Today was a good day because the sky had a large red belt along the line where it rose, and no one on the plane said anything at all. Just stared, which was actually quite nice. The plane honest-to-god beamed into the next day, but there was no false sense of self or artifical inner peace, a vacancy that wouldn't have occurred in high school. There was just a small happiness because I was seeing a sunset so many miles from where I had once been. I drank coffee and felt secure in my corner. And where was all that envy? And where was all that worry? I could see them flying besides the plane. These things don't think highly of planes. They are gigantic flying beasts with barks like the screeching of hawks and fiery tongues. No pilot could ever evade them. It's strange. I made plans, a long time ago, to never let them bother me.
There was this conversation about digging. It was between me and this guy who stayed in Iowa City (but his heart was really in Atlanta). Which is fine, especially because the part about his heart doesn't have much to do with what I want to talk about. What I want to talk about is the fact that I don't know how I can dig myself out by reading books. Or even watching the X-files, for that matter. How do I do what I told myself I'd do even though my bed is more than just warm? Meanwhile the rest just crumbles. I looked directly into my own face sitting on a dresser and thought, "Why does my back hurt even in this beautiful moment? Even when everything is okay? Even after Andrew asked if I wanted to go to Chicago with him?" I still have my doubts about that trip. He once let slip that I was a "sprinkles" friend. I made his meals better but I couldn't go on every one. I imagine talking to a late-night talk show host about this. Talking in a big city. A Chicago city. I explain to my host why the subway system is beautiful, why it's the best part of his Incredible City. "There's nothing like it where I grew up." Meanwhile in Atlanta, this guy is allegedly more happy and doesn't even think about Iowa City, which was allegedly just a dream to him. Meanwhile, I lie in bed with my imaginary late-night talk show hosts. The words I tell them may one day be known as, "creative writing." And my cat at my feet begs me to shut up so she can go back to snoring. Back to her dreams where she bites the heads off of crickets. Nothing is unbearable, but maybe if things get bad enough I'll have an excuse to lie down and call it quits. "I will dig until I can't dig any longer." Can my arms just fall off already? "I nearly gave up on myself." Can I give up already? Our food gets cold as we continue to talk. The party continues as we sit closer together. I watch this Atlanta poet guy try to talk. I watch him watch me.
Today I told myself it's okay to edit the same sad understandings again and again and again. But I was being a liar, and I knew I was being a liar because many different parts of me felt like they were in a music video. "Maybe forever." I don't know if I've ever been able to properly practice "Maybe forever." "Maybe forever" wasn't made to last very long. as we drove down the interstate, the shadows of long-leaf pine got pinched under strips of light and wobbled. These zebra things continued far away from where I sat behind the wheel. They continued until they hit the end of the road and bent beneath it, and I realized I didn't know if I'd be fine with watching this sort of swimming for a long, long time. I thought, "If the rest of my life actually looks like these shadows, then I need to figure out why I find that idea so unbearable." Why can't I bear the "Maybe forever"? Maybe I can find an answer by writing the same few questions over and over and over again. If I look hard enough, I might discover some slight, subtle shift.
What's the name for that type of confusion that's part painful, part beautiful? Like when you stare into the corner of your hotel room's window and think, "WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO BE LOOKING AT HERE? AND FOR HOW LONG??" And when you try to really feel how your pillow touches your face and really take comfort in it (despite the fact that a few minutes before, life was so awful). That kind of confusion. "I don't know what to do. I can't call my mom." Then I get so distressed because I can't even figure out why I can't call my mom. Sometimes there isn't any pain and there isn't any comfort, but I still get wound up and tied in knots. I look into the darkness and say, "That darkness looks like darkness." If these statements don't make me feel gross, I go back to them again and again and again.
My fear made me break down in front of my friends. I was fearful that my personality and uselessness was making them imagine a world where I didn't exist. I imagined this world myself, and that world seemed all right. Unfortunately, I couldn't imagine it fully because it needed my non-existence to make sense. But I also needed to exist to imagine it at all. Realizing all this, I became immensely unhappy and emotional. I couldn't escape the house or my eruption and I couldn't find other people to hide behind, so I told my friends, "There's something wrong with my brain. I'm going to go to bed now." I don't want to write about their reactions because that seems unfair. I left the room, curled up in my bed, and heard what I believed was laughter through the door. I realized that nobody was going to make me feel better. I realized that I would have to make myself feel better, so I went back to where my friends sat, and I apologized and said some words that I've decided I can't remember. The night was okay after that. I'm going to tell everyone in the whole wide world that that night was great. But in these small words, I will simply say "okay."
Let's not mention "my life is ruined" tonight. Even though I woke up worrying about old age again. Even though the day was frigid and I kept forgetting when to speed up and when to wait. Up until today, I've spent the year writing in my pajamas. Being unhappy is much easier in jeans. Meanwhile, being uncomfortable is much harder. "The smallest things change my days completely." I can't make these words my own. They have to be someone else's. Meanwhile, my friend's mother tells me that days like these won't get easier to come by as my life gets shorter and further away. Days like these won't ever happen if I walk silently and singularly into the woods. Some days I wake up and everything is inevitable. This strange house, for example. Meanwhile, my friend drives home. Meanwhile, the walls get greener. Meanwhile, my friend tries to grab my attention. I have to go now. I have to stop.
If I say I'm going to be okay, will I eventually be okay? "I'm going to be okay. I'm going to be okay. I'm going to be okay. I'm going to be okay. I'm going to be okay."
The US Department of Education has received my FAFSA form.
Today was better. It's amazing the tricks that porch-time can play. Being out in the front yard on top of not being bothered. Allowed to be quiet! I need to allow myself to be quiet! The silence is scary, but so is all the shit I make up. Now I am bowing into the corner of my friend's bedroom. What is the name of the part of me who believes this will make me more beloved by my friend? But also...it just feels nice to bow. It feels nice to be in a shadowy spot where the walls hug closer than they tend to. I like to rehearse how best to behave in the hallways of other people. Oftentimes in my privacy, I find it difficult to distinguish when I'm rehearsing and when I'm not. But I like to believe my writing sends me into the middle of that, so the questions regarding what I'm doing and who all of this is for become a little irrelevant...One of these days I need to find a way to bow every day without anyone noticing...
My mom, who I thought ran a pretty tight ship, is a lot more lax than I initially suspected (and this initial suspicion was, for a time, pretty firm). Compared to the upbringing of others, I've been raised in a barn of gold and fancy televisions and balconies. The treatment of brushes must be done just so, to avoid splashing and clotting and the ruining of carpets. Every step is important. Attention to detail and precision is a shining feature to be held in high regard. I love my friend and their exactness.
I worry that the lines that form reality are more fine than I initially expected. I worry that my fat fingers won't ever do me any good. Name one advantage people with fat fingers have on this strangely intricate planet.
I've stayed in bed too long. What a horrible guest I am. While I laze in bed I think:
"Well...I can't help being ugly, but there will always be ugliness if there is fear on my face. At the very least, I can look at myself and see a brave, ugly face, instead of just an ugly one."
I cried in the car because I knew then that I was dying. Then I died at the terminal. Now I'm alive again, and I really, really don't want to cry on this airplane.
All the while I am dreaming of being bald. "Yes sir. Yes sir! Shave off these awful lumps. This dead body. These soulful, dragged-down, doughy, God-maybe-she's-a, god awful features. Shave it all off, so at least the people will know I'm trying."
"I am trying!" Who exactly can I scream this to who won't reject it's powerful anti-novelty beams? The untruth, the liar-ness of it all? I cannot complain because my complaints have lost their flavor. What is the flavor of a stomach twisting? What is the flavor of dirt on fingers and those fingers in fat? I complain, and the whole world sees their own face in mine and they
get
bored.
Sometimes that's all life is, and unfortunately that means that sometimes the best people to talk to don't exist. Which is honestly quite beautiful in the fine-china-tipping-over kind of way. Which is honestly not a huge deal.
I want to shave my head. I want to start school right after I've set something on fire. And the people have a right to know how big my forehead is.
Oh my. Today wasn't good for words. If I wanted to talk about the missing suitcase or the tree branch that fell onto my porch or the guy going 60 in the middle of a blizzard, I'd have to imagine an audience of friends, which is too difficult right now. Cuz the house is empty. Sometimes it's too difficult to speak in great detail about your day when all your speaking is going into your sweater. When you're audience is just your belly and your chest, they might start to say things like, "We know! We know we know! Please stop reminding us!"
Ohhhhhhhh my fucking word. Who has time for ham radios now? Now is not the time for all those amateur shots into all those amateur islands! We are in a blizzard! Our clothes are missing! We must get through if we want our blunts hidden in your chest hidden in my shoebox. We must get home!!!
It's been four days. I've reached the threshhold-bedrock-event-horizon of my own dedication. Oh boo hoo hoo. What a shock that my life is a sauce pan on a stove. The bubbles well up and pop into each other's spaces. What's left is heat and something that smells. Nothing lasts. Nothing gets maintained except the sauce as a whole, and I can't even seem to bring myself to call it full.
In the first class ever of this terrible, cracked-open artic where I was told to spill myself open, I was told to spill myself open and read myself out. Excuse me for picking the cowards way out and picking at stray thoughts. Goodness gracious, all I do is string together the popping sounds that thought bubbles make when someone walks through them. People can get nothing if they ask for it. People can get nonsense if they sit there and ask me for peotry. These people don't want me, so I won't bother with giving up. Tomorrow I must see a man about my teeth, so there's nothing I can do about clarity right now. This is unfortunate, given that it's been so long since I've shared myself.
The earth tilts further on its side. The snow doesn't melt, but I can still see the sun through the trees.
I am not my character, unfortunately. I cannot body surf on a character called Traffic. And Traffic can't be real. The cars downtown can't be men in black bodysuits with flashlights. And all that I wish would talk to me must stay still. This is how the world must work.
And so the twisting begins. I cannot keep myself from staring at the map taped to my door. I promised my friend I'd walk in the park, but it's been so cold...
The best I can remember is that there should be a scene where the girl's father flosses her teeth for her.
Unfortunately there's never anything to say in week one. The mounds have suddenly stacked too tall and the best I can do is get across them without causing a scene. The eternities have now set in. The boxes will fill, but only after my insides have tied themselves together so tightly I begin to believe that death is shorter than some things in life.
As I've mentioned, there's really nothing much to say. The lights outside my window are extra bright tonight.
I wonder if I'm at the start of an X-files episode.
Leave me alone! Leave me alone! All I want is my peanut butter. No smug asshole is going to keep me from stepping forward into an emptiness I don't understand!
I've entered that stage where even the little lessons where I talk about my feelings seem extra agonizing. Can I just sit on the third floor of the library and remember that nothing I do will ever give me the body I want? Meanwhile, I've gotten fatter. Oh joy. The earth spins and I want to dig down until I stop spinning too. Or float up and eventually crash into a newer, wider orbit.
I must make a "sensational crochet afghan" one of these days. I must get the yarn for a "sensational crochet afghan."
I promised myself I'd make an impressive set of words every once and a while and to never give up.
What can I say that wouldn't sound far away and none of you people's business? Work is good. School is good. The rent has been paid and even lowered cuz of the blizzard. My friend, my friend, and my friend all wish me well and send packages and tell me, "It's okay. It really is okay."
The parts of me relegated to whispers still insist that it is not okay, and "Maybe," I wonder, "Maybe they should be louder than I want them to be."
My belly still hangs. It's hard to jog in the mornings. It's hard to stare into the pocks of the dirty snow and think, "Yes. This isn't my home, and there's absolutely nothing for me here." It's hard to face the sun when it goes down, and when this happens it's hard to think, "Yes. This is my home. It's where I belong."
12.5% of the fall semester has been completed. Calculation interferes with the natural processes and fluid dynamics of time and space. I go to classes that inform me about the creation power of the eyes as a portion of the mind and I still wish I could make things 100% bearable. Or at least, find a method I can stick with. I'm sick of tossing perspectives out into snow the moment they start to smell or their undersides start to mold.
Every day works. Every day functions just enough to be real. Thank God. I need to thank God for that, truely.
"What works? What doesn't? These types of questions never end but they're also never useless. Young people must find the use of questions they can't answer. Only then will they become old."
Only then will the sun look down on me and say, "Doesn't this world hold together so beautifully? Everything is falling out of line and yet." And yet there's a gurgling in my gut, and it's telling me I have to go to bed.
I tried to confess and be honest and sincere. Even when the dog's face was out the window and we all wanted to scream and wave our hands and laugh and say "Pretty doggy! Pretty thing!" Even then, I tried to say, "I'm trying to love this state." Or even, "I really miss the old state."
"I love this house."
"I love sitting on the couch with you and looking at the trees." And I tried to mean everything. I tried to own it.
My old friend told me, "I'm neutral about this new state. I think I like the old state okay." And I was crushed and envious. Why is it easy for others to be okay with not loving where they are and where they've been?
As the second month of this first year begins, I'm starting to realize that there might be no hope for me when it comes to talking to people "right." I don't believe I can go back to normal. Not without discovering that impossible "untruth" which can only be vaugely outlined when little children put on plays about eating flesh and the pain of losing loved ones.
Help me. I'm trying to write a story, but the characters won't leave the walking giant they're living on. The witch's familiar can't seem to find a good reason to wish for escape. Everyone can't seem to breathe right.
Is that okay? People keep telling me that that's okay.
Jesus no I didn't mean "bullet." I meant "brain scrambler."
Oh god the sickness! God no not the sickness! Okay...Okay...
Who's in class today?
There's a guy playing tetris. There's a guy with one earing. There's a friend who's lost his earings and now his ears are closing up. There's a guy who just said, "Hello. Oh y'know I'm doing okay." Then he says something a little goofy. Then the girl says, "I just can't deal with you right now." But as a joke.
Okay....
I was in a bathroom stall before this. I remembered Audre Lorde's "Living cannot be a problem we solve. It must be a phenomenom we take care to interact with." BUT I'M NOT CLEVER ENOUGH TO DISTINGUISH THE TWO!
Okay...The sickness.
The sickness says my name. Says, "Hello." Says, "You deserve to be shot, but not for any terrible reason."
Big Head Todd has been playing on the radio more and more.
Yesterday I tried to imagine a circus in the streets of an ancient city, but it all just turned into a empty road with too much space between the buildings. There was a woman too. Even she didn't have much detail.
Maybe I should stop apologizing for my gloominess. Maybe it's not gloominess. Maybe it's all the directions in my body, moving towards a single point.
Sometimes I worry I live far away from myself.
What the hell. Maybe this new personality with the secret smile will be the one that finally wins.
It's a nice thought; to suddenly wake up and be deliberate with my words.
I'm turning twenty soon. Maybe I should learn to leave myself where I am and wonder more about my friend's taste in video games.
Time to apologize to the well that's been thumbed into the clay that is static. I apologize for my silence. I apologize I
have perhaps been busy with my reading, my "ba da ba da ba da"s.