Five Minute Free Write.

Some people would call me crazy

But I find labels make me itch.

Often they don’t fit anyway,

like a small knit jumper, clinging in all the wrong places.

 

A friend said spoke of dreams today,

of holding on when nothing else is left.

Mine are content to slip away

flashing at me teasingly, like collarbones in winter,

displayed only when a scarf slips.

Strong Motion

In the background a voice croons softly along with an acoustic guitar, singing about memories, photographs and regrets. This afternoon the caravan seems suspiciously small and for once the yellow was just don't seem right. I just won’t think and immerse my self in the black and white melody that spills across the pages of my book.

An advancing warm front had begun to curdle the clear blue of the sky.In the North End, a slender neon boot named ITALIA kicked a monstrous neon boulder named SICILIA. It was impossible to escape the words MEAT MARKET. The Italians that lived here- old women who stalled on the sidewalks like irrationally pausing insects, their print dresses gaping at the neck; young car owners with hairstyles resembling sable pelts -seemed harried by a wind the tourists and moneyed intruders couldn’t feel, a sociological wind laden with the dank dust of renovation, as cold as society’s interest in heavy red sauces with oregano and Frank Sinatra, as keen as Boston’s hunger for real estate in convenient white neighbourhoods.

My friend with the soothing voice is still singing. The tune has changed but the song is still the same. The theme seems to be regret, before it was past; now its love, but all the time regret. Its what makes us what we are. That little six letter word and its consequences. Its a little like bacon really. Optional, but it adds a whole new dimension to the flavours of our existential cheeseburgers. I guess its what makes us human. After all isn’t everything defined by how its broken?

MEAT MARKET. MEAT MARKET. Midwestern tourists surged up the hill. A pair of Japanese youths sprinted past Louis, their fingers in Michelin guides, as he approached the Old North Church whose actual setting immediately and quietly obliterated the more wooded picture in his mind that had formed before he saw it. He skirted and ancient cemetery, thinking of Houston, where summer had already arrived, where downtown smelled of cypress swamps and the live oaks shed green leaves, remembering a conversation from a humid night there- You’ll be lucky next time. I swear you will.

We had an oak tree at school when I was kid. They pulled it down after a storm, when it nearly fell on the library.

**excerpts from Jonathan Franzen’s Strong Motion

Touch my soul.

Midnight. A migraine of senses and if I just lie still enough I can begin to separate them.

The crashing hum of the pedestal fan as it seeps, like water, through the pillow I have so desperately wrapped around my head, drowning me in a single sensation. Round and round it goes, happily buzzing as it constantly completes its purpose. A single journey of endless rotation.

And if I lie really still I can feel the very atmosphere of the room moving. The air is cool as it whispers across my skin. While it touches my arms, it moves against something deeper, touching me in places I never want a lover to reach. A hard part amongst the softness, questioning. Asking me how I got like this and why something so cold and numb can feel so much. Reminding me that the scars on my skin are so much deeper.

Strange how a breeze can make you feel so exposed.

Creating Destruction

I discovered something today, an escape if you will.

I was fired the other day. She asked me what I wanted to do with my life. I told her photography, I never mention my writing. Its my secret, whisperings of and empty face from behind anonymous keystrokes. She smiled then, like she knew me. It was the second time we met. “You’re creative then”. I treated her to another blank smile and responded with a small: “I guess so”.

I drove home in a daze, not a good way to be in the rain. The tracks of rubber on the old back road were a testament to that fact, pulling off the road I glanced down at my hands out of curiosity and took stock. Steady, nothing was different, not heartbeat, hands, nothing. Not even a hint of adrenaline. For the amount of rubber my tires had just left on the road I was emotionless. Continuing home I remained in the same state, empty.

All my life I’ve been destructive, destroying and scarring everything that I brush past, and now there was a new word. One that more people were starting to refer to me as ‘creative’. Tracing the scars on my hand, I pondered this for a while and began to create. Pen touched paper and blue ink began to outline my creation. And this I created: A character, a beautiful woman. For a while I immersed myself in her and reality faded. Her soft skin was mine, her eyes became my window to her world and I became her. My escape became her existential journey and, as one, we continued to create.

A man and woman’s voice became the soundtrack for my madness as something else faded into my creation. A buzz. A tinny vibration began once again inside my head reminding me that I wasn’t filling this created woman, but instead empty myself.  But within that emptiness was an irritation, not painful it was simply that an irritation. Maybe I was overstimulated, under-motivated, something.

Still nothing.

Take No Prisoners

It’s one of those days when there is music in the silence, when every sound is a dissonant chord somehow fitting into the tune. Cars rush by and I am out of sync with the world. I felt good about myself this morning, my hair was brushed and my boots clicked on the pavement. An appointment in an office, what a way to start my day.

He looked like a crazy, shaggy grey hair and a shirt not fully buttoned, but for some reason we clicked. Maybe it was the strength in his grip, or the way he never once said my name. “An Aquarian!” he said as he read my file, “My stepdaughter’s an Aquarian, she takes no prisoners.” Somehow, this made sense. We talked nothings for a while and he filled out his forms, every now and then looking up and appraising me deeply. There was nothing uncomfortable about the way his grey eyes took me in, right down to my soul, every millimetre. I had known him 45 minutes and was completely at ease. As I left the office, he gripped my hand once more.

“Don’t forget to enjoy your life” he said.

I felt good this morning...

...Until I thought of you.

Over the edge

I stand on the edge, between somewhere and nowhere in my mind, gazing of into the dark. Silently the falling tears surround me, flowing freely, a sparkle of diamonds in the moonlight. It was one of those times, where pain hit like a car crash and left no visible marks. When I just wanted to retreat, stay hidden inside myself. Out of everyone’s reach and away from the chaos of reality. Maybe in there I can be untouchable. When all i needed was the nothing that was just over that edge. Yet you held me, and tightly you held. There were no sweet nothings to be whispered here. Just a simple “Don’t be stupid!” as your embrace never wavered. We both knew what would happen is it did. Strength was available only as buckets of weakness and i couldn’t continue to hold my feet. If you ever dared to release me…

I just might fall.

Mask

Lying here, a voice begins to tell me.
You’re not good enough.
Never have been strong enough.
I won’t let you fix me I'll tell you I'm not broken.

Can you tell now I'm not breathing, alive but not living.
All smiles but not believing.
Soon I realise I cannot wake from these nightmares.
All along I was alone.
Suddenly you'll see through this

My mask has slipped at last, my tortured soul revealed. The makeup removed revealing the scars. And all my cover-ups disappear.....

Inside my mind a voice continues its  painful monologue:
you’re not good enough.
Never have been strong enough.
Hello I’m your world come back into me and continue your lie.
Pretend you don’t need fixing, your not broken.
Scorn the hand that only wants to save you.
It’s transparent anyway.
You couldn’t survive this reality
So why not create your own, hide in it where they can’t see you

So I’ll redo my makeup and find that smile to hide behind
its amazing how under that, all scars are invisible.
And I’m safe once more behind the mask.
I’ll freeze inside myself

And convince myself this pains dreaming and that I won’t wake alone.
This world and mine are blurring. Which is the one that’s real?
Now I cannot survive in either. While in both I live a lie.
Bathed in regret but still not clean.
Pouring out my sanity
I realise my mask cannot hide me from dying alone