Moss and Mushrooms

Autumn sun

Poems from a peaceful September.
TW: mild substance mention, hallucinations

Silent Septembers
For one moment the world went quiet.
I don't know what I was looking for but today I found it, for now I will lay amongst the autumn leaves because at this moment everything is as it should be.
I don't need to write a poem about an aching in my chest, I don't need to take a pill or empty a bottle to change the way I feel.
I feel how I want to feel. The world is what it should be. I will be the things I need to be.
The chatter in my mind is deafening and disorienting but today is quiet, today is what I have been hoping for.
I always wanted peace, even if I fought it, even if I never admitted it, even if I never saw the day coming.
The storm stops suddenly, the rain is no longer pounding loudly upon my metal roof, the sun is shining on my skin and warming my spirit.
I have arrived.
I think there is something divine about this moment, something beautiful and holy about finding this pocket in time in which everything was exactly how it should be.

Ephemeral heart
I slowly read over each poem, underlining and highlighting the most lovely lines.
Someone whose spirit is like mine, fractured, hurt, and healing.
Someone who knows what it's like to bleed out on the bathroom floor.
Someone who knows my pain and lived to tell the story.
I want the lines tattooed on my skin so I could never dare to forget them, if I could I would write the stories behind my eyelids.
I hold the book so close to my chest that it can hear my heart beat.

Home
I sit on the floor of my bedroom and think to myself "I want to go home."
I look for the thing that feels like home, I look for the thing that will make me whole, and for many years I do not find it.
It is not in the bottles, it's not in the bloody noses, it's not in the grime or the rot.
I begin to accept that maybe I won't find what I am looking for, that some people don't find it, some people never well.
Still, believing I would never find a home I continued to look for one.
I carried on with my search for a home, and one day I would realize that I have arrived. I have found my home.
Home is in writing poems about sundays and warmth coming from my chest.
Home is reading books while listening to classical music and the sounds of rain.
Home is in the autumn breeze and sky sprinkling nights.
Home is in the rooms at 8pm where I find myself talking about god with people who want to get better.
Home is believing I am everything I need to be and believing I will become the things I want to be.
Home is the meadow that lives within me, home is the internal summer that lives in my chest.

Decaying and blooming
Sometimes you'll be everything you could ever want to be, sometimes you'll be everything you wished you'd never become.
Because I am the passionate writer, I am the trying and improving, I am the making others happy.
I am becoming everything I dreamed of being, I have arrived. I am going to be someone great one day.
I will find my way through life and I will make something of myself and my pain.
I am the recluse, I am the addict who has done awful things, I am the nobody.
I am all the bad things a person could be, I am everything I hate about everyone I've ever met, I am the grimey things I have done, I am a grim fate.
I am nothing doing nothing going nowhere.
Somewhere in those lines is the truth, somewhere in there is me, the rot and the grim, the Sunday sunrise and the daisy blooming through the concrete.

October
Trying to make sense of things, trying to find your way home, believing you won't, but you will.
Writing early in the mornings, writing late at night, writing in the car or on your bedroom floor, writing always.
Listening to the same songs on repeat for hours, being brought back to different seasons of life based on the melodies.
Hallucinating faint and strange sounds, hallucinating distortions and grain, hallucinating demons and decapitated heads.
Making art out of anything and everything, filling notebooks upon notebooks with diary entries and drawings.
Seeing yourself in them, hoping you one day will be like them, admiring their every move.
Obsessions that feel more vivid than life itself, obsessions that dominate your thoughts.
Books you've written, books that have highlighted words on every page, drawing hearts in the margins of your favorite poetry books.
Being alone but not lonely. Being by yourself but not isolated.
Diary entries that last pages, diary entries with misspelled words, diary entries that don't make sense to anyone but you.
A basket overflowing with stuffed animals.
Questioning everything about yourself. Believing that you are all of the above.
A memory box with cards and coins and trinkets from days past.
Video diaries, long stretches of you rambling to the camera, making covers for tomorrow.
Tarot cards you made yourself, tarot cards with tiny details, tarot cards with scribbled words and empty eyes.
Being the sunrise and the mellow sundays, being the grim and the ugly and the rotting.

Dreamy
I live by myself in the woods, I am alone but not lonely.
I have continued my creative pursuits, some only for me and some for the eyes of many.
I am a writer, I write every day, people love what I write, people read what I write and know they are not alone.
I feel at home in my body, I love what stares back at me in the mirror.
I have a lovely home, everything is my own and is exactly how it should be.
I have filled dozens of notebooks, I have written many books, I have created art journals and tarot decks.
I allow myself to be every version of myself, it is okay for me to be anyone I am.

Markers of life
My sister's backpack and homework spread across the living room, a stuffed animal with paint stains on it, scars that have healed over.
A bracelet with chipped beads, a shirt with a heart embroidered on it, notebooks with dates taped to the back.
A journal that is thicker than it once was, a set of hand drawn oracle cards with worn edges, books filled in with highlighted words and underlined sentences.
A sloppily drawn poster, a painting with visible strokes.
A box of trinkets that remind me of days past, a room with clothing spread across the floor, a run-on sentence, a diary with pages you rambled on and numbered, notes for school with colorful highlights and drawings of mushrooms.
Lived in, worn, well loved.

Bad habits
I drink too much coffee, I sleep in later than I should.
I talk about nothing, I ramble on about the same things.
I stay up until the early hours of the morning, I change my mind every day.
I write bad poems, I start things I never finish.
I misspell words in pen, I think about the past too much.
I don't put in as much effort as I should, I spend too much time rereading.
I do the same things over and over again, I stare at a glowing screen more than I should.
I laugh at my own jokes, I talk to myself.
I make to do lists I know I will never finish, I worry about problems I don't have.
I think things will be different when I know they won't, I understand that life is not a race yet berate myself for being behind.
I focus too much on the negative, I retell the same stories using the same metaphors.
I forget everything, I listen to sad music knowing it will make me feel sad.
I say I'll start tomorrow every day, I never write the list because seeing it is far too stressful.
I sleep far too much. I feel and act like a child.
I have routine breakdowns. I talk to people who aren't there.
I drink coffee at night. I never keep my room clean.
I look for happiness in all the wrong places, I entertain things I shouldn't.

Just for me
The hallucinations have been there for many years. They have been terrifying but I find myself comforted by them on many nights.
I turn all the lights off and I watch them.
I watch as everything distorts and changes.
Things mold and bend and grow and shrink.
I see auras and a grain over everything.
I lay flat on my back staring at the ceiling, I listen to my old favorite songs, I am reminded of the nights I spent high.
I watch as things slowly float from my ceiling, strange shapes float up and down as if the earth is breathing.
Lights crawl up the wall, the ceiling is covered in ever changing patterns.
I wish I could take a photo of them, I wish I could show you the things I see, but I cannot photograph what is not really there.
I try to think of a way to explain what I am seeing but I could never put it into words, it is too grand for language.