UnkindlyYours

HOME

I grew up with a very big and a very loud family in a very small home. I remember hating it and how much anxiety I felt that I never got peace, and I REALLY never got quiet.

It didn’t help that my family had family, and we always took in strays: stray people, stray friends, and stray pets. Taking in strays became something I grew to love and be proud of— I love, and the people I love, love others, and so on.

***

The World around me is mine and I am Hers. Creating the illusion of collaborative belonging, even though it felt like the world always seems to have a one up on me.

***

Still, I couldn’t wait to grow up. I couldn’t wait to move away and leave. Leave the many, and the loud, and the world I knew it to be at the time. I wanted to have my own space and my own place. Somewhere to call mine, and I would love this place, and call it Home.

Home would have Books, and Pets and Loved ones. I would decorate Home how she deserves, and she would be lived in, and loved. this time it wouldn’t be an illusion of but a conscious combining of everything we have to offer each other.

And My Home, she would be where I found my peace and quiet.

***

In the dark, hidden where no one could find it, was home. At least that might have made me feel better about how long it took me to find Her. Home was there waiting with that same inviting warmness I longed for, she welcomed me in and gave me fresh coffee and a snuggly blanket.

My home before, the one that wasn’t home, its still there. With the same loudness, and the same passion, and there is less anger and less fear, and over time there has become less me in that home.

My Home is beautiful. More remarkable and astonishing than one could imagine. She has Books, and Pets, and People – so many people. Home inviting still, now filled with joy. The home I yearned for and the home that I left, maybe they belong the to same belonging.

The “me that I used to be” craved a home that offered serenity and peace, and that “me,” the one that no longer exists, would be shocked to learn that Home, should be loud, with music and joy and laughter, and the quiet is in the knowing looks of the people, My people, for the me that I am now.

and when the me that I am, becomes the me that I will become, there will always be home to found, if you let yourself look. and maybe, just maybe that’s enough.

well anyway, guess I’ll live

unkindly yours,

A. J. Mercer

May 21, 2026

belonging, family, home, life, longing, love, mental-health, writing
Someday .

And maybe one day I will wake up

and maybe I won’t want to die,

tears will stop rolling down my face

and I will get up to go see outside

***

If the whole world really did end

could you find me in other life times

You really ought to smell the flowers

and open your eyes to night sky

Beause I will find you in the starlight

and we will go dancing on moon beams

***

You won’t have to travel to Boston

and forget that your home isn’t Austin

You’ll finally see just how I smile

and we can then laugh for a while

And lovers will mend your heart broken

Then we will all live and go floating

I have etched in my soul your bright smile

And use your eyes as a reference you know

To remind me Your green is the gold

***

And when I drip into the water –

and it turns into pink from maroon

I hope it’s the shade of your cheeks

the first time that you knew you loved me

***

And when I’m no longer your sunshine

You go surf the waves for day

Find me in the light on the water

When even your blue skies turn grey

***

Now I am broken no longer as your freckles they rest in my hand

And it was never just hot sauce

but a lesson in love learned too late

***

So anyway, I guess I’ll live.

Unkindly yours,

A. J. Mercer

May 19, 2026

hopeful romantic
So Anyway, I guess I’ll live

Well, anyway.

Something shifts in your brain when you decide you’re going live.

Not because you weren’t allowed to before, but now, now that you’ve given yourself the permission you didn’t think you needed, something is different.

You’re still sad, depressed, lonely, angry- whatever feeling you’d like to assign to yourself. But now the only option is to live.

It’s not that I want to live or that I don’t want to die but that death in the way I’d imagined for so many years was going to be different.

Something switched in my mind and I don’t know when, how or why, but one day I went to say how miserable I was and that I was ready end it, and what came out was “guess I’ll live”

And now instead of putting a concerted effort into not dying, it’ll go towards trying to live.

And I’m so angry about it. I’m angry because what am I going to do now? I always had an escape route and now I don’t. Now I HAVE to go THROUGH it? Buddy I’ve been “going through it” my whole life. How is this any different?!

I don’t know. But I do know that it’s the only option I’ve got now.

So anyway, guess I’ll live

Unkindly Yours,

A. J. Mercer

May 18, 2026

HOME

Someday .

So Anyway, I guess I’ll live