i'm as good as ever.

it just took me awhile to remember that i'm a solid citizen (i steal this term unabashedly from angelina. it works). i'm golden, really. i think it is paramount to remember that in all things. i am okay. and no more of this comparative feeling. this, yeah i'm bad but you're worse. no, fuck that. i don't live your life, i don't handle your shit. you do. i don't want to bounce my current of your current. we are not one.

i'm golden.

it's funny. right now i'm looking sharp from the ankles up, but my feet were cold so i stuck them in some furry slippers. feels good. i want to go out like this. surprise, i'm not as suave as you thought.

tonight some guy came up to me and told me i was hot shit like i hadn't worked it out already. it gave me pause, because my initial response was irritation. i did not simper. it was the way he said it. like it was more about bestowing me with his sterling praise, for which i was to be thankful, than for giving me some sort of acknowledgment or genuine recognition of Hot Shit in another person. so i talked back. i am mouthy. but i thought about it, and i thought about how that wasn't very fulfilling. spiritually, maybe. so i stopped him as he went to leave and apologized. i apologized because it wasn't my place to reprimand a person for that kind of arrogance. that arrogance that assumes you wouldn't have already grinned at yourself as you were styling your hair. i had to dwell on the implications of that. how much of my irritation was about my own (not to get too therapeutic lingo on you here, but..) self-belief? do i assume that others assume etc. i haven't fully thought it through yet, so gimme some time and i will get back to this.


i just wanted to check in though. nothing flashy. just wanted to tell you that, while i'm trying to fix some of the less attractive particulars of my situation, on all fronts i'm pretty much.. golden.

don't get me wrong here. i'd hate to misrepresent myself to anyone. i'd hate to do myself that injustice. i'm not solely comprised of rage and her angry sisters. there is more to me than that. i run deeper, i hit scared and angry and kept on digging. i run deeper, and i've worked hard for that to be true.

but i have retained my caveman response to danger. danger of all natures; we're talking physical, emotional, spiritual danger. i see it everywhere. i rail against it with whatever reserves i have. i hate. i start spitting warnings and threats at anyone in the state-wide vicinity who looks like they could be in it for themselves. i back myself up immediately.

that is about fear or walking wounded though. i run deeper. i love flowers. i marvel at my existence every morning. i close my eyes when i hug my friends.

you'll see. i was tiny when i figured out anger and hate don't leave much room for evolution. animosity slows vibration. you will never reach nirvana if you meditate on vexation.

you'll see. i am fierce and lovely. it's just that right now i'm running backwards through what i know to be helpful. i am over-riding all good thoughts and sliding straight into home. straight to safe. i am short-circuiting my response and locking in anger. but i will get a handle on myself. and then you'll see. i am fierce and lovely. i even have soft hands.

fuck man i'm trying to get back into it. if i were to title this, it would be ominously so: THE LAKE

mother nature always takes the fairest ones. the sweetest in some way prettiest ones. the ones with soft voices and gentle mouths. mother nature always takes the fairest ones, and i don't blame her.

i don't blame her one bit. but what am i to do? standing here holding this photo. always holding this photo. holding it like i've held it over and over again. getting drunk on whiskey like i've been drunk over and over again. it's a night like this, and i'm doing it over and over again.

i never saw it but i picture you hanging. suspended. chains running straight from your gut to the sky. was there a hook? did it hurt? now your heart is turned to the gods; it always belonged up there. will they know that like we do? i think no evil. i am humble, and quietened.. you are sleeping just south of heaven. i can't blink. i can't breathe. my vision tunnels, and i struggle to keep watching: your back is arched and your arms are hanging, your fingers skim the water. i can almost hear the sockets in your shoulders straining. arms were never supposed to bend that way.

i never even saw it, but it's all i see.

and this photo. this wretched photo. this hallowed bullshit portal back to you. i still can't see you in the frame. i can imagine your grin and the way your skin swallowed up the sun, but i can't see you in the photograph. there is no definition, no true outline. there is nothing that shakes me, nothing that makes sense to me. maybe because my eyes have given up on anything but white space. they've given up on everything. i am empty of faith of trust of love and i am clinging to this photo like it's my last chance at today.

it is hard to say whether this is a photo of you. it is hard to explain how it is a photo of you. the date that screams liar from the bottom corner, the very bottom corner, that date is one day after your death. and they shake their heads like i'm old and i'm drunk and i'm mad and say, 'but how. how is this a photo of her?'

i tell them to look. i scream at them and wail, my voice breaks. just look and you are there. beneath the surface. it is hard to explain how it is a photo of you. but i put my finger where i think you may be. right near the bank, you know? 'cuz you woulda struggled to get out. you woulda struggled to get back to this. an eternity of this. an eternity more of this. over and over again.

i point there. right near the bank. and i say, that's where we lost her. that's where she drowned.

over and over again. i'm looking at the white space and all they see is some mad old drunk.

forgive me for all this. i'm trying to shift. trying to mutate. trying to drop out of the real world for awhile. my head and my heart and my life are not in agreement right now. they do not fall in to line.

why?

i don't know. there is no one truth. it is all truth. someone said that and i think they were dead on. there is no one truth and every day is decay. every morning is a second chance. you get the gist. write me a cliche and i'll repeat it for you. i will whisper it or growl it or whatever you want. i am here to please.

so there is no one truth. what are we doing then? what are we milling about for? you wanna make money and then you wanna kick out pretending it was worth it? like you didn't slave away for something that will be built over two years after you're in your grave (which will be built over), spinning round and round like some junkie in need of exorcism. like you didn't forego a slow-burning passion with the world because you were too busy sticking it in the boss' daughter for a good word? nothing you own is yours. how do you feel?

and you, bohemia. you're not much better. you're full of pretension and notions that don't have a place in this life any more. what are you doing? are you writing your way, or are just telling people you are? is there even a difference? it's not like they give a shit, it's not like they'd stop to read it any way. really read it. not look with their eyes for what dirt it gives them - not snoop around for what cracked out shit it says about you and your person and where you've been and what you said, but fucking READ it and understand it. actually grab a hold of the crap that came out of your head and do something with it. take it somewhere. take it across the border and then deposit it inside someone else. a new breed of disease. a new seed of disease. then maybe they'll figure out where you've been and what you said and who you fell in love with every day of that summer. maybe then they'll get you, and maybe then they'll pass you on righteously. do you some justice.

ahh.

you can run but you cannot hide. how about i just shoot you.

combat boots lend an air of fuck off that i could not carry otherwise. there is something primal about big boots and a scowl. something your throat responds to. something that makes you giddy.

maybe i'm projecting. maybe i'm wrong. maybe this is all about me and i should stop using pronouns that suggest you're somehow involved.

you're not. you're not involved in my world. you're not even involved in your own world. you're not really involved in what's going on. you like to flick the switch when things get ugly. you like to justify it by using words like 'need' and 'can't.

the world is like this. you NEED to understand that. you NEED to act if it upsets you. you CAN'T ignore it and play like that helps. you CAN'T submit and give your power over to someone else. why are you here? there is no one truth. it is all truth. so what are you doing?

what am i talking about anyway. just some things that bug me. forgive me for all this. like i said, i'm trying to shift. trying to mutate. trying to drop out of the real world for awhile.

but isn't that what blogs are for? didn't you come here to watch me fall apart?

lover or narcissist

hey, come here. let me strip you down and wear you out.

sometimes you just gotta say, "buck, step forward."

because sometimes you're the only one who hasn't. everything else has stepped forward. everyone else has fronted for whatever eternal roll call this is. and you're still curled up in bed, trying to keep warm, trying to keep safe. but you just gotta say it. buck, step forward.

and sometimes you've gotta say it twice. step forward, k? it's hard enough already.

it's in the friction. the friction of skin. that's what people lose themselves in. it's not the idea of escape. it's not the warmth of another's eyes. it's the friction. it's dry lips on dry lips. it's a freezing cold finger over a pulse. it's the friction. think about the friction next time. just the friction. isolate it and focus on it and people will notice. they will draw back and look at you with a question on their face. and they won't know what the question is. you just tell them, just tell them - just say, "it's the friction."

the friction of skin.

knuckles cut up and bruised. swollen. knocked back to the wrist. and maggots all over my feet. you know. maggoty maggots maggoting around. writhing. sucking. they're foul. they make my skin crawl. and if i put my finger in front of them, if i wave it front of them, they follow it. they follow the flesh. i fucking hate maggots. just sit there thinking if i held it by its tail end it would bend and contort and there would be nothing i could do. couldn't break its spine. it doesn't have one. couldn't drop it because then who knows what would happen.

what am i talking about. i guess i'm looking for something here. a rhythm. i haven't really got bruised knuckles. there are no maggots. i'm not hallucinating. not yet. but i picture things like that all the time. i picture things. i might be in a conversation, and i picture something, and i want the conversation to end so i can look at this picture in my head and what's going on and who's involved, but the conversation never stops. because people like to talk. people like the sound of their own bleating. if only they would only shut the fuck up, i could look at the picture.

so what if my mood is violent? so what if i rage against anything you impose on me.

we are alone here and it feels like death. all the arches are empty. so what if i occasionally feel murderous. there is almost nothing keeping me here. almost nothing between where i am now and where the others end up. you can hear my resolve snapping. i don't sleep. i don't eat. every comma predicts a finale. what comes next. the question i cannot avoid. the question i cannot hide from. i hear it in every song and every story. i hear it everywhere.

what next?

nothing. all i wanted from you was something quiet. something quick and empty that left me smiling. and you fucked up. you were supposed to be disinterested. you were supposed to be familiar and distant and easy. when did you change the rules? when the fuck did this become about us and not just you and not just me? you messed up in the only way possible. i laid it out and all you had to do was follow the plan. according to plan. things are not running according to plan. because you messed up. you made it about us and how we feel and what we think about the situation. there was never a we. there is still no we. it was all about me from the start. just me and what i wanted. and you messed up. now watch me break your heart all over you. watch my face and tell me if i flinch.

let's write this like a soap.