JOURNAL

November 7,

Happy birthday, Mommy. You would have been 80 today. I picture all your past birthdays when you were still fantastically here and I would call and you would have been on the phone all day. You were so loved – still are. I always wished I could be quiet and reserved like you. Observing, never judging and being one with the earth. I miss you something fierce.

November 8, 

Is it possible that cleaning every inch of my living space can clear the cobwebs invading my mind. I need clarity and I’m not talking minute transparency. I want brilliant lucidity that breeds creativity. It’s been lacking and one reason I feel so restless. I need to release my thoughts in a torrent of beautiful words and sultry similes. I have nothing though…

November 9,

Fucking night terrors…I can’t escape them so I might as well embrace them.

I dance with my love, my demons, seduced by the black candle’s low burn as the shadows come alive. She whispers…begging me to cross the line and submit to her enticing allure. In the velvet veil of her darkness, I too come alive – entranced and begging to explore the inferno of her obsidian heart. I succumb to her suggestions, and am left surrendering to the wolves of my dreams and devoured whole. I awaken breathless, emerging from the flames, ashes and bone, reborn.

I’m getting absolutely nothing accomplished on this dreary, November day, so I might as well completely waste it. Punishment for allowing the giant beanstalk of fear to hover and prevent me from getting any sleep whatsoever. I’m sure my cheeks will be crimson flushed when I read back all I wrote on the heels of brief insanity and unfiltered thoughts though it brings amusement when I reflect on the wild notions I allow to run free in the stillness of night.

Where will this analysis take me today? My mind, the scientific experiment in extremes. I constantly have the genius idea that I’m on to something and then I discover I am only fantastically chasing my tail. Oh, to see observations on me as one would write in a lab notebook. I can only assume that they are brilliant doodles of lude graffitti and half-finished drawings. I find I can never quite finish anything – most directly a thought. Mad scientist comes to mind at this moment when I am half-awake and existing on one cup of tea and half a banana…why can’t I even finish eating?

So far today, I have managed to rewrite three poems (still horrid), read back my Watercolor Tattoos essay for the millionth time (trying to convince myself that yes that all has happened to you though my mind has once again shut it out), tried on another box of useless clothes (why? why? why?), found a stuffed rabbit and sobbed when I felt the softness, and walked up and down the basement stairs fifty times trying to convince myself to get motivated. I’m banally bored. I want to sit and stare at words and feel something, anything.

I hate the walls of this house, an entrapment. They depress me so for probably too many reasons to count. I can’t connect here, I feel no warmth. Have I become a spoiled child that throws a temper tantrum when her mind doesn’t go where she wants it to or do I hate myself that much? I find it comforting when my eyes drift over my body in the mirror and I don’t see me. Invisible in my own eyes. I see what my mind thinks is a version of me and I don’t fight it. A validation of some sort?

What does my soul look like? Can it be all glitter and glory, stains removed, filth destroyed and love restored? I want freedom but freedom from what? My mind, my body, my connections? I say that and a vibration pulses through my body and tears famously roll out of my eyes. I hit a nerve. I’m so disgusted by myself that I won’t get anywhere unless I work on the hideous, shame-filled, gut-wrenching hatred I have of myself and my body.

I am on to something but the something presents itself as a horrific car crash of twisted metal and body parts. Do I need to tear myself completely apart so I can be put back together and made presentable? Already ruminating on the friends I have begged incessantly to let me crawl back in the shadows and be forgotten this week. If I push hard enough, will they relent? Stubborn bastards!

I’m sure I will read this back and roll my eyes and then be on to the next spectacular idea that bingo-ball rolls into my mind. Which reminds me – I need to find all the other bingo balls that rolled out of the cage and I fabulously wrote on.

Fun bingo ball, maybe get me out of my pitiful, miserable mood. Can we bring Peter Steele back from the dead so I can crawl into his vocal cords and just sit there, letting the vibrations wash over me as the music drips from his lips? I can almost feel his teeth sinking into my pale flesh with each hauntingly beautiful note. That velvety baritone could steal my soul any day and I would magically surrender. Damn…that voice was larger than life as was he. I can’t hear him sing and not get hot! Mesmerizing!!!

I accomplished nothing today other than writing a few stupid words. I believe that was the first day in a very long time that I got absolutely nothing done of value. I’m not sure if I feel inadequate or rebellious. Rebel seems more fitting for this fine lazy day. I noticed all I should be doing but I felt no guilt in avoiding any work whatsoever. Defiance with no hesitation. A grand gesture that ended with a big fuck you to all responsibility and a spectacular hell yes to laziness.

I read my Sylvia, as I do every day but today I really enjoyed her. I love losing myself in her journals. I see myself in her psyche. I understand her struggles, her stubbornness to not conform. I’m not living my life, my life is living in me. Pressuring me to use all my senses until it burns, burns, burns…in my eyes, in my throat, in my skin.

No use for conversations today either. I rushed through any necessary ones and avoided any others like the mushy, muted green peas from my childhood. I didn’t want to taste the bland small talk or have to engage my mind to be clever. I wanted to lose myself in the void. Be at piece with dissociating for once. I let myself disconnect. I became a silly marionette bouncing without knowing why or how I was bouncing. No guilt, just be and breathe.

I’m not sure where the hours went but I had no hesitation in wishing them farewell today. I couldn’t nudge myself to engage in anything. I failed at existing today and I found pure bliss in wasting the hours as if they were already gone.

November 10,

Capturing my thoughts is like catching fireflies. The light goes on and I almost grasp it and then darkness. The flash, the moment of clarity disappears and I’m never sure when or where it will appear again. I sit mesmerized watching the light flicker but then wait too long to pounce before it disappears again. Fleeting – every single time.

I sit in quiet contemplation, legs outstretched, heated beneath the blanket from my slumber.

How long before the day begins, dresses and runs away from me as do all days?

I’ve already spent the best part of an hour castigating myself for decisions I let fall the day prior

Regret, regret, regret…. How much will I regret today? No decision made is ever a well-made decision.

Why do I have such a disdain for white clothing? It’s not really a question, I know the answer. White symbolizes purity. I’m not pure. I’ve always been afraid that if I set myself against a white background then all would see that which is vile and graffitied on me. Black hides the scars, the blood-stained marks, the filth streaked across my body.

I’ve never felt worthy of being allowed to wear white. A striking contrast between the color and my soiled body. I hate anything white…walls especially. All I can picture are those damn white walls that have markings all over them. Almost as if I bumped into them and my stains rubbed off and ruined them. Everything I touch becomes blemished, marked, never to be the same again. I am the dirt, the mud, the disgusting film of grotesque no one wants to touch.

What path will this rambling take me on today? Almost fretful if I gauge it by my nighttime adventures.

Eliminated a quarter of the unnecessary in the basement during a feverish moment of trying to clear clutter from every aspect of my life. Probably should have been lying horizontal attempting to reset my entire being but restlessness took over and I became a mechanical street cleaner, humming and sweeping, devouring any perceived dirt or debris in my way, leaving behind a trail of nothingness. The catapult of achievement…hauling all those bags to the donation center and seeing how many bins I could fill. A competition within to see if I could eliminate more than the day before.

Is there an end to this? I still feel like the soggy, slush covered streets after the snowfall. Dirty and disgusting begging to stain the hem of the trousers of any soul that happens across my path. The fire image springs to mind as it always does. Burn it all down and start over. I would prefer to be the fine ash drifting in the air, white as snow and soft as feathers. Burnt like hell to emerge finer and lighter. That fire – trespasses my thoughts every time.

Interesting I see flames when I want to see an end and a new beginning. I’ve always said I would prefer to die in cold water than be kindling. They both serve a purpose I suppose. Water brings me peace. It it is slower, something I’m not sure how to embrace. Fire is quick, uncontrollable and hard to stop once it starts. My mind in extremes again. Hot then cold. Maybe that’s the experiment. How do I maintain middle ground?

November 11, 

Why is everyone so fucking afraid to say what’s on their damn minds? If it hurts so be it. No one wants to get to the depths that mean something. This is why I have to shut the world out. No one ever has to tiptoe around me…never fucking ever. If I tell you how I feel…believe me. I have no filter. I may love too much, I may want more than I could possibly ever get from those I love that will never love me back but damn if I’m not going to tell you how I feel. Now I have to be numb so it doesn’t hurt so much. I’ve crawled back into my shadows, I’ve shut everyone out. The love is there but I’m burying it. Protect my light. My mind has jumped all over the place today, so be it. I think I needed to just release the frustrations, the astounding number of things pressing down on my subconscious. Nothing can hurt me any longer. !

November 12,

I want to be nasty today. I want to let vulgar, tasteless profanities loose from my lips, but the only thing I hear is “Do unto others”…”Do unto others”…”Do unto others.” Guilt has always consumed my thoughts.

I made it through one glorious hour without buckling to maddening nerves and uncontrollable shaking. I was clear-eyed focused, checking things off my list, creating new lists and then – triggered! Eyes darting trying to locate the danger. Ugh! Irritating…frustrating. I can’t shake this one.

November 14,

I was gong to enter a contest on being grateful but I was so murderously unhappy that I thought it best that I hold back on that particular one. This is what I did write about being grateful. 

How am I grateful or more importantly how do I feel grateful?

When I sit in depressed silence outstretched day after outstretched day

I know I feel gratitude for the poor souls that love me, breathe life into me when I’ve forgotten how.

Grateful I sit in solitude beneath warmth and structural abode.

I’m allowed to sit in measured contemplation in relative comfort even on days when chaos rains and clouds shift.

When I feel forgotten and shadows creep in leaving me coiled in a heap, I’m grateful when the shadows exit and I can open my eyes again.

November 15,

I wish I could finish this one. So many drafts and nothing:

ugh…

November 18,

Here we go again. I always end up back here…head down, brilliantly confused. Maybe it’s the pain medication not only dulling the buzzing ache but numbing my mind as well. What are the odds that I would slam into the countertop and hit the only place on my body I shouldn’t and bust my stitches as if the countertop was magnetized and my arm was pulled into it. I shake my head at myself.

Weird, ugly mood today. I’m sure the restriction from exercise wins the trophy for the reason for my sullenness. I feel for those crossing my path these next weeks though I know I need to take advantage of the downtime and work on things I’ve been avoiding. Like the picture of the graffitied wall or a description. I wish I could seal that description in written words. That wall is a powerful force in my hauntings. A mere description will not suffice. This needs to be evocative, to say it so others experience what I see. I’m not sure it’s possible but damn if I’m not going to try.

November 19,

My daily dialogue to myself. What will today’s adventure look like? Moon-gray dreary this morning. Clouds spitting just enough to dampen everything including my mood.

November 20,

Melancholia today. Glazed eyes and weariness. I’m searching but not motivated to dig deeply. Depression? My thoughts start to traverse through the maze but the second I hit a dead end…I stop. I perceive it as an end – no turning and looking for a new exit…finished…defeated. Depression. Amazing how moods shift so quickly. Journeys of the mind. I want to dissect every inch, put the pieces under a microscope and understand why I have to be so complex.

November 22,

Perturbed. I feel I have been drastically overusing that word lately. Possibly the word should be irritated. I love my friends. I truly do but I want to scream every time they tell me to choose happiness or to be thankful that I don’t have it worse. I know they mean well but I want to curse and exhale all the profanities that shoot through my thoughts like brilliant fireworks. I don’t. I suck it in like the ugly, tubular hose of a raucous vacuum because it will never make a difference in the way they see me.

I am happy. I have love to share and moments I wouldn’t trade for anything. I know I have a great life, I know I have been blessed in so many ways and yes, I am very thankful. I can laugh it up, enjoy the moment, tease and be teased, engage in conversations. But…Big but – I have this incredible battle continuously raging in my mind. I wait for the ceasefire but right when it looks like it’s coming, the explosions begin again and more blood is splattered. I have no idea when I wil be attacked. It’s sabotage and I’m constantly blindsided. I come out exhausted and beaten and I have such a hard time erasing the sallowness, the ugly bitter stains. I sit in the mute haze seducing me with the giant walls erected to separate my conscious from this wild world. Turned to stone by Medusa of my mind…frozen, paralyzed, suspended in perpetuity. I’m screaming but I’m in a tomb where sound is suffocated. Useless…useless…useless. Transparency has no place in that piece of my existence. I’m working daily on how to navigate through the battles so I come out of the darkness with fewer scars but damn, it it isn’t the hardest process I’ve ever worked on.

November 23,

I hate the month of November. It feels like an in-between. Desperately trying to stand out but it gets lost between the chatter of October and all its excitement and December with all its dazzle and glamour. One week thrown in to try and liven it up but it always falls short. As do I.

I’m the in-between. The almost there but not quite good enough. Why do I have such a hard time seeing my worth? Or I guess I should ask how do I measure my worth or are we not supposed to do that? I don’t understand life. It seems like it should be so simple but I feel more confused every day or am I making it more difficult than it should be? More questions.

I wish there was another word than feel. Maybe, but I can’t seem to come up with one today. For me, to feel is to touch something. If I am not actively touching something then I am not feeling, I am receiving an interpretation of my thoughts, reactions, memories. Is that my word – interpretation?

Why do I have to be so weird? If I hate a word it is like nails on a chalkboard – grating, a primal shriek sending a shiver down my spine. If every pore of my body could write, there would be pages and pages of descriptive details painting the emotions running to my nerves, through my blood and out my cells. This body connects deeply with the air I breathe, the earth beneath my feet and the humans we exist among. Too deeply, so much so that it turns on me, reacting in ways I will never understand and pulls me under the umbrella of madness. I so desperately want to love on everyone so no one is ever left interpreting themselves as the in-between.

November 26, 2025

I don’t know what my dream was last night. The only thing I remember is hearing the song, “Follow the Sound of My Voice” over and over. Bingo ball…Who’s voice was I following? Whose voice am I supposed to follow? Or am I not hearing something I should be? What does it mean to hear music in your dreams, specifically a particular song? Is that normal? I don’t think I’ve ever had that happen before and music is one of my favorite forms of entertainment I engage in. I’m curious. This will be the direction of my queries today. A side project. Let’s see where this one bounces too…love it.

December 1,

The fierce, white snow frustrates me. It’s beautiful now, unsoiled, peaceful. It won’t be for long now. First the footsteps will come, leaving clean, indented marks. Still pristine but enough to deform the silken layers. Next, the shovels, the snowblowers bearing the unmuffled sound of their motors churning, the crisp layers beneath the blades and spitting it out into soiled, dull, brown chunks. 

December 6,

The urgency with which
death turns my fury to madness…

desperately trying to strangle
my willingness to survive overwhelms.

The passion intensifies, coiling me into a tormented
ball of acrid flames.

I choke on the dark
wilderness tangled around my feet,

begging me to crawl
through the murky shallows
and submit to the filthy
depths surrounding me.

Quiet courage drifts in on
bourbon-smoked winds
carrying the torch with my wounds.

Soaked in midnight soot
from the ashes of the coals,
searing the soul of my existence,

I quell the embers and
stand ground on the layers of
mortal grit.

The winds dancing the
branches of pain that sway
with the anguished memories of my youth.

December 11, 2025

Is the truth buried so deep that the layers above are sediments of time?

December 13,

If I write about joy – do I think it will bring me joy? I look at those words…no joy – bland as dry toast. There is no magical fairy dust bursting from those renderings. Concrete silence…the words could fall from the page and smash into smithereens, left to be crushed underfoot. The joy is found in the dark shadows, the deep aching that hurts so much that joy is squeezed from the sadness.