The Death and Dying of Fantasy

“What if pain—like love—is just a place brave people visit?” -Glennon Doyle

Is it even an option to not visit? That's never seemed the case to me.
It's there, it's loud, it's screaming and demanding.
Whether love or pain. Joy or sorrow. Mania or depression.
It creeps up and grabs you like a catchy tune,
enthralling you to dance and sway and sob in dismay.

Coming to decisions I'm equally confident and displeased about,
things to enforce, boundaries to draw.
Seeing where each of us are,
both a universe and each
precious.

And perhaps where I am is not such a place of pain,
but a space of disappointment.
In a place of seeing through fantasies, admitting realities.
Uncomfortable or unfortunate as they may.
Something I learned long ago
and it returns and returns.
Love is not enough. Love is not the answer.
It cannot build bridges that weren't meant to stand.

No concept of time, you say.
Once starved on a diet of kisses and snuggles and affirmations.
How tender, how useless, how quaint.
But not to me. I find those components wholly necessary
though not a substitute for substance. Not anymore.

Perhaps it's wise and mature and adjusted and honest
to say so. To stand up and claim this and that.
Yet still I am saddened to acknowledge it,
shall host a viking funeral with coins and flame.

Goblin Dreams

* * * *

Those depressive goblin nightmare boys I treasure so
How is it possible you taught me so much?
About myself and life and the lies we tell.
In loving you I've learned to better love and like myself.
My dear, my love.

High tops coming my way, red and space-themed.
"use emotionality as a radical tactic against a society
which teaches you that emotions are a sign of weakness"
Riding the waves and seeking to re-establish my own waves.
Hairy waves are hairy.
I'm not quite the manic pixie I thought I'd be
and thank goodness for that.
I am me.
la gloriosa donna della mia mente: the glorious lady of my mind.
One to myself, I'm learning who she is.
This glorious lady of my mind, my heart, myself.
To learn what it means to live life for me, just me.
Around me, in me, within me.
And I came to this, in part, with the loving kindness
of a depressive goblin nightmare boy.
Ah, the horraaa. Thank you, horror
and terror and maybe even, India.



You liked me until I no longer fit the mold,
until I'd spiraled and left you to yourself.
Thank you and thank her,
for the lessons I never wanted to absorb.
The teachers and lessons that splintered me
into oblivion and back to reality.
I came back, I found my way through
with and then without you.

The steadfast variable here, I'm so glad
is me.
This woman I love more and more every day.
Once you see it, it's nearly impossible to look away.
Can't take my eyes off you, impossible, implausible,
wonderful you.

February has been a time of love, sure
but also of loss, of heartbreak.
Of displeasing developments
and distance to and from addictions.
Realizing that in sleeping and shopping
I seek rebellion and freedom.
That new habits come hard,
weave to and fro.
Teaching myself the art of crochet
and vision boardin'.
Of pho and cupcakes and ube coconut bars.




Things that inspire me lately...

Lizzo and Jungle and Lion Babe and Le Butcherettes.
Unloveable and Umbrella Academy.

* * * *
Chicago love everywhere. Here and here and here.



"We're not fantasies, and we weren't made to save you." So Laurie Penny tells men on behalf of her fellow recovering Manic Pixie Dream Girls, those who unlike Beatrice or Bettina will live to become so much more interesting as they age and deepen. Becoming more interesting, however, will mean becoming less of the "submissive, exploitable, transcendent ideal" about whom so many young men fantasize.

Space Boots

New space boots and a fresh knowledge of the air.
It'll be sparse and likely, scary.
...they objectify love, it read.
The object of my affection IS my affection.
My heart, my heart
this new start, we'll get through it.
I'm right here, not going anywhere.
I love you, Alex. I love you.

Feminine Wiles and Giggles and Stares.

I wish I hadn't missed the appointment with my therapist last night, but in the moment I felt stuck and full of tears. As they slowly traipsed down my face, you grasped my hand and said it'll be ok. For that, I am grateful.

Sure, it's always ok, in the end. In the end. The beginning. This new end, another beginning. Tears signal sadness, signal fear, but I sit through them and the discomforts as so often I have. I think of things I might do, all on my own. To be more independent and strong-willed. And maybe I am, it's likely accurate that I underestimate my own strength, my own flexibility. Tonight is support group and I'm glad for the support. To find strength in leading and guiding others, in learning to channel my fears into something other than a deadlock. Into something that doesn't knock the wind from me.


And I think of all the things I've learned these past few months. The importance of patience and sometimes finding the more challenging recipes. Just for me and no one else. It's worth it, to know how to release my own endorphins. To protect alone time and cultivate sweet solitude. To focus on myself and not worry as much about maintaining relationships. There's more, so much more. To see and do and feel. With or without anyone else. But I know I am social and to even some, special, and I crave those bonds, those treasured souls in my life.

To ask for what I want and need, maybe even unapologetic-ally. To describe the steps from here to there, of my feminine wiles and giggles and stares.

It's Ok, It's Alright.

All this potential and discomfort, 

rolling around in my gut. Stuck to my bones.

Breathing through newly exhibited sensations

of anxiety.

I almost forgot what it felt like,

how it can settle into your being.

Make you stick to the bed like glue.

This Lexapro doesn't round out the edges 

quite like it used to. Nor like the last medication.

I'm feeling more, good or not.

Feeling the heaviness and fear in body,

but more in my brain. Stuck, feeling stuck.

It's a superpower to harness, I've told myself that many times.

Yet, in these moments it doesn't feel like a power,

I feel weakened and immobilized.

Rather, the superpower is learning to work on through it.

This anxiety, damned down to the depths of me.

What IS new is that I'm not defaulting to black and white,

my brain stays in a place of holding the gray.

Harnessing the tools I've built up and grown to hold dear.

I'm learning to glide through it, 

acknowledge the unease and sooth it in my soul.

You're ok, you're alright.

We've got this in tow. 

Even as I feel incompetent and worried that I'll be left with nothing.

It's ok, it's alright.

Right here, right now.

Working and working and hemming and hawing.

Nothing is an emergency, nor on fire.

The flames in my brain are alright, for now.

I aim to burn down that which holds me back,

sensations that attempt to convey I'm unworthy 

of existence or love and leisure.

Anxiety is a liar, I see that now.

Depression, too. Both of you are fucking liars.

It's alright, it's ok.

This day, the next. 

Working to be the best,

bestest version of me. Alexandr-ia.

She's lovely and great and struggling, still.

And it's alright, it's ok.

This day and any day.

Source: https://society6.com/product/anxiety617675_print

Yes, and. I love you.

I get fixated and fascinated with the loving.
The love in life. Seeking it and feeding it and needing it.
When you sense deficiencies it drives you to seek all the more,
demand it, incensed at the loss of it.
But when it encloses you, surrounds you in droves,
other aims reveal themselves.
The sky opens up and you see the great beyond.
Beyond, beyond it.
It's odd and foreign that I don't feel nearly so grasping,
so desperate, so scared.
Even the scary parts feel freeing.
Beyond that great divide, between myself and me.
This heart and mine. This heart, mine.
Even in such a short time,
to sense growth and stretches of understanding.

Just today I was thinking of future aims,
debt repayments and timed arrivals and Mama.
I can't help but consider you and this.
But even so, I'd be remiss to not think of myself.
Where do I envision going?
With or without you.
Where to travel and venture and explore confusing matters.
Aye, so this is love. Cinderella told me long ago.
Maybe that was some floundering and ill advised manner,
but this version feels just right.
Warms up the coldest bits and softens the toughest truths
that once I thought I knew.
A foundation to build something strong and steady upon.
This world feels so fresh and now so new.
And it's no pressure, no pressure at all.
Because even though you're a bright guiding star,
I aim and speak that I shall not possess you, not neglect you.
But mostly, I'm learning to not neglect myself,
to hold love for you and for me all together.
Do you feel your footing, too?

The yes, and. The ultimate yes, and.
Yes and, would you have lunch with me tomorrow?
And maybe other days after that.
Yes and this is thrilling and make believing and
no, I'm not dreaming.
You're real, you're real. I'm really here.
Yes and until it's no longer what we feel
that there is so much love and longing
and endearment and rapture and grounding and realness
and my heart. My heart.
Yes and, this breathing, this life.
Yes and, a start.

Some Self-Inflicted [Feelings] Barbarian

It's true, I haven't exactly approached this lightly.
Not so long ago, I clenched tightly the remaining jagged pieces.
Tracks of searing tears and clenched fists.
In and out, most moments defined by labored and paced breathing.
Yes, I feel it still. The shards have rounded ever so slightly,
tumbling to and fro in these remaining veins.
My very blood and guts may yet come unfurled,
any moment, any time.

I do leave the door open, wide open.
Step in or out, come and go rightly as pleased.
No longer am I one to wedge it shut
or demand what color or adornments pertain.
Comfort and security is some kind of illusion, isn't it anyway?
Nothing one could say, nothing to demand or mean.
That's not the cynic in me, I'm just learning life, you know?
I'm sure of nothing because nothing is assured.
Saith likely death and taxes.

Still, I can't help but hope we float along the same way.
On the road, in this babbling and so often tumbling stream,
through barbed thickets and dense walls of ashy stone.
Of all the choices, all the glimmering pathways.
I see you on mine and hope the same from you,
but you see, nothing is promised or quite so sure.
As honest as honest can be,
rightly and wrongly claiming some need to be.
To be special or important or noteworthy,
some inextricably enhancing quotient.

So, you see, onward I seek and stumble,
ready to release it all, to let it be.
Even my nails, painted green, remind me of days I once was
fresh and new. Untainted and unmoved. Ready to fight,
to do and take whatever it takes.
But you learn sometimes what it takes is more than one should bear.
Tears you asunder, an unknowingly self-inflicted barbarian.
It is this, this knowledge, which left you for dead
that renders you stunned and stammering and gasping for air
when you find yourself yet again at this renewed precipice,
thinking it was the end.

I look my beloved deeply in her eyes
and wonder, my dearest, my love, how are we here still again?
I saw you die, witnessed you bleed out and fragment
into billions and dozens of awkwardly shaped bits.
Was it the music, the writing, the talking all-nightly?
The time or space or nights of showering,
sobbing freely and assuring myself 'it'll be alright'?
Was it the occasional drinks and dancing to soul?
Or the struggle of acknowledging hard-to-grasp addictions?
The words of wisdom from ones most dear?
The tight hugs and assurances a new beginning was getting near?
I don't understand you and your commitment to feeling,
to belonging and seeking and sensing meaning.
You delight and amaze me, truly. Teach me lessons I never knew
could be rendered from within. Grow out of pained and blacked places.
Sometimes I'm angry and bitter about you. We never agreed which way to go.
I died, didn't you read the DNR I left for you?
Then I crumble down again, soften and realize just how awestruck I feel, how unreal.
Made anew, ready to jump and nearly effortlessly proclaim I love you.