Hi everyone,
Welcome to 365 Days of Poetry & Honesty. I hope you’ve had a good week :)
I’ve been reflecting on my issues with abandonment. I got triggered and felt like disappearing but I managed to work through it, and I think actually let myself feel it instead of trying to numb my distress.
And it made me realise that at the heart of all it, it's both stuff to do with my childhood and a traumatic breakup when I was 18. The breakup is easier to talk about so I'll focus on that.
Essentially, I'm 18 and the first person I ever truly loved has sent a text at 6 in the morning, dumping me, and then I'm blocked on everything and I can't reach her or even understand why or what I could've done to warrant something so cutthroat. And that moment, waking up to that text, I think it's stuck on a loop and I can't really see outside of that fear. And that kind of abandonment, it's like all the terrible things I think about myself are true, or like it's proof that I'm a bad person, that loving a woman was something bad.
But I know those are falsehoods. And I realised, that in response, I've picked up the habit of leaving before I'm left. Which is to say, I'm writing the end whilst still barely in the beginning and I want to change this because I refuse to believe life could be that predictable. It's a tough one though, because it's like here's what I understand and then here's what I know, what my body knows to be true, and they're on opposite sides of the fence. But it's all good, it's the kind of thing I need therapy for because I can't deal with it myself but in the meantime, I think being aware is enough and I'll keep it under observation before I make a bigger mess of my relationship to intimacy. And one thing I've realised I need is an iron-clad boundary when it comes to consistent communication, because I don't want falling in love to mean falling apart.
So now I’m trying to practice discernment, which is to say that it's okay to have needs and to have expectations of the people around you, especially if they say they love you. You're not a doormat, you're a person, a human being, your feelings matter, your voice matters. Please don't suppress them for the sake of someone else or because someone's called you too sensitive or made you feel like you're too much. You matter!
Thanks for reading & I hope you like the poems <3
Here's are some songs I’ve enjoyed listening to this week :)
Monday
I was thinking about heartbreak as I wrote this poem, and how it's a process of grieving in itself. But the imagery creates a kind of ambivalence around the type of loss, and that's on purpose because sometimes with breakups, you're mourning that love, the person & who you were with them, and grief doesn't follow a checklist when it decides who to visit, the feeling’s just there and you can lose yourself in it, especially if you feel things strongly.
Tuesday
I couldn’t think of anything else for the title, it's exactly what it is.
Wednesday
Reflecting on my relationship with my mother. I don’t like to talk about it because sometimes it's like no matter what I say, what's most significant for other people is that I’m ungrateful.
Thursday
Not a good day Thursday, wanted to crawl out of my skin.
This is a stanza from a longer poem I’m working on, but I liked it on its own so I wanted to share this fragment.
Friday
I like this, I think it's the closest I’ve come to putting to words what it feels like to have depression
Saturday
Kind of like a love poem but it ends with tears. I think it's more about loneliness
Sunday
Two poems! The first is by R. Todd & the second is by Megan Arkenberg
Thank you for reading this week’s newsletter. I hope you liked the poems ❤️
With love,
Phoenix