two poems about intrusive thinking
what if there is no meaning? / what if i’m just a crazy little girl / who creates her own suffering
stuck
a thought crosses my mind stops in the middle of the street holds up its hand makes me slam on the brake. i know this feeling well i’ve been here before and this time it’s not dangerous or scary or mean or even that bad but it’s there and it wants to stay the windshield fogs up and it’s the only thing i can see as the cars around me continue to move. go away go away go away i say Lord, help me let go because if i don’t this moment will be a blur and i don’t want that i want to remember i want to see what’s around but all the sight and the sounds are muffled by this noise that is so, so loud my mind is a broken cassette player that just keeps skipping and every time i inch forward and the glass starts to clear and i begin to feel the pedals under my feet it comes back and i am stuck in traffic. there is a sunset tonight my friends tell me all about it because all i can see are faded colors through a foggy window. the thought finally leaves it’s had its fun it’s time to go home but now it’s dark and the road is empty and i’m alone.
spiral
my brain is broken, it must be because even the brightest memories are shaded by the thoughts i couldn’t shake until they spilled into my veins and made me break and it’s so irrational it’s such a stupid thing but i can’t stop crying and i can’t stop thinking and suddenly i don’t want to be alone i need to feel known but i am also so afraid to pull back the shades and let someone see all these scattered parts because what if they can’t be put back together? what if there is no meaning? what if i’m just a crazy little girl who creates her own suffering — or a child fixating on what is familiar and known on anything she can find that feels like home but then the rug is pulled and she feels exposed because the thing she loved is filled with holes (it’s a good thing, but it can’t love her back; it makes her happy but it can’t fill the crack) and she doesn’t know where else to go to make her feel safe so she curls up in bed and starts to pray and slowly, slowly the light comes in and she hears a still small voice and with the softest amen she rises to her feet so tired and scared but she takes the first step towards being repaired.
author’s note
Both “stuck” and “spiral” were written early in 2021, and both were attempts to describe the thought spiral I’d been caught in two nights before: an experience that catapulted me into three of the darkest weeks of my life as I confronted a part of myself I’d refused to look at too closely until I had no other choice.
It’s hard to describe what it’s like to experience intrusive or obsessive thinking. Even those who have experienced it in their own ways may not be able to understand the way it manifests in my brain. (And vice versa.)
But I was falling apart on the inside, and I had to unearth some of the debris before it buried me alive.
So I opened up my Notes app and did my best to describe what the inside of my mind looked and felt like on the evening of January twelfth. “stuck” was an attempt to capture the desperate pain of being in a moment so beautiful and full of joy, only to have that joy snatched from under your feet by your very own brain.
“spiral,” on the other hand, describes the aftermath of that experience. I began to remember all the other times, all the other memories and moments that have been clouded by a storm of thoughts I couldn’t control. I grieved them, and I grieved how isolated my mind often made me feel — how I could be in a room full of people experiencing the same thing together, and still feel like I was utterly alone with my thoughts.
And then, finally, I made the choice to tell someone about it. To drag these fears, kicking and screaming, from their home in the darkness and thrust them into the Light.
And that has made all the difference.
