spew
I've been thinking about you lately. I don't know how to tell you.
I lose track of you at night. I lose track of me at night. I lose track of life at night. I sit up all night. The bedlight on my face. Blinding me into another race where there's an antithesis of a goal. Go so slow that you aren't moving, in the grand scheme of things, at all. The grand scheme is frozen. I lose track of certainties at night. I fall into ideas. I buy books with ideas that seem fascinating. I never read them. At night I stare at shelves of what I don't know. Out the window of the world I think I know. Into the world I have created within. At the world we have created within this home. We began so long ago but we are always beginning. I tell myself I lie. I say that I have made this all mean something and that I must be ready for it to disappear, then, and mean nothing. I crumple it up. I spread it out again, flat on the desk. I hurt you in the process. I haven't called in months. Did we ever really meet in real time? At night I remember everything that my selective memory allows. I take extra steps to make it all unfold. To prove I know no goddamn anything.
Or I sleep. At night I sleep. During the day I sleep and pretend it is night. During the night I dream of day. I know what I want and who I am like a worn out dictionary. No matter how much you read you never remember certain words. Sometimes there's no way you can figure out how to find the word you need and what it means. I tell myself I just have to accept this me. I just have to accept and say, this is what I have made it. But I have made it. How can that be legitimate? I think about real when sleeping on top of the sheets. It is so hot out. I flush with the fan on high. I give the bus driver a $5 because it is all I have. I am not prepared. I am never prepared. I am scoffed at. "I can't live like this. Join the real world." At night I wonder what you mean, long after you've gone to bed. At night I wonder what is more real than this: recognizing my responses to questions and seeing myself from six feet up with a expression like yours. The bad taste in your mouth that it inevitably goes back to. Daydreaming of being loved by a great uncle while riding home on a train.
He pats my head, he smiles. He made my day when he smiled back after I waved. I cannot remember the last time I went through a day without yearning for a specific person. It's recent I have had many of these days. I of course can only remember the times when there was talk. At night. It's all I want to remember. I remember the nights it poured between me and others. Where did the ability to be go? Out the door with the effort, and the trash, and the crumpled up acceptance of another day. Can I make breakfast? Can I lie down again with the shade closed and wonder if I can trust enough to be happy again. To get through I must believe in . To get through I must trust that this believing is a good thing. I've got nothing. I've got dice.
I've got so many more nights.
If I'm lucky to breathe. If I'm not so dismissive. I judge. Too quickly. I evaluate myself. As though a movie. Critics say she ruined it. Too self-aware on the surface. "Pretentions indie productions." I'm afraid to be something new. I'm afraid I am everyone else. I'm afraid I will never be able to feel connected again. To everyone else. At night, anyone else. Do they always love those who've got a lot that they don't have. Build it up. Endless disbelief. Years of what?
If you skinned yourself naked dead quiet (anythingbutyouIaskofyou?) I would still love you.
(just please, she says, stop shining so bright. i could never keep up.
whosaidthere'sarace?whosaidyou'renotlivingup? are you making this up? are you perpetuating this "i can only fuck up"?)
What will I ever know? Who could I ever be? If I don't keep up this believing in made up things that could be true or just lies but are, in the least.
You wrote that you used to think that everyone is closed off and hiding some sort of deep inner sorrow. But you don't anymore. Do you just wish they did? I can relate to that. I can relate to distraught. To making things complicated by yourself for seemingly no "real" reason. I know nothing else better than I know this and nights. I lose track of you at night. I lose track of me. I think everything is a hoax and that we have to reach underneath. It seems the world is full of lies and only the truth gets you free. What is more elusive than that which you think is forever hidden? I question immediately from the scent of certainty and security. To me you are 80% memory. I want to scream. People, even more than things, have to be restored, renweed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. Did I throw you out? Do you feel that way? Did you toss me out? I've got nothing left. Where did you go? WHERE DID WE GO WHERE DID EVERYTHING GO
Night can't quiet my tense heartbeat.