time lapse

been a while, right? you'd think i dropped off the face of the earth.

maybe i did, who knows?

someone who looks like me is still here, though, and she's almost like the real thing.

fell apart

last night, though that's probably inaccurate; i was more like a wrecking ball tearing it down.

it isn't his fault that i can't get over it. he tried, tries, i know he does, sometimes, but what good is it to be wanted only when you're leaving? i can't be on the way out all the time. i don't want to be the threat that keeps him here.

i guess it boils down to this: i don't want to be here.

he thinks i'm crazy; thinks he should drag me to a shrink, drug me up, i'll be ok, normal, myself but leveled out. what has level ever had to do with me? i don't need leveled out, don't need cured. a drug with amnesiac properties might work, might erase everything that's brought me here, but then i'd be cheating myself out of the truth about where i am, and why.

i am not who i'm supposed to be. i have melted away somewhere along the line, left bits and pieces of myself scattered through the years and somehow i have to try and collect those pieces, patch them haphazard over the holes we've made and try and put myself back together again. i won't look the same, but i might finally be whole in a patchwork, mended sort of way.

can't sleep

as usual, by myself but not, funny how his presence can be distant and oppressive at once.

think i'll get a tattoo, six little stars, little bit of light every day.

started to call you

better not, fuck you up worse than you already are.

i thought about it though.

if i could just get some sleep

maybe everything would be ok.

just a little rest, time to chill, not think, close my eyes for longer than a second.

sat in the sun for a minute, helped a little maybe, had to come in quick and deal with life...wasn't worth the effort dragging myself off the stairs.

i want to lie in the grass and look at the stars for no reason...just a little bit of quiet...then maybe things will be ok.

must be cool to be you

beats the shit outta being me.

i love the descendents.

in definite

so here is is, this thing, this giant FUCK of a life...

this is where you say you made your bed now lie in it, a consequence for every action, for every action an equal and opposite reaction

re-action

same action, over and over

hence the giant FUCK of a life, right?

this is where i tell the world to fuck off, drop dead, kiss my ass, bite me

if the boot fits, bite me

inside jokes are no good if you're always on the outside

dr. seuss (on crack)

perfectionistic narcissistic

neuroticist eroticist

antisocial socialite

spoiled and ignored

psychopathic sweet fantastic

pathologic void of logic

catastrophic slight myopic

hated and adored

contradictionary fairy

disillusioned jaded pure

varnish burned by something caustic

evil genius diagnostic

in the way invisible

delectable repulsive

irrational impassible

constricted and compulsive

tasted by the masses and rejected by the few

lost and found the way out by the light under the door

shut it locked it boarded up

but all the good stuff's on the inside

some kind of catharsis

marilyn manson, tool, maynard screaming fuuuuuuuck you buddy, windows down riding speedbumps like an earthquake coming

lay back in the seat, quiet now

breathe

hum

i can't be anyone's salvation; the flowers in my hair are innocent and free of thorns, and i gave the role of martyr over to someone more deserving a long time ago.

i can't promise anything to anyone, can't even promise to be when you wake the same person i was while you slept.

if i am drowning and you are beside me, i may let myself go under, but i will never sacrifice myself to serve as your raft. too long, i lived someone else's vision, was a doll behind glass and when you finally pulled the string that made me speak i didn't say what you thought had been programmed into my porcelain head, and you were disappointed and angry.

i think...someone beside me would be nice, for once.

summer

do you remember hooper? he was kind of an asshole, but the only kid you'd ever met who could keep up with you in conversation, and though he liked to beg sometimes he never fell at your feet like the others did.

you got lost once, in his beat-up old station wagon, even though you both travelled the back roads every day, and ended up at the end of a dirt road in the country. wild roses grew on the fence at the edge of the grass, and hooper rolled down the window and picked one while dogs barked on a nearby porch and you laughed at the thought of being chased back down the road by an overalled man with a shotgun.

it was warm that day and the air smelled of honeysuckle, cloyingly sweet. for a few hours you were friends, two geeks against the world, and then

hooper disappeared, or maybe you did, and that was a good thing.

wish list

(with apologies to pearl jam for stealing the title)

silence without repercussion

conversation

three popcorn-flavored jellybeans

a wildflower for my hair

...smile when you see me...

a floppy hat

security

taco bell food...a warm car...a quiet place

a day off

permission to seek all of the above

catapult

when you land it isn't as hard as you'd think.

the flying is scary, though. clouds move faster than they should, birds become victims shot down in mid-flight, downy feathers sticking in your lashes for a second or two before you blink them away. if you're lucky there won't be many bugs in the air while you're up there.

so yeah...this is the part where you go, what the hell is wrong with this chick? she's fucking nuts.

not fucking nuts, literally, of course. you know what i mean.

you might be right.

this did not happen yesterday

passed out before the bottle emptied, woke covered in chalk dust and stuck on spin for a day and a half, depleted and even that didn't make it quit.

rejected reject, someone once said.

without i am like i was back then, a long time ago: lying in the sun, grass scratching at my shoulders, book laid open, laughing at 10:47. walking on the edges of everything, not afraid to fall, i put flowers in my hair, hang beads from my wrist, wear colors that don't beg me to hide and used to blind me with their light.

with i am only without.

there are only two options available:

swallow faster, or laugh harder.

picking flowers and stringing beads, i will find my way out.

did you feel that?

it's not like this is something you can touch.

and yet the promise of touch is what keeps things going, keeps you alive: the promise of the slightest brush of fingers or the whisper of breath exhaled on warm skin.

in silence there is often companionship, a tacit understanding that words would only breach. speech can be the thing that breaks your life.

but a life without touch is simply sterile; your immunity to life wears and you become, slowly but without a doubt terminal, death creeping up on you almost imperceptibly until you wake one day to wonder if you ever really lived at all.

a brief glimpse of what is

it's early; too early, though later than i usually rise. the fog still lingers around the edge of the day and my head, and i sit up slowly, reaching for the book i fell asleep reading last night. finish the last few pages...stretch, sigh, lay the book gently down, rise and head for the bathroom. i wash my hands, pull the elastic from my hair, glance in the mirror. i see myself then, only for a second, waking up, as he does: young and alive. i am afraid, but not enough to keep me from moving forward.