Unless I numb myself,
with work, exhaustion, dissociative social media scrolling,
I will have to face the open wilderness of me.
How deeply loneliness wounded me.
How much of me I cut off, silenced, and contorted trying to become easier to tolerate.
How broken and ugly and unworthy of connection I feel in its wake,
inhibiting my ability to embrace the affection that has entered my life.
I survived my twenties by riding an endless river of “somedays”: academics, rough drafts, the religious promises of heaven.
I found safety in a perpetual state of becoming, in devaluing my present for an idealized future I would never have to prove or fail.
Now that I have regained some sensation, “someday” has become a bitter black hole.
I am no longer interested in “someday.”
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A/N: I turned twenty-nine a couple weeks ago, and, naturally, had an identity crisis. My life is changing a lot, and I’m attempting to take it day-by-day, to be worthy of the good things, and to hold grace toward the hard things.
Odonata 