there is no victory, just a breath between losses

tonight is walpurgisnächt.

the walls between the worlds suffer a slight spiritual hernia: the dead pass into our world and, perhaps, vice versa. bonfires are lit to keep the spirits away. to keep the light, holding to it like the doomed survivors of "Darkness". then, tomorrow is May Day, Beltane. the sun and the light return to the world.

it has rained here for the past three days. the trees, budding in panoply, sagged under the weight - it was not quite cold enough to freeze on their boughs. the cats huddled indoors. curry ventured out once or twice, but only nosed cautiously near the steps of the porch, unwilling to proceed. today: cold, a stiff, pugnacious wind. i went out for a brief errand and it punched me in the chin, forcing my head up and my eyes to water. i tripped over a loose brick in the sidewalk and inhaled sharply, my heart speeding up a beat. that happens a lot. the long-melted snow combined with the odd temperatures have left our roads and walkways a peculiar ruin. i'm not yet used to the new topography.

that goes for a lot of things, actually. terra infirma.

>>

at johnny's house, both of us a little tipsy, stoned out of our minds. he heats up two butter knives by sticking them between the coils. at their tips, a mess of scalded metal, black and gray variegation. we balance an iota of weed on it, press the knives together, and inhale rapidly through the remains of a bic pen's outer shell. these are knife hits.

JOHNNY
...i don't care about any of that shit, man. i only care about two things in this world: the work, and someone to share it with.

the coughing rasp of his fingers sliding on the guitar strings, and how all of the muscles in his body twitch when one snaps. ryan is sitting quietly by the bookshelf, knees pulled up and arms wrapped around.

i start in on some babble, trying to understand what he means while trying to understand how i feel about what he's said as i'm going. i feel like it's a good quote. a quotable quote, even, a phrase that shows his character like nothing else. his steely determination to the Work. his references to Abigail. his swerving, bilious suddenness, staggering around the living room in the dim light as though hit by a bullet, right in his gut. his rant is punctuated by near-manic laughter, as though the sound of it is the only thread keeping his seams pulled together. he pinches his nipples and does a jig. we do more knife hits. i punctuate the awkward silences after his campfire tales with an ironic "your turn," and point to the stove.

he brings up cities we could move to, in the fall. as always, i am vacillatory. i don't commit to either new york city or - really - anywhere. in one particularly inspired outburst, i blurt out my desire to say fuck it and go live in the woods. johnny, wiser than i in such matters, immediately corrects the spoken desire and correctly interprets it as social frustration. i accede, and admit that i am too hooked into modern conveniences. plugged in, i should have said.

>>

it's a struggle to continue writing in here. the reason i never kept a diary was because, secretly, i just wanted someone to read every entry. every dated passage was written from two perspectives: 1) my own and 2) myself in the future, reading over it, disgusted with what burbled through the spaces between the words. thank god for the internet, where the availability of even a possible audience is enough to get me to say something. not that i have anything to say that is of much worth anyhow. comes from a lifetime of indecision, of hesitance, of preferring others' opinions to my own. how do you break out of such a mindless cycle? chalk it up to a rip in the schematic of my brain.

in that vein: other random exploits including an apocalyptic hangover on friday (category 5), another humiliation at work on monday, cold fingers throughout. made a list of things needing accomplishing on sunday and have checked off three thus far. some of them are impossible dreams. i tend to insert at least one of them in every to-do list i make.

now the fun part: deciding what tags i want to use on this post. categorization, you've always been there for me.

of legal age

i just heard that 26 is the new 21.

...what does that even mean?

xkcd

beast.

the shrill whine of the phone, like a shocked animal. unexpected at this hour.

spring has just shuddered around the bend, gracing us with warm days & with balmy nights. the window is open & the bedside lamp is staining the walls with diluted yellow. i can't sleep. i've gyrated from position to position, ultimately no more comfortable in one than the other. the sheets are a mess. i've stopped caring.

on the display is an unfamiliar number with an even more unfamiliar area code. by the third or fourth ring, panic grips me. indecision stews in my stomach, but it doesn't even have time to simmer before, for whatever reason, i answer. it's S on the other end. i knew it, somehow, maybe the fog of insomnia gifted me with extrasensory perception. i heard his voice seconds before he spoke, like an echo ahead of itself. with that recognition came surging dread, and the muddle of my thoughts gave me away.

i feigned drunk, too drunk to move. certainly to hang out. he doesn't want to "rekindle a relationship," he says to me, but he "misses" me, and "was thinking about" me the other day. of course he was. they came into my workplace. and due to my conspicuous evasion of them - (which, by the way, is no longer a question) - he found it necessary to recall my number from the swirling depths of his memory & use it at four in the morning. not that i begrudge him. i never sleep early. i don't think that will ever change. i will burn myself out on late nights. he told me he would call me tomorrow, but he hasn't, and i know what he heard in my voice, and i know what i heard in his: disappointment.

i am wilding around the edges, creeping with a sort of acquired fauna that appears lichen-like but which behaves like bacteria. i am concerned for my gulping, pulpy bagpipe of a stomach. for all of the slick organs, pumping in tireless rhythms against all the other rhythms. eventually the drummer's arms become weary. i meant to say that i was fraying at the edges by the word "wilding." not fraying harmfully, but in a slow pattern, as if getting one's favourite sweater caught on the exact same nail at the exact same time every day of one's life.

it's windy and E. has put out the table & chairs in the courtyard by our porch. there will be a lilac tree in full bloom, and what appear to be tulips, proudly striving to always be the first flower of spring, yet constantly beaten by the smug daffodils, the crocuses. the tulip is a flower in denial.

the son of vladimir nabokov, dimitri, has decided (against his father's last wishes) that the last novel (unfinished) will be published.

sui generis

S stayed after E went to E, and for awhile we yelled at one another over the music. she was drinking Guinness. i was drinking a lot. it's very easy to lose her voice to the din, a lot like my friend ryan, who speaks so softly so as almost not to be heard. ryan has chosen not to smoke marijuana as of late, due to an increasing paranoia while high. he has also taken to drinking vodka with tonic as opposed to beers upon beers. i have, as of late, taken to drinking shots of whatever with my beers. doctor macgillicuddy's. i've been staying away from whiskey. edging away.

last night (dare i return to it), a shock to the system in the form of old friends. i am a different person, i feel, than i used to be, yet i am standing on the rickety stilts of the past. sometimes the ground gives way beneath me. i wish i'd handled it better: instead, i had a strange panic attack. later, after they'd left the restaurant, i felt that old blackness settle on the insides of me, that disappointment. having reviewed my actions of the past hour, i was sickened with myself. i kept telling the story to everyone i knew who cared enough to listen, as if trying to explain to myself my actions, trying to rationalize that i'd freaked out and basically hid from them the whole time they were there.

Q: What were you hiding from?

A: a lot of things, actually. i didn't want to talk to them. didn't want to engage them in any kind of conversation. didn't want to have to, didn't want them to.

Q: Why not?

A: well. old patterns, i guess.

Q: What do you mean?

A: it wasn't them - it was him. i could've handled it had it just been the two of them, but he was there too. -- and, he said "good to see you," said this master of the genuine, said the honest, flawless trickster.

Q: So what is it about him that scared you -- or sent you into panic mode?

A: unresolved conflict, maybe? but everything is always unresolved. you lose someone, it's not like you can tie your relationship with them up neatly or succinctly.

Q: What do you mean by "lose" someone?

A: i've gone through a lot of social circles. i've known a lot of people. and i've fucked up in every single one of them in a major, awful way, and ended up crashing out of their orbit like an asteroid. those are the people you don't generally get back.

Q: Sounds to me like he wanted to be your friend. He said it was good to see you.

A: and he's not the kind of guy who would have said it and not meant it. or at least, that's who he purports himself to be. maybe he didn't mean it.

Q: Sounds like he did. And didn't she text message you before they even showed up?

A: yes - but she asked me what days i had off. i assumed she, and she alone, wanted to hang out. -- you know, i kind of feel like i was invaded. i feel like they deliberately came to the restaurant, probably high as shit, thought it would be funny, and thought i'd be fine with it. well, i sure showed them it wasn't. i wasn't.

Q: You did? By hiding from them?

A: yes.

Q: It's possible they didn't even notice. Maybe they just thought you were doing work elsewhere in the restaurant.

A: i was conspicuously absent.

Q: Are you sure?

A: well, no. i felt i was.

Q: They don't know that.

A: this settles nothing.

>>>

so after last call, S and ryan and i went to johnny's house. she got too high and i walked her home. may have come off a little creepy. i'm developmentally challenged. sorry. man-child.

days like today, in the backlash of last night, with an empty stomach and no goal in the windshield, make me kind of miserable inside. but the sun is so warm - !

i am wearing my watch again. it makes me feel like a different person.

mechanisms are rusted

dr. f is questioning me. her little smile, meant to be encouraging, only seeming serpentine. truly, she is blank to me. she is a stranger who questions me as though having stopped me on the street to fill out some bogus questionnaire. i have opened up to less.

she begins with the common: "how are you / how have you been?" and closes with "you know, it's okay to tell me that you're not." her open concern is not something i find attractive. she reminds me too strongly of this girl i once knew, this girl who fell asleep on my bed watching television while i sat and typed on the computer. maybe she was waiting for me to join her and just got tired of being conscious. eventually i joined her and woke up in the miasma of her copper hair. i smelled her shoulder - lavender. lilac. hibiscus. some flower. i remember turning to the wall and crying as quietly as i could for no reason. i have learned how to be very silent with my emotions, experience them as shallowly as possible, like breathing with a monster or a serial killer in the room. i have always fancied that in the event of such a thing happening, i'd be the one to survive. the ultimate irony is that when it happens, i'll be killed first due to hubris.

you can never adequately prepare to avoid destruction.

i am hemorrhaging in her office today, near tears for the second time. my stomach is a bottle, shaken until furious, the muscles knotting around the glass, threatening to shatter the shuddering container - i will never be whole. i will never be fixed. i now have two houses to burn down - the one i grew up in and the one which squatted next door like a malevolent toad in the woods: its blinking, uncaring eyes. its disgusting, uncaring eyes. golden globes of what can only be described as hate, but which the toad knows not how to feel. i never look her in the eyes - she is always so placid. she asks me what my view of counselling is, what i intend to get from it, and i know it's because i haven't been taking her suggestions, i haven't tried to change. what am i afraid of is a question she will ask.

so today, she asks how old i feel. i tell her i haven't moved a second past 17, and she nods, understanding that my development must have halted at that age. what happened at 17? she asked me what i did. i was in theater. i was in chorus. i spent as little time with my family as possible. my real family was a collection of words on a glowing screen, but each with enough of a pattern associated with them so as to signify personality. all of us, avoidant dogs foaming at the mouth, sniffing one another tentatively, barking wildly at the slightest motion. up til all hours of the night with this swarm of letters. but something else happened at seventeen, something i stalled out on, and have been spinning wheels in the muck ever since.

[XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX]
[XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX]
[XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX]
[XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX]
[XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX]

a father is supposed to have his son's back. is supposed to be the hero-image. is supposed to be something on a pedestal until his son's roughened hands tear it down, blow it up. then climb up the ruins to stand there in his place. the sun shines all around, all around.

later: the perihelion of him to me, the dangerously loose swing of his proximity to my orbit. i can't remember his face anymore, but i remember his bald spot and the flash of refracted light off of his horn-rimmed glasses. his disingenuous, sloppy smile that i have no doubt inherited. the hole in the side of his head, leaking whispers like a busted radiator. his watchband as he played a game of chess with me. therapist watching from her chair. i can't remember what she looks like anymore, either. (once we sat in a pine grove and i planted small cones into a carpet of moss - small, twisted minarets that she swore would remain forever and which i knew would be gone within hours - )

i rushed out of her office directly for the bathroom. it's those brief moments of panic which cause me to detach from the mechanism of paranoia & hyperawareness - panic at a near-atomic level, white-hot terror in my very marrow. it's that old serial-killer business, the old monster-in-the-closet business.

("i know you have a tendency to avoid," she says as gently as possible - "and that's okay ... but know that i'm always going to bring you back")

get somewhere safe. the bathroom, old haunt of mine from family dinners in bygone years. crouching, retching over the toilet, dinner's meat stuck somewhere between mouth and stomach. praying to a god i don't believe in, my face turned to a delta of tears and snot - praying that it would just go down ... or, in worse times, come up. sometimes pretending, because of my mother's harried pounding at the door - "ARE YOU OKAY DO I HAVE TO TAKE YOU TO THE HOSPITAL!" - come out, pale & shiny with effort, nodding, but minutes later, after blankly chewing another piece of dinner-gone-cold, rushing to the bathroom again, hawking up strings of milk and spit.

the bathroom, then, septic white. thankfully, a stall, though disgusting with public use, and the old retch - although now i can't tell if i'm pretending, avoiding, or if this is real. coughing up strings of something - nothing. shudder against the wall. stare at the pieces you have just ejected from yourself, floating in the bowl.

it's earth day, although we all know that earth day is every day. should be a national holiday. proclaims the man with the bullhorn in the square. revs the priuses all around in hearty accord. i am hateful to them and their cause. they are blank-eyed and won't get out of my way. they amble around as if stoned. i am stoned but i walk with purpose, wheeling my bike alongside. it is warm out today. even the wind has tried to calm itself a little, tried to warm to the cheek of the sun, of the sky.

"how much of your life, do you think, is fantasy?" she inquires. she doesn't write anything down. i stare at the books on the shelf: i can name them all, now. "CHANGING FOR GOOD," "EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE," "THE POWER OF NOW (by Eckhart Tolle)," the DSM-IV ... others. i stare at the books. in rare moments of rawness, out the window at the blocky Oakhurst plant. the boring, shiny cars creeping up to the stoplight. the blinds are uneven.

i have a cigarette before i get on my bike and ride up the hill.

i am surrounded, now, by shitty art and those whom i keep myself deliberately peripheral to.

this isn't home, either.

gone missing

lost my notebook last night. slipped out of my pocket somewhere in the drunken haze. it has no identification in it. causes me to wonder about who found it, what they're doing with it. if anyone has. it's probably in the street or something. i was keeping my drinking journal in it.

it's probably better that i lost it. nothing that interesting in it anyway.

i kind of like the new islands album.

.. so maybe i'm a little more dispirited than i thought.

snapdragons

i buried my aunt in the middle of a high-pressure system: the fog turned the graveside grieving to silhouettes, shifting from side to side like ships in the harbour. the oak tree's branches: tentacles - menacing, suspicious. i barely knew the wizened, made-up corpse in the coffin, and it seemed she didn't know many others. i was one of five listing shadows grouped wetly around the gaping hole in the ground.

later, in the dim pub, whisky turning warm in my fist, he stared at the girl next to me without listening to my pseudo-drunken babble. his eyes were intent. he nodded absently. i knew who it was without turning.

& she: she was a knife between the ribs. all glint and silver, dangerous-looking smile. severe bone structure. tiny fists, always either a) deep in the pockets of her track jacket or b) clenched. her name was Lily. she smoked like a factory, constantly issuing clouds of thick smoke. i began to think it was an intentional veil, to obscure her features, to render herself somewhat anonymous.

we would get high in her car: she'd inherited it from her dead grandfather: a lumbering, maroon town car - complete with a benevolently wide backseat, which we made frequent use of, mostly to the sound of whichever radio station she flicked the dial to. i can remember more than one occasion when her drunken fingers propelled us into static; (that weird gray hyperspace) and insist upon remaining there, guiding my fingers towards her equator. outside: a different kind of noise - thunderstorm, quaky & insecure, rattling the night with its petulance. behind us, in stoic indifference, the cemetery, its occupants silent in their earthy rooms, headstones illuminated starkly with each white blast of lightning.

i remember more nights than i do days. Lily occupied my hours - or, rather, i filled my hours with her. her drink: Citron and soda, and just a splash of soda. a lime, which she consumed before taking a sip, crushing the juice from its flesh with her teeth. her jaw: something i loved about her the most. lips closed, she was a Venus fly-trap, nodding demurely in the neon light before zeroing in suddenly on her prey. then: her hand on my elbow, eyes electric, muscles tensed with need. her urgent, hissed whisper in my ear, sound torn on her teeth: i need you. now. & i would oblige her, stepping through the door of the ladies' room & into a stall, rummaging in my pocket where i kept her craving. a few white snorts later, we returned & she was gone again, her white-blonde hair bobbing in the midst of the undulating crowd.

i sat at the bar, drinking cheap beer & nodding absently to the pounding music, or watching a captioned television. the news was on: it was the month of wildfires, snarls of orange and red marched across the wildland like a confident army. a lesbian couple tore my eyes from the tv - they stumbled into the bar as if caught in dream. maybe tripping - acid, psilocybin. both. they were prone to physically affirming their love for one another. lips, ears, cheekbones - later, drunker, hipbones, fingertips, eyelids. always smiling. i lost them periodically to the crowd and turned back to the wildfires.

i've nearly forgotten about him & his disappearance, even about what he left behind. i am too obsessed with Lily - she crowds my memory in photographic form, still shots of her carmine lips, of her ignited eyes, of her thumbs in the waistband of her thong, inching it down over her hipbones - her weakness for the Stones' "Under My Thumb"...

...his scowl, his sneer, carved into his face like a living cicatrix, contorting or relaxing depending on how much of himself he'd filled with alcohol. his jealous gaze, his uncomprehending glare, from across the room, from across the street, even when i couldn't see him, felt his eyes on the nape of my neck, burrowing into my skin as though seeking out the answer in my brain stem. his casual disappearance, those "ghostings" late at nights, mid-party. he abhorred the gluey procession of goodbyes & goodnights, near pathologically.

he left his notebooks in a scattered pile by his rumpled bed, each of them the same, hardcover black, unlined pages, filled with both sketches & wandering, abstract prose. this was a side of him he'd never let anyone see; kept it locked up like a bastard child he was ashamed of, but of whom he kept clandestine photographs. perhaps some of those drunken nights where i observed a creased furrow in his brow were dedicated to that secret, that jealously guarded Eden of his thoughts.

what was i, then, that hazy morning choked with humidity, with Lily at her job, meandering to his apartment red-eyed with marijuana & lack of sleep? some crazed Theseus at the entrance to his labyrinth?

blind spot

suddenly, there it is, in front of me. the first jacket-less day of the year. and this:

"A way to avoid second-guessing yourself is “to have other people make the decision so you don’t later obsess about having made the wrong choice,” he said. “You might still be unhappy, but you’ll just feel dissatisfied, as opposed to also feeing angry at yourself for not having picked another option.”"

and now, though the words have always been there, someone has arranged them in an order and i am feeling the effect.

"now the real work can begin."

that's what i keep running away from. doing any real work. just devoting an absurd amount of time to thinking about it: it's incredibly easy for me to just over-think a subject, draw out all of its possibilities, all of its consequences, all of its meanings, sub-meanings, sub-sub-meanings ... then i convince myself, entering into a strange loop (ingeniously constructed) that not thinking about is wrong, that i would somehow miss something important if i didn't consider everything from every angle possible (impossible) -

something to consider.

>>

tattoo ideas:



either a representation on the back of my hands, or a sleeve of the labyrinth pattern. down to the elbow.



shoulderblade?

.. and the words "steal compass / drive north / disappear". somewhere.

don't comment. i'm eventually gonna get them all. ... maybe not the sleeve. maybe.

uh

me, i'm afraid everyone's gonna find out my big secret. or maybe one of the little ones. it doesn't matter, any secret is big once uncovered.

i'm also afraid of losing my teeth. those percussive aiders of language. my mouth is a crazed ruin of flaking enamel, not to mention sore and sensitive gums. eventually, they'll snap off or fall out, and it's that day in the future which frightens me.

dreams, dreams, more dreams. at night, my head is a movie theater with a riot in it. in the back row, two young men clandestinely holding hands, eyes wide. the riot becomes the movie becomes the riot. there is no boundary between the film and reality. they escape out the back of the house, under the hiccuping EXIT sign and the cool air greets them. their blood cools, their pulses even, and they walk through a forest whose noises seem all sinister, malignant in their ears.

between the dreams can be worse, and be more dream than what happens in sleep. vague doubt rolls in like fog, then with a burst of muscular determination, i am clear, i am countenanced, i am sure. one small rot in the grain, though, one little shove to the left, and i'm tumbling again. dr. sez i got freaked out. saw success and ran away from it. she brings to light characteristics of myself that i dislike, things i am ashamed that people see when they look at me, when they talk to me. i have yearned to take a vow of silence, but i find the difficulty near-impossible to conquer.

i call no-one brother, nor do i call anyone father. the spaces in the category of "family" on messenger lists, in cell phones, are three-spots blank and the one filled with "Mom," which has itself even acquired a patina of dust from disuse. my family is in photographs which document who we aren't anymore. i can't totally convince myself that the kid in those pictures is real, has existed. i try very hard not to remind myself that i occupy space, though i am reminded that i intoxicate myself in order to speak uninhibitedly regarding myself, or the way i have encountered the world as of late.

it's a big ball of string that i am picking at. untangling. strand by strand.

FIELD NOTES #1

my mother was
always angry because she felt
denied of something on a far deeper
level. her bitterness
soaked her at the
root & discoloured
her heart.

in this way i am
recurrently possessed
by sudden rage -
i feel
the same liquid
sloshing in my gut,
the same hoary frost
over my heart,
creeping down my
arteries -

>>

my father spent
most of his time
sitting in a cave,
highlighted by its
weird greenish light.

i became obsessed
with the theory of
black holes & watched
the sky over our
house for any sign
of one. i saw many
things, but failed to
find even a clue.

(how was i to know
that deep in our basement,
lurking a box marked
"OLD CLOTHES," was the
seething singularity
that i sought?)

after the hurricane
came, there was no
trace of my father.
we searched for days
among the splintered,
fallen trees. in one -
a hornet's nest - my
first sting, between
thumb & forefinger.

heartburn

her rage: bigger than her.
it lives in her marrow.
the bones complain,
swelling,
rubbing against one another
like flint & steel -
the sparks, reflected
in the black mirror of her pupils.

at night,
she lays awake
with the weird retinal echo
of fireworks,
projected on the ceiling.
the blood flees from
her clenched fists as
they rest,
like trembling voles,
beneath the sheet.

her bed is empty.
she will let no one into
the red bedroom
of her heart.

the walls throb.
outside: a forest fire.
she has not yet noticed.
her son, in the next room,

already burning alive.

the apocalypse came, and i did not have a good knife.

dreams of a violent, jerky nature. the scene is dark. a piney scent musks the night. we are underground, a small and determined troop of mole-like men and women, clawing at the walls with our tools. the hole we have found and dug gapes open like a wound in the earth, sagging inward, seeming to moan. it will draw the attention of the Others, being pinned by the white light of the moon as it is.

the ones of us who were desperate before the end are now determined. the ones who seemed to lag slightly behind, or who existed in a different place than the others, are now the leaders. johnny forges ahead with determination. he has a good knife.

confusing transitions tumble the scene into a store, where everyone spreads out, looking for their own personal weapons. it is deserted. fluorescent tubes dangle from the ceiling like stalactites. i am looking for a good knife. i find some kind of gas-powered burner that flares up unexpectedly high when i turn it on. ryan is there, in the corner, pale face hovering as if disembodied in the flashlight's halo. he has found a small pack of arrows, and explains he can craft his own bow. he will shoot the birds down from the trees, he tells me.

i can't find what i'm looking for & now i'm the last one left in the dusty cave. turns out the whole thing was a mirage. or a hallucination. someone has slipped me a palm of some orange, powdery drug, which i refused, but it was on my palm when i wiped my face, and now i don't know if i'm tripping or not.

i remember ryan aiming his arrows at the trees. small sparrows falling to the earth - dull grey thuds. i remember johnny hewing at a tree with a small hatchet, having little effect, but straining to cut it down anyway.

>>

the back of my left hand: smeared with faded ink. a stanza of something that came while at the bar. shots & beers, shots & beers. meaningless conversations with big-cheeked girl whose hair was darkened artificially. all in black, with a black leather jacket. i imagined cherries. fuzzy white dice. red stilettos. she smiled and took a shot with us, chatted about something i couldn't hear over the pounding music, and left to dance with the guy at the juke.

i couldn't get drunk fast enough, and so missed my chance, but - in all fairness - spared my wallet.

then, talking with johnny crazyeyes at his house. taking knife hits of weed, standing around the stove as the coils turned neon. discovering that it's obvious to him that i talk about myself, and that's what i tend to do. he defends it for me, saying that it's simply a result of how i've learned to deal with shit. once again, i am further convinced that the negative opinion i hold of myself is true. corroboration, verification.

abruptly, just pausing to think about it, i am vertiginously sad, plunged down deep inside of myself. then the struggle back up the throat, to drymouth harbor, and back outside of myself again. i am told i look 'angry' when i walk down the street. i defend it with 'listening to music' or 'thinking about something'. generally awkward when confronted with it.

back on the caffeine train, too: seems that once you pop, you don't stop. red bull barges its way back into my life. the toreador is gored. same on other fronts, too. like i never even made any progress.

momentary assessments: my stomach is empty. my right eye is dry. my breath is shallow. my heartbeat is rapid. my mouth is dry.

it is windy, today.

mud. crows.

last night: muddy in unexpected places.

frustration at two disparate social situations, leading to a hasty exit from both, predictably more intoxicated than before i entered. also predictably more frustrated. the night was unwinding far faster than i thought it would, with a rare and unexpected turn directly after work, away from the bar. so suddenly, of course, it was much later than i thought it was.

then, of course, in a desperate effort to get a grasp on the slippery rope of time, i ended up with two red bulls in my stomach. a wire coiled, uncoiled, inside of me. i clenched my fists, intermittently. there was a party: people stood on the patio, shadowed by the fog that had rolled in early. the dim spark and suckling sound from a bowl being passed around. the muted clink of beer bottles against one another: secret victories unknown to me.

the eventual departure, the walk back. not chilly. the air, damp, near-prickly to the skin. the declaration of the all-nighter, fueled by more of the same, whatever we could get, devolving into, lapsing into silence. this, followed by my announcement of departure. questioned querulously, but my resolve was firm. and so, the weird walk home, at four in the morning.

>>

this morning, on my walk to where i am now, i saw a crow astride the crumbling corner of a brick building. i kept my eye on it and it kept its eye on me, even as i passed and walked backward down the sidewalk.

felt like if i looked away first, i'd be in some trouble.

April: bastard daughter of February

chill, damp april. gray veils rushing back in over the sun, as though the sky is embarrassed to have shown it so early. a spatter of rain last night. the asphalt glistens before seeming to suspiciously disappear, except for the sheen from the streetlights. in a surprise verdict, i am sent home early from work. i spend the night lounging in a green stupor before the television. it is all mindless. i investigate the more absurd corners of this glowing world: so-called 'reality' programs, game shows, a truly terrible movie, cartoons, even the news. the news, i find, is the worst of all of it. sensational headlines. although one of them was merited: in our small town, two nights ago, an individual set fire to ten cars over the area of three to four blocks. some of the flames were so intense as to leap to buildings nearby, leaving twenty people homeless and most people (at four in the morning) awake to the shrieking sirens. E. is incredulous: this, all this, the work of one person? apparently he was down the block, setting more fires, as the sirens & lights filled the streets just behind him.

from that story, it's onto another house fire, this one fatal, killing a young man and gravely injuring his friend. from there, a murder, a killing. the weather, which is dramatically rendered in poor, halting, 3-D graphics. there is a wide swath of variegated green rushing across the lower half of the state.

morning: chilly. that kind of filtered gray light that still makes you squint. the air seems thin. i can feel it in my lungs - amidst the cigarette smoke, mucus, and god knows what else.

the cigarette abruptly undergoes a transfiguration. no longer am i holding a paper tube filled with god knows what else, suddenly i am injecting a white syringe deep into my throat. the needle curves, spitting noxious black liquid into the cushiony bottoms of my lungs. i hack & cough as a convulsive result to this grotesque image, and stare for a long time at the ash-end of the thing. a few seconds pass. i watch the smoke curl into the air, nearly invisible. the clouds become god's exhaust. i stub out the cigarette but make no commitments to quitting. just the vague, formless notion.

i watch the cat, curry, a plump patchwork lady, stare at a row of three birds on the curb. she is far enough away to ready herself for the pounce, eyes fixed on her target. the one on the end, i imagine. it hops a little stranger than the other two, looks smaller. the runt, i'm sure. curry's tail is lashing, deliberately, side to side. her hind legs are tensing - i can see the minute twitches of instinct running electric through her muscles -

i blink, and there's a brown dog, large, barking madly, skittering against a leash, and curry has bolted backward in a contortion of adrenalin, somewhere up & beyond me, to cower & quiver up on the second story porch. the dog is straining against the collar, chuffing, spittle at his jaws. i, being on the top of the food chain, can't help but laugh. there is no sign of the three gray birds on the curb. the dog's owner, or at least, the woman on the other end of the leash, is getting on in age, chiding the dog at the same time as reining him in. we make amiable chatter for a moment. i fill her in on the moment before. she tells me what happens from her perspective, which i imagine is a sudden jolt in the arms, followed by a stumble, a regaining of balance, and then that brief tug-o-war.

she moves on. curry is nowhere to be seen.

oh, yeah, and the IRS took my tax refund to pay for some of that, like, 20k i owe to various loan-places. i figure if i keep this up, say, at $250 a year in taxes withdrawn, i can pay off my debts in my eightieth year.

ha!

dis orientation

hard cider: a sweet compromise between beer & wine.

i began with cider at about three in the afternoon, out on the front stoop, reading "harry, revised." pretty much ensconced in mark sarvas' story, i failed to notice that my roommate had returned, and had somehow found a seat for the spare bike hanging up by the back door. that, with lock & key, meant mental diversion. as much as i wanted to know exactly what was going to happen to the unlucky Harry as possible, the sun was extraordinarily warm, and there was enough of a breeze to make me long for the outdoors, for the whip of wind shearing over my face. my chance came with an invitation to go meet E's friends: S & C, nearby. so i stowed the book in my bag along with some other things, and off we went.

portland is a small town. and when i say small, i mean, it's a tiny weird curve of a peninsula, a fingernail clipping, in the atlantic. it is crowned by the east end, munjoy hill, which drops off at the eastern promenade, a street of large, Victorian houses with pillars & huge windows. beyond the promenade (and the small, sandy beach) are the islands, extending for miles: rocky clusters that, from above, look like pieces of the ocean have been torn out of the world.

all of that was to illustrate the fact that we biked about five minutes, maybe less. two? it would have taken ten to fifteen a pied. the exhilaration of the rabbit overtaking the tortoise. so, of course, sped by this new frenzy of motion, i ride home after a cider, try to read a bit more, but am consumed by new distractions. now, i can feel the alcoholic buzz creeping like electric moss over the surface of my brain. on the bike ride, the cuff of my pants was snagged in the frame of the bike. i was ill-dressed for such activity. i needed to change clothes. but what? then my train of thought completely derailed, and with a sigh, set down "harry, revised" again. it took a few minutes to decide, based on this new criteria, what to wear, and as soon as i was dressed, i was tugged out the door, back to the street. i was so tugged that i walked quicker throughout the house, although my steps inside are always sort of rapid and flat-footed.

the dismount is going to be a problem, i can tell. i like everything i do to appear practiced and smooth, even if i myself am not eighty-two percent of the time. i struggle with the bike, unfamiliar with it. i realize as i am unlocking it from the wall of the house something, a little darkling in my brain, about the way i treat things, which communicates into how i treat other people. i realize my discomfort - or at least, cautious hesitance when it comes to this bike, this thing that operates in a way i am familiar with and knowledgeable about, but if it broke, i would have no idea how to fix and it would become another rusty thing left behind somewhere in the trail of apartments. either that, or wait for E to be able to fix it, which means relying on someone else -

the dismount is going to be a problem. i stutter to a halt, applying brake pressure with my left hand, and ramp up onto the curb, tilting a bit to the right, and stepping down. then, i swing off of the bike, right leg rigid and awkward. this is something i am going to need to practice doing. i have very poor balance as it is. when the bike slows down, i find that the front tire wobbles, that i become very bad at steering. i do not ride with confidence: i am unaware of traffic patterns beyond the markings on the road and the lights in front of me.

so: hard cider. then a little whiskey, a red bull, beer .. none of these things are things i should have done last night, due to winter still being stuck in my craw - and quite literally, i do sound hoarse, i am congested and strange-sounding coughs scrape out of my throat. i am finding that my thoughts tend toward the why of alcohol lately. last night, i enjoyed the vague blur that occurred. events, people, conversations, drinks, cigarettes, all phased into one another, bled from bar to bar. i was able to converse (or at least, perceived that i could) comfortably, relaxedly.

eventually, 1AM came around, and i turned into a bit of pickled pumpkin. M. was one of the bars - the darkest one, with the dim pulses of red and blue, with the frizzy-haired bartender who always sees me at my drunkest. M. was dancing on the floor, white shirt unbuttoned halfway down. though he appeared intoxicated, his eyes remained steady. i found it very easy to pick him out on the dance floor, though the alcohol in my system had reached a boiling point. i needed to chill out.

i could hear the sound of tiny things, cracking, in my ears.

a few cheap beers later, i stumbled up the hill to the bike, where i'd left it locked on a NO RIGHT TURN sign. surprisingly, somehow, lit a kretek cigarette (bummed from - or donated to me by - B) pressed play on my iPod and shot off down the empty streets. i became exhilarated. took the long way home. circled around the block, around the deserted playground. sped around the west end until i became disoriented, chose a street that looked promising and sped off down that one. i'd chosen the wrong one, of course, and was headed in the opposite direction of home - although it doesn't matter. everywhere goes everywhere in portland. you can't really get too lost. just keep going, and you'll either see the ocean, the park, the highway, or congress street.

maybe that's why i chose this city to become a drunkard in. you can't really get lost. there's no real danger. you can ride your bike down the streets at two in the morning and there's no one to say different. you can ride your bike drunk down the streets at two in the morning. as long as you watch out for the shiny gloss of police cars gliding their way by, like weird white eels in the inky night.

supposed to rain today. i am watching the clouds roll in.

last night & this morning, and not in that order

honey crunches of oats, the cereal, invaded our town this morning. congregated in mustard yellows and ketchup reds, the hard-hatted purveyors of breakfast milled around and accosted passersby; vendors with a mission. two were astride segways, upon which were attached two larger-than-life cereal boxes and, on the front, a spoon filled with plastic representation of their product. i was approached by one of these segway-riding crazies who held outstretched a miniature sample. i thought to myself that within a three or four block radius i would see a lot of those boxes, empty, on the side of the street, or languishing in bins. flash-saturation.

i accepted the box and she continued on her way. someone with a bullhorn was yelling "honey crunches of oats!" a giant mascot of their logo was parading around the square, taking pictures with various locals.

waited in front of the library with music in my ears and a cigarette in my mouth, thinking idly about how i take myself too seriously. nick drake's "fruit tree" came on as i saw K. and S. crossing the street toward me. both in sunglasses. a conversation ensued, cordial and relaxed. as always, i found my legs trembling and my voice wavery, even though i know K. pretty well and have on more than one occasion had occasion to talk seriously with her. i know S. as well, but only on the edges. the sunglasses made it difficult to read their expressions. poker-players who aren't playing poker. maybe it's just me.

we talked briefly about bees, a new band they started (Garden of Weeden) - K's phone rang & S. and i talked about the weather - language, living situations, town news - then the library gates opened and in we went. i scored a copy of dostoevsky's 'the idiot' at the free book counter, and S. a copy of what looked like non-fiction regarding Communist China.

that's what happened this morning.

>>

this is the way summer begins. suddenly the wind is no longer cold and walking from place to place isn't like trying wildly to defeat Zeno's paradoxes. from time to time, a blustery day: the leaves from the park skitter madly across the street, a strange, brittle diaspora.

last night, i cleaned up - swept the dust out of my room, sneezed a lot, reorganized things. stacked books neatly. indexed columns of old notebooks, again gave thought to collating them. nearly stripped the plastic off the window, but restrained myself. made dinner.

this banal list of things accomplished ... desiderata around the edges. things i do to distract myself from things.

saw a woman today, a mother, with her child and her lover by the monument, climbing up its grassy mini-knoll. saw her pick her child up and dust him off, brusquely, and setting him back down. the child obliged by putting his feet down where she stood him. i thought of him as a cat, as Gato, one of our housecats, who acts counter to anything you want him to do once he's picked up, and especially scrabblesome when you set him down. i wondered if that was the difference between the two: the trust and faith of the child as opposed to the escape instinct of the cat.

i thought that maybe someday i'd like a child. i heard a familiar clock ticking arrhythmically in the back of my skull, but couldn't figure out its morse code.

i am both nervous and excited to see what happens next. i'd say 60% nervous. 30% the other way.

crazy guy in the corduroy jacket who haunts me.

everywhere i go, there he is. and he's hatefully insane, too. talks to himself with the distinct and intentional purpose of others hearing his bile. the coffee shop, the library.

the past few days: ripening with the warmth of the sun, but still tempered yet by chill, stiff winds out of the north. i am to meet old friends for lunch today. i am become suddenly so mobile, backpack a part of me all over again, wandering the street from destination to destination, returning home only briefly to refuel - light the bowl, down an emergen-c, maybe eat something. grab a sweater, drop off something. pick up something. then out the door again and not home til morning. that's two nights in three days i haven't slept in my bed. i don't miss it.

dr. says i think in extremes. says i walk around with my heart four feet in front of me. i am disgusted with this characterization of myself.

last night: night five of a bender. perhaps night six, tonight? probably not. but it's so nice outside, i can't rationalize staying inside and doing the same thing i did all winter. besides, when i drink, i write. i've been writing - short abortions of poetry, but it's something. now that i'm chronicling it, i won't be able to anymore - watch. maybe i shouldn't talk about it.

read a little 'vanity of duluoz' last night. kerouac-cobbled prose after, jerky and wild. delved into an old green notebook. the ink is blurry with the effects of a drugged out bike ride ending in pouring rain. shoved it in my backpack this morning after smoking a quick shower and hit off of a fresh green bowl. earphones in, cigarette lit, and out the door and away!

in other news: a sudden windfall, which i have definitely cut into these past few nights with my exorbitant dipsomania - but i'm thinking maybe it's definitely time for a tattoo. i was also invited to go to puerto rico for a week this coming july. might save up to do that, too.

i have three undeveloped rolls of film. their contents are a total mystery to me. tomorrow i think i will have them developed.

therapy

i hate therapy.

the storm

the storm ripens everything
in a hot, sweet darkness.
we lie together like bursting berries
on white sheets.
the window is open,
& the world gusts inside.

this familiar scene,
locked in one blink.
it’s in our bones.
they vibrate under the taut typanum
of our skins.
the sound carries
to the ocean,
where the waves gulp it down
to become one with the singing echoes
of ten thousand other bones -

then: severe lightning,
singeing the eyeballs,
and its disciple, thunder,
grovelling after.

our apologies; unnecessary, yet hasty.
the words are structures which house
the sounds our mouths make.
they are empty but for
a whistling echo.

outside: the rain.
it makes no sound
until coming into contact
with something else.

then: fear -
what if i am your shadow
& you, mine?
what if we only exist
as long as the storm lasts?

i made a mix-tape.

if you would be interested in listening to a sampling of the music i have been putting in my ears lately:

http://mrjohnfury.muxtupe.com

and make your own!