dizzy examinations

i have got to do something outside of work, and soon.

i don't know where all these inner assertions of absolutely knowing i can 'do it' came from;
but i hope they never, never, never go away.

why'd you cut holes in the face of the moon base?
don't you know about the temperature change
in the cold black shadow?


are you mad at your walls
or hoping that an unknown force can repair you?
pardon all the time that you've thrown into your pale grey garden?
if the ship will never come,
you've got to move along.


even a bird would want a taste of dirt from abyssal dark;
the prick of a feather
could make a kingdom burn, and the bloodshed start
the falling apart made me
a shadow in the shape of wonder
the waves of black
if she's going under, i can hold my breath till the sky comes back
or drown like a rat, rat, rat
he's a rat!


to catch a monster
we make a movie
set the tempo
and cut and cut and cut it's brains out
it will inspire on the burning pyre
half the distance
half the motion


communication
it's as easy as the ocean


- of moons, birds & monsters (mgmt)

prithee, my dear, why are we here?
no one knows.
we go to sleep, as breathing flows.

here's to living in a city
where my dreams are laid out in front of me
paving the streets i walk,
nipping at my ears when it's cold.


the small girl twirling her hair
on the subway, amped out
guitars in rolling suitcases
men with
greasy blonde locks and
dirt in their pores, it's
all embracing to me.

as if i can hold the world if i stretch my arms wide enough.


i'm not worried.
opinions slither softly into my ears, i
understand them and deflect them.
i don't have enough time to eat the stress and
let it live inside of me, feeding off my vital organs, no no.


protection and self-care for myself,
holding a palm out for those around me,
knowing i have a place and striving for a little bit more -



that's what all of this is. it doesn't look like much now but
i don't care.
i'm going to do things my way, and slowly, and with ease.

in a few hours, i will commence packing for new york -
doing loads and loads of laundry,
digging out suitcases,
& cleaning the fuck out of my room.




i'm really, really, really, really hoping it's going to go something like this.

I Have A Lot Of Things To Do.


i don't want to do ANY of them.
i want someone else to do them FOR me.
i would also like someone to give me A LOT OF MONEY.

i would like all of these accomplished by tomorrow, so hop to it. tut tut.

145 days later everything will be
true and blue.

let's let go and reach out.
let's seek support.
to remember that the end is never the end -
it's a spiral; a door opening;
a gated window unlocked;
you're on your way.


i'm going to stretch my body and open my arms -
i'm going to make sure i have never been so prepared before.
my life seeks out any drive and motivation it can find
and leeches into it like a parasite; never letting go,
never thinking of anything else.

a big old bag of laughs is all i want these few weeks to be.
i'm going to touch my toes and wake up in the morning
and eat breakfast and go outside
and then i'll go to sleep at night.

i hope that if new york is hard, i'll embrace it.
i hope that if it's easy, i'll appreciate it.
i think it will be both
and i think i'm going to help myself to stay underwhelmed
as much as i can.



oh, and i think i'm going to rock really fucking hard.

sick to death of my indecision, my unorganized mind, fucked up things that happen to me & of being spread too thin.
i'm ready to jump out of my skin and tackle some new projects.
everything around me is dusty and spooky, so
i'm ready for some brand new air.
big changes and big fighting thoughts -
when i look at you i just want to cut you into pieces.
and i mean it.



you don't follow through but neither has anyone before you, so that's just fine.
busy busy bumblebees, we'll map out our own paths -
well, we'd try, anyways, but they've all been taken before.
nothing is new, but everything is new.
every experience i've had someone has had before, so
it's old because it's already out there but
it's new because i haven't felt this before.

there are varying levels and degrees of getting hurt.
in some ways this hurt is small and petty,
but in other ways it's way too big and way too much.
if i could stop comparing it to other experiences,
other people,
thinking of how it could be worse,
or better,
than maybe i could just feel it
let it circulate through my system
and have it be over.


i don't know, i can't map down my words right now,
i'm tired and i have three very long days ahead of me.
can i just get my checks, buy my ticket and leave already?

damn. i know my energy always changes the few weeks before i move somewhere,
and that that change lights a fire under my relationships with others and
sparks new events, new life, new yearnings, new blood but
wouldn't it be nice to have these last few weeks be calm, sweet, and easy?
i know that's not the way it ever goes
but it would be... so... good.

turn off your mind, relax
and float downstream
it is not dying
it is not dying

lay down all thought
surrender to the void
it is shining
it is shining

that you may see
the meaning of within
it is being
it is being

that love is all
and love is everyone
it is knowing
it is knowing

that ignorance and hate
may mourn the dead
it is believing
it is believing

but listen to the
color of your dreams
it is not living
it is not living

or play the game
existence to the end
of the beginning
of the beginning
of the beginning

i feel really sad about the way boys treat me.
i wish it were different -
& i'm trying to take the steps to make different choices -
but sometimes there's nothing i can do except feel sad for a little while.


i've been back in portland for six months now.
my lust for adventure is not fulfilled here
& it's getting harder and harder to sit still...

well fuckin shit god damn it, my life is really fucking weird.


really! everything that happens to me i don't understand. my goals are not far away or out of sight, they're just... slightly... beyond my reach. just a little bit further than i could possibly stretch, but i can almost touch them and smell them and wear them and feel them and sleep in them. but i can't. and it's aggravating.

everything around me seems like some kind of mirage;
some filtered substance through which you can see everything;
it's just a little foggy and distorted - a mirror set from the wrong angle; that feeling of vertigo when you look down from a high point and the ground seems so close but is too far for you to really understand so to settle the vertigo you think about how you don't understand the point of distance you're staring at -
but that makes it worse.
so you spin.
and you freak.

i wish i could change the blinds, sharpen the image, distill the water - wish it were a cloth.
a warm heated cloth, wiggling & jumping out of your hands with it's energy,
a cloth from which i could wash out all the insane fibers and scrub and scrub and scrub all my distorted, surreal, alternate reality experiences until i am left with just bland and normal, a blue beautiful wish to the eyes. it could be filled with nothing but wish. that would be okay, that would be just fine.

my life is exploding with color. everything i touch, see, do is heightened. it's too sharp for your eyes. you have to squint and hold on to something to keep your feet on the ground. the people around me are bursting with vibrance and i'm just sitting there, watching,

grey matter at an angle on the wall
watching,

waiting for them to stop screaming, to stop singing, and to simply begin breathing and for god's sake please...
allow the silence to slither forth.

sometimes i think i might
perhaps
be an alien.

maybe my home is some distant
star or planet.


i just need a break.
i always
eventually
need a break.


wait.

doesn't that just mean, then,
that there's something inside of me pushing my buttons?
that there's a swirling vapor around me -
something in or outside of me i need to confront?

does it mean that no matter where i am
i subconsciously seek out a state of chaos?
or does my environment slide it's roots
into the soles of my feet
and continue an upward growth through my body -
eventually branching out through my nose and ears;
gnarling and twisting on the hinges of my spine?

you might think that after all this time
i'd be used to chaos and mess.
it turns out it isn't a small sweet thing
that ever becomes comfortable.

i hate that everything in me can shift
given a few words out of someone's mouth -
words that they don't even mean
or they don't even hear themselves saying.




fuck these questions. fuck this analytical shit. i'm going to sleep.

MY JOB IS ABSOLUTELY MONOTONOUS AND EXCESSIVE.

everything is pretty difficult for me right now.
i wish there was a way for me to say that using silence
so i'm allowed to be weird and sporadic when necessary
while my cranium arranges things into their proper compartments
and my belly tries to lead me to a place where
things make sense and choices are easy.

sometimes the people around me are sewed up all strange
with limbs askew and sad eyes.
you can reach out to them
you can touch palms and
soothe rough hands but
nothing gets through.

it may catch your breath or
slow you down but
if you can realize that what you're reaching for is just past them -
along the hairline or in the long shadows -
then maybe you'll grasp something more
if you still dare to reach.


pass on by the physical.
stretch your body in the morning
feel your blood circulating - i mean, after all
we're all just bags of bones.

because we're all just such strange creatures.



i'm in this place where i feel really good and really bad about everything at the same time.
i don't mean to be general; it's really like that.
situations are fantastic & confusing;
restful & crazed;
healthy & out of control.

everything is really big.
some things are too big for me to understand
yet they're coloring my life -
putting my feelings into cubed boxes,
making me drained and focused,
amiable and disenchanted all at once.

i know this is the age where i'm not supposed to have any answers
but i feel like my questions are often too abnormally large to justify that stereotype.
i have trouble pacing myself
or seeing the big picture
because everything is always happening now.

bang bang bang bang bang.

everything becomes amplified when you haven't slept.
i haven't - and everything's booming through my ears to my head.
feelings are out of control and
my mouth has stopped obeying the commands of my brain.

at this moment i'm finding that i don't remember how to write.

i am at some kind of middle ground with several
very strong arms pulling me in very different directions.
i feel lost a lot.
i'm strong and i keep it together with a genetic gift to
pull on through - barrel on through if i have to - the gift of forced management -
but sometimes choices are fast and there's no time to consider each one.


legs hurt because muscles are stretching and
i'm sitting at a wrong angle where everything leans and
blood pools into joints, making them feign consciousness.
i hate this limbo shit.
i hate that i'm bad with words and the right ones never seek me when i need them.
when i speak sometimes it feels like word spew or word vomit
clenched vowels that tighten your throat and coat your tongue -
conversations so unrehearsed, i'm so unprepared i feel
nauseous.


sleep and
the stretching of my limbs in the afternoon will help.
tea and clean clothes
warm rooms and the smell of the people i know.

in the end, everything manages to fit into one tiny little box.
days can feel so big and so consuming
when they are really so small...
tomorrow you'll only remember
half of today
and the person you
happened
to
be

fade fade fade fade out

The Business Of Growing Up.

every channel. every station.
every sound i hear.
every word that boils over and murmurs forth.

sometimes i become this entity that is concernedly waiting for things to begin
and concernedly watching them end at the same time.

small circles distending into large circles;
expanding expanding expanding coils
i can feel my body grow and soften
but am surprised when it doesn't fatten and fill out.

i am frustrated but happy most of the time -
even though, inexplicably, i feel like the seasons are all off.
instead of heat & wind & sunshine it should be
bitter cold, damp and snowing;
occasionally when i step outside i am surprised.
i look around, look at the sun and say - are you sure?



i think i may be so excited about summer creeping towards me
that my head is unwilling to let the misery of winter go -
"don't believe it! don't believe it!
the minute you turn your head there will be blizzards and thunder,
hurricanes and freezing rain,
puddles the size of swimming pools!"



i have about half of everything sorted out.
for now, the rest will have to be content with
living at the very back of my head.

oh my god i would really like a fucking job now.