Or: my body as the container holding violence and brutality and longing and pleasure and love together and still maintaining wholeness in the singular crack of a larger fracture
what moves me is what has kept me sedentary. what awakens me is what has kept me dormant.
i am scared of dying because of how I kill myself. hysterically expanding on the worst possibilities for what remains of my life while I wait floating in the pause that bridges the bookends of “flare-up” and “rheumatology appointment”
from july to october
it is hard to remember my body transcends the obligatory way my thoughts organize these experiences and timelines of being unwell/ill and “before” and “after” so many countless things that feel like milestones or roadblocks. and although I have returned to work after a month of bed-un-rest it is not because I am well but rather that I have run out of money to keep on honoring my un-wellness.
fuck.
i had plans for my art.
but now my joints hurt and my throat muscles are so swollen by the end of the day that it is hard to speak my last words before I go to bed.
the new scripts sit un-read. the old episodes sit un-remastered. the chapters sit un-edited and un-written. the films sit un-animated. the music un-scored.
and i am un-done. and un-impressed with how little that sentiment reflects the grief of my reality.
i have an autoimmune disease, but which one will it be? in which way is my body betraying me? i am so un-fairly resentful.
Or: what has been hiding under the surface while doctors gaslight me and I internalize that gaslighting and watch my life UN-RAVEL and blame myself over and over and keep asking what is wrong with me and publicly bleeding out while my body is at odds with the violence I keep subjecting it to in an effort to meet the UN-REASONABLE expectations I have placed on myself and my parents placed on me and society dictates I strive towards to
grind myself into
something I can’t be
the grinding is violence
i used to just be sick of it. now I am just sick.
i reject the way the way it was before… on a cellular level
if PTSD is the overactivation of my survival instincts (my nervous system and brain attacking me when there is no threat), what is the overactivation of my immune system (my body attacking me when there is no threat)?
YOU’RE SO ACTIVE YOU’RE SO ACTIVE YOU’RE SO ACTIVE YOU’RE SO ACTIVE YOU’RE SO ACTIVE YOU’RE SO ACTIVE YOU’RE SO ACTIVE YOU’RE SO ACTIVE
i wore that like a badge of honor every day after you said that to me and it branded into my skin under the FIRE of
how
fucking
hard
I can
fucking
girlboss
is it still admirable as I demonstrate there is no inner place I will not excavate to extract WHAT ELSE IS NEEDED(?) to GET THE DAMN THING DONE(!)?
I FLARE I FLARE I FLARE I FLARE I FLARE I FLARE I FLARE I FLARE UNTIL THERE IS NOTHING BUT ASH
thank you for witnessing it.
something something mythology some fire bird rises from the ashes.