so, these are the last days of february. this year, it was four solid weeks of gray, beginning on a sunday and ending on a saturday. never seen the calendar so efficient or organized. would that every month were this way.
last night, drunk by seven, popped a little blue valium in the bathroom before graduating from cheap beer to sugary, viscous jagermeister. sinking slowly in a stool at the bar across the street. katie the bartender's comment: "i've never seen you so sedated before." a thrill, really, to hear something like that. barely remembering the walks to and from the bars, the volume on "heads will roll" (new yeah yeah yeahs song) as high as it could go. so high that when i took my headphones off everyone's voices were muted. greeted by trent in the first bar. the perfunctory hellos. he says he is doing better than he was last week. i say that better is always good until it turns to worse again. he seems nonplussed. on the walk, seeing chase. can't tell if he is stoned. he's going to kick it with JJ for awhile. then bowling. he tells me not to "hurt myself" drinking and we part ways. then the bar, and then trent's admission. i speak with my roommate & her friend erica for a moment. erica relates the story of her trip out of maine. she went skydiving. i tell her it sounds enticing but that it reminds me somehow of swimming, which i am terrified of. she agrees after a moment of thought that the two are somewhat similar.
so i come home early in the evening though it is the syrupy dark of a maine winter. i don't remember passing out, but i remember the dreams ... i remember the dreaming, i remember being at home - HOME - which will always refer to the HOUSE i grew up in, though it is inaccessible now. i am in my old room though it is my sister's room now. my old desk is there, the one that fits in the corner. it is crammed with books, all my old books, the ones i've lost, all of them, and i am telling my mother and my sister that i am taking them back, and i am taking back my 1990 powder blue ford mustang, even WITH the huge dent in the side, even WITH the ominous rattling under the hood, i am going to drive it back to maine and it will combust somewhere along I-95 and take me and all my books with it in some huge fiery crash.
as though anticipating my death-wish, i am rebuffed and so i take to stealing, slipping the books out of the house one by one, two by two, as many as i can beneath the seemingly impenetrable greatcoat i happen to be wearing. i happen to espy my mother talking worriedly to my ex-stepfather in bed. he lays on his stomach, naked, unmoving. she is talking to a corpse. then the house is full of life, crammed with relatives, visiting from everywhere, little children running around - cousins who i could care less for, aunts and uncles who aren't really asking about how life is in maine, what i am doing, and i lie, i lie like a bastard, i lie so much and so quickly that my face turns blue. they ask me if i'm cold and i say that i have a genetic predisposition to change skin color when i lie. they are confused and leave me like images on a television screen, just slide off the set, off stage left, take off their masks and costumes and try all over again in a new character.
i am startled to wakefulness around six in the morning, having slept the best i ever have in my life, despite the crazed zoetrope of dreaming. i am staring at this thing, this "queer & allied" writing project that is happening in the city in a week or two. i am supposed to submit something but the only thing i have is unfinished and really quite terrible.
ran into the past the other day. some folks from college who knew me then and think they still want to know me now. joke's on them - they never wanted to in the first place and now it's all about making the past closer to the present so they don't feel so confused. who are these strangers who profess to know me? i don't want to know them. leave me alone.
and so it goes. i get lonelier by divesting myself of people who profess to care about me. and words do nothing to salve the wound. in fact nothing does.
i'm a waiter now. i'm about to turn 26 and i wait tables in a local restaurant. i live in a comfortable room with a lot of things. i drink a lot. i like to trip on drugs. i don't read as much as i should. i spend too much time watching television and stuck in the internet. i am gaining weight in the middle, though it is a subtle gain, i can feel it. it's all the beer, they say. if this cold doesn't end soon. if this winter doesn't shudder to a halt. if all this continues and continues to continue.
i need to make sure i go back to therapy. i am losing myself again. things are spinning out of control.
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