Chocolate Bar Foil.
"Sometimes, I can't get myself out in the streets. I'll feel every particule of skin peel off me, my hair easing off with the wind and this seems how one gets scattered, lost in every place their body has passed. So I'd rather stay where I sleep, let the dust gather around me -dead cells and ash piling in the corners. And I inhale Time whenever I breathe, deep long breaths I never let out and I eat myself, I prefer eating myself. Anything but disappearing in the streets."
-a few months ago, getting high in a coffeeshop.
Negative space makes me feel blank, no matter what colour it is. I sometimes look around and the world is always lighter or darker than myself -I'm either the focus or the shadow. Warm glows, uneasy states. It's been hoodie.weather on and off and the sun seems to have stapled its veins to my eyelids. A disconcerting change from the heavy rain that would wake me in Edo. Been writing a little, been smiling more. The mornings are grey and the afternoons, impatient. It's getting cold again.
I choose my meals by expiration date, do laundry, go to therapy. The television babysits my brain, don't know if I want it to shut up or fill it with another kind of noise. I feel restless. I lay in bed, the bathtub, on the ground. My Others argue on where and if I'll move but I'm not really listening. What has hurt me is sometimes what keeps me safe. Dark cities with their hard beating hearts burning through the streetlights, homes like daybreak promises. Hot flashes of memory and my ribcage groans. Had trouble sleeping lately -crawled out of the covers one morning to teach myself how to make paper cranes, I fold one whenever Time gets heavy. Read on the train, watch old movies, burn incense, keep an eye on the laughing full moon. Smoke twists into obscure spells in the air; to be young and think there's only one type of drug, the one that gets you high. I go to Holland and sit under a bridge, slowly rolling while the water ripples in brown and blue. Enjoying music and fresh air; the idea you could love someone so much, you trust their perceptions as much as yours and that's how you start loving yourself more.
Went for lunch at my mother's during the weekend, it'd been a while I hadn't set foot in that city. Whenever I'd come back from the hospital, I was always shocked by how grey it looked but hello! to Edo's cradle. It was sunny out, though and everything was soft and hushed. My grandparents picked me up at the station, my brother was sick with the flu and my mother's best friend gave me a corkscrew (a heavy antique, the type you can easily kill someone with) so I may now drink wine at home. I've admittedly harboured strange resentment towards my mother these past years but when I want to do something about it, I realise it always seems too late to blame or too early to confront your mother and I let it go. Tuesday was two therapy sessions, grocery shopping and taking the bus -my mind all frazzled and delirious, bumping against the air to the rhythms blasting into my ears.
Last morning at six pm, I watched the day die out and felt sleepy all over again. Listening to Smoke (the band), the rain and the scent of pot rises from my mouth. I've often been told I live in my own world, I guess it's true. Won't complain but I'm not sure where they got the idea it's a little bubble of safety. Mixed in with the absurd beauty are heightened evils, far from ideal places to be. Distrust in intentions, voices and shadows. Crackling static. On bad days, I'll check the corners for hidden cameras or microphones, try to calmly convince myself no one has broken in and that the food I prepare has in no way been spat in or poisoned. Sharp paranoias, broken windows and nowhere to go. Evan lays a quiet hand on my shoulder; I close my eyes and his smirk secretly tells me it'll be okay.
I dream I'm swimming in a rapid current -the enormous purple and turquoise head of a wolf rolling on the wild waves and I let myself be swept away, hoping to reach calmer waters. The rest of the carcass passes by, its entrails cleaned out by the torrent and I want to ask its little passengers to let me climb in but I killed the wolf! and a shark is eating my hands and I can only try to stay still so my movements won't attract the attention of the rest.
Had a few wretched weeks, they come and go but they're over now. Talked with #1, which always does me good -she has a knack for opening doors without cluttering my head, makes me think and rebound. It's too bad I can't have sessions with her, living here and all. I'll be seeing #5 more frequently though and I'm hoping I can space #4. I sometimes get so sick of therapy, wondering what it is that I need to fix so much, goddamn! what the fuck is wrong with me and why do I seem to advocate for this right to be messed up, of all things. But I guess we each have our own cross to carry -I just happen to have a little cemetary (decaying thoughts! countless epiphanies!) and there isn't much to do about that. Just swallow hard and try not to get distracted by the weight; knowing it could be worse, believing it could be better. When you're so intent on learning from your mistakes, you can't even tell what wasn't one anymore. I don't know what I deserve.
When I zone out, I sometimes end up spiralling into a forgotten event and it leaves me with an odd taste. I've been reminded recently of the last house I lived in, which is where I've stayed the longest but don't remember much of. I would constantly hear the walls screaming and I was glad when we moved. I used to have all these vivid nitemares/dayfrights while there but I was more scared of bothering my parents than the monsters, it seems. I'd hide under the covers and hold my breath so the tall, dark queen at my door wouldn't spot me and slit my throat. Or I would rush to the toilet, hoping no ghost would come haunt me with a bloody gaping hole in the middle of their forehead (stemmed from an unfortunate comic book I read) or follow me back to bed, waiting for the kill. At times, my brother would send his friends to tap on the windows to freak me out when I was alone but I would keep close to the dog and put my hand on her side so I could feel her breathe soothingly slow. It was a house of misery but only because fantastical fears were nothing next to reality. Ugly. All these little things that build up to make my past and not knowing if I want any of it.
Can't concentrate on the books I'm trying to read but instead, sit back and let myself wander. To know what you need to say and how. Bless the days when I would scribble everywhere -train tickets, envelopes, my leg. Rain falling down. I fry shrimp with garlic, salt, a lot of black pepper; complete with an avocado and some salad. Dried tomatoes, vinegar, lemon juice. I fold myself up in the bathtub and listen to the sounds the air makes. Lullabies are complicated and I fall asleep to pacing footsteps through black and blue streets. This humming piece of life, holding me tight; this moon I pray my dreams to.
What if each particularity we pride ourselves in was shared and related us to each other but the sum of these details is what creates the individual. Grossly assembled, they would engender a stereotype -carefully added, they would turn us into universal.