i had shoes to fill

walking barefoot now
can't tell north from south
but no split hair's gonna get me down

i can't really explain the state i'm in. how it is i'm feeling. my throat clouded with residual phlegm, unwanted from all too easy to catch illnesses. my persistent lack of an immune system. my head is clouded with song lyrics and images of clean homes, fresh interiors that i want to surround myself in. i know i'm experiencing something like a fresh start, the feeling of a clean notebook. the school year nearing an end, closure, i need the smell of summer need its noises in my ear. still amazed with how far the push of a year can lead you. how one launch can take you such a grand distance. so far away.

besides my ever lasting struggle to stay concentrated, i think i might be happy in this position. not leaned back, i'm fairly upright. but tired. so tired. the impossibility of getting out of bed. the ultimate challenge of knowing what it is i want. the struggle to make every page not look the same. to make every day a different color so when i look back on this shinning life it isn't dull, but a radiant scheme of these myriad emotions that seem to follow me everywhere i go. the intensity that murks up yet clears the waters of my daily triumphs and victories. it is the little ones that matter.

the blatant rejection i feel just waking up every day. the murder. the fear of being terminated by larger, unforgiving forces. the constant nicotene and poison that surrounds the air i breathe. the temptation. how much danger is too dangerous. how do i know if its good for my health to take this risk or if it is the next step i take that will lead me spiralling downwards. into the dark pit of the sweat dreams i wake up in the middle of. the pistol painted on my forehead of a strange danger i was previously unaware of. the consuming darkness around the corner waiting for me. that i must be omniscient to predict. the consequential failure that could happen so quickly i had better keep my eyes wide open, sleep on my back so i can wake up easily to find the culprit, the seed of truth that will linger to find the criminal. well aware the criminal lies within me. in constant fear of broken plans and failed attempts to fly. failed attempts even to try.

my throat is dry weeks later. living in a tension dream filled with nonconsecutive images. not continuous. and im in the middle of radical self discovery. in toning arms and doing what i am supposed to. what is good for me. maybe i will one day get a surge of energy. and i will wake up free of the pain i seem to have been born in. the ache i seem to be attached to, at the hip, permanently. so i seek relief, in things non-toxic and beliefs self-perpetuated. that somewhere in the spiral of my subconcious could exist the key i am missing to understand my eclipsed view of this universe. this little slate of being.

the people i loved, the people i almost loved

day breaking

river rolling

i wish i was a morning person. i wish the alarm went off and i arose with ease. one dramatic stretch of the arms is all it would take to wake me. i love the way morning feels. the dew still remaining in the air from the mystery of night and its moist. its fresh. its something i normally sleep through.

i've been sick for a week. making me feel even more vulnerable and worn down than i do usually. i feel triple my age. the aching body of a 54 year old woman. as if i have experienced so much that every turn of the head hits my neck in the same place, as if i'm that old. where is the youth, i've felt this ache since i was 13. i never had a young feeling body. i've felt rickety for as long as i can remember.

i feel like im sitting in an empty bathtub and the water is filling up extremely slowly, one thin layer at a time and i'm cold and naked and the water is barely covering my ankles. and i have no idea why its filling so slowly and why i'm not warm. why the water won't just fill the basin and allow me to bathe. or vice versa, like im relaxing in a full perfect tub that suddenly begins to drain, slowly, and i can't stop the water from gradually seeping out, my energy, life force, the water, god only knows what it represents.

and i'm scattered, unsure of what i'm saying, unsure of what it is i want. depressed. monotonous. how every day manages to feel the same. sunrise. sunset. not quite sure what i'm searching for. what will fill this void. what is the void. i know i'm not going to find answers until i do some real looking. until i take few belongings on some kind of wild, self discovery journey. cliche. but i do need some time to know how i feel, my own personal answers to life un-answerable questions.

ah, i just wish i had faith in myself. isn't that where it always boils down to? that i will make it. that your promise will keep. that i will be taken care of. cradled from within. nursed back to childhood where my limbs feel connected effortlessly and the aching between my shoulder blades softens, my jawline, hard as a rock, returns to a relaxed, comfortable position. and i find you/it/the thing i need to not be such a wandering, loud, maniac. my own insanity. my own need for perfection. i'm turning into a swan. ok. maybe i'm not turning into a swan.

maybe it is all about human connection. a smile shared with a stranger. or strangers. i wonder why we can't have a story with everyone. there is no "one" for you. its the one you make right. the one out of thousands. i am all about second chances. trial and error. i will keep trying until i get this right. but why limit the possibilities. every match of the cosmos spectrum is a different make-up. every single possible human connection will spark a different outcome, one that i am entitled to experience. every individual can change my experience. i value each story. each name, each number. each sliver in my history of becoming who i am today, sitting here writing this for some level of self relief. extraction. hopefully it does something constructive. hopefully bodies entwined releases some real level of personal toxicity, so i can be less bitter, so i can be one with another and not this hard brick of an existing entity, not alone.

language just happened it was never planned

and its inadequate to describe where i am

with what emotion do i start the words on this page. imaginary. like the acid floating from with in me, must keep it in, keep it down. hold me down. i've been reading every vowel of fiction i can swallow, a quest for knowledge, a story to keep my attention, to let this dream go by faster. but slow it down now, must build myself to last, set up for success not failure, to live this life fully, still no idea what that means.

and its these late night ramblings that have me wound up and bent over, kneeling towards morning, seeing the sun come up, the first instinct of dawn come through these inadequate, insufficient, incapable window panes and i am awake with the sun, not ready for the day. the only gift i get. the best gift any of us can get.

my shoulders are achy and my tongue is burnt and sore, lips chapped past shot of redemption, parched and unable to sleep. always unable to sleep. the late night mind wanders past confines i can control. to what i will name you, nameless, now shapeless infinite little infant will rest in my arms and i will weep now, for the loss, the separation, of all of us, how i pray in the end we aren't really alone. an immaculate image projected from the blueprint, the divine reel that keeps spooling, keeps playing until the contrast is too small, until the known and unknown blend to the parched white page i started with, the beginning and end of it all. i admit i know nothing. i know nothing at all.

and i yearn, still, for something to bite down on. back molars positioned steadily on forearm flesh until i can pour out all of my anger for things listed above. head too heavy for neck. breath too heavy for throat to carry out properly, smoothly, a smoke exhale that i wont let myself inhale, too toxic.

why can't i sleep. i truly don't understand why i lie awake throwing myself around, never quite comfortable. never quite surrendered to the problems that take up my mind. problems i can't solve. that are un-solvable.

i don't know what i love. i don't even know that much anymore. i cut my cuticles until blood pours, accidentally. another accidental self-injury. i know i can recover. how am i still recovering. how long it takes for a wound to properly heal, seal over, until no bacteria can enter anymore. until we are safe from ourselves.

perhaps it is all too dramatic. we should handle this more like men. cowardly. i face it forward, honestly, as honest as i can. and maybe my words are hyperbole, but i know what helps me. i know what is a proper assist in making it through the walls in my brain, the membrane preventing me from sleep, my own fear of not having enough time to make it where i know i'm going, where i position my finger tips firmly into belief that i can arrive in one piece at my final destination knowing i did every last thing i could do to better this life, to better myself, to awakened and wake up at a proper hour feeling well, ready for this world, this weird world in front of me. in front of us.

i don't know just where i'm going

but i'm going to try for the kingdom if i can

this insomnia makes me cranky. achy. restless to the point of no return. exasperated, looking for any method to slow down my heartbeat, racetrack night-fall, i just want to sleep. eyes fall heavy on their base and my face feels swollen, my jaw clenched into a tightly wound spring, ready to snap, unpredictably at words expelled at just the wrong time, at being made to feel worthless, to re-write whatever i don't like to hear, verbatim, until strung clearly it sounds like a more acceptable, ameliorated melody, one tolerable to my over stimulated and under nurtured ears, back to the heartbeat, the racing, the potential to calm down

it feels like a rising in my throat, a desire to purge, or to gain something to keep the bile down. the incestuous insomniactic wandering, the need for something stable, yet wavering enough to hold my interest, strung light delicate beauty hanging on the rim on my windowsill, something simple. a buffer, to keep me in my perspective place, my words chosen more wisely, a counterpart, to offset intensity and add light-hearted even paced pleasant times, a winter, summer, improper weathered night

too much on my mind to be successful, so determined i turn the other direction. place this jaw ache into schoolwork, my goals whatever the hell that means. whatever those even are anymore. but i must pat myself on the back for the progress the How Far I've Come, a year to recover, to redeem and mend the torn esophagus-insanity, the strained trachea, too much damage. need to cleanse. at least i'm not smack in the middle of a melt down, at least i have enough to stand on my own two feet and make leveled decisions. like the tool sitting atop the wooden surface that is my life, my ever pressing existence, and watch the yellow water-mercury-esque droplet swish back and forth until i am centered, until the night has not yet parted and i can still see clearly, past the emptiness and into something standard yet whole, something to complete this late night contradiction muffled tragedy, something to live beside.

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.