Whoosh

Spasms of horror and unstoppable convulsions of disgust--my body that of an epileptic lying in the devil's embrace. I couldn't explain it, not to myself, not to anyone, and that is the frustration of this pain and confusion: it is inexplicable, irrational. It is an obsessive torment that grows with every feeding, every night I lie awake, counting away the minutes, the seconds, of a life I no longer desire to live.

I clutched in the darkness for my bike lights--they were where I had left them, in the top drawer--listening to CW's even, raspy breath, a cold gripping his tired lungs and throat and nose. I tried not to awaken him as I slid our door shut, the wood catching and groaning, and with it, we wake each other in the early hours of the morning, when one or the other steals softly into or out of bed. I do not know if he awoke.

I rode out into the city night, a dark of perpetual light, orange-yellow streetlight illumination on the potholed pavement, and I rode down College Ave., knowing the Rockridge Safeway would be open at two in the morning. There was one pack of Benson & Hedges left, hidden beside boxes of American Spirit, an inappropriate categorization and impossible to find, non-menthols, but I'd promised to wean myself off of menthols anyway, so I savored my unusual morsel of luck.

"Could I get the last pack of Benson & Hedges?"

"Expensive," the clerk grunted as he swiped it across the scanner, almost as an after-thought; I could feel no ill-will nor malice.

The energy to care, just a little bit

I could easily have spent another day in, but CW, before he left, told me to get out; and I'm glad he did--it was the nudge I needed to breathe a bit of fresh air and sun.

I went jogging.

I woke at three in the afternoon. I woke with only four hours left of daylight. That's how much I had slept. That’s the price of partying: losing the moments in life that might ever measure up to something, like church-going and accordion-playing and breakfast- and lunch-eating. I woke with most of the day gone, the promise of fluorescent lights illuminating the rest of my waking hours.

--

At night, MJ asked me to read her letter to CF, and I made the requisite remarks about editing, suggestions about structure and tone--that was familiar, yet the content was alien, unexpected. She is cheerful, except for the moments when pain slides through the cracks, sorrow bubbling up through the crevices, but she mixes the cement to pave over the holes, and there it goes; it vanishes again beneath the youthful pizzazz, the unabashed cursing and enthusiasm.

I hugged her and all I could offer was "I'm sorry you have so much hurt in your life."

She shrugged and flashed a mirthless smile as she looked away, "It happens."

I'm sorry

­­I awoke to find despair had mutated into terror in the hollow dark of night; my familiar bedfellow had grown horns and fangs and claws. I awoke hungover, and the jackhammer in my temples did not relent as I cooked eggs and pumpkin pie pancakes for brunch. I wanted to leave this world, to leave it all, come back or go somewhere else after I'd done my time in a place amongst people I do not know, who do not know me. I could be anyone then, and I suppose that is why I drag my feet everywhere I go: I am trying to run away to a world that I fear (that I know) will be exactly the same, so I move ever onwards, always looking backwards, afraid to be anywhere but exactly where I am, the vastness of the discontent such that it spreads into my past, my future, my termination (it destroys my determination), but I try to pretend I can/will/would-if-I-could outrun it.

Texans don't all have drawls--I thought I knew that

Waking to the vibrating hum of my cell phone alarm and a feeling of dread is fast becoming routine. Despair does not make a good breakfast item, although it is even worse as a late-night snack.

I had lunch w/ TF at Café Gratitude, and we commisserated, both veterans on the field of worry. As worriers (introverted extroverts, extroverted introverts), we put on a brave face for the world but carry our worries heavy in our hearts and on our minds and they simply will not go away, no matter how nicely or often we ask.

Later in the day, swinging on the faded green hammock on my westward facing balcony in the afternoon sun (it gets only afternoon sun), I realized I don't believe in hell enough not to commit suicide.