Drown

i have drowned. the flood is complete.

at night, when i am trying to go to sleep, i sometimes try to envision myself lying still, being buried under soft pourings of loam and soil, pungent, fragrant, alive, comforting. sometimes i try to envision that i am sinking slowly under blue waves of cool water, drifting to the bottom of the sea like a leaf, surrounded by gently waving corals, anemones, and feeling the strong, reassuring pulse of the ocean around me. the second scenario doesn't work as well, because i want to fill it up with fish, organisms, and general visual stimuli, and then look around. but i digress.

this drowning, my surrender to the deeps, has none of the peacefulness of the above scenarios. (i simply omit the air issue in those meditations, by the way. i am one with the earth, it will succor me in all ways, including oxygen. no panic required.) but this one... i am tired, no matter how much i sleep. i sleep too much, and at the wrong times, because waking hours are an assault of work. i am so behind on said work that i know i have many sleepless nights ahead of me. which will make me markedly less sane. which will make drinking look like a good idea. fuck, it already looks like a good idea. i'm gonna try hard not to. i'm not gonna. but the impetus to maintain sobriety is waning.

the last breath of air has been kicked out from my shattered rib cage. the final waters have enveloped me, and i can no longer struggle. it all seems very beyond my ability right now. there is nothing left to fight for but what seems like assured failure. and this is all so maudlin, depressed, depressing, and pessimistic, but better i write about it now than mull on it forever.

i will do one more drawing tonight, start some other, easier ones, and then retire. but its all starting to seem rather pointless. i just cannot win. it isn't even on the table right now. i want to succeed at something. i want to do well. i want my professors to like me as a person AND a student. i want to not be a flake, which i feel like. i want to not be a wuss, which i also feel like. i want to not be a failure, which i am not. but still... i want to not be hanging to sanity by a thread, which is so ultimately the case...

i have no home. my apartment is dirty and all i do when i'm there is sleep and take care of my cat. my studio is not a home, no matter how much time i spend there. i have no friends to hug, though my aa peeps help take my mind off things. but i don't know what i want, what i'm searching for. i can't make people my home, nor simple physical spaces. i don't feel at home in my own skin. i feel so disconnected from what is happening around me. like, i produce these things, but they are not of me, they do not belong to me, they are meaningless. they are the endless scraps of paper that one day, years from now, will mean something, will have gotten me somewhere.

blah blah blah... i've got something stuck in my head. something is going on. something is happening. and i'm not sure what it is. maybe i need to wear a silly hat. maybe i need to dance. maybe i just need to shock myself out of this tunnel. it just gets harder and harder to hold on to any sort of optimism...

there's an errant little ball of hardness and sickness, travelling through me. one minute in my kidneys, the next in my lungs, always moving, sowing discord, trying hard not to get caught. its tethered into my brain, and i need to trace it and purge it. i need to expunge it. because its poisoning me. this thought, this little idea that is spreading such effluvium.

and i don't have time for the hunt. or this is the hunt. to track it down with words. because i'm unhappy, but i'm willing to accept that. but i'm not sure what i'm living for at the moment. i can't go back, to college, to my former life, to drinking away my days and sitting sitting sitting. i can't go back there. but forward is, at the moment, a trail of tears. forward is the pain that i must move through. and i just don't feel strong enough right now. but i have no choice. i must keep moving, and i will keep moving, because the past is not an option, and the present is forever slipping away. i will trudge and crawl, until i can run. until i can fly. i will move forward with the hope and knowledge that nothing bad lasts, and things will get better.

it is the only way. the only path. i can only go forwards.

and i will go forwards. and the future will meet me when i get there.

and i will pray for the strength so that i may get there.

and i will go on.

and life will go on.

and i will be there in it. wearing a silly hat. and dancing.

Empty and Still

i'm beginning to take on water. in the sinking boat way.

i'm having trouble figuring out this "relationship with a higher power" business. i'm really not comfortable with it, in many ways. its not something i was raised with; at least, not in the way i seem to need it now.

when i do talk to god, i feel better. but it takes a lot of effort. its hard. and it just seems to drill home even more this idea of powerlessness.

i am powerless. and i don't like that. its not very... empowering, this powerlessness...

i am lonely. i am a lot of things, and not too many feel very positive right now. but this loneliness...

i've long sort of half-desired a scar. i don't have... scratch that. i have a fair number of scars. some from surgeries, recent and far past, and some from the ridiculousness of childhood. but i remember where they all come from. there is a story from each one, and even if it isn't the right story, its something, something from a past and a childhood that grow more and more nebulous and dreamlike every day.

but i'm now realizing/remembering that there are other scars than the outwardly visual ones. this loneliness in me, i feel it scything my skin. this emptiness inside, leaves little lacerations like invisible knives. and though i pull my thousand tourniquets tight against my skin and struggle forward, i am not sure that they will really heal as i tell myself they will. i am unhappy, and its making me ask for things from people that they have no ability to give, and that are my own responsibility to provide, with god's help.

and so i prolong my own misery.

i feel very lost. adrift and taking on water, unable to row for home or bail fast enough. its a painful truth that, often, the right thing is a very unpleasant thing to do, and in fact may make you miserable. and fuck me but i sent an e-mail that i now want to unsend and can't.

i have mortgaged my present with a hope for the future. and i'm sinking. and i don't know how to fix it, or don't want to.

i have a family who loves me and cares about me.

i have friends who love me and care about me, and miss me as much as i miss them.

i am in architecture school, in austin, and doing the best i can, and my best is enough, because i can't do more.

i went to a halloween party this weekend, didn't drink, and had fun.

i still have sufjan stevens, and he makes me happy.

even people who don't know me well like me.

i am not actually fat. i just think i am. and i am wrong.

i have a kitty who loves me.

i watered my plants and took out my trash.

i made an awesome halloween costume, and got to dance, and it was very fun, and good for me.

i am still sober, after almost six months, and will start doing more stepwork soon, which will make me feel even better.

i am capable of love, worthy of love, and a good person.

and i am done for now.

As Implied

you come home bloody
pale skin painted black
and blue with your bruises
chill lips and chipped tooth

and i wish you needed me,
the way i need you

i peel off your shirt
you step out of your pants
as you lean up against me
your arms weak and cold

and i wish you needed me,
the way i need you

wrapped tight in my arms
guided soft to the waters
i slough off the dirt
and the shame you've dragged home

and i wish you needed me,
the way i need you

i bathe you and dry you
take you into my bed
curl you close to me so
you can do this again

and i wish you needed me,
the way i need you

Can't Sleep

i can't sleep.

i slept too much today, and now i can't go to sleep. granted, its only two in the morning, but still... i want to sleep.

i have things to do tomorrow...

crap.

i have to meet with people for school. and do school-work. and work on my halloween costume.

i want to write a song. i think i should do that...

i am someone's dirty little secret. i'm not sure how i feel about that. i like it, but i also don't. we'll see.

and there is nothing sexual about this dirty little secret business.

just... i don't know what.

i want water. i'm gonna do that.

bye.

Unrelated

i am starting to crush on a very straight guy in school who i don't think even likes me... we crosswire in a not delightful way. but the shape of his head... god, i want a bust of his fucking head so i can trace those contours every day and feel at peace.

that's a healthy-sounding thing to say...

i swear, this school is the straightest place i've ever been... and its such a shame, because you don't often come across the concentration of sensuous hands that architecture school provides.

i give up.

Reminder:

love the elephants. it is a great evil of the world that the elephant should be siezed upon, distorted, and sullied by the american republican party. i will never forgive them for it.

elephants cry. they mourn their dead. when they come across the bones of an elephant they knew, they embrace the bones and hold them in their trunks, remember who that individual was, and cry.

and the elephants hear with their feet, as well as their wonderful flapping ears. they sense the vibrations. the whole herd will hear a warning, turn to face the source, and lift a front leg, awaiting further emanations.

it is on my list of things to do to write a story about the elephants who hear with their feet and remember their dead. to chronicle their lives as they trudge through the dust and live in the twilight time where magic coincides with real life.

why am i in architecture school?

Long Time No Blog

i forget to write in this for long, long, looong periods of time... not forget, but just... don't.

i'm tired. and no longer miserable, but not happy. i'm busy.

school started about a month ago. never, have i ever been as busy as i have been the past few weeks. its ridiculous. i'm no longer losing my mind, but for a while, i totally was. not pleasant. i hate that just being around people makes me nervous and edgy... every class is a double whammy of taking in masses of information while also trying to be aware of my wall and its current status.

you know, The Wall. the wall i throw up when feeling threatened and unable to deal. the magic aura of "kindly leave me the fuck alone, i'm staring blankly into space and cannot be bothered." its good. i'm real good at it. i can detach like a motherfucker.

i'm healthy...

i've been wondering lately which binds people together more tightly, the bonds of love, or the shackles of hatred. i can think of a great many people i'm still married to in my hatred. well, at least one or two. and i need to let them go. i need to get that divorce. i can't afford to be in this union of spite anymore.

but then, love and hate go hand in hand, and i'm rather lonely and adrift these days... i'll check back on all this later.

listen to sufjan stevens. immediately. thank me at your leisure.

i'm... curious. i don't know where i'm going right now. i'm confused. i'm overworked. but i'm surviving.

ah, here's the pressing thought. or one of them. i'm having those funny thoughts again. the ones where i inevitably get into ideological scraps with people and have fallings out (because this is life, after all) and win my quiet little victories against them, and go on about my life. i just don't know. i'm still very deprogrammed at the moment. i'm writing new programs, but it takes a while. but i almost have five months sober. or dry. one of the two... i'm just really not sure where i'm going.

but i probably don't have to know.

as long as i keep moving my feet.

i want to write a story about how my shiny mech-dad breaks down, and in a fit of pygmalion-inspired masochism, i can't get him repaired so i install part of his metal brain in a boy-friend bot. and the familiarity is comforting and allows my dad to live on in a way, but also inspires the same intense ambivalence that my real dad inspires. this is my plan. do not let me forget.

my kitten is growing into a miniature cat. one day, he'll be a full sized cat, but in the meantime, he gets bigger and bigger.

he's cute.

i feel really fucked up sometimes.

and i still like hannibal lecter way too much.