|

The Darkest Night

Byjack
The Darkest Night

Ice fills my heart

When I think of the darkest night

Darkness

Drunk confusion

Was it worth it

To take the soft girl

And break her soul

That night

Leave her

Exposed

Vignette on the bed like a polaroid

Did you grin and smile

Lamplight on your face

On the parking lot

Beer in hand

While your friends

Moved on to the next party

 

In this poem I’m letting myself feel and process feelings of deep shock, dissociation, anger, fear, visceral graphic-ness and endless night.

Similar Posts

|

Even If She Wanted Me Back

Byjack
Even If She Wanted Me Back

Even if she wanted me back

I wonder

Will it be like before

No secrets between us

No unspoken words

Or will I feel like I’m on a sinking ship

The water at my chest

Threatening to drown me

The words she used to hurt me

Only hurt

Because I trusted her enough

To expose my naked heart

I know if she asks

I will try to open my heart again

But I worry

That invisible locks

Have already formed

To protect me

And she doesn’t have the willpower

To find the keys

 

I am scared knowing that the amount of pain between us may be too much to overcome. Pain is always an invitation for growth, but how much is someone willing to grow? I worry sometimes I made a huge mistake. I did it because of the feeling that it was over already. That staying would have been just trying to push along a dream, squeeze out the last bit of real connection that we had. I felt that I had to try to give things enough space for perspective. I wonder sometimes if she even has the capability to feel the love I felt for her. Whether it was just an obsession for her, when it was love for me.

| | |

Knee Challenge: Looking Ahead

Byjack

I completed my knee challenge in terms of going hiking in Zion national park. I felt like I succeeded in a big way but still have a long way to go in terms of getting where I need to go.

What is next for me? I know in the long term, I want to be very physically active. I want to be able to practice martial arts, do a little parkour and gymnastics. I know it will take a lot of effort and time to get there and it feels quite overwhelming for me.

I’m going to set a few large goals and then look at some of the very short term goals getting there.

2 year goal – the ability to practice martial arts, parkour gymnastics and skiing. My goal isn’t to go too hard in any of these areas, just to be able to do them safely.

1 year goal – to get back to preinjury levels

1 month goal – be able to sleep, walk, stand and light exercise with zero discomfort. I will call this goal little freedom.

I don’t really know what the next step in my process is. It feels too soon to set a schedule yet.

I just want to slowly rest and explore for now.

My feelings are that challenge videos make for really good productivity but I need to slow down sometimes and feel the feelings.

Maybe I will write a poem:

Creaky Knees

When I bend my knee

It feels like I’m grinding

Hinges made of old stone

Like the kind in movies

That open secret magical passages

And grate against themselves

I say that I want to be able to do martial arts again

But the truth is

I don’t know what I want

I am afraid to dream again

Of a world where I can be active

I’m so used to being scared

Of clutching my knee close

So as not to hurt it

I feel like I’m too old to have these dreams anymore

Of flying

Like I did when I wanted to learn parkour

Everything scares me

I feel that

I need to understand this part of myself first

Listen to what it wants to say

“Everything is a danger”

It tells me

The protector of my knee

Of my body

It feels safe to not move at all

Workpost 15: Meditation

Byjack

Last night I went to bed on time, got into my bedroom about 11PM and went to bed at midnight.

However, I woke up feeling abysmal, tired and my stomach was hurting. I feel that I ate a big dinner to close to bedtime. Also, maybe I’m just catching up on sleep.

This morning, as with many mornings, I did not want to go for a walk, but I did anyway. I realized that if I go for a walk because I “have to” then I feel undermotivated. But if I go for a walk to “meditate” and think, it actually is quite enjoyable and feels needed as I feel pretty shitty and need some time. I also makes it easy to not reach for my phone because I obviously don’t want a phone disturbing my quiet thoughtful meditation.

I also realized my morning singing and dance are part of my meditation and that I want to set an alarm so that I know when I need to look at my phone.

Today in terms of work, I don’t really know what to focus on. Perhaps I will finish up more things related to work so I can have fewer things on my plate and be able to focus on my two goals around AI and Art Coaching.

Tired

Byjack

I haven’t been sleeping well. I’m feeling tired lonely and unmotivated.

Feeling into more my feelings, I feel exhausted. Probably need to just hang for a bit.

I went to go hang for a bit and I feel a little better. However, I still feel pretty tired.

One thing that I want to point out is that I at least slept much better last night than previous nights and was able to go to sleep around 1 am instead of 2 or 4.

One of the things that I’ve been struggling with is mewing. Just like last time, I think I don’t know what to do with my jaw. I’m thinking I will focus on keeping the tongue in the top of my mouth and a good posture and not worry about closing my jaw because that feels uncomfortable (and for some reason my mouth gets really dry).

I’m trying to get back into my coaching mindset:

  1. You are in my house – this is a big one because I feel out of control of my life at the moment
  2. Don’t be afraid to be silent
  3. Take risks
  4. Be patient

Well I got an artist interview in about 6 minutes, but after that, I want to go somewhere fun and write about the artist interviews as well as compile my notes.

|

Workpost 13: Inspired

Byjack

I feel tired. And yet I feel so inspired.

I ran with the ideas last night, of dance and music and I can say I feel extremely sad. Something about how much I miss this part of me. I feel sad about the weight I’ve been carrying around for so long. I feel sad because sadness acknowledges the pain in the world without shying away from it.

I watched this video last night:

I remember in art there is no right or wrong way to go about something. Just like in life. I feel we forget that a lot.

For some reason, I feel the desire to write stories. Here is a space for some freewriting:

A shark was washed onto the shore. That was the day when I asked my next door neighbor Amy to marry me. We were both 12 at the time. Amy was a quiet sort of girl, not shy, just took a while to think about things before she talked. When she did, she didn’t say much.

She looked at me up and down as if she was trying to size me up.

“So what do you say Amy?”

I wonder if this is how the shark felt. He was already dead when he was on shore, but his eyes seemed to look at you as if to say…well? What’s up?

“I don’t know,” Amy finally responded. Her fingers figeting.

“You don’t know?”

“Yea.”

“That’s ok!” I said. I was 12 and I felt invincible…

I feel sad because of how much of this I repressed within my self.

In terms of work, I feel I’ve done the experiment and I can officially say to myself, working on too many things at the same time does not work towards my strengths. I think I need to focus on one focus every day. If I get to a second one, then that’s good. Also, I can have many low effort progress toward every goal, but it can’t be the main focus.

In doing one main thing, I might be able to go to bed much sooner which is something of great concern to me.

To Love and Lose Love

Byjack

A dear friend of mine who I was deeply in love with just cut ties with me. And I’m surprisingly calm.

Part of it is because I don’t think there is much left unsaid or anything I really regret about the whole friendship/relationship we had. I loved so many things about her. The way she made jokes, the sound of her voice, the patience and love she showed me at my worst. I will never forget that and I think she’s changed my life in ways she probably doesn’t even know.

I only wish she felt safe enough, trusted me enough, to tell me about how she truly felt. The worries, the emotions, the anger she was going through, I wish she trusted me enough to be open about it – so I could be as loving as she was for me and be closer today for it. In the end, she gave up on me – just like I had almost given up on her earlier in the friendship.

There are two things that still make me feel like someone is ripping apart my heart with a fork:

  • The fear that I wasn’t ever really special to her. That maybe she will turn around and say and do all of the things she said and did for me to the next person down the line. Maybe she has already found that next person. Maybe that is why she left. This hurts me somewhere so deep it’s hard for me to face fully.
  • The hope that she will come back. Hope is pure torture. I’m afraid it will drive me mad if I dwell on it too long.

There are more steps of grief, more growing I will need to do. But this is how I feel right now.