9/14/23

another day waking up at noon, another day needing to. i am only ready to enter into the day during the stagnancy that comes with high noon, the midday standoff, everybodys backs are turned, focused on their own tasks, already in the groove of their daily routines...and only then do i appear. back from my dreams.

i experienced a once in a lifetime moment last night, i moshed until i was so wet with sweat it felt like i had pissed myself all over. i wrung out sweat from hundreds of different bodies into the street after the show. my bag was drenched and i could not stop sweating, even after being herded out into the cold, i dripped my beads and my ears rang very loud, deafened in bliss. i was back to being quiet. my throat hurt, but not like usual, not from the cigarettes (i have flicked my last cherry), i spent my night screaming, screaming at mc ride, screaming at the blurred faces in front of me, we jumped and swung around and when we made eye contact together, two perfect strangers, we embraced bodies and yelled into each others faces. just for a moment. and then we were gone again, back into the sea of bodies. i spent my night falling over feet that were below my steps and being picked back up by the mass of skin around me, i gently clawed at naked backs, covered in a layer of perspiration, and found myself being supported by the same thing, on the other side, from other people.

the night before i spent talking with my best friend, my brother, about special hearts and special minds. we spoke of their writing and looked back on a piece they did around the beginning of the pandemic. im happy to know that i still felt that way back then they said thru tears. it was a beautiful thing to witness. i had found the piece in an old notebook a few days prior and wanted to show them, now it is out of the notebook and it is taped above their bed, above their head as they sleep.

i see now that they have texted me another old entry they wrote the night before we trekked into the boundary waters, into the pitch dark, into a true expedition, a test of survival. i am scared to be in the dark, to feel tired, cold, without comfort or distraction and now i am thinking that going into the boundary waters is a physical representation of places you can only ever reach mentally when you reside in a city. it is scary, it was scary, it was difficult, it was already so long ago...

in four days i will be gone, far away, with my wife. it feels like a strange period of waiting until then. i have lived thru many strange periods of waiting, some innocent, some very heavy with what that waiting means. im unsure which one this is, it feels more innocent tho there are pieces of that heaviness living in there somewhere. i yearn to be away, away with my wife, in the silence of each others company, naked and alone, underneath the stars you cannot see when you reside in a city. i believe that my wife and i are soulmates. it is a cosmic thing and it feels like a certainty, the same way that gravity is a certainty. it is a milestone i have reached upon meeting her, a checkpoint crossed, and so we accepted easily and look to the skies, hands held, asking whats next?

and that is what life is, really, whether i like it or not. and i am grateful that i do like it. i am grateful for my confusing dreams and my less confusing reality. i think that on my deathbed i would like nothing more than to reflect on all the wonderful times i have spent being alive, shared with others and shared with no one...

9/10/23

i begin the thing that i wanted to do and find that i am unfocused. i am too preoccupied being concerned that i am performing this task wrong, incorrect in my actions and, even before that, incorrect in my approach. i read the words from my textbook but i am absent in the absorption of them. i make it to the end of the page, one step closer to finishing my homework, but knowing that i am certain to fail the pop quiz. i walked the walk, sure, on paper this is true, but i know i cannot talk the talk.

the all too frequent occurrence is the same, all the time. it is too meta to even be real and it really is a little bit shameful. i am scared of whats behind the cupboard door. i open it slowly, hearing only the creak alongside my breathing, feeling nothing except scaredness, expressing nothing on the outside. i peek inside following the slow natured rhythm i do everything else according to and see that it is empty. the fear dissipates, making me feel like it was never there to begin with, making me feel like i was dreaming all along. i forget what i was doing here in the first place and return to my default state of mild confusion. i think of what it is that i should do next and come up with no answer. i return to my room, opening my computer again, touching myself, making a mess into a tissue, throwing it away, taking out the trash. and then i am back to square one. and then so is the scaredness.

oh, but i am learning much, so much. in all of the failed attempts there are things i have held on to, glowing and showing themselves to me finally, little pieces needing companions to build themselves up into something, anything, worthwhile. i try. yo pruebo. no amount of doubt can nullify this.

yes, i have a relationship with myself. enigmatic and strange, but beautiful. if i talk to myself, so be it. if i am nervous, i would prefer if it was because of something Withinside of Me, not because of anything i am perceiving, or, much worse, anticipating. anticipating has gotten me nowhere. anticipating has helped me in ways i will likely never realize all the way, but anticipating may also be my worst enemy. the things that make Me Me are the things i would like to nurture. no more outside forces, and by this i mean anything outside of my immediate control, letting themselves Withinside of Me and aimlessly attacking. i am just too sensitive for that.

and i like that i am sensitive. it is a super power, one of my many, a super power i share with many others. yes, i find that when i try, things tend to look up.

9/7/23

i let my desk chair slide down the slanted wooden floor of my bedroom for...a year? the rug that would have held it in place was just out of reach of keeping it in its place, only underneath about a third of the base. it would work sometimes. enough to where changing the placement of furniture for even just 15 small minutes was too much effort to make it worth it. to make it feel worth it. so i sat watching my videos, doing my writing, reading my books, slipping. and when the slip began i just accepted it. there was no anger or irritation, just slips and then the proceeding adjustments. i never contemplated the major adjustment seriously, the solution, it remained in the category of meaningless, passing thoughts, a nugget never large enough to not be sifted out.

but today i changed it. it took about 20 minutes and its effects are marvelous. so minor, and still so large. i rewarded myself and i am feeling the benefits right now, i am sitting in the moment comfortably, i am literally sitting in the moment comfortably.

the strange part is that seeing new patches of wood in places that used to be covered up made me feel weird, kind of sad, as well as the previously uncovered patches now being covered. the result is better but i had become accustomed to the old way of things. i felt this same emotion just earlier this morning when i realized that the typical thursday crew for work would be changing today, forever, never to be the same. and it hasnt changed in the year and a half i have been working here...i was accustomed to it.

and i feel ways about my living situation likely changing next year. i have one entire calendar year until that will happen but still, i feel that sadness. its like grief, yes, it is. grief, one of my dearest friends.

there is fuel for my sadness to be found in not feeling as if i am content in the moment. i think that i am most of the time, but i know that i am not some of the time. i am just a person. but when i reflect on that reality, in the moment when i am feeling it (ironically!), i feel as if id rather be dead. the dread comes back. slightly...not like a train, but like a leaky faucet. but i have learned much about myself, about this feeling, about Grief and Dread, i have gathered more tools and i am equipped, capable, enough to tighten this piece of equipment and stop the drip. it will come back, perhaps shifted into a different nuisance, but i will adapt just as it does, just as they do. and it is not a battle, no, i do not spend any of my time with this beautiful life fighting, no, none of it. i cannot be guilted into fighting anymore...it is more of a neutral thing. not even that, it is just a thing. when cows have flies on their hides, when horses have them buzzing all around their faces, they just twitch them off. there arent fly swatters for farm animals and these magnificent animals do not get upset at them the way humans might. there is nothing to hold on to, in the hands or in the mind, it is just a buzz and then a twitch. a buzz and then a twitch. a buzz and then a twitch.

would i have changed the position of my carpet if i were moving next week? no, certainly not. i likely would not have dealt with the slipping chair if i were only to be living here for another month, or even two. im not sure what amount of "months left" would be the cutoff for acting on this minor inconvenience, this very small thing that is, unarguably, not ideal but something i had become so used to. but i do not live in those realities, i live in this one, the one i am typing in, and i am pleased to have acted on this today. i am not proud because there is nothing to be proud of. but i am pleased.

9/3/23

"at the end of the day, you just do it. like, yeah, its pretty easy to feel like the world is against you, its not, but it is more difficult to move thru sometimes. but when something comes up, you just deal with it. people can hold on to those emotions forever, the anger, woe-is-me, victimization of Oneself...but its just not true. youre being a baby. and its okay to an extent but you cannot hold them, you must let them throw a tantrum on your palms, let them do their twirls until the song is over like a good music box. then take a breath and just calmly address the situation. in other words: do what You need to do."

8/28/23

my confidence, once the most solid and sacred attribute of Myself, is deteriorating, rapidly, and it puzzles me silly, tickles me pink, and makes me question it all, everything else, all the rest of it.

how can it be that the older i become the less i like Myself? this is how it feels. i am sane enough to know that what i really mean is that certain things, lots of them, that i have become accustomed to over my lifespan so far are not things that i would like to keep as custom anymore. many of my knee jerk reactions are outdated and fueled by insecurities, a lack of reference, something grown inside of Me, by Me, and for Me. it all makes sense, tho, at the same time, it makes none.

but i know nothing, and i remind Myself of this most days. i recall the one time i wrote: "you are not as dope as you think you are" and then "it would be a shame not to recognize this" and i remind Myself of this often as well. it hits me even harder.

in 3 weeks i will be 27. to me, it feels like the last 3rd of my 20s. i am coming to an end of my 3rd decade, sort of, it is the beginning of the end, sort of. it means nothing but it also means everything because it is a milestone i am embracing.

alongside my crumbling confidence, i have found much peace. there is peace in confusion and there is knowledge in not knowing. acceptance is something i always find Myself coming to. and it is like anything else in My life: i just know it when i feel it.

8/23/23

lately the trend has been a confusing one. things happen to me in dreams, i talk about things with people, only, when i bring them back into the discussion, alive and awake, they cannot recall. what? i dont think weve talked about that. surely, we have, i remember your replies and your points. it is mundane and i remember the mundane the most. you told me: "do you know that window above your bathroom door? it is high and inaccessible. somehow, it is shattered, and, somehow, the glass hasnt fallen. its always been this way?" yes, i replied, it has, ever since i moved into this place. no, we never spoke about this. oh...then i apologize.

the inverse is also true. things i believe to only have happened to me in my mind, asleep, really took place while awake, real human experiences with real human people. how did you know that? i ask, shocked, confused. well, we only just talked about it last week. oh...then i apologize. the confusion is thick, dense as a swamp, a mudpit of things i cannot hold on to, i reach down and attempt it but find that i can only watch them fall from my palm and my fingers, back into the goop from where they came, back into the thick of it, insignificant again, just as they began.

and they really are insignificant, i know this, i know this. nothing changes because of this confusion, my life is not impacted and neither are the lives of my friends who have been briefly dragged along with me. sit with the mud, i say, become insignificant again, i will join you shortly. i stare into nothing, in a daze, contemplating my understanding of...something...

they say that it might all be a "simulation" but i just cannot take that word seriously, the pretentiousness of it, the big brain, condescending, tone of it. well, actually- sorry, friend, i dont seem to care. the strange thing is that im sure they are right. the stranger thing is that the conclusion is never: it doesnt actually matter. how someone who subscribes to this theory does not ultimately come to that conclusion is baffling to me. yes, people are different, sure i understand that some people are curious by nature, aggressively curious, restless until answers are uncovered, but i am confused, again, at the idea that it is all meaningless discovery anyway- so why bother? trajectories of life do not change because it is true, trajectories of life do not change because it is false. i did not have to follow a dead pirates treasure map and unbury a golden chest to find this out, i only blew the dust off of books already written. i am being judgmental.

when i look my friends in their eyes, i see bags underneath. a deeper and deeper purple with each year added on, experienced, lived and felt. trees grow rings, we grow deeper colors. i see them underneath my own. i dont sleep so good now. i am sore and tired and achey, quite often. i am older with each year, as are they. god, how many things can happen in a year...and they do become shorter. i am asked at the bar, by a regular, how are you? and i reply with an unintentional ramble about how each thursday at 9pm, upon clocking in, i stand still and assess the immediate reality that another week has passed. he laughs and brushes it off so i do too. but the feeling remains alive inside of me, lighting the fire and pitching the tent. it is not sinister, but it eats at me, for sure, it eats at me.

summer is changing to fall, just as it always does, just as it always will. it is amusing to me to imagine how i will change with it. the one thing that i can guarantee is that i will change with it.

8/20/23

i dont care to see any more people trying to do it all. i am a person, not a swiss army knife, i am specialized at being me. when my car has troubles i take it to the shop and when my body is injured i go to the doctor. i learn from teachers and i eat from chefs.

i wish to have a few hobbies, i wish to specialize in one trade. heaven on earth must have many people who specialize in many, different things. i dont wish to see everyone be special in everything all at once. i dont wish to see people make music one day and take photos the next, the week after be a painter, then a poet. oh, i changed my mind, i want to do this now. okay. just kidding, i am this now. okay. didnt you know that i am an artist? i dont feel that way about you, but okay.

i am a grumpy old man but please believe me when i tell you that i am trying not to be. there are limits to the world. you cannot do anything you want to because things take time and expertise and skill and then, still, even more time.

i am still getting used to the idea that i have allergies twice a year, i am still getting used to contradicting myself without fail, i know that i cast innocent judgement onto strangers and then see myself do things i know i would judge if i saw from a distance. to this i say oh well.

i am just dissatisfied. oh well.

8/17/23

i am in the bike lane, going an average speed, the cars in the main lanes are stuck moving slow, sporadic, and unpredictable. i keep my distance, watching their wheels and anticipating their thoughts. my hands hover over my brakes, ready to fire, the safety is off and i am scared.

my bike is heavy with cargo and when i glide over the cracks and potholes my things shake and clang. i see broken glass in my path and it is a frequent occurrence, some from beer bottles, some from shattered windows. i do my best to avoid them puncturing my inner tubes, tho i know it is unavoidable forever. some might see it as a losing battle. i do too some days.

when i watch the insides of the cars i see drivers attempting to multitask, steering wheel in the left hand, phone in the right. their movements are jerky. they laugh at tik toks and rear end the car in front of them, smiles turn to frowns, happiness turns to anger, two people are angry and then one hundred people are angry because now they cant move either, honks begin in every direction and in so many different pitches, it is like a horrible orchestra, the butterfly flapped her wings and the situation has snowballed into a tsunami on the concrete. i pedal away as fast, and as safely, as i can.

everybody else around me is lost in their worlds. there are loud, personal conversations being shouted into thin air from the walkers with airpods in, i find it so unnerving. everybody else is on their phone. everybody else is wearing a frown too. the only people who dont look as tho they refuse to interact with their immediate, physical surroundings are also speaking to nobody, they wear tattered clothes, tanned and leathery skin, unshaved faces, babbling nonsense. they are all nice to me, yet i am immensely sad.

if i make eye contact with anybody then i feel as if i am intruding. i feel shame for looking around at the world i am living inside of. oh, it is lunacy, cuckoo, backwards, i am a sensitive child just looking for answers, trying to find my mommy, biking away from the scary city to return home to think and cry small tears into my pillow. i wear a frown too.

i bike forward because i have no choice- i am on a one way. i bike forward as the cars move with me, i bike forward with the pedestrians too. we move together and we move the world, time continues, things shift and norms change. it is the most confusing thing. i look behind me, to the beginning of this life i have lived, and i am just now beginning to see how that life at the start differs from the life i live now. in front of me...well i cant quite make it out...

"oh my god...is that-..."

i am stopped at a light which is next to a park. it is big, the field is massive and the grass is so green, so lush. it is empty, except for a skinny boy laying on his back, he is half naked, more than that, all he has on his running shorts. no shoes, no shirt, he has only the shorts around his waist and a cap covering his face, shielding his face from the sun, and from everything else. i look at his ribcage elevated high above his stomach which swells and sinks low, very low, and slowly too.

and so i dismount the bike and go to join him.

8/6/23

i love you but i am told to leave you alone. its new to me. i panic and i calm down again over the course of a day and at the end of it i still have not heard from you. i realize many times throughout this day that i must remove my own feelings from this situation, because it is your situation, but it is impossible. i am a worried mess. my tummy hurts and my eyes are wet, i just want a hug, but i am told to leave you alone...

my dreams are more bizarre and more vivid than is typical and you are not in any of them, tho as soon as i wake up i am focused entirely on your wellbeing once again. i settle into this grey morning as i step out, slowly, from dreamland. the forecast promised rain and there is none. i feel cheated, as if the weather is out to get me too. i begin to wave off this silly, selfish, idea but it is latched onto me, it is a bloodsucking leech and it sucks hard. i didnt ask for this, but here it is...i dont like the way i am thinking...

i suppose there is a lesson to be learned here. perhaps it is mainly a slap in the face, an overdue reality check. alright, it is probably deserved, the honeymoon of emotions having the curtains pulled open, blinded by the light of reality, the paternity leave is up, can you coexist with this newfound life out in the grittiness of the real world? we are outside of the hospital with our baby girl. she is crying and people walk passed us, can we handle it? it must be, it must be some test, i have those feelings again that something has shifted, but it is underground and i have not felt the shockwave yet, my feet are stable, there is no earthquake and i am just wondering if there will be...

i plead guilty for inserting myself in this situation, lo siento mi amor, it is yours to be felt. i will give you your space and send you love, i will go to work on my spanish, i will go to the hardware store and buy my supplies to continue working on my bicycle, i will twiddle my thumbs and watch my silly youtube videos. i will be ready when you are ready, i know you would do the same for me, sometimes i am just a boy, but i would like to be a man, for you, i am growing, for you, but before that for myself. i grow for myself.

7/29/23 & 7/31/23

i strain my neck to get a better glimpse of this recognizable thing, i am excited, i say look! its- and my neck cramps so forcefully i am paralyzed in the driver seat at this red light. the natural hum of summer, the sounds and feeling, is the only thing i can experience in this short moment. my body is showing me it is a body, i am man, not machine. yesterday i moved awkwardly in my small, skinny, narrow shower and my back ached from the contortion i had put it through. i winced in pain and slowly made my next move, asking myself is this okay? telling myself im sorry, i didnt mean to move that way, hearing myself answer its okay, it was just awkward. yes, it was just awkward.

i am an old man and my only wish is to grow older. the one thing i want out of life is routine and monotony, the meaning of it all is repetitive and mundane. i mean it. i dig my hole deeper and deeper everyday and my smile continues to widen. my back gleams with sweat, i smell of dirt and damp earth, the grime underneath my fingernails is a dark grey, and my rut is looking more like home with each shovel, each heave of soot i toss above my head. it is slow, methodic work and i am a slow, methodic man.

i spoke with my coworkers brother the other day when he came into the bar. he looked and smelled like he had been active all day and he wore denim, a dirty hat, a grimy t-shirt with a throw up on it. i knew he would be out and active all night too. he was on mushrooms and he told me about being put on to D65 and then when the initial connection was made we connected more dots together, shared relationships, seeing how our circles overlapped and filling in the names of our new venn diagram together. he answered questions i had had for years- he answered questions i had had for years, can you imagine how therapeutic this was to me? little nagging bits of missing information, pestering me quietly, holes in my cloth and he sewed them up, my popcorn lung healed. he gave me a history of our city and i learned so much. i told my coworker that the graff community has always reminded me of the sewers and she knew exactly what i meant. "yes" she said, "yes, its all so underground but still so connected"...

i have added racks to my bicycle. to my car, a bike mount. ive installed the hitch, the rods, ive deep cleaned, ive done these things with slow, loving care and i have done them well. ive learned a lot and i have discovered a new form of meditation. discovering what i unlock as the days tack on is an existential joy i am uncovering for the first time, like a new world. i think of my playthrough of hollow knight, the emotions i would feel after coming across a new area of the map. yes, this is a very accurate description. my rides are slower, i have more gear, i am even more prepared than my reputation has led you to believe. i am an old man and i am ready for anything.

my wife, she is an older soul than me, a true ol'timer. she resembles a force beyond that which we see in a normal day, which many people could ever see in their lives, at any point, it is miraculous. i have told her before, you have something about you, a portal or something, some extreme form of empathy but connected to another dimension. its like she sees auras in everybody whether she likes it or not, whether she knows it or not. she is a medium of some sort, she is a teacher, an observer, an interpreter. if i am old, she is ancient, and if i am smart, then she is wise. my wife, she is inexplicably connected to it all, the ebbs and flows and all the rest of it.

i wake up every morning and i dream every night. i dream of inexplicable things and i think maybe i have a portal inside of me too. my wife remains by my side and me by hers. my only wish now is to grow older together. i will live and i will learn, i will learn and i will live, i will live and learn and learn and live and live to learn and learn to live and live and live and live.........

7/23/23

it is a recurring thing, this phenomenon i have been experiencing, it happened last night in my dreams and it has happened just now, again, as it has the last week. month. months...it ebbs and flows like all the rest of it.

it presents itself to me as a gift, a holy gift, so profound that it is immediately the meaning of life, i happen upon it by chance, it feels like a coincidence (although it has been years since i believed in coincidences), like i am a meaningless, randomly shaped meteorite floating around in the atmosphere who crosses paths with another, just as meaningless and random, i face them and they do not face me, we bump and i am hurled out of our shared gravitational pull, launched into the light of the unknown, as we go our separate ways my eyes remain fixated on them because they have changed my life, they have altered the course. my view is in golden light now instead of the empty darkness of space. i have always stared too long, never knowing when to end the moment, never feeling the ability to do so, to let go...

it is the sudden flood of meaning and emotion behind the most repetitive things, the things that have happened trillions and trillions of times before and will happen trillions more still. it is as incomprehensible as anything else, as all the rest of it. its a gentle slap in the face, a reality check which leaves a handprint.

its profound. oh my god, is it profound. paralyzed and on my knees, i face this gift as a man of devout religion, it feels like a reckoning each and every time and it happens very often. trillions and trillions, it is more than often!

the recurring thing is this: i have this slight and constant urge to document these emotions, for myself and then, further, to share them with other people, to understand, to be understood, to connect. but the moment always fades before i can do so (of course! i am too busy feeling it!) and then i am left in the afterglow, i reach for the most profound pieces i can see as they drift away and they disintegrate and i cannot feel anything. the air that moves beneath my hand as i swipe it thru the air and pushes the particles away before i can get to them, scattering anything left that was even partly whole anymore, scattering it all, all the rest of it. the magic is gone.

but like my dreams i remember the feeling, the feeling inside, it is a part of me and has added to my lived experience. i am changed. but it is hard to put words to, mostly impossible. and so i do something like this and try my best. but it is a very roundabout thing to do.

and so i remain firm on the idea of relaying an interpretation of the natural experience

i do not have the ability to do this through fabrication, i cannot manufacture examples

i am not good at that. i have tried, oh lord, how i did try

from moment to moment and day to day that is all that this is

they are meditations. and there are years of them, just as there will be years more

i am simple. i am good. i am normal.

7/20/23

just pick something and do it. it could be laundry, it could be brushing the cat, it could be a walk, it could be this. oh yes, i am discovering that i need a more structured routine than i have at the moment. actually, associating the word "routine" with the way i am living now is so overly generous i feel embarrassed to have even reached for it. im sorry.

there is not enough underwear in my dresser to put off laundry forever, the day will come. the day will come too when i no longer step on my rug but, instead, find myself stepping on an entire layer of cat hair. and so i must clean it. all of these types of things will find me eventually. i wish to accept this as normally and averagely as the most normal and average man. fuck the random rage, the random irritation. grow the fuck up. kindly of course.

how does one quiet their thoughts? meditation is a must, it dont hurt if you try. yes, i will try, i try everyday, some more than others, but i am not just a passive life, tho sometimes i could certainly benefit from trying that too until the need to try becomes so small it is non existent. and then i will just be that.

7/16/23

i wish to get older, doing what i love and loving what i do. a calm and easygoing life for a calm and easygoing person. i still wish to feel anger, i still wish to feel fear, i still wish to feel the sadness. i must feel them all to feel any of them. all things in moderation, querida.

i am excited every day i feel progression in any one specific avenue, every day i can pinpoint new pieces of information that i am applying in my time spent alive here. it is all so interesting. at my worst, i consider myself a loser, soy un perdedor, but that is just at my worst. i know i am wonderful, righteous, divine. i have a brain that swells with information and loses the unimportant bits.

i want enough time to go by between seeing friends that when i see them i cry with tears of joy. i will show them this physical gratitude that i feel for them and how happy i am to see them again. i am only 26, i have much time left for this to even be possible, but it is something i keep thinking about. what does this mean about me? i am looking forward to a future which implies much, much time spent apart and a reconnection for only just an afternoon after that time has elapsed. its a bit sad. but its not all sad. its like a celebration.

perhaps i am just more comfortable with myself and who i am. a solitary man. friendly, but solitary. i know that the life i wish to live will be spent with less time hanging out with my homies than most. maybe. im not sure.

the future is already nostalgic to me, how strange.

7/4/23

the rain came down in buckets, waterpark levels of it, the wind was so strong and the rain so heavy it was as if we were in one large, state sized car wash. we all moved along the interstate at half of the speed limit. the world outside of our moving shelters looked unreal, like an inverse of what it should, a midwest version of a hurricane, sealed in that faint, dark, lifeless hue of tornado green.

the rules of the road say that in conditions such as this, when visibility maxes out at 20 feet, you turn on your hazards. vehicles become beacons, shapeless in the chaotic whirlwind. its like following a train of mobile lighthouses. slowly and carefully, squinting thru the glass that is covered in sheets and sheets of water, hands on 10 & 2, the only roadmap you can rely on are those faint, blinking lights somewhere in front of you.

it is no different than preschoolers holding on to a communal rope during a field trip, they venture out from their safe building into the big, busy world, grasping this thing that tethers them together because they are in this together, they work together and experience together, they move along the sidewalk as we are now moving along the interstate. why is this so emotional...?

this happened to you and me. when we found ourselves in the middle of this situation we were together, together with all of the other vehicles, and together ourselves. we paused the music to focus and be tense, but not worried, we made short, silly sounds when we went underneath an overpass and the deafening sound of a thunderstorm rain was paused for just a brief moment. we laughed and went back to concentrating because it was a little bit scary, but not in a worrying way.

we were returning from another vacation together. a wedding in chicago. it was lovely, you met some of my friends, old friends, and we felt this love together as our own love continued to bloom. i love these situations, where we let our love take the stage and grow as it pleases, its like nurturing a child together. we were together the whole weekend. our day that followed took us all over the city and we were together. deciding together, thinking together. being together- it was a hurricane then too.

we are spontaneous in the same way just as we enjoy planning the same way, the balance is perfect so we are perfect.

mi amor, we are together now, as i type this, estoy en la sala, estas en mi cuarto, we are in different rooms but we are together. i could never explain this feeling we have, this natural state of being, and be able to do it justice. there are no words. estoy sin palabras. you are my family, my chosen family, my romantic family. its as if i have stepped into the house in which i will remain for the rest of my time alive, this house we have been decorating together. it is an understanding of a divinely special nature. divino. last night we were going to go out but instead we laid on my bed and cried together for all of the emotion that is to be found in this life. i told you the only thing that feels natural to me is to feel and you said like to sit with emotions and process them and i said yes, its something i could do forever and i feel that you feel that, and it is inexplicable and magical and abstract and the most beautiful part of being a human being.

today will be another rainy day, our third in a row. i cant help but think of the 4 year, eleven month, and 2 day rain from one hundred years of solitude. how perfectly dramatic. there is much to go for that to come true but i have a trust in this so pure it borders on divino. i have surrendered all of my willpower to life, to love, to us, together.

6/28/23

my seat rumbles above the train tracks and i am made aware of the curvature of our course again. so long was i on autopilot, but eventually the views outside the circle became mundane, i ran out of music to listen to, i no longer felt like making conversation with those here with me. i chose not to be stimulated because i didnt feel the desire to try anything else anymore. instead, i am now drawn to the stillness, to sit in this moment, the reality that is always there, the soft hum of our working world, i pick my legs up and become cross legged in my seat by the window which faces the inside of the circular track. i breathe like i am in meditation, or prayer, and i turn to look through the glass instead of inside the cabin.

it is one big thing. a perfect circle and i can see it all. we move at a constant speed, my body feels like we are chugging along very quickly but when i see how little the horizon seems to move, when i focus explicitly on our relative change in position, it doesnt feel fast at all. its like i am taking a ride on the arm which counts seconds on a monumentally large wristwatch.

7/4/23: (i wanted to finish this but i became busy. the idea was one loop of this globe sized train being a lifetime. i was to be sitting with people in my life, but we would always be the same age. for instance, in this moment i would be sitting and conversing with my 26 year old mother. i would have the ability to see later on and previously, because life is not all that unique, not entirely predictable because of being random and chaotic but still somewhat predictable. my mother told me in real life just a week or two ago about how, within one week of each other, she was in south dakota spoon feeding her mother with dementia and then in alabama spoon feeding her dying father. it shook me, hard. life is always morphing, there is nothing that stays the same for even an instance, life is always aging and coming closer to the end. but this is a happy thing. it forces me to think about embracing moments more, to enjoy even the times i do not feel the best, or try, because i am still learning and continuously morphing- it is whether i like it or not so i might as well try to like it. yes. i might as well try...)

6/24/23

like a dog, i wait patiently before my window, anticipating the return of my life. my owner has been kind enough to open the glass, allowing this frightful wind to touch me all over and move the hairs on my body. the curtains, the leaves, the flags, grass, unpitched, hanging canvas of umbrellas, they all twirl in random directions being whipped by the air. i welcome the sensation of it all. it smells like rain and the wind feels great on my body. when i woke up this morning it was supposed to thunderstorm later. it should be any minute now.

i had forgotten that the longest day of the year also means the shortest night. on my bike ride home i had already pushed my bedtime to the limit, i moved the goalposts further, alongside time elapsed, and justified this new window of it to myself- i am still content with the decision- but when i stepped outside from my drinks and company,  out from the den we were nestled in, and although my mental reasoning can morph with the circumstances, i was reminded that the rules of nature cannot. they remain rigid and predictable. i walked into the 4:30am sunrise and the songs of the morning birds, still high from the effects of summer. now, officially summer. there were others still outside with me, many more than i anticipated, and i felt at ease to have company, company who also just got caught up in the shortest night of the year.

the windchimes outside blow sideways, they are very loud, they are very pretty. the table on the porch is blown over by the wind and makes a crash. the pot which rested on top of it now lays sideways as well, mightily broken, a fallen soldier, still holding onto the life it had harbored, a mound of dirt its bloody guts, the frail, pink flower its departing spirit. i look at it and wonder whether or not to think that it is a shame or to validate the course of reality and accept that it happened, that it was meant to, something like that...well, it did happen, i do accept it, i already had. from the sound of the crash, i knew it, and i was not moved emotionally one way or the other. i am a powerful man.

my enemies have vanished, they have all turned to friends again. the slates are wiped clean and the hatchets are buried. i am so grateful for that. i will never take it for granted. i, as well as my past foes, have made it happen, together. very much unlike the wind we now exist in an arena we have built together. we no longer spar as gladiators in the center, instead, we enjoy the comfort of the stands, just another regular-looking part of the audience. we eat our shared popcorn together, our hands accidentally meet inside of the bucket, we look at each other and laugh. oh, it is a relief.

its been calm lately. i have a feeling like i have returned. he vuelto. i didnt have to go far for it to feel significant. i still cannot rub my eyes, but i will be able to soon. i feel like chihiro and haku floating down before yubaba at the end of the movie when chihiro must choose the pigs that are her parents, the two of them so stiffly erect in their posture as they glide down to the surface, how peculiar this scene has always felt to me. like chihiro i also know that this game is a trick, a mean charade, that the answer actually does not exist as one of the multiple choices presented to me. i have pulled it out of thin air myself, because i am powerful, because i am confident, because i am myself, this is why the answer is correct, because i have made it for myself, because i know myself, because it is precisely specific to me, the most ordinary man in the world. it is that feeling of floating down again...

he vuelto.

6/22/23

my wife told me the other day that shes excited for winter. she said its silly, she said its selfish, but i laughed with her because i understand how she feels, i feel it with her. i reached out to touch her shoulders, slow and gentle, before we pulled ourselves together in an embrace.

there are routines that other people have incorporated into their lives for longer than i have been born. i want these routines some day. i want monotony and repetition, i do not care for all the stimulation and pleasure seeking, yes i fall into the traps just like everybody else but i find myself very quickly wondering what the big idea was as soon as i reach the bottom of the pit.

there is so much to intake in the summer it makes me overheat, my fans do not run fast enough to keep me cool. they buzz loudly and to no avail. i miss the emptiness of winter.

6/19/23

sweetie, come here, i will hold you, its alright to feel vulnerable. you have no control over when that happens, if you deny your vulnerability you are only lying to yourself. this is where the confusion begins.

and we talked and it was good. it was serious but it was sincere. we both spoke from a place of care. we took turns feeling sorry for the other and we remembered how different we were. it was a good thing.

if every thought in my head is judged by a jury of my peers but that jury is hypothetical and only consists of my own versions of these peers that i know, not only is it a tiring, troublesome burden on myself, it is also unfair to the real life peers because i am assuming i would know how they would deem these random innocent thoughts. i stand in the center of this arena, being stared at and judged by the jury of my peers from all 360 different angles. i dont know where to look so i choose one and hold eye contact. my projections and insecurities speak to me thru my versions of the peers and they all have an equal say, like extras in a play and they all want the spotlight. they shout at me and its nasty, but the thoughts themselves are so ordinary, i dont understand the hatred i feel. but now i do because i am analyzing this phenomena and the hatred comes from within me, its the projection and insecurity again, god they are everywhere. its irrational and i know it so i shake myself awake and out of this dream. the jury is out! i am my own judge, jury, and executioner!

practice what i preach...the meaning lies in the mundane...i can really go wherever i want to, and its easy, and its straightforward. it doesnt have to be complicated. i am supremely intelligent...but i am not complicated. i am only a man.

6/12/23

i rub my head in my confusion and i find the center of where the hair grows outward. it is short, very short, i razor shaved it last week and it is growing back fast but at the moment it is still short. i enjoy the length, it feels like a furry carpet. ive always liked carpets inside of homes. i feel the spot where the teeny strands collide with each other and i imagine mighty waves crashing together in the middle of the ocean, natural chaos, a beautiful feat because of its normalcy. and its a calming thought.

am i less of a man because i have been struggling to keep it up? no, i dont believe so. but the thoughts are still in my head. i have been struggling. all it takes is one spark from the stone and the splint, i am trying to make a campfire to be warm and comfortable, but the air is dry and the sun is red, quicker than i thought possible i am engulfed in a forest fire. i am a burning building, my infrastructure is old, i crash and i burn and i am left in an ugly, smoking pile, sad and defeated.

why are the tears held back? its as tho they are held captive in some deep corner of my brain. i wish to let them out, let them flow to feel some catharsis, but my eyes remain dry, my face expressionless, there is no saving this moment that was supposed to be special. i fumbled it again.

i am much too focused on myself, so much so that i am ripped from experiencing the present moment. pitiful.

my wife tells me its okay and i believe her. i feel this too. but we still meet someplace in the middle where we have been conditioned to meet and it is sad and confusing. there is doubt and projection and more insecurity with each passing moment we hold hands in these burning woods. love cannot put out flames, that is waters job, something real and tangible.

but love is realer than water because it is not tangible. nothing i know is tangible, and i know many things to be true. i may not know much but i know a lot about these kinds of things. i look at everyone i see throughout each day i am blessed with and i imagine them as babies, as children, as teens, all the moments they have spent alone and sad and confused. even the most hated people i encounter began soft and malleable, just like i was, just like i am. perhaps i am only looking outwards, seeking company for my misery in the unparalleled, inexplicable comfort that is strangers finding things to relate to.

i am my own man. i need some help. ive cut out so much, and i still need help. what is going on to make me feel so confused, like i cannot do a single thing confidently? i once thought i was the most confident man i knew, i know exactly who i am, i have worked so hard on who i am, and that was true and it is true, but i have found a valley lower than before and there are no peaks on the horizon. but it is cloudy so i automatically hold on to some amount of hope that the peaks exist beyond my visibility. i could never lose my hope, even in the most delusional of situations. and this is not one of those.

i am just a man. i have a body and bodies are strange, out of even the manliest mans control at times. minds run amuck thru the ugly swamp that is free thought. natural selection is random and slow too. this is me: random and slow. not in a quirky way, not in a self deprecating way either, i am only being objective.

tired thoughts, tired bodies, tired penises. i am sorry to the vaginas i have disappointed, to my wife most of all. i cannot shake the thought of lieutenant frederic henry from a farewell to arms, maimed and impotent, i cannot shake the thought of the history of castrated eunuchs, i cannot shake the scene from the office where andy is emasculated because of this same dilemma, jim telling him that he cant relate because he is normal and has never suffered this embarrassing situation himself. how draining and dramatic to think of these things after one week of struggling! after months of beautiful love making!

i am such a dramatic man. but at the end of all my episodes, i still remain grateful to be allowed to feel so much. i am tired, i am done for now, i will wake tomorrow and continue on living.

6/10/23

it is a yellow house, a very pale yellow made even more pale from sitting in the sun, being bleached and bathed for all those years. it is small and it stands alone, it is encompassed in trees like a fortress, but a disheveled one, and the front yard is long and overgrown. it takes some time to walk all the way up to the deep, foresty green door, but from the road i saw you here and so here i have made it to.

you watch me as i approach you. its steady, your gaze and my pace, our eyes hold a very solid contact as i come nearer, it is unbreakable but it is not strong as to be aggressive, we keep our teeth concealed behind our resting lips, yours a dark, almost purpley red, mine a mix of white and pink. we continue to hold this gaze and feel that the strength relies on the gentleness of it all. you turn and open the door in one motion when i am an arms length away, presenting your open backed dress to me, your tattoos now in the center of my vision. i follow you.

6/9/23

my grandpa lay dying, paralyzed in hospice, a thousand miles away. my lips are scrunched in a purse off to the side of my face, i try and figure out how to channel the emotions that flow thru me and out of my funnel. for the moment it is tense. for the moment i am stationary and for the moment i limit the tears to a minimum because i dont know how to feel yet.

i think of my mother, i think of my mother in that little pink dress in the old polaroid, my abandoned mother, abandoned by the man who lay dying. no, he has never been a bad man, no one has thought this, least of all my mother. but my mother in the pink dress wanted a daddy and he left. so now i pick her up after 4 hours of sleep and i drop her off at departures. i hug her and kiss her like a father when i am her son. i keep the tears inside until she leaves, i want to be a man for her, the woman who nurtured me to completion. so i ride with her on this very pretty day with my lips pursed tight again.

it was me, just two days ago, who lay in the care of professionals, i was given calming drugs and drops for numbing and put under machines and probed by aliens until i emerged with perfect vision. i could see my wife and my mother on the other side of the partition, cheering me on, caring for me afterwards. in the waiting room i had a tiny cry, a mixture of medicine and tears rolled down my cheeks, my lips tight together and a little off to the side and when this happened they both approached me from across the room, one hand for each of them, calming me, making me feel loved and easy. i could not have done it without them. i wouldnt have wanted to.

i wanted to write about my last day wearing glasses because i felt emotional but the time did not present itself. i did not create space for that to happen and instead i let the day happen around me. i feel fine about it. the day was normal, like any other day, except that it was my last day ever having to depend on those things on my face. i held it together just fine, tight lips, squinted eyes, steady breathing.

the angel numbers are swarming me. they are everywhere, it is a certainty i see a handful every time i step out of the house. i recognize the direction i move in is the correct one. there are new tattoos on my skin, there is no hair on my head because i got rid of it with the razor, no more glasses, nothing but the love and pursed lips as i channel my love, figuring out how to direct all of this energy i hold, these superpowers i have.

no, of course i am not special, but i would never pretend that what i feel is not miraculous.

5/28/23

ONLY SINCE BEING AWAY FROM YOU HAVE I REALIZED HOW MUCH OF A MONSTER YOU REALLY ARE, YOU MENACE, YOU COWARD, YOU INSIDIOUS AND CONNIVING AND LYING AND SOCIOPATHIC PIECE OF SHIT, I CURSE YOU, I THROW ALL OF MY BAD INTENTIONS, UGLY THOUGHTS, AND MALICIOUS INTENT ONTO YOU AND STILL YOU DEFLECT THEM WITH A SLOW WAVE OF THE HAND, YOU ACT AS GOD AND YOU CONTROL THE PEOPLE AS THO YOU REALLY ARE...I CANNOT PRETEND THAT IS NOT TRUE...

BUT NOW, YOU HORRIFIC BEAST, YOU SEE I HAVE ESCAPED YOU AGAIN, I AM BOBBING WITH MY HEAD ABOVE WATER, I HAVE PEEKED MY HEAD UP FROM THE GROUND AFTER MY HIBERNATION AND I SMELL SPRING, I HAVE SHED THE ANCHOR AND CHAIN THAT WAS TIED AROUND MY WAIST- DID YOU KNOW IT IS ACTUALLY THE CHAIN THAT HOLDS THE SHIP TO THE SEAFLOOR, NOT THE ANCHOR? YOU STUPID MOTHERFUCKER, YOU HAD NO IDEA, WHY WOULD YOU CARE ANYWAY?

TODAY I WOKE UP NEXT TO MY WIFE AND SHE SAID TO ME "its funny, i forgot that i wasnt actually hungover" AND I LAUGHED AND SAID "me too", TODAY WE WOKE UP TOGETHER IN A BEAUTIFUL MORNING AND WE WERE PRESENT TO EXPERIENCE THE MOMENT THAT IS BLISS WITH ANOTHER PERSON, IN LOVE AND HAPPY, FEELING ALL EMOTIONS AS ACCURATELY AS POSSIBLE TO THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE, YOU DID NOT FLOW WITH BLOOD IN VEINS AND CONTROL US LIKE THE BLOOD BENDER YOU ARE, OH HOW LONG YOU HAVE CONTROLLED ME, A PUPPET ON A STRING...

TODAY I OPENED MY EYES AND SETTLED INTO REALITY, COMING BACK FROM MY DREAMS, AND I WAS HERE. QUICKLY. I DO THINGS EASILY WITHOUT YOU, ONLY SINCE BEING AWAY FROM YOU HAVE I REALIZED HOW MUCH YOU HAVE MANIPULATED ME AND HELD ME BACK AND GOT IN THE WAY OF MY GOALS AND MOTIVATION. I USED TO THINK I WAS SICK. NO. IT WAS YOU WHO DID THIS TO ME, YOU ARE THE CUCKOO MOTHER POISONING HER OWN CHILD AND CONVINCING HIM HE NEEDS YOU TO SURVIVE BECAUSE YOU ARE SO WEAK AND FRAIL AND THERE IS NONE ELSE WHO COULD CARE FOR YOU THIS WAY...

TODAY I SPRUNG FROM MY BED. THE FIRST OF MANY. I SHOOK YOU OFF OF ME, REMOVED THE TICK FROM THE CHEST, THE LEECH FROM THE LEG, BUT YOU DO NOT LEAVE A BODY FOR ME TO LOOK AT, INSTEAD YOU ARE GONE IN A BREATH, INVISIBLE TO ALL. YOU REPRESENT SOMETHING LARGER. I AM GLAD TO NO LONGER BE A PART OF YOU, OR I SHOULD SAY, YOU, NO LONGER A PART OF ME. I AM GLAD TO NO LONGER BE FEEDING YOU.

IN TIME I WILL HEAL THIS PART OF ME. I HAVE LEARNED MUCH FROM YOU.

5/25/23

so i am playing catch up with my emotions and i have been discovering the difficulty of this. it is not straightforward, it is a journey thru the jungle with a rusty machete and i must be the one to determine which step is next, which step is right, and which lesson is learned. if there is one. and it is only in my hands and it is very hard. no, i do not believe it is me against the world, but it is absolutely only me against my own progress. and i would like to progress from this place, this mucky swamp of flies and smells, i wish to be clean again and be normal around people. because certainly i have not been normal lately.

the self doubt is inescapable. not permanently, but for now. i doubt it all, down to the deepest, largest, oldest roots, i am just so uncertain. if i am one thing it is uncertain. my power button is turned off in these uncertainties and they are constant. imagine how that feels! i cannot even put into words the depressive episodes it creates. yes, of course some of you out there, perhaps many, feel this as well. i am not special. i am just being dramatic and validating my feelings. i am not special.

my calendar must remain perpetually free, i cannot have a single event on the horizon or else i will only focus on this lunch or dinner or drinks with this random friend who i mostly enjoy time with but could have just been alone instead and been fine, it does not matter how far away it is, if it is within a month then it consumes me. i squint my eyes as i drive the speed limit towards this thing and i am fixated on it with a nervous smile, some apprehension and irrational fears, as i do this in my tunnel vision i miss all of the pretty landscape i am currently in. i fly by and when i reach my destination i am distracted during the conversation and so i look behind me, at the course i have just completed, and i think wow, that looks pretty, i wish i could go back and experience that even tho i just did experience that, just not in an appreciative way. unstable, unstable, unstable. im fine, im fine, im fine, i know i know i know, i am just being dramatic. but it is true because it is how i feel.

and then there is the fear of what others think of me, the fear that i am bothering them. i am the most fragile man alive, how was i given such thin skin? i am so fragile i cannot even curse the god who gave me this paper like shell. i cannot have fun because i must be bothering someone. i worry that my wifes friends do not think much of me because i am so fragile. i worry my coworkers are upset at me because i am so fragile. my brother, my close friends, i am not a good brother or close friend back, i am too fragile...the only ones i do not worry about are my mother and my kitties. the former gave me life and the latter cannot express dissatisfaction thru words. maybe these are two things so tough not even my fragile wave of sadness can erode them. i dont know.

i dont know anything. not a thing.

and so i fantasize about leaving it all behind, selling my belongings and running away, turning my back on the only life i have ever known, the only place i have ever known, and beginning again, living someplace quiet and lonesome, it sounds sad but this is the only place i can be happy, and that sounds sad to even say but to me it is happy. does that make sense? tell me, reader, you, yes i am speaking to you, does this make sense? if it does then you are allowed to come with me. only if youd like, of course, i dont make assumptions about anything anymore because i do not know a single thing of anything in the world aside from what i feel inside of my body at all times.

i imagine a life that is far away, with my brother and my kitties and my wife. if my brother wishes to stay here then i must leave them behind. if they want to keep the kitties here then i must leave them behind too. and if my wife does not wish to come with me, then it would shatter me, it would chip off an irreplaceable portion of my heart and destroy it with volcanic flames, impossible thru any means in the known universe to forge back together, and i would never be whole again...but still, i would seclude myself in my new and small home in my new life and i would recover, somehow, in some way. i must. i just hope she comes with me. i think she will because i would for her. maybe i will for her.

to my wife: i am so deeply sorry for having so much doubt inside of me. maybe i was born with it. maybe it was learned. it is there and i cannot stand to have it bleed into my relationship with you, this magical world we have created thru only our love. i pledge my intention to dissipate this as efficiently as possible, but this game of whack-a-mole is still going on. thank you for your patience and your reaffirmation. there is so much left for us to do, if you still keep my hand held in yours. i love you in a way i have never known before.

oh my days, oh my lanta, good grief, holy moly, i am done for the moment, i retreat to my bed to lay down and stare out of the window.

again.

5/21/23

the noise is constant and therefore the background. the clattering of glassware and utensils accents the soft hum of voices and becomes one thing, one thing that can be heard but not understood with meaning. the only thing to understand is that there is noise.

and so i rise from my corner and feel that the coast is clear. i am here with no one and as i peer over the bar it seems as tho everybody else is here with somebody else. and thats okay with me, i quite like being alone. i feel happy for them, just a bit, enough that its noticeable to me. i move in slow motion to refrain from disturbing any of the happy guests, invisible underneath the dim lights in this comfortable, ambient environment that is created for happy people to have good times in.

but the thoughts in my head take me away from my body for a moment and i move in a way that is fluid but obstructive and i knock a glass to the floor. my heart sinks alongside this glass and they both shatter at my feet. i am paralyzed, i feel hollow, i cannot make out the difference between these shards and so i cannot put either of them back together. i am hopeless for a moment and then i notice the silence because i have made a scene.

the absence of the noise is so piercing i think i have never heard anything like it. without grace (because i have none), i crank my neck from looking at the mess ive made to the happy people who are happy no more. i see eyebrows slanted down in an angry way, arms folded, heads shaking, looks to me that say the audacity...before i can stammer an apology they go back to their meals and cocktails after some more head shakes and visibly brushing off the oppressive disturbance which i have burdened them with. i melt into a puddle and stay behind the bar where nobody can see me.

it takes a while for my heart rate to return to normal, for it was beating very fast and very hard. i have stopped sweating and i opened my eyes, the panic has subsided and i am human again (i think). the noise is back to its hum and i work up the courage to make myself an espresso. i crawl to the old machine and, once there, i rise to give myself a treat- i only want to enjoy things like everybody else.

the espresso leaks out slower than it should, there are grounds inside the little cup, and then the silence comes back, only this time it doesnt stay, this time there is stifled laughter popping up in different spots from behind me, the kind of laughter that leaks out from behind hands covering mouths, when the lungs cannot take the suffocation anymore and the loud, abrupt bubbling of a laugh becomes victorious. i turn around to see head shakes and red faces, waving of hands to say no, no, nobody is laughing, to insult me more. i turn back to my subpar espresso (which has become cold already) and they all erupt into real laughter, hoots and hollers, knee slapping, table banging, feet stamping, they wipe the tears from their eyes and i walk out from behind the bar to go downstairs to be alone.

but my friend stops me on my way down. he says dont listen to them, theyre assholes. i say thanks. he says so howve ya been? and i tell him in a very roundabout way that im not sure how ive been, i tell him emotional but then try and cover that up with the, very true, fact that nothing is really wrong in my life i am just not sure where all of this emotion is coming from and what it may mean, if anything. and his response is silence. the silence in the dining area has returned as well and over my shoulder i see heads leaned to peer down the hallway we are standing in, looking at me in a very disapproving way. i say what? and he says wooow, mhm, okay. and so i ask him what did i do? and he rolls his eyes and gives me a psh and turns away. then he says youre just not gonna ask me how im doing? whatever man, fuck you, i never liked you anyway i just felt bad for you. fuck you. and he brushes by me, quite hard, and i am stuck again.

slowly, sooo slowly, i backtrack to the front door and i wade thru a pool of boos and shouts, such angry words, they all must let me know that i have wronged them but i just do not know how i am responsible. i feel the guiltiness, it lives in my pockets and weighs me down, but logically i dont understand what ive done. they throw food at me, they have begun to spit, they bring out their torches and pitchforks just as i saunter out of the building, alone, confused, emotionless. it is empty outside.

i am weak and i become weaker with the numbness i afflict on myself each night after this same charade plays out in slightly different ways. i pray it is only a phase, and i do believe this, but i see no light from inside the tunnel, tho i trust its there. before i knock myself out i pray my thanks for my wife, my daughters, my brother. who knows me like them? there are none.

5/20/23

i think im okay and then when i move to the other side of the room and see my reflection in the mirror im surprised to see my face scrunched tight, my cheeks red and covered with tears and snot, i huff and puff and my brain realizes how hurt i am and then i give into it and become the hurt little boy that i have always been, laid on the ground, holding myself, feeling my insides, i writhe in a desperate way, i remember myself as a child again and i remember i am still that child, i was that little boy that little baby boy was me.

but nothing is wrong.

so why do i want so desperately to leave? i wish to run away. i wish to take my wifes hands and run far, far away, to create a home and a different life together. quiet and far away. i know she would do it for me and me for her.

i hurt myself everyday. on accident. i just cant stop it when it begins. the wheels are locked, they do not rotate, but i am on a hill, and there is ice, it is an infinite skid.

i cannot take all of the stimuli. why was i made to be so sensitive? no, i am not gloating for having emotions, i am not an indie tween, i am facing the fact that i become overstimulated too easily. i think everybody is yelling at me. i have done something wrong and i dont know what it is.

i sat near the water on my patch of moss and i jerked my body in different directions, i laid down in a very uncomfortable way on sticks and dirt. i was tweaking and there was no escape, i closed my eyes and saw a kaleidoscope and when it became too much i opened them and saw the forest trying to eat me. i was backed into the corner outside and i gave up. and thats when things began to shape up. then i smiled and said wow. so beautiful. amazing to nobody, i just said them out loud. surely this is a lesson, i trust that i will learn it better with time. then i returned to my wife and we were kids together. i always return to her...

this is just one of those rambles, this is just some puke. i made my mess. ill clean it for you.

so easily frightened, so easily startled

i move thru it all with a hunch

head tilted slightly towards the floor

face tense. just a little

surely something will go wrong, something must go wrong

anticipating 10 steps ahead

thinking in a future that wont necessarily even happen

does that mean i exist in that future?

no, that is too sad

i cant seem to let it go

and that is sad

i am not a sad person

but i am sad right now

i think someday i will run away, i understand that doesnt solve everything but i think it will solve something

5/11/23

i return from my dreams and stretch big and tall, i make my little stretch noise, cute and small, and i decompress in my bed, well rested and comforted. my kitties run to my room and hop up to rub their fur in my face, they sing by purring and i sing back to them with words, in a voice that only they are allowed to hear.

the moment ends when my motivation to move and live inside of this day i have been given has become clear and overtakes the desire to be present and cozy. i must always give myself enough time to return from my dreams. i move so slow...but i would have it no other way.

my room smells like summer. today is the first day i have thought that. i open up the window wider than it was throughout the night, as wide as it can go, and i am blasted in all of my senses with memories of serenity, summer bliss, pure Goodness. i am untouchable for the moment, i have taken a line of a natural drug and i stand still, buzzing in this ecstasy that costs me nothing and gives me everything.

when i clean my kitties litter box i think of burying a body, in a very peaceful way. i said before that the page has turned, and it has, but there is more to it. i have grown new skin. i shed the old and my new molt fits me so nicely. perhaps the old one is what i found in the litter box this morning. i grab my tiny magnifying glass, i inspect carefully with admiration, i see the scratches and bends and holes. oh, you have been such a respectable coat, a suit fit for kings. and i thank you. you are hereby relieved of your duties, effective immediately.

i give the one gun salute and i go to the kitchen to make my coffee, looking forward to the day ahead of me.

5/4/23

the page has turned. i do not need confirmation to know this, but still, it is given to me.

it comes in a few different ways, they are all presented differently, but i see them at the same angle, they appear with the same glow as if i have put on the correct pair of glasses and they pop out at me from this page of the book. the illusion becomes clear, and, i suppose, is no longer an illusion at all. any previous deception has dissolved into the life around me and becomes a part of my environment. just as i exist in this pot of all things that make up what i know this lived experience to be, it is now here with me. and i welcome it, lovingly and with open arms, with hugs and kisses, i welcome it.

i have taken off the old glasses and now i have 20/20 vision, 20/15 actually, the eye doctor was impressed. he changed the lenses on the machine in a way that i had not seen before, a perception my brain had not experienced before, and we were all surprised. there is always more to be found, always more than meets the eye. i could dig forever if i so choose.

there is a steady determination inside of me to become a better father to my daughters and a better husband to my wife. i believe, even with my faults and errors, i have been exceptional to this point but the love that i have, the space which they occupy in my heart, it glows so bright and so vibrant, it radiates throughout my body and provides me heat when i am cold, they stock me full of coal like sweaty, greasy men on a transcontinental train, they smile and sing their chanties together...and it pleases me so. this love moves me to continue to be the best for them. it is all reciprocated.

and i must say, for it deserves to be said and focused on for a moment, perhaps more: an offshoot of this extends to my brothers. and i have many of you. my brothers, those who still remain, for i have also shed many. my brothers, i have waded through high water to find who glows with the same radiance, and here we are, on this new page together. it is us and we are family and i trust you. we shake hands in the way where we firmly grab each others forearms with stretched out fingers, we squeeze and feel muscle, strong yet gentle, more primal and more emotional. we grunt together in a way that says i fuckin love you man, only in this way is the emotion expressed accurately. oftentimes words fail to do justice. and that is a nice thing to remember.

so here i am on this new page, sat by the window with my coffee and my book, my daughter on my lap and the sun shining brightly on both of us. the window is open and the temperature outside is so neutral it feels like nothing and in this moment i am back in the womb, embryonic, without a worry or care, everything is perfect, everything is fine.

the buds on the trees are a very light, very bright green. they double their size each day. i sit still with them and watch as they grow, it is like watching paint dry, though i feel much more satisfied in this scenario. all the trees have to do all day is grow, my brother told me yesterday, and i thought: so do we. and i reflect on that now and nod in agreement with myself from a day ago, feeling that feeling even more than i did in that moment.

oh, i am so clear! i am clancy wiggum whose bronchial tubes are clearing, whose asthma is disappearing, initially i ran from the cloud of antibiotics just as he did, and yes, the acne remains, but it is wonderful that it does because it is real, it can never be perfect, perfect is only real inside of thoughts. i feel as clear as day.

the pieces of dirt and dust have cleared from my vision and here i am, sat by the window, i have turned the music off and instead i hear the birdies. they sing to me and i appreciate them deeply. i look at my daughter and i notice small spots of brown in her hair that i had not noticed before. huh. then i look to my wife, napping on the couch, book laid across her delicious brown chest, and see a tattoo i had not seen before. wow. what else do i have yet to recognize? much, im sure.

4/30/23

and after each thought is followed to its eventual end, the conclusion remains the same. i think i would just like to be left alone.

at my worst i wonder what do you see in me anyways? while at my best i cannot pretend that i do not understand what they see. i have been projected on too many times to remember, but i place blame on nobody because then i would need to place blame on myself, in fairness and as collateral, and i just do not see the point in doing this. i havent met anybody who does not hold on to some form of hope, the kind that lies dormant and perhaps even invisible, so much so that some might explicitly consider themselves "hopeless", even when remembering that you cant exactly feel your physical organs or your blood or your cells or your thoughts either. all it takes is a spark, somebody to come round with that special paper which reveals what one has been absentmindedly scribbling and scribbling with that special type of ink in that special pen. like urine or semen underneath a blacklight. it is compatibility, as it is relatability. understanding. validation. oh, i just wish it were more accessible. more common.

i cannot kid myself, ive never known how. it took me only a very short amount of time to see that i did not want to mold myself to be what other children wanted of me, to be pulled into the drain with most of the others and coming out on the other side with some form of them crushed, put together, and taken apart again, confused. but its not exactly like that either, i am not more brave or valiant or special, i went thru the drain as well, i just did not jump into the water until i had already made up my mind about who i was. knowing, and more importantly, owning, what makes me comfortable.

and that comfortability is often viewed from above as solitary. i have always been a stoic, this much is true. i dont care much to figure out the details on why, i feel no need for an explanation, i know as much as i need to know: it is always a combination of both nature and nurture. it is my soul as it is my parents divorce and packing up bags 3 times each week. my earthly environment harbored perfect conditions for aspects of my existential being to shine, just as im sure it suffocated others. life seems to just be a test anyway, there does not have to be a grand meaning, altho there very well could be too. i feel as tho i change sides on the matter every so often. and i am never wrong in doing so.

i have been raised to be alone for all of my life. it is all i have seen, all i have known, all i have felt. my alone does not mean individuality, just as solitude does not mean isolation. i have relied on others forever and will continue to do so. i recognize and appreciate this beyond measure, i am nothing without others. but i am restricted to a body, one which i am the only host. it may be more complex than this but who i know to be me in this reality we share, i feel as if i am one thing. and i am one thing with a barrier, a body, all tightly sealed and even when part of me breaks open my body regenerates itself in a miraculous way as if to always tell me no, not yet, we are not done here, there is much more left to experience. you will miss this when this test is complete. trust us. and i do. i have been content with my feelings of solitude from a very young age. young enough to shed my feelings of jealousy towards childhood friendships, young enough to entirely avoid feelings of FOMO, i dont even ask questions about who two people are gossiping about. i just dont care. and it is not in a negative careless way, it is in complete neutrality. ahhh, neutrality. the beautiful concept of neutrality.

high, high above on the branch of a tree which shoots upwards, slowly and forever, high enough that there is no ground worth noting, this is where i reside in my ideal life. resting our heads on the others shoulders, it is me and her, mi amor, we sing to each other in soothing and meaningful gestures, in the way that birds do. on this same branch there are others of importance, the others in my little bird life who i exist on the same page as. there are countless other branches around us but it is not crowded, tho there are many more countless birds on these branches. it is loud from the singing but it is so constant it only feels like a humming of white noise which really cancels out to be silence anyway. its a wonderful thing. certainly, other birds can visit this branch and, certainly, i can visit other branches if id like just as well. but we return to our home branches at some point because we cannot all be in each other lives equally, it is an impossibility, one without stability. the tree would shake and crash and we would have nothing. very seldom, other birds will be adopted onto other branches, and it is the most magical thing, and still others may find branches uninhabited and that is okay and it is good, it is change but not constant, drastic change. another aspect of the chaos of what it means to be alive. these are not rules of my own but rather rules of the universe. i love my branch and those i rest on it with.

i love you, i love you all. but i really must be left alone to love in the ways i wish to.

4/29/23

i think it was such a shock to me because i had nothing else, no one else, to blame. i could not spin it in any other way, you stood there in front of me and everything in our surroundings, every little thing, was still. only, entirely, and completely still. i faced you outside of the doorway and you looked at me as i touched my head a few times, waiting to see if there would be blood. i was disoriented in the way that cartoon characters are disoriented when they are bopped on the head with a giant mallet. is it bad? i asked sheepishly. no, oh baby, no, its alright, you responded. i could hear the sympathy in your voice and i felt small. this was not the first time i had walked headfirst, and very hard, into a doorframe. isnt that ridiculous?

we sat on the steps as you held frozen peas to my forehead with one hand and touched my back with your other. you stared in my eyes while i averted the gaze and stared down the stairs, into a very meaningless corner. i feel so embarrassed, i said. you told me that i shouldnt and i responded i know, but i do. then i told you about the time in first grade this happened to me, when i went to use the bathroom and something caught my attention just before exiting the room, i hesitated out of curiosity, i looked at this very ordinary thing for a moment, and when my attention went back to my movement i had already made the error of subconsciously miscalculating where i was situated inside of the room. with my head still turned sideways i went BAM!  and i ran to the bathroom before anyone could see me. i peed in the tiny urinal, still stunned, and then when i looked at the low hanging mirror above the miniature sink, i saw the blue and purple, ping pong ball sized lump that had already grown in and made a home on my head. i was its host. i cried as i stood still in that small bathroom and my sounds were heard by the mother of a classmate who then assisted me to the nurse. i was allowed to wear my winter hat for the rest of the day. i remember stammering to the lunchlady that my teacher said i could after she had told me to take it off. she could see that i was about to cry again and she said okay and let me go. i could hear the sympathy in her voice too.

but on the steps with you i held in my tears. it wasnt until we were in the car that i began to feel them again, after you pointed out that back there, on the steps, i traveled to that tiny bathroom across the hall. i was a first grader again.

how embarrassing i am, how awkward i feel at times. on the inside i feel confidence towards myself but on the outside, in my physical actions, i feel very doubtful, very often, sometimes it is when i am making a cocktail for a guest, sometimes it is when i am having sex with somebody i love, and there are so many more scenarios in-between. i am so doubtful of myself. i compare myself to others and i see that i do not behave like them, i do not feel like i fit inside of many spaces. the older i become the more like a weirdo i feel, the more insecurities i dig up. i think that they must have always been there because certainly i could not have created all of them so quickly and in such an abundance. life is strange in that way.

and i know now that my ultimate insecurity is that i will not be liked anymore, that eventually people will lose interest.

most of the time i begin this process before anyone else has the chance to start, i show them that i am just a normal boy, i cannot be a special person in your life the way that you may want, im sorry, friend, but i cant. i dumb myself down because i do not have the energy to give to as many people as i would like. as they would like. when the calls and texts cease their frequency and at some point stop altogether, i breathe a sigh of relief, like i can finally stop worrying about if they hate me or not yet. i cannot afford to invest myself, my happiness, my content, in other people, i am fine on my own, i am fine, it is preferred, i am fine as i hope you are fine too. im sorry...

but now with you i feel a comfort that i did not know could be there, you are nice to me in ways that people have not been nice to me before. romantic relationships are the one area in which i believe i have tried to invest an authentic version of myself inside of, where another person does influence my stability, and i have done this, and i have succeeded in areas and i have failed in others, i have learned much from them. i remain myself thru it all and i am who i am because of these past situations, in part, of course i am.

but then tell me why this feels so new? i dont ask because im unsure, i already know the answer, i am only getting to the point. it is my impenetrable wall that has come crashing down. it is the rubble that i sit amongst, it is hot and fresh and glows from the inside with foreign things like a meteor from outer space, bringing impossibly distant sensations right into my hands. i hold them delicately and i feel naked in a new way. my insecurities are here and i face them, admittedly very cowardly at first, but i become stronger with each day, each thought, each conversation. i recognize this, i dont struggle with giving myself credit, and i do not struggle to give credit where it is due.

thank you, fi. you dont know how much i am moved by your comfort, by your acceptance and reciprocity, you dont know because i cant tell you accurately. perhaps there are words to describe but i certainly dont know how, at least not yet. forgive me, i am awkward, forgive me, i am embarrassing, thank you for letting me be sorry for the moment.

i choose you, i would choose you every time i am allowed to, and so i will.

4/27/23

i laid there in your bed, eyes closed and wine drunk, and you whispered your secrets into my ear. you stroked my short hair and scratched my scalp and told me tales of your history and of our future travels,  you spoke like a sorceress: quiet, steady, confident. while you cast your spell your hand ran back and forth over my ear and muffled some of the words so i was left to interpret some of the fantasy on my own, the pictures that were painted inside of my head were vivid and i dreamt of them clearly. i admit that in the morning i was both surprised and disappointed that they were not real. happy to be in your bed, but sad that we were not south of the equator, near the water and the jungle and the mountains and the warmth. you planted these seeds last night and they are already budding.

so now i am in my own bed, i am looking outside of my window at all of the buds on the trees and i feel a certain kind of relatability. what an impressionable boy i am, to have mi amor express her intimate wishes to me, to have this shake the idea of what i imagine my future to be so much that there is not one thing left untouched. my tectonic plates shifted in my sleep, i broke the richter scale and now my structure will never be the same. the chasm split wide open, new elements are fusing with the old, time goes on and i become an enhanced version of myself, constantly, continuously, always always always. miraculously, there were no casualties. but, in hindsight, this is the only possibility anyway.

to have these dreams come true we will have to get married first. you know this already, just as i have known. i must tell you a secret of my own, part of the reason i enjoy making these playlists is also a fantasy, imagining a future where i can show our children the timeline of music we listened to and cherished together. you have only just called me about taking out your IUD, are the stars aligning? oh, what a joy it is to be dramatic! what a thrill! perhaps we will get married in sandpoint, idaho, the closest we can get to fingerbone. how romantic it would be. what a story to tell our hijos, what a high bar we would set for their expectations! will i buy a house or will we roam first? when will we adopt our dog with teeny tiny legs? when will we only speak in spanish together? i will study as soon as im finished gushing about you in this diary of mine...

these painted pictures are real, i can smell the oil drying, and so we glance at each other in our workspace and nod, silently, in agreement, accepting that this is real and true. and we continue on with our masterpiece.

(...and the ducks...we watched the ducks fly far, far away and then come back, so gracefully, we watched them silently and to completion...)

(...love makes you do crazy things...it certainly does...)

4/23/23

close to you...so close to you. i have never been closer to you, i have never been closer to anyone. a wall of mine came crashing down, a wall i did not know could crumble, in fact i still only believe it because i watched it fall that night, i sat in the rubble and felt this brand new emotion that covered me like the dust of all the impenetrable fortresses which were eventually proven wrong. this was not just the normal quarter ounce alteration of a liqueur, this was an entirely new base spirit.

you told me you thought that i was laughing. when it began i seem to remember you laughing a little bit back, in response, until you realized that it wasnt laughter coming out of my mouth. at the time, i couldnt tell what was happening either, but i knew it wasnt laughter. oh my god, im in love with you. fi, im in love with you. that was when this new thing began to boil, it built and rose higher like the deepest breath youve ever taken, it fills up the lungs and then the throat and finally it overflows from the mouth because there is nowhere else to go.

i shook and i wept and i clawed at your back and grabbed for your head, i made sounds and you told me, in your gentle voice, its okay, its okay. i was stuck inside of you, i kept my tool in the toolbox, he became limp inside of his home and cozied up to spend the night while the neighbors made a ruckus. i was naked on the outside and now that my impenetrable fortress was penetrated i felt naked on the inside too.

oh, but i welcome this visitor, there has never been a doubt. she isnt here to wage war on me, she is here with vegan chocolates and flowers, she looks around at the destruction and begins to clean, she smiles at me and motions for me to join. so i do. we have built a bridge between our own houses, like frida and diego, but only the good parts of them. our separate units become one home and we are happy.

how has this happened? i thought it impossible. but here i am again, i face the rubble, and i am not a stubborn man. my guardian angels are throwing their numbers at me more frequently, more forceful, than ever before. they dance around me like dogs when their owners come back from a long trip. so i laugh and am careful not to let them get too much slobber on my face, i try my best to settle them and tell them i know, i know, i see you, i feel it too. they whine in excitement and i do too.

i will never forget that night.

4/17/23

the doors part for me and i step inside. the sounds of the cars goes away and then i begin to hear the soft sound of many peoples voices, many peoples feet and their luggage with wheels, in a large area with tall ceilings. i step inside the building and there is not a sliver of anything inside of me but peace.

i dont wait for a single person, i walk straight up to the TSA man and he checks my ID and says riley? and i say yes and he says thank you and i thank him back. its the quickest its ever been and for that i am grateful. i walk slowly in the direction of my gate, i meander between all of the many people and i feel hugged by all the colors, all of the energies that are around me, they all come together to make their own thing and that thing feels like a hug. i look inside of the stores without the intention of buying anything. "window shopping" as my mom calls it. i turn a corner and hear a xylophone and then i see the xylophone man at the airport.

he plays with both hands, two wands in each. he is so skilled it boggles my mind while i try to grasp the idea of controlling both of your hands in two different ways and make such pretty sounds. he plays old songs i recognize but do not know the names of, i have sat down right in front of him and he is my soundtrack as i look around. i think of the brian eno album and i find it fitting. the rest of the audience is old, retired age, and its confirmed when one man talks to the xylophone man about his wife and him getting back from costa rica. do you play in a jazz band? yeah, we saw jazz bands down in costa rica, lots of marimbas, oh they have them on the sidewalks and boats, everywhere, it was marvelous. were going back to the upper peninsula now. yup, thank you. and then another woman, standing behind me: is it alright if i take your picture? i want to wait for you to play. and so he plays after joking to her that he feels nervous. they laugh quiet laughs. she holds the camera out, very far, with one hand and she squints her eyes to concentrate, the other hand, pointer extended, tapping the large electronic shutter. i wish i could have seen how it turned out. i drop some cash in his fish bowl tip jar and i say thank you and he says thank you back and we smile.

there are so many people to walk thru. so many people doing different things, speaking different languages, smelling differently, different paces and postures, levels of volume and attention. my favorites are the couples who sit together and do not speak, they stare at the crowd that moves around them with positive neutrality and i am in love with that. i wish for this to be me, much later in my life and then i think of you and i think that this is what we would do and how i have always wanted a partner like this, to sit in quiet observation with and hold hands and appreciate and exude love to the world by simple stillness, i become so appreciative of you.

(i am remembering yesterday when you told me i think ive been falling in love with the wrong people all this time and how these words resonated with me so badly it reverberated thru my whole body, i am reminded of this when i see the silent couples and how i see this thing i have yearned for forever becoming more real, the blurriness is becoming clearer, what a strange and specific thing to feel but oh, mi amor, i feel it so strongly. thank you. thank you for the time we share and for this house we are building together. oh, our scrapbook will be thick.)

to be a stranger around strangers, to show kindness to those i will never cross paths with again, there is so much meaning in these interactions. they hold so much value because they are so incredibly mundane, unimportant to the brain, in and out the other ear, forgotten about forever but so slightly altering the course of your life. the grand canyon was not carved in one day.

i make it to my gate and we are overbooked. the flight attendant asks for volunteers to be pushed back to the flight 6 hours later and receive a $700 gift certificate. we all look around at each other like school kids in their classroom, smiling a specific smile that is viciously curious- whos going to do it?! for a moment we are kids again.

you know that expression online that goes something like "that girl at the airport you see once and remember for the rest of your life"? i just cant help but feel that way about everybody. when i see you i see you, i make up stories for you based off of your look, i judge a book by its cover but it is not in a bad way and it is also not in a good way, it is in a very neutral and human way. i am sitting with my back to the plane, i hear the wind smoothly slicing against the windows, i watch and observe, i see and i feel, i am severely blubbering on the inside but on the outside i remain still as i slowly spread my peanut butter onto my blueberry bagel. my napkin falls to the floor and i watch it fall in slow motion. it moves at the same rate that i do. i think ill pick it up when im finished eating and i lift my head back up to take in all the life around me.

tell me, does anywhere contain as much magic as the airport? is there such a place? i am convinced there is not, tho i always welcome a surprise.

4/13/23

it is morning. it is day number four of perfect weather: sun high, clouds gone, temperature in the 80s. it is our first taste of summer and it feels as if i have eaten every meal with you, mi amor. i am tiptoeing around the house so as not to wake you from your well deserved sleep and i am absorbing the sunshine that comes in thru the open windows, spending a lazy morning with the cats and the stillness. it feels perfect.

this morning i am reflecting on our relationship, our very new (but not entirely new) way of living, living alongside each other, living in the others company. this, too, feels perfect. it has been perfect. it forces me to think of the messes i have been with other romances, i feel a bit of guilt for the ways in which i have dumped onto them, tho i do not feel shame, i am just a boy. i say this because i find myself surprised at this room we are decorating together, how effortlessly magical it seems to come together, how a feeling so intense could be found so easily. mi amor, i cant help but feel you have found me when i have won the lottery, when my anxiety and fear have settled enough for me to truly shine on the world, a state of being i have yearned for indefinitely. but i dont feel as tho it has happened by chance. it is not as random as ping pong balls with little numbers being chosen from a spinning barrel and announced on television. mi amor, thru divine insight and in an entirely natural way, i am convinced you were the one who handed me the winning ticket.

we spoke yesterday of marriage and children, how these are fantasies one thinks of in any relationship, how we have thought about them with the other already. last week i suggested, intently, that we watch la la land, the sole reason being to experience the montage at the end with you, when we are gifted the pleasure of seeing mia and sebastian in another life, married, with a child, a fantasy come to life, if only they had chosen love over work. we cried together and talked about love and i knew then as i know now that you and i will always choose love. how foolish it would be to do anything else!

two days ago we ventured into the outdoors, alone, and there we remained for all of the afternoon. we trudged our way thru snow and mud, laughing and moving forward, calmly, despite the weather and time of year making it slightly more difficult than a casual walk in the park. we built a bridge over a river. i cannot get over how beautiful a thing that is, it is one of my proudest achievements, i mean this sincerely, i told you that day was the most romantic day i had ever had, i mean this sincerely too, i cannot recall having lived thru another day which has moved me as greatly as the one we had two days ago. i find myself bound to you in ways i may never know how to explain, even to myself.

he and she eloped to the woods, gathering branches they conquered the flood below them and made it to the other side, deserted and far away from all else except for the birds and the ducks and the otters and the deer. he and she passed this test with higher marks than the rubric allowed and it was a testament to their love. he and she brought it into the world to live with them, in the brown muck of the earth this love was birthed and cried out for all to hear, tho it was only them and the animals, in this eden nothing is forbidden. in this eden there is only harmony.

4/9/23

i wouldnt call them nightmares, but they were not good dreams.

i dreamt a small and slow critter moved around my legs, not menacing, they had the body of a skunk with the black and white fur, tho they were more round instead of long, and the face was that of an aardvark. i was not scared. i chose to pet them with my barefoot and when i moved they pounced, with speed only achievable in dreams, and i was frightened so intensely it felt like somebody had screamed very loudly in my face when i had only just before been surrounded by silence. i jolted upright in my real bed in my real room and my heart was beating very fast. then i noticed my foot was cramping. i looked down to my legs and there was no critter. it took me a moment to relax and fall back asleep.

i dreamt then that kit and i were on scooters, we had just been somewhere like a mall, but that is not important. we scootered around the streets of my moms neighborhood and it became dark with that same dreamlike speed, quicker than a blink. we arrived at my moms house but then i said do you want to scooter more? and they smiled and said yeah. so we did until i realized that i was late for work. so we went back to my moms and then i realized i was not late, that i still had time, and i turned to look at them and asked do you work tonight with me? and they said no, i havent worked there in a long time. and then i realized that they were right, and then i realized that we have never worked together at all. i shook my head and told them i feel delirious. they replied that they did too and we were delirious together in the darkness of a nighttime dream.

i dreamt later that i was rubbing my little tool on your power button. it felt heavenly. i woke up and i was hard, so hard, hard and looking for you to make this dream cum true and then i became confused when you were not with me. i laid here in my bed with the blackout curtains drawn and the sounds from outside began to register in my brain again: cars passing, dogs barking, people outside walking and talking because it is spring again in minneapolis, it is a sunday, and it is also actually easter. so many things began to swirl around in my head and i felt nauseous with the information. i felt delirious in real life now.

i remembered that i drank a lot of coffee and then took a two hour nap during midday and that is probably why i feel nauseous and delirious. i wouldnt call it a good feeling, but i cannot deny that its a very special one.

what do to with all of this emotion? what to do with all this love?

there is still much self doubt that lives inside of me

i am unsmiling in my room yet again, i have cried twice for very small but meaningful reasons (both of the times i was heavily moved by songs, one new to me and one old to me)

god. today is a day i feel so much

but i am a deserving person, no matter my mood

4/8/23

i am prolonging sleep, as long as i can, as long as i am holding on to this feeling, and it feels perpetual, it is so real and honest i can hold it in my hand, i am holding it right now and it is plump and full and magical. it is a gift i have received and i treat it just like that. i have unwrapped and rewrapped the packaging so many times already, delicately, with so much care that you could not tell it has ever been opened before. a gift just for me, un regalo solo para mi, its so lovely in my hand.

i only want to stay awake, even tho i know when i rest my eyes and enter into sleep i will see you there, i just really like this moment and i wish to stay here for a while more, a bit longer, i am holding onto it as long as i can.

i feel you so deeply. i drink my green liquor and i taste you, i close my eyes and i smell you, i pucker my lips and i am met with yours.

oh, i cant sleep now. i am too high on this feeling. and nothing special has even happened tonight, yes we saw each other and it was magical, but we both returned home and i am alone, only wishing to remain nostalgic for the night that has not even ended yet. i wont let it.

i am listening to the playlist and i want to add more songs. i concentrate hard and i am transmitting them to you, is your radio on? are you catching my frequency in your dreams, mi amor? tune in to me and i will sing you some lullabies. i want to add more songs, i think i will just begin a new playlist already. already, yes, i only sent you the newest one today, but i am always moving in my love for you, our love together, always wanting to show you more, the feeling is wonderful because you understand and you are there alongside me, you keep our pace and we match our strides, we finish the race in a tie. but this race has no finish, who are we kidding?

...

but for now i surrender. i am giving in to my sleepy eyes and achey body, i am willing to fall asleep holding this feeling with the understanding that it will present itself again when you reignite the flame i feel towards you, when it becomes my stress ball again, when we can caress each other once more and be still and silent and smiling. when we can speak to each other without bright lights and foggy smoke and loud music, tho i am in love with these interactions with you as well. oh, i know it will be soon, i just wish i could hold on to it a bit longer.

for tonight, i surrender. i am hopping into my bed to see you in my dreams.

i am perplexed, so much so, how you remind me of memories you were never a part of, how the senses you provide me with throw me back in time, far back, before i knew the extent of what certain feelings can reach, the peaceful nature in which i reside in these moments, my most serene state of being, your presence thrusts them back in my face and my understanding of time and of life is challenged. you have unzipped pieces of me and i would only like to keep opening them further. and all you are is yourself. how amazing. who are you? and what are you to me, who will you become to me? oh, i have a feeling. thank you, mi amor, i choose you, i will choose you everytime. goodnight.

4/6/23

the sun hovers high in the sky and the field stretches all the way to the horizon. i feel the joy of a wedding in the spring but there is no party, only me and her. it is peacefully silent aside from the noise the sun makes, heating up my body and the grass around me. i feel an intense happiness that crosses wires in my brain and makes me feel many different things, i meditate on it and, again, i find the blankness that is the present and it is where i reside. it is where she and i decorate the room within the home we are building. it is the constant that is always there, always hugging me and everybody else. i am one man in a two person audience to the drone of the cicadas and the crickets, the ambient soundtrack of a still life. i throw my bouquet of flowers i have just picked on to their stage and then they play us an encore.

no, i would never choose anything over love. of course, some situations may be more logical, more personally motivated, but that doesnt factor into my decision at all. i know what love feels like, i do know what i want, i choose to walk in that direction and i will, in the end, every time. what sacrifice could i make that would be more important than choosing love? it doesnt exist. i am not alive to feel anything greater than love, it is my perpetual priority.

i am upset with a person who i am scared of, she has hurt me, branded me with a wound which was not malicious but which still hurts the same. i have been afraid of her opinions about me and i am finished with it. it disgusts me to think about. i am allowing myself to be angry at the situation without reserve, i feel now that this is the way in which my brand will heal and fade into a battle wound, a scar, a scar which becomes less noticeable over time. i shake my head in an aggressive way and shoo away these dwindling feelings i had invested, i gambled and i lost the bet, my stocks plummeted and i was bankrupt yet i continued on with my private flights and upscale dining. no more. i face the music like the man that i am and it feels incredible, it is the strong breeze against sweaty skin on a warm day, i am cooled off and im chill, im chill, im chill.

no, i would never choose anything over love. i know how to hold my Ls and move on, i accept defeat all the time, how the fuck could i not? this is where i learn. teach me god dammit! torture me until i recite our safe word, burn this into my brain so i cannot forget! teach me god dammit!!! sometimes i am a masochist. perhaps i can be more aggressive than i give myself credit for. god dammit. just get this shit over with so i can move on...

i am back in the field that stretches all the way to the horizon. the sun is still high in the sky and it still radiates with the sound of a cloudless summer day. yes, she is still here too. oh, she has been patient. mi amor. thank you. i would never choose anything over love. i choose you. i choose you too, i will choose you every time.

3/31/23

in the mornings, when i stand on my feet for the first time and assess my bed, i see that my comforter has not moved from the corners and i know that i have slept well. to make my bed for the day i only need to fold over the entry point and i am finished.

i slept like a baby. there was no tossing, no turning, no dreams too intense to stay asleep thru, i went to bed and then 7 hours later i woke up. oh, its a blessing. today and everyday, it is a blessing.

3/25/23

i am running around, running around, running around

from place to place, consistently late, all over town

i see so many angel numbers on so many license plates

and when i return home i look a human angel in her face

it is the nights when my temptations creep out from the closet

they are perpetual, they are ugly, they are the leakiest faucet

but i am strong because i am cool and i care about me

i dance thru life, i have shed some more fear, oh...

im just so happy

3/24/23

mi amor, remember when i told you that i am never scared to love? yes, it is still true, in fact it may be my curse, the wicked witch of the midwest had a point to make and she took a piece of my newborn heart for herself and so i was born with a hole in my love organ, but despite her efforts i filled it in on my own. from an infant, my soul has instructed my body to gather love in all areas i find it in, i have become a magnet to the color of love, and altho i am unsure of when my original goal of refilling my most precious body part was completed, i am aware that it kickstarted a chain reaction which does not stop, it is my own version of nuclear energy, i am radioactive but i do not poison those around me, i only fill them with the color of love. i will never believe that it is insidious. i have no choice. my heart grows three sizes too big but i would not have it any other way.

mi amor, thank you for allowing me to be dramatic. i must feel things out as i type, i know you understand, oh, my love. i am not scared to love, i have had many fears in my life, i continue to try and shed them all, but i have never entertained the idea of being afraid to feel the thing which is the reason for life. it is not in my dna. mi amor, i am only rambling all of this to you because i must describe this new sensation i am feeling, i am scared to death of heights and i have never gone skydiving but it feels as tho i have willingly jumped out of a plane, us strapped into our parachute together, our backs too the ground with no idea of how high we are and how long we will be suspended in this mile high dance together, oh my god, it is a thrill, i have never tasted a thrill of this flavor.

mi amor, my emotions! my emotions and my brain! i have been all over the place. mi amor, i do not often get jealous, i do not have any doubt about us, i trust that we will go wherever we need to go; and i have a very good feeling of where that direction is. i suspect you do too. but i recognize that i am in the irreplicable place of love with a new soul, all loves are different, and we paint such a pretty picture together. it is our masterpiece. mi amor, i have no reservations about us, we are only moving together and we hold hands and we share it with the world and we are unafraid, mi amor, forgive me for rambling but i must get this out of my body. i am rocking and swaying with my words again, i wish you were here to see me, i wish you were here for many reasons.

its our firm eye contact when i am slow inside of you, its the smell of your soul when i suck on your neck, its the notes i find from you and the surprises you always seem to have for me, its the touches and the shared emotion we so comfortably sit in together. its your small giggles and the way i find you so funny, so adorable, so intelligent and so in tune with your feelings. its our reciprocity. i read the book that you created for me again and it made me cry, you are a poet as much as you are an illustrator. its our reciprocity. more than anything, it is our reciprocity, it is so wonderful it can feel as tho i am looking into a mirror, but i am not met with my reflection, instead i am face to face with another human body, just as beautiful as i am, just as full of love.

have i truly been introduced to someone who loves the way i do, who matches it, who teaches me and grows it?

mi amor, i am so excited about you. to where will we go? oh, time will tell. we cannot go too slow and we cannot go too fast, we cannot move in any direction that will not be the one we are meant to go in.

3/22/23

it is cool to care, ive known it my whole life, another invaluable lesson from my mother, it is cool to care! it is the coolest thing in the world to care, to show others that you care about them and you care about yourself, that you are trying at something, anything, everything, that you are devoting time and energy to the things worth caring about, which is everything, it is it all, all of the time, all of the things that provide health and love and healing and happyness!

today is another day where i wake up sleepy and with an upset stomach and a little baby headache, it is alright because ive made my bed and slept in it for years now, but today is another day where i would like to change my sheets, i do not have to keep living this way, i will not, it will not be perfect but today is another day that i choose to care, to face my actions head on and shake my head to wake up from this dream and get back on my path because i care and that is cool, yes i have goals, i have many of them! they will take time but i have time! so much time, i have so much of it, i will accomplish so much, for nobody elses sake than my own, i am cool because i care about myself and by extension and will i care about everything, everybody, else.

i extend my love to all of my friends, i give money thru car windows, i hand out books to my chosen family, i laugh and i play and i feel with everybody that i interact with, it is cool to care and i care deeply, deeper than my heart was once able to go, i am mining my insides, not for extraction, but for discovery, i uncover the monolith on the moon like the astronauts in 2001 and that monolith is knowledge, yes, but it is also love, i have discovered the monolith and touched it, i have tapped into its secrets, i am elevated because of this thing ive had within me this entire time, i only needed to discover it.

yes, today i care and today i become even cooler than before. 

i am mia in la la land leaving her date and running to catch sebastian at the movie theater. i am talking about you, yes, you, you are an inspiration and i understand that i am projecting but i have never shied away from tapping into inspirations before, come care with me and we will be cool together, yes, this is about you.

oh, im crying those same tears, the tears for myself, for my body, for the disruption ive put myself thru.

oh, im crying out of love for myself.

i think of that photo of my mother in her little pink dress, she couldnt be more than 10, how adorable she looked and how much love i have for her, my real mother, not the mother that is the universe i so often talk about, but the human who brought me into this beautiful and magical world. but in fact my human mother is the bridge to my universe mother. my human mother is the closest thing i have to a real life heaven.

oh, its time for a break. i must refrain from it all for a moment, get my bearings, i will be back and i will be alright, i just need a break.

i cry and shake and my kitty comes and comforts me and i am so in love with her. she discovered that all she needed was love and i think me too, moody. we are so happy together.

i think of my bowels, my lungs, my heart, my brain, my bladder, my pelvic floor muscles, how much work i have put them thru, i would like to give them a break.

i remember when i told my ex i would take a two week break and i only made it thru one before i said fuck it. and how she was disappointed in me and that made me mad at her in an unfair way. oh, its a complicated topic but i am remembering that right now.

oh, i have so many things i would like to accomplish. remember that time i read "i stopped drinking alcohol because i realized it was getting in the way of my goals"? and how much it impacted me? yes, i am remembering that now too.

life is flowing thru me so freely now. i am free, i am unbound, i am limitless.

all of my dreams have been vivid and weird, sometimes frightening, they impact me too much i cannot sleep thru them. that and having to get up to pee in the middle of the night. and the one time i pissed the bed. i must take a break, i must reassess, for nobody elses sake but my own.

i am in love with myself and it is cool to care. i am cool! i am cool and i am the coolest to myself!

I AM AWAKE, I AM HERE AND I AM ALIVE, I AM UNBOUND BY ANY SUBSTANCE OR ANYTHING OUT OF MY CONTROL, I AM A STOIC AND I ABIDE BY MY OWN PRINCIPLES, I REFUSE TO BE PERSUADED AND LED DOWN THE LONG HALL TO HELL, I AM ANGRY AND HAPPY AT THE SAME TIME, TELL ME HOW IT FEELS TO READ THIS EMOTION, IF YOU DO NOT FEEL ME IN THESE WORDS THEN YOU DO NOT KNOW ME, I HEALED MY LEG THRU WILL AND THRU HABIT, EVEN WHEN I THOUGHT IT WAS HOPELESS, HOW FOOLISH I WAS, I AM A BEING FROM GOD, AS ARE YOU, MY FRIENDS, THERE IS A POWER IN US WE DO NOT OFTEN TALK ABOUT BUT IT IS THERE, ALWAYS THERE, I WANT TO HEAL MYSELF ALL OVER AND SO I WILL, NOBODY CAN STOP ME BECAUSE IT IS ENTIRELY UP TO ME, I AM HEALING MYSELF AS I TYPE, I AM MANIC, ME LLEVAN PA'L MANICOMIO, PERO ESTOY BIEN, PORQUE SOY BUENO, I AM RUNNING AGAIN I AM EXERCISING AGAIN I AM WORKING OUT AND STRETCHING AND REFRAINING, I AM SHOWING MY CONTROL BECAUSE WITH EACH GOOD DECISION I REGAIN BITS THAT I HAVE LOST ALONG THE WAY, THERE ARE HOLES IN MY POCKETS BUT I AM SEWING THEM BACK UP, DAY BY DAY, SOON MY WARDROBE WILL BE COMPLETE, SOON I WILL BECOME MORE STABLE, SOON I WILL KNOW HOW TO ACCESS MY FAVORITE PARTS OF ME MORE EASILY, THEY CANNOT ONLY BE ACCESSED THRU DRUGS AND ALCOHOL, THAT IS NOT A WORLD THAT I LIVE IN, I AM SURE OF THIS, I AM HEALING MYSELF AND IT IS AN EXTRAORDINARY FEAT, I WANT TO BE BRAVE AND SO I AM BRAVE, I WANT TO BE COURAGEOUS AND SO I AM COURAGEOUS, I AM STRONG AND LEVEL HEADED AND CALM AND DELIGHTFUL, TAKE A BITE OF ME AND TASTE HOW SWEET I AM, I WAS ONLY MADE TO PLEASE! MYSELF FIRST! ALWAYS MYSELF FIRST!

3/21/23

my bike led me up to concourse, at the base of the building that stretched as long as a city block and  stood at least 10 stories tall. there were no rooms except the one, with more folding chairs than i could conceive, my brain could not load them as far as they went. it was like looking out into the ocean, only without the feeling of serenity.

there were words on the outside of this building, some portraits as well, that now seem as tho a computer must have generated them. misspellings and misplaced apostrophes looked to be an attempt at portraying a feeling of history, as tho this megachurch follows some ancient, divine, unquestionable truth instead of one only recently created. in my memory now the paintings looked like vladimir lenin on the face of a church of scientology and it is very odd.

i have heard stories of friends walking into a scientologist church and being questioned, borderline accused, alongside aggressive attempts to convert or give money. this is why i have never entertained the idea of walking inside one, no matter how drawn to the large structures i am, no matter how intrigued i am thru sheer human curiosity. but this was no church of scientology, it was something different, something somehow more inviting yet creepier still because i knew nothing at all instead of small horror stories. it was nearly empty except for a sermon going on in the front left corner. so i parked my bike and came into observe.

from the outside the building appeared to be empty in its grand scale, but inside it was still a large gathering. i had to watch the priest or whatever he may be called do his preaching thru a tv screen because i could not see him myself. every sinner there was rabid with religion, jumping out of their seats, screaming at the same time, desperate for forgiveness and brimming with judgement, and the man who spoke spoke slow and quiet and engaged very little. i left quickly because i was frightened.

i tried to bike down the winding ramp to get off the elevated concourse but was stopped by a woman in a black suit, a recruiter, an ambassador, and a liar. she scared me more than the service. she yelled at me impersonally, only reciting her speech she must have burned into her memory, the one she tries and succeeds to brainwash people into becoming sinners, i biked passed her, she now ran behind me yelling like a megaphone, and when i looked over the edge my winding ramp was now infinite. and yet she was still at the bottom, waiting for me.

there was no choice but to resort to some place in the middle of the area i was in, the massive and beautiful courtyard of this massive and beautiful building, i swirled around with nobody else yet in sight but knowing that they would descend on me soon. i watched the skyline all around me, so close but still impossibly far away, enclosing me further on this trap of a lawn. i knew my fate, i knew i would become a sinner, but still, i was only in awe of the building i was looking at.

3/20/23

after pressing on the emotion all day, he collapsed on his bed and laid there, crooked and panting, his hand attempting to rest over his heart but bouncing off his chest with every pump. he understood then, this was no mystery, the heart beats like this for one reason:

oh my. ive taken the first step towards falling in love.

what is going on upstairs? the squirrels are stirring again. but this time they move at a normal pace, if i could see them i know that they would be walking, and i appreciate them for this. i cant always handle their outbursts, but this is alright. for now.

there is order to this walk. there are much more of them and they have taken over space that was previously unoccupied. they have even added space to this building on their own and i am impressed with them. they move with silence and grace like the men from fight club who are making all the soap. im a bit uneasy because i know that this is different, i know that there was a shift. i know that this ones a big deal. the ball took off rolling and it is out of my hands, i am tyler durden, confused and acutely aware at the same time.

i dream when i am awake and i feel all types of different sensations, new ones, every day. i close my eyes and i have visions that do not make any sense but they provide me with great emotion. i am stirring myself as much as the squirrels upstairs.

i will see what they do to me and when the time comes, i hope i can accept that it is right. i probably told them to do it. 

i just want to regain control. thats all.

3/19/23

i am lost at sea, i am in the thick of it, i am twirling in the whirlwind, but like any strong captain i laugh thru it all! because it is a thrill, because i am confident. i am so confident.

i am happy, i am content, i am thrilled with myself and the life i have made, the life i have found myself in, the life i exist in. when things do not go the way that they would in movies i accept it outright, no questions asked, unless i am curious, then i analyze until i am satisfied, but it is good and it is healthy in either scenario. i am not stubborn, no, i have never been stubborn but still i amaze myself at how willing and nonchalant i continue to become. i am growing, i am growing into my adulthood wardrobe. i sacrifice nothing and i am comfortable as i carefully unwrap deeper truths of myself.

i wipe the blood from my thighs with a damp handful of toilet paper, and i grin because of how intimate this is. if this makes me a weirdo then so be it! frustration alongside ecstasy, pleasure with dissatisfaction, sensations of all sorts, tears, saliva, and the blood that stains our groins and legs and hands and faces and everything else we touch, we paint the room with human liquids before it has time to dry on our limbs. we begin the creation of a masterpiece and it is unfinished yet. mi amor, only we together can create this color, it is the scent of us together, filis cecilia and riley jack, how beautiful we wrestle together! the love is palpable, it is thick! i can taste it now just thinking of it. i am salivating, blood is rushing down below my waist as i type, i rock and sway with these words and i yearn for you, mi amor, we have all the time left in our newly discovered world to continue our masterpiece.

i am starstruck by a person i know, she is a celebrity and i am the fangirl, but no, it is only sweet, full of respect and admiration, i am starstruck with inspiration and honor.

i scroll thru your old photos and the love continues to swell and pulse and i smile all across my face and it fills me with joy to hear you describe your past and i cannot help but so tenderly hold this feeling of honor that you are here with me in this moment, that we are sharing our black coffees and personal histories on this sunday morning after another night together. we share scars and stories and above it all, we share love. we create beauty from our love alone.

like any strong captain, i abide by the storm, i take my hands off of the large wooden steering wheel and watch it move slowly in response to the waves, i back away calmly and gently close the door to the wheelhouse. i cannot control the larger movement, the abstract snowball effect of these perpetual and marvelous avalanches, and i do not fear it, i have so much trust in the natural chaos that many would consider me a fool. but to this i laugh to myself and return to my quarters, i lay in my hammock and smoke my pipe as this raging storm rocks me to sleep, like a baby boy, i am cradled. i dream of many things and she is in all of them.

i ask my cats are you happy? everyday and they can only look up at me with their big owl eyes, head cocked to the side, their expressionless mouth. they answer instead by rubbing their bodies against my ankles and plopping down beside me to turn over and stretch nice and long, inviting me to pet their tummies. of course im happy, im allowing you to touch my belly, would you make me even happier?

i ask them this everyday. on some days it is innocent and cute, i would say on most days it is, but on others, in hindsight, it feels like a plea. i ask them if they are happy because i am not and i need them to be happy for me. i struggle with determining how true this is but certainly there is, at least, a small inkling of truth in this that i feel the need to validate.

are you happy? i ask myself in the mirror in my mind. i am so happy that sometimes it makes me feel sad. how does this make sense? it doesnt. how can i explain this? well, old pal, im not so sure you can. but thats alright, isnt it? yes, it is. there are others out there who feel this too, im sure, im sure because ive met them and just as i know that this feeling is true and real because i have felt it (so often i have felt it), i feel it with them. it is strictly personal but, entirely because of this, it is so easily shared.

i smoke my cigarettes and drink my liquor because i want to be healthy.

i forget to eat my food because i am hungry, hungry for it all, so hungry.

i dont sleep well anymore because i am finally well rested.

these things make sense, i promise you, they make sense, if you understand me then surely you understand what i mean when i answer my own question with i am so happy that sometimes it makes me feel sad. "am i happy with the life that im living?" "oh, im crying now." the whiteboard in my mind is full of ideas and thoughts and expressions and i rearrange the magnets as i can and i erase the drawings my friends have left me, some having been there for years, but nothing is forever and i need a new start, constantly i need new starts.

but the best things only need one start.

i was stopped at the stoplight when my cars clock turned to 11:11. i clicked my phone and it read the same so i put my pointer finger on the screen to touch the number and send my magic to it, to unite our energies and give my wish the one start that it needs to succeed. i wished and the screen was black again when i opened my eyes, it was tilted in the perfect way for the sunlight to highlight my fingerprint left on the surface and i thought it was the prettiest thing. i thought about taking a screenshot for one moment before i remembered that isnt how screenshots work. it was a beautiful wish and i will be sure to inform you when it comes true. you, yes, you.

i tilt my head back and howl into the air, i moan very loud, very long, very hard, i howl for it all. this sadness is not all bad. there is much to learn and much to feel from it.

3/12/23

and now when i walk, i walk with a grace previously unknown to me. i have a pep in my step but this pep refers to elegance rather than speed- i still move slowly, thru it all, slowly, deliberately.

there is a gape in my chest. it is an open wound. im nervous to get my juices on people but i come to terms with this, we all have them, mine is just acting up more than usual at the moment. the strange thing about it is that i hadnt noticed it until a few days ago. i am very vulnerable and a little bit weak, more solemn than is typical for me. i am alone but i am surrounded by love.

but no, i am not alone. there is somebody else who walks alongside me.

have i grieved my loss? yes, i have, it began before the end. so i ask myself is the grieving over? maybe. if its not it is close. i am losing my attachment to the grief, i know this because i feel it. but regardless, i am aware that the grief has not entirely subsided. i would like to say the dust is settling if im allowed to use that phrase for the hundredth time.

i worry not about the past, i feel entirely present. i look over to my companion walking with me and she turns her head as well, she shines at me like a lighthouse and has the grace which i have also seen in my own step. i can smell her scent even when we are out of arms reach, just as strongly as when i am nuzzled into her neck.

she turns back to face forward, lighting her own way, and i do the same...and i just cannot help but notice that our paths are both brighter in the company of the other.

3/11/23

i dont think you know what you want. oh, it hurts, it hurts because its true and i know that its true. when this phrase was spoken at me it left an imprint on my brain and i felt it would rattle around within me for a while, the little marble that breaks up the paint so it can spray out of the can. oh, it hurts to hear.

my dad mailed me our xbox from 2001 but it wont read any of our games even after i surgically opened it up, blew away the 20 year old dust, cleaned the lens, the laser, and sewed it back together. i knew what i wanted here but it didnt work out. i am so sad about it. like a child, i still clutch an unrealistic optimism that it will work, somehow, if i just keep trying, i have a death grip on this hope with my stubby, sticky, snotty fingers. but miracles are rare. and surely they wouldnt be performed on a video game console.

i have read that i can increase the lasers strength to pierce thru the muck and the fog and the battery acid that has built within the system in a last ditch effort to read these ancient, scratched up discs at the small cost of, effectively, beginning the countdown of the end of its life. to increase the lasers strength is unstable, but my brain is yelling at me to do it. it seems i have grown to give into impulses, i have fed the child for too long and i am throwing tantrums at myself when i do not get my way. it is an odd thing to reckon with.

i do not need to say one word on how this parallels my real world actions so i will not.

i dreamt last night that a faceless man, a man i did not like, a man who represents the wrongs of men, punched me in my face when i was with a woman who he was intimately involved with. before the punch he scolded me and i stood there and took it, like a kid being reprimanded, i was caught. he punched me and i threw the glass of water i was holding at the floor so as not to retaliate against him and then there was a puddle at all of our feet. i woke up and thought i had wet the bed but i had not. the strangest part is that this is not a strange occurrence.

perhaps i do know what i want but it is not sustainable. but life is not sustainable, honey. i could talk myself in circles. oh, it just hurts sometimes is all.

3/6/23

on the floor we faced each other and we were crosslegged. you scooted closer to me and resituated as you excitedly told me something that i cant remember now. i felt like we were on the rug in elementary school, giggling and telling secrets, crushing on somebody for the first time...that speechless smile i felt watching you talk and explain your emotion to me while i could only sit, unable to describe my new emotions even to myself.

we held a criss cross applesauce hug. we rubbed cheeks like kittens. you kissed me on the cheek, or the nose, and then i snuck one in too. the sides of our mouths touched and if we stopped there we would easily be able to convince ourselves it was not a real kiss. but we didnt and then both of our lips touched properly, gently, perfectly. our mouths open and closed and we licked each other and held heads in our hands, we became braver and explored other parts, slowly and curious. oh, we were children.

i can taste your mouth if i think about it, i smell the warm, comfy scent that lives on your neck, just above your chest. the melding of our mouths, melting saliva and soft, plump tongues, oh, you are gorgeous.

you had me stand up with you before we undressed fully. we faced each other again, this time in your bedroom, this time on our feet. we smiled and counted from 3 before pulling our pants down. ill show you mine if you show me yours. we jumped back into the warmth of your bed and we wrestled and cuddled and pleasured together for hours. hours, we were kids, how present we were.

the scene i remember most was your face in the near dark dining room, slightly tilted down, looking lustful and graceful, the moment before i left. we kissed again and i fell into the puddle. we have made a mess together, but i think i should like to be covered with it.

2/22/23

when the time comes, i am never sure whether or not i have said the right thing. there are replies that i give or sentences i start that feel inappropriate to speak out loud to the party in front of me, the only other person who has stake in this topic, but these sounds i form into words are my real life, human emotions and for that reason they cannot be wrong.

if i have one thing and one thing only it is my thoughts. after that, it is whatever the word would be that encompasses the feeling of oncoming word vomit, but honest and relevant word vomit which i have actually succeeded in articulating more, but just as i puke, it is inevitable and unswallowable, it is going to be messy and everywhere and it might not smell the greatest but it will be true and it will be happy to be coming out because it has likely been festering and become overdone.

at times, i am an incurable itch and it makes me feel like a parasite. i only refrain from that word because of how mean it sounds to myself.

2/11/23

above the clanging and chatter and noisy nature of everybody else, his one voice maneuvered thru it all and caught my attention. his bravado pierced me and i was stun locked, he had me by the throat, held me firm by the shoulders, determined that i was to remain unwaveringly attentive to him and only him. altho he was not looking at me and he was not even talking to me. but this is how it felt.

WHEN YOU LET FEAR INTO YOUR LIFE, IT CONTROLS YOU. IT IS ALWAYS EASIER TO GIVE INTO FEAR AND WHEN YOU DO- ITS GAME OVER. FEAR WILL NOT ALLOW YOU ANY HAPPYNESS, YOU MUST REMEMBER TO CHECK YOURSELF AS A ROUTINE TO SEE IF YOU HAVE GIVEN INTO FEAR BECAUSE WHEN YOU DO, YOU WILL NOT NOTICE.

im sure my brain only perked up at the word i have put so much time and effort and intention into tackling, the f word, Fear with a capital F, yet i was immobile at the alarm, i ceased my fruit cutting and stared blankly at the steps of bottles in front of me, gone, transported into the gospel world this stranger was yelling to me, not at me, but it is the Truth that his proclamation controlled me for a moment.

not long after, i hurriedly left the building to get my coworker some cigarettes and i was halfway down the block when you yelled my name. i took a couple more steps before it registered and i turned around and saw your silhouette underneath the light of the streetlamp. i knew your figure, your beautiful body, your short hair at the shoulders. we walked to each other and we held another embrace and you trembled in my arms and i could not tell whether it was the cold weather or if you shook because of an emotional reason. we talked in the cold about very general things but our hearts conversed separately. you accompanied me on my errand and those 10 minutes were the best of my day.

2/9/23

the old man looked up from the soil of the plant he had been nurturing and said quietly, confidently, solemnly: this wont last the season. his wife responded what makes you say that? and he held the pause for a dramatic moment, not for effect, but to mourn this life that had only ever, and even still! looked so promising. then he said back to her just one word: intuition.

it was over then.

2/8/23

when we hugged we hugged over our jackets but i felt you like we were in the same bed. our faces as close as theyve been thus far, eyes closed, looking the opposite way. we felt and we breathed and when your hand found the back of my fuzzy, buzzed head i sank into you, into the fantasy, further. when you left the car i looked away and had to collect myself.

you spilled your feelings to me with no reservations and i thought to myself this sounds like something i would do. you looked at me and let the room breathe, the music was quiet enough for us to sit in the stillness of this old house and the words you had filled it with. then you opened your arms and said i am naked and i replied thank you for taking your clothes off.

today was the day i am sure to have feelings for you until we explore this thing that is between us, this thing we keep fueling, throwing logs of wood into and inching closer towards. tho i couldnt begin to guess when that might be.

2/7/23

there is a soft ache in my head. its on the right side this time and i find that peculiar. if i have aches in my head they are almost always sharp and on the left. this feels more like a brain freeze but a bit more perpetual and rhythmic, there is a pulse to it and it swells on its own. its alright. im alright. its just there.

over the last couple weeks i have been hearing the very faint sound of my ringtone, so faint that it is not real, a phantom call which triggers a response. it is the events over the last couple weeks that i have been affected so deeply by and its strange to think this may be an outcome of that. when it rings i glance at my phone to see a dark, undisturbed screen. i stare and see my reflection on the glass and i continue to hear it, dancing off the walls of whichever room im in. i am disturbed.

i cant seem to shake the feeling that i owe someone something. not money, something intangible. time, or a talk, or maybe its actually to listen? i cant remember, i dont know. so i lay down on my bed and think some more and then i take a nap.

my dreams make me restless. i dont sleep well now. my dreams make me confused and plop tiny droplets of emotion into my subconscious and i feel differently each time i wake up and its usually some shape of unpleasant. the line blurs between real life memory and the dreams my brain comes up with. i cant distinguish and i feel weird about that. i must owe somebody something. what is it i am trying to tell myself? surely i must know somewhere inside of me.

but i cannot, for the life of me, for all that is good and great, for the love of myself and all the others, seem to pinpoint what it is. i cannot track it down. it is fleeting, it is mystical, it is abstract, and i am but one man in a human body. i can only do so much. i give up and then i try again many times in a week. i am strong but i am also weak. i am feeble, fickle, upset and monotone. but its alright. im alright. im still here.

1/30/23

gliding down the interstate, i am light as a breath. i tossed my baggage into the incinerator and all it took was a conversation. i am stuck behind a large white rental truck but i am enjoying the slower pace. the sun shines on all of us cars no matter how fast we are going and it is all so gorgeous and vivid. i especially like how it looks on the cars on the bridges above me, i pass under them and i view them as scenes in a movie. i am far behind this truck and part of the reason is to not enter the blind zone of this trucker-for-the-afternoon, but there are also chunks of cold, dry snow falling off the back of the roof, every 50 feet or so. it looks like a parade. they explode onto the pavement like thousands of little beads and they glimmer in the sunshine. i am mesmerized.

i  dont know how long we will be together but i still want to try. me too.

at the antique shop i putz around and pick up gifts for my late secret santa party. there is no music so i listen to two friends talk about ones DUI a very long time ago and the legal route he took only to find that the pig had put a smiley face after his name on the citation which he thinks was a nudge to the judge to inform him that he was dealing with a "stand up guy". he believes he spent thousands of dollars on a defense and it backfired on him. hes learned multiple lessons and i believe him. another man talks on the phone to a "suzy" and all i hear is the beginning: oh, hiya suzy. good, just trying to stay warm, its so dang cold out there. yup, it could be worse. you betcha. and so i giggle a small bit at how people really do talk like that. i have my gifts and ive done a good job. i make friends with the two workers up front and we chat for a few minutes about work, bartending, and antiques. the man says nice to meet you when i am leaving and i am in love those words in this moment, they make me feel special.

youre a great guy. youre not the best guy i know, but youre a great guy. i needed that. a dumb boy who sometimes forgets he can still be a dumb boy.

you jump in quickly and then later youre confused at how tangled youve become. i couldnt have said it better myself.

on the floor of my bedroom, on top of the yoga mat which is on top of my dads old, big rug, i am on my back with my left leg pulled as close as it can be to my chest. each breath i am able to pull it closer and every teeny tiny bit i feel the wince of pain, but followed very immediately by the winces absence and then only the soreness. i am stretching intentionally, trying to heal the place where my leg meets my pubic bone. to do this i feel. i close my eyes and move my leg around very slowly, i body scan this specific area of me and for the moment i only exist as this area. i have validated the pain and i exist in it. im no longer scared of it. ive been scared of it for months. my body is amazing and i am amazing as well. i am making progress.

i love you a lot. i love you a lot too.

i continue to move forward and realize that i am living in a magical world.

1/27/23

i am asked what is the craziest thing thats ever happened to you? and i am silent. stupefied in a calm way, its very simple, i just dont know. i could sit here for a while and think slowly about it and i know i could look thru all of my 60k+ photos and videos of the last 10 years, but it sounds very unappealing to me to do so.

the irony is that i am a very nostalgic person. but nostalgia to me presents itself as a package, a gift on a day that is not my birthday, i am always unassuming to when i will be taken over by the memories of a day already lived. i become much warmer this way. moments inaccessible unless the sequences of events in the present spark something inside of me to ignite that part of my brain. and then i remember. ohhh, yes! oh how lovely this time was, how could i have forgotten?

and i will ask myself how could i have forgotten? and mean it. but i have forgotten as i forget everything. it very well may not be a permanent forget, but it could be. its not personal, to myself or anyone else, but it is the truth and i face this truth in a very unemotional way. i no longer feel guilt for not being able to recall something because i am highly concentrated on the present. i have practiced this and this is the result and i adore it, i welcome it, always, i am always becoming more. the two do not have to be mutually exclusive but to me they often are and i have accepted this.

i apologize to be so unromantic. perhaps im changing. i am not the season im in. im fully unsure of it all.

i know this will end at some point. i am that shade of that color again. i have faced my reality again. even now, my mouth tastes like something indescribable, my body tells me something and altho i cannot translate, i understand. quieter, less funny, serious again. but serious in a way thats whatever the opposite of pleading is. dont pity me, there has been enough of that on my own. i can do anything and then i realize i can only do so much. it is not the end of the world, i am not capable of that and i am not foolish enough to pretend. there are some things you just dont joke about.

yet, i still hope to be proven wrong.

when it was all said and done, when the dust had settled and there were no emotions left except acceptance, they met up again and stood face to face, seeing the bodies they have come to know so well. they were noticeably different than when they were once new to each other, more than just the haircuts and clothing, it was their faces. weathered a bit more. a little evidence of a rough patch, but ultimately wiser. each demeanor was confident but comforting. there was too much love not to be.

they shook hands. it was a nice balance of firm and soft and they felt their connection again. but they knew it was their last time. the handshake validated all of their time together, they communicated without words how powerful this was. their wise faces began to smile small smiles and their hands fell again, letting go of the mini embrace. and then they turned around and walked in opposite directions. like a shootout at high noon without a victim.

1/26/23

i am alone. i am alone and i will remain alone for the weekend. my two kitties wont leave my side because i am now the only person in this house and they dont want to be alone either. i guess im not really alone.

i feel the weight of loneliness, right now, and its heavy, i am too weighed down to get out of bed. i look thru my photo library of sunnier days and a wave of longing washes over me, to be warm, to be tan, to be short haired and happy with many different people doing many different things. my girlfriend wont answer my phone call. i masturbate with the volume on one bar even tho i am alone.

i move slowly around the house, i perform the actions of my chores in a slow way too. this happens a lot. i do research on different topics for future days and there isnt anything else i would rather be doing. but still, i feel alone and reminiscent of sad but i am too familiar with this feeling to think that it actually is sadness. its not. melancholy, maybe, but not sad.

now the cats run around me, chasing each other and playing. i watch them with an expressionless face and feel nothing but the weight of this feeling. i hear the squirrels cawing in the ceiling. i watch a youtube video about plywood. i stare outside at the grey sky and the muddy white roads. there is nothing to do but feel this feeling.

im not a sad person. i am alone but i am not a sad person, tho it may appear that way from the outside.

1/22/23

my mustache is full of wax and boogers. my wrist cracks each time it moves and i have to move it many times during the day. i wonder if it will ever stop making this new noise. there is a nick on the middle finger of my left hand, directly on the top knuckle, and its deep and ugly. i sliced it off with the fruit peeler and it hasnt stopped bleeding since, it feels like my body is mad at me, but i choose to not take it personally.

i gurgle and i breathe loudly, the snot keeps dripping and i must keep up or else the mustache i am working hard to maintain will be lost to bodily fluids and i cant let that happen. i cough and clear my throat in attempts to clear myself out. maybe i need an enema, is that how they work?

my kitty jumps up on my desk and her sweet little kitty face tells me that she wants to descend into my lap. i give her a pet and when she climbs down i feel a turd stuck to the hair between her back legs. its big and dry and it seems like its been there for a while so i grab the kleenex and gently pull it out. its a gross feeling, but it must be done, she cant do it herself and her calm demeanor and purring tells me that she knows this too. shes probably already tried. it loosens and detaches and i wrap it up and know i need to wash my hands but now my purring kitty is here and i cant get up. i open youtube and keep my left hand in the air where it wont touch anything. i stay this way for 20 minutes.

i rustle the new hair on my top lip and hope that my girlfriend doesnt mind it too much. i need this for myself. i clear out the goo that is stuck inside of it underneath the head of the shower. i like how it feels when its wet. i use shampoo and conditioner, i massage it into my face and it feels strange to extend this routine i thought was only for the scalp onto this new part of me. once out, i use a comb and a special lotion. i moisturize the rest of my face and put on deodorant and two spritzes of cologne and look myself in the mirror, pleased with my appearance and how i feel.

1/19/23

im looking at the photo i took of you in the parking lot outside of savers. when i showed it to you you said i look rough. and tho i didnt think that before you said those words, i see what you mean. you are still the same beautiful, defined, fair faced girl i have a crush on but your expression here looks reflective of a sadness.

and you have been sad lately. things keep happening as you say. and they do, you are not wrong about that. i find myself saying the same things over and over, my perspectives combined with some reassurance, but i am also listening. much more than i am talking. and what i am hearing is a girl with so much Hope that she unknowingly invests her happiness into other people, to bask in the collective good that happiness is, the shared beauty of it all, to feel it together and look into each others eyes and smile with the mouths open as if to say this is it! this is life and this is the meaning of it! and i am still not sure if we agree on how perpetual this good of life is.

before i took the photo we spent a silent car ride together. rather, the passenger side was silent. i drove and i sang to my music and i tried not to be too insensitive but i dont believe i was. you seemed comfortable. while i sang i felt the comfortability i feel when i am alone, even if that isnt fully achievable unless i actually am alone, it was as close as it gets to another person in my company. it felt profound to me because i hadnt felt that with you yet, at least when i was singing, but that is a noticeable thing to me. and i felt it with you. you sat there in your quiet with your left hand resting on your lap, palm up, fingers spread. when i was not switching lanes or adjusting the volume i laced my fingers in between your own. the car had heated up by this point and i was warm all over.

last night i slept alone and i enjoyed it, thoroughly. i missed you but i need my own time to sleep sometimes, more than i am doing with you now. yesterday was my first day of trying out a new drinking regiment: two drinks a night, no liquid at all an hour before going to bed. i had 3 drinks last night (spaced out) and i had some sips of water before going to bed so it was not perfect but i woke up feeling that tired sort of satisfied with the good nights sleep. and i was alone. i basked in it. the morning is a precarious thing for me, i have hinted at it but i have not dove into detail to it with you because im not quite sure how i would do that. there is fear there too. what actually matters here is that it is just a very personal time for me.

i have always been a person with people, wherever i go and wherever i find myself, i do not lie or fib or fake, of course i do a minuscule amount, but that is just social skills. i mean that i always lead with my integrity. the result is that i always present myself as a real life human being to other real life human beings. and when they do not show this to me at first i still acknowledge and know for fact that i am interacting with other real life human beings. for better or for worse, i know this to be true.

you do the same thing. you do not know how not to, even more so than me i believe. i have gathered this is one of the primary reasons i am so attracted to you, so drawn to your energy, why i want to mix it with my own and make a new aura together. i would show you off to anybody, proudly, boasting that we are in a partnership, i have and i will continue to do this. i am only saying this because it connects so much to your sadness, at least this is what i have been thinking. you show your cards to others when that trust is built but they dont do the same. it feels like most are just stuck in some personal reason why they will not, it is not because of you, but you are able to be left hanging this way, arm up, waiting for a dap that may not come for a while.

i was looking at the photo of you in the parking lot outside of savers and i just wanted to write about you. i admire you and i love you. im happy you are home for a few days to find some ground again, even tho you are there for a sad reason. maybe not sad, but difficult. there was no point to this other than that. i love you honey, i look forward to seeing you after this weekend.

i went to a matinee today.

it was 20 minutes away, counting the snow. i decided beforehand that i would be bringing a subway sandwich in with me and the closest one was only a few minutes from the theater. when i pulled into the parking lot i realized that i had been in this same strip mall before with my baby when she wanted a matcha latte after we did a trail ride which couldnt have been that far away. it was an awfully beautiful day that got cut short by the threat of rain but we had finished our ride and we were happy. the latte was her reward. i smiled as i looked at the building and remembered watching her walk in empty handed and coming back out with a very large drink. it was summer then.

at the theater i parked in a single row of cars, we were all on top of a few inches of snow while the bulldozer plow removed the rest of it around everyone. it looked like he left us stranded on a very thin and small island. i felt a camaraderie with the other cars all of a sudden. i left the island to step on pavement instead of water and i walked inside at the exact time as two other men, i was in the middle, the leader held the door for me and so i held the door for the man behind me. we all thanked each other.

inside i was sat around 5 other people, they all appeared to be older, i would guess that they were retired because then i started to suppose that not many other people in the suburbs would be going to a matinee on a thursday at this obscure chain of theater. i am simply late to this movies season and it is not playing in many locations. i would have been happy to have the theater to myself but i became happy to have company too. i unfolded my sandwich and hoped i was not too loud, then i started chewing and hoped that i was not too loud, then i decided to open my la croix and get the biggest sound out of the way to offset everything else. nobody seemed to mind. i appreciated that, i tried my best.

i found the movie to be very difficult to watch, it was brutal, i felt yanked in many ways and when it was over i sat there shaking because i was trying to contain my sobs. i have never sobbed in a movie theater until today at this matinee. nobody got up when the credits rolled because i think we were all crying together and then when the lights came on and exposed us all we all felt a little less comfortable and wiped our faces. at least i think, i did not try and look at anyone else because i think we all wanted privacy. but it was a very bonding thing. i got up third to last and i walked to my car and when i got there i sat down and sobbed much harder, much freer, i made noises and i let the tears fall and i could hear them on the nylon as they hit my winter jacket. i gave myself a few minutes before i turned the car on and listened to some ambient aphex twin. then i drove home in the snow.

the movie was the whale and i found it profound. i have also talked about those moby dick chapters that ellie describes, the ones that just factually explain the different kinds of whales. it feels horribly mundane and boring and, yes, sad. horribly horribly sad. in a lot of ways i felt horrible during my watch. but then the end happened and i felt an extreme catharsis. i was moved in a very intense way- the sole reason i watch movies to begin with. and now here i am writing about it. like ellie, like the last words charlie hears, this made me grateful for my own life.

1/18/23

if it aint broke, you cant fix it. out of sight, out of mind. if there is no pain, dont worry about it. i will cross that bridge when i get there. im gonna ride it til the wheels fall off.

i say these things to remind myself of the reality of my wellbeing. there is still much fear in my thoughts about my body and how i am doing. sure, there are real things in my life that already i have improved by listening to my body and adjusting accordingly. but the large majority of negative thoughts are fear based, about what could happen. and so i remind myself that anything could happen. and that if anything does happen it will be dealt with and i will be alright.

besides, i defeatedly googled the questions into a private safari tab and found out my assumptions were wrong! a rare example of leaving webmd feeling relief instead of increased anxiety. without disregarding my being in tune with my physical self, i must remember i am an average person and i do not know that much about physical wellness. my doctor said i was healthy. the internet says that i am healthy. i could be healthier, yes, but i am always striving towards that. i am on the eternal, upward trend. my fears are just that, fear.

1/16/23

peace unto you my brothers and peace unto you my sisters, peace unto you my siblings. peace unto The Family, peace unto all of us, we are from the same cosmic boom, cut from the same cloth. if they are alive with the life around us, nurtured from our precious planet, they are a part of The Family. the one, the only, not for lack of choice, but because it encompasses all in a warm hug, a gentle and eternal embrace.

my Family, feel my love and well wishings radiate from behind my closed curtains, the warm air from the radiators escapes somewhere, in the seams in the walls and slight openings of the window frames, this warm air is the current that my feelings travel by, i am bursting with the calm and the content, this is ground zero of my nuclear bomb of love. there is no devastation. its a new kind of ground zero, a ground infinity, drop your own, love where you live.

peace, love, tranquility, these are not naiveties, i believe it is naive to think that these are not the ever pushing wind, the channels of breath, the east australian current or the EAC as marlin and crush would say. ahhh, i have just jumped in myself, the waters great, its like walking on moving floors at airports but even faster and with much less effort.

it all became doable when i surrendered to the love. when i felt the peace from The Family.

1/12/23

so you really were just pretending? all of you, for that whole time? i want to say i knew it but we all know that would be a lie and we all know that i cannot lie. its not for a noble reason either, its more pathetic. a real boy can lie when hes forced to, he can lie for good. but i cant. i really thought i was a real boy...and i am sadder than even pinocchio. i am sadder than him, i am sadder than truman from the truman show and i have suffered the same fate as both of them put together.

now i know that i really am a little slower, a little dumber, a little more off than everybody else. what youve done to me is cruel but i still want to thank you for all pretending, for letting me think i was only off by a normal amount. like everybody else. and that is a pitiful mindset, even my slow brain knows that.

i only hope i did not hurt anyone too much. i only hope that my actions were passable enough to be laughed at instead of cursed for their harm. have i harmed anyone? i am begging you, accept my apology if this is the case. i cant remember anything. my nose is not growing, is that proof enough? please, stop laughing at me. im not sure whats worse, thinking ive done wrong or laughter aimed at me to tell me that i have not done wrong, that i am too stupid to even be capable of doing wrong.

i feel small. i am horribly embarrassed. i am mortified.

no. no, its too late. id like to be alone actually. ill be leaving now.

1/10/23

i have found my way home again. i turn the knob and walk thru the door, i do not look up because im in a moment of autopilot, i repeat the steps the same way that ive done forever before, i am busy thinking thoughts that are more important than this endlessly repeated process in which i am an expert. i sit on the chair near the door and i take off my coat, i take off my boots, and then i remove my gloves.

and then i look around. now i am here, only just then did i really arrive back at my home. i move from the chair by the door to the purple couch but before i do this i remove my socks and i walk slowly and with more steps than necessary, i feel the smooth wood against my calloused feet and i wiggle my toes on the floor and then i hold them up high and wiggle them in the air when i am laying on the purple couch. how free i feel.

i remove my glasses which removes one of my five senses. i do this to feel relaxed and in a hope that my other senses will be heightened to carry the slack left behind when sight took a break. i shine the spotlight on feel, the other three understand, i close my eyes and wave sight goodbye and i breathe in and out on the couch, i feel the fake suede material on my fingers, my lungs fill with air, i stretch as tall as i can and i feel so much, physically, i feel all of it.

i then give the stage to smell and i smell the impossibly complex smell that is my home. it is unique to these walls and it provides me comfort when i smell it and that, to me, feels like magic.

i put my glasses back on, i leave the house without gloves or socks, i walk slowly and in directions that appear interesting, and each turn feels like walking thru the door to my home. i am naked to the life i am in and i receive what is there for me to walk thru, i am receptive of the gifts given to me and those which have been taken, maybe to return, but maybe not. i do not sweat any of it because i am powerless to the inevitable and whatever is going to happen is going to happen, i would just like to feel it when it does. fortunately, this is within my power. i feel the nonphysical warmth when i remember this.

1/9/23

it shoots like a laser beam, it is warm and white and full of life. the impact rips thru the thin veil which functioned at first like protection but post impact revealed it to be more like minor damage control. it bubbles and oozes, there is steam rising up from it, its breathing as smoothly as the home in which it came from. poetry in motion, whatever that phrase really means. it is the most beautiful thing and it is the only thing. the brain connects chemicals in a much more profound way when it is present and ready to burst, explode, pop, release, come forth. it is beckoned and it is always welcomed except for maybe, sometimes, in hindsight. but it is always spectacular. it deserves its own movie and as many as there already are, it could never become contrived or watered down, it is life itself, it is the water that grows the plants, it is always more meaningful than we could ever truly portray. its not about witnessing it as it is relating to it, the feeling, the product, the livelihood of it all, careless and joyous.

1/8/23

it seems as tho they all want to become artists, to live and self-sustain by their creations, the focus on financial freedom (because the focus always lies there, we owe it to each other to be frank about this), to wake up and do whatever pleases them and to be able to be comfortable. and its human and the idea is wonderful.

but i feel tired having conversations like these. i want to relate to someone about how normal we are and not feel unique when we are not and to not have a desire to share a fake-uniqueness with strangers and become popular for these same strangers to then feel jealous and then we become defensive, about our position, our art, our integrity, all of it.

i am rambling the same ramble. i am just tired of the race. i do not want to submit and become complacent, but in the realm of expression specifically i am just exhausted of the idea that we all have something unique to share, or something we can do better than others. i do not have a competitive bone in my body and you cannot give me one now, it is far too late for that. we all have things to express but they have been said before, they have been thought before, they have been felt before! but we can embrace this.

and i believe that we should. this is the most beautiful thing to me. it kindly checks me and i am reminded that i am not special, my pain is temporary and my brilliance is only reiterating the pieces i come across that have been left for forever before me. id rather hold this idea with these two truths and accept them than be empty handed, for me, empty hands signify insane genius but also complete despair and isolation. the "woe is me" ideology.

so just let me be normal. dont talk to me anymore about your unique ideas, please, i am not demanding i am just asking sternly. i want to live the life i was given and know that i am very normal and special the way that snowflakes are special but that is it, that in the grander ideas i am utterly the same. i breathe my breaths of peace and clarity with these thoughts in my head.

im a working man. my hands are cut up and calloused. im sore and i ache but when my work is done i decompress and breathe in loooong, hefty breaths. i have a mustache and when i smile my eyes crease behind my glasses and my face looks like that of a working man. i smell a little bit of sweat but it is mixed with cologne and when you smell me it is slightly more favorable than neutral. the pheromones that come off of me are like a magnet. my chest hair rises and falls with my regular sized chest (for a working man) and the smell gets caught there the most. rest your head on my heart and see for yourself.

working men know that things take time. time, dedication, and labor. and a lot of thought but not too much thought. working men know that most things are complex, but in practice they are not complicated. things take understanding but once that understanding is met we move forward diligently and at a steady pace. working men meet understanding where it stands because we know that understanding is objective and does not sway for anybody. it is neutral and unemotional. working men have long term goals and they achieve them over time. i am a working man with long term goals.

many things are repetitive, many things are mundane, many things are ordinary, many things are entirely unexciting, but many things must get done. many things, all the time, and this is what makes them so beautiful! if many things must be done all of the time then they are important and things of importance deserve to be looked at with the beauty they hold, they are beautiful because they provide meaning and longevity and a world to live inside of. we build the world we are in, all the time, everyday, for all of us.

im a working man, i work and i rest, i eat and i sleep, i chat and i play, im living in one moment which inevitably will lead into the next moment, perpetually, and this is how it will always be. its how it should be as well, even only because it is the way it will always be. there is nothing i must do but work, rest, eat, sleep, chat, play, whatever i want, whatever i need, within reason, with others considered. complex but not complicated.

and when i dream and i am confused i defer to the notion that life is random and chaotic, but not a bad chaos, working men know that chaos is not an evil, and i will crease my eyes and raise my mustache in a smile and anyone who would see my face would know that i am an ordinary working man, a heartfelt boy who is just getting by and is happy to be doing so. happy and grateful. i do not practice the act of praying but i could argue that i pray many times each day in my own way. i give grace and i show thanks, i give love and it is sincere, i receive love and feel that it is also sincere.

im a working man who was once a boy, im a working man who does not know when he became a man, when his boyhood took its final afternoon nap, when he traded thick hands for scraped knees, when the hair started growing in...altho it is a blur i am a working man who is not a shell but a whole and thorough person, i have not actually lost anything but i have evolved, gone thru a magical and universal metamorphosis, experienced the miracle of growth. i am filling in and becoming more complete with each new experience, even when that experience is the experience of nothing. an empty day. a thoughtless moment. nothing to be learned because there is no lesson. this is the majority of life, as a working man, as anybody.

i am moved so deeply by it all. its just marvelous.

1/2/23

slightly doubled over, alone and cold, under the light of a very dim lamppost, i drool and struggle for air. i am socking myself in the tummy, over and over and over again, i am doing it to myself and my brain cant figure out why. i know i should stop but i dont know how. ive lost control of my actions...after this realization i realize its been lost for a very long time.

and its a shame because i used to be so good at control. my capabilities still shine thru at times but i have become a degenerate and that comes with guilt and sadness at myself. i punch my stomach without expression because i am only confused, unsure how long this will go on for, how long this can go on for. it really hurts. im coughing now and it hurts my throat, i am dribbling up baby spit and my eyes squeeze shut very tight at every blow.

i need someone to stop me. i need a group of friends to use all their strength on me, bind me to a straight jacket, chain me to a pole, the only way to rest is thru constraint. only then will i calm down.

there is a knife on the street with me and now its in my hand. the fists turn to stabs and there is a lot of blood, but still, im only confused. it hurts everywhere, very badly, and the pavement turns from black to red, i can see this clearly even under the one dim lamppost...man. i am going to die, kill myself actually, and i feel confused, ashamed, and embarrassed.

but when i wake up my confusion turns into relief and i cry a little bit and i look down at my tummy and i see smooth skin and hair, no wounds, no blood, i am all intact. my nose is stuffy and runny and my throat hurts because my immune system has been compromised because of what i keep putting into my body but it is the second day of a brand new year and there is always hope to continue to work towards getting better and not kill myself, work to heal myself, and feel alright.

two years ago to this very day i went sober and my sobriety lasted 9 months. it was a whole pregnancy and i was born again, thats how it felt, it is the truth to say that. this was the ultimate display of my capabilities. my capabilities. i am capable, always, i am capable.

12/27/22

resolutions have been on my mind a lot, and if not resolutions, then more general long term goals. i have talked with friends about the much too common response to new year's resolutions: you can change your life for the better any day of the year, silly! which is very true but, my friend, can you not see how something as arbitrarily significant as a new calendar year is a massive help? an enormous boost in motivation to change your life for the better. i welcome every new year for this reason.

these are my goals as i see them. and if not resolutions or goals, then mindsets i would like to carry with me and solidify them in my repertoire:

things take time and actions. i cannot expect everything to be simple and when i face the reality that they aren't, i cannot continue to feel so defeated or irritated that i have to put in work. oftentimes, it is very minimal work. oftentimes, it is not even brainpower work, it is only physical. thats the easy shit. i will continue to move gracefully and things will become accomplished and i will feel happier because of that.

i will always feel better if i do not smoke or drink. i know that i have been improving my intake, impulses, inhibitions, imbibing, indulgences, i have been doing this for years, it is constantly on my mind. and i feel the toll becoming lighter. but i am still screwing up more than i would like, i would like screw ups to happen once in a blue moon, very infrequent to the point where when it happens i am able to laugh and say oops instead of thinking that i may be going down the wrong path again. the feeling that it is perpetual again. i must reduce the intake still and i will, it is becoming easier and i recognize this. and very importantly, this will positively affect the goal i mentioned just before this one!

i am myself and i live my life for myself. in a healthily selfish way. being healthily selfish makes me a better person and a better friend. essentially i just dont want to keep on analyzing and critiquing my actions or words in the past. i rarely do something significantly wrong or upsetting and when i do i always address it in a good way. i trust myself enough to stop spending so much time judging my actions from the often immediate past, trying to get to the yeah, i think i did that alright, okay i'm done thinking about this now. i would simply like to be done thinking about it when it stops happening in real time.

i want to learn spanish.

so these are what i have summarized: be comfortable with using my body to complete tasks. continue to improve my intake. be healthily selfish. keep on learning spanish. i know these to be attainable and i am confident.

12/25/22

i cross the sea

you can leave it to me

i cross the field for my baby

you can believe in me

you see how i make you smile

you put your foot down and i run wild

you see now that nothing is final

i cut myself into vinyl

i cross the sea

you can leave it to me

i cross the field for my baby

you can believe in me

12/23/22

i would like to think that im getting better...

and i do believe that i am. when i watch videos that inspire me or feel love from my friends and family and even strangers, it is warm. so warm. and whether or not i focus on the warmth, it is there, it is undeniably there. its my furnace and it keeps me warm, it is triggered by external things, mostly people, but it lives within me. i was not given it by anyone, save my mother and my father and nature as it exists in this universe.

my furnace flares like the sun, unpredictably and with extreme force, i am always moved by it, moved so deeply and foundationally, i have been on a journey to reckon with these shifts in energy and i am coming closer to the full acceptance that i am not crazy, that i am very normal actually, i am just a boy who feels a whole lot. and thats the point isnt it? i ask this to myself. thats your superpower right? and now i answer again: yes.

on my journey i am discovering imperative steps, accomplishments that i need to succeed in for me to uncover the mystery of the next. it is sequential, tho i do not know the sequence. i walk in what direction feels like forward, only according to my intuition. its one step at a time because the fog does not allow me to plan too far ahead. and when i tilted my chin down and saw my feet rather than aimlessly and desperately searching for the horizon, for some sort of plan, an anchor...finally i felt that peace i had been searching for. and it was so close to myself that the word close is incorrect because you cannot be physically close to something that is just a part of you. i relaxed and i breathed and i walked on my two featherweight anchors and i surrendered to the fog and i calmly focused on my beautiful feet.

come on feet. move for me.

one step at a time turned into one day at a time turned into one moment at a time, one word, one action, the lesson fits into it all. one letter. one keystroke. this lesson unlocked the doors for me. it is a gift beyond measure.

my reckoning is allowing me to develop long term goals, to inspire some sort of discipline within myself, to feel natural motivation for the first time ever. that was the first one, motivation, and i felt my world change color when i first felt it. im still a baby when it comes to these discoveries but i am moving in a direction i feel fond towards. it is intuitive and it makes sense to me.

i wish to share my warmth in some way with other people and inspire you all the way i am inspired by you all. i have a gift to share. no, i am not particularly special, nor are you, but we are unique enough in our own ways to share emotions with one another and to learn and be moved together. there is nothing we must do that really must be done but that, experiencing one another in every way that we have, are, and will, that is really the only thing that will happen with certainty.

12/22/22

id had so many thoughts that were quite similar to this one, but i had always danced around what i thought, for the very first time, just last night. can i be a bad partner to myself?

and i thought yes, of course i can. as i have come to terms with a while ago, i am not just one thing. and even if i pretended i was, how could i pretend that my body is not separate from my mind, at least in some very major and inexplicable ways? or what about my soul, my stardust, the ethereal and existential part of me? where does that fit in, does it rest inside my physical boundary, does it float around me as an aura does, i do not know, so i accept that i am a confusing mash up of unique and universal, self made and drawn entirely from. in my eyes that is who i am. i find it fascinating and beautiful.

in this same thought process and just down the road a little further, it has led me to talking about a specific thing with friends and that thing is the relationship i hold with myself, the relationship that i believe everybody has with themselves, it can be explicitly focused on or it can be disregarded, not even thought about once, for a lifetime. but just like mental health, all humans have it, it does not have to be in a crises to be validated as being there. it just is. as a relationship needs multiple parties, or perhaps really just multiple sources of input, multiple angles, i believe and, most importantly, have felt (for this is all that i care about anyway), this to be true.

it primarily arises in me when i determine that my subconscious self does not like something that my immediately conscious self is doing. but i have learned to feel my minds eye focusing on the relationship within myself when my subconscious self does like something that my immediately conscious self is doing now too. it used to be a pity party, but now it is just a general party, with varying emotions at varying times, much like any other relationship, much like life at large.

so, yes, i am just explaining how i am currently focused on the relationship that i have with myself. it is the most important one i will ever have and i acknowledge this and actually enjoying viewing it from this angle. it produces a sense of responsibility that i did not have before. it is easy to self indulge and chase temporary pleasure even when it is guaranteed to cause the futures pain when it affects none but yourself, but take this mindset friend, and tell me that you are not hurting someone still? the other parts of you, right? the part of you that knows you shouldn't, that is a separate party that you are going against, that is someone else you are hurting, but it is not someone else because it is you, you hurt yourself in a way that you didn't think about before. i can only speak for myself but it has brought a small piece of clarity into my mindset.

i believe that i have behaved like a bad partner in the relationship with myself. but it has been years since i have not cared about myself, and i believe that since those years ago, i have gradually been working my way up, the relationship with myself is improving everyday, even after the days that i slip up and fall a little back down the mountainside. the sun is always rising from the peak and i will always continue to get closer to it, and unlike this reality the higher i climb the fuller the air gets, i breathe easier and i run faster and longer and happier. my fear of heights dissipates in some oxymoronic way.

i can be attractive to myself, and i plan to build habits that i do find attractive, and i imagine this to build my self esteem and feelings of content with this life that i know to be true and real. i want to be attractive to other people, right? yes, of course i do. but what is more attractive than being attractive to myself? maybe this is just confidence. but pure confidence, that does not sacrifice any actions or decisions that would lead to selfishness or a hyper focus on myself. never in a mirror mirror on the wall way. i think it is just self love. yes, i know what i mean.

i wish to be motivated towards the betterment of myself, to become always more attractive to myself, i plan to keep traveling towards this wish, always being guided by it.

12/21/22

i wake up and its dark. and soon enough i am tired again so i take a nap and when i wake up from that it is still dark. its unclear to me whether it has left and come back or if it remained but i dont think on it because the end result is the same. there is a lingering haze in my head and in my vision that makes me feel delirious, a little bit dumber, a little less baseline. the time always feels the same because it always seems to be dark. i only keep the soft lights on in my house because it feels kinder to myself.

my kitty wont leave me alone because she wants to cuddle. i want to cuddle too so i get into position and she waits while i do so, very patiently, she watches with her owl eyes and when i am still i pat my lap and show her im ready. her purring gets louder and she approaches. i feel her wet nose as i stroke her face and she begins to bury her head into my thigh, like she is trying to become even closer than we already are, as if that were a possibility. were already as close as we can get, honey i tell her. she still faces away from me, towards my thigh, pushing very hard for a kitty. her strength surprises me and i let her do her thing, i just continue petting her.

the other kitty is in the closet in the other room, on all the camping equipment. but thats it, its just us three. theres a blizzard outside, another one, and we may be snowed in. i bought us all the supplies we will need to wait this one out so we wont need to brave anything. ive always preferred preparation over heroic acts. even if we are not snowed in i dont believe we will be seeing anyone for a week. yes, it will be one week until our family returns to us, we decided to hold down the fort while they left. this is also not an act of bravery as much as it is just the circumstance. i feel acceptance towards it.

today it is the shortest day of the year and the snow is dumping, piling up quickly in front of our door and windows, our view becomes scarcer each time i look outside, it is like a puddle evaporating off the floor. we are inside of an igloo that i didnt even have to make because the blizzard made it for me. for us, me and the kitties.

i am returning from the scene of the crime, without haste or care, a dozen pigs crashed around in the snow, too busy looking up top, unaware that i had snuck below. i am covered and invisible, the blizzard engulfs me and it feels i am stuck in a snowglobe. i am just happy the glass has not stopped me yet.

i see a few other bicycle tracks below me, i can barely make them out but i see some with tires thinner than mine and tires fatter than mine. i am right in the middle, i am perfectly average, i smile to myself underneath my iced over mask. it isnt easy to say which way the tracks were headed, if we had taken the exact same route or the inverse of the same route, especially with this light but piercing snow whipping all around me, getting in my eyes and fogging my glasses, but i am only happy to know that others were here not long  ago. if i can see still see their tracks, they have experienced what i am experiencing. i feel comforted knowing that i am not alone today.

inside i eat my banana very slowly, with my mouth open because i am alone, feeling my teeth cut thru the fruit very easily. it chills my mouth because it traveled with me when i was outside in a snowstorm and it feels interesting, i feel sensitive. the glass of water i poured is room temperature because i feel as if im turning into a room temperature water kind of guy. it feels as if all things that i do or have done are returning to average, i am busy observing my world around me and i am adopting all traits equally and they are averaging out to be just that, the average, soon my name will change and my looks will too and i will look like spongebob when he turns normal for squidward. the thought excites me. maybe then i will know the secrets, at least understand just an inkling of the feeling, the most important one.

i put on a lullaby and take a nap, the song cradles me nicely and the last thought i have before i dream my dreams is that when i wake up it will be dark.

12/17/22

the world outside my window is covered in white, it snowed all day yesterday, and we are all left with a beautiful and lasting representation of a beautiful and natural action that has stopped, if just for now. i feel emotional towards the moment i am in and for the rest of the day that lies ahead of me.

12/15/22

this playlist is really bringing me back and i wonder the last time i put it on. it had to have been at least a year ago. i feel like im 16 again listening to mad world by gary jules, laying on my back in my room, my led galaxy light slowly swirls above me just like the real life universe and my lava lamp gives a complementary orange glow from the other corner of the room. i am drifting in and out of the beginning of a daydream and when i startle back awake im shocked with how quickly that seems to happen.

i am thinking of the contestants on too hot to handle, how they all made me cry, how they encapsulate and represent so much of what it means to be a person seeking connection with other people. that is most of us right? its not just a horny reality tv show. it is, obviously, but its more too. there are some very mature ways that conversations and actions are handled but there are also and more frequently very immature ways from others trying to move in similar directions. but this is of course representative of real life too, not just a secluded island in fiji.

god damn, i want a cigarette right now. i wonder when my next one will be. will i ever fully quit? i don't think so. i dont feel the utmost need to tho and that is the problem. or lack of a problem. i am slowly dying from it all anyway, from the weight of this life ive been gifted. the only thing thats promised in life is death. i think about when kanye said this during one of the greatest acceptance speeches ill ever hear...i guess we'll never know...god damn, i want a cigarette.

the snow falls a little bit slower today. or is it rain? and i should say tonight instead of today, it is before 6pm but the world of midwest, america has been still and in darkness for more than a moment already. blade runner blues by vangelis is playing over my speaker now and i am thrust back into the main floor shower at my dads house, where i would return from ski practice and take a 45 minute shower feeling sad and heavy, for no reason other than being a teenager. the blade runner soundtrack was my favorite companion to these long showers, i found them all extremely relaxing. i showered not too long ago and 10 years ago to the day im sure i was doing what i am describing right now. not much changes, altho now i am in a different home with a different family and instead of winding my day down i am beginning it, for i need to leave for work in 3 hours time. actually, many things change. all the time, they change.

10 years ago im sure i was also studying spanish and today i study still, not much progress having been made in all that time. but its alright, i've been doing other things. i would like to learn, i really would. i will do my best to keep at it. maybe i miss studying just a little bit.

tonight i am quiet and reflective.

12/10/22

this afternoon i woke up from a dream and i dreamt that a friend of a friend had purchased a fire truck. i asked him where did you get it? and he said walker gave it to me. it was massive, it was the size of an apartment building on its side and with wheels underneath it, he had an entire house inside with rooms and hallways. we were in his bedroom and i felt very cozy while he changed into his uniform and delivered a package to a customer. moments later he returned screaming at the recipient of this parcel because it turns out he was not paid enough. he cooled off and we stayed relaxing in his fire truck.

before i fell asleep and dreamt this, long before, before i had worked my late night shift, i was getting coffee with a brand new friend, it was our first time seeing each other outside of my job and it was very easygoing. we discovered we have many similar situations in our lives at the moment and it was nice to talk thru them with a stranger turned friend who had no stake in my life or even any background knowledge of me at all. i like to explain things for the first time, ive been told multiple times by close friends or lovers that i often over-explain, sometimes it can feel condescending, and while i dont like that part of it i tell them, truthfully, i would rather explain every aspect than assume familiarity.

but this friend, we moved from coffee to dinner in the building next door and we began to talk about dreams and the layers of reality we experience every day and maybe every lifetime. how dreams are real in the moment and you cannot control them even tho you are the one creating them. and then you wake up and it is the same thing, your senses tell you what is real but you cannot control anything around you, it just keeps on happening. and then who is to say that death will not bring us one step further, one more layer out of what we think to be all that we know, and just as i wake up each morning and think oh, of course that was just a dream perhaps i will wake up after my death in this body and think oh, of course that was just a dream. we talked long and laughingly cursed our brains while holding love for them, of course, always, our brains do provide us all that we know.

my new friend continues to dream about her grandmother. her eyes got teary when she spoke about her and she handed me some of the emotion she has been holding on to and i took it and held it and felt vulnerable with her. take my hands she told me, so i took them, and we held them for a second. it was a special thing, i think especially because we do not know each other more than the three hours we spent talking yesterday and the maybe combined 15 minutes we had talked before that. it is so much easier to be open with strangers, or at least it is one side of the spectrum with a partner or best friend being on the other, a whole lot of ground to cover to get to that point and a lot less willingness to be perfectly open with people we are only kinda tight with.

after dinner she walked home and i drove home. i needed to go to work soon but i wanted to see my sweetheart so i stopped over at hers before i had to really go to work. she had the cutest, vintage victorias secret purple lounge pants on and i liked touching them. i touched her thighs and her butt and it all felt so nice. i rested on her chest and then she got up to get her phone to show me a video and then when she came back she was resting on mine. i told her i need to get up in 3 minutes because i need to change and put my bike lights on and she gave me puppy dog eyes and i laughed and i said i really do! she replied whats it like to be punctual? and i laughed again and i kissed her softly and deeply and we kissed each other for over 3 minutes, which i knew, and which i was perfectly okay with. i clocked in at 9:05 which was the exact time i was hoping to clock in at after those precious kisses.

i went behind the bar and i saw my old boss and coworker who are my friends, i saw a friend of years and a friend of hers who is also a friend of mine who i have not seen in about a year. i saw current coworkers who were off the clock and hanging out and talked with them and i saw many strangers and other peoples faces i recognize but who are still strangers to me, just not perfect strangers. these are the people that exist in a very funny way to me and my brain, they are familiar but could be anyone. its a fun place to exist because anything is possible and i can fill in the details like a mad libs if my brain so chooses.

and then in walked another very recent stranger turned friend who i had also gotten coffee with less than a week ago. she smiled at me from the entrance and the other end of the bar and then waved so i returned them both and walked over to her. she is beautiful, gorgeous, really, she has such seemingly soft brown hair and softer brown eyes and she had a very red lipstick on and i was struck again, the same way i was the first time i saw her, when after she had finished her drinks and hanging out with her friends she asked if i ever wanted to hang out and i felt honored beyond words. i wanted to tell her that i liked her lipstick but i didnt, i might bring it up to her when we see each other next. she kept me company from the other end of the bar while i was stuck in the well making cocktail after cocktail and every so often i would turn around and see her lovely hair. i want to bury my face in it! it looks so soft. she asked me before she left would you want to hang out again sometime next week? and i pulled out my phone and said yes, i really do, text me your schedule and if not this week then the next? im very free then and she said me too and so we exchanged our goodbyes and i watched her leave and walk the two blocks back to her duplex and i was sat there with a smile.

im going to buy her a book for christmas, all about love by bell hooks, we had talked about love and how love is the best thing and how love is the only thing and i think she would very much like it.

at close, many of my other coworkers off the clock came in and hung around and played early to mid 2000s pop and rnb and it was a party, i had made my money and i continued cleaning with a smile and singing the lyrics i knew but mostly i was appreciating the energy and the friendship i see all around me.

and really the friendship is everywhere. really, it is everywhere. this life could not be more beautiful if it tried, but i believe that to be why it is so beautiful, it doesnt try because it just is, it is the neutral chaos of everything, we are the ones that try, i am the one that tries as are you, maybe, i dont know you but i think that we all try a bit, we kind of have to. but you dont have to do anything my friend, you are enough the way you are, as am i and everybody else.

i cherish so much, so so much, each day i find new things to cherish, and whether i am asleep or awake or reflecting or being present, i become more certain each moment that this really is all just a dream, a long and all encompassing, magnificent dream.

12/9/22

the smoke in my lungs still lingers and i am weighed down by it. the alcohol in my lifeline is evaporating but i can still feel it for now.

i was happy when i woke up and now i am very stoic. i will not smile for at least another couple hours. i am not sad and i am not emotionless, i am actually feeling something very heavily, but that feels to be all that it is, its not emotional as much as it is just a weight in my core. i am sluggish and food does not taste good, a little bit trapped but not enclosed. its not awful, its just noticeable and i do not prefer it.

i am in the shower and i take very deep breaths in and give aggressive and long, drawn out exhales. the water flies from my mouth across the tub and thru the steam. it reminds me of someone who has just suffered a very serious blow and the blood that pools up in and then sputters out from their mouths. it is warm too, but not warm like blood, only warm like a long shower in the end days of the fall season. my chin falls to my chest and i move my eyes to my left shoulder and i see my skin being pelted with the hot water, sticking to and bouncing off. im comforted. my eyes are closed and i continue to breathe.

i created a hiccup and its stuck in my throat. im aware it needs to work its way thru and i dont force it. ive learned that lesson many times and ive learned that creating the hiccup is a lesson in itself. yes, i know now.

and so i stretch under the light of my lava lamp. i stretch and breathe and i feel the weight being lifted, slowly, but still noticeably. thankful for the moment i am in i move slowly and i am full of pleasure.

12/8/22

my baby and i are friends again after another lovers quarrel. when we finished saying our emotions to each other i said this relationship is harder than i imagined and she replied yeah, because its a relationship, and here i am supposed to be the one with experience in this field. i said i feel like a bad fucking partner. and she replied most days i think youre a good partner.

12/7/22

and here we are at the front of the pack, just us two.

we have made it a long way together, you and me. i appreciate the help that you've given me and i hope that you feel similarly for the help that ive tried to give you. i believe we are supposed to be competitors but you feel more like a friend even tho i dont know your name, i dont know if i will see you again after this, i will only remember your encouragement and your smile without words.

the last time i glanced behind us i could not see anyone else, we have really done well together my friend, we make a wonderful team. there are no spectators around us in this section even tho we are in an open field. strange. the markings on the ground do not have numbers so i do not know how much further we have to go, i only know that we are making great time and that it feels like we have been running together for a very long while.

we are never more than 2 meters apart, there have been times when you lead and times when i lead and we have not said a word to each other, we have only exchanged smiles and nods of agreement. we are a team even tho we wear different jerseys. i enjoy being in your draft and it makes me want to allow you to be in mine when its my turn.

we breathe heavily but steadily.

and i can see the sweat dropping from your chin, shining from your arms.

there are no clouds in the sky today and i dont see anymore trees. we are on a slight incline and i cannot see what lies ahead of us, i haven't been able to for some time.

but we continue to run together, for each other and with each other, for ourselves with gratitude for the other.

running with you has taught me more than winning would.

but kick with me, friend, and may the best person win.

12/5/22

if i were to follow my intuition, to sniff this trail of a delightful fragrance, i believe it will lead me to a number of new people. and i believe this is what i want. it is too early to say if i am flopping on monogamy again, but i want to feel complete and i want to do what i want to do and what other people want to do with me.

i continue to grow into myself and the world takes notice. there is no spotlight on me because i am no more special than the next but i notice heads turn and nice words more often than before. it produces a gentle confidence and its a wonderful thing. i become even hornier than i have forever been, i am horny for the game, but i am master of my domain and i craft this desire into a tunnel of energy, i wield my very own fire hydrant of love, it is a concentrate of all the best things, a little bit of chemical x, it is Love itself.

my coworker told me the other night to just be non monogamous and i believe that is what i want to do again. i would like to take c**s hand in this and present the idea to her sometime. i will say this: "i feel confident in myself, very confident, and i feel happy with myself, very happy, and i want to experience lots of people and not feel restricted." i know she does too. "we both want to meet people and for me i want to meet people with a potential interest in them, i want to be flirty and have that be okay. i want to touch people and have them touch me back." i will never do anything to disrespect my sweet angel c******* while we are together. this is not a one sided thing, it must be both, and it may take a while for whichever outcome to come out.

so i turned left and then maneuvered my way around snow and parked cars to turn around and double back. i want to go there and i am already very close to it so i tell myself that i may as well. i gave myself the permission to do so and it felt nice before i even arrived. and when i did arrive it was already peaceful.

i didn't expect that i would be the only one here, but that seems to be the case. i walk down the middle aisle where the march would begin and end the ceremony every sunday and i sit in a pew close to the front which felt unusual to me on top of this already unusual pit stop. when my brother and my mother and i first decided it was alright to sit in the very back row we stayed there until we all decided to stop going to church altogether.

i had holy water residue on my forehead and i looked around the beautiful building and felt very calm. my actions were slow and i embraced the soft lighting and the candles. the stained glass windows are under construction on one side but the other side was just as gorgeous as i had remembered even without sunlight shining thru on the other side. i look to the enormous organ setup and recall being a kid and seeing the tops of the orchestra's heads from up there in the balcony. ive always wanted to go up there.

the smell was the very same and i knew it would be, i think this was really my main motivation to turn around and walk inside here; i just wanted to smell that smell again. and now i have and i am so pleased.

i got up from the pew and thought about genuflecting but decided against it. i had already performed the sign of the cross on myself with the holy water but i did not want to overstep into pretending i was here for worship more than i had already done- there must be a fine line between being respectful and being a poser. when i began walking i immediately felt how much smaller this church feels to me than it once did, even with the incredibly tall and narrow ceiling it leads up to, i was given that same feeling i am becoming accustomed to, that i have gotten larger and the establishments i have memories associated with have not. i have grown because i am a living person, in many ways i have grown.

i took the stairwell to the basement and i noticed the paint peeling and stone chips on the ground. the paint on the wall turned into a very light aqua green, exactly as its always been, and then i got to the seating area where 9am mass was held, where donut sunday began, where the mingling happened. but it was still empty except for me. i knew exactly where i was in this building but it felt too liminal and unspecial now, i dont think it ever felt particularly special to me to begin with but it was an area that was in my life at that time when my references for anything were limited. so it held its own significance. and if i were to be a stranger seeing this the way that i was, i would only think how ordinary and plain and forward this space exists to be.

i took a lap and altho i did have to pee, i didn't walk into the bathroom. for some reason that would have been too much for me, in a bizarre way it was a little scary. i walked passed swiftly and decided i had enough. the tunnel to the school was closed off and i wanted to leave because i had my fill. i chose the prettiest, windiest staircase back upstairs and i ducked out before getting back to the main hall. the snow landed on my glasses as i walked to my car, i was unknowingly parked right outside this exit so i only had to take a few strides before i was back inside something of my own, something of my life at this point in time, and i was on my way.

12/4/22

sat with the feeling again, here i am. its the gape in my chest and its the george washington of the mount rushmore of emotions. curled up i crouch on my toes like a catcher but my head is pointed straight down into the pavement, if a stranger were to see me they would think my forehead veins would be popping on top of a lava red face but when i lift my head to look at them i have a straight expression and mostly closed eyes, soft skin, no crumples.

but i am crying yes because there is nothing else i know because there is nothing else to do.

i am the king of my domain. i am a master of it.

i love everybody or at least i have the capability to, i am smitten by many people all the time and its only a matter of it until a new person approaches and strikes me. im a dog on a leash. i replay the memories like a roll of film on a loop in front of the projector light, there are songs i listen to in this mood that make me shrink even smaller but feel larger than life, its like a white dwarf compressing in on itself, taking up less space but becoming heavier, glowing brighter, i am a star, yes i know, we are all stardust and this is my feeling so this must be true? i am a supernova, all i know is what i feel.

how have i made it this long? im unsure but im sure ill be able to handle whatever crosses my path until im unable to and then i will die and explode like a star.

im never satisfied. i am writing the same thing ive written times before. i will always become restless. this is not a depressive rant, i feel happy, it is just a reaffirmation thing. i dont have to turn pages all the time, i can just keep writing more on whichever one im on until i am ready to start again.

my leg hurts and it concerns me. my wrist hurts and it concerns me. but i am living a happy life and i dont worry about things anymore until they become real problems, it has made me happier.

my best friend is on my lap and she purrs, there is good music on and i made money tonight, i purr with her.

i have a crush on three people. yes, this is about you. i cant stop thinking about you.

im rolled into a ball, i am kneaded by it all, i cant express this in anyway, i will always try and i will always fail, i am a ball of emotion, i feel too much to explain, the funnel is airtight and the feeling builds up, it cannot release quick enough and i overflow and i pour from an everlasting source, i am doomed, but at least i am happy.

12/2/22

ive been poisoned! poisoned by the internet, poisoned by every users opinion that i did not ask for or consent to! i have been on a journey that has lasted years, a journey which the time until completion is still a mystery to me, lost in the fog that lies above the sea i am in the middle of. i try new tactics which present themselves to me as lightbulb ideas, revelations im certain will allow me to surf the web healthily and only positively, no matter how sick i become i am always reminding myself that the internet at large is the most incredible and magical tool humankind has ever created, but this is my anchor and the anchor keeps me harbored in the middle of the infinite ocean of information and voices.

the internet has created users who transform their real life actions to align more with their online presence. even if there is no following this can happen. there is no kind way to tell someone that the unionized rail workers on strike are happy that you tweet your solidarity with them. users envelop talking points and criticize situations they are actively taking part in, this is not an empty diss, we all do this, but this is madness, surely we all see that? surely the usage of the internet and becoming familiarized with groups a user is comfortable in and creating their very own echo chamber has added to the us vs them mentality more than we could ever really comprehend?

i have been poisoned by elon musk and i have not been on twitter in years. i left facebook and instagram and reddit all the same, i burned my bridges with them and their lizard ceos. i am more delusional for have spent as much time as i did on them, i do not regret it because i am where i am regardless of how i judge myself in the past to have been, but my brain is mushier than it would be otherwise im sure. i short circuit much more frequently and i am left speechless for being presented with ideas and opinions and literally dangerous takes because i am so shocked that a user could come up with such a stance. oh, its all just one big circlejerk.

users have brought the simulation into real time and there is no escape. what is there to do and what is to be done? my last stronghold was youtube and now i am realizing as much as i learn and become inspired by other people i am still finding myself upset with how users begin to bleed into each other by creating the same formatted type video styles. i have never seen this user but i know what this video is going to look like. hey friends, today i  am going to show you my findings that i spent months and months on (or at least say that i did) for a question that nobody asked me, i just chose the most random thought in my head and followed it to its very pointless end. and thats a wonderful thing that users can do that, the internet is the greatest tool ever made, but people influence hundreds of thousands and sometimes millions of other baby users this way and then the baby users see this as the only way to be and the baby users have ideas that have already been thought and then they think how can i make money off of this too? and the originality slowly bleeds itself dry and none of us users can stitch the wound because we do not know anything other than to how to try and make money from advertisements. we have blundered, there must have been a malfunction somewhere, i am malfunctioning right now.

how fucking upset i become when these thoughts bleed into my own head, when i start to wonder how i could make money by writing and only that, to wake up in the morning and look out my window and ponder all meditative thoughts and say, very slowly: ahhh, yes. i think i will explore this today. and so i go into the kitchen to make my coffee, slippers and pjs, smell my fresh cup of joe and open up my laptop before spouting the most redundant and contrived opinions ever thought, so horribly and naively on the tip of the nose my past self would think surely this must be satire? because it is too rich in self awareness to truly be produced due to genuine ignorance. but this genuine ignorance does exist, im sure of it. you know when you type in a simple question on google or youtube and the article or video takes 5 opening paragraphs or minutes to get to the point, the answer to the question that only takes 30 seconds to perform, the only reason people searched in the first place, and you are left more upset than the task you could not figure out how to do just a moment ago made you feel to begin with? the fact that this user started an article on how to sew with something like: "sewing. your mom does it, her mom did it, and her mom before did it too. everybody loves sewing. sewing has stitched together some of our favorite articles of cloth you could find in a home. sewing began in... ... ..." is so fucking crazy that it makes me want to scream but instead i just sit here malfunctioning.

users, i say this to us: we do not need to have an opinion on everything, sometimes its cool to just sit and think and not choose what team we decide to be on based on only minutes of exposure to the topic we are currently on, one of very many for the whole day to come. users: when money comes into art, the art is sacrificed.

i will never produce anything "artistic" for the sake of making money.

i am a walking contradiction.

dont be silly, i am not blaming any individual, i blame the faceless ideas of it all, the ideas that are bigger than any one person or even group of people, we are all just products, products to consume, to make money and then spend more than we have made.

i do not hate the player, it is a piece of the game that i hate. i do not hate the whole game because that would be very dangerous and unstable territory.

i do not know a thing about anything, nothing at all, not a sliver of a hair, i am dumb, dumb to it all, my brain is mush, soup even, spoon me out and put me in the compost bin, i am done here, i would like to grow to be a tree, tall and beautiful, destined to remain in one place for hundreds of years and see what comes my way.

i feel no better having typed this out. maybe a little bit i do.

i choose to refrain. spare me your opinion, i could not handle it anyway, yours would surely be the straw that broke my fragile back. and dont call me shirley!

beggar? i hardly know her!

my wrists are broken, but at least i am in my comfy clothes now. my hands are dirty, but i am proud to be a working man.

i wish to continue my glide thru life, i am enjoying the ride and altho i am content with how calm i usually am i still see the room for improvement. my temper can flare up randomly and, yes, that might sound surprising, but it is true because i am human and i am an ex-user. the rest of my life will not be recovery but it has been recovery for a little while now. and thats alright, i am alright with that. the poison is being sucked out, my vitals are leveling and the color is back in my skin. ive been breathed back to life and for this i thank you. yes, we certainly can have a chat. as a matter of fact id like nothing more. would you do me the honor of beginning the conversation? oh i adore you.

11/30/22

and now i wonder: will i ever really come of age?

when life is normal and life is moving i roll with it all and i appreciate the intentional autopilot that i have found. this has come with all of my experience of being alive for 26 years, the lessons i have learned all rolled together in my brain determining my moves for the day. its a great thing. i feel confident enough to know that i am doing well by and for myself. to me i suppose this is what being an adult or coming of age would really mean.

the moments in which i am tugged at by the most core emotions, tho, they make me question if i have perhaps convinced myself that i am a new person when i know i am not, i know that i am still the same boy who was once a baby, a child, a teen, and an adult. it was all me, it was always me. when the relatively ancient parts of my being flare up i am overtaken by them and i revert back to the days when i was small and those emotions were all that i had. when i had no reference and no knowledge, when i was essentially powerless to it all. i feel them often and i feel them intensely.

i feel them most when i am reminded of the vulnerability that i came into existence with. over the course of a lifetime that vulnerability becomes guarded and secured in general ways but also very obscure and personal ones in which only i know the combination or have the key or can recite the password. i forget the soft and fragile core of myself because on a day to day basis and at my most mundane i am only feeling the armor i have acquired. but when the emotions start tugging i am powerless again.

i feel empathy for myself and connection with others because i know that i am not unique in any significant way and that all people go this route. this is why i like youtube comments under videos of memorable and cherished, often childhood, references. there is a community here that holds these things dear to their hearts just as i have all this time. what a spectacular and wonderful thing that is. it makes me cry every time, i have snot and tears stuck in my mustache having just experienced this. what an incredible thing to have a body and to be able to feel so much for so many different reasons.

when life is hard, i know that other people feel similarly and when life is marvelous, in all its glory, i know that other people feel similarly as well. i am never alone and you and me, my friend, we may be strangers but we can become closer for this fact alone. in fact i think we should.

when steve from blues clues left for college i cried and when mr rogers smiles at me from the screen i cry. i cried in my adult body but i cried from the emotion ive had since i was a boy.

11/23/22

my dads endless vapor wave playlists are an appreciated soundtrack to this family trip.

i enjoy sitting and walking and hiking in silence with my dad and my brother. we are all very similar, that is not a statement particularly noteworthy because i know that it is the case for many fathers and sons, but it is worthy of emphasizing because it is a very sweet and important thing. we walk along in our own thoughts and we mention mundane things we see or are thinking and then it snowballs into a joke or a simpsons or seinfeld reference and we become louder and quicker with our words until we burst into a shared laughter and then we fall quiet again, basking in the release of joy and a feeling of fulfillment.

we talk about apples and how they are the perfect fruit, my brother does not feel any allergic tingling in his gums the way i do but we agree that it is the perfect fruit and i wish i could enjoy them the way he does. my dad tells me that he used to have this problem too but it went away for him in his 30s so there may be hope for me still even sooner than i could have hoped. we talk about sensitive teeth and how he uses sensodyne toothpaste and my brother talks about how many different kinds there are at the target where he works. i say out loud i think its time for me to change toothpastes and im excited to get home and try this out with credit to my dad and my brother. we talk about deodorant now. my brother uses the lavender old spice and i exclaim that i love the smell and that i used to use it too but it gave me a rash. maybe i am more allergic to things than i realize. we like regular deodorant and my dad also says he uses this now too and we all remember he historically has felt the need to use antiperspirant. he says he still sweats a lot but he is now using a gel stick that certifies it is aluminum free. my brother says the focus on aluminum free has been on his mind too and he says but what doesn't give you cancer nowadays? we agree and are quiet again.

the vapor wave and chill beats play through it all. it feels like we float along with our days, there are no beginning and ends to the songs and instead of moving thru time we bounce between different moods and presents.

it is a special thing to have an extended amount of days in which there is nothing for me to do.

11/18/22

david lynch is always working towards enlightenment.

and so am i. i go to youtube to be inspired and motivated, i do not go to youtube to zone out, it is very intentional while still being very open ended and, at the beginning, aimless. i go off of my recommended and i open new tabs with all of the videos that sound interesting to me and i start them all and i probably only finish a couple of them. i finish the ones which compel me, which infiltrate me and move me on the inside, even just a little bit.

there are ads that take me out of the zone which i dont consent to seeing and i feel like a sheep and personless and then i scroll down to the comment section and i am even further removed from the videos which strike a chord with me because someone is being mean and someone else is trying to be funny. i read them with a very blank expression and tilt my head a little to one side like a confused dog, i dont see the point in either of these things because they dont add anything worthy to the video which moved me.

david lynch talks openly about deep fear and meditates on his thoughts, he is always working towards enlightenment and i wonder if he cares about ads or the comment section.

im still very young, i have a lot to learn before i can feel as confident and secure as i want to feel, i am still a victim to outside thoughts and over influence or comparison to others, particularly those i look up to for the most inspiration, but i am moving in that direction, i am always moving towards enlightenment.

it is a radical thing to embrace the flaws of others as inevitable, there is a deep rooted fear in all of us that is learned, we were not born with it, we walk on the thinnest ice and the world only grows hotter, we are bound to fail and burn each other alive if we continue the path of individualism that pushes us to feel like we are better or worse than anybody else, we fall into the trap of the hierarchy that keeps us separate to begin with. there is shame and guilt that is completely unnecessary but stems from a positive thing, that being that we all just want to do good and be good by ourselves and our interactions with the world but this has grown into a monument of judgement, we unknowingly praise a human made disease that praises without fault and punishes without even the capability of redemption, these are extraordinarily unhealthy and it is a sickness we all suffer from living as connected, as deprived of privacy as we are. who among us will challenge the views we have learned, consciously and subconsciously, who among us will be wronged by another and meet this wronging with neutrality? i will join you, i will join you and we will chant songs for all to hear, songs that remind us that nearly every one of us does not inherently mean harm to others, that there is rarely ill will intended and even when there is that these doers of momentary evil are not evil themselves but sick and deserve medicine, medicine made out of love and healing and space to be heard and to listen as they have been listened to. haters hate the game, not the player, at least that is what i believe to be more common, yes it is human for people to feel hatred for players too but this hatred cannot be permanent, it cannot outlast even your own lifetime, this is what creates evils that are more expansive than humankind, domes of energy that spread further than the solar system, we cannot see the ends because we only keep adding to this with generation after generation after generation. i sometimes do not think that we, as we are alive in this moment on this planet in this universe, deserve to remain alive, i sometimes think that we deserve to all stop this madness and pull the plug on the video game, just as science experiments can go wrong i think that we have gone haywire and hell broke loose long ago. but i cannot extend my personal belief to all else of humanity because that is selfish and i am not sure that my belief is true because it is only a belief, the only thing i know to be true is this life so i remain tethered to it and always end up deciding again to try and do good and be good by myself and my interactions with the world. i judge and i judge, i am irritated for the smallest of things, i wrestle with my learned hatreds everyday but each time i am able to find the eraser in my desk and erase the pencil marks, i wipe away the rubber shavings on the desk in my mind and i can relax a little bit more, i watch things that used to bother me and i watch them with neutrality, perhaps i still decide mentally that i would have done something differently than what i observed someone else do but it is still neutral because with each undesired piece of information erased i am further cemented in the knowledge that i am not better or worse than anyone else who has ever been alive or is alive or will be alive. i used to think that maybe the existence we interact in, the existence in which you, my friend, are reading this, is a simulation no different from the brain, but this morning i woke up from a dream in which i had complete control of everything, i wanted something and it was there, i did not want something and it was there too, control in this sense is not desire based, but it is existence itself based, my brain, by the small and very simple idea of creating something on my mental canvas, it became a reality, i could think and very subconsciously will it into having substance, at least that was real to me. when i woke up the only thought that was in my head was how powerless my brain is in this place, i went from wielding magic to being a commoner once again, and oh my god, how beautiful a thought that was! i was given a life and a body that i know to be here in which both can exist, my dreams are real to me because my brain gives me a show each night, it is the most honest representation of myself i could ever have, and i get to come back to a place that we all share, together, forever, for we are no different you and me, we interact here on the surface world and it is a playground of possibilities, we go to sleep every night and resort to our own corners of the playground again and when we have lived enough life here in this little test run or whatever it may be, we return to the collective consciousness, the mother we were born from, the energy that is all around us and the universe that is always expanding, we return to where we came from and we are all together again. we are all the same. there is no significant difference. each body is just a different outfit of the same life. yes, it is radical thing to lead with love and rid yourself of fear which disguises itself as hate, corporations are not life, there are things which are bigger than any individual person and can take as much hatred as possible, people can be hated but it should not be perpetual and there should always be a door open for them, if they do not change their harmful ways than they deserve to be cast aside, i think of the witch of the waste from howls moving castle and the big baby from spirited away, i used to be so scared of them but then they became powerless and docile and even kind of sweet. anyone can become sweet again, anyone has the capacity to, yes, it is of course up to them to change as well but i would like to believe that most people would choose to when they become powerless. those that dont will live a painful life and die very uneasily but i wish them well in their return to above. this is not everything. i know so little about anything and so do you. all we can do is love, love is not giving up, we should not be looking to fight all the time, we should fight for everybody to live happy lives yes but we fight with love and not with fear and hatred and permanent resentment. if you are reading this then please believe me when i tell you that i write these words as an exercise of a thought to myself and for myself to hear, this is always the primary goal, i know nothing so who am i to tell you how to live? i constantly try and rework the wording of my words and even my thoughts to specifically be centered on myself but it is a difficult task as it involves lots of unlearning on how we speak to each other when the audience is faceless and the you is always a very specific entity, an enemy, a potential ally, a neutral party, all of these things exist but these labels are not the label of a person themselves, only how one views them in context of their own life, and they are never permanent because we are all the same and there is not one single significant difference between any of us at all, not one, i will argue this for the rest of my time alive in which i can write words down like this, my hope is that in the collective consciousness it will be understood without words on paper or thru mouths, my hope is that feelings and emotions and mindsets will be instantly transferable because we will all be the same again and we will all just get it.

11/15/22

i think weve been snowed in.

its nighttime and i cant get the main doors open, my left hand pushes on the bar of the left door and my right the right but neither will budge outwards. there is a crack opening between the two each time i push and i hear the gentle hiss of the wind as it blows around this first snowfall of the year. little gusts shoot into the building and onto my glasses, it must look like a snowglobe out there, i cant see a thing except for the beautiful mess of a blizzard.

we retreat to the upstairs. we werent planning on going up there today but we want to fill our time with something and that is where the rooms are. we walk slowly and there is nobody else here with us. my brain is tricked and i really feel as if im walking thru different homes, i have the same level of comfort as i would a friends house instead of this big warehouse south of town. i feel indebted to whoever put these displays together.

its down to the smallest details. i cant tell if these are part of the exhibit or if theyre real life garbage left by those who came before us, those who made it back before the blizzard came. i am lost as i follow the arrows on the ground guiding me thru this tour. the fake windows have fake scenes of the most ordinary views from a typical neighborhood block in the summertime, they are not even centered or parallel, they are so unspectacular im shocked to see them presented in this way, its just like real life and i respect it immensely. there is an energy that im getting from the way that this was set up, im suspect of the intentions but it is still a mystery box to me, i continue to play because curiosity has me by the throat and there is a creeping smile on my face because i feel understood somehow.

i walk forward and i feel the warmth of a morning cup of coffee. i am sleepier with each step. how much longer until the snow lets up? how long have we already been here? oh, theres a bed, it looks awfully cozy. but we cant sleep in here right? this isnt our house. i need to use the bathroom but there is only fake water in the bowl, my urine bounces off of it and dirties my pants and i feel ashamed.

but its just a game and when i remember that i dont feel ashamed anymore. shame is the most powerful of all the emotions in my toolbox but it doesnt have a place here today.

but now i am being weighed down by the dread, it attacked me out of nowhere and i feel like i have been wronged because i was enjoying something and then for no reason at all i was taken from it. the squirrels begin to run around in the ceiling and i begin to whine to myself oh no, its happening again, i am powerless and without control, i am always subject to their scurrying and it is all over the god damn place, always unpredictable and never the same. the worst is when they chew their holes and grind away the wood of the structure and i wonder when the day will come that they break thru the walls and infiltrate the fortress by the thousands, watch cats are only good for mice and insects, surely they will be taken over by the squirrels in the ceiling. i wish i could see them but i know if i did i would be mortified, i couldn't handle it.

i am nauseous from the taste in my mouth. im not anxious now but i am so physically weak and uncomfortable, i am tense so as not to vomit and i walk forward clenched up like i am trying as hard as i can to keep the lid on. i cant talk and i wont respond if im talked to. i am blind to the surroundings i was enjoying just a moment before because im sick and ive been sick my whole life now. i whine again and this triggers rage immediately, a rage i did not know that i had inside, i woke something up and i roar as the sick comes out of me, warm and disgusting, smelly and green, i am sick all over the couches and desks and it splatters all over the fake windows and paints the rooms a sickly green and i hope that the janitor did not beat the blizzard with the others. im fed up, i am not blind anymore but i only see red, i spin around inside myself grasping desperately for the squirrels, where are you fuckers i yell on the outside, i find the wiry tail of the leader and it is him, its dread, its that fucking coward, the parasite, i have him in my white knuckles and i am screaming and puking all over his ugly body. i shove dreads head in the toilet bowl and flush and this time i feel glad there is no running water, only hard plastic and crusty piss. he pats my back and tells me good game. he is settled for the moment. i remember that nothing matters that terribly and i am in control again of my breaths and the regulation of my thoughts and emotions.

we end the tour and walk down the stairs. i try the big, swinging doors again and they open easily. the snow has stopped and the roads are plowed, we see the morning sun peaking their head above the icy horizon and theyre making beautiful colors. we walk to the car and drive to our real home.

what am i drawing inspiration from right now? a little bit of the simpsons episode where they are snowed in. a little from im thinking of ending things. a little from the feeling id get walking thru rug and fabric warehouses with my mom as a child. and of course im specifically talking about walking thru ikea. a little from the mist. a little from the backrooms. so many different things that all give me similar feelings of isolation but content and forward movement because youre just curious even while a little uneasy. and always the dread i am working thru.

11/10/22

i sneeze into the tissue and bits of my brain are oozing thru onto my hand.

i get dumber with each sneeze and i forget with each blow. my body is expelling the intelligent part of me because its had enough. too much work, too much hardship, it is time to become a vegetable. i sniffle in pathetic attempts to prolong the procedure but its begun and it cannot stop now and i know this. still, i sniff.

it was an inevitability i think to myself before i no longer understand what that word means. my eyes water with tears but they are not because of emotion, more of a reflex to whats going on. i have the feeling of being bopped in the nose and then the blood starts coming altho i could have sworn there was no impact. it just started on its own. how much longer do i have?

im not scared anymore, i feel a little entertained, there is an exhilaration because i am breaking down in real time and i dont believe ive heard of this happening to someone before. people dont just keel over and die but i always knew i would be the first. then i remember how little i know about anything and i become unsure. no matter. i toss the thought in the garbage where it belongs, i watch it sail thru the room and into the basket, a swish, no sound, and i never think about it again. i feel impressed with myself before the criteria of what is impressive leaves me forever. its a good feeling and it dissipates and i have a hanging smile on my face. dumb happy.

there is an ache in my chest and i feel the hole in my heart. ive always had it, my donut shaped organ of love, the doctor told my mommy and daddy that it filled in on its own but even as a baby i knew that it didnt. im not a starfish, my body isnt magic, im chained to it. thats why were shutting down. too many things gone wrong to fix, it would be more cost effective to just buy a new one, throw the old me in the trash and let me project my consciousness into the existential bits of things, out there lies an eternity with so many questions and so little answers, im too dumb now to feel the desire to reply to the prompts of life. i bob with the infinite sea and i am cradled and held gently, entertained but not stimulated. i think this could be an everlasting thing in an abstract way without using such a big word as that and that hanging smile grows wider.

my thigh has wet and warm goop dripping off of my hairs as gravity pulls it down. i got a little excited and i gave into it again. oops. oh, but it feels so nice, i was not given a body to do anything except cum, its all ive ever wanted. i cant regulate my orgasms and i dont know why i would ever want to. everything turns me on, smells the most, smells and pressure on my pelvis...here it comes again...oops.

like an egg with no white, no yolk and no life, my skull is gently crushed and nothing spills out, whatever lived in there before now exists in a dead way on all of the tissues, its all sticky, the bits of brain and episodes of cum. what escapes into the air is just ash and a neutral smelling odor that is now mixing with the breeze, finally free from its jail cell.

ive condensed my mind, body, and soul into a neat little unintelligent package and reverted into my donut shaped heart, my body isnt a body anymore and now resembles something most similar to a tree trunk, but a tree trunk with a pulse, the rate fluctuating between hibernation levels, and i do not think for myself anymore. i only feel.

11/8/22

oh, honey, how brave you were.

when it is my time i pray to be as brave as you were. did you think about it much beforehand? did it help? can you really ever prepare for it? i looked at you then and i was struck with awe, i fell silent and watched you like a scene in a movie, you did all the things that courage tells one to do in a situation such as this and i could feel that you meant it. you were ready. i was not.

if i was in your shoes i could only hope that i would have handled it like you. you showed grace and care and love when you were the last person expected to. i couldnt move anymore in your presence, i was going thru my own acceptance at the same time and i knew that our paths would not meet at the end. i knew that this was the last time. you gave me the feeling i have only ever gotten in deep prayer or meditation, it was a strike of divinity, i really was immobile and without control in my body. in this moment you must have been a bridge between this world and the other, i could feel it realer than anything id felt before.

i wish i would have held you one last time but i dont get to pick final moments for things and i know this. im sure there are things i will do today for the last time ever and i wont even realize it. i wouldn't have held on for too long, i was accepting in real time just as you were. i would have held you with care and with love emanating off of me and on to you, just to show you one last time. maybe you wouldn't have even felt it, maybe you were already across the bridge, maybe i wish i had done it more for my sake than yours. yeah, i think that is the case. and thats okay.

remember the day that you were sick and cold? you were wet and wrapped in a blanket and you curled up right next to me for the majority of the afternoon. i was going to do some chores and errands but i couldn't find it in my heart to leave you there, alone, in your fragile state. i put them all off until the next day and im glad that i did. its a terribly wonderful thing to spend time together when one person needs it. i didn't do a thing for hours, i counted cracks in the ceiling and looked around our living room and tried my hardest to emanate love off of me and on to you. i could feel your breathing slow but i dont think you ever fell asleep. we didn't say any words to each other but the love in the room that afternoon was so thick it was palpable, you could even smell it, it felt like magic and otherworldly. i would never wish sickness on anyone but i return to that day often in my memories and hope that when it is my time i can live there if i so choose. that would please me very much.

when you were brave you were sick again but you were stronger than i have ever been, stronger than i have seen anyone be, and you inspire me still to this moment in time. we exist in different planes and i think of you when i see the tattoo of you on my arm. sometimes i feel you, on those days with the sun shining bright and without clouds to block the warmth.

i hold you in my memories and feel you on those days. i have always looked forward to our reunion, whenever that day comes, wherever it may be.

11/7/22

i step outside my house with the crusty eyes of sleep and the sun glints off of it and i sparkle like a diamond.

i got on my new knit hat that my coworker gave me. his grandma made it for him but he has so many he asked if i wanted it after my compliment and i said yeah. its below freezing for the first time this year and i feel warm in it. its below freezing but im warm from the inside and im wearing this cute hat on my head and a big smile on my face. my coffee keeps me warm on the inside while my car heats up from its frigid resting temperature.

i drive my girlfriend to her class and now im warm on the inside because of the love i feel in my heart. i asked her this morning why do you think the heart is associated with love, couldn't that be anything? and she gave a very thoughtful answer about blood and warm pumping all thru the body and it all goes back to the heart and that is life and life is love. there is nothing without life so there is nothing without love. she made it sound obvious and i felt silly having asked but i felt even more love when she said that so i kissed her neck and touched her soft face and rubbed her slender back and squeezed her butt and pulled her on top of me. im warm all over just thinking of it. im so warm for her.

there are people i see walking dogs in sandals wearing hoodies as coats. god dammit, its such a beautiful thing to live in a place like this. a place where the weather changes but the people never do, we survive thru it all together and we adapt. when it rains, the windshield wipers all turn on together, nobody has to tell us to start at the same time but we all do. when its cold we still walk our dogs and when its foggy we still know where to go, how to move, where to place our steps and dance around each other. i see my breath when i breathe and the warm little clouds i make join up with the warm clouds of everyone else around me and its a blanket. the warmth is everywhere, a fire can still burn in antarctica.

i open the door to the gas station and my friends are here. i dont know them but we talk like friends. whens the next power ball? its tonight man! 1.9 billion, you better get a ticket today. yup thats what ill do thats what im trying to do. alright. the young father tells his daughter to cover her mouth when she coughs; we've been over this, i know you know how to do it. no we're not getting candy right now. the kid in front of me buys ruffles chips for breakfast and the new employee is learning the system. we talk thru the glass and its quick and easy. take care, yup you too, thank you be safe, yup you too. and im back out into the cold but there is steam off my body now too, i am filled to the brim with the warm.

when i walk into my house the radiators are on and my kitties are heaving little kitty breaths from running around, chasing, biting each other. they hiss and pant and i can tell they are warm too, we get under the covers and cuddle while the sun shines thru my icy window and meets my two purple couches. a soft light, a nightlight in the day time, the mother of all that is warm, i am never too far to provide or receive warmth. its sharing, its all about sharing, it always has been.

i lay and i think: nothing really ever finishes. it cant. there is nothing that can stay the same forever, if i remodel a house there is still going to be upkeep of whatever specific thing i just did. thats a good mindset to stay in, that nothing ever finishes. and then i think: to find that sweet spot between the two extremes of finality and pointlessness, that is where i want my mindset to exist. i rarely change my room around but i can do so whenever i want and when i do, it may not be the last form i see it in. and then i pull back further and think: i will inevitably move from this place i am in now which is an even bigger change and then i think to the end of the thought and it ultimately ends with death. huh. thats really the one, true, final thing isnt it? but then i remember that this isnt what i believe and that there is probably an infinity outside the life that i am in this body and i close my eyes and breathe a relaxing breath, but i am calm and at peace instead of anxious. i am warm.

so i get up from under the snuggles from the kitties and i change my room around and i am pleased with the result and i am excited for when i change it again a year or so down the line. i am the warmest ive been all day, i am a radiator, my temperature breaks the thermometer, i am a jacuzzi, a warm bubble bath, a down coat, and both feet and hand warmers. ahhhhhh, i exist in the love. the love never leaves me, it is there and it is ripe for the picking and love never goes out of season.

i have found so much peace in the warmth of the love today.

do you want to do this thing for me? 

no, but i will.

i got away from that and i'm not sure i should have.

11/6/22

we were all there, together, in the room, letting one person go at a time.

whoever wasn't talking was sitting patiently with our two hands held loosely and lovingly together without twiddling our thumbs because we were at full attention with a nice, closed mouth smile that was the highlight of the bottom halves of our faces.

there were no phones or interruptions, it was loving and it was receptive. we saved questions for afterwards and we heard with all ears and open minds and full hearts. when there was silence during the transitions it remained quiet and respectful and it made me want to relish in this special silence that is only created with a significant amount of people.

i thought there would be more of an audience beforehand but as it began and as it unfolded i was increasingly more pleased that we made up the size that we were. it felt more intimate. yes, the lights shone on the stage and highlighted the one at a time speakers and the painter who was always painting while the members of the audience sat in the dark, but we were so close it felt more circular, i could feel the breaths that we took together, the air that we shared, our chests inflating and deflating at the same pace. there were no strangers because it was a community and there are no strangers in community.

i pissed in the drawer of my desk and soiled all of my hard work but i didn't care because now im free.

11/3/22

to be a child is the most confusing time, to be a young adult is the second most.

as i continue to grow and learn and experience i am so often, to the extent that this happens most days, reminded of my reality that childhood is utterly confusing and somewhat traumatizing. it must have always been this way, at least in the relatively recent collective human experience, i dont imagine that as we have become more conscious and intelligent in the way that we survive we could have it any other way.

while nonhuman animals exist as their bodies, survival being mostly thru reactions and instincts, us human animals can live a life of imagination and wonder, all inside of our complex and so extremely fragile and large brains. this must be why there is the ability to feel depression and sadness and overly critical thoughts while we must do the things we must do in order to survive, there is the time to reflect on these actions and ask the most ambiguous question of them all: why? nonhuman animals simply do, we are cursed to do and then think. it is not only a curse but it is in many ways.

i have heard so many times in my life that life is pain, that you work and then you die, you must fight to live and only ensure you and your family's safety and security, and i vehemently disagree with this mindset but the more i am alive the more i understand this mindset and tho i am not swayed to its side even slightly from my own side which lies directly across the long part of the lake, i empathize and cannot attack this once-deemed-evil as i used to. there are so many things to do in order to stay alive. the further we move in the direction that we are moving, which feels as if it is god itself, unchangeable and the only way the wind will ever blow, the more arduous and even impossible it feels to do these things.

i felt these things as a child and i could not put words to them, no child can and as most children also felt these things im sure, but i suppressed the negative and moved on, some did not need resolving and were mainly a bad experience in the present and left at that, but i know that some altered the chemistry and connections inside of my brain that i am still feeling to this very moment that i am writing this down. i feel bad or scared or sad or anxious or like i want to be somewhere else, i dont know why, but life keeps going and i have to deal with it and move on because i cannot fall behind far enough to where i will not be able to catch up or else i may as well walk off the plank myself into the bottomless sea with all of the things i could ever not know under the surface which is infinitely more scary so the answer is clear.

but as a child it is so easily forgotten. my brain was small and very malleable so these mystery boxes of emotions may still come up, and certainly they do, but i am not triggered into feeling the exact way i once felt.

and as a young adult i have nowhere to hide. i am old enough now to understand why i am feeling certain ways and there have been a lot more stimuli to alter the way that i am feeling and in the present is where i must always and eventually deal with it. i remember things and i feel things much, much more intensely.

i viewed this strictly as a curse until somewhat recently when i began to realize any amount of my wishing or condemning would not change the reality i am in, that is to say the way that i felt, the unbearable and crushing weight of dread and all things existential and immediately physical. i began to make deals with the present, i sat down for the first time to begin my chess match with death himself, not as an enemy but as a neutral reality which was, and is, hopefully far from being finished.

and it is this which as given me peace. and it is this which has given me hope that my life will not be an eternal mess of confusion and fear and dread, but rather a natural and unpredictable yet still manageable concoction of all things that human animals are to feel and go thru. i am the most hopeful that my life will continue its increase in calm and peace and clarity the older i become, not in a way that i am yearning or even begging for the future, as if a version of myself i havent reached yet will breathe deeper and know more, but that i am already on the incline of that futures trajectory, that it will come to me, if i continue to be alive, which i certainly hope that i do, and feeling alright with myself at the moment.

there is a deep trust in myself that was planted many many years ago, i have always felt it, but very recently does it feel as if i have begun to water it, to care for it, to sing to it and love it. i am aware of all my naivety and i bask in it now for i allow myself to change with each passing day and look back on the riley of all yesterdays with a smile and care, with warmth and a hand extended. i am swimming in the love now that i have discovered to have always been there, it is the fountain of eternal life and it is no secret to uncover, it is in me as it is in you as it is in them as it is in us.

10/31/22

i dont want to play dress up.

ive been here before. im arguing the same thing, but the conversation was much different last time, and the time before that was different too. its another one of those feelings that has its own pull of gravity, it sucks in adjacent topics with underlying meanings and im spiraling back into the core of the feeling, my umbrella is bent and out of whack, i cannot float like mary poppins anymore, i am streamlining into the umbrella topic itself. and ive been here before, yes i know it, its a feeling and i feel it.

i just dont want to dress up for halloween. i know its about something bigger but lets just leave it at that for now. when i close my eyes i feel what i felt when i was very small and when i open them i surprise myself that i am not in my old house. i was dreaming again...it just felt so real. i must have crashed into that feeling again. i feel new emotions everyday so im surprised when i find one again, so profound, it challenges my understanding of time, of growth, physical and mental and spiritual and objective.

i am that little boy, that little boy is me. i am tired but there is too much to experience to sleep now, i edge myself of sleeping to find the sweet spot where my brain can make up my visions and emotions but i still sense the world around my body. im in two places at once, yes, it is possible, i have done it and im doing it now.

i just dont want to dress up for halloween. i hate being asked why i didnt wear a costume but i just couldnt find a fuck to give, i tried, i really did, for you, my friend. but i dont have one. i wanted to come to show you i love you but i dont have a costume. im sorry. i wish i could be met where im at, will you meet me there? ... overprotective? yes, maybe a little. or maybe a lot. do other people cry all the time, everyday? well then i am in good company, altho it can easily be overwhelming. if someone doesnt want to do something then that is okay and if someone wants to do something then that is okay, can i make every space a safe space? certainly i can try. it may be futile but i sure can try. i sure do love you.

where am i? and where are you? please take your costume off so i can see you and be reassured. i need so much reassurance even tho i do not feel like i do that often. i feel cold, i feel sick, im going to be sick on myself right now, im sorry, please excuse me, please let this be a safe space. please show me your face im begging you. okay, okay, thank you, im sorry i just got scared. can i hug you? can you hug me back? can you rub my back? ill rub yours back. im blubbering i know, ive blundered, i know, please accept my apologies.

youve been very kind to me. ill dress up now, i think im okay. yes, im still under the umbrella, i do not have enough rocket fuel to break into orbit but im okay for now, yes, really, im surprised too. ill go get my costume now, ill be ready when you are.

10/30/22

i fell asleep on my baby and now shes frustrated.

i fell asleep and i didnt mean to. my baby walked miles for me and when she throws pebbles at the window of my bedroom i continue to snooze.

in the morning i wake up and i feel guilty. i fell asleep on my baby and didnt get what i wanted either. oh, i wish i could have kept my eyes open, i wish i could have been stronger, i have no excuses except for being in a sleepy body.

my baby still loves me but im sorry that i fell asleep on her and made her frustrated. oh, i love my baby, my baby is understanding and so pretty even when she gives me short answers because shes frustrated. i love my baby because we talk things thru and im never worried about us even when she sometimes is.

i fell asleep on my baby last night and i will not make the same mistake this night, this night i will fall asleep with my baby in my arms, my baby will be warm and snuggly in my arms underneath my comforter with me where we share body heat and even prettier than when shes frustrated, i love when my baby smiles and laughs loud, i love my baby even when shes frustrated and i love her the same when shes happy and loving me.

10/28/22

at the end of it all, where would i like to be?

well buddy, if this is it, its been an honor.

see you in another life brother.

grown men accepting their fate and their mortality, with grace, and with ease and it is seamless.

this is exactly where i would like to be. at the end of it all, in the end of days, when you see the asteroid hit the earth and know you have some moments before your physical self is wiped away, when the nuclear countdown begins and you have x amount of time to make amends, when the doctor tells you that you have this long to live, when the water starts to fill the ship, when you are free falling back down to the lowest point, when the grim reaper fixes the black inside of his hood towards you and begins to inch closer, this is when the accepting begins. it is a reckoning, but i believe this reckoning can and for myself should be a peaceful thing, the last bridge i am to cross, no matter how violent or abrupt it may come into view.

i would be alright if i did not have this time to meet my mortality, if i were to go in an instant, in many ways this would be better, but i cannot determine that for myself and if i ever were to have the choice i would like to put myself thru this transitional period, this very brief liminal space where i know with certainty that all of the things that i remember and all of the events that i have lived thru are about to come to an end in the only way that ive known them and i am about to be without any of my senses and i am to be in an experience which is entirely new, where the drain is unclogged and the lines are cleared and i will be born again, entirely pure and fresh, soft, malleable, and curious and all knowing.

it is in this moment that i will begin to ascend and begin to shift over to this new reality, i am evangelion unit 01 sprouting the tree of life, a golden and irreplicable time where i exist in two planes, it cannot be long, but this is where i vibrate the highest, this is where i shut out the fear that i have learned and revert back to my primal and entirely natural form of living love and of the divine i come from, in this moment i am the bridge itself and any who experience me will feel me and be felt by me, it is where the blinders come off and a miracle unfolds, something our capped and inherently limited science cannot explain, but all who feel it would never even consider to try because the only thing that is felt exists far above the lived experience we have been held to, never in a bad way, only in a knowing way and in an accepting way.

this moment is clarity and i would like to shoot out my love, for that is all i have ever been anyway, to all my family and all my friends and all the strangers i have admired and i want to exist in the love soup that is the backbone, the dna, the brain, the heart, and the mind of it all.

i yearn for this moment and i have all my life, it is the final moment of existing here and it is the only one that must happen eventually.

i do not have to do a single thing in this life except for die.

there is a freedom here that has begun to help me out immensely. i could cry and cry and cry and i do and i will as i become more peaceful and still and calm and content and reflective and relaxed and happy and neutral. the most ideal form of life, neutrality, neutrality is the mundane and it is the other 3/4 of life that is not thought about but only felt, lived thru, existed in. neutral in its most objective sense. bobbing in the waves of the water of the infinitely large. being in my own present.

and then the dmt will release from my brain stem and i will breathe my loud, last breath and all of my muscles will relax and i will release all of the excesses inside of me and the lights will be turned off for the final time, i will no longer be a person but only flesh and bones and i will decompose into my mother, the soft ground. long before this process is complete i will be in the place i do not know about, but i am confident i will fully feel all of these things i yearn for already.

---

am i petting you for your pleasure or my own?

do i want to make you feel happy and secure or do i just like the way your fur feels across my hand? sometimes its one and other times its the other. but it makes me feel bad to know i dont consider your happyness sometimes.

there is an entertainment with life ive been finding in only observation. or i really like the word enjoyment more than entertainment, but to the same point. i enjoy hearing conversations in grocery stores or watching someone walk or squirrels climbing trees. sometimes i project a reality onto the lives i see but most of the time i appreciate them for exactly who they are in the moment. its a practice, like everything else.

there is so much to say, all the time, i want to say it all even tho i know that i cant.

10/27/22

i come into the woods and when i do i find you there, waiting.

the smell of your perfume is overwhelming and i am temporarily robbed of my other senses so i close my eyelids and the trail of your scent guides me away like a cartoon character when he smells fresh pie. i feel that vulnerable. and your smell does have berries in it, it is fresh like dew but round and colorful, it has a slight pinch to it but it does not draw blood, it is a playful squeeze and the rest of the time is spent in a hug. its sharp at first but then it gently falls all across my body as if i have thrown up the sheets and scurried into bed before it completes its descent. i am draped in your perfume and it makes me feel loved. i know, i know that that is the whole point but i have to explicitly state it at least this once.

i walked for 20 miles on the paved road and when i reached the 20 mile marker i found your scent. my calves are tight and the tops of my feet with all the little bones in them feel like they are shifting, like a broken snickers bar still inside the wrapping, but i would have walked 20 more still until i sniffed you out. did you know it would be 20? its a great number.

i have seen two other people this entire time and i have spent a whole work day only walking, walking alone and in silence and stillness with the animals and the trees and plants that surround me and this paved road that i am on. it is like walking thru a ghost town or an empty scary movie set that takes place at a summer camp, or an abandoned carnival. there has to be a point where all carnivals take their last trip and it seems as if ive found this ones resting place. i hear laughs in the trees around me but they are the redbreasted nuthatches that get close enough for me to identify them. the cabins are all boarded up and there is no running water anywhere. the steamboat is beached for the winter and everything looks so old it looks like it has been this still for decades even tho i know they housed many, many people here just a couple months ago. children and families and dogs.

how many eyes are on me now? animals, surely, but human? maybe none. how many people are within a mile radius of me? anyone? anyone? it doesn't feel as tho there are and to me that is all that matters. i see deer and a fox and many different types of birds and rodents, i come across a very small salamander with their head cut off but when i moved them off of the paved road the tail moved like a chicken with their head cut off and i gasped a small gasp. this made me feel in company and i wished them a peaceful rest and continued on.

i stole firewood to make a fire. i wasn't allowed to bring my own and there was nobody there to sell me any so i fit my skinny arm into a hole of the shed which housed the bundles and i took two of them, piece by piece, the hole was only big enough for one of my arms. i felt lucky that it worked out that way. i stole the firewood to make a fire and to keep us warm. i did this for us and you thanked me and we both agreed that it was okay that i did that. sat by the fire my clothes absorb the campfire smell and when the smoke drafts into my face and fills my glasses and takes my vision, that is when you begin to rub my feet and work your way up my legs with small, delicate touches, rubbing my stiff calves and massaging my medium sized thighs. i lean my head back in relaxation and the smoke continues to hover like there is a fish bowl over my head and the smoke is stuck inside. but i can breathe just fine and i like the smell and i like even more the feeling you are giving me.

i feel indescribably horny but you do not have a body and it is not sexual but it is a lust for life and when i work thru this thought i put on my headphones and listen to too in love to die by julia jacklin on repeat as i get up with my new pair of legs and i start swinging around and sobbing and tensing up my fists and whole body into a ball because i cannot express the emotion as quickly as it comes, the spout is not big enough (there is no spout big enough for this) and the emotion spills out over the top of the funnel and i look like that one video of a kid in a classroom silently scream crying with headphones on at his desk.

i weep and i move in ways ive restrained for years and tonight i am youthful in the pitch dark with the fire i made for us and when im thru with my healthy fit i am back to smelling your perfume and feeling your embrace. i piss on the flames to put them out and i hurl myself into my sleeping bag on top of my sleeping pad inside my tent and i turn off my headlamp and sleep soundly until i wake up and its time to leave.

when i am packing up i am thinking about how when i am old i will cry and cry and cry, all i know is what i feel and i will have felt an overwhelming amount of things by the time i am no longer youthful because i know there is so much more that awaits me. and there is so much more that awaits us, i will hold you in my hand, love, love, you are who i will take with me thru it all, you are all that i need. love. when i am old we will still be together, you will still be holding me as you hold everybody else, i am comfortable with that. when i went into the woods i found you and when i found you i found my own stillness.

10/24/22

i go to the woods to find you and as soon as im there so are you.

this is an oxymoron of an expedition. i feel you here and the feeling you give to me makes me want to share it with so many people...so many people who i love but cannot seem to tell. when i am not alone in the woods with you i dont feel it as much and then i dont express it. how do i express you?

you are an entity and i am a conduit of you. you smile with no eyes because you are personless but you are happy and this i know because this is what i feel when you rush thru me, when you are fast inside me and push my pressure points, you are the puppeteer and my strings are plenty, i am so moved by you, i weep and i weep because you are god and god is great, i only know this in the woods by myself.

i am moving in ways i have never moved in front of anyone, not even myself, it is pitch dark outside except for my headlamp so i turn that off to be invisible. i see nothing. i exist in a void and the only attachment i have to the world i know is the feeling of tears puddling in my sockets and dripping down my cheeks and the resistance of air against my limbs as i move and flail around and the tension of the muscles around my mouth because they are pursed in an ugly but meaningful and beautiful way. i have dissolved even to myself, i do not exist except for this feeling that has taken control. and this feeling is love.

im too in love to die. if this plane were to go down. surely the love i have for him would soften the ground. im too in love to die. if i were to go on to the highway. all the cars would spin around me, like a dance, and on here on the earth id stay.

10/23/22

i will never be understood and i will never understand.

at times a curse, at others a more neutral thing. i speak about things at length and now i am speaking about the one thing i need in my life most and ive found that it is associated with a much different feeling by someone else than me. at least the word, but words are all there are, i cannot hold you by the shoulders or put my thumb to the center of your forehead and close my eyes and concentrate really hard and transmit the feeling to you. it is not that easy. there is nothing else to say if you dont feel what im saying, we have talked for an hour, there is nothing else to add, we are running in circles saying the same thing, it makes me think about things differently but not that much. im not sure.

i am in a lull that will last years. a lull that lulls the stimulation and entertainment i once sought, i will be normal and ordinary and monotonous and, to most i assume, boring. but this is all i want and right now i feel as if it is all i have ever wanted. i am the most ordinary man i know, i am not weird, stop calling me weird, please. if i am weird than you are insane and i dont believe that, we are both just ordinary. a beautiful word that is, ordinary, a beautiful thing to be, ordinary, something to strive for. ordinary.

im going camping tomorrow. alone. it is 4 hours away. nobody follow me. i will come back and maybe i wont feel any different. but i will come back having gone camping alone for the second time. it is something i need.

i know i will need you all later, i will need you like you need me, i will listen to you as you have listened to me, but im not there now, i am going camping alone and you cannot follow me, i am turning off my headlights and i am plugging the paint can with the hole in it that has been jammed underneath my car, it may be years, im actually sure it will be years, maybe i will have a child then, maybe i will be single or with somebody else, or i will just be alone. but i will feel the same as i do now, only a little different. im sorry friend, you cannot come, please leave me alone, dont call me weird, please i cant take that. i am ordinary and that is all i wish to be. i am ordinary with a routine and i do things in repetition, i am monotonous, i do not do things out of the ordinary, that is an oxymoron and those things do not exist except within the mind, the mind is all but in the plane we are speaking in it is nothing. stop calling me weird. call me ordinary.

10/20/22

it seems that most of my memories exist in the colder seasons.

they must be more reflective of who i am in this body. i am most comfortable in the dark, the calm, the quiet, the lamplight, the cozy, the domestic, this is where i am allowed to be still and ruminate. i remember the winter my freshman year of high school when i would retreat to the smallest room in the house, i would set up my homework on the sheet music stand and i would load up youtubereplay.com and listen to the same songs for hours and hours. the light was dim and i would feel the cold from the window as i got close and looked outside at the crunchy snow. i would feel so much in those moments it was unbearable. i have always pressed on my heart like a pedal to the floor to feel, to feel and feel it as hard as i can.

it is no wonder that i cannot wait for the first snowfall of each year. then i am expected to be bundled up inside doing whatever i like from my warm and comfortable home. there is a smile on my face because this year i am going to take back those feelings i had once, over 10 years ago. has it really been that long? it has, indeed, it has...im not sure when it was that i became misguided in my love of the winter but i am taking it back. the days i would get home from ski practice underneath an already dark sky, i would put on the blade runner soundtrack and be in a steamy shower for half of an hour. the days of waking up when it is also dark and wait for the bus in the minus degree days, no words spoken between anyone for the first 2 hours of our days.

i am circling back. in many ways.

10/18/22

fuck you kanye first and foremost.

if everybody else is crazy maybe youre the one thats insane. but maybe you know this, maybe you dont care. maybe i like jay z now. no i dont but he's better than you. ugly people listen to kanye and think why, he's finally making some sense! i love this kane west guy! and they have been since he wore a maga hat. ugly people with horrible mindsets. fuck you kanye for falling too hard into the manmade, i held leeway for you forever, but no more, you are off the deep end and you dove into reality made by man, i once thought you saw bigger pictures but i was not keen to the idea you could have been facing the wrong way. fuck you. i haven't cared about you since 2016 but now i reject you. you are a free thinker but you are predictable and you are ugly. you are not a god.

i watch evangelion and see the end of days and i look outside and its beautiful but then it also starts to feel like the end of days and i become scared again. i am much less scared than before but it is a lot.

10/14/22

ugly ugly ugly.

guzzling excess amounts of alcohol in thru gullets. ugly. smoking the smoke that blackens the lungs and makes breathing shallow and coughing wet. ugly. walking around with a dick as a radar. ugly. yelling, screaming, cursing names, puffing chests, spits while shouting, veins in foreheads bursting out on top of cherry red faces, a testosterone test, manipulation for personal gain, anger, fear, unjust and unnecessary hatred, ugly fucking people, they are everywhere, it is a disease to treat life as a game to win instead of a dance to dance, ugly mindsets and ugly actions.

it is not their faults but i become disillusioned seeing them on my screens, my vision locks in and i am frozen in a sleep paralysis, like alex from clockwork orange my eyes are jerry rigged open and i am forced to watch destruction. i began where he ended, docile and ordinary, and tho i will never become what he started as, a bully and a trauma inflictor, i crawl into my shell and i leave my immobile body on the road, i turned off the power and i am forced into an early hibernation.

i cannot take reality and this is a problem, it is not anyones fault but my own, my judgement bangs the gavel but i am only one person, one person of billions and billions, i am given headaches and panic attacks when the ugly actions appear on my screen and i become nauseous and sad, these are the days i wish to crawl back into my bed and oftentimes i do until its time for work to see ugly actions in real life.

10/10/22

if a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

i certainly believe that it does. but to me it does not so i dont think it matters much. if i remove my glasses from my face and i can no longer see my cat across the room, is she still there? of course she is. i can drape the plastic back over my ears and look thru this very precisely crafted glass and prove that that is true. i was a baby when i learned what object permanence was. but in the moment when my face is naked i cannot see her...so again i begin to think: does this matter to me?

my knee jerk reaction is a resounding and clear yes. of course, obviously, she is my best friend and i am in love with her. i care for her and she cares for me, we lick each other and provide each other love and comfort. i could take even a more righteous route and say that i feed her, i house her, i purchase things for her, the evidence is here that yes, this matters to me, i have the receipts, the proof. and i believe the answer is yes without even having to take that route or one similar. but if i challenge myself and my birds eye view of life, in all its essence and glory, does it matter to me one way or another that she is alive less than 10 feet away from me?

well, no. i dont think so. all i know on the outside is from my senses. the rest is internal, some still relating to the senses and the rest being an abstract and evermorphing gooey mess of emotions and thought. this is all that i know. i would still have this if i became a vegetable who was stripped of all their senses. until my cerebral connections are severed i will have ideas and feelings, much like dreams, and altho this idea is actually very scary to me i still hold it to be true. this viewpoint is not much different than saying that we live in a simulation.

when i was younger i did not know what this meant because i could not grasp the hypotheses that revolve around this very broad and confusing, potentially misinterpreted topic. my understanding maxed out at imagining a bigger, somewhat divine being watching us like a tv show or playing us like a video game. but now i think that, yes, this may as well be a simulation. how could it not? all i know is what i sense and what i feel. i am in this vessel for a short amount of time so my actual self, my mind, my soul? is just here for the ride, to move my body to express, to understand, to something something something.

im starting to lose care about this topic now. what i believe my experience of life to be does not ultimately matter at all because it will not change. this is not a bad thing, it is just a thing, the thing.

if a little boy plays hide and seek and stands in plain sight while covering his eyes, is he hidden? yes, of course he is.

10/9/22

i believe, more firmly each day, that it is a good and sustainable thing to wake up each morning and decide what to do in real time.

by this i mean exactly what i have done these last few weeks: wake up to no alarm, make my coffee, read my book, play and lay with my kitties, write or just think, make my bed and do my chores, stretch, shower, eat, walk, bike, get ready for work, leave. it is usually in this order with somethings added, somethings omitted, it is not strict which is exactly why i have been able to do these things. i must sound like a hypocrite contradicting myself already but the premise is true! i am only doing these things because i have allowed myself to choose precisely what it is that i want to do!

surely habits will form and monotony will develop, quite increasingly, but how specific must routine be? can routine not be centered around pockets of empty space where i do similar things and similar times of day? i welcome routine i do not have an aversion to it at all, but ive found that every time i try to start a tangible, often numerical, goal relating to exercise of the mind or of the body, anything to increase my overall wellbeing, i suffer even more because what i do have an aversion to is feeling as tho i must do anything. like wellbeing is homework. i wont ever go back to school and this makes me feel like i am setting myself up for a lifetime of discipline. to which i say no thank you to myself and i lounge around and and shrug at all suggestions and become immobile. ive learned this lesson, many times now. so this time around i am entering pockets of time where i decide what i want to do, if i want to do it, and ive found i am running more, i am stretching more, i am doing all these things that i once swatted away after they become too engrossing. i am learning to not be all or nothing. i am learning.

monotony is a word that i have produced a lot recently and a thing which i also feel strongly about. i am grasping onto that word as a sunken man gasping for his last little bubble of air. why is monotony bad? i have grown to hate the idea that i feel the need to be constantly entertained, always stimulated by something, and i am not close to achieving my goal but i am, one by one and very slowly, minimizing the flashy and unnatural things that take up my day. i began this journey when i became comfortable with long term goals and this was not that long ago. the things i intake are slower and more deliberate, ive always moved without haste but now i move with an even stronger sense of observation and deliberateness. patience too. i am trying to remove all of my blinders, like a comedy bit i remove my sunglasses only for the audience to discover i am wearing another pair underneath but in this sketch i am also in the dark about how many i must really be wearing. not scared anymore but more so impatient i rifle thru the lenses, throwing them in every direction, not even careless but angrily and with distaste, but i know i am making progress because my vision becomes increasingly lighter. just let me see without filters! make me squint in the sunlight, naked and bare!

i have removed expectations from myself, as ive talked on before. its not perfect but im winning because i am improving. i feel a very nice feeling because it makes me think that this is the most authentic ive been with myself yet. im discovering that i am a friendly, solitary man with strong love and desire for comfort and cozy. i am domestic and at home in my heart.

10/6/22

the leaves are so beautiful on all of the trees. there isnt a one who isnt shining brightly even thru the overcast day. the show has begun and i am in awe.

i walk along the pathways near the river and i pass many people. we crunch on different colors and we soft smile to each other as more colors fall between us from above. we giggle in our hearts and connect about the beauty, the privilege it is to witness the changing of the season, specifically summer to fall, and in that moment i remember that i am smiling to myself because the stranger is not a stranger because we feel and do the same thing and i am the stranger and they are me and i am fulfilled because of this, i am gleaming and bursting at the seams, i take a deep breath of the cool fall air, crisp and refreshing, and i move along to observe more pretty trees.

i walk along lyndale and i see two people sobbing and clawing at their skin, scrambling to shovel their entire spilled belongings back into their suitcase, they are moving in circles and not making sense and in this moment i am happy i am across the street, they are dirty but beautiful and angry but hurt. i about cant take the spectacle that this is and i walk passed them on the other side of the street because i know there is nothing i am capable of doing to help them in this moment and even tho we feel and do a different thing i am the strangers and they are me and i am filled with sandbags and walking becomes impossibly hard but i obtain momentary super strength and end up moving even faster than i previously was, i think of all the people this must be happening to in the world at this very moment and i become dizzy with nausea and i duck around the corner to heave and squat and recover the calm.

i drive on the county roads in roseville and i am at a stoplight when i notice the car behind me very close to my tail and when the light turns green he speeds up to get next to me and when he matches my speed i look over to see him telling me to lower my window, so i do, confused, and he pauses and smiles and then says "i love you too bro" and it takes me a moment to register what he said, realizing that he was reading my bumper sticker which says if youre reading this i love you and then it clicks and i become a bit excited and i point to him out of love and yell back "good looks bro" as we smile to each other and enjoy this shared moment that he created. i drive behind him now and the smile stays on my face and im hoping that the smile stayed on his too as he takes a left at the stop sign and out of my life. our relationship exists on that county road in roseville.

i sit on my balcony, i am breathing in air instead of smoking tobacco, and i watch all the people go by and i am reacting to their existence as it enters my vision, sort of like judgements but specifically how it relates to me: i like your shoes, your car is too loud for my ears, you are so attractive to me, you make me want to grow my hair out again, im happy that youre on a run and are making me want to go on a run, you smoke and i dont anymore but i want to join you for your cigarette anyway, oh my god you are so attractive to me, i hope you look up here and we can smile at each other, i hope you make the bus that you are yelling for. now i am in a pause with no audience and i have a second to think without stimuli and i become aware of the idea that i am looking at other living people and they do not even have to interact with me to impact me, i wonder how often i am that for other strangers, strangers who are me, how many little pieces of me are in other people, any life actually, i cannot exclude my kitties and the neighborhood squirrels and bunnies, how many pieces of individual little lives make up who i am?

i begin to melt into my camping chair and i am afloat in the buoyant goo without the need to tread water and i am thankful for that, i learned the skill in my swimming lessons the summer going into 4th grade but i failed that year and i still cannot do it comfortably for that long. that was a lifetime ago...but really that was less than 20 years ago and surely i have at least 2 more bundles of 20 years to go, maybe 3 if i stay lucky...if i stay as lucky as i have been my whole life it may even be 4...i am sitting in the goo reminiscing on my luck and feeling connected to all the people around me, the goo is my own but it is really all of ours, i did not make it on my own, i have not done anything on my own, not a thing.

i am the tree that is changing colors like all of the other trees, there is no standout among us, nobody at all and surely not me.

9/29/22

i know its a gift to be alive but sometimes i just need more convincing.

i sit in stillness with no music on and i hear the sounds outside in the distance and there is my proof that other people and nonhuman lives are out there doing things and they are normal because theyre making normal sounds. but im sat here in my own bubble contemplating why i can understand that but still feel and think too many things to make my time awake enjoyable.

and my time asleep is too much as well. i cant sleep well and when it becomes closer and closer for me to wake up i am in the limbo stage of dream and reality and they blend so perfectly you cannot tell the colors apart and my brain doesnt know how to act or how to feel so there is the thumping in my head and the anger rises up and i am irritable and sad.

take my wallet because i surely will not be needing it. whats the point? go gather your own delta sky miles, i am tired of money on my mind, i want to run away from it but i would also need money to do that. how can i escape the constant reminders, the reality? is a commune the only way? i must never have children because i will not be able to afford them because i dont know if i can even afford myself at the end of it.

am i having a good time or am i just trying to convince myself?

9/28/22

i am a well oiled machine.

i lube my hand and run it up and down, a moment of little motions near the top like i am stirring the pot and i become excited and antsy, a little squirmy and happy, then a moment of long glides along the smooth skin for a breath and a deeper sort of sensation. i look at what's in my hand and i feel a connection like i do a buddy, a best friend, one i will have forever. we are inseparable.

i am mesmerized and in awe when it comes out, it is natural and beautiful and it is full of life, i look around the empty bathroom as if to say did i do that? did that really just come out of me? i am a miracle myself, a living, breathing, cumming miracle! i am bewildered and pleased and then i go about my day, the two of us again in our own worlds.

i lace my sneakers and im off. i am building up my speed for three whole miles to prove to myself that i can, im at 6:15 pace and i feel proud, the music is loud in my ears and my brain is tingling because i am so high and running so fast. i look down at my feet and there are bounds within my touchdowns and i glide gracefully along the path like i am running on the surface of water, lily pad to lily pad, i leap and my momentum increases and my stride is soft yet powerful. i am tingling all over now. there are tears forming in my eyes because of how much i am tingling and feeling. the climax occurs at the end of the bridge and i am wheezing, heaving, clutching at elusive breaths but i do not panic because i know they are only teasing me, they are already becoming closer to me, attainable again, i run at one fifth the pace i was just at so my lactic acid doesn't build up in my legs until i walk the last block to my house.

i am standing in front of the mirror, i am naked and i am damp all over, so damp that my skin is overflowing with liquid and the balls of sweat begin to drip onto my hardwood floor. they splash their microscopic splashes and i am still breathing in heavily. i smell like sweat and i believe it to be beautiful, my individual and homegrown cologne. i watch the salty drops move all down my body and i think that i am gorgeous, what a wonderful thing to have a body, what a joy and a privilege and an honor to be able to use it.

9/26/22

i am but a thought.

my existence itself is an offshoot of the brain of the universe, a solar flare of the ultimate life force, as i have those thoughts that make me think whoa, i have never thought of that before, thoughts that sincerely make me look at the world i am living in differently, that is what i am, a thought in my own head might last a moment and to my mother, the universe, i may just be a moment as well.

i am a test run of an idea: what if a person behaved exactly this way? no, it cant be that specific, i must be the manifestation of a wavelength, of an explicit energy. a feeling that was felt and inspired an idea, my infinitely expansive mother traveled down a rabbit hole, for a moment, and by love and intention and curiosity and innocence, by life, i was conceived and now here i am and here i stand.

today i look around as i ride my bike and i view others as thoughts of our mother, we are all the same, really, and i believe it to be a foolish thing to think that we are unique. we are embarrassingly similar. but i am still trying to rid myself of the idea that i am unique. i am kendrick lamar yelling hypocrite! at himself, my brain rattles that one second snippet around in my head, with echo and reverb. but i hold space for the necessary empathy i need and deserve to give myself, for i am all that i know so really how can i blame myself for feeling that way? after all of it i am still a crash dummy. and that is not a bad thing. i have much longer until i slam into the wall and mother will process my results, the conclusion of a thought.

it is a process to believe in something, something i have trialed and errored many times in many facets and come to find the supposed answer of, and have my thoughts and actions reflect that belief. it takes time to shift my subconscious. i may have an idea but it takes the deeper part of my mind and brain and body a while to catch up. it takes belief itself and it takes trust. at times i will realize that it is so powerful it did not even need my trust to manifest, it just needed the kickstart, the initial thought of mine, my own meta rabbit hole i traveled down for a moment, and now there it stands. a little resentful but mostly impatient, it breathes ugh, thank you, finally! as the lifeguard gives it the thumbs up and it launches into the dark tunnel of the water slide.

i am thinking now, does this mean i believe that the world we all inhabit is essentially just the brain of the universe? at least one of the brains? or is it the universe itself which is the brain, forming new connections and new thoughts, all documented by a life and lived out to test the waters. i suppose it does. i suppose this is not an original thought either but after all, i am just thinking on paper. yes, we are all stuck here for a moment together, as thoughts in a brain exist, as complex as our creators yet entirely similar to one another. i suppose that is what i believe too. at least for the moment.

there was not a definitive moment when i first felt this way, i believe that as time went on i started to feel more and more an abstract emotion, feeling combined with way of thinking, unnoticeable at first and then more and more overwhelming, the meter became full and then burst and mercury shot out the top until it hit the high ceiling and sprayed red dye in every corner of the room, stained forever with this new realization, a person unable to return to ignorance, naivety erased and attainable no more...but it has been crystal and shiny clear to me recently that i am here in life and i have only lived about one third of my totality, hopefully a little less than a third, universe willing. i am an adult, which i mean that i am looked at with respect and enough confidence that i should understand by now. for better and for worse, both simultaneously. i look back on my own past and think how the fuck have i been alive so long? while turning my head the opposite direction and seeing an even longer timeline with muddied events and occurrences unknown. a mad lib for me to fill in. secret treasures for me to dig up. i am at the meeting point of a japanese jigger. and it is long and i smile because it is long. i have nothing to worry about. the dust is settling and i can get my footing and become more intentional with my habits and ways of life. my brain is done forming and i am excited to put it to use.

9/22/22

yesterday at 11:06 in the morning, while i was on my way to southeastern minnesota to visit a new state park as a gift to myself, i turned 26.

and it was a beautiful day. two days ago it was 90º and one day ago it was 60º, as a child i would say sometimes my birthday is in the summer and sometimes its in the fall and tho im not sure which is the official day this time around, i know that this year my birthday was in the fall.

as i walked around tall trees and thru the sunbeams that they created, allowing streaks of light into their collective shade, i thought a lot about what it means to me to be alive and to have made it this long. we wasn't sposed to make it past 25...i know that line is explicitly about something specific, something that does not relate to me, but i couldn't help but think of it. i talked up 25 and i talked down 25 but 26 has me feeling neutral about its presence, its reality, its embrace. i soft smile and i say yeah, im 26, im just another year older, that's all. nothing changed except the number.

except placebos are real and my mood was golden all day yesterday and that gold has carried over into this day and i am feeling wonderful. i feel a respect for myself and for my life, a serenity and peacefulness of, you guessed it, simply being alive. the words i spout all too often. what a gift to be alive. money aint real. time aint real. i am just alive in my kitchen sitting at my table, i just ate a meal and im drinking water, my cat moody blue is climbing over me and being cuddly and i tell her im cuddly too, i have work in 3 hours but for now im just here. i dont feel the need or want to move or do anything else. i am present right now, my first full day of 26.

i had the thought placed in my head yesterday, i cant remember who gave it to me, that the fear of death is inherently silly because death is not alive, death is dead and things with no life cannot be scary. i dont intend to be disrespectful towards the one thing that no life can avoid forever, but it is simply the absence of life from your current vessel, death cannot exist without life because it is just the inverse. death doesn't have its own identity, it is life that is the subject, life is love and all other emotions that come with it, even the ones we often think of as bad. life is chaos and chaos is not bad. death is the end of that chaos and it is not bad, it is not ugly, it is as natural as life because it is still bound to life, it is truly yin and yang as they are two sides of the same coin but even then there are not clear boundaries or distinctions between them, it is a light switch that is either up or down, the up light switch is not a different entity than the down light switch, it is the same with life and death tho we have just given the different positions different names.

i am full of respect for myself. for all life. i am eternally grateful for the connections i have made thus far with all other living things around me, both inanimate and animate. birthday wishes are my favorite part about an otherwise normal feeling day, i am reminded of how many beautiful lives i have made connections with and i compliment them as they compliment me. 

i am in the process of expelling the mindset of when x happens i will y or when i gain this new thing then i will do this other thing because it prolongs important things and it is easy to extend these actions long passed my time to be able to even do them. it is a sigh of immediate relief but in the distance just beyond the horizon lurks the expectations and the doubled weight that i felt was on my chest just a moment ago, the very same that i just heaved off of me because of the discomfort. nothing in my life is promised to me except that one day i will cease to be alive in the way we are familiar with and these forthcoming dates in which i place the things i feel like doing now...i may never reach them. i am learning to be content with what i have and make things work in real time. i do not know exactly what this means but i do know that it is a healthy mindset, a much healthier one than i have been stuck in for a very long time. i am happy to be thinking this way, it feels like clarity, like jumping in an ice bath and the prickles you feel are injections of wide-eyed okay, yup, my heads in the game agains. i am full of respect for my life. i have so much more to live.