I go there,
I just gotta make my head stop working.
You thrash yourself hard enough.
And it does.
Must be the most sensitive gym rat around.

Or maybe that's why we're all here.

I couldn't come before.
At school when it was all going...
Well it was going.
I tried. But why run when
You aren't running from anything.
All those joggers are being chased
Those guys pushing up heavy bars
Are pushing away something terrible.

It's not the weights that are tearing us apart.
It's the weight you dan't drop.
That's falling so hard.

You can forget it's there.
We're like alcoholics.
And crack heads.

Rolling around between extremes.
Convincing myself I'm a sensible guy.
I can wait it out. Hold on loosely, like that 80's song said.
I doesn't bother me. The waiting.
But if there's something better. That bothers me.
I'll go down a checklist.
Obviously it's perfect. Or will be I guess.
But I did that with college. This major, this job.
Well it doesn't work like that. For me.
I've gotta be wild. Maybe, if I "stop chasing the wrong things...
the right things have a chance to catch up" - Lolly Daskal
If I start paying attention to those inspirational quote pictures.
Listening for what I want instead of what I have.
I might be brave enough to chase it. A sky that doesn't end.
Chase it until die happy from running,
Instead of angry I didn't catch anything.

I got to imagining things like I used to in high school.
I thought, maybe I was an alien hidden here.
I imagined them charging in there. Tearing at my collar for a mark.
Some irrefutable proof that I was theirs.
I imagined it happening in front of all those people.
Having my people stand me in front of them and claim me.
Five hours later I clocked out.

It was easier at Cornell. The day dream was constant.
It was wrong.
It was a mirage in a dry, sleepless desert I had lost myself in.
But, it was nice. Living in the daydream.
For a moment.
A single godly heartbeat lost in the enormity of time.
Flying away into that void,
Before I could catch the flap of its wings.

It was insignificant.
It was a dream.
But,
God what a dream.

You think the first person to see a tiger,
Stopped and thought about how beautiful it was.
I bet they ran.

The next time I hold her I might have a heart attack.
If I live.
Or as I convulse dying.
I'll know how beautiful she is.

This might be a new chapter.
I can almost feel,
A growing fire.

Things are awful dark here.
But I can almost see,
A glow on the wall.

It's strange, I know.
But I can almost hear.
Someone coming.

I've been lost here,
A long ******* time.
But I know,
It's almost time to go.

Where there's a light there's a lantern.
A hand to hold it,
A hand to hold mine,
And pull me out.
Not cold like the one that dropped me here,
But warm and strong.
From the light she's carried so long.

I think I could handle being without her.
Even in the middle of all this.

I'm standing on a road.
It's late evening, no middle afternoon.
But it's dark.
There's a thick white fog.
There's a little oval,
Of visibility.
Dark green grass on either side.
It could lead to woods, but the fog is
So thick I can't see any trees.
Just, maybe?
A mixing of shadows that turns the fog gray.
It has to be Ireland. I keep telling her we should go.

I'm standing there
With a warped face like I'm dying.
There's a heavy
                 rusty chain.
Wrapped around the tubes on top of my heart.
There's no one pulling it.
But I'm afraid they will.
And the weak tubes will melt
                                            rip apart.
Still.
Nobody's pulling.
But the weight is constant.
I'll get used to it.
Then I move wrongly
                       abruptly
And it swings.
And it aches.
And I remember
The pain of
What's killing me.

I'm standing on this road.
And I don't know what I'm gonna do.
I could walk.
With that swinging chain.
Or wait for a car to come.
I want to tell you that I want it to
Stop. Have someone rush out full of
concern and scoop me up lovingly.
Save me.
But the fog is awful thick.
I know it is,
And I'm standing here waiting.

Vertigo. Maybe it's like that.

Like.
going blind.
Like
from that science show
Where a man said he couldn't see,
But walked down a hallway,
With obstacles.

Where. You.
Keep doing whatever you're supposed
To be doing.

But your eyes.
Your real eyes.
That ***** of the intellect.
Slipped right out of your head
Down a curvy,
Sticky, bumpy metal slide.
And he isn't having a good time of it.

I don't think he planned to.
It's just so hard in there.
And you have him running around
So much.
Lately.

And you're sick. But you're fine.

You turn the tap and there it goes.
You hide in this, and where do you go?
I can put together a life.
I can make a hell of a pitch.
And Lie Lie Lie
on a resume.
To a board.
In a suit.
I can lie and not even try.
But what is it?
A lie until you find the right thing?
                                   the right thing?
What's that?
Is it like The One?
Where songs start, "making sense?"
     "Oh you'll know it when-"
                                                     -
      "Make your hobby into your job-"
                                                                    -
     "If you love what you do you'll never
      work a day in
                          your
                          life."
But let me work. Maybe.
Let me do my thing that I'm supposed to,
                                            only I can do,
And let it just be done.
Is it so much to ask?
Like a guy in a suit goes into the office,
And clicks away at keyboards.
And clicks away at pens in meetings.
And clicks away
An click away the day?

And all day he wants to go home.

Because home is better.
             We ALL know that.
He's a working man.
              We ALL know that.
He should want to go home!
              We ALL know that.
               we all want to go home too.

He checked in, and did all the work he was
supposed to do. So go home you're done.
You did your thing.
You were built for it.
You reached it.
                             Take.Some.Time.Man

I want to do it. Whatever I'm here to do.
But I'd like to get it done quickly.
And just, check out.

A fish can't see himself in a school.
Throw him out.
Yank his mouth and with terrible pain
Bring him up.
Out of water. Gasping. Stuck. Flopping.
And looking for meaning.
He can finally see himself reflected in the water.
He can finally see himself.

I tried to write out the reasons.
Why it was you.

I couldn't.
It got scrambled.
And lost in itself.
It stopped making sense.

Like us.

And in the middle of it,
The list,
With your name at the top.
I'd write something,
Something I was feeling then.
A reason to give my heart to someone.
Some amazing quality.
Some wild romantic thing.
And in the middle of it.
The sentence,
I'd look up a see different eyes.

I was writing what I was feeling about someone else,
Under your name.

It wasn't a lie I guess,
I was just lost.
And that was for someone else.
I'm still lost.
And maybe it'll get to them eventually.

For feeling this much from this far.
For not knowing if I'm meeting in the middle.
Or already jumped off the deep end.

Maybe it could have been anybody.
Maybe I just needed somebody to remind myself,
I could feel anything at all.
But maybe,
If it had been anyone else.
I never would have remembered.

Maybe hers was the only one that could,
Drag me out.

Maybe it is something of fate's
Maybe I don't need a reason.

I don't need a reason.
How do you know if you're in a love story?
Wait.

Had to stop. The color outside
Drew me.
The air smelled like a lake's.
And I begged for the water again.
That's gotta be the next step.
Find water. Float under it.
I gotta see it. And smell it.
The dying light of the rain.
It makes me feel like
Dust floating.
A million different pieces.
Thinking for themselves.
Held together. Happy like that.
The water makes me see lines.
Connections between things.
I wrote about that in my little pocket book.
Flowers thrashed in the wind.
Didn't care.
Wanted to.
Maybe I can. Floating.
Looking at the water.
Maybe paradise is a the shore.
Atlantis. Happy. Underwater. By water.
I can see it.
Lawn chair. This book. Me.
Smiling or
Too happy to move my face.
Just laying there. Sun. Orange with the evening.
Sunglasses. My granddad's.
He can see it. I can see it.
Found it.
Paradise.
Fresh water. I'll fish in it.
I can run down and swim.
Far. Or float.
Not feel nasty when I walk out.
Let the sun bake the water away.
While I figure myself out. In here.
Paradise I'll go.

He stands there alone in a forest.
He kneels there. Alone.
"Devil take my soul. If you want it."
No Devil hears.
No God shakes his head.
He lays down alone in the forest.

And the night is as dark as it ever was.

Loosing something that has no interest in you.
Freeing yourself and finding that you have nowhere to go.

I don't feel it in everything yet.
I'm staring at these flowers being thrashed
(gently)
by the wind.
And for all my metaphors about winds of change
and being violently thrown around.
I don't see it the same.
I keep waiting to really
Feel
That connection.
Appreciate the universality,
the totality
inherent value of life.
But it isn't here yet.
I need to get out.

You ever stand there,
In the Fall dark.
Hearing the City as a groan.
And dogs fighting past the yard.

And think. That's something.
They have something.

In some yard I've never seen,
But I know is bare of grass.
From kids and paws.
Where there's faded plastic
Rotting toys.
The kind you pedal around in
Or gnaw on.
Or pick up and know the cracks.
Because you bought it new,
But now.

And those dogs, with another
dog for each.
           They've got something.

I've got bread. Good dark stuff.
And a pen. And lots of other things.
And people. And places.

More than those dogs.
I don't know if I want any of it.
Love and comfort, great tastes and sights.
I know I'd feel sick if I ever lost it.
Just, sick at the void.
That I'd have to fill of go down
The change would worry me.
And my stomach.
Who really does his own things.
All those kids at that pep rally
Who watched how that warm soda unfolded.

Unfolded may not be the
best way to describe horrible
acid ***** humility that I brushed
off then but worries me so much now.

The change.
I think mostly I'd like to sit in the
Same place, and do the same things,
And drink the same couple of root beers.
And just see how all that goes.

Oh god this makes me awfully anxious.
I'm writing this in a floor seat at a huge theatre.
There's all these eyes around.
I know they don't care.
Not about me.
The ****** in the blue suit.
Tearing away at a notepad.
What if they do?
What if the couple behind me is catching
every other word?
It makes me smile.
The danger of it.

Do you keep the first drafts somewhere?
And look at them until you remember.
Those long nights choking on all the
Hate you cooked up for yourself?
I've been a ghost in a shell.
A roast cooking right in hell.
Pitch the forks in the trash
Use your hands to pull me apart.
Leave the bones.
Something of me will stand firm.
For once.

Never gonna make it to the gym.
I ****** that money away.
It was so logical.
But my guts were rattling.
I made it worse before I heard.
Signed. Gave my card. Bled my account out
One day I'll listen to them.
It'll be when I'm dead.
When the only sight I have
Is 20/20 hindsight.

Oh to hell with you all.
My words will be the wild in the wind.
Wrap them in my sail
And pull this house into the raging blue.
I'll find a home.
On the run.

How do you write a love story?
You go backwards.
How do you know if you're in one?
You wait.

I'm gonna take you up on that offer. You're
right I have to get out of here. It's a trap
that will hold me forever if I only wait
for rescue.
there's no pain. No screams to draw soft
hearts attached to thick arms to pry me
out.
They told me routine would make it pass
easier. But it passes too far too fast.
Go into work everyday at 3. Off at 10.
Get up at noon. Watch tv until I throw
on a tie and those ugly shoes I hastily shined.
I'm scared.
I'm looking into a well wondering how far to the
bottom. I'm a million and one too many
analogies for falling in too deep. Screaming
in anticipation of the water slapping against me.
It would be deadly if I hadn't died in the air
already. I can't breathe now and I should
know by now why.
Fly or die.

Maybe we think lights are so beautiful,
Because we're just trails through space too.
Maybe what you're made of doesn't matter.
Any more than what you're not made of.

I shouldn't see her tomorrow.
It's gonna go so badly.

Not like that.

I gave my heart away. Way away
But there's a little rattle in my gut.
I'll pick her up.
Talk while I drive her home.
"Nah I figured the app stuff,
Out on my own."
Your place or mine?

God this is hell.
No I can't see the light at the end.
But if I don't stop scratching at the walls.
I'll be stuck here forever.

If I'm going to wait for the
Big
little earth shattering thing I do.
By holding my breath.

I might die.

I can take the little things.
Maybe?
And use them to breathe.
So I don't pass out when the big one comes.

You fall on your ***.

I'm back to thinking I can sleep a couple hours,
Get up,
Go to an appointment
Go back to sleep and
It won't wreck my head.
The last time I did this kind of stuff,
It sunk me.
I gotta grow up soon.

Sleep like humans are supposed to.
have a routine,
Make something.
I'm a tree with no fruit and
The storm is furious.

Writing is just like *****.
It spills out.
Until it doesn't.
It's been years since I wrote anything
That I cared about.
And even this feels fake.
Forced.
Yeah it's late, and I'm drinking, and sitting in the same room I
Used to.
But its a different life now.
Like remembering thunderstorms I watched as a
Kid, I beg the skies to rip open again.
Then maybe,
What I write will feel like its real again.
And I can stop waiting for a reason.
And live in the vertigo of the retching and
Writing.
How I want to be sick again.
To live again.

Our workday selves are here.
In collared shirts and typing on a desktop.
Our emotional selves standing nearby.
Silent, carbon see-through copy.
I pause from the spreadsheet
And remember seeing her on an ad yesterday.

The me, standing silent next to me
Lets out a groaning scream
Like someone lost in the woods hysterically
Trying to put a new tire on a truck.
About to break into sobs from the helplessness.
Shrill and extended the scream
Makes the air and the walls and the computer screen
Rattle like they're being throttled.

I stop typing and stare blankly at a
Paint chip on the wall.
Floating on my back in the waves of the
Screams filling the silent room.

"Eh." I shake my head.
And go back to the spreadsheet
As the screams go on
Full force
Without me noticing.