Stories

in a hole – April Murphy

thought I was doing better, now I’m overrun by guilt and indecision
 I don’t really know what I should be doing, because I keep going in and out of time and losing track of what I’m doing
 too many overlays from the past
 I don’t see a way out of this
 I keep telling myself that it’s just today
 But I know I’d be deluding myself. This is going to keep happening
 I’m never going to be “better”
 There’s going to be something to cope with, always, because even when I try to do healthy things
 unhealthy people find me and drag me back in
 so I have a sort of forced isolation most of the time
 fueled by paranoia and anger
 fear
 so many what ifs and I try to check up on people nearly constantly because I’m scared they are going to die, aren’t who they say they are, are hurting, need something
 I narrowly escaped running with open arms into letting my mom move in
 felt like a completely sane, normal, wonderful decision until it didn’t
 Thanksgiving
 she was the bad her
 the one I forgot, it’s been so long since I’ve seen her except in my nightmares
 the impetus to write is pushing at me
 like that’s my only escape, or really orientation in what feels like walking on the ceiling all the time
 I’m living a life that doesn’t feel like mine
 following only necessity and what I’m told to do by my doctors.
 then, when I catch myself not following what I’m told to do
 I have to practice self compassion
 and forgive myself
 for making stupid fucking decisions that I don’t even remember what started them
 Some days I search my body scared I’ll find a cancerous mole, and other days I’m searching praying that it’s there and it’s too far gone to fix
 I don’t know how to crawl out of this hole
 I made employee of the month
 and I haven’t been able to go back to work since
 it got really cold
 my hands hurt
 my lungs hurt
 I’m trying to make sense of my sister inviting me to come see her
 and then I asked off work and made all arrangements
 and she’s just dropped contact
 and I’m scared
 I trusted her
 I believed her
 she told me when I didn’t have electricity not to worry, because we’d be on the beach soon
 but I was never going to the beach
 the electricity is back on
 and I don’t know who to trust
 I know what I’m supposed to do
 but I can’t get myself to do it today
 I can’t leave the apartment
 my mom doesn’t have heat in her place where she is living now
 and she could have if I’d let her stay here
 and I had to tell her no
 I had to
I’m looking forward to visiting Granny and Papa at the lake when it gets warm again
 building this fishing trap I saw made out of bottles and pvc pipe
 he got some wine corks from my Uncle and Aunt at Thanksgiving, he uses it to make fishing lures