Do you ever open your notes app on your phone and see an absolutely chaotic myriad of words staring back at you? i don’t even remember writing 90% of the ones that aren’t labeled “BTR” or “Codes to Condo Door”. This one i vaguely remember typing out one night. It’s heavily influenced by spoken word poetry. If i’m ever feeling stuck i’ll watch several slams (usually through Button Poetry’s YT) and it jumpstarts my creative mood. Do you have a resource that you can trust to get you into the creating mood?

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She broke up with me on a dirty curb in New York City. She said, "You love being sad more than you love being with me." I let her walk away not because I loved the ache that burned me with every one of her steps but because someone who thinks I love this kind of self-hatred doesn't know me at all.

I can't be in crowds without feeling like the weak and sick zebra in a stampeding herd.     That means no concerts, no bars, no major sporting events. I was too boring for her instagram. I can't go for a relaxing jog along the park.   My body goes into fight-or-flight mode until my natural 13-minute mile becomes 8-minute miles and if it wasn't for Map My Run I wouldn't know the path to get back. I limp for a week and a half as the blisters heal.

If I loved being like this I wouldn't be fighting it every day of my goddamned life. If she loved me she would have seen that. Seen the hand-carved scars lining my stretch marks when she traced them with her tongue. Seen the way I drink fourteen cups of black tea between 8 and 5 and still fall asleep in my dark living room at 7:03. If I loved being like this there wouldn't be a kickline of pill bottles along my bathroom sink cheering me through brushing my fucking teeth.

I let her walk away because fuck the people in the world who are only interested in perfection. I am less fuckable because my brain chemicals don't work right. I'm less beautiful because in my nightmares I can still hear him screaming at me. I'm less loving because I am too afraid to allow anyone that close to my heart again; at least, that's what she tells me.

I let her walk away because I hate her more than I hate myself.

I get off the curb and buy a fucking hotdog from the nearby vendor because she hated them. On the subway I listen to the sad songs she hated because it's the only thing that makes me feel less alone on this overpopulated planet. She thought I needed to listen to only happy songs and then I'd be all better, if I could just realize happiness is a choice.

Music makes me feel alive in a way she never could. Nasty hotdogs that have been sitting in lukewarm water for 15 hours cause more butterflies in my stomach than she ever did. When I get off at my stop I run the two blocks home in shoes not made for a sole-slapping sprint. It's too short a distance for my skin to bubble but I feel each of my heavy steps as they reverberate in my bones.

I throw her things out my third-floor window and hear the homeless woman who walks my street cheer. "Happy fuckin' holidays," I yell in the middle of April. I play my saddest songs as I brush my teeth. My pills clap for me as I take each bottle in hand and dump out my dosage. The anger heating my veins is exhausting but I don't fight it because I'm at least feeling something for once.

There's a knock at my door and she's here, wanting the drawerful of clothes and I tell her to fight Momma T for them. She curses me so badly I start laughing. She really thinks I haven't been telling myself the same sequence of roiling hate for twenty-odd years. She wants me to open the door and talk like an adult. I spend my weekly "adult talk" on my therapist who hates my girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend. My therapist will be delighted I'm finally free from a person they've dubbed a Black Hole.

I turn up my music and dance in my dark living room until she leaves. When I fall asleep I'm in bed, smiling at freedom with heavy lidded eyes. The emotion is gone by morning, as all good feelings always are. My pill bottles are proud of me for getting out of bed and scrubbing the grime from my teeth.

Momma T looks beautiful today.