i know i haven't been writing much. or, at least it feels that way.

and that's because i've been in this place where the words aren't coming to me all that easily. things are turning over and over in my head, but they aren't coming together into anything. i've told you of that backwards gauze feeling, and i am wrapped up in it constantly these days, even though i smile and even though i laugh. and i am unsure how to tell you about it.

i could tell you about the dreams that come hard and fast to me everytime i fall into sleep, that twist me into knots, that shake me into awake, that throw me into panic. and i tell everyone i'm fine.

i'm fine.

because i don't know how to put a name to this. i don't know that i want to. there is something in me that is attracted to this dark turning and twisting; i haven't really cried in a long time and i think i am trusting it to bring me there. to pull me out of sleeping as if i was coming up out of the sea, tears streaming down my cheeks like racing stripes in the light of my computer monitor screen saver, crying in big drowning gasps, shaking violently, arms around myself, fingernails deep in my shoulders. the kind of crying reserved for the pain of the bottom, all the fear and uneasiness that builds up rushing out of you like lemmings off a cliff.

i want to be emptied like that, i want to be clean like that. i want to have that chance, to be clean.

and i don't know how to talk to you about this because there is so much. so much that you deal with, so much that i deal with, and i don't know that either of us trust each other with the weight of that. and that's ok. maybe it's correct. but i do know that sometimes this weight bends my back, and i feel it when it bends yours.

i just feel like i'm waiting. and i'm not sure what i am waiting for.

you know what i realized the other day? when i was young, i used to think i would be involved in something great, something that...i don't know, would affect people. and it's not as if i saw myself as being famous or rich even, just...great.

what i realized, though, is that i don't think of my life that way anymore. and i don't know if it's from growing up, or becoming happier, or giving up hope, or realizing that just seeing it in your head isn't enough if you have no idea how to get there.

and i don't even know if it's something that i would want now.

but i used to see it, and now i don't.

fuck, i have to go do dishes.