if you want to destroy my sweater

when a '90s musical metaphor hits a little too hard

"Undone" is the feeling you get when the train stops and the little guy comes knockin' on your door. It was supposed to be a sad song, but everyone thinks it's hilarious.

-Rivers Cuomo

1 minute and 39 seconds left to my lunch break. That’s me. Starting this post at the most inopportune time. That girl, the one in the alien t-shirt and 500-year-old tie-dye sweatpants, is a shell of herself.

I am a shell of myself.

Lunch over.

The song is in my head, and it’s playing on repeat. Playing over the nagging voices coming from inside the headset. The “why hasn’t my garbage been picked up?” voices. The “I pay good money for this service” cries. The… you get the idea.

hold this thread as i walk away

It starts with a thread. The thread, through no fault of its makeup or manufacturing, snags. Maybe on a fingernail. Maybe on a rusty nail. Maybe on a late notice. Maybe on a memory of how kisses felt once upon a time.

You try to walk away, but it holds. The more you walk, the more it unravels. Until you catch a chill and realize you’re naked.

Five hours later, I’m sharing the nonsensical ramblings of my latest existential crisis with Cash Money. She’s waiting for treats, which I purposefully withhold for an extra moment because the only eyes that look at me and not through me belong to my cat. She gets her treats after I get mine.

I’m still on the part of the speech where I go all modern Hamlet.

The to be or not to be part.

The why fucking bother part.

She gets her treats, and I return to the keyboard.

To the here and now.

To cry or not to cry.

To pretend I’m okay. To smile without my heart stretching too thin.

To not be sure if this meltdown that I am/am not having is the natural result of pending menopause, or if it means something more.

To be insane or not to be insane.

To pretend I’m okay and that what I know is happening isn’t happening.

To be gaslit. To not be gaslit. To be and not be gaslit.

To be loved or not to be loved.

lying on the floor. I’ve come undone

Love & Fright

Auntie Mel