How to keep going
For Poppy's 1. 2. 3. challenge
1. Wake up. Try to take a couple of breaths before the weight of your memories... Crashes down. Get out of bed. Make it to the shower before the thoughts of giving up, creep in.
2. Eat toast. Drink coffee. Forget the fact that everything has lost its taste. Choke back the lump in your throat. Tell yourself it’s too early to fall apart.
3. Step outside. Try not to hate the sky for being so blue. The trees for being so green. Wish that everything was different. Ask a millionth time why.
4. Hands in pockets. Head down. Get in the car. Drive through traffic. Keep the radio off. If the wrong song came on, the hollow feeling inside might swallow you whole.
5. Walk into work. Get buried in tasks. Keep the mask up so nobody will see the rain falling in storms behind your eyes. Keep to yourself. So no one will ever tell you again, this will be okay.
6. End up, at the end of the day, staring at the front door you left this morning, hating every breath, every second, every minute, you're still here and they're gone.
7. Look at the kitchen. Know there's no way you could eat anything. Grab the bottle instead. Pour two fingers, three... four. Because the numbness helps the pain feel more like a companion than a knife tearing your flesh.
8. Put the album with the songs that remind you of them on. Let the tears you've been holding all day, finally fall. Sit on the floor taking bitter sips of relief, with saltwater on your cheek.
9. Pass out. Wake up, with the dark still outside. Drag your broken heart up off the floor. Stagger into your room. Collapse on the bed. Remember, how you had it good once.
10. Drift off to sleep. Promise your tattered soul, it will heal. You won't ever get over this, but the pain will ease... Someday, a smile that's real will return. You won't be the same. This has changed you forever, but somewhere on a day, you haven't seen yet. You will be happy again.
1. Wake up. Try to take a couple of breaths...
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The Invisible Writer
"Poetry is what happens when nothing else can"
Charles Bukowski
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Dog Number 13
May 15, 2023 Strange things are happening. Good-strange, bad-strange, and strange-strange. For starters, me and all my litter mates are able to stand. Some of us can even wiggle around in a clumsy manner. I say wiggle because it isn’t quite walking but it isn’t quite crawling. We just sort of stand and wiggle and fall and take a few steps and then crawl and then get up again. It is in this manner we are able to move around to some degree and explore our surroundings. Naturally we cannot go far. Which is ok, I suppose, because I am very small and I need my mother for food and my siblings to keep me warm and I feel very loved and comforted by them in some way, so I don’t know why I would need to go very far. Having four legs, I must admit, is very strange. It is not a surprise to me that it is challenging to coordinate them to move in the order they need to move. But I can get around a little bit, my eyes can stay open for much longer periods of time now, and it is easier to understand what is happening. So this is new.
By Morgan Longfordabout 23 hours ago in Chapters
Comments (18)
This broke my heart into a billion pieces. Incredible expression of living with extreme grief, Will, but ugh, sending love! I hope that smile has found you!
This is too real not to be real 💔
Wow, I felt each of those lines. Dug deep like shards of glass underfoot. This was amazingly written with so much heartache and pain. Just wow.
Phenomenally written! I especially love the hope & realness of #10! Wonderful job!
Wow! This was quite the ride. Very Impactful!
Wow! Very impactful. Thank you for sharing.
"How long, O Lord, how long?"
Very emotive… 10. Was especially true & something we all need to believe during tough times. Thanks.
Beautifully crafted and love the last line, just perfect. Just repeat every morning. This really is a recipe for getting through x
Such an evocative poem, one which I’m sure resonates with many of us. I love the way you hinted at a glimmmer of hope with: ‘Someday, a smile that's real will return.’ 😢
Number 10 was when my dam burst open and the waterfalls rushed down my face. It just hit me so hard. I just hope I'll be happy again. Thank you so much for sharing this!
Very relatable! Painful but honest. Not how life is meant to be, surely.. Excellent entry !
This is incredible!! Every single line of this is sooo good. So much of it is what I’ve been feeling lately and what most people can sadly relate to at one point or another. If I mentioned all the specific lines I loved I’d just be copy and pasting the whole thing but this line was extra amazing to me: “Because the numbness helps the pain feel more like a companion than a knife tearing your flesh.” That is such a brilliant, raw line. This whole thing is so vulnerable and emotional, like a heart cut open and spilt onto paper. I loved reading every second of this. Have to ask though, are you okay?
Devastating, but with a glimmer of hope. Keep going. Fantastic job.
What a breathtaking renewal of the soul in painful then renewing moments. This was lovely , sad and beautiful.
I want to read this on repeat until the way the sun catches on a leaf creeps in, just a glimmer, then the recognition of hunger at the smell of someone cooking, or the sound of your own laughter.
💙💙💙💙
Oh my goodness. This is heartbreaking and so well crafted 😩