badmimi - Tumblr blog

[badmimi]

my sister and i were talking about our borderline telepathy non verbal communication so i sent her this old journal entry on the topic and she said “agree we were rats.” 🐀🐀

[badmimi]

tie my hands behind me‬

so I won’t take you apart‬

I give up‬

fall on my knees‬

hold still while you ‬

cut out my heart ‬

and I’ll show you

how to kill me‬

and I promise I won’t run‬

take my last breath

and thrill me‬ ‪

oh look what we’ve begun ‬

[badmimi]

On Belief

Even for godless heathens, getting well is a practice of belief. There’s faith in it. A willing suspension of disbelief. Of doubt.

It can be as simple as faith in ourselves. A practice of considering and studying our own lore. Of pouring over our storied history of resilience. Of taking in the relentlessness we’ve cultivated to get here. Of having the faith that we can do it again.

Getting well is also a practice of defiance. When it would be easier to stay down and bleed out. Getting well is confrontational and subversive and mutinous and unruly and brave. These are comfortable modalities for us. We who walked barefoot up dirt roads looking for our mother when the babies were hungry. We who spent long nights sat with our backs against bedroom doors to keep someone out. Our white knuckles gripping the ancient farmhouse hardwood, too small for its frame, in the light of the gap from underneath. We who came from the mud. We who were raised in fires. We who don’t burn anymore.

Getting well is a prayer. A call to the elements. A call for steady, connected ground underfoot and the wind at our backs. A call to be changed by water and forged by fire.

A prayer to the dispassionate witness of the endless universe. A prayer to the collective consciousness of eight billion souls sharing a single rock. A prayer to god who is the land on this rock. A prayer to our wandering ancestors and the ghosts of their bones scattered in the stars and oceans and dew drops on blades of grass and the dust floating in the sunlight passing through a closed window.

When you believe in things you don’t understand then you suffer.

But ours is a story about suffering. Ours is a story of belief.

[badmimi]

On Trying

People say “I love you. You know I’d do anything for you.” “Oh, so-and-so, I’d do anything for them.”

But I don’t think we know what this “anything” really looks like. Maybe you picture these vague, but heroic in their amorphous shape, feats of triumph. Harnessing your considerable will to defy an impossible or Sisyphean task. Slay a dragon, lift a car somehow, move a mountain, walk through fire, defeat Voldemort through the power of friendship - you get it.

We’re raised on legends, stories, magic and dreams. That is our kind of “anything”. And we mean it, we do. In the way that if life ever came down to that moment in the third act of a movie and you’re holding the bad guys off so your people can get out in time before you light a cigarette, hit the detonator in your lap and adios motherfucker for the sake of the ones you love? Yeah. We mean it.

But that “anything” isn’t all that relevant because nobody needs me to do any of that. For me anyway, self-sacrificing shit is a forgone conclusion, are you kidding? It’s best case scenario. Everybody lives, I can rest and nobody can be mad at me for being dead. (Because I’m a hero. Duh.)

And there are things to be done that Miss ‘I’d do anything’ hasn’t, in fact, done. Some things outright asked for and some things unsaid but so present in the room with us you can almost feel them hanging written in the air. Things that would change everything for a number of people I care about. Things that are fair.

My loves, I would do anything for you and these are the invisible things hanging in the room.

would you try?

would you wake up in the morning and go to bed at night?

would you take care of yourself and your personal space?

will you try?

would you take better control of this body and this home and have gratitude every day you get to have them?

can you try?

would you cultivate the agency you’ve lost?

will you address the avoidant behavior patterns that make so many of these bare minimum things someone else’s job?

could you try?

would you be present inside your body?

would you put the same energy you put into escapism into real life and right now?

would you stop spinning in your anxious, breathless, sticky, static shame about having wasted so much time so you can put that energy into starting?

could you try?

Trying is putting one foot in front of the other. Trying is a single step you just keep taking. That’s all it is. It’s a simple thing but it’s always conscious. Intentional. How can trying be more formidable than death itself? Death is supposed to be a nightmare that stalks us from birth. A shadow on the wall. Death is a thing that eats.

Maybe some of us lived in the dark and stopped seeing shadows? We’ve moved mountains just to be here and it’s caught up with us. We’ve been stumbling numbly down hallways just reacting to stimuli on autopilot and we forgot about taking steps on purpose. Flipping the intention switch of trying seems too hard. Impossible. Sisyphean.

This year I’m working on trying. I’m slaying dragons.

[badmimi]

i’m really missing you right now.

kind of surprised by it. because it hit me like a wave and threatened to carry me out to sea.

but I can’t go out to sea.

i have lungs and breathe air and my swimming is passable but have you ever tried to tread water for a long time? the water starts to feel thick. like jello. because you’re getting weaker so it feels like there’s more resistance but it’s just entropy.

i can’t go to sea right now.

but maybe i stand in the window of a lighthouse.

i can bring books and feed seagulls. i can already see them and I’m picking out their names.

and i’ll curl up in front of the wood stove and fall asleep like a scrawny old wharf cat. and one day you’ll come in to shore. and you’ll see the light. and you don’t crash the boat.

i’m really missing you right now. it just hit me like a wave.

[badmimi]

invisible ink

there’s another me

inside my house

trying hard

to share one space

in a bed

inside a room

in a town

inside a state

and a country

on a rock

flying ‘round

in outer space

two heads

to think in circles

and make up

pretty dreams

two mouths

to kiss

and talk to you

between

the movie scenes

there are always

two of me

sharing space

and sharing time

four hands

to hold your heart

right up close

next to mine

you wrapped it up

inside a box

and sent it

all the way to me

addressed in

invisible ink

that i think

only I can see

[badmimi]

the way your name tastes in my mouth

your tongue and your teeth you’re my bad habit

tell ‘em i only itch my skin when you’re gone

burn it away because I can’t have it

don’t look in the eye that thing you stole

miles under our shoes but only one sole

[badmimi]

summer carried in a curse

i’ll be good and i’ll say please

spots upon the carpet

from three months on her knees

it’s alive but only just

it’s black and blue

it’s blood and rust

drag my body to October

six loose pills until we’re sober

we’re sticking to the sheets

four hands two mouths

and everything we don’t say

we’ll be better come November

vices stamped return to sender

[badmimi]

you’re at the door

me in minor chords

changed my mind

but can’t reach the phone

you and me

in sepia-tone

[badmimi]

I love you so

that my very bones will sing

in their exaltation

until the last of my breath

leaves my lungs

and the dust of my ghost

finds the wide open sky

[badmimi]

you mend my bones

and kiss my knees

your newfound fondness

for broken things

[badmimi]

Turns out it feels like all the songs

And everything we’ve heard is true

Like it’s a dream

But we don’t sleep

I hope it feels like that for you

[badmimi]

the disassociate

in the stretches in between

I dream her up as someone else

more interested, more interesting

she gets thinner around the edges

I can hardly see or hear her

then she climbs inside my skin again

and looks back from the mirror

[badmimi]

The Butcher

Please don’t fall for me, she said

I’ll take you apart if you let me

Take me out

Take me to bed

Then close the door and forget me

Stay on guard with me, she said

Please don’t come any closer

I’ll catalogue

Your heart and head

Arrange your parts in order

Dissect everything

I love to death

I don’t do it for fun

Carve it up

Until

There’s nothing left

Oh lover,

Won’t you run

And they all called her

The butcher

Oh how they fell

Before her cleaver

Your one last thought

Before you go

Is how you wished

You had believed her

[badmimi]

Inside

I listen to your heartbeat

And think

This is where I’d want to hide

If I could crack your chest

And crawl inside

Slip under your skin

For just a little while

And they’d all come calling out my name

But I can’t hear them outside

They’d walk around with flashlights

That I can’t see from where I hide

Because I was occupying

The space between

Your heart and lungs

Listening to you breathe

From the inside

This time

But it sounds more like a roar in here

Or maybe like the ocean

When the tide is high

And the moon is near

Drowning the commotion

Or maybe it’s a war drum

And I can finally hear it’s call

Thumping hard

When I’m this close

To warn me not to fall

And you’d be calling out my name

While you still feel me in the air

You’d get up and turn on all the lights

But I was never really there

[badmimi]

Let’s make believe

I’ll never leave

but we both know

I always go

[badmimi]

Hush doll don’t speak

Don’t hide don’t seek

All hands no sleep

All wolves.. no sheep