Things are really, really shitty right now.

You know what? Things are really fucking shitty right now. They really are. I mean for all of us. And I think we need to be saying the scary shit out loud more, for and with and to each other. My closest friends are dealing with some of the scariest and hardest things known to humankind. What the actual FUCK? But we all know people who are fighting battles, breaking, being, dying. And the world just drops in chunks around us like ceiling tiles in an earthquake.

And yes, there is beauty, of course. Andrea Gibson, one of the most famous poets in America, posted a lovely essay this morning about the things they love, and it was so simple and beautiful and pure:

They have a terminal illness.

It’s just all so goddamn much, all the fucking time. (Say it with me. Because it feels good to say it out loud.) So here’s another motherfucking picture of a goddamn fucking cat. May Clarence’s little head on his giant body send radio waves out to the cancer and brain chemicals and uncertainties that are hurting the people I love and push them all (the pain not the people) into a cauldron of a fire so hot the only things left are survival and a flower.

Before you say, “I’m sorry you’re going through this,” know that this isn’t about me. It’s about all of us, seeing each other’s pain and struggle, and showing up however we can. Send the cat meme, the silly selfie, the thinking of you, the yo where you been, the hey you need a ride want some company have plans for dinner. Don’t sit there wishing they’d ping you first; if you miss them, smash that motherfucking send button and say the fuck hello.

No one is coming to save us; we learned that (again) today. So we have to save each other. Hold hands. Make art. Scream your bloody head off. Cry. Like, a lot. Let that shit out, even if it’s only making room for more shit. Be brutally honest about what you can and can’t do, about what you want, about all of it. Hoard your spoons and buy that bauble because all of this is just really, really shitty.

Maybe Clarence’s tiny little head with its ridiculously big cheeks can save us after all.