herbagratiae

[herbagratiae]

Getting real sick of people telling me I have everything figured out and my shit together while I’m actively going through a breakup.

Getting real sick of people assuming that because I manage my emotions, and can use, I don’t know, critical thinking skills, that nothing is wrong with me or that I’m totally fine.

Getting real sick of consistently being an unpaid therapist for almost everyone in my inner circle. Not just a “I’m your friend and I love you, you can lean on me” or a “I’ve been where you are, I can give you advice” but true fucking blue therapy. Walking through mindfulness techniques, negative thought replacement, arranging ACTUAL therapy for MULTIPLE people?

I ask for help and the most I will receive is someone watching the baby a couple hours tops. Maybe a hand in cleaning here and there. I don’t mean to downplay or minimize the help I have received, but Jesus, it’s not fucking equitable.

That’s todays journal entry. A rant and my irritation and that’s all folks.

[herbagratiae]

A reminder to myself; you don’t have to look.

The block button is a beautiful thing. A silent boundary imposed in a completely made up world. A statement “I Don’t Want You In My Life. I Don’t Want You To Know Me.” I’m gettin a lot more comfortable using that damn thing.

I had forgotten that the best friend— TRUE best friend— of my former closest friend, still follows my main blog on here (I blocked former friend a few weeks ago. The feeling was similar to when I decided to stop self harming). I had forgotten that is, until the little ‘pop!’ notification went off. A shotgun shell to the chest would have been kinder.

What do you call the feeling of being a voyuer on tenderness that could’ve been yours? Or maybe more accurately— tenderness that you craved, dearly, deeply, that you were never going to get, given and received by the very people you wanted it from. It’s not bitterness; she and I are old friends. It defies a name, breathtaking and silencing. Like an eldritch emotion that should’ve been swallowed up by the sea a long time ago. I should’ve been swallowed by the sea.

I used to call myself a TidePool Daughter. I imagined that my interior world was bright, colorful, full of secrets just under small stones, like crabs that scurry under the sand. I wanted to invite people in, to explore and view me. Imagine how shocked I was to discover I was less like a tidepool and more like an empty room. I can see the interior of my soul now, and it has nothing to do with the ocean. Nothing natural, or awe-inspiring, or graceful. It is an empty room in an old house, on a rundown street in a dying town.

The wood paneling on the walls are stained with dust embedded into the pressboard lines. The carpet worn so thin in places you can see the plywood underneath. Dents in that carpet where a bed used to be. A groaning heater vent on the floor by the door lets you know the bills are still being paid, but no one has lived here for a long time. What do you call the feeling of being a voyeur on tenderness that you wanted? I think I would call it familiar.

ain’t it just the wat

[herbagratiae]

Cook for You

•

Let me care for you. Let me put cold fruit and soft cheese on a plate alongside the love I cannot voice, and watch you smile with each bite. Let my love be as mundane and thoughtless as the motion of moving your hand to mouth. I love you. I want us both to eat well.

My mother was not a good cook. I used to tell people that she changed; 40 hit and suddenly everything she made was burnt. Over-seasoned, under-salted, blackened, raw, doughy, tough. The truth is, she always took her steaks well done, her eggs rubbery. My mother could not cook, let me cook for you.

I will show you the flavors I learned to mix myself. I will bake you a cake from scratch and it will be good. Let me show you how I can flambé and caramelize, I will make your favorite foods and delights you cannot even imagine and you will go back for MORE. I spent a childhood eating sticky oatmeal and sauerkraut but I am standing in the kitchen now, whisk in hand and knife in the other and I Love You.

I want both of us to eat well.

[herbagratiae]

on a wednesday afternoon

•

I will cook food in our kitchen. You will stand next to me, leaning against the counter as you tell me how good it smells. I will cut carrots and beets, you will hand me spices and make bad jokes that I will laugh at. We will sip wine and listen to music you picked out, you will sing along in a key just a bit off, and I will smile. You will never eat the food I make, but our kitchen will be warm and the sun will still be soft on your skin. We exist as we are, it is enough.

[herbagratiae]

The Nantucket Whaler’s Union

•

Can i borrow your sweater?

I dont need it for warmth, just the smell of you close to me still

In fact this grey January looks brighter than it has it years, warmest month on record

I’d swear the sun is fighting harder than before to return to a mildew covered street, not very far from where you live

I’ve seen the house, I know the road to take to get there it’s close,

5 minutes flat

From where I am to you

I am so close I could almost touch you, almost kiss you, ‘almosts’ again.

Don’t expect softness from me

I am too violent for love, too rigid and morose

I play at romance while you love

violently

I feel I’ve met my match, warm earth to kiss my feet even in winter

Wind that should cut through me instead sends me whirling, thrown off balance

Courage is not like riding a bike and I am

6 years old again, thrown down a hill hearing your voice yelling at me to pedal

Hazel-green tassels are birds catching flight on the handlebars and i am barely keeping control

I’ll end up crumpled between pavement and aluminum at the end of this but my

Elbows and what’s left of my ribs will be protected and scrape-free, if not bruised

(thanks for the sweater)

[herbagratiae]

Waiting (still)

•

I see myself devoured through one-thousand mouths; spittle and back teeth well known. Yesterday’s meal, fixed between planes of present and future. I smile;

(I need a cig after a good meal, a good laugh or a good fuck) waiting is always waiting

I feasted young from the tree of knowledge USDA balance compliant with its side of spoiled meat.

it is delectable to me

Sickly Sweet, miasmic orange blossom

the only way out is through: It takes a certain kind of fortitude to never learn

Your lesson, no matter how often taught

[herbagratiae]

Marriage Vows

•

To be loved is to be known:

To feel every inch of your skin completely, to know the burden of your own weight pressing down on another body

This is what i know as truth

To be known is to be dissected with gentle hands:

Carefully cut apart, all sharp edges and open wounds and still wish to keep the hands of your killer clean.

Maybe if i hadn’t been sanguine, terrestrial, messy to start you would not need to bathe twice after handling me

I am constantly relearning truth

To be dissected is to be seen:

I cannot hide myself from you (i have tried) i am all Human

flesh, viscous fluids and phlegm, unspeakable in polite company and yet you

Take me apart bit by bit

I Feel It

The weight of my own being

the audacity of allowing myself to be carried

To be loved is to be sorry

this will still be true

[herbagratiae]

G-d In A Tree

•

I must go out

I must be in the presence of the mosquito, of the rabbit, of the skunk, of G-d, if he chooses to show

I must go into the deep places of the woods and feel the briars, burst my fingers open like summer blackberries, stained with salvation

there is salvation in blood

I must go and sit under a large willow, older than this city, older than

this fucking place

I will sit under those long whips and my eyes will become sticky as the sap, my hair will grow and touch, it will drag the ground

I will gather mulch and moss, fungus will find its home in my joints and my bones

I will become something more than i am, perhaps better

Change is a solitary thing, rest can only be had alone

the eagles and the owls know this, why don’t I?

so i will go out

I will find myself deep in places only the deer know, berries, beetles and barely there dreams will sustain me

but i must go out

there is no road, there are no hands to hold me up, G-d may not appear

but i must go out

[herbagratiae]

Jan. 27, 2024

•

I have always been a dog

Street dog, a stray

I know the thrill of the summer breeze in my nape, the anguish of a fresh kill in my jowls

I know how to live off scraps

Like any good dog i come back to the boot when kicked, biting the hand that feeds me so as to love the fist later

Lord i mistake pain for affection but then dont all good dogs

Stray dog, lap dog, your dog;

I will wear the title like a collar pulled tight on any leash so long as its held in hands that know me and know my teeth are

Rotted, barely there and pose no threat

I’m all bark; harsh words to feign control while the kibble I didn’t buy grows stale

Lord i mistake love for violence

[herbagratiae]

Who’s Going To Help Those Goddamn Monkeys?

•

who is going to help those goddamn monkeys?

not my circus, sure. But don’t i attend? Don’t i

Throw myself onto the trapeze and demand to be taught? Do I not stay late, after the neon is dimmed and bic flames are the only light, to smoke weed with grease-painted clowns and lion tamers an arm short?

Not my circus, not my monkeys.

It doesn’t save me from the fish bowl feeling of Knowing. The blur of motion and noise from inside the big top is isolating, distant and suffocating. There’s peanut dust in my sinuses and eyes, that’s why they’re red; there’s cotton candy stickiness and sweat on my hands, that’s why they’re dirty. Not from you, not from the revelers, not from the snot-nosed children or the animals screaming in their pens. I made the choice to be here, bought the ticket and enjoyed the rides and now

Who is going to take care of those goddamn monkeys? They’re barely fed, kept starving and frail and i know i could help them. I could take them home in a rubbermaid tote with a towel in the bottom, wash them in my sink and feed them from my palm. The scratching and shrieking are part of the deal, i am aware and unsurprised when i come away bloody. It’s in their nature, as it is in mine.

There is no father in heaven but i am here and you are in my sink and i forgive you, for you know not what you do.

I make the decision the same moment my lighter touches the bar soaked bottom of the big top.

I’m going to help those goddamn monkeys. Whether they want it or not.

[herbagratiae]

February 1st, 2024

•

It is February, I am undone.

“what i deserve isn’t being offered”

but this is exactly what i deserve.

the confusion, all the bone-snapping weight, the pressure of existence— I’m my father’s blood, my mother’s ‘something’

Psalms 51 is a funeral dirge, i sing it to soothe what’s left of Barbara’s child

can i blame this too on her?

perhaps at the end of this she will be waiting for me. Comfort I’ve not felt since The Before. affection I’d reserved for G-d.

perhaps at the end of this i will be able to look my partner in the eye when they say they love me, and i will not doubt.

perhaps at the end of this my ribcage will reconstitute, perhaps my muscle will reknit, my entrails will turn from their spoil,

“I Could Be Whole If You Let Me” I pour what’s left of my good humor in a rocks glass, given to an undeserving patron.

It is February and i fear too many things to name,

the drunks, myself and you amongst them

[herbagratiae]

2:53a.m, The Day Before My 25th

•

wine flows from the bottle, though it remains upright

Trust is bird bones held in shaking, sweating hands you can

Feel the Might Have Been’s between your index and your thumb.

Give me your secrets friend, i will take them high into the mountain, above your clouds and my sorrows,

There we will molt into a horrid thing alone, your secrets and I become one, screeching, clawing and ragged, throwing our youth against the rocks to wear it thin — like down feathers no longer useful

We will not return to you as Something better, perhaps we will not return at all

Different does not mean bad, it just means different.

Wine pours freely from the upturned bottle and now we are all something new

[herbagratiae]

The last days drag out over delicate webs

Sinew and fascia of our bodies— this green and blue bruise I live on

September has been a noose crafted by skilled hands, made custom for my long neck

Swansongs are overplayed on the radio these days, false comfort cannot be found in indie-rock silence

so I welcome the metronome of change,

tick-tick-tick-tick

4/4 time and steady as the surgeons hands on my mind

the last days are precious, precarious, and few

[herbagratiae]

Odysseus Was A Lover

•

Touch me.

Buffeted cliffs became craggy outcrops,

the ships kept away for fear of the tide,

the fish hide deeper than they’ve dared go before;

but you’re a seagoing man, unafraid of my abyssal mood, unbothered by typhoon, surge or storm

myths of mermaids and kraken bring what’s left of a laugh to the backs of your teeth, there’s no adventure in hyperbole

but there, in the middle of the tempest, real and rough — there are your hands

suspended between wind and water

pressures build up in my wooden hull, fore and aft I strain for movement under you, call out your name like a carronade blasting across my open ocean

Captain come down with your ship, see how I can unfurl for you, see how I am weathered soft, smell the salt on my skin, the seaweed in my hair can catch between your fingers— do I make your mouth go dry?

are you thirsty for more, does the siren call to you?

I become opalescent, light as the seafoam

Transfixed on my absolute bearing, magnetic, magnificent, harbor made safe once more

[herbagratiae]

The Dogwood, 2.

•

There is a fat little bird running up the walk of my house

His small, spindly feet yellow on barely wet stones

his beak seeking small twigs, fallen from a sleeping Dogwood

•

All Summer long I stared at that Dogwood

Admired it’s young branches and tender buds, green and white brachts facing the sun in the warm midday. Tender to touch, too gentle to land on. Myself and the robins, red-breasted and bright, embraced their smell and supposed curses

I grieved the Fall, its harshness, the blustering winds and shaken leaves. The birds began their travels south or found harbor in older Oaks across the way.

I stayed. I felt the rain and wind hit my face in the open air and watched the Dogwood shed its garments, a snake’s skin made of faded green and petals, bruised and brown with hunger

When Winter came, I longed to knit a scarf to wrap around its barren trunk. Dreamt of giving the sleeping Dogwood a measure of comfort in all the grayness. I wondered if the Dogwood dreams. I wondered if the birds were well.

•

It is spring now, and the Dogwood still sleeps. It has not yet grown leaves or buds, if its trunk as grown thicker from its time in the snow, it is imperceptible to my human eye. But it is here all the same, made it through the seasons, just as I did, just as this little bird on my walk, hungry for a new year and rich soil, all the same.

This same little bird, fat on the worms wriggling through the roots of our Dogwood.

The little bird sees me and flies away

[herbagratiae]

The Dogwood

•

There’s a dogwood tree in my front yard

A small perch for the sparrows that eat the worms, a small talking point for my neighbors to euthanize, dissect and embalm over midafternoon cocktails and low-fat tapas

the smell is noxious but closely kept dreams have a stench about them it’s the

Offensive hope for something more and the memory that Christ himself cursed the dogwood to never be great again

The dogwood tree in my front yard has lasted 4 seasons, 4 like the petals of the dogwood blossom, 4 petals divided in two, my family and myself of two minds

4 petals divided in two, 8 is a Holy Number and the dogwood represents fertility to some

I Am

Durable

My neighbors are tittering behind pressboard fences now, but I have pulled from

Deep Wells to water my dogwood

There is a dogwood in my front yard and the beggars and my neighbors are coming to pluck its petals

I do not stop them as they strip my dogwood bare it’s not my place to keep prayers from the mouth of the penitent though I warn them

of the fetor that will haunt their nailbeds, sting like a splinter under the skin

Dogwoods stay with you

[herbagratiae]

to err is human, to fuck-off is divine

hello, and welcome to my journal. I can only assume that countless porn bots and at best, 12 real people will ever see this. If you stumbled on this journal from the search, welcome? I’m not sure how you got here either, but stay for a bit if you like.

My name is Rue. I’ve tried a couple times to write out this ‘about me’ section and I just keep cringing. It’s…yucky, trying to pin down myself into neat bulletpoints. It feels false, like I’m misleading you into believing myself to be better than I actually am. But I suppose bulletpoints are going to have to work.

Rue

non-binary (they/them/theirs)

25 at time of writing

married

mother

former craft cocktail bartender

amateur poet & painter

witchcraft practitioner

leftist

polyamorous + queer

autistic

extreme trauma survivor

So now you know the basics of my person. I’m sure I’ll be filling in the blanks a bit, but this journal is for me primarily, not you, whoever you are. Consider this an adventure, I suppose. Imagine yourself jumping in mid-conversation with a stranger, and let the rest go.

My inbox and questions box are both open, but more as a novelty than anything else.

If you’re going to come in, wipe your boots and close the door. You’re letting all my cold air out.