Med

She had just had her heart broken and was moping and you told her to smile.
And I told her, "don't you dare."
And I pulled you off to the side and told you, "don't you ever tell someone to fake it."

What do they say? It takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile.
It takes no muscles to make no facial expression at all.

Lying burns more calories than telling the truth. I made this up.

Smiling causes happiness. So it goes.

Cussing reduces physical pain. So it goes.

Don't fake it.

Pills like baby teeth
I break them apart
I am weaning.


There is something more than happiness that needs to be discovered in this life. 

"Sometimes people need to walk a dark path," Ryan tells me.

Another night

I can't do it
I tell Ryan
and he drops his bike, leans it against the truck
Walks towards me
and puts his hands on my shoulders
tells me
"Do what you want
I love will love you no matter what
I don't see you as a person on medication
Don't do anything you're not ready for"

So I'm breaking my pills in half.
Half of 20mg
Half of 10mg
5 mg a day.

I used to go without. Gave myself a month here or there.
Last winter, my eye twitched. My brain felt like it was floating in the sea.
And I had just forgotten to take them
And I slept in
My routine was distrupted.
I did it all wrong.

I start splitting my pills in half after Ryan and slept that night in the daisy field.

Last summer, Mom asked me if I still thought about suicide. 

When I had told her I was on medication she rolled her eyes. Disappointed. I didn't bother to tell my Dad because I knew it would be worse. I told my brother and sister over a fire a few months in. 
My brother told me, "How can I judge to for taking medication when I have no idea what it's like to be you."

I told Mom, " I didn't think about suicide." 

She told me she read an article about depression and that kids that stayed up really late when they were young tended towards suicidal thinking when they were older. 

"Remember when you would stay up late working on your projects?"

Way past when everyone else had gone to sleep. 

I poisoned myself. 

Dave and I called it our  "human pills." He had submitted an article to my compilation zine, Fighting With Demons, about being on medication and for years growing up in a fundamentalist church.
"I grew up believing that my anxiety and sadness were deficiencies in faith."

The patient is a 22-year-old female, 9-week into her pregnant. She does not want the doctor to turn the monitor to show her the ultra-sound. A volunteer has offered to be nearby during the termination procedure. When the procedure is over patient cries so the volunteer believes she is not a monster. Patient does not believe monsters should have children.

The patient is a 24-year-old female. She remembers feeling different when she was 5-years-old and stayed in from recess. She has chronic thoughts of suicide but has never acted on them. Patient is wracked by guilt over an abortion she went through years ago that she never told anyone. She doesn't know how to explain this to others. Patient works compulsively. When projects are complete patient does not feel a sense of accomplishment. Patient lacks empathy and when issues arise in relationships she abandons them. She feels if she is not beautiful and happy she will not be loved. Patient feels great anxiety when thinking about travel and while traveling. 

Patient does not like herself. Patient feels guilty for being sad. 

Patient is 25-years-old and coming off medication. She has the support of a friend who gives her space to talk about what she is going through. As the medication leaves her system, she stops being able to explain what she was going through. Patient resents her friend for not being able to fix her. Patient feels guilt for not being able to be ok. With a feelings of worthlessness and guilt, suicidal thoughts return. 


Patient is 27-year-old female who has been on medication for more that three years. She feels the spectrum of emotions that she imagines other people feel. Patient expresses anger, sadness and happiness. Patient works compulsively. Patient feels accomplished when completing a project. She does not have chronic thoughts of suicide.

Patient is a 27-year-old female who is taking herself off from medication. She is scared. The guilt she has felt for being on medication is exacerbated by the lack of medication in her system. She is beginning to feel raw, like the buffer between her and the harshness of the world is flaking off. 
She is afraid she will not be able to connect to others soon. She is afraid she will not want to be around children. She is afraid of having chronic thoughts of suicide. She is afraid she won't like herself anymore. Patient is starting to believe she is ugly and no one likes her. 

Francis the enigma

Alicia Renner interview
pigeon
Megan
Rinnah

Rusti Problems
Micah Peterson
Benjamin Rimedio
Ryan O Shaunessy
Drea
Matthew Carter

Jill

It is midnight, under the covers, and I'm thinking of Jill. My eyes are wide open but all I can see is black. I'm also thinking about what if wou

Hanna visits us in spirit. She checks in and sees what we are up to.

mosquito

Hanna would let a fly crawl in her mouth. it stireed up the n. Around you I feel my stomach full of wasps.
I am one of ever moving compulsions. Between one thing and the next. Be grateful if you were the last to speak to me, for it is your will I am bearing. If you were not I might have gone astray.

All big and small things are the same. A heartbreak. A mosquito bite.

Francis Ha

Poets. Stop prefacing your work with how bullshit you are. Your human self betrays your art.

I went to an electronic show weeks ago and danced my ass off. Eating otter pops and hanging off a chain-link fence like a prisoner or a lazy stripper. The djs felt the need to explain the songs and for 30 thousand people they would cut the beat to lay down an explanation. they would cut the beat to tell us to put our hands in the air. They kept cutting in on their own work, wrecking the rhythm of the music and halting the vibe of the crowd.

My advice, artists. STOP. You can't speak for your art. A child is life yearning for itself. 

Hanna's picture: too much control can destroy a work

Nothing is so intoxicating that you can stay drunk forever

Rien es

I'm not sure when it stopped being about happiness and comfort. When being liked was less of the priority when compared with living authenticly. 

Ohio

I moved into the Ohio Boy house to become lost. Rinnah said I would be like Wendy but that was not my intention. I wanted to be caught up in the gust that was blowing everyone around.

Steinbeck

Steinbeck's boat keeps sinking and they keep bringing it up. They say they are going to divide up the boat; bring parts to Salinas and put parts in a hotel somewhere near ...
They're holding on to much. It would be better to point at a body of water and say, "that is where Steinbeck's boat lies," and leave it at that. Then we can all come to it without needing to pay money for the museum or the hotel room.
VOnnegut wanted his body thrown in the ocean. They put it in a box and did a big ceremony and

The only one who almost got away with dying the right way was Gran Parsons. But ... got too drunk and didn't being enough gasoline into the desert to get the job done and They took away the body to be buried proper.

Mom and Dad are in the front seat telling me about church. The sermon was about Jesus giving his body and metaphorically using his death as a way to nourish the people. Giving his body to the people to eat. Man can not live on bread alone. And they are saying how beautiful it is, this sacrifice and I too, started to feel how beautiful it was for someone to offer themselves like that.

There are a package of chicken hearts in the food pantry at my work and I don't know whether to put them in a food box or bury them in the yard.

Hearts are something special.

Lying on my stomach in yoga class my ear and chest to the floor I hear the suck suck suck of my heart pulling in blood. The floor has created a perfect audio conduit for my ear and my heart. There's the tape I found in the free box at work that is sounds from the womb. It is made to play next to babies when they are sleeping to comfort them with sounds from the womb. The sounds of my heart beating into the floor sounds like this

...

There is sugar in everything. I spit a mouthful of cranberries into my hand as I read the ingrediants.
In fucking everything.
The balsamic dressing and all the sauces and the gluten free cereal and all the things.

Kaycee is so excited. She asked me to make a wish and I wished for a place Ryan and I could both live. The universe is vibrating! She said. We can feel it. We are so excited. All our wishes are coming true. It's ok.

More here coffee

There are mornings I wake up and ask you, how long has it been?
5 months, you told me last.

I have not been good at counting and remembering names. Worse than ever. Counting days or cups for the milk. A fantastic woman was in my kitchen and I could not remember her name. She was a doula and worke with children and had just finished a counceling program and I couldn't remember her name.
I told Jen, I love you so much. You are such a good friend to me, but one day, I will forget your name and it will embarrass me and make me feel so scared that you will feel our story means nothing to me, but you must know, it is not that. It is that I cannot remember names. I will always remember you.

When Eugene left France I said I would miss him and he told me I would forget him and I didn't say otherwise but I have never forgot him and still remember fondly him telling me stories of sleeping with prosituites all around the world as we sat by the fountain either very late in the night or very early in the morning. Prosituites in Europe have no heart. They charge by the hour and are constnatly looking at the clock. Prostuites in SOuth America can be bought by the day and are warm and affectionate like friends.