Stuff I've Been Feeling Lately

by Alicia Cook

You always want the fondness of the remember-whens to outnumber the might-have-beens.

I c o m b through my memories with more care than I do my hair. I’m told the key is to preserve the root.

It’s as if I am wearing hand-me-down memories from a life that doesn’t fit quite right.

Imagine the anguish felt by having your very own existence on the tip of your tongue.

Over and over again, she trusted the f r a g m e n t s of her soul with others

The strongest people I know have been overtaken by their weaknesses.

The strongest people I know make the decision every day to wake up and place their two feet on the ground even though they know the monsters beneath their bed will grab at their ankles.

You are not home free if you are still calling this place Home. Check your mirrors. Images are closer than they appear and not as pretty as they seem. Those rose-colored sunglasses of yours are playing tricks on your eyes. This nostalgic route is messing with your heart. That familiar song on the radio has penetrated your mind.

You will heal as long as you don’t turn around.

It needs to burn so you know it’s healing,

In spite of the severity of my wound, I knew the healing process had already begun.

My new beginnings have often spawned from forced endings.

There has always been a d i s c o n n e c t between me and the world around me; I never felt settled, grounded.

Just because I yearn to grow and evolve doesn’t mean I have identity issues. I know exactly who the hell I am.

A picture never fully captures the reasons behind why I want to freeze the moment in the first place.

The darkness of being gifted a second chance is that it means something went wrong in the first place.

Sometimes you don’t realize you are h o l d i n g yourself together until you aren’t anymore.

One who knows that even after the coldest of winters, spring will still arrive.

Even at my most put together, I’ll look a bit d i s h e v e l e d.

Sometimes it hurts to breathe. My corrupt decisions weigh on my chest, methodically pushing down to crack each rib, in hopes of infiltrating my heart and finally exterminating the last shred of the human being I once was.

I can’t lose me. I’m all I’ve got.

Late nights and loneliness have built me up in your head.

If I still have the pieces, why wouldn’t I keep rebuilding?

No matter how old I become, a slight sadness always washes over me moments before I drive away from the home where I grew up.

Most days I find myself stumbling over flat surfaces and expectations.

I need to stop renaming the decisions I’ve made as mistakes just because I wish I could take them back.

Perhaps we give so much of ourselves away that we feel like essential pieces of ourselves go missing.

Thirty years old and I still think a moment will wait for me to catch up.

Maybe each pump of your heart hurts your chest, but your heart pumps, even still. This pain is reminding you that you are alive.

Pain will make you stronger, but it will make you a lot of other things first.

I am starting to sleep at a normal hour again. So that probably means I am healing. Sleep is the first thing to leave you after something like this.

I’ve got to be one of the most difficult people to love and remain in love with; I’m sometimes selfish and my chaotic thoughts translate into the mess I leave around our house. I’m independent in most aspects of my life but totally dependent when it comes to you.

Memories are mere echoes of the actual occurrence. Distorted in the reverberation. Romanticized in the ricochet.

I see I am shattered; broken shards placed together and called art, a mosaicked woman.

Days in a daze become weeks of being weak. Months become moths that eat holes into my favorite moments.

I’ve swept up messes I haven’t created and dried tears I haven’t cried. I’ve aged just by witnessing others lose years.

Your face jolted me from sleep. The details do not matter, because you no longer matter. I startled the man sleeping next to me; the man who matters. What is it? he asked, concerned. Nothing. It was just a nightmare. I wasn’t lying.