coin insouciant I have held with me a lucky coin since i was old enough to keep something in my pocket. When I learned about the difference between heads and tails I would run my fingers along the faces of the coin with my eyes closed to see if I could tell which side was witch. This became a soothing habit of mine whenever I needed a tactile stress reliever. One that I continue to this day. I began to flip the coin when I developed the dexterity, and used it to help me make decisions when I was unsure. I learned about probability, the likelihood of outcomes if I extended the rules of a decision out to multiple flips. I found out quickly how many decisions in life essentially come down to chance. But now the coin is so worn from touching it when I am stressed that both sides have lost their markings. It is now simply a metal disk scarred with random scratches of when i missed catching the coin in a flip. I can no longer use it to help me make decisions and without any features it is not soothing. It has no use to me, but I can’t let it go. 220918 ... tender_square he is letting me go back home with conditions, namely that i don’t file, that we take more time. he says he’s getting “out of the way,” leaving me the space to figure out what the familial pull is. he thinks i have unconscious business i need to work out with my father, that how i view him is being projected onto our marriage. but i have no illusions with how i see both men; i know who they are. is it intuition that guides me back to the city of my birth or is it fear? on the surface i know i am powerless and unnecessary. i can’t fix anything or contain the chaos when i myself am close to spontaneous breakage. he wants to be my refuge from the maelstrom; “i know you,” he says. “i know how important your relationships are.” he tells me that i’m talented, that he worries those gifts will be scarified on the altar of family trauma. it'd be wrong for me to pretend it doesn’t agitate my thoughts. last night, my sister went into an involuntary psychiatric hold after drug seeking at a pharmacy. in the days preceding, she was guilting me into seeing her following a relapse, arguing that she cannot find peace and sobriety while our family is broken, when she’s one of the many reasons why we’re fractured. i am preparing to leave in three weeks’ time, give or take, taking my clothes to last the winter and spring, attempting to build a life that is my own on the site of so much wreckage. i can’t know if i’m a fool on a worthless errand or a seasoned warrior trained for what this next difficult phase of life deals out. 220927 what's it to you? who go blather from