I can't complain

I
the worst part of this funk
is being my own worst enemy
actively garnering the dislike of everyone I love
expressing only resentment, criticism, disappointment
I try in small ways but it's all I feel
toward myself also
the only solution I know is
withdrawal and isolation

II
There are mothers around with young babies
I know, I know, they say don't compare
Don't judge because the snippet is not
the much bigger, mundane reality
But I get a sense of
normal, calm, happy, relatively independent infants
My memory may be false
I remember an endless litany of nursing
bouncing, rocking, shushing, holding and never not holding
Distraction and detachment from the world
and a complete inability to engage with anything
with anyone save my restless creature who demands all

III
I look forward and do not anticipate with pleasure
I look back and I'm constantly fighting with myself
I say I should do and I should and I should and I should but I don't want
there is no answer; what do I want
Nothing but less than nothing because I hate nothing too
I do and I do and I do
it is never enough
never is anything finished,
accomplished, nor resolved
I am alone
Demands in a vacuum
a mental silo
No requests, no accountability
But why, if no one benefits?
No recognition, no acknowledgement
and so it goes

unempty hole

I feel like a hole

but not a clean one
ready to be filled neatly
or remain smoothly empty
Instead of a glassy surface,
I have emotions rise like bubbles
roiling, disrupting
pressing into the vacancy

My needs get in the way
Pressure closes in
Threatening my facilitator role
and screaming me me me me me
I am sorry, me, but I just don't have time for you

winter spring

if there is one thing i dislike about this weather
it is its indecisiveness
one day the temperature feels like spring or fall
but the landscape is dead as winter
another day, bitter salty cold
but the snow does not stick in earnest

then again, i like the kind of rainfall
that permits simultaneous sunshine
light and wet at the same time

nostalgia

there is a box
where memories are kept
words and images that imperfectly represent
nonrepresentative moments
of times that felt documentable
because of their singularity, perhaps
their tangibility to external observers, most likely

these are the memories kept
the box remains closeted
recollections unindulged
progress in the present by gathering dust

sometimes i fail at
attempting to recall time spent
without the aid of these relegated abstracts
without any consecration to language or photos
time spent, time past, time unremembered
nameless worth beyond steady motion to a next forgettable moment
sometimes i can't wait for time to pass

land of lost things

I watched a movie the other day that involved creating
black holes
that consumed everything and,
also, created a time warp.

I didn't really get it but the movie was okay despite
the confusing speculative premise.

Today I'm thinking about things
matter
materials
that are lost to me:
are they found to someone else?
The amount of stuff existing is pervasive:
how much is valued? useful?
Where do the lost things go?
the pieces to wholes that are invalid on their own
the independently functional

They say things
matter
materials
cannot be created nor destroyed
and thus everything exists
but it already existed
even still when dumped into a bin of refuse
matter that refuses to be useful
matter that I refuse to use
matter that will not be reused

you, thing, that I did not intend to lose
the thing that I meant to keep
will I find you someday in the land of lost things?

are you the same imperfect?

these words
at times
are expressions of nagging,
obsessive imperfections
bothersome lacks

i console myself in
the belief that you feel
the same way
but if i could reveal
your secret lives
maybe i would find
something quite another

and human nature would be
mine only
and i would be alone

b word

boredom is a weird thing
so is being on the computer
time moves in a warp
i spent too many minutes searching for an old boyfriend online
out of insignificant curiosity
he showed up in my dream last night

i'm ashamed of procrastinating accomplishment
for the sake of idleness
losing sense of what matters in life