Tables, desks, floors, and beds.

I'm using every flat surface I can find to spread my life out on. I'm stacking up photos on top of books I haven't opened yet but pretend to know what they are about. There are cans of spray paint holding up sketch pads that I only use as a surface for my knife blade and an extension of the screams stuck in my throat. Things to burn: candles, receipts, lottery tickets. Things to recycle: cans, bar poetry, canvas. They alternate on these flat surfaces, sometimes merging into piles that are so cluttered I don't know what to do with what. There are pens, a screwdriver, first aid spray and bobby pins. Change and wrappers to things that save my life and keep my mouth moving. A plastic apple shoved full of blades that won't rot or rust. If I could pour my heart into that lifeless fruit of temptation I would. But tonight I'll keep it. I'll mix it with the sweat on my skin, the fluids on my sheets, the beer on my nightstand, the broken dreams my friend left on the old brown couch last night. I'll learn to play that song on guitar that I should be singing to myself that I pretend is for everyone who is gone. I'll draw road maps, leave detailed directions, carved and burned into my skin. A treasure map for the hunt of all the bullshit that gets listed here. From where my car sits tonight: first right, second right, third left, first left, fourth right. You'll pass the spot I last saw family; it'll be on the left. And you'll see where I spent my first year, trying to be all the things that I thought would make us happy that just tore us apart; it'll also be on the left. And if you go a little further, then go right, then second right, then follow that street till it ends You'll find some other haunted spot. There's a bunch of them, and this is one of the few I thought of, because I know that ghost is around. I can hear familiar voices and feel some of those familiar knots. I'm not nearly drunk enough for this tonight. But I am tired. Let's leave this unfinished.

U is for Uppers...

If it were as easy to get pills as they made it seem in grade school, I would be flying on reds, blues, pinks, purples or whatever sort of prescription that would pull me out of the ground. I'd swallow them whole. I'd crush them up in my bathroom and snort them. If it made sense to turn them into a liquid and shoot them into a vein I totally would.

See, I've been falling lately. In all sorts of ways. Falling for old tricks. Falling while standing up. Falling off a cliff. Falling in love.

It's taken a toll on my body, on my head, on my heart. I've been crying in showers, on the phone with friends, walking on the street, while smoking, while painting, while singing, while writing and while thinking of you. I've been making up reasons and situations to explain how things went so wrong so fast. I'm searching through old text messages, replaying old phone conversations, and watching from some part in my mind all the sweetest heartfelt things that fell from your finger tips or rolled off of your lips. Total honesty. That is what it was all supposed to be, and I pray that it was. And I pray that it is.

A women on television sitting in an office chair said last night that "they" could never get the timing right. It hit me square in the chest. My timing is fucked.

We walked out of the party, to get some fresh air, to talk, to just be somewhere else. The house felt like the old houses in Lancaster that I used to leave to go puke, fuck, or just go home and sleep off whatever was in my system. It felt strange, holding your hand, leaving what reminded me of an old life, to wander off into what could be a new life. We found a corner and laid on the sidewalk. There was enough of a breeze for you to have a jacket. The smoke from our cigarettes would briefly block out some stars before disappearing. We talked about everything; I could smell the scotch on your breath. A while later I could taste it in your mouth. Your kisses were always so hard, so real, so focused and I miss them.

Later you emptied your insides into a gutter next to the car. You've been there before, and I have too. I've been me and I've been you. I held your hair, rubbed your back and tried to pull together some sort of sentence that would distract you from the burning in the pit of your stomach. You fell asleep on the way home with your head on my lap and my hand lightly brushing your hair.

There are moments where everything seems perfect. It is hard to recreate them. Its harder to think about them. I don't know exactly how that night happened. I don't know how we got there. I don't know if we can go back. I don't think I want to.

Planning to keep moving forward, one foot in front of the other, didn't involve me looking back. Now it is all I am doing.

I miss you.

21/26

S is for Sabotage...

I'm burning candles. They aren't for you. They are for me. There is a sacred heart of a woman, a saint's prayer and a guardian angel. One day last week, when I was preparing for the hellfire and brimstone that my heart had earned, if not deserved, I bought them. They were going to save me.

Something is always going to save me.

There's been jobs, loans, women, friends, cities, yellow birds, checks, booze, anarchy and god.

I'm not sure if I need saving. I definitely need protection for myself. There's only one gun in this room, and its pointed right at my chest, no one will survive.

And why not? Four hundred times before this, something, someone, somewhere, moved that target enough to put words down. Four hundred times before this night something had to get out. And I am really glad it did.

Because if it hadn't, if it had all stayed bottled up, thrashing around, gnawing at itself, what would happen? How could the rapidly approaching pain in the pit of my stomach feel? How would this night be going, putting off sleep so I can think about how the moon is getting closer and closer to crushing me?

See, that's sabotage.

That's what I do.

It has been hard to stay positive. It has been hard to believe my ears. It has been hard to feel the pounding of my heart honestly. It has been hard to know if your heart pounds, beats, or flutters. It has been hard to sleep alone.

It has been hard to not fall.

19/26

heartburn

It was 11:35 one night, and I was standing in the middle of some street. It was a slow residential type of road. The moon was out, I could see whatever part of it it felt like showing me between a street light and the branches of a tree. I was smoking a cigarette. I'm pretty sure I was falling in love.

It is always one or the other: fall in love or fall out. I keep it going, the cycle, to be consistent, to keep someone happy, to make sure the bets keep paying out.

I talk all of the time. When I'm not talking I am thinking. When it isn't that it is this, or some song, or some poem or story. I always have something to say. Always.

At 11:35 that night I had nothing.

(I am exhausted right now. I'm taking 36 second cat naps. My eyes are burning from the combination of old cigarette smoke, no sleep and thinking about this. It must come out)

I was destroyed at that moment. There were valleys of thought, mountains of feelings, rivers of, well, rivers of everything. It was a strange feeling.

Because I couldn't tell anyone about it. I didn't know how. Fuck. I don't know how to tell anyone about it now.

I know this:

Worse case scenario: this is the last time I ever feel like this again.

Best case scenario: it isn't.

I miss my inside joke about sandwiches that only I got. I miss the routines of car trips and parking permits. I miss my secret life and my not so secret life.

And I miss that night on the street. At least the way the air felt on my skin. And you being so close and so far away.

White Couch Serenata

Poetry and myself aren't very good friends. We sort of just randomly happen to be in the same room, then there is an awkward glance or two. At some point we share a beer and talk about superficial things that have happened since the last time we saw eachother. I ran into poetry the other morning in the kitchen. Strange

I know the sun has set
and is closer to rise
despite all my best efforts
I still feel my hand on your thigh.

I can hear the sound of your dreams
as they dance towards me down the street
alone on this couch by the window
I look out towards where you sleep.

So right now I wish you good night
right now I wish you good sleep
right now I wish you all the joy in life
you get when we fall asleep.

An Incomplete List...

of things and situations and a couple of relationships that I might have left to die on an operating table or some sort of metaphor that has nothing to do with how things actually are.

(as a post-introduction preface I will give you this: I am moving into a house, parts of the apartment are gone, headed that direction. I spent the evening discussing the merits of short story writers around a beer pong table. It doesn't sound as bad as it seems.)

(as a second post-introduction preface I will let it be known that I am very often left defending my choices on life, liberty, and the pursuit of short story authors. I am also left petting the cat while other people are asleep. This could very easily turn into a rant about someone, but they are asleep, and it is not right, and it is not worth it, so I will pet the cat and move on.)

Tonight I have decided that bullet points are not cut out for me. This list will run long and deep and have an end at some point. It might be worth it, I will definitely feel better. Its 3:30 in the morning, so if it doesn't make sense I will explain it, just ask.

Every time I look at you your eyes are big and I know that if it were not for me you would not eat and you would shit on a pile of shit you shit days ago. You scratch and bite, and seem afraid, but you sit and sleep next to me. When I am not around, I don't know what you do, that is between you and whoever decided that you should be alive for my (and others) comfort. But when I am here, I know what you are doing.

We fight, a lot. About everything. And I try hard, harder than I have ever tried with anyone, over anything, to make it work. I feel wrong a lot of the times. It is because there is nothing thrown back. There are small meaningless jabs about things I can't control, and they hurt. But the things you don't say hurt as much as the things you specifically assign to me. I am always wrong, and I don't do enough, even though I try so hard. I cant talk about this anymore. It hurts.

You are this ideal, this ideal thing that doesn't exist. You ebb and flow. You drown me then make me drown in drought. Things get more complicated, because they are already complicated. I wish you didn't have a face, because sometimes your face makes me cry, and sometimes your face I don't even know.

Every time. Every Single Time. Everysingletime I have stood in front of you and not kissed you for how much you have saved my life, I deserve to suffer a hundred years. This list is long. Very long. Again, I am sorry.

There are stacks of money that I owe people. Some of them are real people I have known since seventh grade, some of them are faceless corporations. But I owe them, and it makes it hard to get up in the morning, because I know that I will make some money that day, and it is never enough.

60640. I owe you. I didn't try. I failed you, and me, and my friends. I took advantage, I am sorry. I'll be back, to see you, for real this time, I promise. will you hold me to it?

My passion. I don't know if you are too much. I know I mean it, that is for sure, but I don't like explaining you. My heart has all these things running around in it, all these people that it cares for, all these things that make it smile. But it is intense...

And I get sick of apologizing for it being intense.
I am sick of apologizing for things that I mean, even if someone thinks they are wrong.
Because sometimes I am wrong, but I mean it, and that is something.

I don't like not being taken serious. I don't like being ignored. I don't like being made to felt dumb. I don't like doing all the work, in anything. I don't like the way I have been being made to feel. I don't like supporting with no support. I don't like not being creative. I don't like how things have been.


But this is all I will do.

I am sorry to you, and more sorry to me.


So the apartment turns to ice and I will sleep in the common area. Will life be fine in the morning? Yeah, it always seems to be. Will I be? No, not so much, not at all. I'm good at hiding things. It seems to be a trait of my parents, both sides. Do I want to be rescued? From the bed I have made myself?

Yes?

Will I get out of it?

Probably not. I hear it is pretty cozy, I think I'll check it out again soon.

In here (the place I am pointing at, in the middle of my chest) it makes sense.
I hope no one got left behind.

What a glorious Monday, yeah?

lights of the (sort of) city

I am supposed to be asleep. I have a meeting at work in 5ish hours. I was supposed to be working tonight, but I didn't. Somedays you get sick. Somedays you pretend.

I'm looking out of my new window. There is also another window to my right. Both of them show lights. A shopping center. An intersection. A gas station. A liquor store.

It is pretty hot in my house, even now, at 1:32 in the morning. I have a bed made up in the living room, with a fan blowing on it, with a beautiful woman in it. I should be in it.

Something about all of this makes me feel really old.

The cursor sat there blinking at me. I could do nothing about it. I'm going to try to sleep. I'll get to what all this nonsense is about later.

monday, sunday, whatever.

I understand what it is to be an adult. I mean, I know how to postpone things. No new insight into life or anything exciting like that. Sorry.

I am also sorry I never got around to recapping my trip. It was a really good time, and it was exactly what i needed.

I've had a bunch of crazy nights. The trip to the lake started it off. It has been just short of completely ridiculous every night since. I think I've been to bed before 4 once since Tuesday, and that was 3:30. Tonight should be no exception. Yesterday was a going away party. Tonight is the going away after party (her last night at her favorite bar). Isn't it comforting to know I am not waist deep in alcohol alone, but I have friends to wade through it with me?

My body feels like I did any sort of strenuous activity for a week straight. I am old man sore. My body hates me.

I am hoping to put up something tomorrow. I started on it today and it will probably be pretty emotional. It should turn out good, or at least the way I want it to.

And I have something pretty exciting planned, and I will announce it tomorrow.

This video is of a song on the mix Tony made for my trip. See you tomorrow.