Hi.
I'll be honest: I'm not doing well. I've been too ill for too long. I'm tired. Angry. God is fortunate that I don't believe in him. But all I will say, for now, is this: I can hear the rain on my window. So many drops, falling here from the sky, and inside I stay dry. I'm listening to the rain. There is rain on my window. For now, there is rain on my window.
I have become accustomed to the dark over the last few days - A migraine still bothers me. Still, I risk standing to look at the world. Outside, it tries to snow over the frosty morning. I open the window. Snowflakes turn to rain on my palm.
I'm here.
There is no history here, no steps worn down by centuries of feet Only rectangle after rectangle after rectangle Rectangle buildings crisscrossed by rectangle concrete Rectangle lawns next to rectangle ponds under a rectangle bridge If you travel through rectangle corridors to the rectangle quad You are treated to an immaculately maintained circle As a rest from the rectangle monotony
Students hop rectangle barriers to smoke sitting on rectangle balconies But respect the rectangle keep out signs, for the most part The ducks don't know what the signs say, and if they did they wouldn't care They fly where they like and waddle where they will They poop on the rectangle walls and splash in the rectangle ponds At night they give no thought to symmetry as they huddle in one corner of the lawn To tuck their heads under their wings And dream of the open sky
Content note: needle mention
I jokingly call it a “houseiversary”. It's like a birthday or a wedding anniversary, except it's for when I last left the house, and no one's ever given me a present for it.
It means I noticed it was October, And that made me think of - oh, so long ago – I don't even remember what I was doing but I think it involved loud car rides and needles in my arm. Did I know it would be the last time? Did anyone tell me?
It means I wonder what's out there, how it's changed, how I've changed, how much of what I remember is real. What I've forgotten. There could be dragons roaming the streets for all I know.
It means I think of other people, what they meant to me, what they could have meant, and whether they think of me from time to time. Whether they ever truly existed at all.
It means I dream of one day leaving, again - of hatching a dragon of my own and raising it and waiting until it grows strong enough to lift me into the sky and away.
A chest binder is a kind of hug. A hug is a kind of reassuring squeeze, A promise of protection, warmth, And a chest binder is a kind of protection, a kind of warmth. I wear a hug and it protects me, Keeps me safe, Squeezes dysphoria into a tight embrace Until it defrosts into something new, something calming, Something warm.
I push the clear gel out of the bottle and hold it up to the light as it sits in my hand spreading out, almost but not quite losing its shape. Gently, I use my thumb to divide it in two. I slide half to my other palm, leaving a glistening trail behind. I put my hand to my shoulder and feel the pressure of my palm through the gel as I move my hand down my arm. Reassuring. A gift from myself to myself.
This is my daily ritual, my promise to myself. I have seen my pain, dissociation. I have recognised it. I will make my future better.
I close my eyes at the coolness on my skin as everything unnecessary evaporates.
Sleep disturbance Unrefreshed sleep:e.g. awaken feeling exhausted regardless of duration of sleep, day‐time sleepiness -Myalgic Encephalomyelitis International Consensus Criteria
In my dreams I fly. In my dreams school takes place at the top of an endless staircase. In my dreams I meet a girl and we kiss under the stars. We have no need of words. In my dreams I swim laps of a pool as the water slowly rises. In my dreams I fail to teleport. I cannot get the hang of shifting my surroundings around me so I run instead. In my dreams I am in the middle of a busy crowd of strangers and I remember I am sick. I remember I need rest. In my dreams I do not rest.
I want a relationship where We spend our evenings cuddled on the sofa Netflix and chilling and it's not a euphemism Then head to bed where we press our bodies against each other in our pyjamas Reassuring, telling each other through touch “I'm here, you're safe” And kissing, before we drift off into sleep Not going further because there is no further Only other people's relationships in a dynamic that works for them And our relationship, different from theirs but no less whole
A poem about my experience of asexuality, originally posted on Valentine's Day
How does it feel? This -I gesture vaguely to my last half-decade - is normal now. This is what everyone's going through. This isn't what anyone else is going through at all. How are you doing? Are you okay? Our world isn't built for this. Staying at home. Why didn't you put supports in place when it was just us sick people? I want to cackle as you find out first hand that housebound doesn't mean sitting around watching TV all day. I envy you for your ability to watch TV at all. Thank you for the free resources. I hope they help thousands of people. Why weren't they there before. Over the years I've slowly, thoughtfully, desperately discovered how to cope. I want to teach you all of my coping strategies. My coping strategies aren't for you. I want to listen while you vent about how hard it is for you. What's your problem? It'll only be for a year or two at most. You can still do everything except go out, so what are you complaining about? I want to cup your face in my hands and tell you, softly, that it'll be alright. That it's not so bad living like this. I want to smugly proclaim “see? It's terrible living like this”. I want to sit you down and make you sign a legal document promising you won't forget about me when this is all over*. *for you I want to care for you. I want you to care about me.
I’m having a lot of feelings about watching abled people respond to covid. Not just the way some people are making it extremely obvious whose lives they feel are worth living, but also their response to social distancing measures. Things that society, as a whole, didn’t care about pre-lockdown (when they were only happening to disabled people) are suddenly A Big Deal. I saw an article about the government being deeply concerned about the mental health effects of being confined to the house for extended periods, which was incredibly weird as someone who has been housebound for 3 years. This poem was an attempt to capture my confusing and often contradictory feelings about the whole situation.
