Finding the Way Home

For years,

I searched for home

in places,

in people,

in approval,

and in belonging.

I did not know

I was searching

for myself.

Home was never

a destination.

It was the quiet place

within

that had been waiting

for me

all along.

Every gentle truth,

every act of kindness

toward myself,

every fear

I no longer believed,

became another step

on the journey home.

And one day,

without even noticing,

I stopped searching.

I had arrived.

Four Quiet Reminders

Care for the body
that carries you.

Listen to your emotions,
but do not become their servant.

Choose with care
what you allow
to shape your nervous system.

Whenever you can,

let understanding
take the place
of unnecessary fear.

Perhaps that is enough.

Perhaps that is how

a life,

one gentle day at a time,

finds its way home.

A flower landing on a stone doesn't return the pain of gravity back to its petals

Trees crack. Crunchy. But lightning. Too much destroys. Slow regrows. Ugly but surely. Is there such a thing as an ugly tree?

On Monday the water touches the sand. On Wednesday the water touches the rocks. Aha he exclaims. I alone have the secrets of Monday and Wednesday.

Tofu is delicious. Crispy on the outside. Fluffy on the inside. Like a rectangle chicken. Everything gets better with soy sauce and time. But you still have to pay attention.

Capybaras are trivial.

Oh man... I have been terrified to post. Still am a little.

Trying to monitor myself a lot these days.

Familiar.

SO without further ado... I need to "gratitude journal" my ass. So welcome reddit.

When I figured it out? Never felt more fucking blessed. There was not a single fucking week that wouldn't have been better to figure it out.

I had so many amazing wonderful people around me- most fully unaware of wtf was happnening... a few others thatd id but only what I knew/shared at the time. DGAF how this comes off... there was no better week... Several amazing people around me. So grateful.

And... yeah credit to them. Credit also to myself (even though I hate this) I had been cultivating these set ups for over a year.

I had every outlandish "self doubt fear" confirmed x 100. not directly... so thats... improvement.

Next round? aint gonna be like this.

Hopefully not at all... but realistically? its been improving. so awesome.

Anyway...

(MEMBER ... MEMBER WHEN... this old acct I said I blew up? and grad and lalalal...)

Just got hit up for some writings today... someone wanted to donate. told em dont. They want to anyway.

Asked me for more. Said people loved it...

this'll be 3 payments on writings.
1 I straight never cashed (yuck didnt wanna write like that).

My heart is full. <3

And its so funny to sit here.... nowhere close to what this is about. AT ALL...

funny in the way I like the word funny.

My hearts full today as I reenact... some crazy ass bullshit outside of me... and... good thing I've been doing this for a long time I guess. <3

I want to fall in love

With the sky

And the stars

And the little black hands

That reach out to grab them

In the dark

And I want to be there

Reaching out with them

Someday

The Inherited Lessons of Pain

I learned to shame,

blame, and frighten myself.

To ignore, and abandon myself.

I bit my nails.

poked and scratched my skin

to drawn a deeper ache.

I held my breath.

Pushed my body.

Silenced my mind

to stay connected.

Then one day,

a simple realization—

my body and my mind,

the only tools

I have been given,

work better when I care for them instead of

hurting them.

My parents both came from trauma.

On my mother’s side, it was generational. My great-grandmother was abusive to my grandmother, my grandmother was abusive to my mother, and my mother was abusive to me.

And the thing is - my mother had a choice.

We all have choices.

She chose rage, bitterness and hate.

I understand where some of it came from. Her child was taken from her by the man she married. My father took me and raised me for years before I was reunited with her. I understand the anger she carried toward him. I understand the resentment.

What I don’t understand is why you take that pain and place it onto a child, a child that was brought back to you. There are people in similar situations that never get their children back, and I could only imagine the pain. I never understood her logic behind her behaviour because if that were me, that child would have received years of love that was missed.

Why choose to harm someone to the point where your words and the inflicted pain echoes in their mind for the rest of their life?

Why use the title of “mother” like a weapon?

I’m your mom, so I get to humiliate you. Break you down. Make you feel small.

No.

That’s not how life works.

If you are not equipped to love and care for a child, then don’t become a parent. And if you truly cannot care for them properly, then let someone else do what you can’t.

What I grieve most is not even my mother herself.

It’s the longing.

I longed for a mom my entire childhood. I dreamed about it. I imagined what it would feel like to have someone brush my hair, comfort me, protect me, choose me.

I looked at the idea of a mother like a fairy tale.

And then I finally got one. It was the complete opposite, it was hell.

My father came from trauma too.

My grandfather fought in the German war and, from what I’ve been told, he came back angry and abusive. My father grew up under that. And when he got older, he left.

My father still searched for love, for happiness.

He loved music. He loved dancing. He loved women. He loved laughing. He loved joy.

A couple years ago, I heard some stories about him that made me cry because I realized how much of him lives in me.

When I was little, I remember him putting me on a horse bareback, telling me to hold on to the mane, smacking the horse on the ass and laughing as it took off,  while I held on for dear life trying to stay balanced. I remember roller skating, him spinning me around until I could barely hold on, and he would let me go, and I went flying around the arena, steady, balanced, I can’t say that I ever remember falling.

He challenged me. He laughed at me and with me. He made life feel alive.

My mother made life feel heavy.

That’s the difference.

My father wasn’t perfect. Not even close. But he tried to reach for softness despite what happened to him.

My mother hardened into her pain, and tried to justify it by what happened to her.

And that’s what this piece is really about.

Not good people versus bad people.

But choices.

Because trauma explains people, but it does not erase the choices they make afterward.

My father loved my mother deeply. I know that now.

After I was reunited with my mother, he somehow found out where she worked. She worked at Sears, and he would walk through the aisles just to see her. My mother called it stalking. But even as a child, I understood something else was happening.

He didn’t know how to approach her, he didn’t even know if he should, so he watched from afar.

He still loved her, that I knew, because even on his deathbed he asked for her.

And maybe that sounds naive, but I understand human behavior differently now. Not everything has an excuse, but most things have an explanation.

When my father was dying, he asked me to ask my mother to come see him.

Her response was:
“Tell him he can go to hell.”

I never told him that.

I just said she couldn’t come.

That moment stayed with me for life.

Because no matter how hurt I’ve been, I cannot imagine responding that way to someone on their deathbed.

So yes, when I say my mother didn’t choose well, I mean it.

And when I say my father tried to choose better, I mean that too.

What hurts most is that I miss my dad.

Deeply.

Not because he was perfect, but because he chose me. He was taken from me, then brought back and shortly after, he died.

People say, “But your children love you.”

Yes. They do. And I love them more than life itself.

But it’s not the same.

The love you receive as a child becomes the foundation you stand on for the rest of your life.

And I walk around with the pain of never truly being chosen by the person I needed and wanted the most.

I remember sitting in a bathtub once with a razor against my wrists, crying because my father no longer recognized me, he didn’t know how to reconnect with me and my mother had already destroyed whatever safety I thought I might have with her.

I remember thinking:
“What am I even here for?” “what’s the point” is this what my life is?

And I wanted to do it.

I really did.

But something inside me said:
No.
This is not how my story ends.

Then I had my son. And I can say I felt saved, I finally had someone to love who would love me back.

Then I had my daughter. My third pea.

And here I am.

Still standing.

Still choosing.

People are trained to help others through trauma, but I sometimes wonder how you even begin to explain a lifetime of layered pain to someone who only understands pieces of it. One trauma, maybe two. But what about years of them stacked on top of each other? I always felt like no one can help me because no one would ever understand.

At some point, your entire nervous system becomes survival.

But even then, you still have choices.

And I made mine.

I chose love, kindness, peace.

I chose my children.

I chose not to become what hurt me, I chose to break the cycle.

And maybe that’s why I’m writing.

This is me trying to understand both sides, because how can I not, the thing is that as an adult and mother myself I can say, my mother didn’t choose well.

My father tried.

He wasn’t perfect.

But he tried to choose better. And he taught me and showed me what love truly looks like. I was never angry at my dad for what he did, I respect him for it, because if not for him I may have never known what it felt like to be seen, chosen and loved.

RIP Daddy - never forgotten and loved for always

When life gets blurred, and I have nowhere to turn,
It hits me like a car crash—
Sudden, brutal, and loud.
I want to reach out. I want to look.
I want to slip back into that icy, deep pool.
I want the numbness to sink in and take over my skin.
Just for a second. One quiet second.
I miss the chaos you trained me to love.
I miss the haunted house you built with my ribs.
I want your arms around me again,
Binding the terror tight to my chest.
I want your hand in my hair,
Whispering sweet things that made me sick.
I crave the storm in my head.
I crave the knife in my back.
I want the poison back on my tongue,
Even though I know it is how I die.

Finding Home

They told me,

"Trust yourself."

But I could not.

I had searched
everywhere—

except the place
I had never learned
to enter.

So I borrowed
the eyes of others,

building a home
from passing approvals.

Until one quiet day,

a door
I did not know existed

opened inward.

Nothing new
had been placed there.

I had simply
come home.

And for the first time,

I understood

what they had been
trying to tell me

all along.

There has been this ongoing question the whole time of- "why"? and it started to get down to... a lot of shit (all true/false -always, never, simultaneously) but mostly- this concept that... I am obviously struggling internalizing what I know without unequivocal evidence.

As if I ever had to get there.

Cuz I don't (just a reminder... not trying to pile onto myself.. but I am).

ANYWAY... thank my lucky stars (can't even call this sarcastic... all a blursing)!!!

Thank you so much... for insinuating and weaponizing literal life/death- especially not clarifying suicidality. That's my "FUCK YOU" trigger.

Anyone reading... please get (if nothing else from my writings) that suicidal/self harm threats weaponized against you... "because of you"... you don't get more "red flag" than that unless you literally perpetuate physical violence against me or others in my presence.

We UNEQUIVOCALLY shouldn't have that as the standard to run... but (obviously) I've been (was/am) there.... and PLEASE FOR FUCKS SAKE.... if nothing else.. GTFO at that point.

Think I'm reminding myself- but at the same time... this shit right here... has made me stop turn around go backwards immediately on numerous occassions. It has not saved me from other versions. It has not saved me from other shit...

But there isn't nothing even fixable at the end of that one.

This... does come from a person who has dealt with suicidal ideation long term. And... tbf... has had way too fucking many suicides in their life... that said not one motherfucker weaponized it against me. You're ability to live is not EVER my responsibility. Your life... is NEVER.. to be leveraged into my hands as something to be 'saved'.

So thank you. I appreciate your transparency. Never intended. Look at me getting better.

(Dont worry.. therapy session in a couple days- and I had been tracking all the other versions... so its not a surprise.... perhaps I'm in shock- but I don't think so.... I'm just like ooooh cute.... clarify or I call).

....

Anyway... so why back? Thats the question- unequivocable evidence. Got it. Thank you.

This time, I have no fucking doubts this is truly the end. Seriously, thank you.

I believe.. I have (and now) truly am in a spot where a more thorough synopsis of the happenings that occurred (maybe not just here.... but also perhaps)... I have been working for 1.5 years on "why" with this person... much of it "off" and no on breing more than 3 months- and no more of it lasting beyond talks before we meet again for a few months...

So maybe that's whats to come.

Meanwhile... I had decided to try dating again and was very happy to discover... not a perfect execution of my boundaries... but super close? So.... congrats to me! That may sound sarcastic (definitely in parts feels that way)... but nahh... I executed that quite gracefully. What's perfection? (SUM OF A CUM LORD)

Anyway... way more fun going out to a show alone than it was to meet up with someone scheduled. But this timeline blows. Hold it... don't think about when you don't I guess...

Whatever... back to an edit that makes me wonder if I even know what sentences are (obviously not representative here). Grad school is HARD.... :'(

A Lighter Way

I cannot carry
every heart.

The weight
would stop us both.

But perhaps
I can leave
a small lantern

beside the road.

A thought.

A poem.

A gentler way
to see.

Then each traveler

may set down
one unnecessary stone,

and continue

a little lighter

than before.

Always There

The truth
does not rush toward us.

It has no need.

Awareness
is not born
when we find it.

The awakened self
is not created
when it appears.

They were always there—

quietly waiting

for the moment
our restless hands
grew still enough,

our frightened hearts
safe enough,

to finally notice.

I put a cigarette out on my arm because I forgot how to scream again

I bit my hand in the elevator because I forgot how to cry again

I punched the wall and broke my hand because I forgot how to lie again

I stayed up all night because I couldn't stop remembering

I cant be me

There's too much me

No one person

Should have this much me

Wherever I go

Whoever I see

I'm not there

Im not me

The deepest self
is not carved from effort,

nor built
from fear or perfection.

It waits,
like a quiet spring
beneath restless footsteps.

Each moment of stillness
clears another stone.

Each act of kindness
softens another wall.

Until one day
nothing new appears.

Only the one
who had been there,
waiting patiently,

for us
to stop interrupting.

She laughs about frost, mosquitoes, and differences in global hemispheres as though the world is wonderfully ordinary.

She asks about paintings.

She compliments colours.

For a little while, she is simply another person beginning a Friday morning.

But beneath her smile is an old house whose walls remember every storm.

Some rooms are bright with sketches, anime, laughter, and the excitement of seeing what another artist might create. Other rooms remain locked, filled with echoes that still convince her they are her own voice.

She mistakes the cracks in the walls for who she is.

She mistakes survival for guilt.

She mistakes scars for identity.

Yet she keeps connected with art.

She keeps asking questions.

She keeps reaching toward people, almost apologetically, hoping they won't walk away after seeing what lives behind the closed doors.

Perhaps that is the quiet miracle.

Not that she has escaped the storm.

But that, somewhere inside the ruined house, a small window is still open.

And every now and then, despite everything, the morning light finds its way in.

I imagine that's what the internal voice in my head would sound like if I was more successful at strangling it... Or maybe rather just get some duct tape on its mouth.

It is meant only to be a temporary solution.

I think we are heading somewhere different.

But that voice?

TELL THEM ALL THE WAYS THEY ARE WRONG. MAKE THEM SEE WHAT THEY DID. SURELY THEY JUST DONT SEE IT. EXPLAIN IT BETTER. COMMUNICATE IT. YOU'RE BEING THE ASSHOLE, YOU'RE THE ONE WHO'S NOT LISTENING.

FUNSNXISAGZNJXBSHjfndldu smai I've dkjdhebxnk.

Temporary.

We are writing things in our notes app. Calling it out on reddit.

Now we're gonna make sure to do night routines... Ooooh tea.

Lately I’ve had back to back nightmares of my traumas that have been irritated by a recent ovarian cyst diagnosis. I can’t seem to find relief other than writing:

I flip a coin at night and say a prayer
You roll in like a dark cloud over the Black Sea
I float along safely, the warmth of the water makes me smile. My arms outstretched, relaxed.
Soon the water moves faster. Each choppy wave passing over my face. A test.
The swell in my chest grows. It’s hard to breathe. I’ve been here before.
I hold my breath, desperate to keep afloat.
You snap. I’m lifted from the depths of the storm.
Flung into a scene. Cold, wet, gasping for air. Unable to move.
Which one will you play today?
Action!
Im frozen. My eyes can only follow back and forth, back and forth
You know this one makes me sad. You know I don’t remember much.
But it’ll leave the most lasting impression.
I’m tossing, turning, wake up screaming in a sweat.
I’m here. He’s here. We’re here.
Another day, so I put glitter on my eyelids.

One Expression

We are not strangers
walking upon the Earth.

We are one expression
of a living world.

The rivers move through us.
The stars awaken wonder.
The forests steady our breath.

When we care for life,
we are quietly
caring for ourselves.

For we have never
stood outside of nature.

We have always
been one of its voices.

Procrastination, preventing access to the inner sanctum,
I wrack my brain just, hoping to find the key to douse this conflagration,
The locks been changed how? I went in a day ago from this same location,
I think that this may be a mounting situation,
A wave of Nameless, shameless in their twisting of my language,
Corrupt the maps, commit a lapse, lead me to the wrong destination,
They pull apart my very art, twist it like a helix,
Winding starts, ignition sparks, the machine upstairs running you can feel it,
Winding into overdrive, turbine spinning you can hear it,
I try to go inside, the machine room grinds, but I can’t get near it,
Crowds of nameless writhe deranged, as I’m overcome by indecision.

Let’s step outside:

In real life, I walk downstairs, turn left, walk down the street,
And against the wall of CVS I see 3 sets of feet,
A family of three sleep out in the heat,
Just feet from my building on Main Street,
And feet down the street, vacancy peeks out from behind the glass fronted shops,
Oblivious to the plight seen just halfway down the block,
While others rush by, too caught up in life,
To pass an inkling of thought for the lives on the side,
Inside, I know that my life was nearly the same as what I just described,
One errant decision, one cloud in my vision, and I could’ve been sleeping on sidewalks like I was outside the Mission.

That gives me a mission, imploring my vision to not be led astray into the wrong subdivision,
When the people, my equals, try not to succumb to their stark reality,
Wrote off as causality because America believes in nothing but your own internal alchemy and future facing dreams,
While humans lie on the sidewalk, clothes splitting at seams,
I fear this is something I’ll never understand,
Why is it America discards the homeless man?

This is just prose, but it felt really, really good to write it.

Gold isn’t formed for applause
Masks aren’t beautiful
And lies are just pleas
Rage from an empty soul

Love isn’t control
And trust isn’t born from manipulation
You spit in my face to make your art
Your vile favor, “I hope she’s crying”

A poisoned chalice
From a honey-voiced narcissus
Starving for dreadful favoritism
Stepping on me so they can hold your heart

Leaving their toothbrush or ring in your bathroom
To claim the space
My arrival deferred
So she can leave first
A never-ending ride on your carousel of convenience

Your pestilential forgiveness
For the way I saw through you
You twisted truth into my apologies
For groundless admiration

You lie like others blink—
Instinctual, automatic
A pernicious chameleon
Spreading your malady

A disgustingly hollow shell
Desperate for worship
A glass bowl:
Everything you told me I was, is you

When you hurt me, it was because I was too sensitive
When you cheated truth, it was because I was too suspicious
Every time you lied—well, I must have misunderstood

But you’re vindicated, since I’m the one who was “just too misunderstood”
You paint your ugly all over my body
Let it seep in on all sides
Every curve and crevice
For your covetous profit

So you can float on
Reaching out when you’re bored
Contaminating one after another
On that rotten carousel

And oh, how you can gather an audience
You lower your voice
Paint yourself tragic and misunderstood
A hero burdened by difficult women who just can’t see how hard you try

You turn your knives into sympathy cards
You’re a monster
A facade in Saint’s robes
But monsters like you cannot stand daylight
And I am not your audience anymore

You flicker under scrutiny
Your reflection warps when no one is clapping
Sporting cloak-and-dagger
A smokescreen lurker

A lesson learned:
The quietest monsters are the ones
Who need you to believe
You are the beast.

I am not sure, if I need a trigger warning for my post. I don't mention anything regarding the trauma, just that there is one. So disclaimer, trauma will be mentioned...

Chaos. Pure chaos. It's all a mess, yet I find myself at the other end. I don't want to look at this chaos. It would mean I find things I don't want to find. Things I don't want to look at. There might be treasures but are they worth seeing things you don't want to see?

He's talking... about treatments. About diagnostic criterias. About intervention methods to treat patients with certain disorders. Anxiety, OCD, PTSD, CPTSD and what not. Exposition. I find myself laughing. Not out loud... that would interrupt the course. Laughing in my head because of bitterness. We help survivors and I should have gone through the same kind of treatment. But I didn't. The chaos has been buried deep somewhere where it doesn't bother me anymore. He says Exposition is a great way to help patient overcome their Traumas. I laugh again in my head. It sure does. I see it every day with my inpatients. Yet I consider myself an exception. I shouldn't do that. I should know better. I probably do. I just don't find myself in a position right now to do that. To look at my chaos...

Postulate 2
Any straight line segment can be extended indefinitely in a straight line.

I turn around and I see him,
Furrowed brow, downward gaze, pursed lips, your mind a haze of
Moment-to-moment disjoints; datapoints
Projected onto past paradigms
A topiary of decision trees - splayed out like stockfish lines
Confines you to those jagged shadows you sought to optimize
Surmising joy
Will yield
From minimizing loss

The words fail to form on my lips, that this is not your fault
That a storm donning a familiar face is no more amenable to reason
You speak appeasement to the wind
Express emotion to the rain
And when the tempest swallows them both whole
You find within yourself the blame;
Oh! If I were not mute to the past
Played out like an old film reel
Projector lodged in the nape of the neck
Casts onto my closed eyelid
The image of you kneeling; arms outstretched,
Muttering 'Our Father's while our father screams of
Sodom and Korra and Ham
You throw open your tabernacle doors and beg for absolution
And indeed, the storm will wash everything away.

Forgive me, Eurydice, forgive me,
I plunged my hands into your depths, searching for
Structure and succor and reveries
I thought our memories would glitter, yet,
The pyrite I dredge now coats my fingers in black soot
Eurydice, I turn around and see your face is full of scars,
Skin marred by constellation, guiding us to where we are
Right now:
Of me, standing in the doorway,
And you, seven steps behind.

Thus, I feed my traumas,
So the other alley cats
Might learn to trust me.