Eggerfried

Do things break that little bubble around you like they do for me sometimes? Not sure on the specifics of what pierces and what does not, but I definitely know when it is happening. I feel abruptly emotional, suddenly swimming in head scrunchies and often times a bit spinny with the unfriendly.

I tend to go away and hide both literally and figuratively. “I need time to think,” I tell myself in my brain. Dust particles take a few minutes of not thrashing around to settle down and reveal the original source of the kerfuffle. After that, I start having decent thoughts, but carefully.

I’m human. I get angry sometimes, yeah. I try to avoid venting on to anyone in real life as that smells of unhealthy. Anger, rage and hate are Ailey forces used to destroy things, or others. There is great power, but only to support waste. Instead of consuming the galaxy in my agony, I find myself writing things that never get published or stewing on a chain linked series of compounding thoughts which have some negative reason for being.

I don’t expect that I will ever get pro at any of this. The mean voice has all sorts of clever ways of being relevant. Coping skills can be taught, yes. However, implementing is an entirely different animal. Failure, dismay and regret are frequent customers at the diner of my consternation.

One thing I feel I’ve improved on is not stuffing my frustration without recognition and also to avoid acting on volatile emotions. Fucking that up is likely to happen, bus do too will getting back up. Emotions deserve respect for being, but not indulgence to further stuff the gluttonous beast. Just stop, breathe, count to a number higher than 6, and use your butterfly voice.

Dredge

Sunk-shaft in throat-deep brown,

Residual, pungent excrement of time,

Aspirate viscous words,

Review abhorrent scenes–

Snarled in knotted forever nevers,

Plopped firmly in the mud of then.

The stink of hate–

Long permeated through cracked windows–

Careless doorseams,

The dank, mildew-wet scent–

Of irreconcilability.

Puffification

I was thinking disparagingly about my exes tonight, which is usually a bad thing. I thought: now, with all the fuck-tastic awesomeness of my evolved self, there is no place where you would ever fit. You see, I pine for them still. I yearn for them as though it were years ago. This is unhealthy.

Irrelevant. This word fits perfectly in the now, because metaphorical organisms shed versions of themselves not suited to survive in the ever changing circumstance of reality, in order to prevail in survival. I mean, I compare myself not spitefully, but logically or factually.

I get into this rut of thinking these past relationships contain some present-day worth other than what I have gleaned through introspective reflection, post destruction. I am somewhere far away from where I used to be, which makes parallels useless.

Tonight was week 5 of my support group, which inspired me to create the following list of adjectives: communal, open, emotional, cathartic, safe and joyous. I feel fantastic, which maybe is why I cast aspersions at my past. None of them can now or ever did truly see me for the fucking awesome person I am, even if only a glimmer of it was visible back then. I don’t need positive reinforcement; all the proof is right here! I am the book!

Even if I’m the only one who really knows, at least I found a place in this world where I both belong and can make a difference.

I’m okay. I’m going to be just fine. I need to be both grateful and resentful sometimes. This is real life where shit often hits the fan, which rarely results in anything not having shit stuck to it.

Specked, Re–

Sometimes I fly away from the ground. I go up high above my body, above the clouds, and I see the Earth. I see the weather in the lower atmosphere… the distant glinting of sunlight on the surface of the ocean…

At other times… all I can see is a narrow circle resolving a tiny window of reality at the end of a long tube. Whipping and whirring around to expose the miniscule window to as much as possible.

This flagrant, caustic world we reside in coaxes out our demons and turns them loose with fast fingers and poorly conceived, later regretted, actions. Do you pride yourself in being full of demons waiting to escape and consume your opposition? Do you disappear into an irresolvable point of light amidst billions of others?

The way is unknown.

Yet To Come

One of the conflicts I run into when attempting to communicate abstractly with others is perspective: each person I interact with has a different view of the “arc” of our trajectory as a society, and thus, a way of seeing things vastly contrary to my own. That disparity is a foreboding obstacle to honest discourse, and a defining gap in connection that is nearly always to vast to bridge. I have often found this cravase most abyssal with people I had intimate exposure to, since my traits and theirs were more entwined than in any other interaction (making comparison easy).

 

As I have become older, things have slowed down… the gravitational force which once had me anchored to exacting control of my reality has dramatically lessened. The resulting vacuum of “directing” force has accelerated my drift from the substantive microcosmic world of an incrementalized life.

 

Now, I’m left with the real quandary of making observations or comparisons that do not jive with others, or even occur as relevant. My thought processes are conclusively simple and based in a world of concrete moral contrasts and factually well-represented theories. That point also does not seem to be well understood by others.

 

Part of my liberation has come from not only the environmental reduction of gravity, but my own unclenching my vain attempt to control the uncontrollable, external world of others. Instead of expectation, I have thoughtful recalculation. I have no understanding of what is going to occur right up until it happens. Turns out, there is no advantage in prematurely and anxiously forecasting potential results to STILL be caught flat-footed in the eventuality of an outcome. That anxiety-train is just an indulgence of paranoia, and after enough times seeing that path lead to personal pain or failure, I have changed tracks.

 

Now, with that sense of existential detachment, one might expect disconnection from the cares of the societal world, if one’s moral compass points inwardly towards the self-satisfaction of narcissism. I care more, now, because even a little pile of moss is a miracle of reality in its own, clearly less impactful way. People are the ultimate gift, because there are no duplicates of the yet uncharted world of personalities, intellects, perspectives and experiences. We only get one chance to be here, to see, to breathe and be alive. Even in the most catastrophic suffering, there is still the curiously uncertain world of the unfurling, wind-snapped standard of time.

 

Course Change

I’ve decided to change therapists and go back to the one I had a rapport with in the past. I need to be challenged not placated, based on my current standing. ML has been much more useful to me in the past as an introspective coach which MB was not. I need advanced thought-level conversations about my mental state. I look forward to catching up and starting a new chapter with ML and jettisoning MB.

On the other hand, I still struggle to reconcile my feelings. I ache a bit with loneliness, but I also have a flare and passion for where I am now. I’m trying the dating site again, as indicated by my probe post. I have no investment in it honestly, other than it be a guide for others to be filtered through if applicable. So far, no one has survived the crucible of my derangement, as was expected. The standard has to be high because anything less is unsustainable.

Do you ever find yourself saying: “what the fuck am I doing right now?” I ask this of myself daily, as if it were something to be regularly challenged. Truth is I don’t check often enough. I still fall victim to the aches and agonies of the past. The palatable longing. It lingers, renews and ultimately, remains.

I also have little made up interactions in my head that never happened in real life because the voices inside my head are responsible. These exchanged are nonsensical at times and nearly always fictionalized in some pleasing way. There is no resolution to some past events, and that is a fate I have come to accept. The pain involved is unbearable at times, which might be why my wounds remain freshly agitated. I don’t think I’m alone in this predicament.

Well, things bloom promisingly on the horizon for me, while Critical Susan is murmuring foul things into my ear. It’s a world full of different voices saying what they need to say. Their overall impact is still, hopefully, mine to decide.

Spinny Brain

An anxious thought starts like a marble at the top of a massive slope. At first, it’s not going all that fast, but quickly, it rockets to full downward acceleration.

I do have those thoughts, pretty much daily to some degree. The one that happened a few minutes ago was emblematic of the new trend of how I respond: I got the spinny brain and the downward went pretty fast… thinking about work. I started a chain reaction of colliding, exploding particles. Little fragments of shit were going everywhere and all looked lost.

Then, I stopped. I caught my breath, so to speak, and halted the descent with a fact. Then, I presented another indisputable fact which presented itself contrariwise as reasoning. The absence of truth does not necessitate the void be filled with something assumed. If the evidence isn’t there, it’s only really a story about what could potentially be. I presume the worst, but I honestly don’t know at all how it will go until I see the proof. Everything prior is just a speculation, and speculations likely or unlikely don’t weigh much more than the other on the cosmic scale. Unless I have some kind of super power, things largely out of my control are like to remain so.

How? Once the tunnel gets narrow, I pop my head up for a quick reality check. Perspective gives me a chance to see just how far my ass went down the rabbit hole. Usually. It’s not fool proof, but I’ve found the honesty of it provides the necessary grounding element to restore clarity. Indulging delusions is always, in some part, a conscious activity. When that is recognized allows for a change in behavior; contorting easy acceptance into a challenge of truth.

Everybody responds to things differently, just as Med A works great for me but made your toenails fall off. Med B makes my toenails fall off too, so now we can be in a club! Weee!

The air is starting to clear at last. My brain is sure to be working better soon!

#1605

Accomplished. There is a resounding, confident awareness of potential.

Still with symptoms today. Flashbacks. Old embers. Burning…

Laughter cures like a quick hit, but fades unless repeated.

I don’t know where I am yet.

The thread that still binds me to you across the ethereal plain grows increasingly thin, but I realize now, will never be gone.

Ed.

A full day of training behind me, and one step closer to another employment qualification. Signature Program Leader… sounds pretty fucking real, eh? This accomplishment will undoubtedly take its place with myriad others to represent the structure of success I am erecting. All that LEGO training is paying off!!

I’ve changed in the past few years. Truly, the environmental variables and my own emphasis on progress have promoted my success (yes, there is many of success, just look at all these bricks). Even as I say that, I’m laying in bed exhausted. Each component of the structure that has contributed to where I am now has been difficult to set into usefulness. An arduous proposition, even. That’s why I know the foundation is strong; it was built with now calloused hands, thousands of hardened bricks and the inflexible rigidity of mortar.

Right now though, I’m tired, snarly and generally looking to push the power button until the screen shuts off. I’m all done for today. I would wager this is a familiar state for many who push themselves despite mental illness.

Tonight though, I hope I do not have troubling dreams. Visitations from the loves who are lost. Splintered memories of joy and agony. Mortal danger. Fire. Death. There aren’t many things I look forward to anymore, but uninterrupted, fulfilling, restful sleep is clearly high on that list. When maintaining mental stability is the concern, priorities change along with expectations.

Upon further reflection, I feel… integral. Zipper-like. I’m a part that would be missed if it were gone. I don’t have an incessant desire for self destructive behavior to combat regularly, so usefulness is a motivator instead of an antidote.

Basically, I’m satisfied being one of a select few who have any idea just how fantastic I am. I’m sorrowful that the number will be low, and companionship impossible, but my vivacious charisma will still infect this vulnerable world with unrelenting smart-assery, poignant sarcasm and deadpan, monotone responses that do not make any sense.

Gibbersplats

I was accepted into a very selective training class to become a mentor for NAMI. This has occupational relevance as well as financial. One more step towards sustainability of independence.

A spark of direction! Purpose! The beacon attracting so promisingly in the echoing dark. It is incentive for a cause for living curiously. One never knows what is to come.

Speaking of echo… the vacillating barrier between what is pined for and what is happening continues to churn undecidedly. I have come to expect unrest as the new operating norm.

Living with uncertainty can be taxing, right?

I have terrible dreams. I see places, symbolic of present time and illusively representational of the past. Fire consumes my flesh as I die. The plummeting abyss beckons me forward, pulling me down with the incessant of gravity. Inching. These troubling portents cause dire warnings to sound out internally. The vividness of nightmares float up to momentary prominence because of the importance of the residual byproduct created by resetting the conscious mind, which provides them the necessary buoyancy to be remembered.

Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone… gone. Still I hold the thread tightly.

I haven’t seen her avatar since that night several days ago in that perplexing dream. Nothing absurd or skewered with context in the meantime. An ever pervasive fantasy to just to hear her words, know her thoughts. There is nothing. It is gone.

What will we learn when we can see far enough into the past to find out how it started? I mean, that in both a mentally local and literally cosmic sense. One day we will actually unveil the distant reaches of the past, but solely to learn a truth we had not known. One day I may be able to let go of my own reaches, for there is nothing more to be learned, and no path forward that begins there.

Blurp

I think today is going to be better. I feel a little lighter. Not sure how I can articulate this effectively.

Where has our air gone? How long will we be made to breathe poison? It dampens.

The combustible transformation of carbon goes on: a reaction gone haywire now uncontrollably unlocking stored energy and expanding.

I think about the future of technology sometimes, and wonder if our declining living conditions will inspire technological advances that restore planetary health.

Ficky-Foog

I’m seeing that there are a stack of factors contributing to my degraded mental health in the last few weeks. In my effort to be constructive, there are some steps I’d like to take in addition to diligence respected since last required. On that specifically: the one activity I have neglected has been my exercise, which I am suspending only because of the air quality. My recognition of the state of emotional decline does not have a logically rationalized outcome, despite my brain trying to address it as such. Some factors simply have to be understood or accepted as they are. I don’t have any sort of spirituality, but I do have a sort of faith that my own struggles were necessary to harden me into who I am now. How I proceed with my “struggle” will define who I am, what I stand for and provide a path forward from despair.

The accountability of self-honest justification binds me. Period. I wear such shame from the past as it is now… crushing shame. Memories I can’t ever erase or actions I cannot undo. Why would I further burden myself with new regret when life under the weight I have can be relentless? When I stare into the mirror, I see someone who I was ashamed of, for a time. How should I spend these precious additional days I have been granted? What is going to help alleviate the burden on my consciousness? What must I do to not continue to be someone I regret being?

I don’t feel anything but agony in surrender. I do not have zero worth. No one has zero worth. There is always something within that is 100% unique. I have that too, and it enables me to give back honestly, proudly. In the end, I’m only looking at myself. Only I have seen the whole journey. Can I ever be truly understood, or better yet, who would want to know? I contend that may not be anyone who would care enough to untangle such an elaborate, confounding knot.

I try to measure reality in terms of variables that are unlikely to change, and ones that are. I have moved companionship to a nearly inactive state, which has its own consequences. I have been in a mode where the avenue to this potential emotionally effusive destination is little more than a cul de sac of my own consternation. Having changed as much as I have in recent years, I begin to feel a glimmer that I may have acquired the skills to, at least, increase the probability of being successful. Maybe I’m sabotaging myself by having a standard of expectation to high to be met or to high to be rationally deserved. All I have left to do is experiment with the variables I can change, and hope for a positive outcome of some kind.

This blog has always been my thought stream splash pad, and now more than ever I am glad I have a place I can go to work through the various responses to my symptoms and changing factors in my circumstance. To survive, and not be at the mercy of my surroundings, my behaviors, actions, thoughts and expectations have changed. Is this a 2.0 moment, or are we still in beta?

Processed

If there’s any lesson to be learned from all the hashed and rehashed potato memories fried up on the blog it’s that cooking food too long burns the shit out of it until it is unrecognizable charcoal.

I’ve been writing things with frequency, and indulging my memories (however painful). I’m not trying to deduce anything, but endeavor to accept the things I can’t change.

How hard is it living in my current stasis of passive recognition? Clearly the tumultuous words which have come splattering out of the thought-faucet are evidence of the regurgitative, expressive process I’m ensnared in. There is no processing anything to resolution, only a realization which plateaus at unquestioning understanding.

I count almost two years in physical and mental isolation from companionship. In that time, I’ve realized that I may be alone for the rest of my life, which I am accepting of (but not okay with). How can one be satisfied in such an unrewarding and lonesome dynamic? I know I can’t be truly happy without that now vacant place inside me growing with love. It is a separate matter to both love and appreciate the self, but another matter entirely when someone else sees it too and flourishes with honest interest.

In my most callously logical of states, I doubt the height of the exacting standards by which my future relationships are to be held is a mark anyone would be interested in contorting over to achieve companionship (with someone like me). The bar must be impossibly high, because anything less is bound to half-life itself to oblivion or deposit the waste of resistant resentment into a chasm which widens as more is deposited.

No, there is only one path ahead: it is long, precarious and only wide enough for one it would seem.

Toxicity

The world is swimming in poison. Is it any wonder I have such conflicted states? The environment is a variable. That contribution is destructive.

I can’t blame the air. I don’t blame. There is only here, now. I have a chance to set on in a better direction. I’m learning, adapting. Change is constructive.

Many days under the shroud.

Two Night Terrors

I was all nicely dressed, in this massive office building. It was clear that I had just given a presentation or something, and I was packing up and mingling With indistinguishable dream people. I was so distracted that I forgot my computer bag on the filing cabinet as I left.

I was walking out to the parking lot and a friend from high school (BD) ran out after me just to tell me I had forgot my bag, but when I looked back across the parking lot I was stunned…

In the night sky behind the hill and row of offices and houses, a red and orange glow was growing brighter. Then, towering, carnivorous flames emerged on the hill and rapidly began to descend. An unrealistically massive wall of consuming fire bore down in hunger.

I remember the wind. It was violent, tornado-like even. Houses were being ripped apart, glass was flying everywhere, debris was strewn on the ground. The fire devoured the city before me, and I ran in thinking I would go back for my computer. I did not make it out.

Poised on an odd carpet saddle-like bucket seat on the edge of a thousand foot drop over cities, towns and homes, I was somehow needing to move a collection of small objects to relative safety away from the perilous edge.

My hands were sipping with sweat, and I felt things could slip through my grasp and fall into the world below. The howling wind tore at me, begging me to fall to my death, pushing me with each insistent gust. There were people down there, lives, unaware of my situation.

My fingers and toes burned with nervous panic each and every second that my legs dangled freely over the immense expanse, and having so many things I needed to move back from the edge was an overwhelming concern. My hands were slipping and jittery. The computer tower was so big and heavy… how was I going to move this away when it was so close to falling? The wind kept pushing me closer, closer.

Exfoliate

All this revisiting of my past, and for what? It seems like an inherently counterproductive venture, but I assure you it’s not. Note that I don’t spend much time acutely regretting, chastising or otherwise reiterating failures. I must know now to then know better later on.

An irreconcilable divide. The constant gaping wound. Just one trigger unleashed a series of impassioned posts. I wasn’t expecting to go there, but I did, and gladly. I’ve had positive thoughts about the way I processed all these images and feelings.

The gain is strength from acceptance. The past goes on unchanging, but each new step carries the memories. How to address that effectively? I write. A lot. I write as much as it takes to exfoliate the brain meat.

I have tons of stupid fucking thoughts. Don’t you? It’s hard not to judge even though it’s my brain.

The consciousness glops like cold molasses out of a drippy faucet. There is no good time for brain. Only time.

In The Slush

Tonight enacted, lather, rinse, repeat, repeat. Shabam-mode.

A grin to a nudge is just the friend of a glance to a raised eyebrow or some such.

The contrast between masks is shocking, dizzying at times. AAH!

All this stepping leads somewhere good, right? I don’t need to know, but it would make me happy if I did I suppose.

Like I said, blah blah send the fucking probe. No one out there in whatever market, nebula or quadrant gives a flippity-fuck about me and my stupid fucking probe.

I have to try a little, that seemed inexcusable in light of bemoaning the state. Right?

Glancing is not trying. Glancing is trying to trick sorrow into having hope, while choking out any chance of there being any.

Probe 1a

As requested by High Command, we have fired a scientific research probe off to study the anomaly.

The probe will take a long time to fully study the area, and we do not expect to hear back from it for many days or longer.

However, Commander, we are fulfilling the NEW Prime Directive to always venture out into the furthest reaches of explored space, and find what unknown mysteries lie in the darkness beyond our current perception.

Previous probes that have been sent to existing systems for additional study/analysis have been decommissioned at your request, and all forward facing starships are to send their probes to the outer limits.

This update has been brought to you by: Uncontaminated Dirt. “You never knew how much you needed it, until you didn’t have it,” they say. Get some Uncontaminated Dirt at your local starbase or stable M class planet today!

Unforgettable

Seeing her shifting through the periphery of my attention, she radiated warm waves of indulgent excitement as we drove. I snared infrequent glimpses of the smooth cheeked beauty, flashing and vanishing erratically in the sulfuric light of the passing street lamps. Ringing and abounding with jubilant laughter, she sighed, and held out a slow burning ember from within; about to be set ablaze by a gust of cool, fresh air. The curl of her grin was laden with intent, desire and a sense of belonging despite the circumstance of being apart and constrained. Though, that was no barrier for her.

Her intent, a crackling wave of incendiary heat, sending tinder sparking and popping to tiny burning pieces… vanishing into the night sky. Smooth, wet, and eager, there were no bounds to her, no ties that could shackle her in place; no star that could outshine her glimmering brightness.

Where the world was, or what it was doing no longer mattered; what remained in the bristling atmosphere between us was a transcendent state of acceptance and acknowledgement. We saw each other briefly, and in that mutual space where our desires met, there was profound togetherness.

But even as this tempering realization was present, the electric spark of her youth, curiosity, fearlessness and desire became the direction of her hasty actions. In boundless, oblivious ecstasy, there was no time that was not ours, no boundary we could not cross together, no one else in the world who mattered… no fire like the one that was in her eyes she she beheld me. Though, beset by my own limiting discretionary conservation, it was not out of disapproval for her that we returned to the world… and this I hope she knew. 

There were times that I saw her, and many more in which I could not, or failed to. Where was the objectivity I needed then… was it always there but undeveloped? I contemplate my journey, drawing no needless conclusions and refusing to sully beautiful recollections with my frustrations, failures and ineptly accepted concessions. 

…Flickering light, casting those brief shadows across her curves, her frisky hair… and the recognition of such beautiful physical harmony that we shared.

Deep in past moments such as these, where I still see her smiling, I know that life has blessed me with memories I will never forget. They resound poignantly, which I cherish, for the many feelings of her love are not unknown or forgotten, but remembered forever. It was a time when I touched happiness, held it even… if not to eventually let it slip away. The nights we had, like the memory above, remind me of how wonderful the world can be. Even if I do not live this life now, I still hold my experiences as the most valuable, formative and essential knowledge of my journey thus far. Without them, I would not know the spectrum of all there is to experience while being alive. 

 

Incinerate

Creaky hollowed and bone-dry,

Brittle stuck to twisted agonies,

Piling through the seasons–

Combustibly warped in crisped gapes.

Scowling shift hisses an unloading–

Cast of up leaves and old tinder,

Snicker-snapped with a snarly pop.

Bored moments and crumpled memories,

Transformed in a rush–

To pillowy piles,

Refined, but still–

Nourishing roots.

Birdy Letter Revisited

A letter I have written before, but write again as the clarity improves to the benefit of my understanding. For my heart, for my mind, these words are sent:

~~

Dear Birdy,

There seem to be no words that can be said to bridge the span that lies between us, but I am nevertheless compelled by my conscience to send these words out into the expanse as a mark of my intent, truth and the desire of my heart to be at peace:

In my life, I have transitioned from state to state, trying to achieve stability with my mental illness since I was diagnosed. In my right, back when we first met, I lured you unknowingly into that turbulent dynamic and you were destroyed by it in many ways because of my inability to prepare you for it. I did not adequately equip you for how to respond to my mental illness effectively, nor did I remotely or appropriately respond to yours when you called out for help.

I remember in the truck one evening with you coming home from my parent’s RV. I was stoned and you were a bit tipsy. You remembered a trauma about your old best friend and I was chastising you for thinking about something from the past, like it wasn’t important because it had already happened. I think back on how you were hurting that night, with tears in your eyes, and it breaks my heart. You were calling out to be comforted, and I just argued with you, scolded you. I was not able to see the way to hear your pain, and acknowledge your trauma, or even to comfort you when you are feeling vulnerable. I failed then. I know it, and I accept that I must grow to do better. I am sorry for this time, and the many others like it.

I did not have the tools to communicate effectively with you or express my feelings to you appropriately. I was not able to help you, when you needed a partner, a friend, someone to trust. This disparity and neglect is my greatest regret, for the beautiful person you are was hidden by my inability to see you, address your feelings, and be the partner you needed me to be. I was not a healthy person and did not deal with my issues in a functional, sustainable way in the time that we knew each other. I lied to you, hid things from you, and never told you how I felt inside. The lesson of my inability to sustain our relationship has taught me the skills I needed to survive further calamity and caused me to regret the missed opportunity to have done better with the woman I loved more than any other.

I am responsible for harming you, abusing you mentally, psychologically… because of my unchecked disorder and poor coping skills. My sanity was not consistent, and I was reeling in the end, compensating poorly, neglecting frequently. I have a great deal of ongoing shame over this which keeps me thinking about how I can be a better communicator in my future interactions. I was not the person I needed to be to have properly participated in a relationship, and for all the damage that caused to you, I am sorry. With a pain that I feel every day, I am sorry for what happened between us. I have never been over it.

There is no word, or words that can take away the trauma, the pain. I must bear that responsibility forever. I have done what I can to learn and listen or try to. I am accepting of my part, but only hoping to release the emotional burden by the recognition of spoken, actualized thoughts. For all the times these powerful words and memories have been whispered between my ears, I give them back to the endless void, echoing on into the silence: thank you.

Blaaaaaaaaah…

Things are cardboard for now. Mush.

There are blips, pings and peaks aplenty… but the gaps are sloping.

I’m starting to entertain, but where the balance lies is still a matter for discovery.

Not many words are here now, mostly just growling or grunting.

Some are friend… well, most are friend.

Where is the poof and rabbit? I have no rabbit and by God do I need the poof.

 

Arches

Inchly skyward–

Pressing a cool curve,

Bonded, rooted–

Stacked against the endless yearn.

Held up enmantled,

Like arms-high & unwavering,

Clutching the keystone as one.

Unflexing in time,

Bastion against torment–

Dry place to rest,

Sunrise to sunset.

 

Sundown Cold

The night that creeps in is wet and chilled. The weight of it is like resin or gooey snot seeping, sludging and glopping in. The smells of the coming winter.

Do you ever feel not alone in bed at night even though you are? When the cold comes in, and it surrounds, do you feel the echo? I do. I remember, and sometimes that’s a nail in my chest, and other times it still warms me. Perception can be momentary, circumstantial.

Now, there is only a space for understanding. A process where comprehension takes a back seat and settles for not knowing where the car is going. Think too hard and the tunnel develops a slope downward. For me, I often find myself contextualizing and interpreting: wrongly, optimistically, starkly…

Logic’s devices are stunted with emotion’s geyser-like eruptions. That’s the place where the echo comes from, I feel. The indelible imprint of a soul touched, the intoxication, idiosyncrasies, passions that once flared but are long silent, and have been. Something that I have know is there, and will clearly linger for the rest of my life. What to do with all the images? Cherish, I say.

We have so little time to be alive. Only a blip. A tiny fragment of a fragment. I’ve been guilty of abusing that gift… squandering it; laying waste to it on occasion. The fact that I still have it despite myself is a thing that can’t be ignored.

But here, now… this fragile place where the remembrance is strong… she remains with me. In some delusion where peace had pervaded, the outcome was different… the story continued, but changed to survive. Again and again we see that those who are suited to adapt, endure the cycles of changing chance and circumstance. Such is the case in our lives, however brief they are.

Why? I won’t deny I missed her. She was right there with me again. It hurt to wake up. I was bleeding. I won’t forget. I dreamed for a reason; and will never deny that.

Sometimes the best thing to do is dream, for it is there where I will see her again, in a place where no new harm can be incurred.

A Dream…

It was a house I lived in now, but not one I had ever seen before. There were many well-lit rooms, hallways and balconies that opened up wide. There was flashy yellow trim, and the blue in the sky was vibrant above.

Yet, somewhere within the house, there was a door that went down. It was a door I opened and looked into freely. A solitary ladder stretched on into encompassing darkness of the featureless shaft, to some unseen place.

I began to descend. Down came with markers, years, I knew, ticking by the deeper I went. I knew it was a measure of time, but I couldn’t read the numbers. It wasn’t cold, despite how far it went on into the abyss below.

At the bottom, there was a dimly lit chamber. There was no visible floor, only endless shards of something small, shiny and black strewn or piled from wall to wall.

You were there J. You held the shards up in your palm so I could look at them, and then I realized what they were. They were once letters; literally large, black three dimensional letters that one might expect to find at an old timey gas station or cinema. The letters were broken into unrecognizable pieces. As I looked around, there were thousands of them, knee-deep in all directions. Your black hair glinted in the pale light filling the room and I remembered.

You wanted me to follow you, and we started walking through the catacombs, but it felt more like I was chasing you. Between the archways and pillars, you slipped away from my view. I knew I couldn’t stay, because I had to go back.

Then, it was gone.