Right Hand Drawn by Miki Huynh

more to be added here later…

lo(holes)g(holes)ic

The inner world sometimes does a pretty mean job of discoloring the outer world. So I find. The outer defined here as the world at large, everything objective and visceral. Just everything out there. Everything that moves forward in one direction despite what any particular inner world may believe, read or critique or attempt to explain or fight or disassociate from. It’s a place where you learn to coexist with other inner lives that each follow their own maps to make their own outward contributions and to reach their own finishing points, that all mashed together and given blanket titles creates a portrait of a grand scheme, a great whole of humankind. Something like that. Given this whole and these parts, sometimes in the attempt to find connection between inner beings through contributions not so objective, involving a base medium like emotions, it can become a bit confusing. It’s hard to figure out which resulting ideas belong to others, which maybe just to me. Sometimes, too often, I’ll start self-projectedly detecting feelings like world weariness from those I interact with, though I may not realize this for a while where it’s coming from. In reality, people might feel tired or awkward or frustrated, with no effort to hide these feelings, in response to an isolated incident and as part of normal human configuration that occasionally fails at stoic firmness despite the best efforts in the face of unwelcome changes. Usually, those sentiments don’t adhere to anything permanent, don’t extend past a certain point of reason. I don’t know why it is then that my own shoulders start feeling heavy, and I frequently walk away experiencing their initial sadness, carrying it along for hours and days past the point of expiration, and then seeking retribution for the fact that I may have been the cause, I may have some hand in making things better. At least by absorbing it and understanding, I can do something to help make a difference. To make things better. For who in the end? It seems, really, only for myself. Whatever collected pool of bodily chemicals that dictate such thoughts and wax and wain in cycles creating the need to combat visible tiredness, sadness, or unease by making amends, compensating, bucking up, attempting to fix problems that maybe only exist in my own mind, these chemicals don’t seem to let up, and sometimes they won’t even free up room for me to breathe or relax, and just keep returning and haunting and sabotaging the power to emotionally detach while my brain pushes harder to analyze and crunch out reliable solutions. These two entirely different mental processes occur at the same time completely segregated from one another, until the one crosses the line and assumes full control without pause or mercy, cigar in mouth and red flag in air. The victorious force will then hold reason hostage during the long pauses of early morning where all I can do is sit there completely emptied of the desire to just get up, just stand up, and, c’mon, please. please! you’ll be late!, just get ready for work. The weight bearing down on me is jarring, physically binding, sounds preposterous in writing, but is undeniably felt. I want to shatter to pieces. But I can only wait out the mental siege and wonder, how many other people feel this? For so many mornings for so many years? How many others experience this same thing but never say a word? This is my own first time with words. It sounds like describing a stranger.

I think a lot. “Overthinker” is the earned title. But it’s not so much the line of thinking that make me buckle or stare off or fail to budge. Rumination itself doesn’t allow for blips… because the world is quite logical I like to believe, everything can have a reason and answer, and if you don’t know what you want you should ask more questions and dig deeper, refine your search, expand your perspective that’s what I’d always argue… Whatever this is comes from a weird inner explosion that, given any free reign, would have me sobbing in a curled-up ball or amorously freefalling into the arms belonging to the next handsome face, neither of which would come from the same place or would bring about the needed satisfaction. Neither of which happens entirely in the end to even tease at relief because I wouldn’t melt away after that. I’d still be there.

Perhaps, this is all what you could call being crazy.

I assign it all to chemicals rushing around inside my body; given the predictability at this point, I stand firmly by this notion. However, I refuse to have the realities of these feelings invalidated, as certainly anyone else who experiences these surges might want others to recognize. The only request I can ever make of anyone who witnesses these moments or sees these words, the only thing I can ask is: don’t walk away. Don’t be afraid. Don’t turn your back. This cyclical, downward spiraling nothing that ends up being something to stifle, to grip and strangle… just me.. it doesn’t want to feel alone. And none of this would I ever say to anyone on bended knees or with folded hands. I’ve trained this self-righteous pillar inside to stand erect even if my body only bends and cracks. But I need your solidarity to mirror an inner pillar and convince me that one still exists. Just say, “everything’s okay even if it doesn’t make sense.”

I just want to feel like there’s enough sense in that.