i feel the need to add context to this poem, as much for our own benefit in processing it as for the reader. it was originally written by a past version of us, during a time when they were:
- emotionally turbulent due to a significant disruption in their life
- processing significant distress towards their physical body, as well as urges towards self harm
intrusive thoughts are, at most times, pernicious unwanted guests in our mind, but we were particularly struggling with them during the period of time in which this poem was written.
we infer, through the fog of temporal distance and dissociation, that the us-that-was-then wished to capture their state of mind in the form of a poem which collides into itself, talks over itself, distracts the reader, with an overwhelming chaos mirroring the experience of an anxious mind full of intrusive thoughts
our current strategy for dealing with intrusive thoughts these days tends towards suppression rather than expression- we have found that the more attention we give towards our intrusive thoughts, including posting them in "vent" posts, the worse they actually tend to get, whereas scribbling them down on a piece of paper to "get it out", never to be looked at again, or, better yet, mindfully redirecting our thoughts away from them.
but the version of us who wrote this poem wanted instead to hijack these intrusive thoughts, tame them, turn bleak and upsetting intrusive imagery into visions of freedom and rebirth.
i think i'm ill equipped to evaluate how it affected them, if it was beneficial for them or not. that version of us is layered thick with dissociation, and seems so distant in time, despite the separation being a mere half-year.
but regardless, i do find some beauty in this poem, despite it using imagery which is personally very painful for us. i often go back and forth on whether it should even ever be public. then-us wished for it to be, and we feel hesitant to override their wishes
the three-column, self-distracting format in particular really does capture, for us, the inner turmoil of anxiety. we think the same typographical effect could be used to capture other charged emotions or experiences too, and we may experiment with this format again in the future, with subject matter that is less upsetting.
this poem can be triggering, even for us who ostensibly wrote it. i wish i could say this past version of us had only pure intentions, and never wanted to hurt anyone, but truth be told, they certainly wanted others to have a taste of their pain- that's why they wrote this poem to begin with, that's why they chose use the visceral imagery they did. but the point of all of the pain and death in this poem was not the pain and death itself, but the promise of healing, moving on, as a thriving living thing, irrevocably metamorphosed, but still alive in some new way.
take extra care if you choose to engage with this poem. ❤️🩹
~ endless
CW: self-harm, death (and rebirth), body horror, visceral imagery
| bursting from our chest, a wolf |
we'll slip our nails
'neath our skin
|
we lay so still upon the bed |
|
shimmering, with eyes all over |
and push it off
us from within
|
our skin is pale, dry, and dead |
| we'll wiggle on the rug a bit |
and off our skin
will come in sheets
| our breathing quiet, heartbeat slow |
|
take joy in wild form |
which we will then
proceed to eat
|
from deep within a blue-green glow |
| with feral mind we, overwhelmed, |
sinew will be
next to go
|
and pressure builds beneath our skin |
|
nose our body on the floor |
we'll eat our muscles
off the bones
|
and out bursts swarming bright legion |
|
not a trace of recognition |
we'll eat our fat
and drink our blood
|
a spider mob, moths, crows and void |
| simply meat upon the floor |
we'll eat our stomach,
heart, and lungs
|
thirteen dogs, a plural voice |
|
take first bite of jail left | and when we ghostly white bones meet
|
we, our children, flee our form |
| and hurry more like fearful dogs |
we'll gnaw at them
between our teeth
|
it sits alone upon the floor |
|
growl and snort and crunch and pant |
we'll eat the splinters,
sharp and narrow
|
and sprawling fungus slips white threads |
| anxious to see it all gone | swallow every bit of marrow
|
throughout this prison we have fled |
| and when our skeleton's consumed | and when our skeleton's consumed
| and when our skeleton's consumed |
|
we'll howl and run into the woods |
we'll eat our teeth
and our skull too
|
we'll go to where the fungus bloomed |
| a feral little creature free |
nothing will be
left to see
|
with endless forms most beautiful and free |
|
of sweltering, awkward fleshy cage | a spirit, eaten herself free |
we'll flutter midst the mushroom's progeny |