Collapse

Center Will Not Hold

I am ashamed by today’s writing. I’ve hesitated to publish for five days.

I feel like I’ve failed you – I committed to a biweekly publication; it has been eight weeks without publishing. I have exercises and spells to write – they are formed in my mind.

There has been no time to do the work of creating. I am drowning.

For awhile, it was the struggle to not smoke. It’s been six weeks since I bought cigarettes. I chased the state of calm in my bones like an obsession, forever missing the mark. I started hormones: they help, they’re not the total solution.

I thought it was my divergence: Trauma + AuDHD + Gifted writers tell me I could have decades of grief to feel for the life I could have had. I am someone who does their homework. Late diagnosis has its cost.

I thought it was the housework: the dinner, the laundry, the picking up. I embraced messy as a way of life.

I thought it was financial: wife and I agreed to take on a roommate, spent twelve weeks in negotiation with them, for it to fall through – just like happened about a year ago. I apply to higher-paying jobs every week. I have had a handful of bites, interviews scheduled, but no shiny solution. I park my car, consider selling it, subtracting one expense. It makes life with four people inconvenient but not inconceivable. I do take a short-term job. It’s supposed to net $1000 in about a month. It takes five months and pays out $847.

I thought it was my pressing need for autonomy, so I surrendered. I am not this body, I am not this appetite, I am not these problems, I am not my commute, my performance, my steps in a day. I do the eight brocades of Qi Gong in the morning to balance my chi with my environment. I surrender every day for months and months. This too shall pass. This too is sacred.

I thought it was social unrest, so I dug into racial and emotional justice. I began a weekly, yearlong writing practice led by a biracial Black therapist of identifying systems of domination in my life and my world and started writing myself toward the open sun of freedom and peace, though I am still deep in the forest of disentangling.

I acknowledge that most of this writing is to convince you of my merit. That I am deserving of rest, to find a different way to exist where thriving is possible. It is not you who needs convincing.

I am beginning to understand that we must create alongside the collapse. I feel the failure on its way. As an autist, I have collapsed so many times; meltdowns are sort of routine. The shame which follows is the slowest slog in recovery. This writing is a gesture to try and head off the shame. I have tried everything including magic to stabilize. I have asked for help from charities, from family, from friends, from churches, from state government. I have tripled my workload, intensified the expectation, raised the bar, denied myself reward, made it all so life-or-death. No savior is coming; the only salvation we have is each other. The save lies in building better. While I collapse. It feels impossible: hasn’t any time I’ve disintegrated felt exactly the same? I have had to confront the firm fact: there is no more overtime to promise, no more triple time for me. I’m exhausted. I have forgotten how to rest and digest, I deal with understimulation / overstimulation throughout the day, and white supremacy and capitalism have etched into me that these failings are a reflection of my inherent lack.

I have twenty years practice in the new world. Practicing with other non-conformists, non-monogamists, futurists, burners, feminists, kinksters, elders, farmers, beekeepers, lovers, artists. For me: it is time. It is time to step through to what my higher/deeper self has always known as home – the hive. I must have faith that the new world has space for me – that the collective has already widened enough for me to enter. Every single teaching, every drop of medicine shared by an elder in love, every breath exchanged in gorgeous union with a stranger, has been multiplied out for my immediate family, my community, my collective.

From philosophy to reality: if the pattern continues as it is, if I do not make $6,000 before the end of June, I will have to sacrifice the mobile home my mother left, relocate the family, make major changes. These changes may be necessary in the end, however my redundant/replacement systems are not yet up to snuff. I build every day.

Today I sit at a precipice of destruction and creation; chaos swirling ‘round. I feel the center of peace within me – I feed it, too. My roots descend; I have always been a child of the earth with friends and ancestors in the stars. My wife and I integrate more spellwork to our daily lives all the time.

This much I know: love. Love sits at the threshold of reincarnation, death, birth. Love. Nothing more profound or simple. Love pulls us incarnate. Love releases us back to the void/ether/everything. From love, we choose to return. I commit to creating from this only. Love of self, love of enemy, love of flora, fauna, kith, kin, above, below, within, without. There is only this: love.

I am offering trip sitting and in-person cuddling services, with LGBTQIA+ and neurodivergent clients preferred. I write spells for cheap. My artistic skills don’t feel ready for market yet, so for now, they are the grist in my soul. If this piece resonates for you, if you see yourself in this writing, if you’d like to step through to our next good thing together, please consider taking a step with this writing. Love it, buy me coffee, refer me to virtual work opportunities, send direct care via Venmo or Cashapp (@redtent, @deardakini), share with your feed, share beyond Substack into other networks.

Collapse
The Center will not Hold

Narratives of oppression embedded

Evasive, like whack-a-mole

I find one intersection of personal pain and oppressive system

Gear up to disinfect

Dig in

While I fight, I miss a hundred other pain points

Jaw tight with truth unspoken

Tightness of breath is

Unrest at solar plexus

Diaphragm feels stomach climbing through

Tight shoulders neck jaw

Echo the holding in my womb, my sex, my root

Throat and vagina interconnected, restricted

I remain upright enough for the 40 hr grind

I decline jobs that don’t offer health insurance but between

The hours I must work, the hours to rest, cook, keep house

Doctor visits are another expense, another errand

Found cheaper weed

Cheaper chicken

Cheaper (free) coffee

Free gym that I forget to use

But slowly

I weave the homestead into being

I feel it, I see it clearer every day

I breathe it closer

Even as I collapse

I use my honed skill to hold a soul (yours)

In my heart or my arms

While you

Transform

I grow, dry, grind mushrooms

I make medicated honey

Honey connects me to dad

We recycle old clothes to beeswax food wraps

I know my neighbors

We trade when we have extra to share

They are kind

We protect each other

We can afford medical care, food, and rent with a little extra for the future

We live slow

Gentle

Intentional

I see this future

Feel it in my bones

It is already here

As sure as I know this truth

I know

Rent is real

Hunger hurts

Part of me feels like I must perform my pain

Fit the trope

Tortured artist

I have been the

Perfect victim. “Good” single mom. Fallen woman. Other woman. One who leaves. One who’s left. Austere priestess. Wandering shaman bard. Seated guru. Workshop facilitator. Kitchen volunteer. Protest spokesperson.

Today I am simply human

Overwhelmed

The fractures in my systems are spiderwebbing to the core

I don’t know what’s after the big collapse

But I know

The center will not hold