Chaos / Accidental Physical

I never thought I'd ever know -- you know --

life --

I never thought I'd have it all figured out.

I never thought happiness was a thing that would come to me.

I never thought I'd ever know -- you know --

just knowing, like, absolutely,

any one thing.

I never thought I'd ever be quite sure.

I mean, this is just to say, I still think this way.


It rained the day I went to Alcatraz. Not real rain, more like mist. Everything was wet and foggy. Well, that's San Francisco for you. Sometimes. I took pictures in black and white.


There was a time when my feelings were directly connected to my fingers and it would all come pouring out. There was a time when I wrote without my own critical eye. And it was good. Remember. Now it's a journey through a checklist of metaphors, narration, imagery, concrete imagery, quantity, point of view, conceit, no abstractions, and sense, does it make sense. And the words don't quite make their way out.


Summer is a time for getting drunk. But I want to get drunk in October. And I want it to be cheap and easy. I want to shiver. I want to be looking for a good time do you know when I last looked for a good time. I don't know when. I want to get drunk in October and I want the sky to be black and I want the beer to be disgusting because it's two for $6 Boreale and I want to dance in a dirty hipster bar with young dirty hipsters wearing neon tights and neon sunglasses to dirty hipster DJ playing LMFAO before LMFAO was cool I want to dance like I don't give a fuck that I'm dancing with my backpack on like I don't give a fuck that I'm dancing like I don't give a fuck like I don't give a fuck like I don't give a fuck 'cause I don't give a fuck.


And the words and the words and the words. They're never ending. And they don't quite make sense. There's no need to try and piece them together.


Always sitting there trying to name the feelings. Separate them, label them, explain them. And always the questions when I'm not ready. I don't know yet. And I might not ever know. Maybe leave me alone forever. Maybe leave me alone indefinitely. I can't articulate. I'm not ready.

And I am so spent. And I am so exhausted. And I can't see anymore. Beyond myself. I can't say just what I mean. I don't mean anything. I can't articulate.

And now I shrug my shoulders. And now I am alone. Why articulate?



All we want, baby, is everything.


This body grew like a tree from the earth. This body wants food. This body wants water. This body wants touch. This body wants space to stretch its legs. This body is sorry about some things but not about others. This body is sorry for pushing Tino in first grade gym class but not sorry about being angry. This body is physical. This body and other bodies. This body and the accidental physical. This body is full of insides and outsides. This body is full of spaces for the metaphorical abstract. This body is science. This body is art. This body bleeds every 27 days. This body has a literal heart. This body remembers some things but not others. This body remembers the taste of another body that had just consumed beer and marijuana. This body does not know what it has forgotten. This body and the accidental physical. This body cannot make sense of what is not part of it. This body can count. This body is not sure if it's put its feelings in the right place. This body cannot actually see inside itself. This body does not know what's going on inside itself. This body can see outside. This body can't see in the dark. This body is protein. This body is carbohydrates. This body is vitamins. This body created itself. What is this body but a tree grown from the earth, and every spring there is rebirth.







What happened to the days.

What happened to the things I had to say and then forgot.

Today is the day I listened to "Good Woman" by Cat Power for the 121st time.

The Year in Review: Sometimes I Disappeared, But I Want To Come Back

It's that made up time of year when I decide to look back at everything that has made me who I am up until this very point of writing. These times come for me usually in that gray area when one thing ends and another begins; right now it's school ending and summer beginning. In a week I'll be on a plane to China. I think that maybe this is important because it's the exact same thing I did last year.

I'm sitting in my parents' kitchen right now, drinking tea and eating stale raisins. The weather is cloudy and I think it rained this morning. I just got back from A-Camp on Sunday night and I don't really know what to do with myself. It's a lot quieter here.

The thing is, this year, I don't need to ask myself "how did you get here?" because I already know that inertia got me here. Does that make sense? What I mean is that I didn't do anything at all to get me anywhere. In September I thought to myself that I was a whole new person with realness, tangibility, and form and I stepped outside of my brain and decided I was going to crash into life.

But it turned out that life was just work. And I threw myself into that with all the force I could muster because it made me feel like a real person. It made me feel needed and important and like I was really doing something, even if it wasn't actually important at all. I could say to people "I'm working" and it could be a thing that people understood. You know? It felt normal. Like, God, I'm just so normal, going to normal work all the normal time. And I felt all the normal feelings, which is to say, I really didn't feel anything at all.

What really happened is that everything else in my life fell away. I wanted time to "focus on myself" but it turns out that that meant ensuring that I got the proper amount of sleep every night. Everything was just fine in that fine way, where I didn't cry I just sort of despaired when things were sad and then did whatever it was that I had to do. I believe they call this "going through the motions" and Buffy Summers sang about it on her hit TV show "Buffy the Vampire Slayer".

I feel proud of myself because I made + saved enough money to pay for my entire trip to China all by myself. All the money that I'm using is entirely mine that I worked for, and financial independence is something that I've always wanted so this feels like a big step for me. It's okay to feel good about that, right? Money makes me so uncomfortable and I wish that everybody had a lot of it or that nobody had any at all. But I guess this isn't really about money.

It's about how I closed up and disappeared and became a non-entity. I worked a lot but it was only about money in the sense that I needed just enough to pay rent and keep some in my bank account. I worked a lot so I could hold on to something that seemed to make sense to everyone else ("work") and I didn't let myself think about the other things that I wanted. It felt good to have a team at work, to be known and to feel solid. That was sufficient.

But before this year, my life wasn't about sufficiency. It was an overflow of feelings all the time and I cried a lot and that was a good thing. I wrote words and people read them and the words came from a real place in my heart. I stopped writing this year. My blog is almost empty and so is my journal because I just didn't have anything to say. There were no feelings that were pounding on my heart's door, demanding to be let out.

It's kind of the worst thing, to stop wanting. I don't believe for a second that I've ever stopped wanting, but I took desire and covered it up. Every time it knocked it was a faraway sound that I could shut out so easily, pretend it belonged somewhere else. I muted my desire to be anything, to be even a person. Was I a person who wrote? I had no beliefs, no identity, no passion. I didn't want to participate in anything, go anywhere, meet anyone. There was nothing for me to write.

I don't know if it was fear. I don't know what it was. I think it was just a mistake I made about myself, which I am okay with admitting. I think if I could go back I would love everyone a little harder, because I wasn't a very good friend, and I'm sorry about that.

Going to A-Camp reminded me of the person that I was when I first started working for Autostraddle. And everyone remembered me as that person, which made me want to be that person again. I miss her, that girl who was scared but brave, in love with everything and everyone. It reminded me of a time when I really lived, or something, whatever living is. I mean, it was living with other people, being comfortable in my own skin, and letting things hurt. Life doesn't have to hurt if you don't let it, but then I don't think you'll feel any feelings at all. I mean, you have to let them all in.

by Robin Roemer
this is a weird picture of me and I don't even mind

This is what A-Camp did, what Autostraddle does: it gives you confidence to be who you are. If there's anything I learned from Autostraddle for the past 3 years it's that you have to let yourself feel. Your feelings are beautiful and you're beautiful and god it sounds so corny, but that's what it is, you are beautiful and you need to let yourself feel things because I'm going to start feeling things again and it's all going to be okay if we have feelings together.

I think maybe the whole point of this blog was my weird way of trying to tell you who I am, even though I don't know who that is. I'm figuring it out piece by piece, and the Autostraddle team has been a big part of that. Sometimes I disappeared, but I want to come back. I don't really know what that means, sorry.

I don't know. I guess this is just my life and these are the things that have happened to me and the things that I have done. I'm not going to say that I'm not going to hide anymore because I will probably still hide sometimes. But I know a little better now what I want and who I want to be and I think I can be that person.

by Robin Roemer

I know you can't see these people's faces, but I want you to know they are among the most beautiful faces you will ever see.

I am humbled, once again, by the magic of Autostraddle. I want you to know that I knew these things about myself before, I knew that I had disappeared this year and become a blank slate of nothingness. But I guess A-Camp filled me up again, reminded me of there's a rosy complexion to my cheeks.

Lonely Planet Dot Com

This is where I try to explain why I'm leaving and fail because I come back every day. Also I have an important question to ask you.

++

Hello. As you can see, despite telling you that I am on a hiatus, I am here writing words and you are here reading them. I want to tell you why I decided to take a "hiatus" but I have a problem: I don't know why. You see, I made the decision on a whim. Howevs, I think there are actual reasons inside of me and I'm going to attempt to explain them while I still have your attention.

One of the main reasons, actually, is that my blog feels really sad. This is a really sad place for me, and maybe you can see that sometimes when I write sad things and it's awkward and you don't know what to say and maybe you want to say something or maybe you just want me to stop. When I look at it, I see my sadness reflected back at me. And it's sort of like looking at a mirror when you haven't looked at a mirror for a long time. I recognize myself but it's still kind of shocking. Conor Oberst said: "I'm not surprised, but I never feel quite prepared."

It feels very self-centered. And a blog is totally self-centered. This is a place to write about myself and have a bunch of people read it and talk about me and how well or badly I write. memememe. Sometimes that's okay, but right now I really want to talk to other people. I want other people to talk to me. Instead my feelings get sent into a cybervoid.

++

If you haven't yet surmised from previous posts, I'm going through a super shitty time right now. Despite everything currently being amazing, everything also sucks. You know?

I don't know how to say this, I don't know how to talk about it: my girlfriend broke up with me and I have sad feelings in that area of my heart.

Stephen Dunn said: "I wanted everything or not enough. It was all my fault."

Riese said: "I stood next to someone wearing your perfume, and it made me miss you."

Cat Power said: "I will miss your heart so tender, and I will love this love forever."

++

I want to talk directly to your eyeballs right now. I wish I could name you so that you would know that I am talking to you. I wish we could make eye contact. I'm talking to you, reader. Really. I want to talk to you about things. I want to show you my christmas lights because I think you would like them. I want you to come look for used bookstores with me because I think it would be fun. Sometimes I just like to look at the spines of books. I want to cook you dinner because I'm getting better at cooking and I think that you are the kind of person who would eat my not-so-amazing food. And I don't think you would mind eating on the floor because I don't have a dining table. I want to go to the museum of fine arts with you because I have a pass and it lets me take a friend for free and I want you to be my friend. I want to go see Howl with you and I wouldn't even mind paying because that's how much I like you and also how badly I want to see Howl. I want to write you paper letters. I want to walk up Mount Royal with you because the view is pretty and totally worth it. And maybe I will put my arm around you because even though I don't really like touching, I think you're kind of comfortable. And sometimes it feels good.

I want to ask you things. I want to ask you: how do you do it? What do you do when you are lonely as fuck? And it hurts to be you? And you feel trapped inside your own mind but you know you must keep being you because there is no other person to be? How do you deal with everything all the time? I am really asking you. This is not a rhetorical question. I want to hear from you. How do you cure loneliness?

I want to try and write in my blog at least once a week. But I also want to try a lot of things. I guess, in my own weird way, I'm asking you to help me. And I know that's kind of vague, but like, maybe you could be vague right back. I don't know. If there's something you want to say, I guess this is the time to say it. Maybe you could give me some dinner recipes.

A friend of mine said: "All I want to do is go crazy and have so much fun and have things be perfect like that, but I just feel really fucking sad."

The Supreme Art of Letting Go

The slow change of summer to fall, and we sit in denial. It's not quite happening yet, but you begin to think to yourself that you need a new pair of boots, and your mind briefly passes over that sweater you will wear when the weather changes -- it hasn't changed yet. But you know it will. It's happening right in front of your eyes.

For a while you refuse to shed the light t-shirts and shorts, until, undeniably it is fall and then possibly winter, and your shoes are wet from snow that melts when it touches the ground. But you still don't wear those boots, and your jacket is a sweater inside of which you shiver once or twice. One day you wake up and go outside and your breath catches in your throat and you know it's time to get the heavy-duty stuff; the hats and gloves, longjohns, big sweaters, and the hibernation attitude that allows you to trudge through dirty snow on your way home, where you will wear all these things. The days are short, but you knew this was coming. You saw it happening, it happens every year. But you are just not ready.

++

Slow change is like this. You wake up next to somebody and know that soon your bed will be empty, because summer is leaving and you are hungry. You can see the day when there will be no more hot whispers in your ear, no more christmas lights in August because it is no longer August, no more warm fireplace, no more warm body next to you, no more fingers on green shirts, no more kisses or touches or toothy grins kissing touching toothy grins.

Denial is easy and you hold on to it for as long as possible, but little by little you put the sweaters in the front of your closet, preparation for the coming cold. You don't wear them yet though. Summer is leaving, you know this, but you are just not ready for it to go. Knowledge does not make it easier, in fact, very little makes it easier.

++

You feel, and you let yourself feel it. You let the fall sharpness bite you, just for a second, before you wrap yourself up, and you hold it inside yourself, and then you inhale and exhale and you let it go. You breathe the cold air out and then you breathe in and out some more, because that's what you have to do, breathe the cold air out of your lungs until there is no more, and then you walk. You walk and talk and breathe and move your fingers like a human being with human tendencies. You make sure to wear your thickest coat to soften the blows until it doesn't feel like punching anymore. And that is all you need to do, for now at least. And you will emerge. You will emerge.

I Just Want Back in New York City

wine,
red, white, and blue
no wait, i'm canadian
i have a lot of friends
in london, ontario

tables, glass - but
what does it mean?
if this is a machine
it sure looks like a dream
you're just too fucking
post modern
she said
you're so fucking
post
modern
you're practically dead
bury me in keds
they're practical or so
my mom said
you're so fucking post modern!!
let me eat your head
when you die, i'm going
to wish i too
was dead
ps leisha hailey sees red
pps your mom
is in my bed
ppps j.k

-poem by katrina, riese, and i. but mostly riese.

--

I took the cab to Penn Station without really knowing where I was going. In fact this whole weekend I never knew where I was going, I just knew that I was going somewhere. It's not where you are, it's who you're with and I spent the weekend with some of the best people I possibly could. Leaving Manhattan made me want to cry.

So I did. A little bit.
And I'm still crying. But I'm still smiling too. I'm...
lacking the words. I guess if you know what it's like to be not happy and then feeling pure .. happiness .. maybe you know. Maybe you understand how much I don't want to let this go.

++

Remember that time we woke with our hearts constricted in the best way possible. Remember that time I shouted so much my voice started sounding like I had a head cold. I shouted because the rooms were loud, everything is very loud in New York. Sometimes I just want to hide from the noise inside me but not this time. This time I participated.

++

New York is big and small. My heart is big and I am small. There is enough room in my heart for everyone and everyone and other people and I will keep you [you] there because I need you [you] with me all the time.

Maybe I shouldn't admit that. Maybe I shouldn't say it. Maybe I shouldn't say anything unless everyone is drunk.

++

We're eating dinner at a restaurant in Little Italy. The lights are low and she's at the other table and my back's against the wall and no one is really sitting. There are no cars in the street I don't know why maybe it's blocked. There are a million restaurants. There are a million people. We stood by a chinese street vendor and kissed and kissed and kissed....

++

Chinese fire drill. Run, run, run [when I get a little scared].
I just want...
to never let this go.

++

I was conscious of time, knew that it was limited. Everything is in some way limited by time. Or not, depends on how you look at it. This could last forever somehow if I let it but I don't know how. Really though, I don't know what forever is and I don't know how to get there. I'm very conscious of time, I know that it is limited.

The seconds ticked.
It was long because we never slept.
What do you think they're doing right now, sleeping or drinking, I asked.
Drinking, she replied.

and so we were.

++

Run, run, run. Repeat
repeat the words I know we both said.

There are a million restaurants. There are a million people. We stood by a chinese street vendor and kissed and kissed and kissed....

++

This is how it works: you're young until you're not.

My heart feels so much right now. I remember walking in -- no, that's inaccurate, diving is right -- diving in because this couldn't be something I was scared of. I wouldn't allow myself to dip my feet in while everyone else got wet.

Look at everybody. Four on the couch, one on the floor. One on a chair. I was the fifth on the steps. One moving around everywhere. I don't know if this is right but look at everybody. Everybody is so pretty. My eyes, wide, wide, wide, soaking everything in. Dear brain, promise me you'll never forget this.

I never want to let this go.

++

I'm sitting on her shoes, and the other her is sitting in the dark corner by my side. I kinda get it. Even though it's hers, it's for her, she's gotta come outside. Sometimes we just need the comfortable people or the ones you don't need to say anything to. Some things don't need explaining. This I remember. This I know. Repeat the words I know we both didn't say.

Run, run, run.

++

Oh god, oh god, oh god. I miss you something fierce. Oh god it hurts. Oh it's so terrible, it's so perfect, it's so real. It's a thunderstorm in my heart and oh god it hurts.

This is how it works: you peer inside yourself.
You take the things you like and
try to love the things you took
and then you take that love you made
and stick it into someone else's heart
pumping someone else's blood
and walking arm in arm
you hope it don't get harmed
but even if it does
you'll just do it all again.

my number one feeling is missing autostraddle all lowercase

run run run run run around the party truck waving flags hopping sweating smiling run run circle collapse dance yes! yes! yes!

i am never letting you go.

lovelovelovelove oh god oh god oh god what is happening

And I'm still crying. But I'm still smiling too. I'm...
lacking the words. I guess if you know what it's like to be not happy and then feeling pure .. happiness .. maybe you know. Maybe you understand how much I don't want to let this go.

Sometimes This Is All I Know

Day 24. To the one whom I cannot name; thank you. You don't know who you are, but maybe you will one day. To the one whom I cannot name; I had a perfect idea and this is it. Sometimes this is all I know.


I love you like a character in a book,
one who will never change because your soul
is pressed forever in the pages, but
will also grow as I grow, and I will learn new things from you
as I learn new things about myself.
This love is a constant discovery.
I love you because you jump with me.
I love you because you take me everywhere. We fly
everywhere together, you in my mind,
it's not a guest bedroom, it's a shared room.

I love you more than flowers, which remind me of my mother,
more than tulips and roses, more
than the memory of gardening in the front of the old house,
because you are here now,
you are real.

I love you more than love,
which I love a lot because it is the thing that has kept me safe
in the darkness of my room.
Love reminded me that I was human,
it kept me attached to the earth when everyone else
had let me go. It reminded me that I can feel,
that I'm alive.
I love you more than that living feeling,
more than the ropes that tied me to the ground,
because you are the ground, you are the earth.
You keep me grounded, you let me fly.
You take me out, you take me home.

I love you because you are the sky and
I love to light fireworks across your skin.
I love you because I don't know you
and I want to get to know you.
You attract me, you intrigue me, you make me curious,
you make me want to know what it's like behind your eyes.

I love you because you're not mine,
I love you because you're all I have.

I love you more than Saturday morning,
more than photographs because I never
need to remember anything when I'm with you.
Who needs memory,
I only remember the curves of your wrist,
I only remember nothing at all about you, but
I love you.
I love you more than memories.

I love you more than a character in a book
which I love a lot, I love books a lot,
I love you more than reading them.
I love you more than the ink on a page that will never change,
only stain.
I love you because there's more to you than
26 repeated letters in different combinations.
I love you more than books.
I love you more than reading
and writing
and reading my writing because truthfully
there is little honesty in these words.
I love you the way I say I do,
I simply do not know who you are.

I love you more than birds, which are free
and love is free and boundary-less.
I like you more than that.
Birds are tangible,
three-dimensional,
edible.
Love is quick to catch fire,
sparks,
embers burn long into the night.
I love you longer than night,
longer than the spread of eagle's wings,
the length of light from the sun on water.
Love is not so measurable as the sky,
which has limits,
but not the mind, which is so easily interrupted
but steady in its perseverance.




"Though I know I'll never lose affection
for people and things I've loved before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
in my life, I've loved you more.
In my life, I love you more."
The Beatles - "In My Life"

Ballad of Big Nothing (I Don't Go Where I'm Supposed To Go)

Day 22. I've been working on a "project". JK, it's basically an ongoing stream of consciousness that has been going on for 3 days now. I'll post it in segments because it's too long, and also neverending. Literally, until I stop thinking.

Can the world get any brighter, shinier, clearer? I’d like to shed some light into the dark cracks and crevasses where shadows lie. I tried to make a playlist of the saddest songs I know, none seemed sad enough. I guess that’s okay. Ashlee, I miss you. Not physically though. No, I miss the comfort of you in my head, the solid book that you were, whatever you were to me, I miss the certainty. I see someone who looks like you from the back at school sometimes. It scares me. I don’t want to see what her face looks like. I’m thirsty. I just woke up from my cocoon, I’m not a butterfly yet though. Not yet. But I’m always thirsty when I wake up, maybe the air in my room is too dry. I’ve got that feeling coming back to me again. I felt its presence so strongly last night, I wanted to tell it to go away; instead I cried. I cried ‘cause the monsters were back. By morning they’ve disappeared again, but they left an aftertaste. I’d like to listen to a life changing song. I haven’t heard one in a while. I’d like to listen to a song that makes me fly, or one that explains some unknown, hidden part of my life to me. Sometimes I want to write that song. I wonder why word doesn’t automatically capitalize my ‘I’s. I wonder how I can change this. I wonder how I can change a lot of things, like

It’s funny that I paused right there. There are so many things I want to change that the thought of listing them is overwhelming, I have to leave it blank. I did think of my room though, what can I change in my room. Nothing, I don’t think. I’d like to live on my own, maybe, but as soon as that thought enters my mind I know it’s the wrong thought. I doubt my ability to make it on my own. I’ve had confidence before; I’ve felt ready to move away, to start over, to build my own life not the life I was born into. But I’ve been doubted by all the adults in my life, my grandmother, my aunt, my dad. What are you going to eat, they ask. You’ll get sick of Kraft Dinner and ramen noodles. I guess they’re saying that because they’re not actually thinking that I’ll move out soon. I’m scared that if I move nothing will change. A while ago, and by that I mean years ago, the truth hit me that it’s not my geographic location that makes me miserable. It’s me. It’s my own self doubt, my own insecurities. I’m trying really hard to fight them all. I’m trying really hard not to be depressed, trying really hard to make something of myself, to live, to become a person, a real person, alive, alive. I’m trying to connect with other real live people. It’s interesting I guess. Everything is an experience. I’ve met lots of people, I don’t think I know them very well. I don’t think they know me, I don’t know how to let people get to know me. I’m trying to not be layered. I’m trying, I guess, to just be simple, be simply me, whoever that is. I’m trying to do things on impulse, whatever the first thought that comes to mind is, I’ll do it ‘cause I want to be natural. I don’t want to lie about myself anymore. I want a lot of things, so many things. I don’t want to pretend. Whatever I am, I am! I’ll just be. I’ll chase whatever runs in front of me. It’s hard to connect with people when you try to be yourself because so many people are not themselves. I guess I’ll have to finish this later. It’s funny that the life in my brain gets interrupted by the life of someone else. The home I’ve built in my brain is strange but so comfortable, hostile and poisonous but safe, oh so very safe.

“I love the logic of oxymorons and how paradox helps us not to feel insane.” - Stephen Dunn.

Hasn’t this proved to be so true. Who could ever live here but me. Those who come knocking will eventually leave. I’ll build extra rooms for them, clean rooms with new sheets and a fridge. They can come and go as they please, they can trample through my room to get to their room, my poisonous room. They can set up there, and I realize that even on the inside of my brain, I’m on the outside. I would give up my brain for someone else to live inside.

I love these moods, these in between moods, where everything flows in a straight line, or wades, or floats like dandelion fluff through the air, through my brain, slowly so I can catch it the first time around. It’s moods like this that allow me to do anything, to fully realize the potential of all moments, like in movies when they slow everything down so you can understand. The moments don’t last forever, but moods like this remind me that I can make them. I can make my own moments. I just want to sit with someone and smile. Sit and smile. I want peace within myself, I mean, I want to stop waging war with whatever I have. It’s only me right now. The place I occupy in my brain, the rooms I rent out, they’re empty now. Only the cobwebs of my thoughts, white and meaningless, remain. There is me and my mirror, a truth teller, hard to look at. I’ve left a room open for you, for you, person who has a place on the inside of my brain but not yet on the outside of my life. There is a place for you.

I want to empty the contents of my heart. I want to pour out the letters that alone mean nothing, and put together in certain ways can create words that make sense. Words that explain something, anything. I love being in love. I love shifting over in my brain, making room for someone else to settle down for a while. I don’t think they’ll ever stay, but I try to be good, not hazardous, not intruding, not overbearing, not the terrible things I can become when I’m so close to what I want. But it can be such a good feeling. I love to feel so passionately about something, anything, someone, somebody, just anybody, another real person who will invite me into their brain. I would like to understand somebody completely. That is a very hard thing to do. I find that people are often looking for the same thing as I am, but there is a lot of miscommunication, I’m always looking beyond, there must be something better because I don’t understand this person. This person is not comfortable. No, I have not met a lot of comfortable people. They are harsh, crisp, they taste like winter. I’d like to open my heart, empty the books I’ve written in there, perfect words will just lie there in someone’s hands, and their hands will open and the words will fall out. Or my books will make a new home in someone else’s heart. I would like to write something beautiful. I wonder if I have already, somewhere. I’d like to tell the truth. I’ve become but a ghost, a shadow, an outline of the person I thought I might be. I never knew what to expect of myself, I don’t know who I’ve become but it is someone. For some reason I always thought doorstoppers were foolproof. I didn’t realize they wouldn’t withstand a hard pushed door, multiple times. Sometimes that happens, the wood peels away. The things we meant to happen just don’t turn into anything, we fall flat on our face. The door knob goes through the wall. That was ages ago, wasn’t it Ashlee. Weren’t you the one I did it for. I can never hope for things so ridiculous although it has become almost impossible not to. I’ve held on to an unwavering bright light of hope that

I don’t know what. I don’t know what I’m hoping for, but it’s something good. I’m hoping that there’s a bed for me at home, someone warm to curl up next to, stairs to walk down in the morning and a lot of sunlight outside, a bus that comes on time, and then places, I hope there are places I can go. I hope I have some place to go, some place to return to, a space in time in the crowded world that is just for me. I can get lost in the space in my brain. The static electricity, the lights turning on and off by themselves, the laughter in other rooms right next door. Sometimes my neighbours are quiet and I don’t know which is worse, the lonely silence or the knowledge that happiness is right beside me, separated only by the walls I built myself. Painstakingly I have built those walls, carefully, stone by stone or brick with my metaphorical hands. It’s all a metaphor in my brain but it’s a clutch. What I have left when people leave is the wall, keeping out no one, a wall that has served no purpose except to block my view. I am left to admire what I have built, while people outside laugh. They laugh because they don’t know what is behind the wall, nothing too interesting. It’s been there for too long to create questions anymore.


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"I'm so sick and tired of trying to change your mind
when it's so easy to disconnect mine
High times, yeah I feel fine
Don't pick me up, I'm fine right where I am
I don't go where I'm supposed to go."
Elliott Smith - "High Times"