Orchestra of pain

I wanted to hurt myself yesterday.

I did not.

I like to think that is progress.

I can see the dark. And part of me does not want to stand anymore. I want it to envelope me so that I can't see, hear, feel anything.

If I have a soul, at least part of it is dying. Dissolving into particles that twist and scurry in the winds of panicked breath, a heartbeat tripping on its own feet, dizzy. My throat hurts. My head hurts. My chest hurts. My arms hurt. My legs. All of me.

This is too much to bear. I want to love and be loved. I want to be alive. I want contentedness to be punctuated by happiness and joy. Sunlight. Music. Laughter.

I want to lay in the grass staring up into a canopy of trees rustling in the breeze. One hand on my heart, one hand in theirs. Quiet. Smiling. ALIVE.

I am so far from this dream there is physical pain.

Orchestra of pain.

Vague war

There is a tremendous war inside of me.

I am tempted to destroy everything I know about Chance.
Good. Bad. Semi awkward. Embarrassing. Endearing. Obnoxious.

Then I'll throw my heart into a knapsack flung over my shoulder. To keep it from burning a hole through my spine which I need to stay standing.

In my fantasy, I just walk away. Toward a new life. In another place. Other people. Maybe become a hermit that wanders, a new brand my family has yet to produce. Slash and burn agriculture that shit.

But I'm startled at what interrupts my daydream.

I don't hate Chance enough to destroy her or what she's become. Actually, I am beginning to like her a little bit and at least accept her emotional and so called right brained ways. Even as she makes questionable choices. I've got to give her that space. That freedom to live and fail and love.

Willow & oak

These talks are useful in that they provide more information. 

These talks are draining in that they open up all the wounds. 

Also. Information.

A part of me wishes that I could just give him the answer he wants right now. Because I love him. I hurt for him. And frankly I've always been a lover, a pleaser, a caregiver, a gentle truth teller. 

The willow tree that bends herself into water for the winds.

That's what my mother told me, "Better to be a willow that bends in the wind than a rigid oak that snaps in the storm."

My hard lesson: Even willows can snap. If they bend long enough, far enough.

There is a sweet spot. A balance. Somewhere between willow and oak. He is more oak than willow. The oakiest oak. So I responded by being the willowiest willow. 

And now here we are.

I no longer wish to be so willowy. And while validation from interaction with others is pertinent to any human being's lifelong development of self (because that shit doesn't end until you're dead in the ground/urn), I no longer want to define myself in relation to others. It's difficult not to overstep there because we rely on the existence of others for our sense of relativity. Yet, it's unhealthy to compare one's self to another whose experiences and genetics are unique to them. It's so delicate finding that right line, right spot.

I know better now why it was so easy for me to wade into the deep end of letting others define me. That base definition never completed for me during formative years.

And then, I threw myself into situations that prevented me from completing it on my own. Until now. 

I am not saying that I didn't develop further or gain definition over time. I've only inadvertently hindered it.

So, here I sit. Typing away into this screen. Thinking about the walk I want to take. The art I want to make. The space I want to create. 

I'll start by going to see if the lake isn't too crowded for a jog/walk.

Dying

I'm dying tonight. All the words. The promises.

Too tired to fight.

My heart is breaking. What do I do?

My stomach is twisted.

I fell asleep for an hour. From the talk and a beer. Woke to an email storm and an old photo of me, bare breasted. It doesn't even look like me anymore.

But the eyes are the same. Just younger.

Why does it have to be right now? Yes or no? 

"Let it come and let it be."

"Let it come and let it be."

I've grown too much anger in the garden to want to return with any certainty.

I wasn't sure where it came from, but it is rampant here.

I  didn't call it a weed. I can't bring myself to call it that because all emotions in the garden are relevant. They have voices and personalities. They tell stories. They are all alive and worthy of knowing - even the difficult ones.

I am basking in the wandering. A necessary distraction and cautiously accepted unrooting that will ironically bring me focus, clarity.

Each day, the self doubt persists, but my belief in its validity increasingly wanes, replaced with a compassion and understanding that trumps all else.

There's that ex-shaman voice, playing again. She says:

"Show yourself the compassion you show others. Your capacity to love is powerful. Be a lover to yourself, as you would to those you care deeply about. There is beauty in your humanity. You often deny yourself the gift you give others. Care deeply about yourself.."

So heavy

It's so heavy.
I want to hermit away.
But I can't lift myself today.
This is much too big for me.

"You can do it, little one. Shhhh. Take your time. You will one day run wild on beachsand at night, lighting your trail with fire and flickers and orange from your very own torch."

Try Me

That's the third person to name me an emerging butterfly.

Cliche - but cliches hold because they are power. Archetypal.

I exist between two selves. Floating, head turned to one side, eyes seeing everything, comprehending only a drop in infinite ocean. Armspan stretched, fingertips brushing the old dimension and the new. No ground to traverse - everything here takes flight, propelled by their own lifeforces across expanse.

Two realms at my hands. I'm in a third space. Undefined. I could break apart at any moment.

I am so frightened, so vulnerable out here. I can see the stars being born. It brings tears to my eyes. Maybe they fall, crystallize and become part of the new universe here, in the third space.

There is a voice in my head that tells me my fragility and fear are strengths. That they are the capacity for creation and bravery. I want to cry because I never believed that to be true. That I was worthy of such beauty, and life.

 Inherited thought prisons latticed in to my heart, around my throat, like:

• My voice is not important because.....
• I have nothing of worth to share or say. 
• I have no story or substance. 
• I may as well have never been born.
• I barely exist.
• I am unwanted here.
• So I want to be dead somehow. 
• I am a violation of space, of humanity. 
• I am a mistake, therefore I am invalid.

I  am so scared. I write. So much fear. I listen. I fight to survive. To make it to the other side. I am not graceful or artistic about it.

I'm unrefined, wild, and unbalanced but I try to take it back to patience, self love, compassion, acknowledgment, safe space for the little girl who never knew these things.

Maybe there is a beauty in the wobble and the wild. Maybe I can embrace her in this third space, lavish her in kisses, tell her how precious she is, encourage her to put effort and heart into everything she does because even though she's afraid, every one of us is. Normalize her human condition so it becomes integrated instead of something distasteful to resist or shame.

"Try me", said the disc. I'm trying.

Generate

"All of the love we generate, the only thing that carries me on. There's nothing we need that it can't create."

The past week feels like a month.

I am ever hopeful that the aging I've felt in that time isn't showing on my face, weighing on my posture too obviously. I have been lucky to have loving and consistent support. I did not expect it. Even though I have also intentionally reached out for it, my past primes me to expect no response. Rest in peace, Mom. Rest in peace, past.

My friend of the past 20 or so years went home today. I dropped her off at the terminal, grateful and sad. We are still soul sisters. I think we will be until we die. INFJ power all the way.

Life is funny. You create more of it than you believe you do.

Yet.

At the same time, I feel very beckoned.  Like I'm following.....something. Nothing sinister. There's a force gently tugging at me. I feel it in my heart and solar plexus. Fate and destiny. These things are awkward in my hands and mindspace. Like sand in your shoe. It doesn't feel quite right to accept.

But I trust that gentle nudge and tug into the dark, the difficult, the discomfort. The disturbance buzzes around me like a bee swarm, invoking waves of doubt, fear, thrill, life. Like a sleeping limb waking. I shake it off. Breathe. Hopeful to find restored circulation and new normalcy. Fresh blood feeding into parts of me I've neglected.

Neglect. There's that word again. My mother taught me well. Poor Mama. I feel for her even in death.

The ex-shaman in me awakens. "Never really died - just hibernating. It's spring again. Bitches. And this spring, more than flowers at your desk bloom. Let the flower in your soul see sun and water and air and love. Talk to it. Pay attention. Caress the green and stem and petal. Do you smell that? It's the perfume of life blossoming into your being. Let it envelope you, hold you. Then, you can hold others. Hold a space. Safe, shifting letters in scared to sacred. This is your place. Create it."

Nothing casual about casualties

I disrupt us. The foundation.

The ground sloughs off the face of the planet in fragments, powdering between our toes. The river of time, once rushing, pours like honey in the chill.

The landscape of our love is in upheaval. Physics stretches, warps. We float as the terrain crumbles, untethered. I wonder what will happen if we float so high, we hit the edge of ozone. Does everything dissolve? Do we survive the lift in to outerspace? 

Our fingers out of reach, you're screaming for me, like I did on the river. Your twisted expression, fearful, angry, it hurts my heart. But I can't hear the words. The volume knob of our world stuck to mute. 

Gravity defied, I'm high above it, the carcass. Now the question is, does the carcass nourish an evolved iteration? Better than the last, stronger than ever? Hand in hand? 

Or does it break, branch off in another genus?

I love you. I don't know how to solve the disconnect. My eyes rain to the destruction below. I have never wanted to communicate with you so badly - and not at all. The opposing instincts battle. I can hardly stand it. There's nothing casual about the casualties that mount. 

What next, heart? What next?

The only response is a wordless song, slow, heavy with sad and wonder.

Cotton & touch

The afterburn decays. It's like drowning in cotton balls. My substance reduced to nothing but electronic trembles.

What embrace is there to hold these rudimentaries together? 

Trembles will have to do for now. I ache so bad. For care. Touch. 

His words buzz at me. Ants with doublecheckmarks means received, seen.

"Please, forget I said anything."

Listen to him this time, Brain. Don't forget, because it's impossible. But let it flow back in to the cotton nothingness.

I hold myself.

Touch my own body. Assured I exist.

I am here, for you, Self. You are safe. Sacred as those breaths you exchanged with all of those ancient Yosemite sequoias in the October overcast.

Dirty work & translations

Shhh. A whisper trickles down the side of her neck, a beckoning finger tracing. New domains. New rivers forming.

Synesthesia at its finest. Bite down. Don't peek.

But she must. 

What's under there? Before she knows it. Gust of wind, brief, sweet - almost confectionary. Everything shifts. This is what this space is for. Alone. Discovering. Asking the questions. Confronting answers.

It's dirty work.  You've got to poke. Dig. Move.

There's sweat involved.

Sticky. Heart pounding. Brow furrowing. Grime. Under shade, yet lit as sun. Full of sighs. Collapsing in on herself.

She likes some of it. She's scared of more of it. Too exposed there.

All these ancient feelings. Untranslated and lost. Swallow the fear and let it sit on the balcony of her throat.

Take a hit and pass, because it'll be here a while. Let the translation begin.

You were the sun and moon to me

They say the stomach shares brain power. That neuronal pathways literally line its composition. Ferrying mood and thought from root to tip of this body. 

That's why we feel it all over. Inside. Insight.

I try to think of the new space as canvas rather than of its pain. Post-destruction creation.

That does not mean it is not also pain and destruction. The power and strengths here do not discount the weight that brings me so often to the floor. Knees scratched, chest caved.

I suffocate. Watch the life drain.

I woke up to the sea of king sized bed. Squinting in the dark at the buzzing light in my electronics.

I see a post. "For a friend going through a hard time," he writes. I don't know if he means himself or me.

I click. And cry and cry and cry. I listen again. I cry and cry some more. I consider not living normal life today. My face is covered in saltwater. I may as well be swimming in the sea without a raft.

I realize I need this. I need this badly. To be alone. To muse. To synthesize. Orient. Appreciate. Learn.

But here comes the saltwater again, until it feels like I'm nothing but conduit for archetypal Heartbreak to manifest in to the real world temporarily through me, at 5:11 AM. 

It's raining, it's pouring
A black sky is falling, it's cold tonight
You gave me your answer
Goodbye, now I'm all on my own tonight
And when the big wheel starts to spin
You can never know the odds
If you don't play, you'll never win
We were in heaven you and I
When I lay with you and close my eyes
Our fingers touch the sky
I'm sorry baby
You were the sun and moon to me
I'll never get over you
You'll never get over me
I'm sorry baby
You were the sun and moon to me
I'll never get over you
You'll never get over me
When the big wheel starts to spin
You can never know the odds
If you don't play, you'll never win
We were in heaven you and I
When I lay with you and close my eyes
Our fingers touch the sky
I'm sorry baby
You were the sun and moon to me
I'll never get over you
You'll never get over me
I'm sorry baby
You were the sun and moon to me
I'll never get over you
You'll never get over me
You'll never get over me

Blurry

All of my edges blur. Goosebumps traced in bleeding watercolor. Deep, new colors, yet to be named and so hard to identify. How did outerspace make it into my earthling flesh?

"Because, my dear, an alien experience has touched you."

It makes no sense. Pure nonsense. A moth throws itself upon the mirror. If moths have hope, that one must be in panic.

Hands too shaky to hold, hunger hurts but starving works when it costs too much to love

He's packing. Right now.

I'm at work.

Before I left, we were talking. I paused to forcefeed myself. Styrofoam with marshmallow. Almond milk.

He began to pack.

In front of me.

I yelled at him. "Don't DO that shit in front of me! What the fuck! I don't want to SEE that. You can't WAIT until I just freaking leave?"Growly.

He cowered. Confused. "You're going to understand one day why I would not have known it wasn't okay to pack in front of you."

I think I do. And I don't like it. It's unfair. But this. This is what has always been the gap. Yet this has been the healthiest relationship either of us have been. Love. Communication. Effort. Investment. On this we agree.

I gave my boss the heads up. In case I go missing later today. I predict I lose focus now. But also around midday.

"He's packing right now."

".Right now, right now?.............Was it your choice?"

"....Kind of." Swallow. "No. Yes, it was."

"Does he not want to go?"

"No. He was.....'happy'. But yes, he does because he knows I want to be alone and doesn't want to be around that."

We talk through it some more. Just at the surface but her eyesight is keen enough to see the bottom from here somehow. She understands my situation more precisely than any of the three people I've divulged this information to. With the least detail.

She then shares a nearly identical scenario. Her thoughts, her behaviors during. I am floored at how far inside my brain she gets. She does have a degree in psychology, however. Maybe I should not be surprised.

I should be working by now. I only meant to type here prior to the start of my shift. That was 22 minutes ago now.

What is it that I want?

I want to be understood. To truly be known. To be loved. To understand, to know, to love.

I want to WANT and not NEED someone in my life.

I want to be whole and happy in standalone mode. I have not been happy in standalone. That is why I think most of this is just me, not him. I can't help but think of Fiona Apple, "But these hands are just too shaky to hold. Hunger hurts but starving works, when it costs too much to love."

Gone?

"I want to be alone."

My mouth moves. That's my voice. But I don't recognize it.

Maybe it's someone else, I say. Maybe it's outside, carried in through the windowscreen?

No. It is the bell that can't unring.

It makes no sense, does it? To be alone? I don't want it to be permanent but his mind sounds made up. He's always for absolutes. I've always been too soft, too undecided. An undefined being, defined by her surroundings. I judge myself unkindly. Then step back.

My eyes swell. Uterus spasms violently. I don't pray, but pray anyways that the Nyquil kicks in before the panic. Before the urges. Maybe it's just the hormones. Maybe my weight changes continue to fuck with me.

I back pedal. Plead. Wonder at myself. Am I slipping? Is this me?

I can't imagine what it'll be like. I'm too numb. Too shocked at my own voice. Too shocked at how willing he was to go.

I want to be around good people. But fear their judgment. I then imagine being truly all alone. I get fear. Cold. Numb. My eyes still burn but I think the Nyquil's setting. I welcome the burning numb to take it away.

Coming home to an empty place. Will that give me what I'm searching for? The clarity? The peace? Sense of solidity?

He deserves someone who is already those things, I assure myself. He keeps telling me it's he who will be fine. I think I've just killed us. Or irreparably damaged it. Some call that art. I recall some Asian practice of gluing back together broken pottery with gold laced resins. The effect was more brilliant than anything that had been made perfect the first time.

I tell myself this is why it's okay.

I still don't know that it is.

Die and thrive and die

I die.

Right now. Stunned in full blown consciousness, I experience the exquisite pain associated with each millisecond, existing through the drama. Depths I never wanted to see.

But no. "You wanted life, Chance. You got it. You knew this could happen. Be with it. Grow. Learn. Die. Hurt. Enjoy it. Even if that comes after the rest." 

Now I become.

Become what? Something ugly. Hard to hold or behold. My eyes still look like me. But so feral. What is that behind them? A fire? The universe exploding?

I come undone.

There is nothing beautiful left.  I hardly know if I can ravel it back in. Is it worth my time to fix me?

And I almost don't care. "You deserve this," it whispers. Narrow eyes in the dark.

Last night I dreamt of a wolf and a coyote. Their shadows against sidewalk under moonlight. Mama was there but only in disembodied voice, never in the same room, slow to respond.

I breathe. I need peace. Wisdom. Love. Clarity. Some twisted impossible mix of solid and fluid. Existing between absolutes. Living in the gray. Living in the colors, painted in joy, pain, laughter, sensuality, anger. Wilt, blossom all at the same time.

The soils of my planet know nothing of these things. Have no wherewithall to allow such puzzles to root down and thrive. 

Who the fuck knows.

Remembering Mama's Face (Old + Too many quantum physics late night documentary shows)

I have my mother's elbows and parts of her mind. My face moves like hers did sometimes. If I have her elbows and face does that mean she's moved inside of me somewhere?

They say that any dimension beyond our own three plus time is witnessed as movement occuring "inside" or "sucked in to itself," an infinity, a shadow of an extra dimesional reality more "real" than our own. I wonder if it's possible at all.

This face is her face. Her face is my face. Who did it belong to before? Who will it belong to again?

And here I thought no one looked as strange as/like me. But it's not me. That's the funniest part. My face is not me and I think that's why I disconnect so much from my outer appearance. But I think I need to start better appreciating the physical manifestation for what it's connected to in the divine. My face is equivalent to a sacred symbol, a talisman, an extension of the "big picture". Holographic, as it were, because this face IS the "big picture" miniaturized but perfect reflection nonetheless and vice versa.

Soul Retrieval (Old)

Dear Mama,

I don't believe in such things. Not for a long time. I believe we are born. We live (or something like it). Then, we die. End.

Then why? Why do you persist? Why do I feel like you are here? Sitting next to me on the way to work. Standing just out of sight on the other side of the full length mirror. Or sometimes staring back at me. I see you in those cheekbones, the way my upper lip thins and curls when I smile, or a specific stare I give.

You were my mom when you were alive. Now that she's dead, my psyche has replaced her with you, this projection, heavy, emotional, and tugging at me. The pull begs me, "Turn your head and look! Look into the periphery!" In fact, I can almost see you there. It's almost as if you're outside myself. I never give in because I know if I turn, I will lose the image.

But, then, I realize, it's all me. Just me doing the tugging at myself because I ache to turn my head and see you, some watchful mother from the great beyond. Then there's me again, resisting the tug, recognizing my poor, wounded psyche for what it is. It tries so hard to change the unchangeable, ill-guided strategy for mending the chasm left behind when death ripped you from me like a horrific accident severes limbs.

Poor, misguided, wounded soulbit. I imagine the damaged 17 year old in my mind splitting into two selves; damage grows younger, shrinking as she reverses in age and size. I, on the other side of the split grow older to my current age, looking down at her. She's so little. Head is 90% shining eyes that look so big and old and wise but clearly, too lost and ignorant to draw from that wisdom. She must be what all the shamans talk about when they embark on soul retrievals.

Well, since I'm writing, here's my attempt:

Dear Little Chancey,

I'm sorry you've been separated from yourself so long, little one. I see you there, shapeshifting into Mama's image, wanting to play with me. It's always been you, not her, hasn't it?

I don't remember exactly but, I think it's my fault. I accept it now. I shunned you, refused to face all the pain carried in your little form. I didn't mean to do that, or understand what it could mean to banish you. I just didn't want to look at it. You reminded me too much about the big, suffocating, burning things that paralyzed me when all I wanted to do was run and run and run. I wish I could just say it's a Western thing, but that's no excuse. I'd take it all back if I could. Please come back and I promise to be honest with you. Know that nothing I can do for you changes the unchangeable, that reversing your age doesn't reverse time or undo her cancer or her death. I'm sorry I couldn't/didn't take care of you. I'm sorry Mama is no longer here to take care of you. I will never be her but I will do my best to take care of you. Tomorrow, sometime around 8 PM, will be 10 years. Won't you please come back home? We can honor her together, in our own way, even if she can't hear us anymore. I miss you. And her. You are always welcome and loved.

Love,
Chance

Soulslaughter

Your eyes are drawing in to themselves. Like a mouth squinting at lemon sour.

I can't see you anymore.
"One foot out the door."
"I can't."
"I want to leave."

If I was self-centered, I'd wonder if this peril in love between us is why San Diego is uncharacteristically cold.

I'm patient. I'm tired. I'm aching. I'm yearning. Darts of longing pierce my lower belly, flame around the ribcage and curl back into heart.

You're fading. You're dying. I can see the dimness in your movements. I wonder if you were right about slow death. But I don't want you to be.

Maybe it's me.  She told me to stop "shoulding" all over myself. But maybe, I should be imprisoned for soulslaughter. I'm lost and want to find myself. I don't want to need someone for that.

How can something so beautiful shapeshift in to something so sad? I used to think neither of us were bad people, just flawed, human.

Why do I think it's me?

Maybe it is.

Maybe I am awful. No, I can't think this way. I'll never figure it out if I focus on destroying myself. Old habit.

Faded, fucked

Note to self: Don't listen to Fantasy Man by The Swell Season right now. It's just too much.

Another night in discomfort, pain, tears.

Death by a thousand papercuts. Weather is 100% chance of saltwater and rubbing alcohol.
I am reduced. Raw. A feral she-thing. Limbic and a pile of quivering. Throat sore from heavy howls I could scream in to the night. I could claw at my flesh until it bleeds, then claw some more. To the bone. I would know no better.

Faded. Lightweight. Is it healthy? Likely not - but I'm not looking for health right now. I just want to get through one more moment.

Truth is such a twat.

Convert that oxygen to carbon dioxide. Or as a wise friend said, metabolize. I take what I can get.

I try not to swelter in guilt. Shame for my voice. For honesty, no matter what. Integrity, I tell myself. Over and over. I am wiser than my 25 year old self. Even drowning in the pattern.

I am told I need to find ways out of my prisons.

"Something is wrong with me. I am bad. I don't deserve kindness/understanding for being so bad."

If I don't disentangle from it, I will never be receptive to my heart's wisdom. Figuring this out will be impossible.

He has a choice too. He can choose patience. He can choose to say, Fuck you I can't. And he'll have every right to say the latter. Every night he swirls in to the latter. I take it because I should. It's torture but so the fuck what.

Tell me why. he says. I tell him all the possible whys I've got. The repeats. It's nothing new, but nothing adds up. He protests. Claims censorship. Bites. Growls. I listen. I reason. Cry. Quietly reason. Cry some more. It's a wonder I still have eyes.

He doesn't get it. Not even the stuff on repeat.

As for this current state, neither of us does.

He's going "out" this weekend. Doesn't want to tell me. Of course that's fine. But it's different. I think of what I can do alone. Maybe figure some things out. Maybe do something solo I'd normally do with him or something I normally wouldn't do.

Pioneer archetype is looming again. Smirking. What an asshole, it is.

I want to be held. Why does that seem the desire? To hold the billion pieces together, to keep from coming totally apart because pain thrives in all the cracks. Grows between each shard with earnest. My capacity is ever greater than I expect.

I wonder how my mother would handle. She'd cave forever. She was one and done.

I cave a bit now. But only for now, I tell myself. I am not her. This too shall pass, in one way or another. We'll both be okay, with each other, without.

But fuck. The passing will be worse than a kidney stone.

-----

His eyes. So different. They used to look at me with so much love. All I see is pain. Glaring. Ice. They no longer hold me or caress me. That's one of the greatest losses in stripping naked for him to see, to listen.

Eyes no longer hold. The touch is gone and I'm reminded of my girlhood.

Fuck it

I'm not sure what's gone wrong. It's not just the wine fogging my mental faculties.

The talk tonight was big. Broke us in to a million stupid pieces. We sit in separate rooms. My hair is wet, lips stained with wine.

And tomorrow is Monday. I'll pretend everything is fine while I figure out what is next.

What happens when your future plan goes uncertain? You come too close to the mirage, see the asphalt burning for what it is.

I don't know I don't know. I keep telling him I don't know. Infuriating as that is. Through the open front door I see nothing but oily black and indigos. Faint shadows of the street.

Useless as my heart and brain right now. I do not enjoy helplessness. One path or another, there's direction in me somewhere. It is a necessity.

I used to write good shit when buzzed or drunk or in pain. Tonight it just blows.

Rambling and La Mesa Nights Nostalgia

There's more sunlight here than there was yesterday I found myself tapping away.

I've filled my first weekend back with running. To or from, I can't be sure. There is a shift inside and I am ill equipped with an experience comparison to project outcomes or trajectories.

Back on the river with no paddle.

I've let the right-brain impulses breathe a bit of freedom. Cautiously optimistic they may be on to something and that I should not lock them up so tight as I did. I try not to judge myself so harshly but old habits die hard. I only wanted to promote stability in my life and succeeded. Now I've got to remedy the byproduct staleness so I can grow.

Stale. Life and risk and soft exposed parts.I watch a worry fly by. Remain objective. Chance. Remain objective. Feel and let it pass.

A plastic bag drags itself across the ground grit outside. The scraping is rough in my ears between my teeth. Raw on my insides and heart. Remain objective. Let it happen, ease in to it. Don't resist.

I won't lie. I'm scared. The panic, sadness, guilt. The love. Anger. All of it engulfs me at the throat and makes my whole face hurt. The pain travels in to my forearms, my palms, buzzing at fingertips. My hands find their way between tapping to massage and encourage resistance to drop.

When I was 19, Micheal and I used to chainsmoke Misty Menthol 120s, drink vodka, and improv poetry into the uncaring night air. Occasionally, I'd be sober enough to get a notepad and pen so we could record some of it. Most of it was great. Some of it was shit. We loved it all.

We spent hours on his La Mesa patio, philosophizing, bullshitting, crying, laughing about our silly social circle dramas and lamenting about the world, fantasizing about socialism and a world that loved. We were two peas in a pod. Brother and sister from another mister. I miss that guy, those times. We are different people but I always look back fondly.

We never skipped our ritual. Not even for the California fires of 2003.

Different people. That was at least 2 mini lifetimes ago. Maybe 3 of this one is dying. We die many times during our lifetimes, the way I see it. I'm not sure this one is going to be easy.

Stream of Consciousness

What words belong? The blankness begs, a question nothing but loose change in a pocket. Obnoxious. Who uses anything but plastic rectangles and magstripes nowadays to pay their way?

Pay my way. 

How to pay back the neglect? 

Free it up. Don't dwell too long on a branch. It could snap and it's a long way down. I've left it in the nest too long, half-hatched. Wake up, muse. Flutter on, stretch your glorious limbs, lick your lips, and exhale.

I sit on this sofa. Shit from Jerome's, part of a living room set. An eager purchase to fill this blank room, 2 years ago. It caves strategically, whereever we plant our asses most. Warm amber glow from the included lamps.

I'm nestled in one of the sofa cave-ins, bare legs still soft from recent shave, bent knees-first into the arm supporting this dinosaur of a laptop, recently salvaged from failure city. I've said my "fuck you" to jeans, a careless crumple of denim litter on the floor. But I stopped there. Too lazy I guess to fuck off with the rest. 

This position would not have done too well 100 pounds ago. Now, I enjoy few things more than curling up whenever I can.

My phone rings alarm against the back of my thigh. So that's where it went. Time to take antibiotic.

I will shave again tonight, whatever the razor catches. Vanity doesn't drive the nightly ritual; sleep does. I don't sleep quite right if everything isn't smoothed down. 

Here I sit. In my nothing writing. Tapping away on a keyboard missing its "a" key. But maybe the insignificant trips up meaning later. Maybe tonight. Maybe next Friday. Maybe 3 weeks from today. I just remember, when I did this before. It came. Eventually.

Bjork.  I've got her competing with the tower fan right now. My can she be pretentious sometime. I don't care. I've got her Bastards album in consuming through the queue, misfit pieces that did not belong with the rest. 

But, her misfits are among my favorites in what I know of her work. It feels appropriate enough to break out in full span grin.

Suddenly, a conversation with my boss comes to mind. "No one is so special or unique. Everyone feels and thinks the dark things you do, you know." I could agree, almost fullheartedly. I'm not one for absolutes.

One, I wouldn't say "everyone" but "lots of folks." 

Two, I would say, "no one is so special or unique in their thoughts or emotions because we are all human."

Three, I would add about the dark things: "and each responds or interacts with those things differently, sometimes similarly, but ultimately unique to the sum of that individual's composition as driven by genetics, experiences, and current beliefs based on those experiences."

Some people are uncomfortable with the differences. So much, they fight wars, kill each other, oppress others. Justification is easier than confronting the discomfort that sits with us all.

Old Poetries

 

Old poetries....
Probing through my chest like sea anemones.
Love.
It's in pain, butterfly.
Just a friend, just ancient presenttimes,
arching across my mind.

Writing these letters like scattering ants carrying broken thoughts on fragmented backs. A lost organization, lost civilization, a feigned neatness. My eyes burn and my heart is meat sitting precariously close to a grinder.

I'd like to jump into the ocean. Lay with my head resting in her palm, legs dangling off her fingertips, fetal drift, nearer to the lung to go with the flow like I'm supposed to.

Flutter in abandoned hot and wet and throbbing and pulsing and sighing and shaking, collapsing and breaking so everything is alive again.

Then you cocoon me with your shushes and your whispers like mother's hands and give me lotus lilies to stand on. Sleep, tired baby, you say, you've been stressing much too long and worry pointless worries.

Wanderlust and Music Therapy

“I hand myself over to the music,” he wrote. 

You might use this trick often, if you were born with a hairtrigger scale. Music - like any art - can be as superficial or deep as you make it. I make it medicine. It’s the drug that helps turn spine to steel when dealing with life’s heaviness. Useful alchemy when all your fine-tuning efforts don’t seem effective enough alone. 

Maybe this emotional thing is a defect. Maybe it’s a blessing. Like most things, it depends on what you make it.

“I hand myself over to the music.”

The words cut a string invisible to the naked eye. There was a little shock, I shuddered, and a piece of self awareness broke the surface. I hung it out to dry in the sunlight and chewed the side of my thumb cuticle like my brain chews thoughts.

I run far more from the heavy than I’d care to admit.

I drive long distances to nowhere in particular. I grab a random to-do from mid-air and throw some clothes on, hurry out the door.

All for the unconscious therapy teasing me in the form of my car’s speakers blasting what I need into my ears - be it razors, ocean, bullets, ice, silk, canyons, sticks to break bones and remend in a fiery resurrection of some kind. Meanwhile, I get the Windex I think I need or browse the bookstore to thrust myself into a crowd of others looking to lose themselves in other people’s words.

Now that I’m a bit more aware of my behavior, the medicine seems to work better. I feel closer to whole, closer to solid and not quite so mercurial. There is nothing right or wrong, better or worse with your head in the clouds but a lifeline to the ground seems a healthy option for me.

It IS about control. Life seems unwieldy but if you’ve got some of your shit together, then you’ve got what you need to navigate with some dexterity. Sometimes the music helps carry the weight so that I can devote myself far more to living and less about worry, shame, fear, self-destruction.

Not the perfect solution but sure a lot closer to functionality than without.