Right before the dawn

the lake and sky joined, hmmm, then —

life's turbidity

Waiting till 1:25 pm (Toronto)

I'm struggling to live with my limitations, and knowing when to adapt to them, and when to push. Honestly, it's been rare for me to feel any other way but a bit seasick from all that rocking, the past week being a great exception and relief. 

I woke at about 8:15 this morning. The sun was already high, and I was tired, disregulated, and had those mental and physical aches and spins of exhaustion. I deal very badly with sleep deficits, even though I'm properly medicated. I've been much healthier since I began working fully remotely and could give myself some extra time to let my body decide when to wake up. But now I've missed the morning and am supposed to wait until past noon, I think, to try again for that balance and peace.

I'm unsure what to do.

"Presumptuous" is the word I've used several times, in a particular context, for the opposite of my timidity. Being unsure of the boundaries of what's acceptable, especially for someone like me, I've chosen many times to err on the side of caution and reserve. I don't want to do that. That is not me. At least, not quite so much for so many things, and not all of me.

The past week, and yesterday especially, felt like being carried a on river as it branched from its watershed down a new course. I'm floating on the same water as before, but it's calmer as though purposeful, and incredibly untroubled by the rocks, rapids, and vortices that seemed inherent to it just a little upstream. I am afraid, from being long accustomed to those hazards, to let my guard down, afraid this gentle part can't last, and that I'll mess it up. I'm really, really unsure.

I try to try my best. I will continue.

Keep your head above water, but let the stream carry you.

Turning around

never felt exciting before,

in the many, many times I've changed direction.

Maybe when I was little, and

    spun, and

        spun, and

fell over giggling (one time I threw up!)

but this — is different, this is new,

and I am giggling.

I tried to do it right, and shook a little,

part from trepidation, and partly 

    like a speck of iron quivering in magnetic flux.

This way, this way, this way. So many lines of force,

gentle, continuous over vast distance, converging: there, here.

I shook, I was giddy, I was afraid, I was awash

in the strange sense of being headed

in the right direction.

    Nothing could be simpler.

There was an old green trampled mat,

draped over the porch steps getting sun-beaten dry after rain.

    I'd taken it. It would do.

And when I opened my eyes

facing it and my splayed hands, everything looked just

    like new.

It's not so much that it is hard

as easier to seal into,

in secret dark, a cellar barred

away, the wants I knew I knew

would always be, and tell myself

the better thing would be to will

them gone. But bowed, a burdened shelf

within me creaks beneath them still.

And days are long when measured 

in regrets replete with years

of gifts I should have treasured,

turned to moldered souvenirs.

I know this lesson now, I say, 

but still I take my time,

and lose in a despondent way

what left of it is mine.

My body says "I'm tired,"

"You tire me," retorts my spirit,

and hisses, "Damn you, cut me free."

I struggle not to hear it.

And maybe it's the weight of what

I shouldn't say that bids me seek

a rock to whisper to the things that

I had lacked the grace to speak

when there was time — I know there never 

was a possibility 

but also know that it were better

had I mourned, then, and honestly.

At night when I am smallest

and the crater walls are high

the stones run fingers down my back

and press me up against the black

and I could swear I hear them cry

at night when I am smallest

I've begged you then to let me die 

and sometimes feigned a sudden slack

as if this grief were just a bear.

I'd never thought of it as prayer

when being shaken limp with lack

I begged you'd let me die

I've not consulted zodiac

or wailed at empty air

but, bent beneath remorse, confessed

as though a judge were standing there

who doesn't speak but echoes back

and in the silence after, I

can see the crater filled with sky

at night when I am smallest