Like Candle Wax

I look to you and I see nothing. It's a skill I wish I didn't have. I can see your emptiness. So many years wasted trying to convince myself I was wrong and wishing I was. You're a skin covering with bad intentions, nothing more. You're a sheet of blackness in 3/4 time. You give waltzing a bad name; your ugliness takes something from it. Waltz and I have that in common. I can feel you mutating me on the inside - it's sudden, final and disconcerting. I look to you and I see nothing. Wasn't that a tv show called Q or something like that? A whole community or planet of people who were really lizards under their skin? I think I hated you for the lights you turned on in me. I still do. I'm not sure how long I hated myself after you. I don't remember feeling that so sharply then - as sharply as I did fifteen years later when patterns with the same kind of stealth, emotional bottom-feeder lizard energy revealed themselves.

I see you as the root cause event. Person. Schism. I look to you and I see all this and nothing.

I wonder if I look to you because it's easier than looking to myself. Well, it for sure is. Easier. This hatred has always been so strong, but it was always co-mingled with hatred for everyone around me, standing on the sidelines, looking but not seeing, clapping but not caring. Glittering beautifully but content to leave me alone in it as soon as the lights came down. I used to fear that moment as much as I looked forward to it - the moment the lights around the mirrors were unplugged, the moment we started putting things away - napkins, chairs - the time everyone's smiles melted from their faces like candle wax and it was time to go home.

🎧 Bring This Prompt into Your Own Body

The essay you just read began as a prompt inside the Body Writers Circle. We take our prompts from song lyrics and write whatever our bodies want to say. If your own body feels full or unsafe to exist in today, I invite you to try this gentle Body Writing™ practice:

Set the Mood: 

Get cozy, plug in headphones and sink into this week's featured song on Spotify.

Listen:

Close your eyes. Don't worry about the lyrics or what they mean intellectually. Just notice how the rhythm, melody and vibe affect your body. What do you feel opening up and coming forward?

Write:

Open your journal and write the opening lyric (I look to you and I see nothing.) at the top of your page. Don't try to match my writing; just notice: what does it bring up for you? What does it make your body want to say? Write for three pages – without editing, censoring yourself or trying to make your writing "good."

Why Journaling Alone Is Only the First Step

While practicing this alone can bring beautiful moments of connection and relief, trying to navigate your deepest, most intense stories alone is a big ask for a sensitive nervous system. When you're the only one holding the pen and the space, your inner critic takes charge easily, causing you to freeze up or pull back before finding the deeper medicine.

True somatic resolution requires co-regulation.

Which is why doing this work inside an ultra-intimate, zero-critique group of just 5 to 6 women changes everything. In the Body Writers Circle, you don't carry emotional weight by yourself. The shared presence of our tiny, trusted community holds space for you – allowing you to feel safe venturing into the depths your body needs without freezing or flooding.

If you feel a quiet, resonant yes to this, you belong with us. 

A new, founding member circle is opening soon. (June 2026)

Add your name to the waitlist here, for first access to a space. 💗