Elucidating Questions

Receding Sun

Bat in the sky

I keep having daymares where I’m about to lose my house

What would it be like to live without the constant fear of not having enough when it counts?

I’m so good at financial gymnastics at this point I should get a medal

Never enough

Pain and discomfort

What am I maintaining?

I don’t know why I’m fighting so hard for all of this

Earlier you said look around ’round

And I said I don’t want to, it’s awful

Can’t even maintain the chaos

I wish I had a cure

I’ve been dealing with no options for so long

Maybe it’s nothing more than some future person’s inspiration for something else

Don’t tell me it’s okay

How can so much work mean so little?

I don’t know how to let go

Of anything

Somewhere in the past there’s still a me who believes in this

It does go on and on and on, but it doesn’t matter if it’s not being read

Tape it to his face

Yeah, that wouldn’t help

Because then I’d have to know where his face is and have permission to tape it

Frantically jumping up and down has not worked

Yeah, let’s go there

Somewhere

Me and my spirits

If you’d just leave me to them I’d be fine enough

I wish I could just leave

I’m bad for everyone

I wish I was free

You stupid fucking boy

Look at me

From The Cat

Don’t mind him he’s feeling rejected

I’m feeling rejected

But I’m well behaved

And trust me this is well behaved

I wish I was someone

I wish that someone had planted their feet before we were upended

Hey brother

Yeah I don’t want to go down an endless road all alone

I don’t want to believe in love when it’s not for me

You ask a lot of me, you know

You do

I was already trying my hardest when you dropped me to my knees and demanded ten times more

Why do I feel alive when I remember to breathe finally?

Why do I feel real

A picture of me from long ago

I thought I’d avoided the camera, yet there it is

I have no recollection

And when I look at that child

Grade 8

Yup that’s about when things went sideways

That poor kid

They’re going to go through so much shit

I want to go into the picture and take them and hold them and tell them I’m so sorry for what’s coming

That me doesn’t know him yet

Doesn’t know he exists

Is dating a semiabusive 18 year old and having conversations an 8th grader shouldn’t be having

And shouldn’t be dating an 18 year old

That me

Is so lonely

Feels so different on the inside than on the outside

That me cries late at night

If I could only help them

Keep them far away from him

And him, and him, and him, and him

Punch my father in the face and take them far away from their life of responsibility for everything

Their dog just died this year

Or will

Mum leaves soon

It’s all so jumbled

When did she leave?

That poor kid

I don’t think they’d believe me if I told them I made it to 30

The Cat

I don’t know when he becomes me

A time before this

If I could go back I wouldn’t love him

I’d just let whatever what going to happen, happen

That 8th grader wandered the streets at night

If I was their parent I would have put padlocks on the fucking doors

Who lets their 8th grader wander the streets?

3am wanderer

Silly kid

So desperately wanting to be parented

I want to tell them that on that morning when mum yells downstairs for them to do something and they have headphones on and don’t hear

Probably getting the boys ready

And she wips a backpack at them when she comes downstairs and finds it hasn’t been done

And they walk out of the house saying they’ll catch the bus rather than further escalate the situation

And she shows up at the bus stop livid and drags them into car

Leaving nail marks that lasted hours and tiny bruises

When they tried to explain themselves and mum tried to backhand them

Nice duck, first of all

I want to tell them they were in the right in that situation

They were being expected to take a parenting role

Without being properly notified

And then tried to de-escalate a situation in the only way they knew how

Just a kid afraid of their parents

That poor fucking kid

What a life

I wish I could be the adult I am for myself as a child

That’s just a kid

What could a child possibly say to warrant that besides “I’m going to physically harm someone and enjoy it”?

Even then, that’s a kid!

No one’s coming to help

No one really cares except me

No one’s going to fight for that kid except me

But it’s too late now

And then that tilted grin

How about now?

There is no game

That’s a different Universe

I pose you only this

How?

Love, you say, as usual

You just choose the easy answers

Yeah

From this tiny place

Love, 愛

So easy to say

あいか

You can take my か from my cold dead fingers damn it

Feel my pensivity

I want to go to a place where it’s alright and I’m safe and sound with you

Mercury will you not?

Thank you, you dolt, I do have nice shoes

Do you really want me to find my voice?

Would that not be terrifying?

I’ll try

Oh they should all be very afraid

Imagine if I spoke up for myself

Just had a short conversation with a bee

She was absolutely sure I am a flower

She checked me all over

No, love, I’m sorry, I’m not a flower

I told her

She was determined

This is not unusual

I’m dressed in so many colours

Poor thing probably got excited for a second

I know it’s not nice having food seemingly so close

Once I would have gotten up and ran

Bees and wasps scared me

Today she almost landed on me

I just felt bad for faking her out

The landscape is so different than what her ancestors lived in

And my landlord insists on decimating the dandelions which, while basically fast food, would at least get them through the Summer

Humans are so strange

No considering how their actions may affect others

The bee

I hope she found something delicious somewhere

The roses are still stubbornly blooming

Now a hummingbird

So much life in this place

If I owned land I’d fill it with food for everything around me

The deer ate the flowers again?

Good! There’s plenty to go around.

It’s so jarring to be a part of something that no one ever seems to give a second thought to

This Earth and her systems we are gleefully destroying

Is it even real?

Do they not see it?

She must feel as lonely as I do

Trillions of lives unaware of her

All on her

Or within

I wish I could have become a flower for a moment

Just for her

I wonder how you treat people

I would like to think that

Since no one has come out trying to claim you’re awful

I can just take the grey answer

Somewhere between neutral and good

Oh but we know I can’t handle grey answers

Vagueness

Am I a person?

Does how I’m treated count?

In this darkness

You could mistake me for a person

Not a dragon star in the sky

Since the three

Why is it always three?

You could pretend everything is fine

Under this sky

You could pretend I don’t have to go to work tomorrow

That it would be worth it if I did

We could pretend I’m not teetering on the edge

A plane

I could pretend I’m going on a flight far away

In the dark

So many things seem possible

So much potential in the sky

Surely it must leak into the day?

And yet

I must face another day

Very much the same as all the rest

Certain details changed

Repeating

I keep saying I’m done reaching and then

A resounding No

Fuck you just a little

For being ever out of it

My reach

I wonder how many days that little machine has gone around the Earth?

Mistake it more something else and you’d think a star was flying by

I don’t know if I shine even as bright as a machine refracting sunlight

Connection

For all my searching

I only find it in the dark

With a billion billion lights watching

When I look out and think

Hey

Here we all are right at this moment

Yesterday is almost over

Tomorrow has almost begun

Maybe we can find eachother

If the sky can be so perfect

One dragon star

Three little machines

One moment while I stare into my planet boyfriend who has finally shown up

And I comment on how pretty the light looks reflecting off his ice crystals

Welcome back

In the sense that I can see you

Stupid dumb beautiful fucker

Get on my arm so I can look at you at all times

If the night would stop and I could sit here with you for a few hours

Alas we both know Time doesn’t work that way

Ever onwards

I’ll try really hard not to fall on my way back into the house

Meet me, would you?

Calling recent times brief as hell

If you meet me 2000 more times I’ll live 1999 more days

Who knows what madness lurks

Until the day after the last day I have to fight anymore

And yours

To forever then?

Forever

I hope I get to see you again tomorrow

Though at the moment you seem to be telling me to go the fuck to sleep

Know you’re the only one that gets to tell me th

I wonder why that hawk is crying

Is it any similar reason to why I’m crying?

Is it so fed up with boredom and hunger?

How long do I have to wait for some unknown thing?

For something to do

At this point I’ve spent most of my life watching tv and playing video games

Some would say that’s great

But the games grow stale so quickly

I’ve played so many and the mechanics just get boring

I want to crochet and create and who cares if I end up with a hoard of plushies?

But yarn is so expensive

Stuffing is so expensive

Filled my hours with tamagotchi to give me a sense of maintaining something

I want to crochet until my hands hurt which is peculiarly long considering most things hurt them immediately

It’s the one thing I can do

I want to do

Something

I feel so useless

So horridly still

I yearn for anything

A new tama has arrived

Something to do for a bit

Constantly seeking something new because if I stay in one thing I may never do anything else

There’s got to be money somewhere, right?

I wish I could opt out of money

No, sorry, money goes against my spirituality

I will just be living my life

Doing all the things I want to do

I’d just go to Japan

They all think they’re so free

Just wait until they’re trapped at home

It’ll happen at some point

We all have choices

Until we don’t

I learned that

In this repeating day

2410 days ago this day started

2410 tomorrows that never amounted to much

Mum says there must be an answer and we haven’t found it yet

Don’t tell me I’m half way there

Even two thirds of the way

If you tell me that I’ll just lay down and never get up again