softmonkey

it is charming to see people who have been raised dysfunctionally, no, really to see any of them, try to piece these things together, to figure out how to move in the world and understand the nature of all of it and what it means. but the dysfunctional ones, a light dysfunction, still left relatively unscathed but abraded enough to notice how painful these things are (all manner of life, the people, the experiences). i watch them seeming to function (but perhaps i seem to as well, if you don't look closely) and wonder what i might have produced had i been less wounded. there is, i imagine, a perfect amount of damage, enough to let you become a human being (as opposed to the hollowness  that seems to come of an idyllic life), but not so much as to maim.

mental and emotional health (there really is no distinction here, i threw that in for those who have a narrow view of what mental health is) is what needs the most attention, and even the most knowledgeable of us have a limited understanding of what it would look like or what would facilitate it.

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;  - e. e. cummings


we swim in a primordial emotional stew, and most of us have been poisoned, and a few of us have been poisoned to a point where our functionality is severely impaired.

submerged in a song. turn up the volume. live in it. it's so big. can you feel the tears in my eyes, at how big it is? tears for the beauty and wanting to live there, but knowing i can't.

the first song

hope, again. it frightens me a bit that when i'm in the pit, i cannot believe it. even though i've been in and out of it countless times, in the thousands it feels, at least hundreds. they are not all as deep; the really deep ones are the scary ones. i need a totem to take with me next time i fall, so that i remember.

it's not too beautiful