Left my laptop in the car, now I write frozen words. My palms stick to metal beneath. Sheets of ice underneath tufts of snow. This is Minnesota. It will teach you how to live slow.
My words fall frozen from a precipice and
Break. Glass breaks like chunks of ice floating down the Minnesota Mississippi.
I feel my life closing in on me. My life hasn’t even started and I feel it’s closing in on me. I feel stuck. I feel hopeless.
Too many excuses. I’m making a lot of excuses. I haven’t been hard enough on myself. I haven’t had the energy. I’ve felt like I’m falling apart. More like fraying at the seams. A slow undoing.
Every winter is hard
But
This winter is hard
I’m not sure if it’s harder
Or if it’s just
Hard.
I’m tired of everything. I feel defeated. I don’t have the energy to ____ in the _______ anymore. I feel like my motivation has been sapped of me. I know I’m supposed to feel bad about that but I don’t. Which is troubling.
I guess
I’m in a winter mood
And I can’t find a way to get
Unstuck
I feel nonlinear.
Up and down,
Not side to side.
It’s not the end of the world. I came to this coffee shop today hoping to write 25 pages or something close to it. I really thought I could do it.
And then I found out I wasn’t eligible for the prize I wanted to submit to because I’m not a member of their stupid little organization. So now I’m resigned. I feel defeated. I came here angry and now I’m defeated.
I don’t know what’s wrong with me.
I used to have so much love for this.
I used to get so much more from this.
I can’t write like I used to. It just won’t come out. And I don’t know what writing means to me anymore.
Or what my writing is.
And not knowing is killing me.
I can’t find the beat. I’m defeated. Ok. I’m tired of saying that. I’m angry. I’m mad.
I’m mad.
I’m not crazy but I am crazy. I don’t feel like anything is coming from my words. I hate this song. I very much dislike this moment in my life.
So what’s the point of writing if I don’t get anything from it?
I want to quit. I want to give up. I want to cry.
This is too hard. And this is a new type of hard. I don’t know what I want or need. But I feel terrible. And I get this lingering sensation that something needs to be written.
That I should be writing.
That I need to be doing something, anything, other than laying around. Staying at home all day isolated. Stuck in my thoughts. Alone and afraid.
Scared and alone.
I used to smoke a ton of reefer, when I could afford it.
It made me forget how I felt. It helped me escape.
I wish I could escape right now. I feel so stuck. Everything seems predetermined. And it is.
But every decision I make feels inevitable. Like my life is going through the motions. I’m going through the motions while watching my life go through the motions of a life. My life is playing itself out and I feel powerless to change course.
Everything I do feels like I’m moving in quicksand. That no matter what I do, I’ll still be stuck and sinking further, so what’s the point?
This is depression, but worse. This is depression that seeps deep. This is a soul-crushing sadness. It is heavy. It is blue like the color of my clothes. It is blue like the black under my eyes. The heavy eyes. The slow gaze. I stare, I stare, I stare and don’t know if I’m really quite here. I swear.
I’m in my own time zone. Maybe that explains why I can’t wake up for fajr, I mean, even if I’m awake for fajr, I can’t get out of bed for fajr. It’s not just fajr, I can’t get out of bed for an hour or more on any given day.
I am sunken. I can’t find a way out of this hole. I have been trying for weeks and weeks and weeks and it seems I only grow more weak by the week. Every time I reach, I feel my strength evading me.
So I guess the question becomes am I a weak Muslim or am I just depressed? Is my depression an excuse that I’m using to not fulfill my obligations? Or is there a combination of things going on? I try not to think about these things. I try to find comfort in the words of Allah. I used to cling to the Quran. I don’t know what is wrong with me. I wish I knew how to help myself.
This beat makes me want to cry. It sounds like teardrops falling into my ears. Like my own tears are falling from the sky, and I open my mouth to catch what I think is rain, until I realize the rain drops taste familiar. They taste like my own tears. They taste like the tears of a laughing clown.
I feel let down by my community, I feel hurt. I feel like I can’t put up with their hypocrisies anymore. I can’t stand to be around Somali people because it is an inherently traumatizing endeavor. I can’t be the one who always speaks out, and I very rarely do, because it’s hard enough for me to speak for my own needs, let alone those of my community.
Funny black, I would’ve let you have it if I thought you need that. What? I want my happiness back. Summer sunshine back.
Won’t you love me, black? Love me and I’ll love you back.
So tired of walking on ice, slipping on glass. So sick of these Minnesota winters. It’s all I can do to keep going instead of running away. From everything, even myself.
I’m even sick of the words I write. They are all compressed, stuffed into one another like cheese-stuffed crust.
I’m sick of eating pizza for lunch everyday.
I’m sick of feeling sick and helpless and hopeless and I know I’m supposed to at least try to force myself to have more hope, no matter how much it hurts, but
I can’t manage to do that.
I try not to guilt trip myself.
I try to get myself up.
I try, and I’m trying, and I guess what I’m looking for is an answer to questions I don’t fully understand myself. I’m looking for answers to questions that I can’t quite form within my mouth.
I’m looking to stay away from paragraphs.
I want line breaks.
I want space.
I want to feel free.
I want to breathe.
I want my words to help me breathe. I want to keep breathing, meaning: I want to live. I don’t care about critical writing, I don’t care about carefully crafted essays. I don’t have the energy for that right now. I don’t care if you think I’m crazy or need help. I don’t have the energy to care about what you think. Not right now. I just want to feel better. I just want each day to be less of a struggle. It feels like I have to push the weight of the world off my chest just to get out of bed. I’m considering sleeping on the floor because it might be easier than rolling out of bed.
I miss my duffel bag boy days. Walking around White Center with a hookah in my backpack. Gurgle gurgle as we smoked that. In case of emergency, smoked that. Broke glass.
All is not without hope. Earlier tonight I saw an old lady walking in the snow. Every step she took was deliberate. As if she had memorized where it was safe to step. As if she could see the frozen patches of ice hiding beneath the fresh dusting of snow. This is Minnesota, either you find a way, or you go.
Either you make a way for yourself, or you die crying in the snow.
This is Minnesota. It ain’t nowhere to go.