Irony, circa 12-2004
You belong to me.
Bright red lights and a bleary-eyed good morning to the world as seven o'clock announces its presence with all the pomp of a marching band. Should I even bother to get out from underneath the covers? What day is this? I shake the last fragments of another shattered, sleepless sleep from my mind and head to the bathroom. Brush, spit, floss, gargle, lather, rinse, repeat. Repeat. Repeat. I look at myself in the mirror, at those tired, listless eyes staring back at me. These eyes once held promise, a spark of something to be had in years to come. Those fabled years, however, have come. The result of such foolish thinking, of such arrogance to assume that something would happen simply because some things happen, now stares back at me with cold, sunken eyes.
Feeling as content as one such as myself can ever feel, I get dressed with no particular color scheme in mind. No need for coordination or layering or any other word fashion designers ascribe to things that need no title. I grab my hoodie, my cell phone [as if people other than my parents call], my badge, and my smokes. I open the door and for one infintesmal moment, I feel alive. And well. The bitterness of a morning this cold can do well for a man of the walking dead, and I embrace it as though summer was en route to part such frigid lovers. This torrid affair, as most torrid affairs, passes along, leaving me short of breath and weak of knee. Such is the ebb and flow of all winterbound mornings.
Driving to work, everything catches my eye, yet nothing holds my attention for any sizable amount of time. I see kids walking to school. I see a woman pushing a shopping cart filled with cans. I see a couple walking hand-in-hand, tempting Winter to wrest them apart. A wry smile crosses my lips; cold though she may be, Winter would never come between lovers. Winter is a healer, a redeemer. Most of my fondest memories stem from winter, like icicles hanging from waterspouts. There was a time when she held me in such regard. There was a time when I could draw warmth from her charms. Snowflakes begin to dance like guests in a gunmetal grey ballroom. I reflect on waltzes of seasons past as I continue to work.
Work is the same, through and through. The ballet outside continues on as I focus on one menial task after the other. Print this. Mail that. Fax this. Read that. I make empty chitchat with people as empty as I am, forced smiles to accompany conversations equally as forced. Print this. Mail that. Fax this. Read that. Then, like some deus ex machina, she appears, sweeping me away from the doldrums of this and that, that and this. The world fades to black and I'm left standing there, glancing at her through down-turned eyes. A brief conversation, a genuine smile. A spark. But, as is their nature, the conversation winds down, the smiles fade, and the world returns in a crush of ringing phones and artificial lighting. Always, she leaves me like this, like someone has come and stolen my ability to breath. Always, the same ending. Maybe one day I'll make a move. If I ever thought there was a move to make. She hangs the stars the stars for me and I can't even form those three little words for her. Sometimes, I make myself sick.
Home now, which is to say I'm in a home. I don't know if I'll ever find home as defined by that inert yearning for things we cannot know and places we will not see. My guitar, once a haven from my myself, a means of exquisite catharsis, only serves as amplification of my total and utter ineptitude. My idols, oh how they can play! I, too, can strum those same chords, those same harmonies, but they always come out one step flat, two seconds late. I suppose sour notes for a sour man go hand in hand, but I'll save that discordant song for another night.
Midnight.
A wreck of nerves and the bliss of drowning. How I yearn for someone to hold my head under the waves. By feeling it drain away in salt-choked gasps, mayhaps the essence of my life would surface, convincing me that I do, in fact, have a pulse. They say panic attacks strike without warning and without predetermination; my panic never attacks. Rather, it cuts off my supply lines and begins to siege. In all things, I ask only for a bit of urgency. I want to feel in short, sharp, crimson bursts. As it is, I feel only in the pitchblack lurch of a carbon monoxide car ride.
Eyes wide open, now, having a staring competition with the clock and its armageddon countdown that ends every morning. The nausea of sleep coats me with its punchdrunk film and I slip from this world to the next.
I belond to you.
Bright red lights and a bleary-eyed good morning to the world as seven o'clock announces its presence with all the pomp of a marching band. Should I even bother to get out from underneath the covers? What day is this? I shake the last fragments of another shattered, sleepless sleep from my mind and head to the bathroom. Brush, spit, floss, gargle, lather, rinse, repeat. Repeat. Repeat. I look at myself in the mirror, at those tired, listless eyes staring back at me. These eyes once held promise, a spark of something to be had in years to come. Those fabled years, however, have come. The result of such foolish thinking, of such arrogance to assume that something would happen simply because some things happen, now stares back at me with cold, sunken eyes.
Feeling as content as one such as myself can ever feel, I get dressed with no particular color scheme in mind. No need for coordination or layering or any other word fashion designers ascribe to things that need no title. I grab my hoodie, my cell phone [as if people other than my parents call], my badge, and my smokes. I open the door and for one infintesmal moment, I feel alive. And well. The bitterness of a morning this cold can do well for a man of the walking dead, and I embrace it as though summer was en route to part such frigid lovers. This torrid affair, as most torrid affairs, passes along, leaving me short of breath and weak of knee. Such is the ebb and flow of all winterbound mornings.
Driving to work, everything catches my eye, yet nothing holds my attention for any sizable amount of time. I see kids walking to school. I see a woman pushing a shopping cart filled with cans. I see a couple walking hand-in-hand, tempting Winter to wrest them apart. A wry smile crosses my lips; cold though she may be, Winter would never come between lovers. Winter is a healer, a redeemer. Most of my fondest memories stem from winter, like icicles hanging from waterspouts. There was a time when she held me in such regard. There was a time when I could draw warmth from her charms. Snowflakes begin to dance like guests in a gunmetal grey ballroom. I reflect on waltzes of seasons past as I continue to work.
Work is the same, through and through. The ballet outside continues on as I focus on one menial task after the other. Print this. Mail that. Fax this. Read that. I make empty chitchat with people as empty as I am, forced smiles to accompany conversations equally as forced. Print this. Mail that. Fax this. Read that. Then, like some deus ex machina, she appears, sweeping me away from the doldrums of this and that, that and this. The world fades to black and I'm left standing there, glancing at her through down-turned eyes. A brief conversation, a genuine smile. A spark. But, as is their nature, the conversation winds down, the smiles fade, and the world returns in a crush of ringing phones and artificial lighting. Always, she leaves me like this, like someone has come and stolen my ability to breath. Always, the same ending. Maybe one day I'll make a move. If I ever thought there was a move to make. She hangs the stars the stars for me and I can't even form those three little words for her. Sometimes, I make myself sick.
Home now, which is to say I'm in a home. I don't know if I'll ever find home as defined by that inert yearning for things we cannot know and places we will not see. My guitar, once a haven from my myself, a means of exquisite catharsis, only serves as amplification of my total and utter ineptitude. My idols, oh how they can play! I, too, can strum those same chords, those same harmonies, but they always come out one step flat, two seconds late. I suppose sour notes for a sour man go hand in hand, but I'll save that discordant song for another night.
Midnight.
A wreck of nerves and the bliss of drowning. How I yearn for someone to hold my head under the waves. By feeling it drain away in salt-choked gasps, mayhaps the essence of my life would surface, convincing me that I do, in fact, have a pulse. They say panic attacks strike without warning and without predetermination; my panic never attacks. Rather, it cuts off my supply lines and begins to siege. In all things, I ask only for a bit of urgency. I want to feel in short, sharp, crimson bursts. As it is, I feel only in the pitchblack lurch of a carbon monoxide car ride.
Eyes wide open, now, having a staring competition with the clock and its armageddon countdown that ends every morning. The nausea of sleep coats me with its punchdrunk film and I slip from this world to the next.
I belond to you.