by Madisen Kuhn
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this is for anyone who aches to feel understood.
for anyone who is aching to find some sort of connection in a world full of missed ones. i hope that you find reassurance in these pages. that they validate your own journey and assure you that you are not alone. that is all i could ever ask for. that my words make you feel something. that you read what I’ve written while navigating the confusing and windy roads of existence and feel that your soul has been met with understanding and acceptance. you and i, we are linked in love and the energy that steadily courses through the universe.
we are trying.
rough draft
you make so much sense
amidst the tangled vines of
learning and unlearning
please don’t go before i get better
sleep talk
i want to keep falling asleep to your voice till the world stops existing. i wish i could dissolve up out of my body and take a photo from above of me lying here, arms outstretched and duvet covering most of me except for a few strands of hair peeking out because then you could see how tired i am, i am so tired.
sunday, april 23rd
the panic begins at night
and it follows me through
the day,
anchors me to my bedroom
floor when everyone begins to
shut their doors and turn out their
lights
my ceiling doesn’t look like
a galaxy, or even just a
ceiling, it feels like a hand
lowering
itself, slowly,
until i’m stuck beneath fingernails
i change my sheets, bathe my dog,
it lingers inside my throat
my twin mattress feels like i’m
drowning in a bathtub
there are tan lines on my
shoulders where your arms should be
in my house, i’m not alone,
but when the moon is in the sky,
and my friends are in their beds,
and these incessant thoughts
are in my head,
i might as well be
landmark
nineteen has taught me a lot about being alone. i’ve listened to chvrches a lot these past few months. a lot when i’ve been alone—in my room, on the bus, in my car. tonight, i knew i’d be by myself since i was getting there late and it’s nearly impossible to find friends in dead zone music festivals. i don’t like being alone in public for the most part. it makes me nervous. but tonight was something i really needed. i let go of all my anxious thoughts and allowed myself to be in the moment. i danced in my overalls and chucks, surrounded by strangers who i knew didn’t care how ridiculous i probably looked (white girl cursed with no rhythm).
i was completely alone, surrounded by hundreds of people, consumed by music that i love, and it was so full. they played “tether,” which is a song i’ve been dying to hear live for a while now. it was amazing. i couldn’t stop thinking about how happy i was. a girl i didn’t know, whose friend was in a bear suit, came up and hugged me because she was “just so excited.” (thought this random pda was super cute even though it was probably drug- or alcohol-induced. whatev.)
it was a magic hour that made me feel so alive. it was a moment i didn’t mind being alone in.
i’m learning how to spend this time alone with myself. you begin to notice these moments: in your room, in the car, at the mall. grocery shopping, getting your cracked phone screen fixed, driving home for the weekend. it’s scary and new and weird. it can be hard, and it has been for me. i’d never really thought about how lonely these years could be. of course i’m surrounding myself with friends that i adore, but time spent alone is unavoidable. and being alone isn’t necessarily bad. it’s just a part of life. someone can’t always be there with you at the doctor’s office or in the bookstore line. i’m getting to know myself very well in these moments in time where the only company i have is myself.
i needed tonight. i needed to let go and not care who was looking. i needed to sing and jump and be happy. it’s amazing how music can do that: make life feel so much more real.
magnets
i’m in a constant battle with reality and pretend
with who i am, who i want to be,
and who i wish i could be
with picking up the pieces, painting portraits of some-
thing strong, something whole,
something to be proud of
and shattering crystal vases on wooden floors
while smiling, without blinking
with seeing just how far i can run away from myself
without forgetting myself
i lie in my bed, and i sip my tea
and it feels like the rain outside is going to
swallow me whole
and i’m happy
and i’m sad
and i’m panicked
and i’m trapped
and i’m everything
and i’m scared
and the sky is dark
blue and the night is
so dizzy
and so am i
and i’ve forgotten how to exist
alaska
you are not a hospital room
you don’t have to keep everything
pure-white and sterile
you are ugly red clay on the walls
covering up your bruises with
pink cotton-candy fluff and
bright yellow smiley-face stickers
that you saved from first grade
living out of your car
and calling it a slumber party; sleep-away camp
far away from the monsters beneath your bed
you don’t have to paint your cheeks
with roses, leaving out parts of you like
a mad libs story we played to pass the time
on long car rides to the coast
we can sit in silence
while the world around us buzzes
with all its uncertain chaos and
my soul will find yours
in the space that rests above
this mess of existing
when i want to be on your team
1. when we pass our exit in the dark
2. in a well-lit gas station parking lot three miles away from home
3. when you spend too much money on the claw machine
4. at midnight, fifteen people ahead of us in the walmart checkout line
5. my driveway, sitting in silence with the windows fogging up
6. twin beds
7. when you swear, but take it back
8. when i don’t take my own advice
9. freezing cold, looking at the sky, listening to someone talk about how god created the universe just to give us an existential crisis
10. morning breath
11. when you want to dance in front of the mexican restaurant
12. oversleeping
13. getting ready in ten minutes to catch the bus
14. shitty putt-putt on a monday evening
15. walking around old navy and realizing there is nothing for us here
16. a brown paper bag from
rite aid
17. when you remind me to wash my hands
18. when my shirt doesn’t match my shorts
19. sitting on a crowded sidewalk and remembering how to breathe
20. when i don’t know how. when it’s easy. when it’s hard. when you need me to be. always.
irises
i’m not sure how artists have the patience
to sculpt marble slabs into gods
or why they feel it’s worth their time
but i do know that
the nights i stay up until 3 a.m. are usually the worst
and the mornings i wake up at 8 a.m. are usually the
best
and that it’s worth the money to buy a decent mattress
instead of losing sleep on fiscal responsibility
and i feel grown-up having wrapping paper in my closet
and extra birthday cards in my desk
and i might always be crazy
always holding on to pieces of the past
tacking them to my bedroom walls
and pretending it’s okay that i still think about it all
but i won’t forget that some people are brave enough
to put on big white suits and fishbowl helmets and leave
their families to go walk on the moon
or that i flew on a plane by myself even though i was
absolutely petrified of being alone in the sky
or that spring exists,
and that winter cannot, and will not, last forever
astronomy club
i have a crush on a boy
but i’m afraid of hurting his feelings
because ever since late january
i feel like i don’t really have any myself
just logic to judge
no emotions to indicate
he says he needs to be careful with his heart
and being cautious may pay off in the end
you may end up with less
fingerprints and teeth marks on your ribs
but right now i have no interest
in anyone who doesn’t
want to let feeling consume them
to chase their impulses
into the dark, by the pond behind my house
maybe you should have kissed me
people over places
i’m realizing over and over again that life is about the people you share it with. the kind of people you just feel good around. the kind who make you feel whole.
new york by itself is just another city.
i know if i packed up all my things and cozied up in a tiny studio apartment in manhattan and kept to myself, it wouldn’t be enough. the city makes me feel so alive, but in huge part because of who i’m with when i’m there. it’s the people you get to navigate the subway with, eat brunch with, and browse overpriced ceramic and home goods stores with that make it so special.
i’ll keep coming back again and again, not just for the beautiful cityscapes, diversity, and endless possibilities, but especially for all the beautiful people i love who have found a home there.
new york city, forever in my heart.
half-awake
i always regret the nights i stay awake
for no reason at all
except to trace and retrace every fear
that lies awake on my chest
the evening grows closer to the sun
and more unproductive
c h o p p e d
into little bits where the light creeps in
a hazy glow, lost memories that are insignificant
and not much of a loss
down feathers scattered across an orange sunrise
and pillows piled on top of piercing silence
all i wish
is to be asleep
tucked into a dreamland
where nothing can excite me
i was happy
this was my life, and i was happy. i was happy with the security, with the consistency, with the repetitiveness of you and me. i was happy lying in your bed for hours. i was happy listening to you talk to your dog in the most ridiculous baby voice i’d ever heard. i was happy brushing my teeth with you. i was happy always holding your hand. i was happy driving hours to see you. i was happy listening to you sing, and i missed it when your voice began to fade. i missed it when you stopped kissing me like you used to. you used to make me feel like there were magnets inside my cheeks and behind your lips. you kissed me on the sidewalk, across the table in chinatown, in front of strangers. at first it made me shy, the way you didn’t care about where we were or who was watching.
you couldn’t stop,
and then you did.
you stopped doing a lot of things. i watched you slowly pale into something you didn’t like. you were so consumed by so many things, it felt like a chore to be consumed by me. and it was fair. and i understood. and i didn’t want to anchor you to something when you already felt like you were drowning. i guess sometimes we only know how to be partial versions of ourselves.
we sat in my car in your high school parking lot, ending things the same way we began them. i didn’t really cry until the end, moments before we both drove away. i sobbed and tried to catch my breath in between words that felt so small and so helpless and so desperate. i wasn’t ready to let go of you.
i mostly laughed because i kept looking at you and i couldn’t believe how much i loved you. how much i knew i’d always love you. i laughed because i was staring at my best friend, a person who held so many pieces of me, but it felt like i was looking at you through solid glass. like you were right there, but i couldn’t reach you. it wasn’t funny, really. really, what it was—the laughter—was a feeling that was so strong that it bloomed inside my stomach and forced its way out of my throat, like a shaken-up can of diet coke. i felt crazy. i felt alive.
at first i coped by thinking this was temporary.
us,
apart.
but as time went on, i realized that hopeful feeling was just that: a feeling. and feelings keep you up at night, and they make you feel sick when you’re perfectly healthy, and they lie. i didn’t want to convince myself of a false truth just to feel okay.
so i flirted with the idea of kissing a man with a mustache who was even older than you, and then i snapped back into the reality of how dumb of an idea that was. but it excited me. the thought of kissing someone else excited me, and i didn’t feel guilty about it. i kissed other boys in my head; i held their hands and bit their lips and laughed. i wanted to feel more, but in different ways than before.
i wanted to be nineteen. i wanted to be reckless.
i wanted to not care. i wanted to be more like you.
at three in the morning, i thought about the possibility of you twirling another girl’s hair between your fingers, lying in the glow and shadows of streetlamps that line the sidewalks of a city you helped me fall in love with, and i didn’t know why, no clue, but i felt okay.
i was happy. i was happy drawing circles on your back and dragging my nails down your tattooed arms. i was happy trying new things with you, things you knew i’d like even though i was stubborn, like lemon ricotta pancakes. i swear you always knew me better than i knew myself. you saw me in ways i didn’t know how to see myself yet. i was happy listening to you snore while i lay wide awake. i was happy hearing you talk about things that mattered to you, and realizing they mattered to me, too.
and maybe i’ll be happy letting myself tumble through the crashing waves, getting sand in my swimsuit bottoms and salt water up my nose, spinning around, and, despite it all, running back towards the ocean again. maybe i’ll be happy in blue eyeliner and ripped tights.
there are two lies that are very easy to let myself believe:
1. my heart is irreparable
2. my heart is indestructible
i refuse to be fooled by either.
nosferatu
i was sixteen, you were pretending
young and l
onely, someone else
my imaginary friend,
who was never really a friend
deep in the shadows, you lurk,
a memory that won’t repress,
you were a distraction
from my mess of a reality, a place
to freely feel, although it was ugly
a mess
apart from
a mess
one that was okay because
it didn’t really exist,
a black-and-white silent film,
spinning on the screen and then forgotten,
i could turn it off and it would
be gone, you would be gone, you are gone
but you were never really there,
and i lie here motionless
caressing the memories of a ghost
beginnings always seem better through rose-tinted sunnies
something i’ve recently discovered about myself (thanks to some external criticism) is that i am, in some twisted way, addicted to hurting. for whatever reason, i continuously search for things to hurt me. i expect the people i care about to always have some secret, cynical second layer of being hiding beneath their skin; a layer that does not care about me. i ask questions even though i know the answers will do nothing but get stuck in my head and come up again and again as they please, sharpened and ready to kill whatever sense of confidence or security i’m holding on to at any given moment.
i connected my external hard drive to my current laptop. i did this because my laptop has been saying the startup disk is full and i have no idea why, so i was just going to clear it and start fresh. funny, i wanted a clean slate, but instead i got stuck in the trenches of a year-old iphoto library, looking at old screenshots from the beginning stages of a relationship that’s currently wrapped up in a nostalgic little coffin.
you said:
i still think you’re incredible
come live with me
forever
please
and let’s just hug
