Thursday, October 28, 2010

goodnight, dear void.


i feel remarkably 13 again. there’s this backwards motion that seems to be taking place, and i can't find anything to grip. but i suppose that’s how most things happen, when we’re in the other room. or other side of the street. or other side of the bed. or other side of the movie screen.

there was something once familiar, something hopeful, and some sort of genuine light that seems to have vaporized. the truth is, i don’t know if any of this is worth any of the that anymore. i know years ago i would’ve told myself differently, even just a few months ago- but the farthest completion of thought that i can reach out to is either five and a half hours away, or 2,000 miles in the past. the not so very distant past.

and i love thoughts! i love filling out forms, and scheduling things. i love having ideas and writing thoughts down. it feels like each word begins, and are finished before their completion. i know it doesn’t make any sense, but my eyebrows are tired from the frowning and my stomach is sick of the upside down turns it reluctantly takes whenever i see the newest of things that feel like the oldest of terrors.

there are horror films, and masks, and bloody make-up. there’s things that jump out at you, and ghosts in movies. there are loud noises and creepy whispers. there are thriller novels, eerie moonless skies, and of course- things that go bump in the night. things that stare at you from all angles. but fear, is suddenly not so terrifying anymore. and there is so much work begging to be done.

not meaning to go all Taylor Swift on you, my invisible audience or the lack there of, but it all leads up to the word; heartbroken. something i relied on, disappeared. something has restored an amount of vulnerability, and now i feel incredibly exposed. maybe i was looking the other way, or maybe i lost myself inside of something that was never really there to begin with- but something is now different.

i used to see the stars held captive in the blue, and i used to hold hands still that wanted to shake. there’s no allure in the dark taste or the smell i used to crave. i stretched out, and found it had all packed up, and left.

but the unvocalized bits slithered through my fingers, and blamed themselves in ink. folded fibers devoured the words that i never knew i had to say. probably discarded, and most likely piled up with all the rest. but regardless, they’ve left me now- and the hole feels a little less spacious.

i have discovered: i long for that contentment. i desire that sunrise that only i and one other can see. i crave that displacement that brought me right back to where i should’ve been. i hunger for the still trees and their shifting leaves. i want the frosty windows that only i and one other see out of. i thirst for partnership and the idea of continually being on the same page. the same book even! i wish for the weightlessness of falling sideways, and i am pleading for an act of stillness. i know i’ll find it. there would be no such desire if there were not a resolution.

or gosh, just a little time. just a little time before all waters are disrupted. just a little time before every bit of the clarity once achieved is certainly forgotten. just a little moment, or two.

but this use of words is what brings me back to the beginning. grass, trees, stars, sand, waves, moon, gravel, porchlight, fleece, rough fiber, feather necklace, empty beer bottle, and a-sigh-of-relief. enamoured with the world above, and the world beside me. and i can’t find an antonym strong enough. and if i could, i’d use it to jab and sever that painful verb from my existence. the one that led to phrases, stories, and aspirations.

and i can’t be brought back anymore. not when there’s no one, and not one thing to meet me there. the objects, the things embedded in the ground and the sky are lost. i have learned this lesson in years passed, and a mere few weeks ago- and still, i can’t quite compete. magnetic, fascinating, attracting, intriguing and mesmerizing.

i want to tell myself it’s only because it’s a late hour, and that morning always brings a different type of exhalation. but i know better.