Marblehead was made for me to write my feelings out.

I’m reclaiming that in this piece.

This is where my mind is at recently. I’m not asking for your sympathy, I’m just asking for you to see me while hoping you never read this. “You” refers to no one in particular. I have no one in mind but my own psyche.

I was going to be more creative with the format of this post but I just don’t have the energy. I can barely work on anything I used to find joy in. Fiction has taken a back seat. My paintings don’t look right. The creative well in me is dried up. Must I be positive at all times? Self imposed exclamation marks in everything I write so I don’t sound mean, because how dare I let myself use a period. How dare I let myself take up space. I wage a war against my own head daily. No one has told me I can’t exist, but my ego has. I’m weary. Sleep is nice. It makes the thoughts stop until my brain picks up the pen and attacks me in dreams. I can’t even find total peace in unconsciousness.

I always seem to believe I’m not enough or I’m too much. I fall short or I create chaos. It’s like I’m constantly walking around an archery range with a gaping, dripping hole through my chest with my beating heart on my sleeve. What if I want to hold the bow? Can I shoot the arrow for once? I think I’m a good shot.

I’m your fill in the blank. Your affection means so much, But what am I to myself? I pour so much of me out I fear I have nothing left. Empathy comes naturally to me, I’ll never withhold it. But sometimes I wonder if maybe I’m running myself dry trying to be everyone’s everything when they never asked for it. Empathy is an ember in the dark, but I’m sputtering and flickering, trying to be a steady flame for those who have electricity to light the darkness too.

If I’m depressed will you still sit with me? Will you care the same way I do? Sometimes it feels like I can’t be multifaceted. It’s not about give and take. I give empathy away freely. Oh, it would be so nice to be cared for in the same way. To be known so intimately that someone else can tell when I’m struggling without having to say a thing. To be allowed to exist filled with both sorrow and joy. To be told they’re with me even in the turbulence.

I’d like to cry, but I never seem to have the tears when I need them most. Once this week, that is all. That’s not enough to deal with the pain. It’s like I don’t even own the endorphins and oxytocin and cortisol and adrenaline that live in me. I’m burnt out on a chemical level. I’ve paid for this week of hell with my own health.

Being sexualized when I never asked for it infuriates me. It just reminds me of the haunting thought I am nothing to be learned and loved but to be used and possessed. Don’t abuse my sensitive heart, I have an anger I keep buried underneath. I don’t talk about my quiet rage often. I’m ashamed of it.

Learn me. My tomes are frayed and jumbled in heaps, but there’s something good in the pages I hope. Surely, there’s something about me worth reading. Empirically, I know there is, but the voice in my head will convince me the books are nothing but rotten and moldy.

I’ve tried taking myself to coffee, but the person I meet with is a ghost. I don’t know how to know her. She sits across from me gaping, invisible words spilling out of her face in a language I don’t understand.

I drove for miles today. Just to clear my head. I got jealous of the houses on open land, where there’s so much freedom to roam, to scream, to plant things. How I long to run away somewhere in the boundless mountains or plains. To a hidden beach or valley. A melodic forest or grove. And to let my mind be confronted with silence, to be seen by the sky or branches in all my facets, to exist freely among nature who does not judge.

I’m not leaving. I’ll be alright, I’ve taken care of myself this long.

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