My general state of calm (or numb, shall we say?) is testament to the effectivity of my doctor. Either that, or it’s a combination of medication plus personal growth (small applause).

How am I even getting by? Things are tighter than they ever were, and I’ve welcomed the challenge of managing my finances as a game to see just how far I can stretch things while staying healthy, getting workouts in, and such. For now, I’m alright. This is good, because I can use the growth. But there are moments when I’m tired of it all, and perhaps deserve the fate of a lost cause.

My business with my friend is still in a toddler stage –– with many setbacks (as all businesses do) and limitations that we need to figure our way around while things around keep changing. My wallpaper thing with another friend isn’t panning out as we had hoped. My projects are delayed, and prospective ones might not push through. I’m not sure whether to feel desperate, because I trust that I’ll figure it out. Except that I’m not sure how. I hate being helped, or feeling helpless. I want to be the one who needs less, and gives more. (Basically, I want to be in control, haha) I am eager to stand on my own feet, but why do I seem to keep falling down? I’m also unsure whether to be hard on myself for making a continued mess of life, going this very unconventional way and in a surprising manner. I only know that I’m in this present scenario, and should think of what to do next. What else is there to do anyhow.

This is definitely not how I thought my life would be like. If I were in a more volatile state of mind, I’d already give into binge eating and wallow in my utter uselessness as a human being… and simply want to disappear. Other things have been discouraging as well. Despite working out and being on day 55 of intermittent fasting, I gained back a few pounds of what I lost, and appear to be none the slimmer. Why don’t I just give up?

Career-wise, it’s been a dismal two months, and I am nervous for what the rest of the year holds. Dear God, give me the strength to face the consequences of my decisions, and please help me to muddle through ––– with sanity, humor, and the discipline to take care of myself.

We are all walking heavens and hells, a little more one or the other depending on the fluxes of life. I don’t want to be hell for others, but I’m aware of my capability of being so, even intentionally. Lately, I’ve been having a difficult time not being hell towards one person in particular. Decades back-up the probability that this relationship is as good as it gets, even if we’re desperate for something better. I want a meaningful relationship with this person, but I don’t know if I can survive their (ignorant or even unintended) hell for those who wander closer. In the past, it ran me over. Repeatedly. After letting that happen several times, you end up tired, angry, and quite traumatized. Instinct and common sense tells me to manage my distance then. We all need to survive too.

But is this the last word on it? Or do I even recalibrate what I imagine to be The Ways Things Can Fall Into Place? How do you reconcile two people so different from each other, and who so want a good relationship, and yet, are unable to connect in ways that meet each other’s needs. My therapist shared that sometimes, even between parents and children, there’s such a thing as irreconcilable differences. If that’s true, the nuclear family just acquired a cherry on top of the army of things that already threaten its definition as haven and refuge.

Nothing leaves a person quite so lonely as to have no home, and by home, I mean the people that form the structure of it. Ideally, the immediate family. These days, most people go outside of their nuclear families to seek refuge, a respite from the hell of bad marriages, dysfunctional systems, and cycles of abuse. We look elsewhere for heaven and safety.

Whenever I think about what we are, as spiritual beings, that comes to mind. It was an obvious experience of what it’s like when we describe a person as a world to dance in. I think of friends or relationships in the same way ––– I can never be the specific version of me with them, if they, in their distinct personalities and quirks, did not exist. And vice versa. Close friends are my favorite worlds to visit ––– they shift in shape, maturity, and flora over the years, yet they are constantly home.

We are all complex universes, contained in bodies walking around on two legs. If someone were to dive into you, what kind of world would they experience? What laws of science, magic, or nature would govern? Would it glow with quiet bioluminescent forests, or be a dystopian cityscape ravaged by insatiable creatures? Would it be a world of cruelty and suspicion, of kindness and light, of apathy, sensuality… or a unique mix of all the above and more, in varying proportions? Would people feel safe and welcome there, or would they sense a judgmental eye watching them all the time?

“I’ve been searching for years for the ideal place. And I’ve come to the realization that the only way to find it is to be it.” – Alan Watts

I’ve been chewing on what Jesus said, “Make your home in me, as I make mine in you…” ( John 15:4) together with, “My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?” (John 14:2) God is the ideal dwelling place; the ultimate safe space. He is a universe of untamed beauty, wild and infinitely vast. Perfectly balanced in unconditional love and holiness, order and play, the The Hundred Acre Woods and Godzilla. He is an ocean where you can keep diving deeper and never need to surface, because that’s part of the definition of His godship and unparalleled knowledge. 

What keeps me from fully jumping in is the fear of being so small and fragile that I’ll dissolve in this powerful substance, which would obviously overcome me. I don’t want to be a copy paste, even if I don’t fully know who or what the original me is anyway. However, among the few things I know is that we are patterned after an eternal God. Perhaps the infinite in us can only stretch out and claim its true form if it journeys within an infinite One bigger than it. He/It/They may be the only appropriate home that can hold––– without breaking from being strained too far, and without being too small that it suffocates what’s inside–––  my infinite self. 

On the flip side, what kind of place have I prepared for God? Strange to consider, but what kind of dwelling place am I for Him? What intangibles am I developing so that I can be a place where the Immortal God can enjoy? How am I nudging others towards becoming glorious gardens and galaxies where we can sit together and eat with God? 

Nobody knows what our true form is like, or what the afterlife will be like. I’ll take my cue from The Lord of the Rings, northern lights, the Marvel franchise, dragons and fantastic creatures, and photographs of national parks. I like to think of them as glimpses of us and the unseen things. Then discern what is good and not good, and apply.

No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no human mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him. (1 Cor 2:9)

Over the past several weeks, beginning sometime in the middle of March, a depression crept in. I thought it was the monthly crazy from hormones, but it stayed, for weeks and weeks. It was familiar and confusing, similar to how I felt about interior design after a few years into it. It’s the existential crisis again. If there’s anything I struggle with the most, it’s what to do with myself. Particularly, what to do with this life, and usually that’s a question about work. Is all work doomed to become quite hollow, repetitive actions that turns us into automatons, after a while? Work that, as our mastery of skills and information allows us to scrutinize its finer details, can’t help becoming… ridiculous or empty? It would be easier it didn’t matter (whether or not it engages us the way we hope it will), it would be easier not to care. But when it confronts you on a daily basis, and for many hours in a day, I guess any sane being would wonder.

Most of our lives are spent working. Eight hours a day, five days a week, or more. What’s reasonable to hope for in work becomes a significant answer then, because that tells us how to manage our expectations of life, and cope with its disappointments. All work, all life, is toil. The norm is to have frustrations, disappointments and struggles. But is 50-60% of the work experience a slow fading into grey, a daily sucking the colors out of you, with the occasional color and gold? I’m not trying to look for dream jobs, or something ‘perfect’, because there’s no such thing. My question is: is it normal to simply tolerate our jobs. That no matter how much we try to engage with it, we can’t help an emotional disconnection. Every morning we pick ourselves up from bed, and nod along with the rhythm of civilization until our brief lives end.

After surveying working adults in different industries, the answer I’m getting is this: life is grey. Life is a quarterly or seasonal existential crisis. That’s the norm. If we subscribe to the Christian belief, then work is cursed with toil. And maybe toil goes beyond the fight for work, but it also encompasses a gnawing emptiness at the back of our minds as we do it. Maybe this is the most work can be here on earth, in a fallen and broken world, because this is the shadow of what work in its true, full, original intent is. Heaven will have work in store for us, but work that makes us come alive in as much as it is challenging. For now, we need to content ourselves with jobs that make us money, enjoy sometimes, teaches us new skills, but slowly turns us grey inside.

It’s been a struggle to come to terms with this, as being all there is to life. That mostly grey with the occasional color is as good as it gets. I’ve tried different jobs in different countries, yet find myself consistently back in this hellish non-color. Is that all there is? Yes, that’s it. Always muddling through, not really knowing what to do with ourselves, with a few lucky ones finding their niche. The rest of us won’t find it, but hopefully we’ll have decent enough compensation, benefits, and work-life balance, to sustain us, and afford distractions like vacations and hobbies, which make existence more pleasantly tolerable one day at a time.

To hope that life, that making a living can be more than grey is too painful, because it means that it’s still out there, and we just need to find it. But I’ve tried to follow the clues, and it’s led nowhere. Or maybe it’s just been harder for me, because I’m the problem. Either ways, the only solutions are these: One, if this is all there is to life, then we just need to accept it, and go along. I just need to figure out how to deal with it on the days where I wonder why we ought to keep staying in this existence anyway, when the next life is better. What compels us to stay? If only the threat of hell didn’t loom over those who don’t find it worth it anymore.  But two: if there’s more to life than this, how do we find that elusive answer. And how to hold on until you find it.

After food laboratory duties, or an episode of Brooklyn Nine Nine, I want to be able to turn around, and find a fuzzy little creature gazing at me with affection. If I kneeled to oblige, it would be too happy to sidle up next to me; I smell like bacon.

When a friend shared about how she was feeling the pain of being single, I thought I understood. She’s in her early thirties, and even if she had peace, there was an undeniable desire for someone to do life with. She knew well enough that she was a complete person, and yet, the pang was there. It didn’t always feel that way, the intensity comes and goes, but it’s a consistent visitor.

We know about wholeness in God, of lacking no good thing, and it’s true. Goodness and beauty abound, and so does the love from the circles we’re part of. And yet, singleness can still be painful to many, or to some, and it’s okay to feel frustrated. Loneliness is painful, but it’s a part of the human experience that helps us grow, when we know how to deal with it. It can increase our empathy for others who’ve come by it through other causes, and how to be there for them.

Anyway.

Today, it elbows me sharp enough to realize that I finally I understand my friend. It’s irksome, and I wonder whether neurosurgery could remove my capacity to experience it. Despite friendships and genuine connections with family, colleagues, and even strangers, why must I feel a burdensome desire for someone to be here. Not for chatter, but in the quiet of the evening, to find warmth. When someone at a gathering tells a joke, to know that you can look into one person’s eyes and find a conversation (or eye roll). A life partner won’t, and shouldn’t be everything. But it’s incredible how we, though transient beings in dying bodies can, for a while, find home in another one as transient and fading.

What a gift to find someone to be anything with. What a gift to be closest in recognizing another as their being and bodies change. And to hold them, and to be held by them.

———————-

Since this subject usually makes well-intentioned people get into dole-out-advice mode:

Rather than advise pining folk that they just need to get busier (we’re all busy enough), or meet more people (which they’re already probably doing), or to get involved in something interesting (stop assuming they’re not), firstly: it’s not bad to go through the motion of loneliness. Sometimes it’s a choice that ruins people, but other times, it’s just something people are in, just because. It’s a waste of thought and energy for a person to dwell on it to the point of depression or immobility. It’s not necessarily the best thing for the people around them to provide unsolicited advice either. Loneliness is one of the unpleasant things we encounter as relational beings. It too, passes. Rather than tell them what to do, just be with them, acknowledge and accept how they feel. You don’t need to do anything else. Just being there probably already makes them feel better, unless they ask for what to do anyway. Then maybe catch a comedy show or go for a walk or tell them that you spent an hour looking for where your dog took a dump when it was camouflaged on your brown shoe all along. And if you can increase their circle of friends and acquaintances, why not? :)

After an eighteen hour flight back from the Philippines, vegetating in bed was a huge relief. I’m back in the vastness of Illinois, moving in and out of chunks of blank space in what isn’t traffic that makes my insides scream. Since stepping outside O’Hare however, the cold weather which I’ve always loved seems different. Or does it.

Whereas Manila feels like a hundred overlapping circles, Chicago (or America, even) feels like a connect-the-dot drawing. Manila is the hustle, traffic, and population of downtown Chicago condensed into a tenth of the space. Just how dense is it? I share dimsum with some friends, and run into an uncle and aunt. I take the plane from Manila to Hong Kong and bump into a friend (who happens to be on the same flight). I stop by Starbucks in the airport and find a high school classmate about to have breakfast in the very same place. In Manila, my world is bustling, and cozy enough to almost feel suffocated.

On the other hand, Chicago is Manila stretched out. An hour’s drive is at least fifty miles away from home. The personal spaces maintained by everyone makes it feel even more spread out. No overlaps here, but lines. It takes some more effort to be part of a community, and to see people or make friends. This is partly because I’m a foreigner to this place, but it’s just as much because the culture is sensitive to personal space and individuality. When I’m not drawing lines, I live in the spaces between the dots. The echoes in these spaces would be drowned out by the sounds of cars, birds, and construction in my hometown across the world.

I think of my mom, and all the suman we ate, and our lakwatsas together. The white noise and stickiness of humid Manila is almost like a dream. Am I really driving, or on the set of The Stepford Wives? There’s the characteristically American small talk and conversation when I went back to work. There’s that scent of fresh laundry that greets me first thing at home. I breathe, and the air is crisp. I remove layers of sweaters, and moisturize after a warm shower. I despise putting on lotion, but I guess it’s less of a nuisance than constant sweating.

This space, which has been my life the past three and a half years, is calming. If I ever needed a thinking corner, America has been gloriously it. I relish crawling into a cave to recharge just a tad more than I love being with people. The anonymity and challenge of building my life in a foreign place has been conducive to coming into my own person, uninterrupted. I’ve wanted to get out of Manila since I was nineteen. It’s still a surprise to find myself here, and I’m grateful for the ways I’ve grown from this unpredictable journey.

And yet these days, the quiet feels a little too quiet.

I’m accustomed to being time zones away from the people I’ve known all my life. From screens, I glimpse them growing, creating, traveling, finding love, and making families. Though the friendship remains, we live separate lives with stories that no longer intersect. Which explains why the past few weeks were surreal. Selfies with my childhood best friends, holding my grandma’s hand, or peering into the curious eyes of my friend’s baby. Going through traffic with mom, and turning my dad’s jokes on himself. Trying out new places with my high school barkada (and talking some of them into BBG). Conversations with friends about the way we understand the Bible and God, and the things we’re still figuring out. Board games. Sleeping next to my best friends (one of them snores). Getting lost, and friends with their own homes now. So. Many. Hugs. So many continuations that were just as warm, or warmer, than when I left it.

Before moving out of the country, Manila has meant joy, but much more pain. The sorrow has always been real and complex. But what a gift to realize that the things that were good were always brilliantly good. And now, after a little more becoming, after finding myself changed by encountering God in unfamiliar territory, I’ve grown in my capacity to see the love that has always been greater, that weathers typhoons on the fertile soil of my Manila. And more so, I’ve grown in my ability to receive that love, and to gift it.

I missed my people. Attachments are deeper than I estimated. Home, after all, is people.

On my last hour of being twenty-seven, I can’t help relishing the beautiful sleekness of the number seven as opposed to the rotund, snowman-like figure eight. I hope this doesn’t mean that my metabolism immediately plummets, obliterating any hope of slimness, much like the change of the form of the digits. It’s been a futile resistance over the past few months, swinging back and forth between plans for the future and eating habits. A failure of self-control.

As they usually are, twenty-seven was a roller coaster of a year, but I’m not sure if I liked it. There were blessings to be counted, and I want to be on the good feelings corner. But I’m not.

Ever since I was eighteen, birthdays have been an emotional mess. I’m usually not sure whether I want to be around company, or wanting to head over towards Antarctica so that nobody can reach me. Crazy, isn’t it? This birthday is one of those. Even though twenty-eight is still young, I can’t help but feel pressure on having made something of myself, in some kind of (I’d hate to admit it but) prestigious manner. Instead, it’s been a humbling year, of decisions that seem to have no discernable direction for now. I feel lost, and question whether I’ve made the most out of my opportunities, or whether someone else would’ve been better off having my life. Even though I managed to finish the 12 week bikini body workout within this year, I didn’t commit to the eating aspect of it, and managed to make my way back to the starting weight. One of my pants have ripped, which was sadly amusing. I haven’t learned German, or Mandarin, or Spanish, or Japanese… No new language. I’ve gained some skills, from new work experiences, but I don’t know where it’s headed. I haven’t been as dedicated to God as I hoped to be, not engraving His Words on my heart despite BSF etc. I’ve met new people, yet I feel alone. To a small extent, it grates on me that during my early twenties I thought that maybe… maybe I would’ve met someone by now who could be a potential partner in life. It doesn’t bother me much yet, but that kettle is hissing from the back burner.

All in all, I feel a combination of aimlessness, failure, unattractiveness, and fatness. It seems like a useless life. This is a lot of sad bickering, but… I feel like crap, and it just needs to play itself out for a bit.

I don’t know where twenty-eight is headed, and it scares me. It feels too late to be ‘starting out’ again, to aim to take care of my body (I still really want nice arms and abs, but I need to put in the work for it if I really want it), and to develop rare and valuable skills… I miss being twenty-five. It’s just as tiring to say that I’ll make it a good year, as it is to try to change my perspective on the present (because maybe they’re not as bad as I’m making it out to be.) But this is where I am. Eventually, we’ll figure it out. Hopefully, soon.

If it was easy, you would have already achieved the change you seek.

Change comes from new habits, from acting as if, from experiencing the inevitable discomfort of becoming.

Be warned: Spoiler alert.

My Mad Fat Diary is about Rae Earl, a sixteen year old girl from Lincolnshire who just got out of the psychiatric hospital. I love how she’s self-aware, honest, scared, brave, and genuine. She struggles with transitioning through unusual and the usual life stages, her relationship with food, and being around people. Season one was a story of life after therapy, and I admire the portrayal of her struggle in becoming ‘normal’ again, which involves things like loneliness, bringing it up with friends, and how to tread carefully enough to avoid unnecessary hurt upon others while not going too mad yourself. How does one face the fear of letting people whose perspectives mean so much to you, whose friendship means a lot to you, know something so fragile and stigmatized. (It was 1996) How do you deal with rejection, whether from yourself, or the rejection you fear from others? The episodes take me through highs and lows within 45 minutes (and the commercials in between), squealing in kilig/glee in one moment and subconsciously furrowing my brown fifteen minutes later.

There is a lovable cast of characters as well, such as an attention-needing pretty best friend, an ex-crush who couldn’t come out of the closet, a seemingly rude audiophile, a delicate but wise friend back at the hospital, her mum, etc. British humor is dry, and their curses are politely crude. I love it. The season ends with a wedding, and with dealing with a chaos of rejection, self-implosion, and one of my favorite lines, “I’ll always hurt people. And I’ll always let people down. I’m so sorry, mom. I just hate myself so much more than I could love anything.” Stuff happens. Then her best friend Tix pulls her back in, and tells her, “What? Did you think you could just slip out of the world with nothing happening because of it? Do you think anyone could do that?”

The show gets even better in season two, where she’s in a relationship (with one of my favorite characters) that’s more than she ever hoped for. So much so that she could not understand at all why this person was interested in her. When something remotely close to it happens to me, I find myself asking the same thing as well, “What on earth is wrong with this person who likes me? What the hell is he doing with somebody like me?” It was terrible; she even felt embarrassed for him for being seen with her. I’m still working my way through the season, but I’m proud of her, and of her friends. They’ve come a long way in a show that reveals their development in a simple, self-deprecating manner that often gives me the feels.

She’s a cooler teenager than I was back when I was naively sixteen. At sixteen, small decisions felt like their repercussions were more significant than they were. Troubles were often overwhelming, and it was challenging to learn how to create healthy coping mechanisms. All these were documented in several diaries that are gathering dust somewhere across the world. Off-tangent, but I loved this little bit on food:

Rae Earl, you just get me.

———-

The Mindy Project is on its fourth season, and it is poignantly funny in its genuine reflection of conflicts that many couples face today:

• One believes in the institution of marriage, the other doesn’t. They’re on their way to their first child. What compromise will take place?
• The father wants the mother to stay at home round the clock, to take care of the household and to be there for their child. Which isn’t a bad thing. As long as everyone is okay with it. But what if the mother enjoys her work and is really good at it? What if she wants to launch new business endeavors, but he wants to have more kids, and for her to take care of her business more like a hobby? How to deal with this. (Would men be willing to swap roles, and how would we adjust to this becoming a norm, since it’s something that’s been happening for years already anyway. Not super prevalent, but it’s emerged more through the years)
• Why is it so hard to know what we want, but have a hard time putting it into words, in an honest conversation, with people we love painfully much.

At a time when women continue to embrace independence, it’s fascinating to see how roles in the family are impacted. I’ve observed that women worked twice. The nine-to-five job for the first half of the day, and then taking care of the household when they got home (laundry, cooking, making sure the kids are doing their homework, making sure that everything on the homefront was in order). Eventually, something gives. How does the family unit recognize this change, and adjust in a way that can be good for everyone? If this has been the direction women are evolving towards, what about the fathers/husbands? I’m curious to see where Kaling will take the show.

To quote a hulu commenter for episode 13: my emotions are dropping their panties. It also bears mentioning how much great Mindy’s outfits are. I would love to be given a makeover by her stylist.

Anyway, that’s all. Must refrain from watching the new episode that’s came out today.

——–

To my friends reading this: any good shows you’ve seen lately?

Often, I think of myself as emotionally adjusted

clear as sunlight streaming through the window

on a winter morning.

And usually, I am.

Usually I’m okay,

as okay as everyone else

who watches comedy shows to laugh

while feasting on a midnight snack.

Except these days, more laughter’s been needed

and more chocolate

and fries

and fruit

and crackers with cheese

but no wine, to keep it on the healthy side.

Am I sated, or still hungry?

On the eleventh week of a twelve week workout

without any progress photos (to document the improvements)

because I don’t need that kind of evidence (not until the very end anyway)

but really

because I feel like I failed.

I no longer recognize when I’m hungry and full

because even when my stomach is full

I still hunger.

Perhaps afflicted by a disorder all these years,

all these years of good and trouble,

years that have shaped a distorted relationship with food.

And maybe,

certain people.

I should be proud of eleven weeks of sticking it through,

but I’m ashamed

that I don’t see the fruits of my labor

that all the work has been for nothing

because of my hunger,

desperate, like a starved animal.

Somewhere along the way

maybe food became a currency of love.

There weren’t many words

or hugs

or things beyond the need,

or time,

but there was food.

Food was okay

because food is sustenance.

Food meant provision of basic needs to live,

and then some.

Then it became a story of how food turned gray and shiny.

Comforting, like the glow of Christmas lights

Harmless, like a second helping.

Delightful, like mini doughnuts and Dippin’ Dots.

A pair of shoes were incredulous, but not a sandwich.

They’d rather see you a little more on the fat than thin side

because as long as you don’t look like you’re starving

like you have enough, or a little more than enough

you’re healthy and fine.

It will look like

they’re taking care of you.

They’re playing their roles just right.

Who can blame the ones we love

when we don’t feel their love?

Often, we speak in different languages.

if you don’t hear it, it doesn’t mean it’s not there.

Of course certain people love us

Even if we don’t feel it

Even when there aren’t the right words

even when they can’t seem to know you,

know you,

after all these years.

There is love.

Maybe it’s the norm

to hope that when you speak,

they’re listening

and won’t forget.

Or be distracted by the television.

Or a phone call.

Just trust that your answers

won’t get buried beneath the busyness of work.

And when it does,

what can we really do,

but move on,

with the help of God and the gospel.

(even if that oscillates too)

Trust that it comes from a good,

albeit imperfect place.

Even when they respond

in verses

after verses

of paragraphs

of verses

that aren’t their own words.

Maybe they don’t know what to say

or how to think

as well.

We’re all broken somehow.

Even when the structures they build to protect you

always crumble and leak

and you tiptoe as though eggshells covered the floor

with shadows of broken promises

lingering like the smell of cigarettes.

I guess we’ll take it.

And learn how to feed ourselves,

and not be a burden,

because we need to eat

to survive.

No one is perfect.

And we forgive the ones we love

even when they try to hold us by the neck

using hypothetical dying wishes to tie us down

to posts of their own choosing.

If only they didn’t teach you how to stand

but clipped your wings

so that they can hear you sing from up close

because music

makes everything

seem better.

Like love is in the air

and everyone’s plate

has a slice of cake.

We try,

for the ones we love

even when we’ve long run out

and start wondering if it’s ever been filled.

Our tanks have holes from decades of crossfire

but doesn’t everyone?

Isn’t everyone in some form and amount of pain,

and dealing with it?

Besides,

even if we don’t have love (or feel it)

Can we demand love?

Can we resent others and blame them each time

we don’t seem to have it?

And make them feel guilty

and terrible

because they’re not playing their part right.

Or are we blind to the streams that want to fill our tanks?

So we try to plug the holes with bread

and the guilty, broken spirits

manipulated into submission,

conflicted in will,

will guard our tanks while they try to figure it out

(if they ever will)

and make sure that you’re well fed

not starving

maybe a little on the fat side,

like they’re coddled

because even if it’s not the healthiest,

a little more is better than nothing, isn’t it?

Then we can all enjoy the serotonin

of a midnight snack together

while laughing together

at a sitcom.

I don’t like to tie down, but desire to hold others lightly

as lightly as I want to be held.

I don’t believe that anything

or anyone

can fill my tank

and fix the holes

the way I need to never be hungry

or thirsty

because I would need the River itself.

Love can’t exist in a vacuum,

and needs community and family,

but to use community, family, and friends to fix it

would be to put them

beneath a weight

that will crush them.

To the kind ones who sit beside my tank,

resting a hand on it while we share milk and cookies:

thank you.

I’ll figure out the rest eventually,

whether I’m hungry or full,

and how to make food not shiny

or gray

but nourishment

for a body that I want to care for.

I’d rather shrivel up like a leaf

and crumble in the wind

than hollow someone else out

by sucking whatever blood I need

like a parasite.

Of course, you say you love me

that you have loved me, all these years

and I believe it

I will believe it

and remember it as best as I can

one memory after another

like counting sheep

to be able to fall asleep.