An Overstayed Welcome
cover by Sarah Lyev
When making art, everything always seems to overstay it’s welcome. One draft, revision, take too many. Sometimes 10 too many. I feel like I am 10 months pregnant, like I ate a feast of gluten—like I felt like I was gonna shit my pants but then only a little pebble turd came out—like I was gearing up for a massive orgasm and blinked and missed it.
My book still isn’t done.
I submitted it with the wrong page sizes and now everything is alllll fucked up.
Tha’ts what I get for needing to submit during mercury’s shadow period for the upcoming retrograde—my retrograde. This fall one always hits me really hard because it’s the one that’s in my chart (though mine is in Scorpio) but I wanted the book out for October so…
Here I go again.
I’m so frustrated. When I realized what happened I was sick to my stomach. I can’t believe I made such a silly mistake. This book took me a year to write—I’d obsess for three months and then take three months off. It’s hard writing about trauma because you’re triggering yourself in this very undiluted way. Diving in. Going deep. I feel like my body is made of bricks.
These last couple weeks as I put on the finishing touches have been fun, easy, light!! I have read the poems so many times that they no longer feel like mine, I’ve become numb to the sting of them, of the memories. That’s why it’s been so healing. Looking at something so deeply insures that you’re releasing.
But the actual submission process?????????
HELL
It’s been hell.
Being autistic, paper work is my Achilles heel. I have no patience, no follow-through, no eye for details for it. It feels like sandpaper clothes, it feels like a too loud sound, like the disgusting bounce of jello in my mouth. UGH!!!!
I always have to do things twice or more, because I always do them wrong the first time.
I guess I should get used to this kind of thing. At least you only have to learn how to do something once. Next time I publish I won’t make this mistake. Just like I always ultra save all my documents because I’ve lost so many. Just like I always check to make sure I have my keys before I shut the door.
A week ago I was feeling like I just wanted to hold onto the book a little longer—to have it be a secret with myself for just a couple more days. Now I want it the fuck over with.
I guess that’s the beauty of an overstayed welcome.
