26.08.2024

I've just woken up after far too little, poor quality sleep, to reports of the suicide of another Nova survivor, and already, the day has its cold, clawed hand wrapped around my thoracic spine.  

I can't believe it's been almost a year. 

In 40 days, it will be a year.

A year of our burnt, crushed and crumbling innards struggling to keep us alive, while the world mocked us. 

A year of waiting for the pain to lessen– even only a little bit. 

A year where our souls have transformed into something we'd never thought we'd own in these generations,

And now, another family's first year has been reset to zero, where it all begins again.

And I can't keep up with the dishes in the sink. 

And the scrubby sponge I replaced just last week already smells sour.

And I– 

I have to shower, get dressed and do my makeup so I can get to the lawyer's office, 

but the gravity of the day 

Is nothing compared to that of the void.  

I swim furiously against it, in the 

Non-substance of hypoxic air.  

20.08.2024

 I need to feel something nice today. For a while now, I've been staying in bed, not because I'm physically unable to function (at the moment,) but because I've been deep in trauma response and depression. This is a bad way for me to be, because if I don't interrupt it, inevitably, I'll spiral into inertia to the point where that familiar little voice begins chattering away in my ears, telling me that the only way out of this rut is to die, and that's really not what I want. I'm not ready. 

It's like an addiction, suicidality; it's the soft, warm, comforting place to which I invariably disappear in the face of overwhelming helplessness. It's the only place wherein I feel I have agency, when existence is too painful, or even simply too much.  

It's a constant, patient, unjealous lover who courts me with promises of certainty and commitment, where otherwise, none can be found.  

I'm not ready though. I've other loves to explore, and I know beyond the shadow of a doubt, that when I am, she'll be there, close enough for me to surreptitiously reach out behind me- even with just my fingertips, and ever attentive, she'll take my signal, then she'll take my hand and gently say "come my love, let's go home".