im-always-the-problem-its-me

[im-always-the-problem-its-me]

[im-always-the-problem-its-me]

[im-always-the-problem-its-me]

[im-always-the-problem-its-me]

her head's tilted back, resting against the wall, expression in between agony and ecstasy and i hate things like this. i hate when things can go either way.

we called it 'emo-ing' out and we'd self harm together. there were boone's farm bottles beneath our beds and gagging sounds from the sleeping form of the other were alarm clocks.

the bathroom sink usually had a bloodstain on it somewhere. dried crust of heartache beneath the faucet. hair clogs in the drain.

every saturday i listen to our old playlists and wonder why it's so hard for us to speak now. we haven't tried in years actually.

i think of her when i'm feeling particularly useless and let me tell you returning to shut-in status due to things i can't control is time-warping me back into some mockery of teenhood.

there's a girl in my life now who skills me in lessons of vamp. she refused to grow up and i scoff like a prim schoolyard matron or ignore her when she's drawing too much attention toward us in public. i let her talk me into buying things i shouldn't and allow her to be close to SO because he reminds her of her dead brother.

she's no replacement for my best friend of past days, but her clinging so hard to youth reminds me of a time when things weren't necessarily better but at least i resided in a body i didn't despise. not only was i thinner, but i didn't know what chronic pain of the physical variety was. i only had my head to deal with then and i think it was easier. i fought to get out of situations and away from terrible people. now i want to be rid of myself but i'm cowardly. i'm also safe for the first time in my life. stable on the outside. a fuzzy perfect peach. inside i'm rotten and being eaten alive.

back to her. leaning against the wall again. she's mending a broken heart and sending secret messages to her ex who is the only person besides me who reads her deadjournal. she's either going to get over it or suggest we get so drunk i end up sobbing in the pool after we sneak in. i can't get loaded without losing it anymore. but she needs to take care of someone when she wants to end herself. i'm her reason to stay.

i want to call her and ask her how she feels about the later era of us being referred to as 'indie sleaze' now. i want to ask her when we stopped listening to metal. i want to know if she still watches 'emo movies'. i want to know if she thinks of me when she does.

there's phone calls i have to make this week that i don't want to make. i also know that one of them won't be to her. she's the only one i want to make right now. it's an hour ahead of here where she's at. i remember she's married now. i remember she's clean now.

i wonder if she thinks about her former self and how i'm attached to it. like i think of her like a limb i lost.

i'll never know. it's better that i don't.

[im-always-the-problem-its-me]

i fell alseep to 'the virgin suicides'.

SO wouldn't let me fall asleep to 'the exorcist'.

today feels morbid for some reason. arctic punch outside the window. adrienne rich poetry in my lap. grieving.

a family icon died suddenly. a brilliant matriarch who worked hard until he couldn't anymore at 86. he chased a relief from pain and it took him. complications from a surgery that can give you your life back ending it is some kind of cruel joke i swear.

i think about my chronic pain and how it makes me feel lazy. i work through it best i can but this winter i've been so stagnant. so triggered by the act of eating. nauseated constantly. stir crazy to the point that i'm going to bust through the blizzard this weekend to get out of the damn apartment.

i'm writing a lot of poetry and abandoning a project i started last year. when your heart isn't in something anymore and it feels like an obligation, it needs to be severed. my output is insane. manic maybe. i haven't had this many pieces in circulation since 20 years ago. i'm old as fuck. i feel older every day when i can't keep up with what the fuck is going on and find myself no longer wanting to anyway.

i'm like lee krasner trying to get SO to get back to his painting table. reading a giant ass jackson pollock bio and wondering what the hell i'm getting myself into. the prose is good. captivating. odd for a bio. watching a mix of old favorites, new movies, and old movies i haven't seen. had to watch 'blue velvet' again when david lynch died. dammit. art might as well be dead too.

i hate ai and i'm so tired of being the only one not defending it in my circle of writers. the elder ones hate it. that's why i say i'm old as fuck. millennials are like 'whatever' or are 'mixed about it'. 'i can't paint so it can paint for me to accompany my writing.' bro, i know a lot of people who CAN paint and would love to create something to accompany your writing. aren't we supposed to be hand in hand with our fellow artists regardless of medium?

i keep thinking about how much i despise the female lit scene too. boring ass shit about how many people you're fucking at once and how edgy you are to still be smoking cigarettes while all your friends are vaping. or making vaping equally sexy. 'look at me'. 'i'm hot.' what the fuck? I'm going to our foremothers because at least they had something else to say instead of clamoring to be copies of each other. or maybe i'm just old as fuck and i don't have daughters and i'm very glad. i don't have sons either and i'm equally glad. all the men are too afraid to write anything good anymore too. maybe it'll get better? maybe it'll never be the same again?

i have one person to discuss this stuff with. he's angrier than i though. i have another friend who tells me i'm 'internalizing misogyny'. guess which one i prefer to talk with more? 'believe women' unless we insist we're not victims, not abused, and know ourselves and how to think beyond a hive mind. what is even happening?

'when i was in academia...' is a phrase that automatically makes me tune out. i never went to college. this doesn't make me better, but i'm not going to lie and say i don't notice a difference between those who did and didn't attend college. i think education did something to their souls.

i ramble here. i ramble in my notebook. i ramble in comments. i ramble in my journal. i'm rambling to keep sane. i'm being very bad about writing my friends back. everyday i say 'i think i'm depressed but i don't know'.

a big part of me wants to re-read 'the virgin suicides' but what about this jackson pollock bible? why do i constantly take on too much?

[im-always-the-problem-its-me]

i miss him already

[im-always-the-problem-its-me]

in other news, this song rules

Thursday - White Bikes [Official Music Video]

[im-always-the-problem-its-me]

Why am I still waiting?

[im-always-the-problem-its-me]

goddammit i'm slipping again.

too long in the 'who cares?' mode and that led to me not watching what i'm putting into my mouth and now i feel disgusting again. i didn't gain too much but still. i hate myself all the time. it gets to the point where i feel fat after eating a salad when i'm particularly in relapse mode. i'll get it under control.

i have too much out of my control again. depression, maybe? i'm in denial about it all the time though. i let my mask slip too often and some people give me those side-eye looks and that makes me want to scream. i've never been allowed to express any emotion ever without some kind of accusation and i don't know how to be cold.

i know how to shake and cry and wonder why things are happening and why i can't just make everything stop.

every time i make some progress and am even rewarded for it in a way...like some acknowledgement or compliment or even just good things happening for once...i don't have to wait long before i'm either too fatigued to function or wasting time trying to get my heart to stop beating out of my damn chest.

there's no concrete reason for any of this. just years of 'fucked-up-ness' and not a lot of hope for things getting better because seriously it's not like i can erase everything that's ever happened to me in life.

i seek support and most people give me some quick fix shit and say 'see, now it's all better!' i have to just nod along because what's the point of being the 'downer'. it only increases isolation. so i pretend 'yeah, all better!' whatever.

i don't even bother anymore. it's not like anyone seeks me out for anything anymore. even me finding friends and being close to some family in this town still leads to the social torture. i leave every interaction kicking myself thinking i did or said something that was 'too....something'. insert whatever you want there.

for years therapists have tried to undo things with me it seems. retrain the brain to think differently. i consciously get it. i say 'yeah, ef it..." then i function. but it's a struggle. and it always will be. i don't think you can teach someone to like themselves. i just don't. i wasn't exactly taught from a young age that i was worthy of love or anything. (not even worth getting into that here. i thought i could start writing memoirs and i dipped out after writing one story that wasn't even that fucked up because my adult self realized 'wow that really WAS more fucked up than i always felt it was'. too many people alive right now for me to even try to publish that so i'll stick to private bitching sessions in my journal like i have for years, thank you.)

i'm too old for this nonsense. but i can't stop it. i'm just glad i wasn't stupid enough to have kids because that way i can end this insane cycle with me.

friends who are interested in politics these days also annoy me. i don't care what side they're on either, they're all delusional. they also don't seem to understand how little i care about it all. none of that makes my life any better or worse because i'm in hell constantly. and it's like a custody battle sometimes. i'm the kid being passed between two political parties hahahahaha absorbing the nontent and not cowing to the insistence i decide between them. these people won't even be in the same room as each other and that makes me feel like a parent sort of. i don't know wtf i'm talking about but it's making me giggle.

so yeah. slipping. into past disorders. into the darkness. back into depression. just slipping. this is supposed to be my season too. i have always perked up in winter. this time though, after faking it all through summer, i'm just too tired to even pretend i'm happy. debating on what to cut out next year so i am less overwhelmed again. and not just talking about it. i need to seriously decide what 'serves me' or whatever. i just feel like a failure by giving up on stuff i guess. i don't know...

i just don't know.

[im-always-the-problem-its-me]

[im-always-the-problem-its-me]

I'll fake it through the day

with some help from johnny walker red

and the cold pain behind my eyes

that shoots back through my head

with two tickets torn in half

and a lot of nothing to do

[im-always-the-problem-its-me]

Prozac Nation (2001)

[im-always-the-problem-its-me]

putting the ✨BI✨ in FBI since 1993 👽

[im-always-the-problem-its-me]

good god, i make a lot of promises i just can't keep

i forgot about tumblr again and every time i feel myself falling into depression (probably depression...i don't know...i've only ever been diagnosed with "situational depression" following grief or some kind of trauma or whatever...i struggled with the 'i don't know why i feel this way for no reason' stuff since i was a teen, but honestly i had a reason then, i have reasons now...they're often the same...so i dunno...i just don't feel right at all lately) i remember that it exists and that it's a space to just spew whatever anonymously and i need that sometimes.

my journal is so shit lately. just a record keeping thing a la Virginia Woolf or something. i've been busy 'living'. doing the music writing thing i talked about during my last update (which was like 9 months ago!) i've been a 'working writer' again i think. i want to step back from the music scene stuff though because it's exhausting and i'm poor and can't always go out to see shows all the time. a lot are free but in bars or restaurants where i'd feel like a total dick if i didn't buy something and since i'm a public transport rider sometimes i have to plan long stays and a girl has got to eat which can get expensive as hell downtown. i'm also getting poems published, winning poetry contests (!) (I don't know how honestly) and working on a poetry book for a contest with a deadline approaching. (i'm not worried, i'm almost done even though i haven't looked at the manuscript in over a week...it will be sent in, and early...honestly, it will be) i'm giving readings, attending events, going to writing groups...you know....WORK

making promises again...there i go. i have to stop doing that. i should start being honest. 'yeah, i'll write you back...when i feel like it..." (it's nothing personal...sometimes i'm just like 'i'm in a mood and don't want to snail mail you a letter of woe and terror'....and yes i have a bunch of penpals all over and i love contributing to the dying art of mailing handwritten letters and receiving them) 'yeah, local musican, i'll come out and tour your home recording studio and do a write-up of it...as soon as i don't find it exhausting to leave my bed....oh and even while i'm in this bed...i'm still nodding off over books, notebooks. the laptop, the stupid fucking cell phone i contemplate throwing into the lake every other day...as soon as i feel like i don't want to crawl out of my skin...whenever that will be...time undetermined." that's honesty. i'm walking around thinking or saying out loud 'i don't know what's wrong with me' because i don't.

my mother is telling me maybe i'm going through 'the change of life'. When have i not been going through some 'change of life'? i dunno. my cycle got weird but i read that was probably because of my having cov*d (AGAIN!) and what can that virus NOT do, seriously? this last round was 'mild' i guess but goddammit i hate that fucking illness. every time i swear it takes years off of my life. it probably does. don't get me started on vacc**es. they obviously don't fucking work to prevent and i have no way of knowing 'would it be worse if i wasn't unvacc**ated?' like so many people feel like they need to ask me. no one can know...we're all the mercy of something we can't control. i know someone who lost someone to c*vid and they were vacc**ated so all that 'be a good person and get the jab' stuff was a fucking lie. try not to get sick. it's not your fault if you do either. don't let anyone make you feel like it's your fault you caught any kind of illness, EVER. all i know is that it SUCKS to have it. it's SCARY still. i hate it.

i hate a lot lately. my outlook is so bleak these days. i get in that whole 'what's the point of doing anything?' mode more often than i'd like. i'm tired of the entire internet either being some bigot cess pool or a bunch of 'do-gooders' trying to guilt everyone into sharing their delusion that they can 'save the world' with them. look, i can't. i can't save this place. i can't save you or anyone. i can barely survive. also, i don't give a fuck about your politics at all and no i'm not participating in any election ever again. you don't have enough time nor do you care to hear why. so don't ask. 'choose the best for right now'. ok, i'm choosing me and my sanity, then.

i'm reading books i've read dozens of times. wurtzel. frame. plath poetry. watching the same movies over and over again or watching every video this one girl on youtube ever made because i like her voice...i don't even care what she's talking about half the time...i can barely focus on it...but her voice soothes me and the things she does talk about that capture my attention, really do capture it. also can't stop listening to fall out boy, ethel cain, and joy division. on repeat. odd mix, but okay.

people have pain i can't do anything about but relate to and i hate that. others are so far away and growing even farther away. i hate that too. my 'childhood issues' keep coming back to the forefront of memory and i hate all that too. i didn't even realize how shitty a lot of it was that wasn't so obvious. like the obvious things were obvious...being physically ab*used, etc...but other things like being forced to sleep in a room with a rat in it, not because there was no other place to sleep (totally a spare bedroom with no one in it available) but because you let the rat in by winning this giant stuffed animal from a carnival that obviously had the rat living in it because there was this rat sized hole in it that no one noticed until it was too late. i'm like 9. unable to sleep because i hear that thing scurrying around for over a week before a trap finally caught it. terrified that it's going to bite me and give me some disease or something. i was even told when i did leave my room 'don't let that thing out of there'. i mean, really? now i'm terrified of every furry cute creature (except chipmunks, i love chipmunks) and don't even get me started on spiders. i hate summer for so many reasons but bugs and spiders is probably worse than the heat.

oh and yeah wtf. why is it still 80 degrees out? maybe i'm just impatient, and not actually depressed. (here i am, in denial again) i see that october is going to bring some actual autumn temps and maybe that will pull me out of the funk. or maybe i'm just fucked? i don't know.

i hate days when i try to write poems and it's all shit, which has been how i've felt about anything poetic i've attempted to write in the last week and a half. i was on such a roll. but hey i've got a shit ton to edit so whatever.

i think i can declare myself 'too old' for the internet anytime now. i want out of the social media shit but it's not practical right now especially since i'm getting all these opportunities. i just want tumblr. or maybe i want tumblr from 15 years ago? everything's changed.

i just need more self discipline. 'why am i scrolling this shit?' 'yes, WHY ARE YOU?' we did this to ourselves.

ok i'm getting blown up with texts from someone i actually want to chat with so there's another conundrum. communication with others is something i'm addicted to. i can only say that i'm glad i'm doing more face-to-face connecting than being glued to the handheld box day after day. but yeah, sometimes you just aren't able to see people all the time. ok, ok...i'm going to respond to these texts now...

baiii

[im-always-the-problem-its-me]

thus 'Tone Geoff' was born

[im-always-the-problem-its-me]

so um

[im-always-the-problem-its-me]

No Devotion - Addition (Official Lyric Video)