Clockwork Heart

Time... It clicks forward at a rate constant yet intangible, ethereal yet all too real.  I feel myself aging, my body working a little less like it should, my face carrying more and more of the weight of living, and each day I inch closer and closer to my next milestone.

Twenty nine in less than two months, then a  year to to thirty.  THIRTY, that all important age when you are no longer TWENTY, when you can't call yourself TWENTY anymore, when your age finally starts catching up with you.  NOTHING good can come of being thirty.

Sometimes the reality of life rears its ugly head and I know that it is fleeting and nigh pointless.  I think of the span of time it took to get from my childhood to my teens, and from there to here, and its most definitely speeding up.  Like a foot grown heavy on life's accelerator, I'm heading for a cliff I cannot avoid.  What comes after thirty? My THIRTIES when most adults have there heyday, and when for me it will be "all is just the same".  But not young, no longer youthful or energetic or full of LIFE.  I'm inching closer to death.

Were it possible to suspend the aging process and live forever I would, even if it meant living in the relative squalor I currently occupy.  I'd be the immortal cripple if it meant not having to face death.  That's the truth of it, I fear dying, and what, if anything, comes after.  Part of me screams that this is it, that when we pass we blink out of existence and go back to the forgotten darkness of before we were born.  I know I wont care, because I wont BE, but that is cold comfort.

There is so much of life that I enjoy, or have yet to experience, and I'm wasting what little time I have.  I'm burning my brief period in the light on stress and anxiety and depression and each moment gone is one I can't ever get back, but I can't stop.  Anxiety has a purpose, or so my therapist says, to mask other feelings (his theory, not mine).  Am I really that choked with anger that I need to stress life that much?  I don't know, but it doesn't seem right.  But, life goes on, and its all good...

IT'S GO TIME

So this is my white boy version of REAL TIME...

She waited till I was drunk to lay it out for me, the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth...

So help you god?

I'm angry, all the time, and it burns inside me like hot irons in my soul.  I think hateful thoughts about people on a near constant basis, I fantasize about hurting people, and none of this is even remotely ok.  My anger has been building up since I was four years old, from those early transgressions that I didn't, no, COULDN'T protest.

And she saw through me like a pane of glass in a porn shop display case.

I'm displacing the blame for everything that's my fault, every fault of mine that I delay fixing, because I can always say...

"It wasn't me...  It's not my fault... THEY did this to me..."

And its not even remotely ok...

She took me from three sheets to the wind to dead sober just by bee-lining towards truths I hadn't even considered, yet in my heart knew to be true.

I'm in a cage, and its made of my anxiety and suppressed rage.  One feeds the other, the right hand washes the left, and it keeps going on in a circle without end.

I'm not ok, my situation isn't ok, and I'm doing nothing to fix it because its oddly comfortable to be this paralyzed, because the alternative is facing the truth.

"Talk to Jim..."

...her only answer to the simplest of questions, how do I fix it?  How to I rewrite a lifetime of programming from both internal and external sources?

Its not so easy, I don't know the answers, and she can't give them, because i rely too heavily on her and others to "fix me", when they most certainly can't.

They can't even understand me, for the most part, because so much of what I feel is hidden under layers that I THOUGHT were impenetrable.

"No one can tell, EVER..."

But they can, if its obvious to her its obvious to others.  I'm a wreck, a nervous hateful wreck and its not going away overnight.

And I can't expect her to fix me, even if she can so quickly an eloquently point it out in a moment of my weakness.  I'm on my own, but I don't have to be, I need outside sources, outside people to befriend or even simply associate with.  I need activities, responsibilities, and things to call my own.

And she can't fix me, maybe she never could, maybe I've been looking for solutions to problems only I  have the answers to.

Maybe she'll read this, and maybe she'll post a comment, something quick and witty and sharp to the point.

And maybe I don't need her to, maybe I need to find my own voice, my own identity, my own song...

I need to find myself, and only then will I be ok...

AC/DC And Kittens

"its a loooong way"

...sings ac/dc on Pandora, the best way to listen to hair metal is by happy accident on a music streaming program.

"to the top if you wanna"

... they blare out, I lean forward on the over-arched curve of my back and give my cat a little kiss on the nose,
"It IS a long way Mojo, a long way to the top..."

"ROCK AND ROLL!"

...they finish there train of though, and I keep listening but in a distracted manner.  Those lyrics are the ones that keep repeating in my head, as if on a loop, and the rest don't really seem to matter much.  A long way to the top, of course, but mostly if you are in the mind of rocking and rolling.  The platitudes I give to my cat are just a way of forcing my issues on her, I tell her "I know Mojo, I know..." as if she were just issuing out a sigh and expressing her disdain for all the troubles life is presenting her with.

"I know what its like to be a kitty, little Mojo..."

...which of course I don't, she doesn't seem to mind what I say, as long as I use "the voice"... The voice is a combination of love and soft tones that makes her happy, all she needs from me is a generous petting, a steady supply of food and clean litter, and of course the voice.

Its simple being a cat, you accept love, you demand attention, and you sleep... so much glorious restful sleep, so often that it dominates your schedule for the day.  What are you doing today? You're going to SLEEP for at least seventy five percent of it, and when you aren't sleeping they'll be a soft lap to sit on and someone to use the voice on you so that you can sleep some more.

I know what its like to be a kitty, I can describe it after many years of observation, but I'm not a kitty.  I'm a grown ass man with responsibilities and people counting on me to be my best, even when I'm not.

"It's a long way to the top, little Mojo, if you wanna rock and roll..."

Pretty Things

Someone told me how to live my life without saying a single meaningful word.  I learned by example and, though it took years, I picked up on all the subtle nuances of a lifestyle of simple decadence.  Oxymoron to some, but everything to me.  When I need to feel better I act silly, the more absurd the better, and it helps.  When I need to feel a connection I have that person on hand at almost any time.  Though it hurts inside to be cut off from what most consider normal, I keep on going, because it isn't the job that makes the man, nor the social circle.  I keep going because at any time I can escape within a world of endless adventure, and its because of her.

It seems simple enough that when she hurts, that I follow suite.

I look at this person, this icon of my very well-being, and when she is laid low by the tragedies of life, I do my best to help her.  I give her the advice I'd like to hear, because our situations are oddly mirrored.  And when it doesn't seem to help I question the validity of my life, but only briefly.

It took ten years to be my own man.  I let myself be guided by family and friends and loved ones and gurus and psychologists and none of them could put it as simply as she did.  But I am myself now.  Ten years to be born, and now the roles seem reversed.  I am trying to be there for a person who I thought had all the answers, a voice of reason that never faltered, and never let me down.  And it makes sense that things should come like this, full circle, when I am finally and fully self-actualized.  I have an identity, a purpose, a reason to wake up even if its just to spite those who said I couldn't.  Each day is a struggle, but that's life, and my life has its rewards.  I don't have to drudge away working jobs I despise or pretending to like people who aren't worthy of my love.  I am free in that way.

Simple pleasures, silly diatribes, names for every occasion.  I thought it was the heroes of books and film that led me to myself, but it wasn't.  In the end it was me, mirrored in everyone I sought guidance from.  I am my own savior, my own father, my own brother and friend.

One day it will all be better, and if its not I'll keep trying, because sometimes life is pretty, and that makes it worth it.

Dreamscapes

Dreams keep me awake sometimes, they spill out into my wakeful world like oil over the surface of water, tainting my ability to see through it into the reality bellow.  Can you imagine, that with every moments rest came recollections of things that never happened, moments of tragic history amplified for maximum effect.  No amount of therapy cures this, no trick of thought or act of restful contemplation makes my nights pass with ease, and every night I wake, again and again, to thoughts of travesties that never happened.  I dream and I regret the musings of my mind upon waking, I feel self-loathing for the parts of me that cling to such hateful thoughts so much that they must play them out before my closed eyes when I am most vulnerable.  It has always been this way, since I was so young that dreams would seem closer to reality and I'd wake with screams ready to burst from my throat.  I would give up EVERY dream between now and my eventual death for a night of restful, and blissfully empty, sleep.  Again and again I awake in the night, startled to consciousness by things unremembered JUST ENOUGH to light a smoke and inhale it with fervor.  Some nights I get no more than an hour of rest at a time before being jolted aware again.  I'm playing hopscotch with the night, jumping from dream to dream until I can safely get out of bed for good and start my day.  These days are filled with half aware recollections of the previous night, of wanting JUST ONE MORE HOUR.  And so in the day I nap, for napping comes easy, napping under the revealing light of the sun seems more appealing than in harsh and mournful moonlight.  Sleep might never come to me with ease the way it does with the rest of the world, I might NEVER have that feeling of waking rested, nor get through a day without the urge to return to slumber.  I am denied this, because of my history, because of what was done to me and what I fear from the future.  So now I lay me down to sleep again, mid afternoon and well lit.  Pray the following night passes as easily...

Idk my bff jill

I DON'T KNOW WHY but this makes me really really really happy :)

Desperately Parking Subaru

THIS car keeps parking in the back lot of the apartment complex where I live, it seems innocent enough until…

you notice the license plate, which clearly reads DSPRTLY, or DESPERATELY!!!

I have no idea whose car it is, why it parks there, and why they chose such a grim vanity plate

HOWEVER it continues to show up parked directly behind my building, sitting there unassuming

like.  IT COULD BE ANYONE, or, ya know, a serial killer… that could be it too…

Fuck the Police

Old Blogs clutter the internet like feigned attempts at diaries. I remember being a kid and being surprisingly intrigued by the idea of a diary, a personal memoir to hold and keep and NEVER let anyone else see. AND each would begin with a few entries and never be touched again. It wasn’t until I hit high school that the concept took off, old marble notebooks filled with writing and scribbles and countless illustrations of impossible things.  NOW that is a memory, and like other memories its faded and tinted with sepia toned glasses, the color of nostalgia.  THINGS used to mean so much, every thought had weight, every dream had prospects and purpose, now ALL I want is to be able to write again. WRITE in the feverish way that made me great, that sickly strength of words that made my work soar and my poetry truly worthwhile.  SO I keep opening diaries, I keep writing the first page and hope for the second, and the third, and onward until FOREVER…

Free Association Exercise: Silence is Death

There is a tickle in my throat, it comes with silence.  Not the kind of lonely silence that comes with being by myself, but being quiet in the presence of others when NOISE would scream INAPPROPRIATE.  That itch feels like a need, a hunger, an urge to break the silence and open up the room to NOISE once again.  NOISE is caustic but comforting, it is ever present even it our most hostile attempts to conquer it.  Our heartbeats ring out the tune of life though we ignore it, air rushes in and out of our lungs though we hardly notice the breadth of breath.  Our very guts churn with sluggish outcries to be heard.  We are never silent even in unconsciousness, and when we no longer echo out brash calls against boorish silence, we will no longer live. Silence is Death, silence is the end of all things, the darkness has a voice and it whispers with quiet soundless impotence.  So I’ll cough away the end of life and open my lungs to breathe and DIGEST every morsel of raucous lividity and tomorrow when I wake I’ll turn on the music again.

-Nowhere-

-NOWHERE-
I feel my analogies burning
churning like so much brew
I tip my glass to nowhere
and I empty it anew
to be an empty headed thing
a cretin, a bafoon
one more sip to nowhere
and I'll end the night at noon

new born needs arising
sighing with the coming dawn
I spawn from seas of tranquility
into fertile lands of siren songs
and nowhere calls my name
like somewhere i've been before
psychosis grows i know it knows
i'll be there before long

so when I count my pills at night
its with a heavy heart
for when my head is splintered
the shards glisten in the dark
and shine a light towards nowhere
where I need to bleed to be
ecstatic and amorous
in love with being me