His touch burned my skin
Leaving embers from that night
As a reminder so I won’t forget

She flowed through me
Gently washing away my agony
Soaking me forever

How I Write Poems

There is no rhyme or reason
As to how I write my poems

Sometimes I think I try too hard
To sound flowery like a bouquet

Sometimes I think I’m not trying hard enough
Because I haven’t studied the craft since college

But each time it’s deep because it’s me

The sun provides a faint rainbow on the ceiling
Tick-tock booming throughout the room
There are moments when she can’t hear it
Sometimes she wished it would stop
Just for a little

Maybe then she could fix things
But it’s too late
Time gets louder; it passes so quickly

The moon provides a deep glow on her bed
Tick-tock booming throughout the room
Forced slumber makes her deaf to it
In these moments she is glad it continues
Just for a little

There’s nothing to fix among night visions
But eventually she awakens to the truth
Time gets louder; it passes so quickly

Until it ends.

Advertisement

Tired

i’m so tired of consuming the screen
all it does is produce images i can’t match
i’m so tired of consuming the food
all it does is make me sad
i’m so tired of feeling like i can’t get out
because what if i can’t?

Winter Despair

I saw my reflection in the snow
This melancholia I did not know
The bitter air slapped my face
Far from home I had to go

Kisses from the frozen cotton felt like lace
Time followed me with great haste
Growing older I did fear
Afraid of Death’s sweet embrace

The snow kept falling, falling near
And white silence was all I could hear
The light in the sky was too far away
The shadow of the moon was all too clear

Soon I walked in disarray
Until my thoughts turned to gray
Across the frosted crystal fields I lay
Across the frosted crystal fields I lay

Constant State of Uncertainty

I feel like all I write about are my insecurities when it comes to dating or my newfound anxiety when it comes figuring out what to do with my life. This post won’t be any different.

Recently I started learning Python because I wanted to learn a completely new skill that would hopefully help me find a better job in the future. The problem is that whenever I start a new endeavor, I tend to give up fairly quickly if it’s something I don’t understand right away. First I started using Codecademy to learn but the way they explained everything was super confusing. I ended up finding a four hour Youtube tutorial video that I had to stretch out learning over the course of the past month since I can’t just pick up something and move on to the next lesson. I was starting to get excited when I was beginning to understand the content. Programming is quite intimidating but due to a friend letting me know how easy it was to learn, I wanted to try. Previously I was learning HTML and CSS but there was way too much content that I felt I needed to memorize so I moved on to Python. Anyway, I completed the Youtube tutorial recently although the momentum that I had in the beginning dwindled a bit around the holidays. Now that I’m back using Codecademy, I’m beginning to feel anxious as I learn things that I previously learned through the tutorial. It’s just the way that they explain things that does not make sense to make but I figured because I need more practice that I may as well go back. I tried working today and kept getting distracted with questioning if what I was doing was worth it or even the right thing and of course taking more career tests to try to figure out what sort of path I should be on. All it did was make me internally tense up and become riddled with anxiety.

Last week was a rough week for me mentally. Two nights in a row I had some rather scary dreams that as far as I know was a sign that I am starting to feel trapped again. Trapped in my own head. Trapped in this small town. Trapped in this constant state of not knowing what I want to do or who I even am anymore. It’s easy for me to look at something and determine whether or not I enjoy it but it’s on such a small scale that I feel like it’s doesn’t mean much. People say that one way to determine what you want out of life is to look at your hobbies and interests. The problem for me is that I am not passionate about anything. Sure I have interests that are very generic: watching television, listening to music and podcasts, being out in nature, etc. But what am I supposed to do with that information? My personal trainer and I have a good rapport so sometimes when we’re not talking about my progress, he’ll go into ‘friend mode’ and we’ll talk about other things. Recently I had mentioned that I’m still struggling and have been struggling for a long time to try to figure out what it is that I want to do with my life and that I barely know who I am. He mentioned that I should write down everything that I like to do and dig deeper. Why do I enjoy watching the content I consume? Why do I like listening to the specific music I listen to? If I am able start from scratch like that, maybe I can get some clarity about what I want out of life.

I’ve been trying to think of it as a lifestyle rather than what sort of career do I want to pursue but sometimes that gets complicated. Once I visualize the lifestyle I would like to lead, I then have to think about what kind of work I would want to do to support that lifestyle which puts me back at square one. Sometimes I think that all of this thinking is just a never ending loop of uncertainty and I hate it.

Anyway, I don’t want to take up this whole post with complaints about my life that haven’t changed since I was child. I should go back to learning Python and try to just take things one day at a time despite me feeling like I am running out of it.

Green Deux

Still haven’t seen white
There’s not enough green to go around
I just want a bit more. To get by.
I go from red to blue to black.
The green disappears.

I Have Anxiety

I never liked to say I had anxiety. “It’s just stress” was usually the excuse. It couldn’t be anxiety because I hadn’t experienced any anxiety attacks like some friends of mine had. “It’s just stress.”

The problem is that I do experience anxiety and according to my former therapist, I have slight depression.

I recently moved across the country for the 2nd time in my life. Again, from the East Coast to the West Coast. Even in the time of COVID-19, I managed to make it from one end of the country to the other mentally unscathed. My mom welcomed me with open arms and I gladly accepted as I missed her. The weekend gave me time to adjust to the time change and the new area before work started back up on Monday.

This move not only effected my mental state but my physical state. At the time of this posting, I’m 11 days late for my period which the most I’ve ever been late has been a couple of days. “It’s just stress from the move.” Nothing to be alarmed about so I wasn’t.

But then the other night, something changed within me. After my first full week back to work, I was all set to spend my Saturday looking for a job. My current job’s end date wasn’t too far around the corner and soon my income would disappear. So I started to look for something to take over. That’s when the anxiety kicked in.

I started reading about the different jobs and the required qualifications only to have this booming voice in my mind tell me that it would be a waste of my time to apply for that particular job. That I wasn’t qualified. That I wasn’t good enough. Throughout the search that voice got louder until it consumed my mind. And the first of six small but significant mental breakdowns happened over the course of two days. All I did was cry and deal with the pounding headache brought on from crying. It was suffocating.

Although not an official diagnosis, I looked up this form of anxiety only to find that I have career anxiety. See, I hate working in customer service but that’s pretty much the only field of work I have experience in. Growing up I never took the time to explore my interests or hobbies. It was always just about surviving and making sure I always had money in my bank account to survive. By that I mean make sure the bills are covered. To heck with groceries this week. I can’t mess up my credit score. That was is my thinking.

To say that I don’t know what to be when I grow up would be an understatement. I don’t have forks in the road of different career paths to make a decision on. I have absolutely no idea what I want to do for the rest of my life. And that stresses me out. It scares me.

I need to figure this out but I don’t know where to start. I’ve probably taken every sort of career aptitude test out there, filled out this career transition workbook, and even taken a bunch of personality tests to see what careers fit my personality best. All I see is a world full of overwhelming possibilities that feels more like a rope wrapping around my body and crushing my soul than a sigh of relief.

For the next few days, I am taking time to distance myself from loved ones so I don’t say something I may regret or dump my broken record issues on them once again. It won’t lead to anything positive until I take the necessary steps to gain control of all of this. I know I won’t be successful in this transitional period in this state of mind either.

But how do you find your way out of hole you feel consistently stuck in?

The Daily News – A Poem By Me

“I can’t breathe,” he says.
Murder on the street today.
White man gets away.
They kill the coloreds for sport.
Executioners in blue. 

My Life in Quarantine

Wow. What a time to be alive. Some people are out in these streets with masks or other types of face coverings on while grocery shopping (and social distancing) while others are binge watching The Office for the umpteenth time, eating all the things, and self-isolating from the world. COVID-19 has affected the world. No, that’s not an exaggeration. People from every corner of the world is dealing with the effects of this virus.

The negatives of it though is that so many people are getting sick or even worse, dying. I’ve already lost two uncles (one from a heart attack and the other one from the virus).

For me personally, I am loving this downtime. I was temporarily furloughed from my job. Still waiting to see if and when I’ll be going back to work. Luckily with all this free time I have been getting back into writing. I try to do a creative writing prompt per day as well as keep a gratitude journal, and a regular journal. Reading is taking a little longer for me to get back into but I’m trying. I also am using the “What Color is Your Parachute?” book to figure out my life in terms of a career.

Exercising is pretty easy because I was previously doing that pre-COVID. It’s just weird because I’m so used to going to the gym and using the equipment to work on my muscles. Unfortunately I don’t have any equipment at home so I’ve been doing more body weight exercises and cardio which is good for the weight loss. I am worried though about the muscle mass that I may have lost. I am still able to hold myself up during planks and feel the burn when it comes to push-ups which is good but I do miss using the gym equipment.

The one new thing that I have decided to take up is learning Korean. Due to my current BTS obsession, I want to learn the language so I can better understand their songs and videos without subtitles. Plus learning a language is fun.

There is still plenty of self doubt happening even as I type this. I enjoy writing. I would rather work a job that focuses more on the content that I am able to create or help showcase rather than front-facing with customers and assisting them. As I worked through the workbook though I realized that all this time I have wasted on not pursuing something is holding me back. I wonder if it’s too late for me. Am I destined to be a customer service representative for the rest of my life?

I need to stop. Stay positive. I’ve been doing well up until this point. I’m going to be okay. It’s all going to be okay.