A sudden mallet shatter. A window blasted open. Sun rays beaming. A world of dust cast into the light. This new turn is a portent of happiness.
The soot brushed away. Flattened cardboard. Curled paper. Crumpled into piles and heaved into the shadows.
Testing cautiously. Pain once so near. Thoughts are below but now rising above. What more awaits to be discovered I will soon learn. A journey of shared experiences.
Twins of twilight–
Pixie-blink a flicker,
The grounded stars dance,
Hands catching–
Their fires alive.
Back across the stretching sky,
Racing alone to a distant–
Faded horizon.
Dust falls to ash,
Dimming until dark again.
Believing is not about probability of success, but a choice to craft a purposeful prelude to a desired reality we hope comes to pass. In some extension or another, expectation has a secret that is the most desired result, but it is well hidden underneath the likelihood of disappointment.
I hope to be reached, but I realize also I never will be again. In this situation, I believe in both possibilities while not dedicating myself to permanence of one or the other. Sure I could be happy and fulfilled by love, and that would be fantastic. However, I’m also prepared to die without anyone knowing me any more than they do today.
Why we have to only believe one thing is beyond me. Are we incapable of comparative or contrasting thought? Must we always choose, when no choice is actually needed? I used to be an absolutist, but no more. I can be pessimistic of my chances, yet still vibrantly hopeful and not abandoning the possibility of hope for something more.
Well, there seems to be no movement (for now) in the distant aspiration of online companionship, and my current investment will terminate early February; representing the end of this period of heightened searching. It is good to acknowledge my emotions with effort, while not being driven mad by lack of tangible result. What meaningful increment can there be in such an environment if spinning variables?
I write now as I am alone. Maybe one day I will look back on this in reflective sadness, or in admiration. My life is brilliantly bright right now, and has ample chances to improve. I believe in me, and whatever comes will be accepted regardless.
Do you ever have a new variable enter your stable life-equation and tip the whole thing? Sometimes adding that variable can be the most dangerous part, as one is never sure if the value is going to help or fuck things up. It’s better to get an understanding of acceptable parameter before adding as an integral component, if time and patience afford it.
I’ve done this variable adding, unsuccessfully, a number of times in the past. I’ve seen that variable undo the whole equation, and send it plummeting into exponential agony. I desperately do not wish to repeat the same pattern here again; not now or at any time henceforth.
A tiny speck of light has become momentarily visible; new and shrouded in ambiguity. What lies there is only remotely, distantly postulated; as a theory hangs on the edge of proof.
Unfolding now or later, the possibility of alignment, relation and understanding are a primal lure. Desperate like water to parched lips, it’s easy to gulp mouthfuls greedily while paying no mind to the rest.
I don’t believe in foolish things anymore, but I do like to think the spark isn’t just something J ignited within me and will never happen again. It’s something that others can inspire, and can provide fertile ground for admiration. It’s been a long time since I met someone new I could look up to. Maybe this will change that, but very likely not.
I don’t hope for silly things, but I am game for real things. May this be real, in a time where it is easy to be something false.
My thoughts run tonight, bucking through the crisp air. J is back in my thoughts, as she has been of late, and always to a lesser extent. I can’t help but spin alternate realities where she brings a stabilizing force to my family dynamic and a new balance is achieved. A place where her quirky, clever humor and woman’s perspective provided balance and helped us feel equal together. Laughing with frequency and living in a state where stability was enjoyed. Dreamy, bleary and almost laughable at just how far from reality it actually is.
The world is cruel, and through it I too have also acted cruelly, and kindly. All at the wrong times, it would seem. Now that the alignment of her life and mine has passed, there is no going back to change what has already been written. The view that accompanies this thought is inevitably folly.
I’m embracing my life now as a caretaker and forever disciple of family. It is so nourishing to protect those we love, and do our best to preserve their safety. I only have so much I can give, but what I have, I do. I love them and I will help guide them to peace in whatever way I can. In my dreams, I reach out to J and open my arms to her again, despite the furious rage she has aimed at me. I have always known her regardless. Somehow, there is peace again.
I can’t help but long for a parallel reality as my own comes under strain. I always imagine one with her in it, when I project myself forward. She is still just as jubilant, having not been thrashed by my disorder. I see so many alternate realities where we coexisted splintering off into infinity.
She opened me up: I got tattoos and pierced my ears, and she exposed me up to a world I had never known before, but was curious to explore. I too gave her things as our paths intersected often once we grew. But I was a fool, and so was she. In thus reality, she may have been able to, but I was never going to live that dream.
Night falls on a turbulent evening. It’s at times like this that I feel truly alone, with no confidant within my bubble to relate myself to. I remember having that though, and it is the greatest joy of my life. For a time, I was blessed.
As in my current predicament, I am granted the strength and stability to endure the changes my family is going to transition through. I am fortunate. I can do more. I will do more for them.
I have dreams. They will forever say dreams. I look back, and I am filled with regret.
I just know I will never be over her.
There is no better place to test one’s coping toolkit than in a crisis. Conveniently, I happen to be in one of the familial variety, which as indicated by previous posts, is an ongoing, developing and mutating issue. I’m near to this unfurling destructive situation, with no hope of achieving the proximity of safety due to the bonds of conscience. The variables causing the conflict are also unstoppable in their perspective; aligning them to a path that only leads to a continuation of trauma while the gap between the energies seems destined for concussive retaliation.
I’ve been surviving in this environment by figuring out what expectations I need to have rather than wish I had, and living wisely within my means. I know I’m only going to be able to relate to them on a limited set of issues, and the window they see me through is made smaller by my accommodation rather than personal obstinance. I’ve learned where I need to have my own strength, because depending on an external source is much less stable. My parents don’t know any other way: mom can’t be strong on her own as she’s dependent on him for her consistency, stability, assurance of survival… she has no mutual or self-imposed logic, discipline or interest in a healthy conversation aimed at a resolution.
It’s sad to have to “defend” oneself against loved ones, but I have a history of instigating and now enduring situations of high emotional volatility. I have a talent for knowing when I am in a sound moral position (promoting radiant strength) having not been so on many regrettable occasions. It is sad to see the deterioration of more than just their physical selves; the very fabric of what used to make them strong has been torn and continues to unravel as they insist on stretching without strengthening it. The result is that I end up being alone and introspective for my own benefit, knowing the details of my process might as well be Japanese to them.
Acceptance of things that will not change has been hugely instrumental in helping me focus my energy on things that I can have some sway over. My priorities are healthier, my expectations (if any) are realistic and I am keenly aware of my own interpersonal mechanics as I improve in handling stress and conflict within myself.
I still see myself, as a 15 – 17 year old man, effusing, erupting, devastating my environment with my uncontrolled emotional irregularities. I used to get so full of rage, and I would cast it out to everyone in my proximity, unfiltered, unregulated, uncontrolled. The long-term repercussions of that become clear, along with the burden of inflicted catastrophe on the clean white sheet of morality. I got tired of that way, the turmoil, the imbalance.
The reach of my gravity is minuscule in this place, like Io at aphelion, hoping it’s going to move Jupiter closer to it with a good yank. However, it’s always just going to be a tiny little blip in the orbit of something much too large to be influenced. Sometimes, it’s best to just let gravity take you around and worry about having a clear path to do so.
I don’t have the best coping tools either, mind you. I’m drinking a little more, smoking a little more, just slightly disconnecting myself from this place. It’s agony when the air is full of hate like this, and I’m trapped in here most of the time, too fearful of the environment to be free. It’s not the healthiest way, I know. I’m not perfect by any means, but I am going to survive.
Arbitrary as it may be, today is a period of celebration for many. I spent mine with family, sharing in the festivities prescribed. Though, the paradigm shows its flaws at regular intervals, the 25th being no exception.
There are plenty of things to be frustrated by just floating around out there in and around our lives. I’ve tried to focus my frustrations on things I design to change rather than be needlessly stressed trying to address things I can’t. Still though, I find time to pound my skull against the concrete despite all my good intent. Reality is undeniable if viewed honestly.
All the good from today was a frothy mug. I feel all full of bubbles and food, which, now that I write it, doesn’t seem like a wonderful thing even though it is.
One thought keeps passing through me: how to cap this fountain of emotion surging from underneath? Can I ever just eradicate her from my concerns? Is there a file I can delete and cripple the program from running? Stupid sounding thoughts are conceived in a turbulent environment, and give away their absurdity when scrutinized.
No answers. No more new words or peace. No absolution, only the shattered mirror of imperfect memory. I haven’t turned my sadness into hate, because I know there is no satisfaction there… only a burning within that consumes all that stoked it to frenzy and carried it forward.
Just like a phoenix, there can still be rebirth even after the fire has burned through seemingly everything. I believe in that fully, even though I did not experience that situation personally. I have that shard of glowing hope inside where I see her wings burst forth from the soot of her spent rage. Life finds a way to be lived despite our best intentions sometimes.
As the new year approaches, I am now wondering how I will rise out of my own metaphorical sludge to a more liberated and compassionately introspective state. There is no end to the future possible advancements in self care, as far as I can see.
Merry Christmas to you all.
Despite all my subsurface emotional turbulence illustrated in recent posts, I’m doing quite well mentally this Christmas Eve night. Family, love, smiles and laughter all through the dinner hour. Food, football and memories formed as a result.
I look back in my thoughts, but have eyes for the future. There is more brightness in the upcoming horizon than there ever will be looking back for candle light in the darkness. It’s not the stylish version of emotional distress as illustrated in pop culture, but it is true nonetheless.
My life isn’t full of drama; I know very well where I am going. It’s not up for debate really, but it is a discussion worth having anyway. Expression is coping, and doing honor to those feelings that are strong enough to be present. As improbable as it may sound, this balanced dichotomy IS me rather than is rending me asunder.
I am proud, and reflective as well. This is what being complex and human is all about, I imply through demonstration. Learning, growing, changing. I don’t dwell in the sadness, I embrace it and move forward. No upwelling emotion goes unacknowledged; no memory avoids the light of revelation. I miss her, and I’m also fine without her.
I know, I’m bipolar and yet you don’t see me retreating to one end of the spectrum in indignation or denial. I just think I’ve found a better way.
On this night, I remember, and then, I go to sleep. Goodnight to whispers, memories and promises.
How much time is quantifiably “enough?” How long SHOULD things take… or how long do we want them to last? Time is happening, but, I find, individual perceptions of it vary greatly. Including my own, within my own life.
I found something on the internet while clinging desperately hope and scouring for words and images of my past. I found some text and read it, from 6 years ago on Christmas… It was the spark of something powerful, frozen in time). A check-in from a previously unremembered interval that seems now more like decades ago. My chronologic sense of this period, not the same as memory, is vastly different from the actual measured steps of days recorded. Things were accelerating towards a peak in these words, glowing and radiant. I feel far removed from parallels or similarity now, but the hurt of it is still near…
What I think my askew sense of time shows is that it doesn’t take long for our lives to change. In the years since that note, I’ve fundamentally reprioritized, changed professions, passions, goals, and embraced a new reality that works for equilibrium in my present environment. I look back and both sigh with awe, and swallow hard knowing what dark days lie ahead. When I reflected, I thought about how many things I had yet to learn, and how fundamental a reboot I would receive in the years to come.
During the decay after that peak, things seemed agonizingly drawn-out, but smeared and indiscernible, like grease on drywall. Such distant turbulence is hard to accurately document with memory, but little glimmers like this one remind me that, regardless of outcome, it started the right way. I had forgotten, but the origin was well intended, innocent, pure, impulsive and magnetic. It was like a dream, but I didn’t work nearly enough to make sure it stayed beautiful, and we fell into decay.
A gift from the past, but one that carries the weight and responsibility of reality. I am a creepy stalker asshole whatever to go sniffing around… but my heart is broken and I don’t have enough ways of coping that channel my emotions productively, apparently. I look for her words somewhere out there, with an ill-fated desire seeking an alternative reality that doesn’t exist. I know it isn’t hiding on some website, waiting to be found, which rends me even more. There is no end, only an ongoing state of realized, unrequited incompleteness… and our remembered laughter echoes down the long hallway of time, reaching my ears as little more than screams.
I must resolve of my own accord, and in a time that suits me best.
A great deal of pain comes from this place of knowing there is no way to heal the gaping wound wrought by past trauma. No matter how badly I desire the bridge of communication to be passible, it isn’t. No dawn in the future, only a lingering dusk just after light has been sniffed out.
Once a thing is broken, the only choice has been to destroy it completely. Once a stain appears, the whole is forfeit. This absolutism deprives one of the responsibility of repair, or repurposed use. I scrap only what is irreparable, and despite the portents of death, there are still some damaged, tattered things I believe in.
Figuring out what to do with this has been a struggle for me. I am powerless, in the dark and unable to find a safe way out. The constant reminder of my previously earned solitude hangs on me like a bundle of meaning over my shoulder. I long so desperately, yet don’t exude and effuse in my daily life. This torment stays almost entirely within, in a place it can be kept away from contaminating the rest.
I’m pretty sure this is indefinitely ongoing. My future filled with the anger of years carried on across the plain like a ceaseless thunderstorm. All the while the wind and rain, I keep hoping.
In the curtain shadow,
Lingering like a ghost.
A whisper–
Echoes of laughter,
Open window hiss,
Listening–
This tired refrain,
Polluted in nostalgia,
Screams are breath–
Erased by the wind.
Her face was here again. This time, her cuteness expressed in toy-batting playful behavior and boisterousness. I remember most keenly that she was with some friends of mine she never knew, captured in home video handheld camera nostalgia. In a booth at the restaurant, they gathered for a lunch that had and will not ever take place.
Earlier, I was delivering a sermon, saying “hosannah in the highest” and “praise be to God” before a massive crowd of soldiers with spears and axes. They waived their weapons of war and cheered in their clanking armor.
Some of my friends were doing a stage play before the sermon, which pleased the soldiers greatly. My friends were dressed is little old men in white robes and had little candle holders in their hands. They all three scooted out into the stage barefoot while a man in a gold cape tried to reach out and grab them from the wings while I held on to his flappy and tattered cape.
J looked beautiful. Her hair was kinda poofy, like she had styled it. She was on video playing with a keychain toy the dentist gave her in his office, then eating food at a restaurant with my old friends, mentioned earlier. She was eating a plantain it looked like, and the food she was attempting to conquer was too big to fit in her mouth. She laughed at the situation in that joyous way she does.
There was fire burning the land earlier, before J was anywhere. My old home had been reduced to ash as I saw from above. The fire was still burning over a few ridges. Smoke billowing up into the blue sky.
It wasn’t just me watching J, my whole family was there gathered around the TV of my childhood home. We were commenting on how cute she was and that she didn’t know she was on camera. My mom laughed while J spun the little keychain around on her finger as her eyes chased the toy, spinning around in the air.
At that moment, even though a screen and distance divided us from each other, I knew she was still a fit in this family, and a part of us somehow.
Waking up alone and too early, I wonder quietly if she is out there somewhere thriving, living a new life that is entirely her own. Once she flew away, I could not see. I do not know, or truly want to know, because there is no reality comparable to the one I’m in when I sleep.
The time for celebrating is nigh Blog. After all this time volunteering, I’m gainfully employed nearly at full time starting in January. I’m an employee of NAMI Sacramento and Mintz Computer Guyz for nearly 30 hrs/week. This is enough to replenish my lost savings and then some. What a relief that is!!!
I hear my negative voice trying to put a damper on my progress. It says: “you’re a liar and a crook. Your soul is black and you destroy everything you touch. You will bring only destruction to these people and your so called work.”
While I appreciate how much that voice hates me, evidence speaks to the contrary. I am valued in my occupation for my honesty and legitimate results. My heart is full of effusive joy, and I make those around me desire my company. I build things with effort and work, and promote a positive future for myself and others. I bring the advancement of goals and fulfillment of possibilities to all things I apply my passion to.
The proof is right here in front of me; laid out in deeds and actions done. That negative voice from within or without doesn’t have much fact to base a claim of ineptitude. I look at the proof of assumption and see the truth.
The voice demands a polar reality, where any transgression is tantamount to the worst conceivable result. Inflation, roiling resentment and unending hate are the motivators for this contributor. So, as I have with other persistent negative voices, I’ve learned to tune them out.
It is a tough habit to break, the indulging of the voice. We listen to it sometimes. Believe in the self-destructive lies. A pattern repeated until learned away from. I have not finished indulging that voice… which takes in the potent form of someone once loved (but now jailed in resentment).
The voice is only as sustainable as the environment allows. Once the climate is positive, it doesn’t make sense to listen to it anymore. I hope for more days like that ahead, as the barrage continues regardless.
The days are growing again, slowly, coming to bear full as we travel around and around that big yellow thingie. We have been pointed at darkness for long enough, I say.
I’m hoping not to dream anymore. Rips are forming in my canvas, and the formerly delightful introspective brush set seems to paint only in black. It is this dark hour, when cuddling up by a warm seem the most honest if truths, that I mourn. I yearn, pointlessly.
The sun is coming. From out the shadows, it is blooming, growing. Radiating. I wish for that return to the hissing summer ghosts on the dry wind. The far away pollen smells of distant places, deep wet mountains and trees gulping in and breathing out.
Maybe this is it. Maybe not. It’s better to be prepared to deal with a difficult outcome than to be surprised by it. I can be surprised by all sorts of other things, but not calamity.
Down to the last few days before Christmas. Family, friends, fire… and freaking huge buds. Beer, bread and BADDA BOOM! We do know how to have a good time.
I do t think anyone is getting in the circle now. Not anyone new. It’s just too late.
A sinew;
Twisting, stretch-snapping the expanse,
Shredded down to an impossible wire.
But feeling it there–
Some thread still binding,
In unrequited twitterpation,
Escaping the fury of torment,
Yet yanking at the throat–
Scraping the hole left by death.
It’s only in dreaming–
That some bridge still exists,
A span still endures,
Where she can still be found.
Down is there under the mask.
In the flesh itself.
Broiling with fever just underneath.
It is a pressure.
A slowly increasing a downward force.
Feeling bones crunching and snapping.
It is a beat of the heart.
Agonizingly drawn out and scrutinized.
Grasping for purchase where there is none.
Pulsing, gulping and sputtering on.
It is the mirror of memory.
All the second guessing and reassessing.
Spinning alternate fates.
Musing on impossible realities.
Wishing to live in a dream instead of life.
Saddened by the depths of dejection.
Wilderness-bound, cold and wandering.
Screaming only where no one can hear.
Where is this place? My feet are not on the ground. I am compelled by the gusts of pain, upon an uncertain wind of remembering. How to escape it? Flee to some other world where things are different, albeit temporarily. Long for rest where dreams may bring me near to someone I used to love. A pervading sense of ongoing solitude restricting my oxygen. The waves crash ceaselessly. Pounding the craggy shore. Again and again.
I wish my pinky toe would die and fall off my foot. All it brings is pain, being a magnet for hard corners.
There is no resolution here, only an ongoing application of filter to restrain the localized toxicity of reality. The bitter bile of truth, ingested agonizingly.
Before Ja* there was Je*, and last night I was again visited by a spectre of my past. in Je*’s relationship, there was a very physical, carnal, fuel abundance. My dream ventured deep into the entwining moisture of sex, the spontaneity of passion, the strip-down clothes-shredding-seizure that ensures when the moment is nigh. But yes, there was still that anger and conflict. Even amidst that largely satisfactory arrangement, there was the tension of misunderstanding, the vast gorge filled with resentment looming. The fire burned fast, flickered, and then was gone forever.
It is emblematic of my past relationships. Starting with an explosion of similarly mirrored energies, then dwindling as the strands tear in the drift. It makes me wonder if I am going to be alone for the rest of my life. It makes me wonder if I am even capable of being a good partner. It reminds me of what it feels like to be loved by no one who doesn’t have to.
This dangly, barely alive leg is about to cross over, yet, the gasping push is microcosmic in relation to the race. We are all running, flailing, falling, but still trying to break that proverbial ribbon.
The silence of hate. Somewhere far away, a sleeping mountain grumbles beneath. It’s all rose petals and la la la, right? That’s how this goes? Why don’t we all gather round the marmalade and sing a merry song of doom?
There are no stories that go how we think. There is this life, here, now… we do what we can with what we have left. The container is corrupted now. The whole spiraling nightmare is true, and from that irreconcilable oblivion the state of things is found. No fur-brained delusions will come true no matter how many are fed to the blood altar.
Wallow or wallop. It’s really up to you.
After a night of purging my emotional turbulence (see below), I find myself again, reflectively pointed toward action. Even after all the castigation and ridicule I subjected myself to, those pestering voices tend to get quieter when I’m being proactive in my life or meaningfully responsible, or using the evidence of such to validate the truth. This helps me do battle with that negativity when it shows up, most of the time. I tend to be more rational than spontaneously emotional, so going back over my thoughts and feelings helps me quantify and understand my responses to things. My reaction to J memories returning has been to vent, which I suppose is working in some ways. However, there is no real cohesion to a response or a course of action.
However. there is not a fundamental desire to make this a focal point of my ongoing life, even with some gesturing. Instead, it has taken a passenger’s back seat to several other priority items. Right now, I think I am my most well equipped to be a functional communicator In my life, however, not rushing to fill the space a partner would have. I still yearn for something abstract, shaped like a nostalgically recalled relationship I once had that was seemingly wonderful. None of that is rational. The assignment of emotions and blurriness to the memory is harmful at best, and arbitrary in nature since any number of other emotions are attached this way as well, and not destructively.
I see my wound, that place inside me that is still hurt, but there is no action to take, no tool to pick up and use. I just get up, and continue walking forward undeterred. She and I hurt each other, and now that pain reminds me of how not to fall into a similar situation, for myself or anyone else. My learned diligence as a result of my collapse has helped me take on the responsibilities I have today, and the fulfilling life so-far crafted. It was a scarring, agonizing lesson to fail, lose everything, reboot… and I still remind myself of that failure, as has been apparent.
What am I doing? I’m coping through expression, the best I can, to deal with my mixed up feelings and try to appease the part of me that is still fractured and splintered with pain. If I will never be able to help her resolve her pain, then at least I can work to resolve mine. It frustrates the logic motor to have nothing to “do,” per-say, no way to repair or permanently heal, other than to do one’s best obelisk impersonation for as long as possible. Survive, learn, and adapt. The pain will never stop, but it does not have to be a focus as it has been of late…
I find myself engrossed in the mud of memory, slipping Back with each grueling step forward. There is sadness dragging me down, forcing me into the decompositional murk.
It is J. The memory of her. The impact she had in my life. After 4 years, the sting of her absence is just as real as the day she flew away. I know not how no let go of that pain. I feel her like a piece missing in my soul; at the very core of who I am. She reached me like no other, and I must accept she is gone forever.
I have not been able to do this because I still love who she was. I still love what we had when it was beautiful. She understood me like none before, and now she will never come back. The pain I feel here is something years have not reduced. Her departure is as fresh and bloody as any recent wound. Now, during this warm and family time of year, I miss her the most.
In times like this, when I remember, I tend to reflect in order to preserve my sanity. Having no word from her but another hateful disconnect in our frail communications is all I have left to remember her by. Her animosity. Accusing me of rape. She must truly despise me, which is a pain I must accept. I hurt her beyond repair, and now… now I am scum. A criminal. A pile of dirt. I wish. I wish she could see how I still love her. I wish she knew.
Blog, I come here to express, not to resolve. Unless clearly stated, my feelings are cast out into the ether with no expectation of understanding or compassion. I have only my own life to answer to.
I got a job today, and now I will have an income. I am a part of a team growing into future successes and possibilities. A whole new life built on pride and honesty is available for me. It is a future brighter than I have had in a very long time. I wish I could share it with her. I wish she was here with me, in these joyous times. I love her. I will not be able to stop, even if she wishes I was dead. All the wishes in the world will fall into the endless silence. There will be no reply. The dead do not respond. My broken place remains as it was, ever hoping, never knowing.
How fragile the whole thing is. Just a scratch and the blood pours forth. Right there, still, after all this time.
And yet her vibration is hatred. Animosity, rage, disgust. How does one reconcile such a schism? There is no way forward from back there. Such deep prolonged sadness. A terrible regret for such a thing to go unreconciled.
Alas there is no answer. Just hopes cast like screams into the wind. Carried off again to some unknown fate, there is nothing left to hope for. No trace left to be found.
Deep in the dark, alone, I wonder where she is. Does she still feel me, the way I feel her? I tease myself with impossibilities yet always hold out true hope for a future that has almost no chance of being possible.
Music scrapes away the armor. Recollections of deep potency. These and many other tribulations of the heart of someone lost. Spinning down into a space filled with cold. I have not been the same since then, and I’m still figuring out how to be at peace with having lost her.
Pierce the tangible vail,
An echo timeless–
Her figments arrayed,
Through the fractured parallels.
Meet me there–
Where only our shades dance,
Dreamers in life,
Estranged from reality,
The final bastion of us.
Streak burning green across the stars,
Puffy warm breaths at Jupiter and Mars,
Frozen cheeks stare in awestruck wonderment,
At surprises revealed by atmospheric turbulence,
Holding hands tight beneath the warm blankets,
Sky polished and bright for the great royal banquet,
Beneath the black cloak eyes ache for sleep,
For this fanciful dream he will always keep.
Retreating into a cave where destructive activity prevails. Gross meat smells. Funk. Sweat. Not many fans lining up for a sniff.
Sadly, this is the way that seems most likely. A slow half-life decay into subatomic oblivion. Casting no shadow in this world. What does it feel like to be erased from desirability?
I love someone who is gone from my reality. Gone forever with no trace; as though whisked to the ethereal plain. More an idea than an actuality now. The shredded hopes of a forgotten time. Writhing with the mournful despair for the dead.
Dried in the sunlight. Wasted to slurry in the dank dark of rotting loss. Grasping at the walls, hoping to climb out of it. Nails shredded and flesh-raw fingers rake the walls with blood. There was never any way out. Lying beside her corpse in the darkness.
She hated every last piece of me. Maybe hates me still. Nothing left. No part of my past that was worth keeping. Only the foul stink of decomposition remains. Yet, I wallow beside. In the festering bile, I still hope.
Some ridges–
Blunted by time’s decay,
Fractured rivulets across the plain,
Cavernous, engulfing.
Sometimes brushed or bruised–
Maimed and tarnished by use,
Stained, scarred–
Two canvases.
—
Alight a feather’s grace,
Delicate fingers unfurl,
Blessed the slightest droplet of dew,
Corralled briefly,
Unchanneled and free–
A transient of history engrained.
Taken back. Days that seem brighter in their nostalgia. Is it misplaced fondness, or some bleary portrayal obscured beyond reality? I doubt there is a polar answer, but an amalgamation of both imagination and scar tissue.
Dreams can be triggers. Who was she to have left such a deep mark, one I have never healed from? It seems impossible, but it isn’t. The pain is very real. It’s with me always.
Numbered pasts. Counted scenes. Missed chances. How different would it have needed to be to have sustained? Are there parallel universes where we are still?
Drowning in my thoughts is s fitting way to disappear into unconsciousness.
Glinting off wet lashes,
Tired, peering into the bright–
Piercing glare.
Furrowed for shade,
Revealing scars, lines–
Staring, smashing into shards,
Reflecting–
Too real to behold.
It started with a big social gathering at some neutral site. J was there, but she wasn’t how I remembered her: she was tanned, rounder but absolutely beautiful. We sparred with playful words across the ballroom then retreated to the side. I saw what I felt was true in her eyes.
There was a house, but it was Kyle’s house. I don’t know anyone named Kyle, but we were both invited to go to stay. The house was huge beyond comprehension. I was on the top floor with my cat in a room that was strewn with papers, books, clothes and other loose objects. Other cats were lingering outside my door which worried me.
She was in another room somewhere, but we were so far apart we had to call each other on the phone to talk. We expressed our explicit desires, intentionally, and fully.
When i found her in the house, the same fire she had from my memory of our past was there as we tossed, giggled and touched lips briefly in our private bedroom. There was untapped passion there, just on the edge of revelation. We did not go to all the places we could have; there was ecstasy in savoring the moment.
The house began to spin. I stumbled to find a way out. I tried to rescue my cat as it was assailed on all sides by resident cats. They attacked, clawed viciously. I grabbed them by the scruff and tossed them away, but they kept coming.
I made my way to the bottom, but kept tipping over, crashing into things, scattering books across the floor, hitting the ground and getting back up. I got out, but fell down on the concrete curb outside, for the last time. She was there, but she couldn’t rouse me as my consciousness slipped away. She wished desperately that I would wake, but I was gone.
Kyle’s house was on the shore, and as I looked out for the last time, the tide was coming in.
C Score: 2.5
E Score: 1.5
The drag of time. A hook sunk deep into the meat, constraining and directing. Sometimes questions are louder because they can’t be quickly answered, if at all. Screams echoing in the chasm. Where ambiguity pervades, depression follows.
I don’t long for companionship in a way that dictates action, and have no motivation to flip reality upside down to satisfy the ache. In the end, I’m too enmeshed to risk toppling stability over an uncertainty. Knowing when to extend is a talent I’m getting better at. Still, old harmonies remind, and invite a reprisal. The palisades and balconies in my dreams are the only vistas she still makes sense in. This figure who is with me. Whoever she has or will be.
I’m lost to old glimpses. My edifice paraded by uneasy crowds, ingloriously, in a city frothing with unrest. Little more than an icon from a long dead time. My world is made of things that can’t be forgotten.
Maybe the next few upcoming days will provide some clarity, or maybe there is no escape from the shadow of love. For all my griping, I remain untethered.
Reflecting after group, I see how common issues build bridges of compassion or understanding. I’m feeling extra introspective:
I keep hoping I’ll dream about J like I did a few weeks ago. She’s the only echo left… all the others have faded into nothing. In my dream, we had a strange encounter, but it reminded me of several aspects to my past feelings that feel very real now. In that moment with her, things were like they used to be… a familiar sort of estrangement. A sense of elusive excitement. It was a piece I could hold in my hands that now is shrinking down into nothing.
I know I’m not doing my best. I have recently, but not anymore. My best is too expensive; all I can afford is meh. Dwindle.
Longing for spark, or poof & rabbit. The friskyfied feelings. The electric arcs fingertip snapping their crackle. I remember what it was, that I had it, but that was long ago it seems.
This is a fool’s errand.
The cauldron churns some new rancid elixir which will grant stupendous charisma at the cost of unfathomable isolation.
Cold air’s ambiance-
Pieced by a rustle of readiness,
Bent with leaves and frosted petals,
Crunched to a waxing glimmer,
Succulent melted ice,
Crispy splash awakening.
The aching, radiant reach–
Exciting the monotony,
Of ecstasy.
The carousel of experience continues at a dizzying pace but all the while I wish for the silence of a moonless night. I can hear little teeth chattering across the floor. Chitter chatter chitter chatter.
What is being? Where is the anchor of meaning? I’m a desperate pilgrim on a journey too vast to comprehend. All I can think about is the hill directly ahead.
There’s only me. No one is likely to get inside the laugh box again. I’m too skewed from center to be reconciled, it seems. I think I have pretty much come to accept this. Almost two years now and no more desperate than when it started.
Flattering the obelisk only has so many permutations. So shiny and hieroglyphics so nice. But what else can you say? Someone else comes along and it all sounds so fresh and real. I don’t know what it is; it’s simply ear candy. Something missed.
Goodnight.
Neurochemically Challenged 