Category: verbal

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one last night

I dreamed I re-met a man I had loved before– somehow no one was intentionally at fault, but he was engaged to another woman– maybe we had inadvertently lost one another years before– we loved each other desperately, but he still wasn’t going to leave her– all I got, to everyone’s grudging approval, was one night for goodbye. she and friends were active in the rest of the apartment– she maddened by what was going on behind the closed door, but carrying on– I could tune it all out just to be with him. because it was to be just the one night, it was all the more poignant.

and then a kid, someone’s, burst in to ask for something, and everyone on both sides of the door jumped– the artificial boundary breached– and once it was, the others started coming in, too– and I was losing it, screaming, out! OUT! I only have this one night– you have him forever– get OUT! and they went, but by then it was ruined, I was brokenhearted, facing how it was. and I began to gather my things, weeping, desolate. I couldn’t find my train ticket, and I didn’t know what to do since I didn’t have any money– so I had to ask for their help. the ticket was black, and she found it and handed it to me with a soft look on her face– and I took it with a sob, and it was over.

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disappointment as a theme

I’m standing in the backyard when something catches my eye– what is that– a squirrel?– in the tree… no, it’s bigger… it’s still for awhile and then it moves again– it’s an orangutan! standing there in the tree– hiding, lost.

and I recall that recently there have been other strange visitors, exotics in my yard, and I wonder if there’s been an escape from the zoo– and I decide to go investigate.

I start out walking around the lake the house backs up on, but then I hit a stretch where there is no path and the shore is too steep, so I start to wade. almost immediately people begin to descend on me in anger and righteous agitation– apparently this is the one day of the year when everyone has agreed to leave the lake alone to give the small creatures like frogs peace for spawning. I didn’t know! I’m on a conscientious mission myself! and I tell them about the orangutan. someone mentions the circus pitched on the lake shore a ways down, and that seems to be the obvious solution– there follows a whole segment with boats–

I’m put in a little tub with insufficient room for all the people who intend to ride together– and then we get separated from one another in the course of ferry and locks– I’m walking at one point through the dry reservoir of the locks after my little tub gets beached on the concrete– walking toward a tower and observation or passenger platform and only reach it just as the water begins to fill.

I’m standing on Western Ave. looking at the shop windows just as the blinds on the print collective begin to lower from within– I realize I’ve missed the glimpse of the inside and go up to the door and catch the eye of a guy inside– I ask how I can get involved– apparently I’ve just missed a big induction, and there won’t be another one for awhile. I’m feeling this enormous craving to get in there and work on those presses, and I’m swamped with disappointment.

I’m in my parents’ house– sort of. I’m in that space, but it’s free of the shadows and clouds. my parents are away from home, and I’m cooking a delightful meal with and for a friend, laying out the dining room table with best china, lingering together long over the gorgeous meal, sun coming in the windows, smoking cigarettes where we sit. I’ve acquired some asparagus for planting in the garden– it seems we’re (or at least I am?) leaving the house, and this is to be a parting gift. I take the bunch of aparagus out to the old vegetable plot, but there’s still snow on the ground– so I set it down gently in the garage to wait for a thaw and go back inside. my parents come home while the table is still covered with dirty dishes– my mother looks at the scene with disgust, like there is something shameful in the spectacle of me and my friend. I cannot believe how small she is. she’s angry that I’ve used her dishes, angry that we’ve been smoking in the house, and more than anything revolted by the thought that I have a girlfriend. she’s blind to the degree of my happiness–I feel like it should color everything, trump everything, dwarf every other consideration– for her as well as for me– I feel like it should be obvious and saturating, and I cannot believe how immune to it she is– how actively she clings to her prejudices and narrow, claustrophobic house regulations. and I tell her I am happy, and I laugh, though there is a note of disappointment in it for her. I am not ashamed or sorry– only sorry that she is so lost to every good feeling.

who is my mother in this dream? she is nearly entirely emblematic.

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done

and so it’s ending.

none of this is new. I’ve simply held on too long once again.

so he read that last entry in my journal, lying beside the bed, he told me– what did he say about it? nothing that seems to make any difference.

I hate being slow to let go. I hate being the kind of person who goes more than halfway and then more and more and more in an effort– a foolish, losing, vain effort– to make up the distance between.

it’s unacceptable to be so little valued by my lover. to receive no welcome signs or tokens or gestures of affection– and then to try to compensate for it.

how the hell did I get here?

it’s simply not acceptable— the only word that works– to adore someone else so much you don’t take care of yourself.

the crashy parts of the roller coaster are exceeding the bits in the sun and speed. it is entirely untenable, and it is is ending, and I hate that.

I hate him for squandering me. for failing to meet me in the marvelous… but apparently he is not there, simply does not feel it as I do– that’s a hard fact, no one’s intention, just the way it is.

L had it right: I am the cup of coffee.
the only choice I have is to unpour myself for him.

I fucking hate being here. I cannot believe heartbreak again. I am so tired– sick— of trying and failing.

I had a moment in the the stunning warmth when I thought, oh my god. finally. there you are.
I thought, everything is fine, manageable.
I felt some sort of grateful perspective– the give and take of being in relationship, being in it together– for almost five minutes. and then on and off with diminishing returns. is that the way it is? perpetual xeno’s paradox?

this life is a pain in the ass.

my fortieth year.
who do I think I’ve been fooling?
what is the purpose of all this brittle optimism and bravado?
it’s a cruel ride.

I don’t know if someone malicious sits at the controls and enjoys the spectacle… I do not enjoy the spectacle.

maybe there really are lots of gods, including the ones who fuck your shit up for sheer amusement.

another alternative is a pseudo-scientific version: methodic conducting of experiments, observing our reactions under different types of pleasure and duress.

another way it could be… is completely meaningless. that’s the one that terrifies me. nihilism. I can’t deal with that worldview– that it all just happens for no particular reasons or intention whatsoever.

I simply cannot believe that consciousness and the ability to question were given to us for no purpose. there doesn’t seem to be any evolutionary value to that that I can see– maybe there is one, and I just can’t make it out.

from my perspective, consciousness implies and entails consciousness– intention, will. toward some purpose. that I’m supposed to keep knocking around in this life and to listen more carefully– act with greater intention and energy and openness– that I learn not to squander myself for a few moments of feeling– or tasting or smelling– good.

that I learn how to advocate for myself more faithfully and powerfully and beautifully.

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breaking point

I am not happy with N.

I feel like I’m at the point of wanting to take my toys and go home. as much as I like him, it’s not enough to make up for his persistent lack of effort and attention. I need to be more foregrounded than this. maybe what I ask for is a lot. maybe it is more than anyone could deliver and/or maybe it will mean that I’ll spend the majority of my life alone. so be it.

if I am with someone, I want to be with that person– not randomly, casually, occasionally the site of his touching down only to take off again. if that is the pattern, there would need to be a lot more carrier pigeons from the air.

I’m not a priority. I’m not the center, only peripheral, one of several options.

fuck that. I do not want it. I do not, apparently, want free love. if this is his version of building toward something, it doesn’t work for me. I am feeling no building, only eroding– what I felt for him initially is being eaten away by absence and neglect. it’s not something that simply, spontaneously persists with little or no effort or care. it requires attention and reciprocity.

maybe I’m foolish to draw this line in the sand– but I’m not getting what I need– and the frustration and irritation are outweighing the pleasure.

I’m tired of being the one who asks over and over again, and I do not want to do it anymore. I would rather have nothing.

in the clear-headed, sound light of day I can say: it isn’t enough, and it’s making me more unhappy than happy– and it’s time to end it. as much as that will break my heart. I am out on the cliff by myself– and I’m stepping back inside.

—

I have no patience for people who fail to step up.

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simply to feel intensely

yesterday I left my computer at work by accident, and I feel as a result quite peaceful and free at home, here with my journal. it’s all too easy to fill life up with noise and activity– and what suffers is the inner voice, the channel of knowing the self and what’s real. but life is like that– inconsistent and chaotic– some times are lived more actively out in the world, busier, flashing, louder. I’ve had my share of quiet– and it’s something I need to hearken back to when I’m feeling too scattered and diffuse.

N is the biggest event, cause of much of this motion. three weeks. he’s glorious and troubling and addictive, like dark candy– and he has this lightness as well, this sweetness that just gleams out of him so spontaneously and unselfconsciously and generously– I love how dynamic he is– I love it– and he scares me a bit– his manic potential– he is so altogether unharnessed by himself– it’s one of the things I adore about him– particularly after having known other men– males– who were altogether too controlled or comfortable. he is not comfortable.

I am the one in this equation who is all fluff and flannel and horizontal– and I could tear myself up about the fears that this contrast makes arise– lack of sustainability, that this is inherently a brilliant, short-term connection– I don’t feel like that. I feel with him a much deeper recognition– a potential– but there is a cautionary voice that reminds me of how things naturally flow and move where they need to move.

I’m afraid I’m tempermentally a premature mourner, trying, kind of pitifully, to bank myself against future or imagined losses. as if it helped at all. in fact there’s the possibility it damages being entirely available and present in the moment.

there is such a compulsion to hold on in me– it’s quite dire and daunting, and I guess I’m trying to reason with that somewhat. it hasn’t really done me a lot of favors in the past– tendency to hang onto the wrong things, rather. I let a lot pass right out of my ken– friends, places, family, responsibilities– but there’s this deathgrip on the painfully ruptured relationships.

worrying and worrying them– like a sore place on my tongue I press against the edges of my teeth time and time again. and why? until eventually the thrill of pain is gone, sapped by time. why persist with this? mere masochism? somehow that seems too… simplistic, and unmeaningful. I must do it for some reason. is it simply to feel something, anything, intensely? that sounds more right– weighing all the emotional contents of my pockets, sifting them for what is heaviest, sharpest, most startling– and then spending my energy on that. interesting.

actually, I can’t quite see anything I disagree with in this practice– it’s honest and real and poetic.

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brand new

wow. I’ve been reading back through the last couple of months of the journal, and it stuns me. so much processing I’ve been doing– and so much of it specifically geared toward love, toward wanting to be a whole, sound person on my own (or as close to it as I can manage), but also *partnered*. my wishing, hoping, asking for that has gotten very overt and articulate. and then along comes N. boom boom boom— girders and foundations and otherworld lives slamming firmly into place. part of me is quite superstitious, amazed and unbelieving– it is so remarkably dreamlike, I dread the waking. it is the best, most vivid, heart-echoing dream I never want to wake from. tho I know absolutely in this waking life (well, both places) there is no stasis, no foundation or girders– apart from those we choose to believe are there, to place our faith in and build self and lives around. I know full well that somedays it will doubtless feel entirely un-dreamlike– there will be confilicts and conundrums, pain and worry and difficulty– it may even feel insurmountable to one another… I never want to get there. but if we do, I want us to find our way back out of it. I want to be fully absolutely recognizeable, faith-full, worthy of faith with him– I want the knowing and trusting only to deepen and compound. so, okay, there will doubtless be tests of will, skirmishes, fireworks even– but, please, my love, remain my love– I believe with my whole heart that with this, what we have already, we will be able to weather any storm. am I precipitate or naive in such devotion? well, now– that’s an interesting challenge– how much you trust your heart and how much you attend to the voices around you– X or Y is not fair or “right”– fearing friends’ judgement, that creeping fear of being a patsy… so ultimately that one is about self-confidence. trusting myself enough to belive in the wisdom of my choices and ongoing intelligence of my perceptions– like, if I get into murky waters with my love, I have enough confidence in both myself and him to know we are both resourceful and intelligent and that we have the good of what is between us at heart– that neither of us will get too blinded or cowardly to meet the rough parts with love and compassion. god, I treasure him. he is a treasure of a human being– multifaceted and dynamic and beautiful and flashing-whirling. his motion frightens me a little bit– I am the stodgey one… I so want this to be a good thing and never the bad contrast it could turn into. I’m okay with being a lightning rod, a grounding line, an anchor– as long as I am not too much of a drag. this is the perpetual fear of being depressive. also I am not necessarily particularly constant, as one might expect from this part of the the equation– I am moody and at times overwrought myself. I can be quite gothically melodramatic. I crave some sort of grounding myself– can he be my lightning rod as well?

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need

my landlord really needs to turn on the heat.

I had a series of dreams last night that totally reminded me of what it felt like to be the youngest in that house–extraneous, shut-out, lonely.

I was enough younger than all my siblings that they felt it necessary, felt justified in closing the doors against me, even locking them with latches placed over my head. then again I learned to climb up on chairs. I learned to enter spaces I’d been denied when they were away. and then they were really away, all gone off to boarding school and eventually college.

I learned quickly to strike out on my own, to search farther afield for friends and allies– and I found them– I got good at that, became ressourceful at finding a kind of support in friends and neighbors’ families. what I found there wasn’t always entirely benign, but for the most part it was good.

there did stick–or never get sated– a kind of chasing-after impulse– an excessive hunger or need or desire to be regarded, to be attended to. and I’m afraid of the ferocity of this need. I am afraid, sometimes, that it is bottomless, impossible to satisfy after all these years and… experience. I try to hide this need. and so I keep to myself. I shut myself in and isolate. afraid of how deeply I need and feel denied by other people.

—

I want to find someone who loves the way I smell
and whom I love the smell of.
please.

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what trees become

thisbe is showing me around her house– it must be her house in new york, for her mother lives there, too. it’s full of little triangular nook & cranny rooms with rocking chairs and desks and doors that open to the outside shady spaces under the trees.

I have a hideaway up a kind of petrified tree inside the building right above the most populous room. I have a difficult time swinging myself up to climb the branches, and I wonder how I’ve done it so many times before– is there another way, or am I just getting old? once I’m up there, bits of paper slip down into the notches of the branches and onto the floor below– they are old love letters, and I have to climb back down to rescue them before anyone reads them.

my family is clearing out my parents’ house, and I have to go pick up odds and ends– old clothes and things inherited from our grandmother– mostly old china I don’t even want.

I’m scooping up handfuls of large nails and a crowbar with some dire intent– I don’t even know what it is. I walk toward where I think my car is parked, past some kids and people on the neighborhood street, and then realize that isn’t my car at all and have to circle back. the house is in a severe state of disrepair. there’s a recent snow on the ground, but it must have been raining for days previously because the ground is all soft mud. I’m crossing up the driveway to where the car may be parked at the back when my feet squish down in the morass. at one time the driveway was bricked, but many of the bricks have gone missing, leaving a pool of black mud. I walk farther back, gingerly along the scattered bricks, until I can see there is no car parked back there. then I reach down and fish up a couple of old logs out of the mud and stand them against the fence. they look like gnarled old men, and I realize they are people, sleeping, whom I must awaken through some arcane process. there is writing across their foreheads, and it seems to mean something to me.

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lonely + hope

fear is bottomless and sadness borderless.
what is without pattern frightens me.
in the wilderness there is no understanding,
only solitude and not having adequate language
and confusion and fear in the dark
where there are no articulated boundaries.

—

I’m afraid that I’m unkind and destructive–
but I want to tell you you’re a pain in the ass
and laugh about it and love you all the more.

—

I want him to come to see me
and be alight
and stay alight
even through the darkness.
why am I ashamed to write it?:
I want him to help me,
for real,
help me to be happy.

—

I want to be with someone who can be
practical updside-down and vice-versa.

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the process of freeing

my throat is full of jagged, splintery pieces of metal– I keep coughing, hacking and pulling out shreds of steel wool and thick pins, bits like watch parts– it’s all jammed up in the middle of my esophagus, and I have coughed it up painfully, raising it only slightly but enough so I can reach in with my fingers to pull the pieces out. it’s terribly uncomfortable, ghastly to feel the sharp, metallic scraping, but also exquisite relief to have each piece out. sometimes, if I’m lucky, several pieces come away at once. each bit frees my throat by degrees.

I’m peeling an excess layer off of the inside of my mouth. it cuts very close to the new skin underneath, so is nearly excruciating– but, again, a relief to be free of the blockage, to be clear and vivid once more.