Cover art by @avivaaaaviva
I am always trying to hold everyone and everything together. Grabbing all their issues, doubts,
deepest fears and angst one by one, each one piling up and bundling into my arms, overflowing
like a tall clear glass of putrid and sickly swamp-colored acid rain, my arms aching from pulling
everyone into one cohesive embrace, comforting and consoling them, telling them the same
reassuring words everyone always hears but never believes ‘everything will be okay everything
will be okay everything will be okay.’ I am being pulled like a weather-beaten and decomposing
ragdoll from both ends, my foamy arms filled with puffed, soft stuffing threatening to tear brutally
from the seams, but holding together with the few beige threads left. The meaningless tugs
turning into vigorous and violent pulls, getting stronger on each side until one day, my arms will
give out and you will all fall out like a spilled bag of molded salted chips or they will tear out of
their delicate sockets, or I will altogether; socket from socket, seam from seam, limb from limb,
everything will slowly disintegrate and I will become nothing. But see, I hate to disappoint. The
last thing I want to be is an inconvenience, a burden, a hindrance all I want is to heal heal heal.
Yes, I know I said I would work on healing myself and my soul but how can I be healed when
there are people and places and things in my life that are not completely healed, still not being
cared for or embraced or loved, their souls and minds and hearts still hurting, still incomplete,
waiting to be as clean and polished as the tip of a black patent leather shoe. I don’t know what
to do. I need to help myself, but I help myself by letting my loved ones heal. I strive when you
do. I cannot go on trying to be glue. I will unstick from myself and be left with nothing. Still, I will
try to hold on. Just for you.
