how will i feel next january

i walked into a bathroom.

i first surveyed the layout, the cleanliness.  adequate, usable, unconscious.  i made sure the door shut on it's own, i didn't want to seem too eager, i wanted to play it cool to the invisible human, the one who's always watching me, the one who's hovering over my shadow.  after a soft organic 'click', i pushed the button on the knob that i knew would most likely keep the knob from turning.  however, i had no way of testing it, as some doors don't line up and latch correctly, or some locking actions don't adequately keep the knob from turning.  the only way of knowing is by being outside the door with the knob button pushed.  so i used the bolt latch as well, luckily i had one available in such a situation.  i had immediately done this in darkness, as i knew where the location of the knob button and bolt were as habit in this particular bathroom, and had done it before i hit the light switch.  as i hit the trigger for the annoying fluorescent lights to illuminate, i also turned the fan on, which was a knob that clicked to denote it's functioning, and seemed to get louder with a clockwise turning; i left it in the middle.  i walked over to the toilet, though i'd been standing at the spot long enough messing with the fan that the urinal flushed, which happened because that same spot was directly in front of the urinal and it was a proximity-sensor flushing one.  what a waste, what a surprise, what a mistake of engineering in choice and location of urinal.  nonetheless, i walked to the toilet, looked at myself in the mirror first, fixed my hair the the invisible human, still there, always there.  i cleaned off the toilet seat by wiping it off with toilet paper even though it was spotless.  as i sat, i noticed the sink mirror was directly in front of me, which made me feel that the invisible human was watching me, it felt uncomfortable, i turned my head to the side and ignored it as best i could. 

i then did what i came into the bathroom to do.  afterward, i checked over my entire body in the mirror, my pants back, my shoes, my hair, my teeth, my skin blemish that had appeared a couple days ago but hadn't done much but fester under the skin.  i extracted some fuzz from my sweater.  i made sure my pants hung correctly and comfortably down past my knee to my shoe top.  i washed my hands with warm water, turning on the hot side first, then just a little of the cold side, mixing them to perfection.  i used light soap, as i didn't like the feel and smell of this soap as compared to my home's soap, the way it dried out my skin and made me smell just barely perfumed.  i used just enough soap to feel 'cleansed'.  i dried off with two paper towels, even though one would've sufficed, but i decided that i'd rather be overly dry than not dry enough, for some reason.  i put the soiled towels on the trash bin, but the bin had a top door that wasn't triggered by the slight weight of the towels.  so i pushed down to make sure the towels went into trash with ease, but felt slightly dirty about it.  before unlocking the door, i flushed the toilet again to further clean the toilet, giving it some time to soak, and leaving it just a little cleaner for the person who would come after me.  i flushed the toilet this time with my shoe'd foot, as previously i had done it with my hand.  before unlocking the door, i took one deep breath in, then a quick one out, then another one out.  i unlocked the doors and turned off the light, left the fan on.

i wonder what the year will bring.

adept & adrift

SOBRIETY AND IT'S ACCOMPLICES:

clarity)  an understanding of another point of view!  and i searched so long for one in a bottle!  it was definitely down there, but restricted in glass and airflow.  held breath.  now just dropped down into a campsite in damp weather, with the readiness in mind for the elements but without any goddamned gear.  but i'll figure through it, i'll make it work, because now i'm here, now i'm breathing the vast tree-filtered air, now i'm regulating my own thought, my own life, my own decision and action, the senses are all i need.

health)  well it felt like fucking health just drained right out of me, and kept leaking from my body with every fucked up dream and shitty night and morning headache and half-stare into my own depressed chemical, my own bullshit excuse for a brain think thing that made something some dumb.  but days turned into hours, luckily, and drug turned to exercise, thought to flight, words to metaphor, breath to action.  shit came, as it will, again just keep faith in my own body, it's my own, it's my own, it's my only vehicle.  

platitude)  the same speech you've heard about 8 or 38 times from friends after they've fucked up again and again, well, it comes up out of your mouth like stale vomit but fuck it feels good.  it smells great, like life, like breast milk if you can remember that far back - but you can't.  it's the ending to the movie that you saw with the girl you liked, but instead of the break-up being averted at the end of the plot, you actually get the girl at the end, in your own life, and YOU wrote the script, and YOU got fucking paid for it! yet it's SO bad, and it's such terrible art, but hey: it's yours.

boredom)  motive.  chase.  digress.  sleep.  second guess.  RELIEF.  constriction.  cages.  boredom. creativity?  cell phone?  breath.  eyes closed.  eyes open.  eyes closed, eyes open.  eyes.  eyes.  eyes.  eyes looking at brain.  looking.  waiting.  waiting for nothing.  action.  doing.  waiting.  constriction.  steping, chasing, running. leading.  walking.  just walking.  listening.  waiting.  sleep.

rebound)  at least an interest in something new.  you told yourself how new and exciting the world was when you were young and first went walking into a brand new city on your own, you told yourself you'd never lose this feeling.  well you lost it.  but you can find it, with change comes stability, with rebound comes anything. remember when you were happy with anything?  you're still happy with anything.  this type is anything, this type doesn't fucking matter, you know this, and you love this.  you illustrate this, and you love such an idea.

post oar

closed eyes open; immediate blast of air and color bring them to a magnetized squint.  streaks of white light, undefined sharp shape, a complete exit of molding that my physiology cannot contain.  overload of experience.  after hours of this, like collects with like, things start to make sense, turn upright, borders seem legitimate to my own interpretation.  hues and shades sharpen.

left, right, left, right, spring, spring, spring, spring, that's what i tell myself as each foot leaps to catapult and i reward myself with a higher heart rate sustained for at least 30 minutes.  my eyes blur left and right to keep myself safe every block or so.  i get back and breathe deep and stare at the wall and it seems like it's moving slightly, bowing in barely, pumping out just enough to notice, like the wall is breathing but knowing i'm watching and trying not to be obvious about it.  the electric toothbrush cleans real well, super well, but it joggles my insides, reverberates my something-in-my-brain and makes the numbers on the digital clock in my bathroom move really funny.  like i didn't believe the way the numbers moved at first, and had to stop, and stare, and then try it again, and have now just resigned myself to the fact that they bounce all weird when i'm brushing my fucking teeth.

as i lay, i wonder if i'm unconsciously only turned on my left side to try to get blood to that half of the brain, to keep myself from imagining what could be and to just logically lock myself into a rigid set of breaths, an unquestioning, an ignorant blink.  like a limb kept low and gravity collects the blood, my brain is sensitive to motion these days since my myriad accidents.  i stay still except for my constantly moving legs.  i more often than not drift to sleep and am jarred awake within moments by a quick raging dream of losing my step and trying to catch myself, by an object coming at me that i must catch but can't, by an imminent conscious moment where i must act quick and rescue myself but am unable to.  colors appear in my eyelids as about 5 different shades of black, with amoeba-like shapes and drifts, my eyes close and feel like they're crossed, i try to straighten them because it seems healthy and it seems like i do, but i can never really tell.  the lights my vision create flutter and pulsate, and return as they were burned all day long, and it takes all of sleep to put them back into poor working order again by sunup. 

WHERE DO YOUR EYES GO

different patterns:  jutting out from the walls is paper and ink, things that are creative and pleasing!  my eyes go there by instinct, but i chastise you for your eyes landing there.  regular colour is like sleep and breath and death, it leads to little cognition and zero orbitals, no melodies; we search for coercion and flannel and explosion into.  anything that's different anything that is different

familiarities:  well, we come back to the usual, to make ourselves feel better.  to apologize for giving in to the difference.  we resign to comfort.  we are sorry.  we look for someone who might be our friend, who we could nod at, what would wake us from feeling solitary, asleep.  we're so used to looking at moving pictures on screens that it hypnotizes us, me, sorry, me, i, me.  i continue to come back in gaze to that solid screen on the pinball machine, it's a face, it's close to the mirror, i understand it somewhat, i pretend like it's entertainment, like it's something to do.

attractive people:  your face is so adorable, i even like the pores on your nose.  i'm VERY sure that you hate those slightly enlarged pores, but i think they make you more human, all the more beautiful.  your small blinking eyes glow with purpose.  your curls radiate the creamy skin within.  frailty is your hesitation, as is mine, and that silence draws me more, to you.

away from:  shrug shrug dart dart dart dark close feign feign pretend to check phone pretend to think about something shrug shrug yawn fake yawn, close gaze in on paint, wall paint, artwork, that which pretends to have such intent and purpose.

i sometimes wonder if i'm slowly being poisoned or if that's just the way i view the world

i wandered outside to switch up my surroundings.  envisioning all the possibilities, i froze just outside my front gate in the mild 40 degree weather.  i could go to a movie?  my mind rode the train to the theater, looked at the movies, couldn't decide, came back, saved money still frozen.  "i'll walk to buy the day's paper, a hot drink, some black ink for my rubber stamp," a scale of need vs want tipped in the direction of want, shot down still frozen.  collecting my tips from last night brought a quick, decisive vision of 'put-it-off-until-tomorrow', pockets empty stand still remain frozen on the sidewalk.  i looked at birds, interesting graffiti, questioned phone documentation, cheapening my direct experience, frozen seems so clean and present in comparison.  laundry tomorrow frozen.  sell car -- why not -- because i like it -- frozen.  contemplate change by not changing anything, starting to thaw.  with this thaw, i return inside, sit, type, stand by heater, stretch.  reheat leftover chinese food as a switch to my routine, because i usually have eggs and spinach at this time, and chinese only after 4pm.  reheat leftover chinese food to prove to myself that there is still something spontaneous and interesting in my movements and moments.  such spontaneity is a nail sticking up from the vast floor of earth, i scratch my foot on it, don't even draw blood, but seem annoyed, hammer nail down.  cold.

focus and forget

if there were a language that i knew you all didn't know, i would speak it, type all of these words in it, and tell you simple things that sounded beautiful.  you'd admire the sound, the collection of letters, the visual flow, the feeling that i truly wanted to convey something to you, yet was unable to. 

i would explain your fears in ways that trivialized them, you'd stuff them in your bottom lip and spit them out, you'd grow them and pluck them as soon as they appeared.  i'd put words in aluminum and watch you consume them, and after you easily fell asleep i'd collect them, recycle them, so when you woke you wouldn't have to deal with them.  i'd build paragraphs that you kept in shoe boxes in the closet, that you tried to forget but couldn't, that your partner was now slightly scared of, that you meant to throw out when you moved-in last year but couldn't.  the punctuation wouldn't even be recognizable or distinguishable, but you'd still keep it in your wallet, put it in your coffee every morning until you started to feel a dependence on it.  just reading it would make you space out in the shower and perhaps even sit down until the water was uncomfortable and luke warm, hearing it would calm you while standing in line.  i'd be speaking it to you and only you, you'd know this through tone, through innate spacial cues, through eye contact, through what you used to think your understanding of love was when you first understood the feeling of 'love'. 

it'd speak with statistical reason and confidence.  like if you heard that it had happened 95% of the time given the same circumstances, and you'd feel comfortable that it would happen again if you wanted it to right now.  and you wouldn't have to over think it, though, you'd just know that confidence without the numbers muddying it.  the language would be the texture of oil at rest, of newly dried concrete, with the smell of fresh cedar and the crush of dried pine cone.  it'd be nose to neck.  i could speak it without hesitation, i could speak it without thoughts of recourse, i could speak it without inhibition of personality, i could speak it without any kind of offense, i could speak it free of stutter, and steady of faith.

but i don't know that language, and if i did i'd probably just take it for granted.  it'd be a commercial on mute, a crumpled up receipt, a shiny nickel on the sidewalk.

i want a girl who forces me out of my habits

i want a girl who forces me out of my habits

i want a girl who forces me out of my habits

i want a girl who forces me out of my habits

i want a girl who forces me out of my habits

i want a girl who forces me out of my habits

i want a girl who forces me out of my habits

i want a girl who forces me out of my habits

i want a girl who forces me out of my habits

i want a girl who forces me out of my habits

i want a girl who forces me out of my habits

i want a girl who forces me out of my habits

i want a girl who forces me out of my habits

i want a girl who forces me out of my habits