Spiders and other things.

I think about spiders 

my house is home 

to so many now that when we smoke a joint

out back V doesn’t wanna sit under the decking roof

‘too infested, they might fall on me,’ she says (she’s been dreaming

about spiders

falling

on her)

and I guess that’s a valid concern, but who am I

to tell them to leave / we’ll just stay out

of their way

for now

In the grey light of my morning room I’m

distinctly not-yet anxious. I wake up further

to enjoy this moment. I think about my friends,

I think about all our very different childhoods

that we didn’t spend together

I think about the stars

how I want to know more

I think about P playing guitar in her room (such pureness!)

and I think about myself the other night

sleeping on that top bunk 

in some kinda mortal peril

spinning out on acid, thinking all the bad things

thoughts carry such weight, sometimes

On the train to the gig I think about a call I had

a middle aged man celebrating one year without self-harming

I could have cried through the phone, heartbroken with joy.

Random tethers of kind connection

pull me closer to the earth.

I think about all the pieces of you I carry

around with me (in my head) and the process

I have to go through, of letting go

I think about my new psych, how calm she seemed and how

that enraged me at first (for some reason) – made me interrogate

my own resentment

of calm people, weird glitch 

I think about E and her words

that tumble out so raw, and my own

that must jump hurdles to be born from my internal voice

the effort alone stifling

the need

I think about

Jupiter. Big mama of expansion 

I think about dreams 

I think about you and your child self

I could cry out, from tenderness

I could call you and cry, for an hour

I think about your pain, and everyone’s

The lessons in this haven’t yet presented themselves

I’m still searching for the meaning

but I think I’m onto something – something about love

and fear, crippling

and the constant trying

to be alright

and like a baby I just want to be held, and like a mother

I just want to wipe your snotty nose clean on my sleeve

and kiss your forehead when you go to sleep.

I think about what you might be doing today

while the cogs of trauma whir into function

face of laughter, grinning through the elements

I could fall to my knees from tenderness

it's the resilience against all these impossible odds

I try not to think too hard

about whether you've thought about me

I think about gratitude and awe

and all of us like siblings

waking up slowly across different

suburban

streets