tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15419183464574027772024-03-16T11:52:50.219-07:00Rosie HardyPersonal Writing, Blog & Journalrosiehardyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09075821916171186861noreply@blogger.comBlogger152125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1541918346457402777.post-79597107931761657112023-06-19T03:53:00.006-07:002023-06-19T04:01:48.971-07:00I tried to talk<div style="text-align: left;"> It began with my fingernails.</div><div style="text-align: left;">The wrong colour, </div><div style="text-align: left;">too yellow. Why is that?</div><div style="text-align: left;">The fake tan smelled strange. </div><div style="text-align: left;">Stained the sheets.</div><div style="text-align: left;">Didn't matter</div><div style="text-align: left;">about the melanoma that took him away</div><div style="text-align: left;">We should fix that.</div><div style="text-align: left;">"A rose surrounded by weeds" he said</div><div style="text-align: left;">"and I am helping to trim them"</div><div style="text-align: left;">Yes,</div><div style="text-align: left;">I felt every cut.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I looked prettier with my hair tied back, </div><div style="text-align: left;">he said. I told him</div><div style="text-align: left;">it made me feel unfamiliar to myself</div><div style="text-align: left;">brought back memories of </div><div style="text-align: left;">seeing my reflection, patchy</div><div style="text-align: left;">unlovable</div><div style="text-align: left;">I couldn't tell whether feeling unlovable</div><div style="text-align: left;">was still part of the process</div><div style="text-align: left;">Maybe </div><div style="text-align: left;">I should get used to the feeling</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I expressed concern over my boundaries</div><div style="text-align: left;">the breaches crashed like waves, </div><div style="text-align: left;">constant, overwhelming.</div><div style="text-align: left;">Said I was too friendly, that I wouldn't</div><div style="text-align: left;">be respected if I kept that up</div><div style="text-align: left;">But I don't think silence suits me</div><div style="text-align: left;">any more than the ponytail.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The house needed to be rearranged</div><div style="text-align: left;">My furniture was wrong, the layout </div><div style="text-align: left;">inefficient. There was no room for him</div><div style="text-align: left;">The cat took up too much of the bed</div><div style="text-align: left;">I tried to talk</div><div style="text-align: left;">I tried to talk</div><div style="text-align: left;">I tried to talk</div><div style="text-align: left;">about all this. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I say no too much, he says. </div><div style="text-align: left;">I say yes too much, he says.</div><div style="text-align: left;">I am stubborn, unmoving, unwilling </div><div style="text-align: left;">but I subjugate, step back, shrink</div><div style="text-align: left;">away, I don't</div><div style="text-align: left;">grow towards his light</div><div style="text-align: left;">"Can't you see this is what you need?</div><div style="text-align: left;">That this is what will help?</div><div style="text-align: left;">I can't make you love me.</div><div style="text-align: left;">You don't trust me."</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I tried to talk.</div><div style="text-align: left;">The cat died. I cried </div><div style="text-align: left;">quietly on the bed.</div><div style="text-align: left;">A day later, it was too much</div><div style="text-align: left;">An overreaction, grief expelled incorrectly</div><div style="text-align: left;">A cork thrown at my head</div><div style="text-align: left;">While I fell asleep, exhausted</div><div style="text-align: left;">I sank into the blue.</div><div style="text-align: left;">The energy to fight left the room</div><div style="text-align: left;">but still, I tried to talk.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">We tried again. </div><div style="text-align: left;">I tried again.</div><div style="text-align: left;">I tried and tried to talk.</div><div style="text-align: left;">So now,</div><div style="text-align: left;">when I close the door,</div><div style="text-align: left;">when I choose to walk</div><div style="text-align: left;">I will be know in my heart,</div><div style="text-align: left;">that I tried to talk.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>rosiehardyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09075821916171186861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1541918346457402777.post-67782328139152173272018-09-01T08:32:00.001-07:002018-09-01T08:48:24.957-07:00A Summer's DreamI am wearing a white dress<br />
and running through the garden<br />
<br />
there are<br />
no wedding bells, the silence is filled<br />
with joy<br />
<br />
you watch on<br />
you know this is no more than a dream<br />
dispersing and transient like all other dreams<br />
you reach out to touch it anyway<br />
<br />
I reach out to hold you back<br />
golden light surrounds our bodies<br />
simple, sweet<br />
<br />
It is only a dream<br />
of mine,<br />
of yours<br />
a summer in the garden<br />
me, in a white dress<br />
you, there<br />
watching<br />
like watching was all that was left<br />
for us<br />
to live for<br />
<br />
(I bought the white dress,<br />
but you were gone<br />
before it arrived<br />
I never went back to the garden<br />
you were gone<br />
before summer came<br />
I still reach out sometimes<br />
to touch you<br />
anyway<br />
it is only a dream<br />
of mine<br />
and I am still watching<br />
like watching is all that is left<br />
to live for)rosiehardyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09075821916171186861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1541918346457402777.post-33713743190029980062018-06-05T14:29:00.001-07:002018-06-05T14:29:26.477-07:00grieving with those who have not grieved<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">This is not a performance</span><br />
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
To be witnessed</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
I must go</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
To those who understand, the flowers </div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
Sit with me patiently, strewing </div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
Their scents and offering up</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
Their stained blush cheeks</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
For gentle stroking</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
I, too, need to be caressed </div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
Kept company</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
Not be questioned, I do not want to analyse </div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
or understand</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
My only wish to unpetal</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
And sit, empty</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
Alone with all the others.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<br /></div>
rosiehardyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09075821916171186861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1541918346457402777.post-70532872269589694142018-03-09T12:29:00.000-08:002019-01-07T13:50:03.610-08:00White Cat, Green EyesThe day you left, the world turned white<br />
like you, like snow<br />
it comes,<br />
you go<br />
and so do I.<br />
Best friend.<br />
My ankles are so cold.<br />
I was told<br />
that letting go<br />
it was the kindest thing to do<br />
but it didn't come close<br />
to loving you<br />
and your green eyes<br />
and your furry thighs<br />
and my heart sighs<br />
<br />
I miss you.<br />
<br />
<br />rosiehardyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09075821916171186861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1541918346457402777.post-74795111375634539672018-02-14T13:12:00.000-08:002018-02-14T13:13:08.132-08:00<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tHZftfnq3y0" width="560"></iframe></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "SF Optimized", system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: -0.12px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
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<div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "SF Optimized", system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: -0.12px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "SF Optimized", system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: -0.12px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
A couple of years ago I was neck-deep in a really special time of my life, and I was incredibly aware of it... I would be brought to tears most days with how precious and fleeting this time in particular was, knowing soon it would be gone, along with someone I cared for very much.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "SF Optimized", system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: -0.12px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
I was living each day through some sort of nostalgic lens, as though I had been given an opportunity to go back in time to really notice everything and pay attention; knowing that one day I'd give <span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;">everything to be able experience it all again.</span></div>
<div class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; display: inline; font-family: "SF Optimized", system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: -0.12px;">
<div style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 6px;">
One thing I always got totally swept away by was the sounds of sirens coming and fading outside my window. No matter what I was doing, I would stop, put down my things and totally lose myself in them.</div>
<div style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
For a long time since that time ended, I've heard sirens and felt nothing... A few minutes ago, some went past, and my heart just broke out into something, not sure what yet, but I was listening to this song while it happened, and just felt rather overcome and just wanted to tell about it. <span class="_5mfr _47e3" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 0; margin: 0px 1px; vertical-align: middle;"><span class="_7oe" style="display: inline-block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0px; width: 0px;">đïž</span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
It reminded me of this life advice from Mary Oliver.</div>
<div style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
âIf you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, donât hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind, and much can never be redeemed. But still, life has some possibility left. Give into it. Joy is not made to be a crumb."<br />
<br /></div>
</div>
rosiehardyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09075821916171186861noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1541918346457402777.post-48261171142582054772018-01-26T04:55:00.001-08:002018-01-26T04:57:39.228-08:00Magpie on a Blue SkyI saw a magpie, stoic<br />
on a bare branch against a blue canvas<br />
watching the world move beneath him<br />
<br />
he did not flinch<br />
and nor did I<br />
at the thought of loss he might<br />
be hiding in his dark beak<br />
<br />
one, for sorrow<br />
<br />
I couldn't help but feel the breeze<br />
and the gentle weightlessness of fear<br />
lift<br />
<br />
it does not hold me,<br />
anymore<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
26.1.18<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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<br />rosiehardyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09075821916171186861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1541918346457402777.post-44158899397981430622018-01-01T02:21:00.003-08:002018-01-01T02:22:44.441-08:00<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">This year is the hardest year of your whole life.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">So hard you cannot see a future most days.
The pain is bigger than anything else.
Takes up the whole horizon
no matter where you are.
You feel unsafe. You feel unsaved.
Your past so present you can feel your baby teeth.
Sitting on the couch, you swear your feet donât reach the floor.
You keep remembering the first time
you saw a birdâs nest held together by an old shoe lace
and the scraps of a plastic bag.
You knew the home of a person
could be built like that.
A lot of things youâd rather throw away.
You keep worrying youâre taking up too much space.
I wish youâd let yourself be the Milky Way.
Remember when I told you
I was gonna become a full-time poet,
and you paid my rent for three years?
Best Friend,
angel of the get-through,
all living is storm chasing.
Every good heart has lost its roof.
Let all the walls collapse at your feet.
Scream Timber when they ask you
how you are.
FINE is the suckiest answer.
It is the opposite of HERE.
Here is the only place left on the map.
Here is where you learn laughter can go extinct
and come back.
I am already building a museum
for every treasure you unearth in the rock
bottom. Holy vulnerable cliff.
God mason, heart heavier
than all the bricks.
Say, <i>this is what the pain made of you</i>:
an open open open road.
An avalanche of feel it all.
Donât let anyone ever tell you
you are too much. Or
it has been too long.
Whatever guards the feet
on the bridge of the song,
you are made of that thing.
That unbreakable note.
That photograph
of you at five-years old.
The year you ran away from school
because you wanted to go home.
You are almost there.
You are the same compass you have always been.
You are the same friend who never left my side
during my worst year. You caught every tantrum
I threw with your bare hands, chucked it back
at the blood moon, said, Itâs ok. Everyoneâs survival
looks a little bit like death sometimes.
I wrote a poem called âSay Yesâ
while I was cursing your name
for not letting me go.
Best friend, this is what we do.
We gather each other up.
We say, The cup is half
yours and half mine. We say,
Alone is the last place you will ever be.
We say, Tonight letâs stay inside
reading Pema Chödrön
while everyone else is out on the town.
Pema will say, âOnly to the degree that we expose ourselves
over and over to annihilation
can that which is indestructible in us be found.â
Youâll say, Pema is so wise.
And Iâll say, Yes she is, And we are too.
Angels of the get-through. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Andrea Gibson</span><br />
<br />
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rosiehardyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09075821916171186861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1541918346457402777.post-20847117571218390372017-10-24T16:48:00.000-07:002017-10-24T16:48:44.993-07:00Butter<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;">Joan Crawford said that -</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;">"Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your hearth or burn down your house, you can never quite tell." </span>and I don't know him that well.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But h</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">e takes me, spoonful by spoonful into his arms, his hands, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">and between his fingers </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">they knead me, </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">slowly</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">into butter.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I hate to admit it, but I am softening.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I feel his nudge, and his touch, it doesn't take very much </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">just the pick on his thumb </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">and his wrist has begun </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">to strum me back into tune</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But perhaps I've spoken too soon,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">or maybe written, or sung </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">his lips </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">pushed on this</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">tongue-tied, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">wide-eyed, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">he oversteps into my wild side</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">and I freeze</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">and I clench</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I turn silently still</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Waiting for the moment </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">that he gets his fill </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">of me,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">gone.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">melted.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">like butter.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<br />rosiehardyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09075821916171186861noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1541918346457402777.post-46439613357274345532017-08-27T14:15:00.001-07:002017-08-27T14:19:25.438-07:00Rose Pink<iframe frameborder="no" height="450" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/339756126&color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true" width="100%"></iframe><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
The sugar is still fizzing in my bloodstream </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
It's 4am </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I'm Rose pink</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Slow down girl, slow down girl</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Pour some water, take a breath</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Cool your hands in the kitchen sink</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Sit down girl, sit down girl </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I take off my silver shoes </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Lay them in the light of the moon </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Still catching, still refracting </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
the things I no longer need from you</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I think about the girl I am laying to rest alongside them</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
How I wish I could pluck pages</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
From her book </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Before I close her</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Like she was written in invisible ink</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Darling</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I'm fading, I'm fading </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I make arrangements for the funeral </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
A trip away, to a man </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
who is not her lover</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
But he has the light</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
And I have the gasoline</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
To burn away this sobbing girl </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
into a new woman.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
The Other Woman</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
red as a flame </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
she burns too</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
The woman who </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
was grilled like a steak</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
In the burning heat of your hate</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
In the sweltering grief</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
The sweet relief you felt</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
pulling the pearls of innocence </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
from around her neck</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Watched </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
as she scattered </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
across the Living Room floor</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
clattered and rolled </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
into the cracks beneath the door</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I let them vanish</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
My sanity too</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
from rose pink </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
into a crushing velvet blue</div>
rosiehardyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09075821916171186861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1541918346457402777.post-55360730615521314702017-06-13T09:06:00.001-07:002017-06-13T09:08:46.650-07:00This Is Not A Love PoemThis is not a poem, so to speak.<br />
This is not a whisper<br />
This is not shriek of a wounded heart<br />
This is just my honesty<br />
Naked, soft and slow<br />
Without any expectation,
without a map of where to go.<br />
This isn't going to rhyme.<br />
<br />
Love is not chemistry alone.<br />
Love is not the pinning down, the violent orgasm, love is not always suitable.<br />
Love doesn't fit neatly into compatible boxes,
remembered birthdays, the promise of time,<br />
Needs kept quiet for fear of being heard<br />
and ignored<br />
and left behind,
again.<br />
<br />
Love is the declaration of your flaws<br />
And the patience we decide to handle them with.<br />
The aftermath of the party, clearing up the mess we left behind
in the living room, that's love.<br />
Love is taking your beliefs, your sneering heart, your book-read judgements<br />
and questioning them,<br />
because this person in front of you
is just as real
as the experiences that brought you to them.<br />
Perhaps love isn't in the common ground,<br />
or the shared agreements of flowed conversation -<br />
that's just another way of learning to love yourself back home
from the empty plains of loss.<br />
Perhaps love is only found in the trying again.<br />
Perhaps love is in you, and love is in me,<br />
and to release the two
would be rapture
and agony<br />
all at once.<br />
<br />
Perhaps the love is in the risk<br />
Perhaps it's trampling the snowdrops<br />
on your way steal a kiss<br />
and land soft into her arms<br />
if only for the moment.<br />
<br />
Perhaps tomorrow they won't be here<br />
But my love,
perhaps it was worth it.rosiehardyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09075821916171186861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1541918346457402777.post-62048770186767800992017-05-10T16:16:00.000-07:002017-05-10T16:16:43.988-07:00<iframe width="100%" height="450" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/321998460&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true"></iframe>
I had a sudden urge to summit the forest<div>
to plant my legs deeply </div>
<div>
onto a stump of dead tree</div>
<div>
which lets me see </div>
<div>
no more than an extra foot of sky </div>
<div>
than I already can.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I had a sudden urge </div>
<div>
to take that plaque</div>
<div>
The one you shaped </div>
<div>
that I've tried to hold back</div>
<div>
And hammer it </div>
<div>
abandon it</div>
<div>
to that cemetery of trees</div>
<div>
And let you be. </div>
<div>
Let the rain begin to stain it</div>
<div>
let the rust begin to frame it</div>
<div>
let it finally breathe the oxygen </div>
<div>
that you were denied</div>
<div>
because keeping it at my bedside</div>
<div>
won't stop this from turning to dust</div>
<div>
eventually</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
and I think I need to let you go</div>
<div>
a little more</div>
<div>
because keeping you tucked</div>
<div>
up inside my kitchen drawer</div>
<div>
after sobbing on the living room floor</div>
<div>
doesn't ever really close the door of a heart</div>
<div>
or open a window</div>
<div>
or let anything in, fresh</div>
<div>
and I miss the breeze.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I remind myself</div>
<div>
that doors can always be reopened, if only slightly</div>
<div>
and old tree stumps can be revisited, and quite rightly</div>
<div>
and conversations can always ensue at 6am</div>
<div>
after dreaming of you</div>
<div>
But I need to lay you down</div>
<div>
a little more, now</div>
<div>
while the future remains so unsure</div>
<div>
and, while my heart remains unsecured</div>
<div>
Laying you to rest </div>
<div>
in my head</div>
<div>
in my chest</div>
<div>
is like taking apart a garden</div>
<div>
and picking each flower </div>
<div>
to be pressed</div>
<div>
gently</div>
<div>
between the sheets of my favourite books</div>
<div>
between the pages of the story </div>
<div>
of Us</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
rosiehardyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09075821916171186861noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1541918346457402777.post-26245449192046408262017-04-25T07:32:00.002-07:002017-07-23T16:39:50.222-07:00A Girl Sits Atop A Train
I can feel the words stirring in the back of my mouth.<br />
My throat not yet a desert. The thirst doesn't consume me, yet.<br />
I stand, neck thrown back, eyes peeled open, at scores of book stores<br />
down an insignificant street.<br />
I consider how I have travelled here, how I had hopped<br />
across the tops of trains<br />
without sitting in their worn out seats, without<br />
making eye contact with the other passengers beneath me<br />
staring out of their dusty windows<br />
at the sunrise, perhaps, at nothing more than earth<br />
blurring by in a whirr of time, something to reflect on, later, later<br />
a changing view, nothing new<br />
to me.<br />
I think about the desolate landscapes inbetween the regions of kindness<br />
that Naomi Shihab Nye described<br />
She, too, on that rumbling train. I watched her<br />
with my periscope shaped like a book, a poem<br />
Laying flat against the rooftop of that train. I watched her.<br />
<br />
The train approaches the insignificant town. The tracks begin to crumble away,<br />
and so it slows. A voice echos up.<br />
"Exit here for the experience of a lifetime!"<br />
I swallow.<br />
My toes curl inside my cheap, clean shoes.<br />
I have read so little. I have felt so little, and so much<br />
The windows I was supposed to look through on my ticketed seat,<br />
I merely glanced at.<br />
Distracted by my own reflection, distracted<br />
By thoughts of a destination<br />
Before I eventually made my way upon that roof<br />
Charming a hapless guard with a poem,<br />
or a kiss.<br />
<br />
The bookshelves swallow me whole with their density,<br />
the desert dust stings my eyes, but I cannot close them.<br />
the words begin to crawl out of the pages,<br />
like thousands of insects desperately scattering<br />
in no particular direction<br />
in my direction<br />
I know I have to consider things seriously.<br />
Re-read the books, as many as I can, before the next train departs<br />
to a chapter of my life that I don't think I'm ready for.<br />
I wonder,<br />
Will I make my way back into the open air of that moving train<br />
Back to the wind rushing past my ears, whistling a tune, a wordless poem<br />
When all the books are read.<br />
Or will I take my seat with the others<br />
The more knowledgeable, perhaps<br />
For a lifetime spent looking through the dusty windows?<br />
<br />
A girl sits atop a train.<br />
<br />
<br />rosiehardyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09075821916171186861noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1541918346457402777.post-67322684966630673262017-04-08T03:47:00.003-07:002017-04-08T12:22:13.246-07:00Getting Out Of Bed (on days like these)<div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "San Francisco", -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: -0.24px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
Getting out of bed (on days like these)<br />295/365</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "San Francisco", -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: -0.24px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
My heart says<br />Offer your wrists<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;"><br />Upturned and open<br />Your blood is just ink,<br />When you don't think<br />you're coping.</span></div>
<div class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; display: inline; font-family: "San Francisco", -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">
<div style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 6px;">
My mind says<br />Be stoic.<br />Stand still on your own.<br />You can bypass the pain<br />If you just turn<br />into stone.</div>
<div style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
My body says<br />I'm fragile,<br />Just, please stay in bed<br />These soft sheets can't hurt you<br />or your achy head</div>
<div style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
The sky says<br />"Come join me"<br />It begs me to leave<br />To soak in some blueness<br />& bear witness the breeze</div>
<div style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
The birds say<br />There's music,<br />just loosen your ears<br />Come, join in the choir<br />We've been waiting<br />for years</div>
<div style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
The heat says<br />Spring's here now<br />There's no need to fear<br />This coldness will leave you<br />eventually, dear</div>
<div style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
I turn to the window<br />I turn down my head<br />I turn down this pen<br />and I get out of bed.</div>
</div>
<br />rosiehardyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09075821916171186861noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1541918346457402777.post-11077574394848185192017-04-04T09:04:00.001-07:002017-04-04T14:06:25.253-07:00Unavailable<br />
<iframe frameborder="no" height="450" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/316120936&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true" width="100%"></iframe>
<br />
I don't recognise this place but I'm told it's where you live, now.<br />
Your friends fill the room with their black suits and black shoes,<br />
rolling a quiet applause across the floor.<br />
I stay by the door.<br />
I don't like it here - it doesn't feel like you, or your Living Room<br />
with it's blankets thrown and music strewn.<br />
A beautiful piano plays out of tune.<br />
The people with their heads down, they rush by and by,<br />
so I call out your name to the thundering sky.<br />
You do not reply.<br />
"He's unavailable."<br />
"You just missed him."<br />
"He was here just before..."<br />
I turn round, and see your coat disappear out the door.<br />
My hopeful heart crumples and falls to the floor.<br />
<br />
It's been nearly a year, now, that we haven't quite met.<br />
My calls ring, unanswered, you can't take them just yet.<br />
I start to wonder if it's something I said...<br />
Did I write far too softly, were my rhymes not quite right?<br />
Did I hold too much heaviness for your arms through the night?<br />
I'm sorry<br />
I tried my best.<br />
I dream of this meeting, and what I would say -<br />
to cocoon back in your body, to ask you to stay.<br />
Just, please, don't go away<br />
again<br />
<br />
Unavailable. That word. The sting of the bee.<br />
This "love", meant for others,<br />
just never quite me<br />
<br />
I wake into greyness, and look to the Spring<br />
His chest softly falling, his lips poised to sing<br />
lullabies<br />
I rise and tread softly over his floor<br />
searching for shelter, but instead<br />
a trap door<br />
with old faded lettering,<br />
and parts of it torn, and fingerprints still visible<br />
of past lovers, adjourned<br />
<br />
Unavailable.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />rosiehardyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09075821916171186861noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1541918346457402777.post-84450733691391452112017-04-02T16:30:00.002-07:002017-04-04T14:05:13.416-07:00Washing Dishes<iframe frameborder="no" height="450" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/315955083&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true" width="100%"></iframe><br />
<br />
<br />
There I stood, my mother's daughter<br />
my hands lay soft in soapy water<br />
the light was dancing on the walls<br />
the music running down the halls<br />
something inside me shifts<br />
and falls<br />
to my knees<br />
to my naked bare feet<br />
kissing the earth<br />
somewhere beneath<br />
<br />
With dirt on my lips,<br />
I savour the sweetness<br />
a hazy mix of what feels like completeness...<br />
Maybe this is what joy tastes like?<br />
I inhale it, release<br />
My heart swells open, obese<br />
in belief,<br />
and in nothing at all<br />
in this,<br />
feeling, so enormously small<br />
<br />
It does not leave my lungs with the air<br />
I suppose this is what I would call a prayer<br />
To pay attention<br />
To notice<br />
Suspend time in midair<br />
Or perhaps just to be here<br />
Washing dishes<br />
Aware<br />
<br />rosiehardyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09075821916171186861noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1541918346457402777.post-9503760229008987362017-03-21T10:51:00.000-07:002017-03-21T10:51:49.771-07:00The Spring The Spring arrived.<br />
With a strong, gentle knock.<br />
Nervously,<br />
I cracked open the door,<br />
Unfastened the lock,<br />
and I let him inside.<br />
There was nowhere to hide<br />
from Him.<br />
Just goosebumps.<br />
And the cold<br />
from the floorboards beneath,<br />
How old<br />
they had grown<br />
As they creaked with the grief<br />
left behind<br />
after Winter's long stay<br />
I wanted to run, but<br />
I could not look away<br />
I could not take my eyes off him.<br />
Spring.<br />
as the birds began to sing<br />
as the bees poised to sting<br />
my lips with his kiss<br />
you know, my tongue<br />
doesn't recognise<br />
this... Honey<br />
He walked through the corridor<br />
as light followed behind<br />
Illuminating my windows,<br />
As they let in the sky<br />
And I watched as the flowers<br />
grew from under each step<br />
that he took<br />
through the hall,<br />
through the rooms<br />
I had wept<br />
His branches grew easy<br />
climbed right to the top<br />
through the concrete<br />
through my walls<br />
as though nothing could stop<br />
him from going right through me<br />
inside<br />
and around<br />
Until my fingertips bloomed flowers<br />
which dropped<br />
to the ground<br />
and into the bedroom<br />
where music would play<br />
as I undressed my heaviness.<br />
As I asked him to stay.<br />
<br />
<br />rosiehardyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09075821916171186861noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1541918346457402777.post-7504433705023989702017-03-12T15:43:00.002-07:002017-03-12T15:43:31.818-07:00The Storm"It's a bit like cleaning up the aftermath of the storm<br />
before the storm has even hit."<br />
I stand, calm<br />
looking myself directly in the eye.<br />
I have come to feel physically safe in this world,<br />
even in the darkest of moments<br />
When the most chaotic television static<br />
starts filling up my life<br />
spilling out of my insides<br />
Merging into reality like oil and water<br />
I am still aware there is an "off" switch<br />
(I am reluctant to press it<br />
for fear of missing something)<br />
<br />
I always seem to come back to safety, security,<br />
feeling sure of something.<br />
When I'm spectating, I understand it.<br />
How the nature of nature is to change and let go.<br />
It's safer to watch from the edges of the abyss<br />
As the tiny figures dive off the edge so smoothly<br />
into something<br />
I can't comprehend.<br />
But when my turn comes<br />
and I push myself to the edge of the board,<br />
Fingernails twitching<br />
My rationality is sucked away into the vortex<br />
before I'd even time to leap after it<br />
So I stand there, dithering<br />
Like someone who I am<br />
Like someone who I'm not<br />
And so, I retreat.<br />
And then, I repeat.<br />
<br />
I hang my head and grieve the man who did not leave<br />
Even when I stood, motionless inside my tornado<br />
Making eye contact with the eye of my storm<br />
Who did not try to save me,<br />
but watched in fascination<br />
as I swept the floor before it arrived<br />
as I did not brace when it hit<br />
as it revealed me with a gust of wind.<br />
Without a piece of me in order<br />
But my confusion still intact<br />
He just tilted his head in curiosity<br />
Smiled,<br />
and winked.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />rosiehardyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09075821916171186861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1541918346457402777.post-43157514780659031352016-12-10T16:17:00.002-08:002016-12-10T16:17:45.914-08:00Learning Self LoveSelf love isn't blocking pain from entering you<br />
It isn't hissing at the enemy, or drowning in self pity<br />
Or promising yourself to love less, next time<br />
To care less, to allow less to hurt you<br />
Self love is not becoming hard, strong<br />
Self love is allowing yourself to stay soft<br />
Self love is allowing things to come and go as they will<br />
And being peaceful in the knowledge that you will want to restore yourself<br />
Should you become damaged in the process.<br />
Self love is not self protection.<br />
It is self preservation, it is the commitment of gardening and nourishing your own soul<br />
Learning the ability to hold yourself at your weakest<br />
And acknowledging that this is very hard to do.<br />
So, next time your self love involves a wall<br />
or an arrow<br />
or a knife<br />
or a tub of ice cream<br />
Look at the wall, brick by brick, and take it down with care, not because you don't need walls<br />
but because you prefer the view behind it<br />
Try using a different target, and take an archery class instead<br />
Take the knife out of your own back, and use it to cut dead branches from the trees of the things that no longer serve you, or you them<br />
And enjoy the ice cream.<br />
You really, really, can't go wrong with ice cream.<br />
<br />rosiehardyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09075821916171186861noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1541918346457402777.post-48228913956392152412016-11-17T17:17:00.000-08:002016-11-17T17:31:22.419-08:00Every Bee Sting Was A KissAfter you left,<br />
Every bee sting was a kiss<br />
Sweet on my lips, honey, that sugar,<br />
That abyss.<br />
I ran with my tongue and savoured the taste<br />
of the blood from the wound<br />
of your hand on my face<br />
On those soft, birdsong mornings when you'd rise and you'd fall<br />
On those days made of grey when you weren't there at all<br />
I saw you, I kept you, I longed for the sting<br />
To feel something, just not nothing<br />
As I forgot how to sing.<br />
Your skin like your wings,<br />
softer than paper<br />
They couldn't fly far but you wouldn't escape her<br />
and by her, I mean me - your watcher, your keeper<br />
your lover, and griever, your hopeless believer in love<br />
and the sting, whether sharp, whether small<br />
to feel it defies there was nothing at all<br />
So I follow the bees<br />
wherever they find me<br />
Seek the sting of your kiss<br />
Even if just to remind me<br />
That you lived,<br />
That we Were<br />
That we do not just "cease"<br />
And when I swell and my lips are obese with the grief<br />
Then I take my dark body, forgotten by gold<br />
And I thank it, for the love <i>and</i> the pain it can hold<br />
And lose myself to the world, that old tender friend<br />
Follow sweetness, and laughter, round some new river-bend<br />
I think of you often as I wander through trees<br />
Of how lucky I am<br />
to be stung by the bees.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />rosiehardyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09075821916171186861noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1541918346457402777.post-75359503710915096212016-10-19T05:27:00.001-07:002016-10-22T11:17:07.725-07:00Prepare for LossAll our lives we are told<br />
You must prepare for loss.<br />
You must prepare for the day<br />
when your world crumbles,<br />
when friends leave, when summer ends<br />
and the leaves turn brown<br />
then to dust.<br />
<br />
You must prepare yourself, they say<br />
for the day your Great Love goes silent<br />
when the cat is no longer there to be stroked<br />
when the world is just you.<br />
All our lives we are told<br />
We must prepare for loss.<br />
<br />
But we are not told to prepare<br />
for all the Other Days.<br />
The days our love lies next to us in bed<br />
still and breathing heavy<br />
All those car journeys and endless days<br />
When the cat is here to be held,<br />
we don't prepare for that<br />
<br />
And even when the leaves are brown, we don't notice<br />
that golden amber hue, the lingering magic<br />
Perhaps not on the trees, but still<br />
right beneath our feet<br />
in front of our noses<br />
As we press our hands and eyes against the glass<br />
Breathing in on a world we are preparing to lose<br />
But never preparing<br />
to lose ourselves torosiehardyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09075821916171186861noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1541918346457402777.post-46547288588415111572016-10-02T12:00:00.001-07:002016-10-02T12:03:15.384-07:005.30am SurfingToday it is my birthday, and I leave behind my 25th year.<br />
<br />
I think I'll always remember 25 as the year I finally stopped wading in the shallow waters - the year I learned to surf!<br />
<br />
I'll remember 25 as the year I met the most spectacular man, who captivated and fascinated me like never before. The year I learned what a healthy, kind, loving relationship looked and felt like, so that I never settle for anything less. Learning what mattered wasn't trying to balance on the same board together, but being able to catch our own waves out on a shared sea - and afterwards, to run to each other on the shore, gasping, sparkly-eyed and salty, shouting "Did you see it, did you see it!? Wasn't that something!?"<br />
<br />
I'll remember 25 as the year I learned how to lose things - completely and ungraciously. Some pain and suffering in life is unnecessary, but some deserves to be felt in every inch of your being. At 25 I learned that actually, I couldn't withstand the heartbreak that came with losing him. That everything I knew could still be shattered into a thousand shards of flesh and heart, but that even in my most vulnerable and childlike moments of grief, this world has still not ceased to bring me awe and wonder.<br />
<br />
And at 26, I'm making a promise to myself to catch as many waves I can. Especially the big, foaming, crashing waves under trembling, brumous skies - regardless of the predators that might lurk beneath, regardless of whether I'm going to be knocked unconscious with a surfboard to the face. Because at 25, I learned that I'll always emerge from the sea - bloody and bruised perhaps, but always awake, always alive, always eyes sparkling. And I'll always run into his arms, shouting "Did you see it!? Did you see it!? Wasn't that something!!!"<br />
<br />
<br />rosiehardyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09075821916171186861noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1541918346457402777.post-88930152688414854472016-09-20T09:16:00.002-07:002016-09-20T09:16:41.799-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />rosiehardyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09075821916171186861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1541918346457402777.post-50609993863677722922016-09-20T03:12:00.003-07:002016-09-20T03:12:44.206-07:00Morning Thoughts<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: times; white-space: pre-wrap;">Morning thoughts. It's a lovely cliche ingrained into our culture to "live like you'll die tomorrow", and certain experiences from the last year have really heightened this realisation in me, of "this moment is fleeting, it will be gone soon, and so will they and so will I." </span><br />
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But I'm not sure anymore if it's helping me to live better. Instead, I feel this huge cloud of worry that I'm not appreciating the moment enough, especially in times of sadness and pain, and every joy is tinged with the reality of it being held in the hands of entropy, and it's actually pretty hard work to be able to step out of the moment with your family, your cat, your friends, and look at the same moment being held in death's hand, and feel joyous about it. </div>
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So, I've decided, instead of living like I will die tomorrow, I am going to live like I will live forever, and that entropy will never take my loves, but also with the knowledge that the moment is still fleeting, the moment is still good. </div>
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Death is a different beast from other loss, I've learned. I was a pro at taking life's curveballs and enjoying them and rolling with them. This is an entirely different beast, and I draw words from Washington Irving to justify my resistance to "moving on" from this.</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">"The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced. Every other wound we seek to heal - every other affliction to forget; but this wound we consider it a duty to keep open - this affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude. Where is the mother who would willingly forget the infant that perished like a blossom from her arms, though every recollection is a pang? Where is the child that would willingly forget the most tender of parents, though to remember be but to lament? Who, even in the hour of agony, would forget the friend over whom he mourns? Who, even when the tomb is closing upon the remains of her he most loved, when he feels his heart, as it were, crushed in the closing of its portal, would accept of consolation that must be bought by forgetfulness? No, the love which survives the tomb is one of the noblest attributes of the soul."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #1d2129; white-space: pre-wrap;">On this day 1 year ago, we fell into each others' arms. </span><span style="color: #1d2129;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">I knew I would adore him for a lifetime, whether only as friends, or strangers in passing, and to be given the </span></span><span style="color: #1d2129;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">opportunity</span></span><span style="color: #1d2129;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> to love him was a wonderful wave life offered me to catch. I took it, and I'd take it again and again and again. I have to catch other waves now, too. But that wave... that will always be the first time the sea took me into it's arms, and I felt at home, and I felt at one, and I learned the capacity for good life held - if you're willing to ride the wave. How can I turn away from a life, that in the same breath, gave me him? As much as I lament that I am here living in his absence, and that it comes so naturally, I must harness this and use it to push me to live and live and live with joy. To not only catch the other waves that will come, but to be willing to die for them, to sing and scream and let my mind throb with delight on them. Not to sit on them softly, waiting for them to end. </span></span></span></div>
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rosiehardyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09075821916171186861noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1541918346457402777.post-84180206536406932642016-09-12T16:26:00.003-07:002016-09-12T16:27:11.876-07:00Therapy NightI have found the grief and trauma that came with his death manifesting itself in the form of overthinking, in the form of picking fights with myself in my own head. I've decided to write about it, to spit it out, to look at my current opponent right in it's angry eyes and take it on, with my metaphorical sword of words.<br />
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"Right, you. Let's settle this. Lay yourself down."<br />
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Instead of laying down, I want to fight, I want to criticise myself for thinking that this was a good idea, that this would even make a difference. But I buckle and succumb to myself, like a screaming child who is upset from the lack of attention from their parent, and wants to hurt and upset their parents by making noise, yet needs their love and attention to recover and calm.<br />
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"Why overthinking?"<br />
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My mind has always been incredibly overactive. It would be climbing out of the windows of the school classrooms, running out the door at dull parties, constantly entertaining itself, constantly reviewing itself. I remember being six or so years old, and asking a classmate if she ever spoke to the voice inside her head, and receiving a very odd look in return. I didn't ask anyone about their inner voices for a good while after that, such was the confusion on her face, but I did immediately think to my six year old self "What if I ever get bored of talking to you?" "Hope you don't" I replied "I think you're stuck with me"<br />
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At present my thoughts resemble a drill somewhat. Usually, when they swirl and spiral, they're in one or another direction - a simple black and white, up or down, positive or negative. At the moment they are just going INWARD and HARD. I barely have time to process one thought before a counter argument pops up, and they aren't even on particularly worthy subjects, gone are the days when I'd ruminate on potential lovers and what they were thinking, or silly unimportant drama that I might have caught a whisper of... nope, I fight about utter meaninglessness of a completely different variety now. I fight about whether my thoughts are "right" or "wrong", whether my opinions are valid, whether I am impossibly narcissistic when I have a good thought or horribly depressive and no fun whatsoever when I have a bad one. My sense of self has just shattered, entirely, and it's like I am scurrying to connect the dots and pick up all the pieces to make something of myself by late morning so I can continue with my day without too much existential crisis looming.<br />
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I digress.<br />
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In trying to digest these thoughts, and then these patterns of thoughts forming, and then the purposelessness of thinking said thoughts, I realize I'm doing a lot of thinking and not very much "doing".<br />
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Issue 1) I have sat alone, in my apartment, in front of a computer, editing chin after chin after chin, for three days straight. When I am around people, I'm around 150+ strangers at a wedding that it's taken at least 2hours to drive to, and I'm not exactly relaxed and being my informal, often crude and inappropriate, self. Right. So this is probably contributing, not to the content of said thoughts, but to the set and setting. I mean, I've given myself the PERFECT scenario to go fucking insane.<br />
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So, answer? Finish up massive workload (yay!), schedule fun activities*<br />
*read: go for walks, go take 365 in new places, see friends, go to the gym, go buy healthy food instead of ordering pizza, etc etc<br />
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Issue 2) My grief is changing. I recognise these weird, in-between-stages well, now. When he first died, I was flooded with one thing: Agony. It was a pretty easy emotion to process. It was just unbearable. I understood it, I could deal with it, it was shit, life was going to be shit, just bad, very very bad. In a way, because this was so easy to understand, it was easy to forgive. I didn't berate or argue with myself about feeling like that, because I understood it. What I couldn't get my head around a month later, was the weird sense of normality that had returned to daily life. I felt myself start thinking about other things surrounding his death, how my methods of grieving might be appropriate/inappropriate, or misinterpreted by people I wanted to have like me and support me. I noticed my thoughts flooding to THESE subjects, not him, and it terrified me.<br />
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That's actually when the inner arguing began. I felt like I'd had this huge surge of perspective on what was truly important - to live, to love, to notice all the small tiny wonderful details, to be grateful for them, to notice my own place in my life whenever and wherever I can, to be kind kind kind and make others' journey's easier... and here I was trying to work out whether someone I have never met approves of me or not.<br />
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I felt pathetic, but it seemed so huge.<br />
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The lack of support I received in the aftermath of losing him has really damaged me.<br />
There, I said it.<br />
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Now, enough of that, let's work on healing that damage.<br />
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Answer? Let it go. You can't control whether what you do is right or wrong in someone else's eyes - you can only have good intentions, and I certainly have/had them. I only wanted to grieve in the way I know how, in the way that helps me. I wanted to lay out to others that life can be hard and it isn't always skipping in fields and smiling in nice hats. I wanted people to recognise what I had lost, the pain I was feeling - probably because I have some messed up need for validation but YOU KNOW WHAT, THAT'S OK! I'm human, I need support, and I deserve to be able to tell the truth about my own life and to ask for my needs to be met, especially since I'm lucky enough to have 20 odd thousand people who actually care and want to help. I felt like I was denied access to them, or at the very least shamed for wanting them.<br />
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Issue 3) I don't have all the answers<br />
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And I don't think anyone ever does. My desperate scrambling to find them seems understandable, I think we all search for purpose and meaning in our lives. I've done so for years, I find it fulfilling to learn and grow and expand myself. It used to be a very positive thing for me, these days less so.<br />
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I don't like this inner critic that I seem to have grown myself. I don't like critical, judgemental people in general. I used to stay away from them, reminding myself that people who cannot be empathetic or compassionate are probably unhappy, and that I should not take their opinions about myself as The Truth. But you cannot take anything as truth, and then I fight and say "But their opinions ARE valid, they need understanding, they need love, they need what you need."<br />
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Then I bow my head, and the sadness sweeps in.<br />
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There we have it. I needed support and understanding, I got silence and it wasn't an enjoyable experience.<br />
But now I have to let it go.<br />
I have to let all these thoughts go.<br />
I promised him I would be OK, he said it with such worry in his voice:<br />
"I don't want this to fuck you up. I don't want to hurt you."<br />
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I would like to howl from the tops of the rooftops that you never hurt me. You gave me all the sweetness and light I could taste. I am OK, I will be OK, and I love you, I love you, I love you. How could it be any other way?<br />
<br />rosiehardyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09075821916171186861noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1541918346457402777.post-64517240233977780422016-09-11T13:29:00.001-07:002016-09-11T13:29:24.686-07:00A thought in the present moment as a plane soared aboveThe present moment, for all of us, is actually always a very peaceful thing - unless of course we're being mauled by something hairy or faced with physical unease. The plane soaring overhead in the night sky will continue to soar whether we choose to tune into it or not. The peaceful present moment is a wonderful thing to be part of, but remember carefully - it never comes to us. We have to come to it.rosiehardyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09075821916171186861noreply@blogger.com0