Everything Will Be All Right

Picture of a dirt road with tall coniferous trees on either side that rise up into a blue sky. There are snowbanks on either side of the road. A glimmer of sunlight is visible on the right.

I said goodbye to my home when I was fourteen. As I sat within its walls for the last time, I received a message. The magic of that place spoke up and told my scared and broken heart that everything would be all right. I left my home and have carried its message with me ever since. I’ve often wondered what it really means as things certainly don’t always feel all right. As I grow older, I seem to get closer to an answer. This poem is my attempt to unravel and examine this old message.

Not “everything will be all right” as in nothing bad will ever happen, but
“Everything will be all right” as in your great-grandmother is watching.

As in you will have a roof over your head, even if that roof is always changing.

As in your support system will be small but strong.

As in the moon will provide for you.

As in the tarot will warn you.

As in the ground will lovingly hold you.

As in you always have your breath to come back to.

As in you will come further into the vastness of your queerness.

As in a stranger will find you crying alone in a laundry room.

As in you’ll be pushed far but somehow never past where your limits actually are.

As in there’s a mix of chaos and reason in everything.

As in you will always have your writing.

As in you will unfailingly hold the sacred right to question.

As in you will get yourself away from him.

As in you will do whatever you set your mind to.

As in you will build the life your young brain dreamed of.

As in horrible things will absolutely happen, and you will survive them.

As in you have been given this life for a reason.

As in you’ll live for as long as you’re meant to.

As in you’ll draw pentagrams on your body to protect you.

As in you’ll read books like your grandmother used to, like she wanted to.

As in you will certainly not get all that you want.

As in you will eventually have all that you need.

As in everything makes sense even if it’s not comprehensible.

Not “everything will be all right” as in nothing bad will ever happen, but
“Everything will be all right” as in everything will be.

This House

This house is breathing its warm breath. That’s why we live here. It’s symbiotic. We entertain it, provide it with life, and it breathes its warm breath in the winter and shelters us from thunderstorms in the summer. We laugh with this house. We love this house. It loves us back, as it’s done for decades. We won’t be here forever, however, but it does not know this. Like a dog, this house does not know time. Everything is always. Everything is all at once. Nothing starts and nothing stops. That means it has no trouble moving on from one guest to the next. It transitions well. It will be okay, this house. It will keep breathing its spell.

I’m Tired of Dates

Photo of a tree trunk shot from below going up into a blue and cloudy sky. Branches are naked except for a few leaves. Branches from a coniferous tree are visible in the top left corner.

Content note: this piece contains several references to the COVID-19 pandemic.

On our pandemic date, we walk with masks around a snowy park. We run into an old teacher of yours and make polite conversation. Then we fall into the snow. It takes us on our separate paths. Our trains pull into different stations. We’re looking for something we won’t find here. Not at this time, not in this place, not with each other.

I try to find easier ways of doing things, but nothing gets any easier. I am exhausted. I haven’t stopped working. My wrists ache from typing. My days off aren’t that at all. Sometimes, I think about giving up this way of living and pursuing what I love. I think about it abstractly because abstract is better for fantasy. When I try to pin down the details, they flutter away. These butterflies are alive. They can still fly.

I still don’t know what kind of writer or what kind of person I am. I want to read a book called The Courage to Be Disliked. I want to be courageous. I want to publish my book, but I’m terrified of putting my story out there. It’s painfully vulnerable, and I don’t know if I could stand having it picked apart. I need to figure out how to separate myself from my story. Can that be done?

I watch another trans person come out and I almost cry several times. I think about voice training again. I think about binding. I think about growing my hair out. I think about cutting it off. It’s good I’m not trying to access healthcare right now. I can rarely get a hold of my doctor.

The routines I create save me and crush me simultaneously. The rules are necessary, and I hate them (but also not really).

My house has a big window, and the man who builds my shower tells me I need curtains to keep warm. Blankets, even, if I can find them. I buy shower curtains at the grocery store. Nothing else is open.

I say when the pandemic ends and my date says if. I should text them, tell them I’m not cut out for this. I’ve tried. Trust me, I’ve tried.

I find meaning in everything, and I am usually wrong about what things really mean.

Identity is troublesome and fleeting. Identity can be expansive or reductive. Identity can be as hard to pin down as a live butterfly and as painful. Why are you trying to pin this poor creature? Why am I?

I talk to the gods almost every morning. It’s helping.

I play music in the background to make my writing feel more profound. I have never done mushrooms alone. I want to. I am curious and afraid. They would give me a way to go somewhere without having to travel anywhere.

I’m tired of these kinds of dates: of glowing screens, video chats, and socially distant walks. Even without the restrictions, however, I think I’d still be tired of them. There’s something distinctly unromantic about dating.

Time is a precious resource and it bleeds out of everything. I’m trying to hold time in a cheesecloth. I bought margarine because butter is hard and because butter runs out. Margarine is, apparently, not good for you. Frankly, I don’t care.

I’m tired of dichotomies. I’m tired of routines. I’m tired of typing.

I begin in pieces, in parts. I begin where my date ends. I begin in motel rooms. Cheap, seedy motel rooms that are surprisingly clean. I begin to write, to really write, and I begin to feel better.

The Knowing

Most of the photo is black. There are a handful of faint lights in the centre left of the image.

Content note: this piece contains abstract references to trauma.

Sometimes, you want to stay in the dark because the light is too much to take. Sometimes, you choose the dark. Sometimes, you say no to new information. Yes, even in the information age. Yes, even in the disinformation age. Sometimes, you say no. Sometimes, you go for solitary walks at night. Sometimes, you don’t respond to messages. Sometimes, you choose to be alone. Sometimes, you just don’t want to know.

You’re tired of knowing. You wish you could know less. You wish you could go back to knowing less because you know the regret of knowing. When given the option, the choice, sometimes you say no to more knowing. Sometimes, you say yes to the dark and you slide slowly into its embrace. It’s safer here. It’s quieter. It hurts less. You can tend to your scars here, rub the raised skin with lightly-scented oil. You don’t need any new gashes. Not yet, not now, maybe not ever.

Your friends may not understand. Aren’t you curious? They’ll ask. I’d be curious. I couldn’t stand not knowing.

I know enough to know I won’t be able to stand knowing more. I’ve known too much. I’ve known too much too young. I’ve had too much knowing. I want to unknow. I can’t do that, but I can say no to more. I can exit the conversation. I can leave the letter on the floor. I can put down the phone. I can go for a walk in the dark. I can fade into the peace of night. I can dwell in the peace of not knowing.

Please, let me stay here. Please, don’t share any more. I can’t take knowing more. And of what I have, I plan to… if not let it drain away, at least let it fade. Let it fade so it doesn’t hurt so much. I will always have this knowing, but I can choose, now, how much more to take and what to do with what I have.

I choose to leave the pages untouched

and

I choose to say no

and

I choose to let this knowing fade.

Searching

Painting hanging in a tree of an abstract, orange crying face with the words, "There is so much pain and nothing I do will stop it." written on the forehead. Blue tears in the background. Around the painting, many naked branches, a greyish sky, and snow on the ground are visible.

I have been so many places, so many people. I have been with so many people. What does it say that I am still alone? Maybe I found my person, maybe I already found them, and what I did was simply fail to be with them. Maybe I can’t look anymore. Maybe I’ve already found what I’m looking for and I just don’t know it.

And so I am a lost soul, a soul lost, lost and searching. What could I possibly still be looking for? Under every rock, in every crevice, all over the earth, Sage is searching, searching for what they’ve already found, searching for someone else, searching for themselves. Under every rock, in every crevice. When will I know that I’ve found it? When will I stop? When will I settle under a rock?

It’s painful, this searching, this wandering. This insatiable loneliness is consuming. This desire to be desired, to find desire. Love can soothe this ache, can make it stop, but only for a little while, because the reality is that love isn’t enough. Love isn’t enough to fix this, this emptiness. Love is flawed, and what I’m looking for is flawless, and what I’m looking for doesn’t exist…

But I don’t know how to stop looking for it.

I’m afraid, while I do, that I will cast off everything that is good, everything for this mission of mine, this mission to find something I’ll never find. Perfect something, perfect nothing. It’s perfectly nothing. I’m perfectly fine.

Aren’t I?

Why am I searching, and when did I start? I don’t know how to let go of this expectation that life owes me this thing, this thing that I am never finding, that I will never find… That maybe I’ve already found, already found and let slip through my fingers.

I’m grasping at everything, but holding onto nothing. My fingers are flippers. They’re wet, they’re slippery. I’m grasping, grasping, grasping… It’s ridiculous, really. I can’t see my true nature. I’ve never looked in a mirror. There are no mirrors here. I am alone, alone in a sea of others, alone all by ourselves. Alone, together, searching, grasping, slipping, wanting.