lately.

Sometimes I wish for falling
                              Wish for the release
Wish for falling through the air
                              To give me some relief
Because falling's not the problem
                             When I'm falling I'm at peace
It's only when I hit the ground
                             It causes all the grief

-Florence

The sun sets before I even get home from work, and I'm sick of it already.

none

"If only there could be an invention...that bottled up a memory, like scent.  And it never faded, and it never got stale.  And then, when one wanted it, the bottle could be uncorked, and it would be like living the moment all over again."

"I wish I was a woman of about thirty six dressed in black satin with a string of pearls."
                   
                            -Daphne Du Maurier

 

Because words are failing me.  Because my lips are dry, my skin is itchy and my allergies are back after a week in a kinder, more humid climate.  Because my thoughts refuse to organize and have been insisting on this diabolical behavior for too long now.  

Because these days are starting to blur into one in a way that I find unsettling.  Because I keep jumping back and forth between plans and I just can't seem to get a grip.  Because I'm missing people, and never know how to handle that.  Because I get myself down, and then feel guilty for it, which gets me even more down, if that's even a thing.  Because I'm still not sure how to measure my both precious and insignificant existence.

But Laura Marling's new album is out.  And I have this husband who takes my hand and tells me he loves me with words on a daily basis like he knows I need.  So I'm planning on burying myself for a while, into these good things.  And not even I know what I mean by that.

"You came here to tell me something I already know. Dark before the dawn is the darkest I can go. The calm before the storm is what leaves me here to breathe. So breathe. Us of constant banging, throwing fists against the wall. Screaming at the earth for what it's done to one and all. I came here to tell you something you already know. Just Breathe. Breathe."

-L.M.

pieces of the weekend.

T'was glorious to behold.

There is just something delicious to me about that word, "weekend."  The conclusion of yet another week full of so many...life-things.  Eloquent, I know.  Just those things that come with life which can't be avoided at any cost, that make me stop, and sigh, and at mid-sigh say, "Life..."  Because that's just it.  There is nobody to blame and nothing to do other than to keep trudging on through the thick and the thin landscape of this life.  This existence.  That I both love and loathe, depending on the day or the minute or the hour.

The sunlight brought to us a charge, a sense of "we-must-do."  And so, naturally, we cleaned the house.  We organized the medicine cabinet and swept floors, did the dishes and wiped off counter tops, vacuumed carpets and scrubbed toilets. (Well, a toilet.  The only toilet we have.)  And I suddenly feel as though I've finally caught my breath after a long and grueling walk uphill.  Not to say that my life itself has been particularly challenging as of late, but my mind has certainly been doing its best to make it seem that way.  And after this weekend, that irksome feeling has finally decided to go steal someone else's breath for a while.

That's why I felt the need to take pictures of the ordinary this weekend.  To capture those perfectly nothing moments.  Where my mind isn't trying to make things harder than they actually are.  Where I feel like myself.  I wanted to save these fleeting moments, because they won't last forever.

There is new week after every weekend, a new haze after any moment of clarity.  And I will never quite get a grip on that.  But for some strange reason, I feel like acknowledging that fact is the only way to actually get a grip on anything.

stress eating.

You know that feeling you get after examining the countless aspects of your life and you realize that you need to improve
and be better
and work harder...at every single one of them?

But that's way too overwhelming of a project to even try to come up with a tackling plan for, so you just go get a 3 Musketeers bar and frantically pound it down, outer-chocolate-shell first?

Me neither.

Seriously though, I've always had this sneaking suspicion in my head that, somewhere between childhood and adolescence, something in me sort of disconnected.  Some vital plug lost touch with a crucial outlet, and here I am.  Dysfunctional and unable to complete tasks that the vast majority of people seem to be able to do in their sleep.  When all I want to do is sleep.  Sleep sleep.

Just, why does everything have to be a jigsaw puzzle?  Why can't I paint by numbers?

Dear January,

Frankly, you exhaust me. I can say little of the hospitality your dreariness lends.  We're running out of fresh oxygen.  February, be kind to me.  Each night I re-acquaint my body with sleep, and vow never to leave my bed again.

But growing up is giving away your time, space, and energy.  Simply adjusting to the things you abhor.  Growing up is shedding tears at the sight of something you've only laughed at on a hundred occasions before.  It's that feeling of shock and disgust when you finally get the joke.  We're running out of ideas.

It's a lousy sensation, realizing that anyone I came to admire has only been tolerating me.  A charade of pleasantries.  Nodding heads and curtsies.   Then comes a confirmation of my greatest fears.

So how could I ever thank you, for humoring me all of these years?

uninspired.

"There is nothing of interest to me out there on earth at all."

I'm guessing it has something to do with the smog/inversion.  And something to do with the fact that it literally hasn't been this cold here since December 1990, according to my calculations.  (Aka: Google search results.)  I wasn't even alive in 1990.

Did you know that cats sleep 14-16 hours a day on average? 

Lovely:

–adjective

1.  charmingly or exquisitely beautiful: a lovely flower.

2.  having a beauty that appeals to the heart or mind as well as to the eye, as a person or a face.

3.  delightful; highly pleasing: to have a lovely time. 

  
Filling empty space with echoes of you

every night.

My walls now covered in your face

like it'd help.

Well, I thought it might.

Would you wake me when you leave?

I know you're not staying long

as I'd like.

These words I'll never say to you

keep me company 

through the night.

I wish for some new sedative,

steady my breathing, 

close my eyes.

One glance and you will see

my heart holds you responsible

for what's been done to me.

It was you singing songs to me when we had nothing better to do.  It was me, feeling like there was no better way my time could be spent.  Considering how those rich melodies would cloud my mind like some vaporized narcotic.  In the midst of so much lip contact, such a small amount of eye contact.  Though I would strain myself to keep from blinking - to keep you from vanishing - a stimulant I couldn't operate without.  And though any contact with you only seems to result in humiliation, I've just got all of this room I could spare.  There is no way you would come and no way I would ask - It's just that I have so much I could share.

I haven't seen your face in what might as well be years.

But, dear recollection, you're everywhere.

You're as good as tangible.

We climb these great heights

just to get a little perspective.

We hold someone up

when they're weak or rejected.

I like to see the bigger picture

like I like to live in this house way up on a hill.

I'd be glad to hold you up,

yeah, I'd say it's a good mixture.

I'd hold you up if you would just stay still.

And I wonder at the genius of the sky,

the way it resembles that body of water underneath.

Or maybe it's the ocean that mimics the heavens above;

I can't say it ever mattered to me.

But if you were here first,

then it's yours,

of course.

If you were here before me,

by all means,

ignore me.

You were here in the first place,

So watch me serve it to you on a silver plate.

You were here first,

so take it,

it's yours.

Of course.

Too much of me is like a sugar OD.  Your stomach aches, your head throbs from the inside out, and your only choice, the only thing you want to do is sleep it off.  Carve little pieces of me out.  Here I am, and anything valid about this warped frame is what you left behind.  Breathe another fragment of my existence in each second, and I don't know how you live without it anymore.  So I'm working with this rough edge, and I'm smoothing out the corners.  I need to erase all of your complications.  Need to simplify all of these shadows and run through the echos until I reach that blank, blank space. I thought I'd cut you down to size before you leaped out of my heart again.  I'm diluting the substance that made you up. 

T&C

There was that night when we were too restless to stay indoors, the florescent lights of this familiar setting proving much too bright for our tired heads.  So we followed the road to a place where we'd be out of sight.  But the moon was so full that it still kept us up all night.  And I remember asking you in the steady glow, if you were planning on disappearing.

I should have known what it meant when I didn't get a straight answer.
I should have known that there wouldn't be a straight answer.

Your eyes became a concentrated source for me to look to, filled me up with everything good.

I should have known what it meant when they wouldn't meet mine anymore.
I should have known that they wouldn't meet mine anymore.
I should know, we aren't eye to eye.

I guess I missed your terms of service.  Now I'm so far overdrawn I doubt I'll ever really catch up.  Each day, I wake up and start running, in some delirious hope that I'll eventually be able to close my eyes without seeing the same empty echo - the same hollow scene that seemed to mean as much.  I guess I consolidated any sense of regard within this frame.  You'd think that by now I could have found some place else to rest my thoughts.  And I can see you so clearly, still silently asking, what brought you here again?  It gets farther away every time.  I can't remember all of that distant complication, but it still leaves me feeling just as unnatural as ever.  I'm still left feeling just as stripped to the core.

What is it about knowing that the last time had been the last time?  I've got too many loose ends to count.  You couldn't have made sense of it, tied me up before you took up residence in that alternate globe.  And I don't dare come close for fear that your roche limit will disintegrate my existence.  So I stay away.  But all I can keep thinking is, at what cost?  And why didn't you just say it when you were leaving, that this just wasn't happening anymore.

I could never admit how much of my breathing in and out has been done in your name.  Not even to myself.  But I remain in this quiet denial all the same.  And I would cover my walls with your face, if I thought it would help.

If you would have let me know that it was the last time.  If I would have known I would never see things from that view again, well, something deep inside of me says nothing would really have changed.  I'd still be here playing this twisted game.

If you could have set aside that private policy, I keep thinking there is some kind of difference I could have made.  There was something I could have done, if you would have let me.  Why couldn't you have let me?  If there wasn't time, I would make time.  Do you think you could let me?

globes. secondary sources.

and again, this subculture I reside in, this same route I abide by, even if the map were burned.  it's about the general frame of mind, not the overall design.  I make a more graceful wrong turn.

how could what I see be more than what there is?   this is all there is.  it's all I see.  and all I keep thinking is, prove me wrong.  and all I keep hoping is that you'll prove me wrong.

I'm sure you'd like to believe in my own state of joy and bliss and pursuit of happiness.  not for my own sake, but in defense of your indifference -  to justify these truths you dismiss.

how is it that everything that appeals to me only appeals to those I don't appeal to?

this is my own sub-subculture, and I can't open my mouth to speak anything that's actually heard.  I would reach out this time, give all the effort it took if I thought you might process a single word.

so I'll leave you in this state of inherited ignorance.

 this is my hollow existence, and I swear you're all just shadows on a wall.  prisoners, social atmospheres.  and an estranged sense remains after all.

regard:

-verb (used with object)
         To take into account; consider; to look at; observe; to relate to; concern.  

It just can't be healthy,
all these intruding lights that I see.
Pretending the night's not here,
they line all the streets.
And I'd like to find a place 
where I can't see them anymore,
like that impetuous memory made
so long before.

I'd like to find a place
where I somehow escape any thought of you -
at least in regard to me.
I say that now, of course,
with every doubt
that you really had any.

surprise party.

You used to sing these songs that I know.

And you used to sing them with me.

Now you sing them straight into the wind.

And this anguish is something you've chosen

to avoid acknowledging completely.

The more I go out,

the more I wish I had just stayed in.

The more I see,

the more I feel my head cave in.

You tell me not to be a stranger,

as I'm walking away faster than I came.

Recognizing you isn't easy,

masquerading around with a different name.

You say, don't be a stranger.

I wonder why we're having this conversation again.

You're avoiding my eyes,

and I can't think of what else I've ever been.

You say I shouldn't be a stranger.

It's the same conversation on repeat.

You're as vague as ever,

and I wonder what else I'll ever be.

I feel like a stranger

to an inexpressible degree.

It doesn't matter where I am

I'm never where you'll be.

I'm nothing more than a stranger,

passing by so fast you can't see.

I'm never what you're wishing for,

because I'm only ever what you ask me to be.

11/24/10

I can count on it, 
like I can count on this 
frigid weather 
every morning, 
catching in my lungs. 
When the sun seems to be 
failing 
in its efforts to rise, 
to shed that 
blessed light, 
and warm these 
frozen insides. 

I'll hear you calling 
when you're struggling 
again 
to find the best in you, 
like I always did 
before.  
I have to give credit; 
at least you know 
what I'm good for.   

I could always pick you apart 
into smaller pieces still. 
Your layers of meaning
leaving me 
simply perplexed 
every time. 
I never had 
my fill.

You can count on it 
like you can count on 
your boundaries 
keeping you in.
You'll order me 
to lay down 
as the street 
below your feet.  
It isn't you 
I have to blame; 
this is the way 
I've trained you 
to be.
[AND IF I'M SUCH A LIGHT, 
THEN WHY DO YOU RUN FROM ME?] 

You'll count on it, 
I know, 
just like you count on this 
frigid air. 
Just say when and where. 
Without hesitation, 
I'm there.

We are not steadfast. We are not extraordinary. This furious current will insist. It's all been swept away without a trace of any kind of yesterday.

just about where I was last November.

so here I'm found again, building these walls back up because I stuck around too long.  and my progress is compromised again and again by this general arrogance.  all of these ridiculous efforts to justify what was done wrong.

I exhaust myself everyday of my life.  Everyday of my life, I am mentally and emotionally exhausted.  I get caught up in specifics, particulars, inner structures.  I lose sight of where I came from and where I was headed.  Where is my mind?  How do I make it stop running away from where I stand presently?  I lose track of it, I stall.  Anyone around me can see that my thoughts are far from anything that they see as mandatory or relevant.  But that's exactly my point - it's the way they see it.  And no one understands.  

I take my turns, I say my words, I laugh my laughs.  But it all seems to echo in a hollow repercussion of my own fraud.  And I get so caught up in your passion and your exactness and this fortress you have built around you.  So forbearing and unnerving and not compromising at all.  And there's this single idea in the back of my mind that keeps revealing itself in my actions.  I can feel it gaining speed.  It's taken all I can give, I'm afraid there is no real part left of me.

stop looking at me as if this makes any sense.

There's a statue standing in front of me
who's asking like he cares.
The rest of the night spent
thinking of how to respond,
just sit and stare.
Here you are, a portrait in front of me,
looking at me straight in the eyes.
As if there's something more that I know,
like it's something I should recognize.
I spin around, find that glimmer of consistancy -
hold tight.
I'll Inch just a little closer for comfort.
Inner conflict,
wrong and right.
The only part that comes clearly,
one inch more for comfort instead.
Just flowing.
Stop thinking.
Not a word is said.

What keeps me here is mostly the genuine fear of wanting something that seems reasonably unattainable.  And even if it were somehow acquired, I wouldn't be ready for it.  This in limbo is enough to make my head spin.  And keep spinning.

9/27/10

You're never gonna be that little ball of light you planned on evolving into.  The smile that everyone that surrounds is expecting is never gonna come without an effort.  So give it up.  Let all of the hopeful circumstances you had saved up in your mind off the hook.  You're never gonna be what they are in your eyes.  Not to anyone.  There's a reason this situation feels so familiar.  So loosen than grip that's turning your knuckles white, that's burning your hands and fingers, causing more damage than it would if you would just let it go.  Watch your last connection slip away and out of sight.  Just leave it there on the curb like you might all of your failed attempts at organization, that the very sight of causes something deep inside of you to crumble.  It broke.  You're broken.  Stop acting as if it's a secret to anyone.  The recollections you're seeing everyone run back to, they aren't yours, not any part.  The time to build those retaining walls passed you by long ago.  While you were still trying to wrap your head around existence, breathing.  You've already spent all the time you can afford considering the unfair nature of the situation.  It hasn't changed a thing.  So take a step forward and away.

9/15/10

I have a feeling.
And I keep waiting for it
to pass me by.
But here it is -
this feeling,
This useless question
of, "why?"
My dreams keep
putting out all the lights -
valleys and cities at a time.
As if this world is
simply rejecting
anything that's mine.
I keep waking up
in this unwelcoming
hollow silence.
My conscious state
does nothing to turn away
the fear.
I'm in a sea of words and phrases,
drowning in the violence.
One day they'll swallow
me whole;
There will be nothing left
of me here.