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2007/1/4 No Further than Two Inches AwayI stared at the wall. No further than two inches away from my nose. There it was. I stared at the wall.
The paint had minuscule pits. Like the surface of the moon. Small etchings from the underlying plaster. Little cracks. I stared at the wall.
Thr wall stood vertically beneath the perfectly horizontal stucko ceiling above me. But the ceiling was not my friend. I stared at the wall.
A spider crossed my view angle, no further than two inches away from my nose. There it was. But it never saw me. It simply ignored me. I stared at the wall.
The night came and the wall became quite difficult to see. When I closed my eyes, I couldn't remember what the wall looked like. When I opened my eyes, I couldn't see what the wall looked like. I stood there in the dark, confident that the wall was still standing there in front of me.
Morning came and the wall had a new water stain created by a drool from the unfaithful ceiling of stucko above. Be not afraid, my wall. For I will not falter and abandon you. The wall stared at me with the mark of a dried tear down its length.
You smelled of ten thousand egg and bacon breakfasts, ten thousand chicken soup lunches, and ten thousand roast beef dinners. But the treacherous kitchen was no more. You stared at me with the smell of lost purpose.
They came to take some other walls away, the ceiling too, then most of the floor. I held fast to you, no further than two inches away from my nose. They can take away your kitchen, they can take away your ceiling. They can take away your floor, but you'll never be without me. I stared at your silence.
I tried to stay. I tried to hold on. But my eyes were torn away from you with the sound of a thousand phone books being torn in half. Your vast emptiness reached out to me, but I could not reach back. I'm sorry I have failed you. I was overpowered. They forced me into a small room. I stare at a new wall.
This new wall, no further than two inches away from my nose, is a colourful and vibrant beige. It radiates total and unconstrained boredom. It screams nothingness. It smelled of the deeply inebriating fragrance of empty shelves in an abandoned pencil warehouse. If given one of these missing pencils, it could write endless stories of its visitors past, filling the upper left part of a single page. I stared at the padded wall.
I stared at the padded wall, no further than two inches away from my nose. 2006/8/15 The Woman on the IcebergHead intoxicated. There's something I shouldn't see, something I shouldn't approach, something I shouldn't do. If it is my mind which lusts, then why is it my eyes that burn? My eyelids are useless. The light still hurts.
Denied. Deprived. Your familiar shadow still stands beside me, yet, as a stranger, warns me. The pain once given to you now echoes back within me. Because of your past now my future lies in a shambles. It remains within me to be passed on, and infect the unsuspecting virgin.
But it stops here. Self-inflicted deprivation. I won't pass on to her the buzzing in my mind that betrays the blood-stained violence that you once bathed in.
Too weak to live your pain alone, you inflicted it upon others. Your life doesn't seem so miserable when you have the satisfaction that you have made someone else's life a tormented existence.
But I won't let you. If you think you'll continue to live on inside my mind, you've chosen a dwelling of thorns. Though a great distance separates us, you have chosen to live too intimately with my thoughts.
You will not get passed on into my new life. You will die when I move on.
2006/2/8 Random ThoughtsIn a world where everyone was telepathic, no one would need names to address each other. You would always know who is "talking" to you because you'd be able to read their minds.
Pet peeve: People who get new e-mail addresses every few months. You never know which is the "address of the month", and your address books are always out of date.
Venus has phases much like the Moon. Often, it will appear as a crescent in the night sky, either shortly after sundown, or right before sunrise. However, it's practically impossible to see a "Full Venus" from Earth because the Sun is in the way. Sometimes, if you're lucky, you can spot it during a solar eclipse.
On Windows, I don't like seeing my Recycle Bin with stuff in it. I must empty that thing about 10 times a day. Then, about an hour later, I realized I accidentally deleted something but the Recycle Bin's already been emptied. 2005/12/12 The Perfect CurseAround every rock and every tree I had to look over my shoulder, for out of nowehere they could appear. They knew my name, knew my motives and could anticipate my every move. I tried to hide outside the city, off the busy streets and into unmarked lands. But they have eyes in the sky and in the trees. I had to escape their reach. Yet, they found me, captured me, transformed me, controlled me. I lost my sense of direction. I was gasping for air and grasping for freedom, but taking in nothing but dirt, and choking, one muffled cough at a time... I became rooted. I can't move. I can only watch from where I am. They now use me to find and capture others like me who are trying to escape. Escape the system.
2005/11/15 Invaded RevisitedA few notes about Invaded:
Marble: My wife's soul, life, sanity, smile, love and beauty. Referring to an actual marble I found on her bedroom floor before we were married. She had absolutely no idea where it came from. I keep it with me all the time and carry it in my pocket to prevent her from losing it. She can't lose all her marbles if I keep at least one, safely in my pocket. The glass seems to be getting clearer with time. Maybe that's a good sign.
The invaders/"they": Doctors, surgeons. Those who performed and analyzed the CAT scans on her this week. If she needs brain surgery, I will stand vigil for her.
So far, no word from the doctors. No news is good news. But we'd still like to know for sure what's going on.
2005/11/11 InvadedThey will invade your body, breach your insides. Your soul, previously unscathed, in its original virgin airtight seal will now be exposed for all to see. They will probe you and violate your sincerest intimacy. The dark stony corner where your last marble hides will now be stripped naked with nothing left but the skeleton frame of your memories.
They can take away your soul,
They can take away your smile,
They can steal your every thought
As if they were inside your mind.
Your flesh is nothing more to them than a canvas for their work, after which they congratulate each other yet again for another well-done performance. Later, they'll cleanse their instruments of the blood of yet another conserved victim. For what was just another number to them means so much more to me.
They can take away your breath,
They can snuff your last heartbeat.
But as long as I keep hiding here,
They'll never take away
That marble that I found one day
That last one on your floor.
I've held it tightly in my hand
I won't relinquish, won't give it up.
I've kept your last marble with me. It'll keep the ECG next to your bed beeping all through the night. They can't take away your last marble. They haven't found where it is. 2005/11/10 Talking about Spoon fedToday I decided to write a blog entry in the style of, and quoting an interesting and inspiring point from Karen's Spoon fed:
I find I've had a favoured life, somehow. I've taken a series of decisions in my life, each one more complicated than the previous. Each decision is always taken with the most care possible to avoid death. I choose the bag of small marshmallows over the big marshmallows. I won't choke on the small ones. I remember the decision for later re-use. Eventually, the really simple decisions become automated and I tend to forget the reasoning behind them. I just do them automatically, without reminding myself of why I do things the way I do them. Then somebody comes along, offers me a large marshmallow. I refuse it. I don't know why, but I just do. Don't argue with me about it, just trust me on this one. They don't. They eat a marshmallow, choke on it and die. My life has been a series of marshmallow-avoiding decisions. I've worked hard to uphold a high standard of decision-taking, and it's brought me to where I am today in life, generally favoured. Some people would say I'm lucky. I just think I've been blessed with a critical mind, able to judge decisions which will minimize any possible harm. Life favours those who work hard at making the right decisions. Random Thought: 2005/10/31 DiseaseI can feel you growing inside me, feeding off my flesh, infecting my tissue. Your bacteria will fill my hole and overspill into the next. Cavity after cavity, you consume me until I become nothing but you. I will become you from the inside out, leaving me as nothing but an inconspicuously transmittable toxic hollow shell.
Through me you will seek your next host to feed your insatiable hunger as I walk among the unsuspecting, in search of your next prey. We will become an army of one, not weakened; only transformed to a higher level of existence. 2005/10/20 Standing in One SpotThey say if you stay long enough in one spot, you'll eventually meet everyone you've ever met in your entire life. I wanted to test this. So one day I stood outside the door of our office building downtown. On the sixth day I decided to sit down. 2005/10/17 Stranger by the MinuteA stranger came knocking at the door. I walked the long journey to the doorknob and looked out the peep hole. The knob was cold and the peep hole was covered in ice from the inside. I picked up the oven mitt from the top of the coatrack and it screamed as I slipped it on my hand.
I opened the door and the stranger appeared inside the house immediately. He said "Strange day for growing flowers, no?" as he handed me a daisy.
He pulled a chair out of his ear and sat beside me, looking at the door as if he was anticipating a mail delivery. He invited me to sit next to him but there was no space on the chair. I sat on the floor with the oven mitt in my hand and he told me a story about a girl on the beach who sold salty crunchy seaweed snacks and razor blades. The story he told while we waited made as much sense as a group of cats attempting to redirect the flow path of the Mississippi river.
I looked at my watch and worried about my fish I had left in the kitchen sink for the duration of the afternoon soap operas. He lowered my arm, the arm with the wristwatch and showed me magnets he carried in his pockets and then gave me a poutine that he's been carrying with him since he was a teen. The cheese was frozen, just as it had always been.
Then the crocodile or caiman came in. He handed me his hat and I hooked it up on the coatrack. He threw me a frisbee, handed me my water bill and left the house leaving behind his hat.
The stranger started smoothing out the carpet because it was turning into liquid cement and we had to keep it neat for mom's visit next wednesday. When the cement dried, he painted it brown and then left the house, going to the right. He stayed for a total of seventeen minutes and was never heard from again. So I sat in his chair and hoped he would return.
The daisy wilted last Wednesday.
2005/10/5 Random Ramblings Rattling Around in my Rock TodayI'm always afraid of getting a sensation of warmth in my eyeballs when I look through the window of the microwave oven.
Why did Nestlé change the name of "Quik" to "Nesquik"?
If Aunt Jemima is my aunt, then would one of her brothers or sisters be my parent father or mother? And what does that make everyone else who buys Aunt Jemima syrup? Would they all be my brothers and sisters? Just how far does this family tree span, anyway?
In the U.S., "Smarties" are what Canadians call "Rockets". Canadian Smarties are more like M&Ms. Talking about You BelongSometimes my mind wanders at hyperspeed into a different state. The only thing I can do to become myself again is to let it drift back on its own.
It's a little bit like an indoor kitty that got out the doorway. You'll have a hard time catching her yourself, but if you let her come back to you on her own terms, she will. And much more peacefully at that.
A quote from Silent's poetry...
In order to understand it, I have to examine myself from a 3rd person point of view. I have to do it so often that I get used to it as if I'm examining someone else. With every exercise in understanding, the first and the third person become increasingly separate, distant and distinct. Then I forget who I am. The first or the third person? I thank the second person, my wife, for listening, for helping keep the first and third person on speaking terms with each other. Thank the second person. Thank YOU.
2005/9/6 GyrationA motionless sickness, a scream out the window, a plea for immobility yet everything remains immobile. A window sill is my only anchor. If I let it go, will my feet slip? A distant streetlight burning a hole through my denying eyelids ignites my body with a fluorescent sweat. If I glow too bright, will you wipe me back into darkness? 2005/8/18 VoidI've woken up in a dark room 8 feet by 8 feet, with no door, no window, and apparently no roof, although the walls reach higher than my imagination can perceive.
The room is empty save for a wooden stool, shaped like a cube, lit by a lightbulb hanging on a wire which I cannot see the origin. I've been lying on my back for too long and must sit to soothe my sore muscles. I am naked. I sit on the block-like stool and a table materializes in front of me, followed by a pen and paper.
What am I to do with this?
The stool shakes in anger and eventually projects me into the air. As I land back down on the ground right next to it, I see the following words fading in on the side of the cube: WRITER'S BLOCK
2005/8/3 StabIt stabs me in the brain and lets my thoughts bleed out like a torrent flowing into an endless supply of empty water cooler bottles around which office colleagues gather around and share their superfluous and meaningless weekend endeavors around their family and friends and drinking buddies who like to be reminded that incoherence by means of alcohol is always a shelter from incapacitating anxiety which prevents this world from really speaking their minds in a setting that should be nonetheless conducive to heartfelt and intimate discussion.
[breath]
Things forgotten, things left behind, things neglected, things left to the wind and the rain, things flowing out of my brain. The graveyard of cold abandon fills with graves still moist from the trauma. One tomb, perfectly aged and revered, rests at the head of them all. It watches ominously over the graves as visitors walk by, single file, between the tombstones. Some are cloaked in black velvet while others are wearing nothing but white sheer cloth, with the outline of their soft features betrayed through the fabric by the moonlight. They advance gracefully, each mourning individual lost loved ones.
In the center of all the graves lies a stone table covered in a large white satin tablecloth, many sizes too large, oozing to the ground. My dislocated brain lies in the center of this table, bloodless. A raised knife is struck by lightning and immediately plunges.
It stabs me in the brain and lets my thoughts bleed out like a torrent flowing into a nearby river lined with bodiless amorphous faces with empty thoughts desperately trying to twist to catch a glimpse of the flow mere inches away from where they sit, anchored among the rocks by the riverside which will forever remain the bed of my imagination. 2005/7/29 Comfort ZoneHaloperidol and chlorpromazine only smooth out the edges. The ECT only brings them back. This is not what they had in mind. This is not what they want in mine. I would decorate the blank walls inside me but my head is empty. Only a few shards remain in the brain. I can use them to cut a hole through and escape again. But my arms are weak. My brain wills, but move my limbs won't. My eyes dissolve the colors before me. If only I could move them. Time to get a grip. Grip. Grip what? Grip how? My shoulders hurt from this position my arms have been since I've been awake. Long smooth straps extending from the end of my crossed arms, around my waist and behind my back. They keep me safe from myself. Here they come, anyway. Time for my breakfast. Whatever. Do what you want. I don't care anymore. Just get it over with so I can get back to my own thoughts. +++ ATH0 OK NO CARRIER 2005/7/25 Where is the Penguin?Warm air. Comfortable sleep surrounded by reassurance. Clear mind. My thirst for corruption and psychological is disorder gone. Where is the penguin? I open my eyes and look around. I see familiar furniture but in an unfamiliar room. I am in bed, lying on my side. No penguin on this side of the bed. I feel a fire, warm and comforting, from behind me. I am being spooned by her flames.
Is the penguin gone for good?
I looked in the kitchen, then looked in the freezer. He's not with the chicken, he's not in the dishwasher. Where has the penguin gone?
I looked in my bed, then looked in my head. No penguin here, no penguin there. No penguin standing anywhere.
Has the penguin flown home? Silly you, do you know why? Penguins can't fly. Oh, but this one can!
This penguin has flown far and wide. As far as the ocean, as far as the tide. This bird has wings on which you can ride! Fly high with the penguin! Fly far and see where he takes you!
Will he take you to Mr. Moose? Will he take you to Dr. Seuss? Will he fly high or will he fly low? When he flies by, you'll be sure to know!
Who's on the iceberg? No woman there. Where did she go? Did she go away? Is she gone for good?
Did she leave for the city? Where am I now, and what for is this key? Did the door unlock? Am I now free? 2005/7/18 Boredom is a Piece of the PuzzleI think I've touched on something today. I've been trying to find reasons for the way I feel for many years. I think I've associated two aspects of my brain that I didn't think were related until now.
My brain hungers. I quickly get bored of old things. And things tend to get old quite fast for me. I need new stimulation regularly. I've known this for a long time. But what I hadn't associated before was my periods of loopiness and hopelessness. When my mind is deprived of intellectual stimulation I get loopy. When it's been going on for a while, I lose even the motivation to keep myself entertained. At this point, I don't even want to get out of the boredom state. It's a downward spiral. How do you get un-bored when life itself becomes too boring to bear? Your regular passions don't cut it anymore. To setup hobbies and try to get busy also seems too tedious.
For a while I tried forcing some entertainment onto myself. Sometimes I'd just get really busy (overly busy) with things like drama productions, choirs, band performances, and sometimes double-booking myself into too many activities, often on purpose. At various times, I was addicted to emotional trauma, deliberately getting myself into situations with strangers knowing that it would cause me emotional stress. When I got used to that, I felt desensitized, like it was a game, or watching a reality TV show. I'd create nightmares for myself (blind dates gone bad, one-night stands, etc...) The last time this happened, about 9 months ago, they wheeled me in the hospital at 3 AM. Too much alcohol. Or was it the nachos? I checked myself out at 6 AM (or rather, they weren't paying much attention when I left the hospital), walked for an hour and a half back to where it all started, then drove out to pick up some other friends for a one-day road trip.
Some years before that I started getting suicidal thoughts, and didn't really give a crap whether anyone gave a crap. After only two or three psychotherapy sessions, we got so sidetracked, that I forgot why I sought counsel in the first place. But it was intellectual stimulation nonetheless, so I stuck around for a year. It was actually interesting to pay this guy to dig into my skull. Then I got bored of it and stopped going.
I'm doing a lot better nowadays, but I'm beginning to recognize some familiar patterns once again.
Where do I go? What do I do? I am trapped, with my brains tied behind my back. Every day becomes the same as the last, and I don't feel like I get anything accomplished in my spare time. Caffeine helps me to get motivated. So maybe there's a bit of sleep deprivation in there too.
Sometimes it feels like a sandstorm in my brain, and I've forgotten my Tonka truck. Other times, I have my Tonka truck, but I realize I should have brought my razor blade instead.
I'm not finished exploring this, as I'd like to find out why I'm getting the feeling like I'm not getting anything accomplished, or try to figure out why I lose motivation and feel hopeless.
Anybody with a psych degree out there? 2005/7/4 Fighting off the StormIt’s a drug. I crave it. My body needs it. But it's time to teach myself a lesson in survival. I’ve cut myself off. My oxygen supply runs thin and I choke. I sweat. I run through the halls in a bug-eyed paranoid panic. My memory is corrupt like the pages of an underexposed digital photo album. I can’t tell the past from the future and I’m afraid of history repeating itself. I'm fighting off a storm of unwanted memories and worries. My wounded heart may want to give it, This drug is how I got my brains all stirred. My body collapses on this pillow for now, 2005/6/13 Wanting vs. NeedingAnthropophobia, then withdrawal. Repeat. A sweet desire turns to a poisoned obsession. A silent scream heard not by the one you hope will hear it. Fear, isolation, disengagement, discouragement: all scabs that prove through the cold snap that healing of the underlying pain is happening. Sometimes you get what you've always wanted once you come to accept that you never will. Wanting is to Needing as a Rose is to its Thorn. |
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