Brain Dump.

i could write about how beautiful winter is here

that right now the rain is dripping over the green and flowering
back garden and tree-hidden houses behind my building.

i could write about how i feel stuck on this writing/
self-inventory i’m supposed to be doing, and haven’t been able

to work on because we’re not doing it the way

it was designed, and i feel lost and unsupported

and conflicted about telling the person I’m working

with because i have before and things haven’t

changed, and I don’t know if it’s just me being

stubborn or avoidant or if this is really just

too precarious to attempt by myself, when

the work was designed to be done in person

with another person.

i could write about how i cancelled my audition

in san jose last night because a) i didn’t realize

how far san jose was, and b) i think i might get

the role I auditioned for on wednesday in Marin

and the plays run concurrently.

i could write about coming home last night, instead,

and “resting,” actually lying on the couch after cutting

up some beets and turnips and putting them in the oven

and putting a blanket over me and my heating pad and

shutting my eyes. and just letting myself and my eyes, especially,

rest while the vegetables roasted. how luxurious it felt

to simply do nothing – not nothing, aka watch netflix,

not nothing aka clean my house, just nothing, and not

nothing aka meditate, which could be similar but wasn’t

as my mind wandered and i let it, and i let it get a little fuzzy

and out of focus as my cat balled up in my lap to rest, too.

i could write about my friend texting me his friend’s dad is

about to die from cancer, and texting him my sympathy, but

that i wasn’t available to process around grief of that kind.

I could tell you, it’s because it’s too activating for me because

it reminds me that my cancer is only a year past, that last year

at this time i was preparing for my fifth and final round of chemo

and hearing about someone else’s cancer just reminds me how

close i am to mine.

                               but that’s not why i didn’t want to hear

about it. i don’t want to hear about your friend's cancer because i

don’t care. because i realized when i got his text that i am still

so viciously angry about what happened that i don’t have room

to be compassionate, really. because i only have room to think

about my own cancer, and to especially not think about it. to

not touch into the feelings I still have about it.

                                                                          and then we’re back

to the work that i’m not writing about right now that’s supposed to

exorcise and alchemize resentment and trauma and pain.

i could tell you that i don’t give a shit that other people have cancer

and you’re having feelings of finality and loss and grief, because

i sat in the sodden, rotten trench of it for a year, and i’m pretending

right now that i hadn’t. that i hadn’t had to think about mortality

every single day. that the finality of life wasn't consistently licking

at my ear, whispering about carpe diem and fatal rules about forgiveness 

as health. and boo-fucking-hoo that any of you now are called to
process such things with such naive surprise as if none of this existed
before it happened to someone you have a glancing acquaintance with. 

i could tell you i looked into the woman who’s profession is

helping others heal from trauma. and that my tax return might go

toward sessions with her, or someone she recommends in the east bay.

i could tell you that my eyes hurt from looking at computers all the time

and that i’m also grateful that my job doesn’t include working outside

in the rain or food service or pest removal or any other thing unpleasant.

i could write about any of these things. but
                                                                  i guess i just did.