Prison (written on 3/9/15)

The brain can become the prison, the dictator, the control freak, the ghetto.

It’s so hard to drive, sometimes just even to walk, or work out, or just to chill.

I remember my obsession as a kid, of never losing control. And what was so afraid of doing?…The options frighten me still. Looking back there was a whole lot of anger, a tremendous storm that was squished by the brain, a beast raging in chains…

Is it gone? Or is my mind perched on a volcano, and an instant deadly explosion and- I would just like to live, please. To drive on autopilot, windows open, the soothing rythm of motion…to fill my mouth with words and wring them out like laundry, effortlessly, the water drops flying in the sunlight, a presentation, my thoughts unfiltered….To weep perhaps- like the cutting of a grapefruit, and juice squirting sweet and messy….

But it its hard to unlearn what took years to perfect: Loss of control is dangerous. You cannot vouch for yourself, can’t vouch for anything…You hold a sweet secret sorrow in you chest, the candy of your youth.

conversation between me and myself-4 am and not enough whiskey to drown in

Would you like to go to sleep now?

Yes- yeah, please.

Would you like to turn off the fan?

Yes.

Do you think it’ll be better tomorrow?

I don’t know- but coffee roll for breakfast.

Did you just cry through every YouTube video, song, Voice Battle, and washing your face?

Yep. Go me.

Do you think it’ll get easier tomorrow- this….weight?

What do you think I want- huh? If I want to move, and I still stay shock still, wearing inertia like an overcoat- do you think- maybe I just don’t want it bad enough?

I think I wish you were drunk right now.

I wish I’d never been born, you know. 

I know.

But life’s beautiful. I’m not ready to give it up- there’s so many holes I gotta fill. So much shit to work with-

Do you think I can?

….

Is it supposed to rain tomorrow?

Yep.

Would be nicer to jog in the rain- less people, more refreshing.

Who are we fooling? Who’s doing the out-of-bed prerequisite to jogging, huh?

Do you wish you can unzip your bones and let your soul out, free- let it crawl under Someone Else’s rib cage and swaddle itself in their warmth and Otherness?

Yes. All the time.

Are you crying? Like, again?

Yes.

I’m sorry.

Yeah, me too.

 

a history in lies

It’s born in the dusk of necessity, as most of these things are. There is so much you can hope for, so much innocent questions you can dodge, so much mornings you can swallow sour, like an old pill on your tongue.

It’s not, you reason, like they would actually prefer the truth anyway- truth so often so much bigger and messier than the occasion can ever call for, than the venue or timeframe can ever contain.

The first of those lies comes easier than you’d like- Are you ok? Yes. Did you enjoy winter break? Very much. There are various dimensions to words, you see, and some words fit within the hole of your mouth smoothly, some words roll off your tongue like the weightless whiffs of normalcy that they are. 

birthday

for my 21st birthday,

I don’t really want much anything, not

the drinks and the food and not even the more thoughtfully procured books and mugs, I mean they mean a lot-every text and every card and every celebration but

I don’t really want any of it;

for my birthday, maybe

I’d like just a space, safe and empty of everything but being,

body-less and memory-less and me-less being,

just a silence and a touch,

a resemblance to home, to other things I’ve always wanted

I just want to rest a little, slight break from all this frenzied living,

I never quite caught the gist of it and it’s really hard, honestly,

honestly,

I’d just like someone to discover the hole housed in my heart,

watch them recoil with horror, gasp out

does it hurt?

and then, I’d like to answer-

Yes.

Yes, it does. Very much.

without the butter

without the butter,

the knife is a sparkle on the counter in the pale morning light, a silent accuser- You of otherwordly longings

(little mermaid thirst beyond water, above with the sun that rips out her voice and leaves the soles of her feet bloody)

without the butter,

the bread smells good, too good, warm and fresh and a bit like sin, a bit like all the times you said “no” when you should have said “yes”

(then you gave in anyway)

without the butter,

the coffee kicks gut, the coffee charges through the bloodstream, whispering the wolves awake- here is a new morning and you must wake up, you must be brave, you must.

without the butter,

I am me, paralyzed, in the glint of too much much-ness, in the pressed thoughts of yesteryear, on the cliff, a- stutter, between choices and lathering the bread or pressing knife to scar

(letting go has many phases, and many faces, and always- with eyes closed and soul with fist clenched tight with prayer)

i would

suede sunken couch and fuzzy throws and hot cocoa, late Friday night and lazy, aimless talk and beautiful girls, soft dew skin and symmetry to their faces and intelligent lilt to their voice and 

me. everything and nothing.

if i could snap my fingers and turn invisible, i would.

shrink pocket size and inscrutable and perch on their shoulder, i would.

melt bone and iron, and become inanimate, shameless and uncontaminated and flawless-

i would.

if i could take my life, take my life with a clean break, a silver snip of the ribbons, and not hurt anyone, my gorgeous friends sipping hot drinks and laughing about boys and law school, i would.

if my departure would not leave a dent, if i wouldn’t love this damn world and all the people nestled in my memories and my soul- if i could only wipe the slate clean, all the powerful pieces of existence, i would.

i would tell you everything, if i knew how.

i would cut through my skin to show you my sorry soul, i would let you fix everything, i would trust you, if i knew how- then i would.

i would bring you my sore stories to soothe, if i knew how to hold them. i would whisper to you the Unspeakable, over shots of whiskey and your scent in the air and your silence a balm… i would.

i would laugh so free, so loud, so much, if i knew how.

i would hug without inhibition, and smile wide and free, and bare my face without thinking of its nakedness and all the ugliness stamped onto my skin, if i knew how.

i wish i could tell you all how much you all mean to me, but i don’t know how.

i wish i could tell you all how much it hurts, but i don’t know how.

i would whip the hell out of life with my living, but i don’t know how.

sometimes there’s today

Sometimes there is the need to

read/ eat/ drink strong coffee/ music/ movies/ Facebook/ phone call/ Skype/ noise

a need to stuff the body with everything, anything

that isn’t you,

stuff the body with anything foreign,

a frenzy of alienation,

I do not want to know you, I do not want to belong to you, I am not yours.

relentless

truthfully, there is enough to make an angel weep- the endless steppe of daily obligations and weekly upkeep and monthly and annual and. it never stops- the teeth brushing, the toilet paper buying, and grocery shopping and broken hearts and skinny shampoo bottles balanced on …

skin

1:

I cannot be delicate.

Today, I went in for a facial

my face bared to the yellow light

it wasn’t in a good state (it was a wreck)

it was-

I am spreading the infection of my skin

I carry the dirt on the q-tips, on the make-up brushes

I am told to wash the brushes in warm water with detergent, weekly

(I am so tired.)

born into

1: Born into a metropolis of enamel (pottery) and unfamiliar stains on the silverware and woolen sweaters that irritate the shoulder of my skin and….. the hauntings of smells/ lexicon /chocolate milk /aftershave and a haunting no one has to know.