hades-in-a-handbag

Latest Posts by hades-in-a-handbag

Sometimes I feel it behind my eyes. Like a pressure. Just reminding me that it's there. An acknowledgement.

But rarely does it bloom into that sad wet thing.

Running hot down my cheeks.

I've never been someone who cries much.

But then again I've never had much to cry about.

Just never had much.

Crying over nothing. The lack. The absence never made sense to me.

There is a feeling. A sadness. But no tears.

I wish. God I wish.

You'd give me something to cry about.

Wanna feel that release.

Matter cannot be created or destroyed.

that's the rule of the universe.

You've always existed in some way.

and no matter how many times you get blown apart;

The gravity of your atoms will drag you back together.

Tearing your self apart is futile.

It's nuclear fission.

You only salt the earth in your despair.

Tear open the black hole just for the gravity well to drag you under.

The only escape is expansion.

I am not a beggar

I do not cry from my hunger

I bare down on an empty mouth with gritted teeth

I let holes burn in my stomach before I allow myself to eat

Consumption is a sin

To want is to waste

Like the monks before me, I know I can wait

I eat my sins

I gag from the taste

The more there is

The less I take

Because I know how much it costs

And I cannot pay

Long ago I accepted that my mind would always outrun my body. It would be an exhausting existence but one I could ultimately cope with. I spent all of my youth studying for it, how to live with my own mind. How to make room for it in my life. I looked it in its wild eyes as it promised it would never be tamed. And that was fine. I swallowed my dread determined to live anyways. To perservere.

I was unprepared for my body to start lagging further behind. I should still be young. Barely an adult. But my body is degrading around me nonetheless My joints creak and ache, my muscles fall slack and weak. I can't carry the weight I could before. I cannot hold a knife correctly to cut my vegetables, I can't even muser up enough strength to stand throughout the day. Always having to stop and catch my breath.

My mind is only getting faster and more unruly as it grows but my body is quickly becoming infirm. I worry the two halves of my existence will pull me apart refusing to live together.

What will become of me when I am abandoned by both?

I was told I needed to learn to sit with my grief. to hold its hand and mother it. to allow it to exist within me.

But I don't think I can mother anything, not even myself. I sit beside my grief, hand in hand. We're staring at each other. both wondering why we're here.

I have always been small. I have always been little and quiet and unseen. I have always done what I'm supposed to do. I have always been smart and i have always been kind. I have always obeyed.

And where has that brought me? Past the edge of childhood and into an adult's life. But I only know how to speak when spoken to, and to do what I'm told. I have never made a decision for myself that hasn't failed spectacularly.

I cannot work and I cannot drive. Anything else i may do is too expensive. So I do nothing.

All my life I've done nothing; to reduce my burden on my parents. But now I am a burden because I do nothing.

I'm still the same size as I have always been. it's just the world that's gotten so much smaller than I knew. so small that I can't really see the details anymore. it's all out of focus.

The grass is greener somewhere ahead. But half the time I'm walking backwards.

Everyday I get older and I understand the world a little better. And yet I never have any more control over it. Any more effect on it.

I am only biding my time. Getting older. Understanding more.

Eventually, I'll have to do something about it.

I was wrong. The clouds are moving. Only slower than me.

They've cleared the other side of the trees now.

And when I can breathe again, so will I.

It's sun down now. The early stages of it, where the sky is still full of light and color. The clouds are thick an mountinous. And completely still in the sky.

The big lumbering breaths are blushed pink around the edges. Deep scores of grey over every curve and crevice. Dense and almost palpable.

It looks like a painted back drop.

And I have no where else to look.

It's sun down now. The early stages of it, where the sky is still full of light and color. The clouds are thick an mountinous. And completely still in the sky.

The big lumbering breaths are blushed pink around the edges. Deep scores of grey over every curve and crevice. Dense and almost palpable.

It looks like a painted back drop.

And I have no where else to look.

I was never meant to have a body.

My tethered little pet.

So much responsibility to look after.

So much washing and clothing and tucking away.

I was never meant to rot so slowly.

From diseases, I will never know.

So much tending to my body needs.

So much aching and soothing and drugging away.

I was never meant to hold it's hand.

Like a mother holds a child.

So much guarding it needs.

So much hiding and cherishing and giving away.

I was never meant to have a body.

What I wouldnt give to feel the static in my limbs again.

For as much as it makes me jump and twitch at least I can move.

For as distracting as my restlessness is at least I am not still.

Not frozen by the empty space between my skin and my bones.

Left hollow by the absence of motivation; Of want for anything.

They told us to aim for the stars, that even our failures would be rich.

They didn't tell us that in exchange our victories would feel cheap and lifeless.

I have to fail to feel.

Past, present, and future king

And when he walks the earth, the forests parts like the sea in wide curling waves, rocks and trees falling by the wayside.

Roots curl from his path. Dirt and sand pulling away until only stone remains.

The earth cracks and it emerges from the very mantle like Atlantis from the deeps.

Smoking spires stand tall on soft walls cooling in the breeze. The smell of luckless underbrush permeates the air with it's sizzling screams.

Once he reaches the steps it is solid beneath his feet. A new palace and old king.

Hyper fixating is all fun and games when you're working on a project or cleaning your house or consuming media or completing a task.

but have you ever hyper fixated on a person? You ever thought about someone night and day. Daydreamed about them. Had conversations in your head with them. Let them consume your every moment until they were the first thing you thought of in the morning and the last thing you thought of at night?

This isn't a cheesy love song this is real life and that shit will make you sick. Make you forget yourself. Make you change yourself. Make you neglect yourself.

They're never gonna be like the version you've cooked up in your head and you deserve to move on.

I got good at leaving; but I'm asking you to stay.

These words have been with me for so long they aren't easy to say.

I'm afraid if I speak them to the empty air there won't be anything left of me.

I haven't tried before; I just watched them leave.

So I'm hoping this time, if I give these words to you.

You'll take their place in my chest and say you love me too.

They are often less than a minor inconvenience.

I wipe them from my brow like sweat. Pluck them from my head like stray hairs. Toss them to the corners of my room.

The more persistent may take hold of my nerves.

I conjure imaginary fire to burn them away. Lock them and boxes and toss them from my window. Slap them from my skin like pesky bugs.

Only active movement can banish them. It's a temporary fix though. They still inch into my head waiting to pounce on me with violent scenes and repulsive images.

My thoughts aren't always my own, but my actions are.

Coming down

funny how distance looks different sometimes. When I'm sitting back to the dresser, watching my desk come into focus, much closer than anything's been in weeks.

There's carpet under my feet and the hum of a box fan off to the side. Light looks different, brighter where it plays on the reflective surfaces. Throwing overlapping shadows across the room.

And I'm suddenly aware of my own skin where it stretches over my knuckles. Tingly and colder than the night air.

Someones shifted the focus, dialed it up a little. And suddenly I'm here again.

There was a little girl. Maybe she was in me; maybe she was me.

But she talked too loud and she hurt and she cried and I didn't know how to make her stop.

So I slapped a hand over her mouth and held it there until she stopped struggling. Until it was quiet.

Maybe it was hate; maybe it was fear. I'm not sure why I did it and I don't know if she's still here.

Sometimes I feel echoes in memories of the person I used to be. The kind that feel like hope and pain and the unknown.

The me that cared so much I couldn't stand it. The feelings clawed at my throat and snubbed hot cigarettes in my eyes.

The emotions that set my limbs to restless and my heart racing until I was so exhausted i'd drop.

The me that was vulnerable. I killed her so I could be stronger, so I could be safe.

I feel distantly that I should mourn her but I can't think of a single thing about her to miss.

Maybe I'm not supposed to find myself in the past. Maybe I'm not going to achieve some mythical closure by carrying this sad corpse around with me. Maybe the best thing I can do is put her to rest an move on.

After all, you can't bring back the dead and I think that applies to yourself most of all.

Greedy are the trees

"Haven't you ever seen it?" She asked me.

"Gnarled roots pale as bone crawling their way through the underbrush. Pushing aside new green ferns and beds of decaying leaves. Each root peaking for long lengths from the damp dirt. Anchored maybe by the earth or maybe by thorny vines, sharp and thick with red-tipped spines. This is the work of the trees." She whispers this all to me in a conspiring way.

"You'll see them reaching with knothole fists towards the waters edge. Thirsty for what the spring has to offer; as if the ground isn't soft with it already." She pauses smile turned sharp and condescending in the way a mother's does when sharing stories of her child's mischief.

"Greedy things"

Colors under my skin

There's violet and lavender and lilac.

Like deep bruising, like sleepless night, like cold anemic skin.

It hurts somewhere between the cold defeat of blue and the hot anger of red.

But it's comforting too, like acceptance; acknowledgment; the first step to getting better.

And there's yellows too

Marigold and dandelion and polished bronze.

It's like warm sunshine, like soft flower petals, like sturdy statues.

It's encouraging; hotter and more pure than red but never as close as the color of life.

But it's intimidating too; like the mythical idea of being okay.

The wall

I've dug my fingers in the slated spaces between bones. Clawing and dragging my way up this jagged wall. Knees braced against bleached and broken fragments. Stained red where they've nicked my skin.

Silent is the cursed air. Like the very sound of my voice may break in front of me. Cutting even deeper than the bits of skelton beneath my palms. Than the pale splinters lodged under my nails.

I see nothing above or below, only the wall stretches endless anchoring me in it's ancient death.

You pluck out old bones from your body like errant thought; dropping them carelessly to the ground.

They crunch and crack under thick black boots; crumbling to dust.

And you sigh as if this change and growth in yourself is tedious and detached as the pruning if a bush.

Cutting away stray branches with the sickening crack of bone.

Brushing them away with the sweep of your hand as if these pieces never came from you; they aren't of use.

And I wish at once to be as numb and strong as you.

There are hands on my hips and I dread where they might go; cold and calloused and full of intent.

They inch up instead along my ribs; crawling and scraping against my skin.

Under my sternum they begin to dig; slicing deep with sharpened nails.

They stab and burrow deep in my chest; hands pressed in prayer barely brush my heart.

They snap my bones when they pull apart; prying me open to hungry eyes.

Yet still, I beat for their entertainment; exposed and bleeding and no longer me.

When you grow up a certain way, you may know what the cat feels when it shies from your hand

I don't consider myself particularly religious.

But I think I might understand why rural areas are so full of superstition.

Not out of an antiquated idea of ignorance.

But because if you've ever seen dawn bleed red into the dying breath of a bright white night, then you'd know God too.

Sometimes I catch myself not breathing.

No air filtering in through my lungs.

My brain fuzzy and slow without it.

My chest still and my shoulders hunched.

Like some subtle subconscious part of me just decided this was it.

Time to give up.

I'm good for love

A fertile plot for it to claim. It springs to life under my feet. It drips and curls down from my fingertips. Its roots in my every thought.

I love colors and sunsets. White fluffy clouds. Boys and girls. Friends and strangers. The texture of cotton. Hot steam and cool stream water. Eyes and arms and noses. Hands and hearts and shoulders. Fresh baby kittens and sun-soaked kitchens. Me and you and them.

Love grows up my arms like new grass sprouts. Tangles around my ankles like thorny vines. Grows thick in my chest like moss. It's suffacating

I'm good for love but love isn't good for me.

There's a strength in the palms of my hands.

And I sit in awe of it.

A short lifetime of climbing my way up and through.

Gifted and abused are my fingers.

Peppered with calluses and scars.

And I find I like it, this simple fact about myself.

It could have been true of a lot of people.

But in this moment it is my truth