saturn is home, and all is well

@alliyah, can I still get the one a day badge even though I missed a day on accident because I crashed early unexpectedly? Pretty please?

some have claimed
that in madness, you are free,
that these tiny pills
rob you of your soul,
that you can't produce great art
when you listen to the evil doctors.

after eight years,
i can say that they are wrong,
that on the other side,
i am free to breathe,
no longer chained to delusions,
and i don't want to jump
from every bridge i drive across.

My soul is fine, thank you very much,
and my art is just as good
as it ever was.

but when i don't wrestle
with sleepless nights,
i wake up in the morning
not even remembering i was tired.

So yeah, this is a pretty literal poem. I've adjusted some meds recently, and it seems I sleep better, but lately I've been waking up a lot with yesterday's clothes on and not even remembering when I fell asleep. It's certainly preferable to not sleeping, but it's very strange nonetheless

Okay, so back in undergrad, I studied abroad, and there was this guy I thought was pretty cute, at least initially. On our first weekend, we went out, and at some point, I was dancing. Maybe I was kinda trying to dance with him, but he said "I don't want to dance with you" in both English and Spanish. Okay, cool, I get it, whatever, kept dancing. At some point he must have gotten mad at me for being in his general vicinity again, because he shouted "NOBODY WANTS TO BE WITH YOU". Literally the worst thing you can say to anybody ever. It's destroyed me, to the point that I'm still babbling about it NINE FUCKING YEARS LATER. Oh and the best/worst part is towards the end of the trip, someone thought it would be hysterical for us to kiss (legit don't remember whose idea this was, but certainly not mine). You know how there's that homophobic "gag" in comedies where the two guys have to kiss and they're all grossed out? Yeah that was basically us.

Anyway, a few years later, I see on Facebook that he's gotten together with another girl who was on that trip. I don't hate her as much, but I know she was also talking shit about me behind my back. FWIW, I don't think they literally fell in love from talking shit about me, but I'm sure it was a bonding point and part of why they first became friends. Last fall, they got engaged, and it really hurt, not in an "OMG I'm still in love with him" way because ew, but more like wondering why karma hasn't gotten to him yet.

The bit about the chandelier is my favorite, but again needs some explaining. So one night, drunk me notices this freaking huge chandelier in the club and takes a picture. When I later posted pictures (silly me thought posting them being all drunk and sloppy would be my revenge, when I'm sure they loved it and laughed it off), they commented that they had literally never noticed it and made fun of me for noticing it. Yeah I'm not even making this up.

I know holding on to this is toxic, so maybe these terrible poems will help me "step into the daylight and let it go" to quote Taylor Swift again.

"Because I'm more content today to fall in love with breathing"
or is healing just pain from a different angle?
"and there's this bitter part of resurrection that requires dying" "and I'll whisper my past through roaring waves until I can't remember"
"too many memories to carry around on our shoulders"