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.