(unedited ⚠️ freewrite)

Dear self,

Here we are again,

On another fucking holiday where family is a ghost carving my name into stone and sky and yet,

It's different this time.

Winter's cold does trie to hunt me violently but honey has a way of sticking to sweetness.

Light knows light.

And the sunrise meets my tears wishing my little brother was back, with the new memory of watching Rugrats with my 3yr old son.

It's having my oldest daughter call me one of the girls while we talk about her day after-school.

It's seeing my youngest daughter sing to me while I cook dinner.

And when she loves it her eyes smile like the stars mt heart wished upon to get me here.

To meet them. My partner. The one who loves me when I am the divine of the Evergarden and who holds my hand when Malakai walks me back into the red room to lie with my mother knowing blue will find their way back through a soft light of lilac lingering when iron meets melanin through the snapping of a diaries spine.

Murder us then mt pulse screams as we write this right now.

If you're so happy with how your life is healing then just kill yourself in joy.

Remember,

Life can't get worse if..

My ribs tighten into my abdomen as I remember to blink.

It always starts with the eyes.

They stop asking for help before the heart does.

But my partner holds me to the promise we made in that forest. By the river. When mother nature wed us to the moon.

And so eyes sharp like a guillotine ready to sever my head in the name of "not everyone wants to stay here," soften back ro evergreen moss that feels like a breath my service dog Reverie keeps for me when I dont know who is moving through me.

And so,

Here i am.

Laughing in this bath that started out as a hope to enjoy today as a holiday of family versus a wake I torment myself in.

Im glad even when I want to walk away from myself the reasons I found tether me anyway.

Dear little brother,

I know you feel the life my pulse is walking me into.

You are part of the sunshine my soul is remembers to face.

I miss you.

My oldest is a lot like you.

It softens me most the way her heart us a full as yours ways. And shes got youth on ya bro🗝

Fuck why I make that humor.

Humor hurts the heart when a knife still asks to feel like joy.

FUCK.

FUCK..

FucK.

*inaudible*

Its funny how you keep trying to let yourself be enough.

Ghost haunt you because you're you Not because of what happened to you.

...

Shit. I wanna end the poem haha or whatever the fuck this is. My eyes feel like their burning their sockets away while I can feel my neurons looking for a faster route than the empty black space we retreat to.

(A suggestion from lilac emerges from out my throat. It feels like warmth and a song I used to like to sing*

Everything's gonna be alright. Don't be afraid when things go bump in the night.

Shhhh.

I inhale.

I don't think I breathed intentionally through any of that rn...

Ughh.

At least I feel lighter.

Light knows light.

Even when a shadow cloaks it's courage.

It finds a way even if that is the hopes tethering me to the scent of earth warm still during warm.

Im here.

I sigh in relief as I feel like me.

Holding this phone. It's odd how the background noise is the first to fade when my heart pulls me inward.

Im grateful I like the life I keep wishing myself into more than the spaces my psyche tries to call a daydream.