today, i am a bundle of nerves.
drank way too much last night, for too long. smoked too many cigarettes, one after the other.
last night, the sky fell.
i spent the first half of the evening alone, settling myself, thinking of options, weighing things out in my head.
i found some solace from the kind words of a friend who reminded me that i am eligible for unemployment, if i do get laid off.
and the kind words of another who encouraged me to try to figure out some sort of new job with the things i enjoy. she assured me that it's possible to do.
so, i settled some.
and then my brother came home, worn and spent from a day running around berkeley, trying not to think of the tradegy that broke his life in two this year. the thing that changed him forever, which turned him into the man he is now, so different from the one i knew a year ago. this cloud that hangs over him is like watching someone trying on their burial shroud for size, disappearing in soft almost imperceptible layers day after day. the shroud, instead of becoming thinner or coming to pieces, takes the parts of him that fall away and becomes stronger, thicker, wraps around him tighter.
he hugged me a little closer than usual when he came home last night and i understood.
he put my vinyl copy of this is the way it goes and goes and goes, 'the great salt lake' taking its toll on the both of us. he played it over and over again, as he spilled the thoughts on his brokenness, which he had collected over the last few days. it was refreshing to finally hear anger in his voice rather than dead sadness. it gave me hope. it gives me hope. it reminds me i can trust him, that like myself before, the tired eyes don't mean that he is beyond reach, or beyond saving himself.
if i could be saved (or, at least salvaged), my brother, the brightest star in my night sky, can certainly find it within himself to climb up out of the well.
so he went into my wallet, pulled my last $20 and walked down to the corner store for a pocket of vodka, some beer and a pack of smokes.
on his way out the door, two of our friends called, their worlds falling around them.
we invited them over, so that we might pool our collective hurt to somehow come out of the whole mess clean.
but mostly, we just sat around, listening to each other talk about nothing, not saying the things that cut, drinking beer and vodka, lighting one cigarette with the end of another, the sighs and laughing washing together into a bright and shining "what the fuck?"
no one really felt better at the end of the night.
no one really felt clean.
it was decided that we are all fucked up, though not beyond recognition.
but what good is that, to know?
on today's cloudy four hours of sleep, it seems it's no good at all.
thinking of what it means to wish things...does it automatically imply one is hopeful?
or is wishing things an escape from actually trying to achieve what you are wishing for?
is it cowardice or honest confusion that keeps me from doing the things i daydream about?
thoughts like these kept me up until 230 this morning, wrapped in soft cotton muslin, a material representation of the gauze that i can't seem to shake from my eyes these past four months.
the past six months?
i keep wondering if much of what has been turning around in me lately is the result of the a deep wound that i have outwardly shrugged off, ashamed at how deeply i have been hurt, thinking maybe i should have been stronger than i am. ashamed that i had hoped for something. for the one thing. telling myself that it wasn't my fault, but feeling the shame of it all the same. shouting at myself that i am immature, that i am behind, that i need to straighten the fuck out. that normal people don't let the hurt stay in them for this long. that they pick themselves up and move on.
and i have, in a manner of speaking.
but a song can undo my seams.
a phrase can throw me against the wall.
knocked out and blurry, bruised and licking gently at my wounds, i get up again on unsure legs.
but it all feeds into this overwhelming self-doubt, this large question mark that belies my outward bravado.
can i do it?
assuming i can get the clarity of thought to focus in on what it is?
how do you talk about these things through a cloud of cigarettes and vodka, when all anyone wants to do is laugh off the fact that they are broken and just kind of wandering?
you can't.
so, i twisted myself up until it was too late to endure the torture anymore.
and now i am here, stomach empty and burning, neck stiff and aching.
teeth setting hard against each other. eyes making the monitor swim in and out of focus.
just waiting for tonight, not thinking about the pain that i am sure to pay tomorrow. believing that just to let it all wash over me tonight, i might finally be clean. i might be able to just leave it there, on that floor, in that sound, with that sweat; looking somwhere inside for the strength of character that i desperately want to believe is there. to just be able to lay it down.
doing something that i never do:
praying for it.
