Portmantle

(written a few months to a year ago, edited this month)

When I tell people I have ADHD, sometimes I can tell what they now think they know about me

And to be honest, I’m sure a good chunk of it is true

I surround myself with only good people

And so they make the accommodations that they think I need

They’re patient with me because they know sometimes I run a little slow

They remind me about things that are important to us because they know things slip my mind sometimes

They forgive me when I’m distracted, speaking sentences that don’t make sense, running on and on and on with topics that have nothing to do with what we were talking about in the first place and its funny because I’ve never been a good runner, I used to get so embarrassed in last place in every school race but the popsicles were so good and my legs were so sore and I definitely didn’t wear the right clothes for this because the denim is rubbing at my skin in a way that I hate and…

And…

And…

And how cliche

An off topic poem about ADHD

And how cliche

Breaking the fourth wall to address myself breaking the fourth wall

Good god sometimes I hate my brain

//

Because to everyone else, its a cliche

Its a tired joke, just a little overplayed

They get it now, they get what I’m trying to say

But that’s not how it works for me

To everyone else, its a poem that you hear one day

Its a thought that only comes up when you’re around other people like me

But to me its a thing that I’ll never be able to escape

Like I said, I never really was much of a runner anyway

Its that one line from that one song in my head on replay

For the rest of my life, and I know I’ll never know out its name

And it haunts me before every test, every deadline, every night and every day

The thoughts that never stop, my internal monologue, I’ve lost track of what I actually wanted to say

I grew numb to my ideas after they bounced for too long around my brain

Like looking for a needle in a slightly modified cliche

I think I know how it’ll end, so I just drown out all the rest and next thing I know I have no idea where I am

My thoughts are a poem with an irregular rhyme scheme: so fast-paced and on beat until a line throws everything off

My good intentions get lost in between my run on thoughts

And suddenly, I’m the biggest asshole in this place

Missed four meetings in a week, I forgot that they existed, I wasn’t even late

I’d just been too numb for a while

Everyone’s blowing up my phone

To me, they’re all just words on a screen

Every personality interchangeable

Every relationship unsustainable

I apologize again for being unavailable

And the guilt is eating at me

I’m so sorry that I can’t be 

Everything I promised and everything you need

But you’re asking me to do for you what I can’t do for myself

How am I supposed to empathize with your emotions

When I drowned mine out so long ago

They kept running on and on until overwhelmed became my new normal

Like emotions turn into overlapping voices and white noises

And soon enough the vibrancy fades into grey

I spend hours thinking about what happiness means until I’ve wondered all my happiness away

I break the emotions into chemicals and neurotransmitters

The magic fades away as I explain

And I overintellectualize my feelings in the name of being sane

If there’s such a thing, I guess I always break the fourth wall of my brain

When I should be caught up in a moment, I decide to take a break

I turn to the audience and I pause the tape

Then I sit down and break down every side of every frame

Like why am I even happy right now?

Does this happiness even matter if it’ll soon go away?

What does happy even mean?

I wonder what chemicals are going off right now in my brain

What food should I eat to try to recreate this feeling?

Will I ever feel happy again in the same exact way?

What makes me so sure that this is reality, and not an illusion, a matrix, a fever dream

Am I even happy?

Is this even real?

Does it even matter if it isn’t?

So many questions, so many answers, so many constant debates

At first it was novel, I thought I was so mature

So proud that I could process my emotions

I know my parents never could

I guess that’s why I overcompensate

Because now I’m drowning in the emptiness of never knowing anything while its whole

Like being served a Michelin star meal, then rewinding back in time

I unassemble the sauces and uncook the meat

I go back to the farm where they harvested the vegetables and look at what they looked like when they were seeds

I unwash the rice and put the yolks back in the shell

And I eat all the raw ingredients and wonder why it tastes like fucking hell

Then I can’t help it, it becomes a habit

And now every meal is a deconstructed version of itself

It’s bland and void of magic

Just chemical reactions

Just molecules combined and heated and arranged on a plate

So I stop wanting to eat, then I stop wanting to sleep, then I stop thinking of things as real

Because they no longer feel real to me

Every time construct and deadline

As if a week matters in the Earth’s timeline

Bacteria had a millennia to evolve into more advanced bacteria

I have a week to click buttons on a machine until I write something that makes someone feel

And in my head, that someone is just a name on a screen

Why should I even try to please?

And here’s the thing

I’m good at writing, or so I’ve been told

Well actually, I’m not sure what qualifies good or bad anymore

How could someone be good at stringing together words and ideas?

Isn’t that just what thinking is?

Isn’t that just what being is?

Except you put it down on paper too?

I guess that’s besides the point

Sorry again for all the tangents

But anyway, here’s the thing

I’m good at writing, or so I’ve been told

First publication at 17, been getting published steadily since

People text me that they cry about the beauty of my words

And I was 21 then, I guess now I’m only 22

I’m just beginning and I feel myself on the brink of greatness

Learning to sift through the static and listen to the previously-drowned-out voices

Now, half of my thoughts are full of ambition

They see my worth and they keep pushing

They come up with ideas so brilliant, I would die just to see them

They see the world full of wonder, like its magical and new

And so many of my thoughts are just incredible, so I guess that means I must be too

But then the other half comes back just to cut me down again

And every brilliant idea is just a half finished project collecting dust under a table

Because I stopped thinking that my work mattered so I create a reality in which it doesn’t

It’s just meaningless like the rest of it

And now this ADHD isn’t just a distraction

Just impulses

Just a kid in a classroom who couldn’t sit still

It’s the thoughts that don’t stop coming about how life isn’t worth living

And happiness just means nothing

Its the reality that manifests from the thoughts

And I’ve become someone I don’t want

A shell of myself, fueled by passionless engine grease

Going through the motions because I’m always tuned out and I’m never at ease

I get to my destination and I don’t remember driving

I submit articles that I don’t remember writing

And sometimes I submit them weeks too late

What’s wrong with me

How am I supposed to keep a job or be a part of society?

I’m trying so hard to be everything because only being some things is boring and unchallenging

But being everything is somehow even more numbing

How does that make sense?

I don’t even know how to feel stress again

I tune it out with the voices and the importance and there goes my motivation along with my passion

God I had so much passion yesterday

How has it already faded away?

God I was burning so bright yesterday

How am I already fading away?

I’m flashes of light in a society that values steadiness

What do I do if I can’t control my inconsistencies?

I feel so bright, so brilliant, so shiny

I feel so dim, so dull, so empty 

I change my mind in the blink of an eye

I stop running when I’m inches away from the finish line

I couldn’t even tell you why

I’m the hare who lost the race

Got distracted, came in last place

And a million people who see my potential leave disappointed when I fall short of my previous credentials

I get people to believe in me then leave them wanting and waiting while I spent all my energy on just getting out of bed

And if they’re disappointed, just imagine how I feel

My track record discourages me 

I’m not who I set out to be

I’m just another case of wasted potential and bitter disgrace

And once again I circle back to how sometimes I just hate my brain

The guilt and regret

The insanity of trying to change something that wasn’t meant to be changed

Of running again and again and never finishing the race

Of making a bigger mess out of myself in the spirit of self improvement

And it’s so hard to place myself

And I’m so frustrated and I’m so disappointed 

All I ever do is inconvenience everyone around me

And people are kind but I’m scared of the ways I push them to the brink

How many unfulfilled promises can I make before unreliability becomes a part of my identity?

And all the people who I don’t owe any explanations to

All the people who I know wouldn’t understand

The people who are so functional that it makes my heart ache

I hate that they think so much less of me 

For all the things I could’ve been

All the ways I hold other people back

All the ways I hold myself back

People used to hate studying with me

I was always too distracting

What do you think it’s like to be in my brain

I’m stuck in this head and I’ll never escape

All the reasons people can’t be around me

Are things that equally frustrate and hurt me

But I have no control over the way I process things in my brain

I would kill to be able to pay attention

To make a friend and not ghost them

To be functional enough to make my dreams come true

But the looming clouds of failure start to creep up on me

They tell me all the things I’ll never be

Because how can I be successful if I can’t even remember to breathe

How can I be independent if I can’t take care of myself in the way that I need

I’m so fucking tired of unwashed dishes and unchanged sheets

Unfolded clothes left in a pile forever in a cycle of living room laundry

I move my messes from my bed to my chair from my front seat to my backseat, to my trunk if people are there

I leave my shoes and socks around the house I’m a fucking mess and I hate how

The initial reaction will always be that I don’t care

And I get it I get how it seems that way

What else are you supposed to think If I’m regularly twenty minutes late

Im irresponsible and I forgot because unimportant things slip my brain

But the truth is that I cared so much I hyperfixate

I spent too long just frozen because I was too imperfect to leave my house

So I spent too long on my makeup and even longer on my outfit

And just for good measure I stopped at the store before for an apology present

I just want to be perfect

And it makes me the farthest thing ever from it

As I uncommitted from my promises and constantly feel guilt for who I’ve never been

And it’s drilled into my head again and again and fucking again

That I could be incredible and never have anything to show for it

And on the flip side, I’ve seen the assumptions about my intellect, or even my ambition

People think I’m stupid because I can’t check a fucking calendar notification

Because I block everything out in extreme lacks of concentration

Zero track mind, zero track life

People think I’m lazy or just pitifully uninspired

I need everything repeated to me at least six or seven times

And some things don’t sink in no matter how hard I try

But sometimes I remember what a stranger was wearing 6 years ago on the 7th of July

I used to get As on every paper

Then twenty percent taken away because I submitted it late

I would take finals and have the highest grade

Then fail out of other classes because of too many missed deadline mistakes

My grasp on time and reality is so weak

And on paper it just looks like stupidity

But it’s just a lack of motivation and once undiagnosed ADHD

So when I tell people I have ADHD, it isn’t an excuse it’s a warning

It’s the disclaimer predecessor for my future apologies

So you know my heart is pure and my intentions are good and I can be intelligent I swear, but my brain is so so muddy

And please don’t try to fix me

With your planners and calendars and alarms

I know it’s well meaning but it comes off condescendingly

Best believe I’ve fucking tried everything

I don’t choose to be a mess, I just can’t fucking help it

I drown in kiddie pool depths but sometimes I swim better in unfathomable swallowing trenches

I have a complicated, not a bad, relationship with stress

When I tell people I have ADHD, I hope with my deepest desires that they see past the iceberg tip

I’m more than just an unfocused, squirmy kid

I’ve got a lot on my mind that I’m trying to simplify

And a lot more that I’m trying to complicate

So here is just a sliver of the thoughts constantly going through my brain

Just a few minutes of ramblings and wonderings and backstories to the chaos that I create

It’s my attempt to apologize for the embarrassing messes in my brain

And create understanding out of all the hate