Please Don't Go Before I Get Better

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