“I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.” – Joan Didion
“The creative adult is the child who survived.” —Le Guin
It’s difficult to explain to those
who don’t understand.
The throughline of childhood
breaks off somewhere as
the decades continue on.
I hold tight to my pen
to make sense of
those early years.
How they defined
the woman
I am today.
Healing my inner child
one day at a time.
Poetry helped me
find my voice,
but what happens
when I have
nothing to say?
The early November sky
before sunrise is untouchable.
It’s quiet but fierce, wanting
to burst into the day
but takes a moment to breathe.
I drive east. I watch the dark
blue grow lighter
pops of yellow appear
below the horizon,
as though the sun is ripping through
the universe, through the land and sky,
to say good morning, hello.
Music plays, it’s too early to
comprehend a thought fully.
My eyes view this magic
through a grainy filter.
I replay it in my memories
hours later. It feels like
a different day,
a different time.
like a dream.
I see the faded pink clouds
float in the cod autumn air.
I don’t hear the music in my memory.
I hear a vibrant silence as I wait,
wait for the day to begin.
11.04.2021
I'm writing this
from a place
of clarity,
the place I get to be
one week a month
or 12 days
if I'm lucky.
The haze had cleared,
the spirals have settled,
I can pinpoint my feelings
and work through them
in more balanced ways.
I'm not swinging from one
emotional extreme to the other.
I don't take things
as personally.
The lens I look at
my life through
isn't as low.
My sadness has
gone back out
to sea for
the time being.
This is the week
I find stability
or the closest
I can get to it.
The more I awareness I have
on the weeks where
I jet off into space
on an emotional
roller coaster,
the easier
it becomes to
ride the waves.
I can get through things
knowing I will have
one week
to breathe easier,
the calm before
the next storm.
My dog
was a ball
of happiness.
All he wanted was
to love.
He was fiercely
protective
even with no threat
in sight,
which made it
challenging at times.
I loved the way
he ran upstairs
every morning
once he heard
my door open.
Like clockwork
he would be there
wiggling his whole body,
ready to make me
smile.
There are
different
sections
of time
all happening
at once.
They run
parallel
to each
other,
living in
different
time periods.
Past,
present,
future.
All aligned to
run and function
at different
times.
The rivers
flow
but never
collide.
Fiction predicts
the future
shown in
the past.
What has
happened
hasn’t occurred
and
is currently
present.
There’s light in the darkness,
you just have to find it.
When everything floats away from you,
you can’t focus on anything
beyond the buzzing sound
your fear makes in your thoughts.
You float away in your daydreaming,
you stay there for years without seeing.
It becomes your norm overnight,
you follow the phases of the moon,
count on one hand the shooting stars
you drew from memory with your finger tips
when the sky fades to blue on days in late summer.
I drive down snowy roads
along the coast
listening to chappell roan
trying to stay warm
trying to stay sane
in these months
where the sun doesn't shine
and snow drifts into piles
taller than me
No one tells you about
the noise of an earthquake,
at least the shallow ones anyway.
The loud bang,
it sounds like your house
is going to explode,
like the earth is going
to swallow you whole.
The way it came through
like a freight train
moving under the ground.
The sound had me questioning
what the hell was happening.
Everything shook for 15-20 seconds,
it felt like time had stopped.
It didn’t help I was on the floor
in the middle of a mediation
when everything started shaking.
I wandered around my living room,
while my reality shifted dramatically
distracted by the overwhelming noise
that shook me to my core.
Next time I know to stand
in the doorway.
We only accept change after its happened.
We live amongst each other,
keeping our space
while still acknowledging we share
the same air
whether we like it or not.
The less we knew,
the less we continued to care.
We cared until we moved on
to other things.
It happened gradually
over a year or two.
The obsessions we had
disbursed into new interests.
The day people stopped talking
I was in a crowded coffee shop
and realized no one was speaking.
I screamed so loud
birds flew into the sky.
I am trying to talk to people
and they're unable to hear me.
The people looked frozen
in the radiating heat of the train car.
Feeling alone amongst people
is the best way to be alone.
I unpack the layers of my thoughts.
I rearrange the clothes in the suitcase to
accommodate our current relationship.
Denial is a funny color on you.
Shedding one layer at a time
Details remain clear
But will not be mentioned here.
In a crowded room,
I am an observer.
I have no interest
in playing your mind games.
Seeing things that aren’t there
is just a waste of time.
It's an honest mistake
when you believe a lie
for so long.
Your words stick to my brain like glue
It takes a very long time to let go of you.
My fear overwhelms a whole room
Overflowing through doorless entry ways
The tv is left on.
No one is in the room to watch it.
When someone is honest with you,
don't try to justify their truth
to suit your emotions,
for they’re too busy with their lives
to give a damn.
What they to do you
unintentionally,
how they make you feel
unknowingly.
I untangle myself from
the habits and stories
that once served me graciously.
Happiness is thinking about a street
then accidentally turning down it.
Healing is a process that will not fit
neatly into a linear time frame.
It may take months or even years but with time,
you will care less.
I breathe in patience,
I breathe out worry.
I inhale good emotions,
I exhale useless ones.
I hold onto the little
I can control,
I let go of the rest.
Kelly Severseike 