expecting words

happens all the time

natural order slightly restored. error in circadian rhythm. lips chapped and mouth dry insomnia. still no solution. shorter days and longer nights, no method for mending. muscle ached from cramped spaces, no room for growth, spurting out roots to find sturdy planting space, no sign of life.

finally cold weather. wind chill and need for closed toe attire. unfathomable how a year can pass so quickly. what now? time between us, thick heart beat emanating under polyester comforter that isn't yours. where is the concave chest, the palm rest, the beautiful flaw. and who am i, long nails but quick temper, quick to judge, to change my mind, to think i belong here.

maybe i do i must examine. maybe i shouldn't be so quick to run, to assume i'm the stranger. not given enough breathing room, exasperated, emotionally exhausted, no time for napping. wheres my acuity, i fear of become dull-edged, like the rest, blended and smudged into this big picture, colors bled into one another until you cannot point me out anymore, until i really am just a particle floating in this inextricably vast universe, a freckle on the brow of the cosmos, impossible to define, fundamentally ingrained into the carefully crafted system, a fraction of an organism, the dust at the beginning of the windstorm, someone you can't find.

i am far too preoccupied in writing my eulogy. how my heart will ultimately fail, too short of breath, gasping at the edge of my seat, fish out of water until i disintegrate. too concerned with what it will be like to be here no more that i am convinced life is passing me by so quickly. it is what i believe it to be; so i will pretend and allow it to inch on, slugging by and dragging my heels in the sand of time. its slow. a process, we are all dying, as if i know what that means. but i do still know the fear that lives between me, in the index of my own clavicle, my heart, a dwelling pain and trembling idea that this is it, this is it, it is this is this it it can't just be this. there must be more, an open door leading us into the next phase, whatever is waiting for me, a life on a cloud screaming out loud and those below can't hear, not too far from what it is now, impossible to look beyond, the climb too high to comprehend, no thought can decipher what else could possible be there for me, if any breath of existence and being-ness takes place on this brief and subtle planet, a dream in the night, incomprehensible and deeply imagined, easily convinced that it never happened, a fabrication of my own delusion, how do i set free. so do i sing at my own funeral,

do i sing out with joy for whatever this life does indeed provide. nails on silk skin, will harden with age, like me, waiting for the steam to break through this pore and release, oh the release, the extraction of this suffering, the condensation and warm touch, humid interaction, leaving it fresh as dew, new as the morning, ready and clean

into the caverns of tomorrow

with just our flashlights and our love

we must plunge, we must plunge, we must plunge

Nostalgia always cuts the deepest. I always promise myself not to indulge in the drug, all too easy to become addicted, the high never good enough. I wish to return back, to any day but this one. So counter productive, the opposite of my impossible path to enlightenment. Wishing for a glass of red wine, close friends and a cold Los Angeles night. Instead I find myself so disgustingly alone. Abandoned. I could vomit, I swear I will, with disgust, for how failing today is, the unrewarding, grinding reality of daily life. No matter how hard they try to alter the chemicals, my brain waivers towards a heavy heavy weight. Incredibly consuming never shut down. So I dodge this moment and wish to escape elsewhere. To my back house, my past lovers, close friends and a time long gone. The past. What a looming, unidentifiable notion, longing for something that truly doesn’t exist. That maybe never did. I can’t prove that you were once here standing next to me. There isn’t proper evidence, of your tongue in my mouth and the stain you left on me. No longer bruised, for there wasn’t a wound, but, still holding on to a distant sound of a heartbeat that I cannot hear anymore. Attachment. The promise to never let go.

But it isn’t that the promises failed. A dog’s liver. The end of a life time. What does it mean to him to be gone. I am still here, faced with empty chairs and all too present absence. The silent witness. I will not let go.

So, this is the mantra, the refusal to release, to purge. The need to stand over a bridge, puking every ounce of my gut out until I am released of the poison. The unintentional nicotine. The sorrow I’m left with. I want to strip and run bare into an ice cold East Coast river and pray I don’t die, maybe then I’ll really get to feel alive.

The numb days pass by and I feel less and less. I long for a pinch, a scream, a tug of a shirt and the lift, the reward, the human interaction, the knowing each other differently, fully. Yet I am left isolated, holding my forearm loosely to acknowledge myself as my greatest companion. Always ready to annotate, to comment, to let myself know what today feels like. To ponder if morning will ever come. Wide awake with arm raised insanity, three-position tossing until head ached I come to a nightly conclusion, a promise to do better tomorrow, to wake up earlier, to be productive, to find what it is I am dying for. Longing for.

Nails bitten to blood and I weep. I mourn. A sibling lost, a baby, a brother, my greatest companion. Along with him goes childhood , I must conclude. For he was there all along. Too sad to comprehend, the winter depression setting in. Day lights saving, there is no light here, just darkness, just me and me in the dark, looming and harassing to my bright eyes, unwanted yet ever present.

I listen to old songs and cling to the small waist, jutted hip-bone indecision that drove me to an older, more specific lunacy. Missing when things were simple. So overwhelming then to sip on iced-tea and wish for peaceful matrimony, now just one nice night would suffice. I do not mean to sound so down. No, this is not the case. I value life, its glory, the beauty and promise of each clean day. But it’s all too easy to see the truth behind the sunlight. That there is indeed a stomach-wrenching illness that drives me and the world from which I originate. An error in the equilibrium, no matter how deliberate, an intentional glitch that brings us to one another. The man the solution to woman. How I continue to long for you, anonymous, figureless, the remedy, proper equation, concoction, to heal you.

My depression lingers like an unwanted guest. Always present. Allowing for no time alone. We are always together. Standing in the hallway when I’m trying to get to the other room. Blocking my way. It is so persistent, lingering, dragging. I am constantly weighed down. So I plow forward, tearing down the weeds that grow in my veins and block a proper stream, but I cannot bleed out. I am stuck here, in this wandering yet stationary gridlock condition, waiting for escape.

erase yourself and you'll be free

mandala destroyed by the sea

feeling ill is so specific. the dry throat, clenched neck/jaw contraction. shoulder throb, thick, consistent nausea. if only just the physicality of nausea took me over, but the emotional, the disgust

"I've been sleeping so strange at night, with a head full of pesticides"

i'm not quite sure what to do with myself anymore. quite honestly. i stare at my collection of seven chapsticks, my folded clothing and intricate hospital corners. this is the brief alleviation. removing one brick off of my chest at a time. placing them slowly on the ground next to me so perhaps, over time, a wall between me and this inexorable darkness will be built. something solid that comes between us to guarantee we never see each other again.

but what ignorance, sorrow is everything, right? change intrinsic, life is suffering. ok, i accept, life is suffering, but that just brings me full circle, questioning my existence on this planet and whether or not i would ever bring more life to this planet. if only i could think smaller.

thats when i get in to minute details. filed nails and precision. tiny, immaculate handwriting. clear, intentional steps on the elliptical. this feels like a crisis, like i know no matter where i am there will be an inherent and pressing problem. the nightly panic, the sweat, undeniable and bitter taste in the back of my throat, the everything i have to do.

but for now i am young, i must listen. the sky is bright and the birds soar high. but i do not. perhaps this part of the problem. the 96 degree november weather, this is not what i asked for. its too early to pack up and give up on this place entirely. i know hiding behind a tree is a person right for me, if not, i'll head elsewhere, get the hell over myself and board the goddamn plane, perhaps with my incessant possessions left behind, and go somewhere new.