Moss and Mushrooms

Golden slumbers

A collection documenting a moment of struggle with some happy and uplifting poems to follow. Inspired by the song "Golden Slumbers" by the Beatles.
TW: panic attacks, wound/blood mention, suffocation mention

Shaking hands
You can feel your heart beating in your chest, you run your hand over your neck and feel the rapid pulse.
Your breath is erratic, it's shallow and paceless.
You are laid in bed, maybe you were staring at your desk or your ceiling, you can't recall, you cannot connect with the green walls of your bedroom.
Your list of prayers tremble as you read them, you scroll through videos trying to turn this panic off, you stare at nothing, maybe you're thinking to yourself, maybe you're talking to no one.
Your heart is still beating quickly, you are scared of something.
Small things feel like failures, mistakes feel like a life collapsing in, you want to hide somewhere.
You cannot tell if your thoughts are rational, if any of this makes sense, if what you think is to be trusted.
The truth redefines itself endlessly, you don't know what to believe.

When I'm willing
At any moment it is all within arms reach, I sit in front of a shelf, the items may appear different than they did yesterday, they exist in subcategories, but the shelf is divided into two compartments.
The compartment of discontent, lengthy diary entries, embodying panic, impulsive acts that resonate as something reasonable but could not be more senseless.
I reach for the trembling hands, for the sense that none of this is something I can understand, the feeling of collapsing in on what is in all actuality a Monday night with nothing profound to tell.
I could draw blood over this little story you told me, a comment you said that held no weight until I wrapped my fingers around it, to other myself in places where I am loved.
Still, the other options are always there, waiting for me, nonjudgmentally.
I pray for God to make me someone I would like to be, I don't need to worry about next week today, I do what makes sense right now, the rest will come in time.
The panic leaves, the internal Sunday melts into me and whispers "I have been waiting until you would open your heart up to me again."

Clay mug
Mold me into a better mug, make my handle easier to hold, create me so nothing seeps out the bottom, I can be painted new colors, be made stronger, more expressive, more useful, but I do not need to rid myself of being a mug.
I would not be a beautiful statue, I would do nothing good as a plate or bowl, do not mold me into a memory box.
How can I make the mug with the name "Elliot" printed onto it into something better?
I will bring myself into an internal Sunday, following what makes me feel more like myself, not what makes me into someone else entirely.

Internal world
Thoughts of telling someone the story. Telling someone about my day, telling someone about something new I learned, telling someone about my favorite things, telling someone so I know what to think myself.
Daydreaming about holding him late at night, daydreaming about waking up next to him, daydreaming about planning a lovely Sunday, daydreaming about the hundreds of little love letters I could write to him.
Imaging myself with children of my own, wondering what it is like to be a caretaker. How would I explain this to a six year old? How could I hold their hand along the way? Children that have never seen me drunk, children that only know dad when he is well.
Thinking about poetry, thinking about the writing process, thinking about the titles of books and how they are always divine, reviewing the story as it's being written.
Asking myself how I could make this better. Asking myself where the difference between Sunday season and suffocating summers lies. Asking god to bring me there, asking god to show me the way.
Conversations between voices, the sense that I am not on both sides of the phone, kind voices, comforting voices, uplifting voices.
Thinking of all the ways in which the aching has left my shoulders, the hundreds of examples that show I am more than my pain, seeing myself further from my little dark age, imagining a day in which it is even further behind me.
Sometimes thinking of what I could say to help, the little thing that would make this more breathable for you, questioning which words would sink into the dirt and feed the flowers.