes, cleaning the liter box.
Why? These little, small things.
I surmise because I had no choice with these big things.
Maybe it's existential, she suggested.
I am existential, that makes complete sense.
No say in the bigger, all encompassing, impossible feeling issues.
Compartmentalizing is survival, it seems.
I forget, sometimes, about all the different compartments, until I begin to disclose.
"Wow, that's so much. That's really heavy. But you're so happy, so nice" they might say.
Yes, maybe I am all these things.

My loss is no different than any loss, except that it's mine.
My Mom. My Sister. My sanity. My reality. My heart. My damn pain.
I've not given much space or permission to indulge in it for long because well...
it could be worse. It's not so bad. I'm lucky. I'm lucky.
That's true, too. I have gratitude, so much gratitude. My Dad. My Brother. Friends upon friends.
Safety upon safety and heart-to-heart, moment to moment they bring me back.
Remind me it's not so bad. There is goodness.
But also, there is pain and loss and awful situations and we all have them. Maybe, yes.
Maybe it's both and all. Coffee and tea. Cinnamon and sugar. Bitter and sweet.
Yes, all of it. Together and separate and mixed into a big beautiful pie.

Buddhism teaches that life is suffering
and initially I found it to be so uncouth and off-putting.
How pessimistic, how negative, how uncool.
But much later it returned to me a comforting persona,
frameworks and guiding light in an atmosphere of chaos.
Sense of togetherness and shared struggles.
The good just as long lasting as the bad, neither here nor there.
Just is. Just is. Just is as it is.
But along the way I feel the feels, temper the pain with remembrance of the good.
Sure, I've survived and made it on through. To here.
To the location of this pain. I'm finding it, seeing it, being it.
Suffering the healing beauty of it.

So, where does the pain go?
It's here, it's there, it's everywhere.
You and me and he and them and she.
We are all this pain,
but for now I'm starting with me.
Here with this pain.
My body, my body, my temple.
Walking the path through my soul,
getting to know every inch and cranny, day by day.
Thank you, dear pain. I'm alive and well and seeing you through.
We got this, ok? We really do.







Work by Eugenia Loli

To My Sister

I just had the thought
will I ever be ready?
Ready for the day I receive an update,
the news of where you are and where you've been.
Are you alive, are you dead?
I miss you and think of you often
and maybe I shouldn't
but whenever I do I send warm wishes and hope.
I send hugs and place my hands to the sky.
Because you're my sister.
Because I've seen too much beauty in you
and know too much to think you are beyond hope.

No, I know you're a fighter. To your very core.
I oddly found myself praying for you
when I realized there was nothing else to do.
For years I watched as person by person gave you their version of help,
be it money or pleading or distance or some other thing you might be needing.
Did it ever really help?
Maybe yes or maybe not.

I just know I miss you and I'm not one to give up,
I think of you so often and pray and hope and wish like hell
you find the strength and courage and love you so deserve.
You owe it to yourself.
Life is a fucking asshole and it breaks us down,
what you've been through is nothing short of impossible.
But you're a fighter, dear sister.

Please fight and heal and come back to us.
I can't help you the way you wanted me to or us to, perhaps.
But I held your face in my hands,
fully aware it might be the last time I ever touched you
or saw you with my own eyes.
It was ages ago now and even then I knew we couldn't convince you
to swim away from that which was drowning you.

I've found it a challenge to acknowledge so many hard truths,
mostly about myself and the nature of life.
It tears you the fuck down and doesn't care if you stand back up.
But I care, I found a way to care about myself
and I care about you. Gosh do I miss you.
Worry and think about you.
And remind myself to send joy and love
and moments of prayer. How odd to be a person who never knew I'd pray.
But I do, just for you.

I love you, sister.
Please heal, please fight, please know your feelings are just right,
but don't let them kill you. Don't let it grind you down.
You are strong as hell, we women are.
I'm fighting for you, I take you with me each moment and day.
I love you, beloved sister.
Please know you are loved today and on and on,
through and through.