we didn't pay attention
as it slowly slipped away
confident and distracted
the free were herded in
your signs, your slogans, your voices
won't matter
against their guns, their gas, their laws
as much as you scream
you will be found guilty
for disturbing their peace
tried and convicted
in ways you never knew possible

How you deal

Over a year ago Mara died, and I stopped posting. Her death wasn't the full reason I stopped writing, but her death is part of the reason I stopped looking inward. I compartmentalized it all so well that I couldn't even cry a few weeks after. All of it was tucked away behind a good solid wall, with a top and a bottom and concrete sides. It took up a good amount of space. When people told me they were sorry I just said I didn't want to talk about it. So I didn't. I didn't think about or talk about much of anything personal for a long while.

A month or so after I adopted two cats. My home was empty, and my personal beliefs aligned with the fact that the best solution for an empty home is to adopt and save the life of animals. So I saved two. They filled the home, they changed it. They adjusted and I did as well. Though they look a little like her, they are nothing like her - they are their own beings with their own souls. They respond and act differently. Her soul is gone.

In a way this is being an adult. Every hurt makes you stronger, more capable of dealing with more bullshit. Or maybe the tolerance just shifts - I have learned how to handle this crap but dealing with other nonsense drops off. Lack of space, lack of time, lack of respect. A lot of people are not even worth a glance at this point. I'm still a huge fan of escaping - if not into my own head, into others. Other worlds, movies, books, etc. The less we think here the more we can go there. Fresh starts in a way, more energy to be had on the other side. I come back here once in a while but you know, it is what it is and I'm doing what I am day to day. Not much thought beyond that. I should care more, life and time are moving faster. So sometimes I care, I guess. I wrote today, didn't I?

little by little

Dear Mara,

A friend recommended doing some writing to work through this time. Today is the first day of my life without you. Yesterday, you were in so much pain that I had to let you go. I hope now you understand why I had to do the things that I did - the needles, the pills, the shoving you in a crate against your will and taking you to a strange place with strange people. I hated doing all of that. I hated hurting you and I did not want you to suffer anymore than you already had.

Your life was so precious, but our bodies tend to fail us over time. My body is getting older too and I'm starting to know the difference - I don't heal up as fast, or as completely. I need more sleep, I get tired more easily. I can't run around like a young kitten anymore - I'd rather curl up and take lots of naps, like you did. Remember our naps together, on those lazy Sundays? Those were the best. Our time here on earth is limited. I loved every moment of time that I had when you were here. 8 wonderful years. Thank you for being here for me.

I have this fear of what other people think, so I don't vocalize as much with them about what's happened. I'm not ashamed of my love for you but I just don't think they will get it, and it's not something I can easily explain. I love and give more to animals than I do with people. I don't think they would understand the kind of love and how much I had for you. To some, they think you are just a cat! Yet to me, you were my family. You were my little kitty girl. My fuzzy bunny. My kitty babe. My lovely one. So many nicknames for one little cat.

My room feels so empty without you. I have all this stuff - all these stupid books and furniture - and none of those matter, none of those fill that empty space in here the way you did. You were movement, you were softness. You were sweet and polite. When I turned to you and you looked back and walked over to me, my heart lifted. When you met me at the front door of the apartment every time, my heart lifted. Someone was happy to see me! Someone was hungry! I had to nudge you away from the door and say, Let me in! and you would back up and gaze out into the hallway, wondering about that space beyond. And in the mornings, oh man. You would wake me up by stomping on my hair, nuzzling my face, staring at me with those big big eyes. My fuzzy little alarm clock, so much better than any blaring alarms. How will I get to work on time without you here to coax me up? Those rituals of ours are broken now. I have no more fuzzy shadow following me around. I have to be here on my own, I have to relearn how I live in my home without you.

The way I'm feeling and acting is kind of pathetic, I know. Writing a letter to a departed cat? Cats can't read! Also pathetic is the whining and crying I'm doing - this searing, stabbing pain in my throat and heart is nothing compared to the pain you were going through those last few weeks. A pain so fierce you could barely respond to any pets I would give. That's when I knew something was really wrong. It was a very difficult choice I had to make, not to put you through all those procedures. I didn't want to cause you more pain. I just wanted the pain to stop. No one as sweet and precious as you should have to feel that way. Unfortunately, your life had to stop for the pain to end. Though I don't carry any real beliefs of any afterlife, I hope if you do still exist there is no pain there. I hope you remember me and how much I loved you.

I am trying to move on, to have a life without you in it. It's hard. Every little thing reminds me of you. All the spots you would nap in, all your toys scattered everywhere. This house was as much yours as it is mine. You imprinted yourself quite well, and now everything feels haunted. I pace around, hoping to see you in one of your spots, but all is quiet and empty. A friend told me that it will hurt less as time goes on, little by little. I want the pain to go away, but I don't want the memories of you to fade. It's hard though, because they will fade and I can't stop that from happening. Memories are wonderful gifts of the past, but they fade and alter and sometimes disappear completely. Remember me taking so many pictures of you, how annoying that was? I keep looking at those pictures, wanting to sear your image into my brain. I wish my hands could hold onto the feeling of how soft your fur was, around your ears and chest and belly. The feeling of you brushing against my legs. I wish I could hear your little prrt noise that made when you jumped down and landed. Your little kitty cry noise when you were hungry, and demanding I pay attention to you! The quietest purr heard only if I leaned in really close.

My little bunny.

I loved to kiss your little kitty head, on the top of the little M marking of your fur. I loved how you would be standing one minute and plopped over on your side the next, looking at me expecting pets which of course I supplied. I loved to rub your soft soft belly fur, and when you stretched underneath my hand and kneaded your paws, I knew you loved it too. I loved watching tv with you on the couch behind me so I could reach back and pet you, I loved turning off the tv and saying Bedtime! and you would follow me to our bedroom.

There was an author that wrote about dæmons, which are companions that are a external physical manifestation of a person's 'inner-self' that takes the form of an animal. A piece of your soul, outside yourself. When a dæmon is separated too far from their person it caused them both pain. When a dæmon died the connected human fell apart. Unlike the books though, my body is fine. It is just my soul that needs healing. You were a part of me.

There are a lot of other memories to write about, but I have to stop writing for right now. I have to get up out of bed (without my fuzzy alarm clock to wake me) and I have to shower. I have to go through the motions for a while. I have to wash the tears off my face and do something with my life. I have to figure out and deal with this grief. There is the past with you, which was so beautiful. There is the future without you - which hurts, but time requires that I must continue forward. I have our memories to take with me. I had 8 wonderful, wonderful years.

I love you. I love you. I love you. My sweet baby girl. Rest in peace.

i think she'll be gone soon

she won't eat, even after antibiotic shots, appetite stimulants, and steroid treatments.

i waited a whole day, drudging through bullshit at work, sitting at my desk wiping away random tears beyond my control. hoping that when i came home there would be some food gone. that she wouldn't be hunched over in pain anymore. that something would have started kicking in, that something might have worked.

her food sat there, warm and untouched. i stood in the kitchen and cried and cried and cried.

how and why

emotional pain chooses the weirdest of ways to physically manifest itself. sometimes it's a pressing on the chest, or the throat closes down and breathing is difficult. eyes squinting shut, brow furrowed and face scrunched. mouth open in a silent howl. fingers curled into claws. water leaks out and falls wherever it pleases.

it also chooses the weirdest times in which it decides this will occur. now would be perfect, quiet and alone behind walls and doors and night. it holds back, waiting for later. like at the supermarket while selecting tomatoes. in the middle of a work meeting. during a run around the park. how embarrassing to have to pull over during mile 2 to conceal a breakdown with a coughing fit and catching your breath.

concealment. god forbid everyone see your pain, and address it, and make it all the more real and all the more ridiculous.

hi

still here! hello there.

hello moon

after class tonight i wasn't tired, so i kept riding. it's all uphill going home, but i saw the moon through some buildings and it was huge and foggy and wonderful, and i wanted to see it again. so i continued up the hill, turning right on a road that would lead me to the park and away from the buildings. the trees stretched to the sky, blocking my view but through bits and pieces i saw the moon again and again. low in the sky, a creamy yellow and large. pathetic attempts to photograph were made, but like many things in the night they refuse to stay the same as we see them face to face in that moment. so i just rode and gazed, flew down a hill, pushed up another hill. the park was quiet, cool and lovely. people think muggers and horrible deeds at night in the city parks, but i wander in anyway. everyone is so scared to go in that there is no one there, making it the the best time of the day because it becomes mine, all mine.

She

so many songs in the world titled She, Her, or with references to some nameless She that encapsulates, drives, eludes the singer and causes some great frustration, pain, exhaustion given to them by some other person. i wonder still about the singer. who the fuck are you. who the fuck are you to only have three minutes of presence in this song that you give it to someone else, much less someone else that obviously is no longer there to care or love you. if they were even doing that in the first place. so desperate are you for the reassurance and presence of someone else that you are completely devoid of talking about yourself except for the lack you feel. you know what? fuck your lack. i want to hear about you, what you really make up and why you are wasting my time. i want to hear about something other than what your penis craves. so much whining and so little substance. fucking fill the void already.

update

quickly found a new job which has me working 10-12 hr days. i've never worked this much or had this much responsibility, but it's rather refreshing to have people think they can trust me? everyone thinks i have so much experience, which in a way i do. i'm eight years out of school. yet i'm so used to being beaten down and told i'm fucking up left and right. it's always been a huge battle to prove what i know and can do. so here and now i really have to show up and deliver. so that makes staying late okay. the one thing i do enjoy is teaching these young interns all the tips and tricks i've picked up over the years. they're so eager to learn and so amazed by the simplest of things. it's nice to be valued for once.

the one thing i will note - this new place is mostly women. all my other offices have been mostly men. could be this be the reason for the change in tone? possibility. (yes.) anyway. onward.

hm

and now i'm unemployed again. thinking a lot about what the fuck i'm doing here. is there somewhere else i need to be? there's a lot of possibility i guess. i should be excited about the idea of a clean slate, but really i'm just tired of this shit. i want something different and substantial... but i'm not sure what that is just yet.

time

i'm 35. i still recall years ago when someone told me "people still alone in their thirties are broken." i've written about it previously, and i revisit this thought once in a while. mostly because i'm trying to see as time goes up and the years pile on if there is any validity to it.

i think being broken is a choice. at least for me it's a choice. i can wallow, or i can do. i wallow here with these words. a lot. it's a dumping ground. a place to bury frustrations, sadness, hopelessness. it has to go somewhere. it cannot stay inside me.

yes i am alone. i've been alone for years. i date, things work out, then they don't, then i go back to being me again. i like me, i'm comfortable this way. people come and go. a lot of people have left, good friends are gone. i work to keep the few that remain near, i work to meet new people. what are these relationships - what do they mean to me, what do they mean to them? i see new families forming, marriages and babies, houses and gardens. i don't quite fit in these families, but i appreciate the role of the crazy aunt that comes round once in a while. i often think about what family and home means to me, and how i will come to define that.

i wonder when things will change. at what age will the party end? if people will drift further, if the silence will get louder. what will i say or do to fill the voids as things shift. who and what comes next. i will build, and draw, and maybe be hugged occasionally. i might need to ask for those hugs. i think that's about all i can predict right now. there is more time left. a lot of opportunity and a lot of fear. here's to the rest of my thirties. cheers.

blank

hit a point where it doesn't really matter anymore. i guess there are goals but i don't really seem to care if the bottom drops out. i almost want it to, so i don't have to keep up the charade of pretending that it's all working out just fine. i am tired of being proven wrong on a daily basis. i'm tired of learning from my mistakes over and over like i'm some fucking child. i don't need correction, i need space. i hate people, i hate every fucking complication that comes from civilization. all the looks and body language and desires and directions of others, all pressing down on you wanting something other than what you do. this constant day to day struggle under this layer of bullshit, this surface tension ready to break but never giving way.

sometimes i think about what i would do if i just let people down. who else i could be. what a mess it would be to start from scratch, from the bottom, with nothing. but i wonder, if there wasn't this giant debt holding me here in this frozen position, what sort of words i could write or drawings would manifest. what about that story that's been in my head for years, those sticky notes floating above my desk, hovering waiting for their day.

i sign up for these activities. i create these other goals, i make it seem like my life is busy and i'm doing things. so many things that there isn't energy left at the end of the day. just wear out the body and perhaps the mind will follow. we'll just get through this if we don't think about it anymore.

absblurd

the world becomes all the more fragile with every precious soul that leaves it.

disconnected but protected

i hate this place but i need it more than ever.