Cords.
Today for necessary reasons, there are cords to trip on and cords to tangle other cords in laying in a mass of dust beneath a removable platform embedded in the shelf below the fax machine. This area is never cleaned, but today I cleaned it. I owed it that much.
*
Four, maybe five months ago:
I go to my car after a longish shift and I'm driving home and my hand feels different. There's just, something odd... can't put my finger on it.
Turn around and drive back. Gotta figure this out.
*
Eight years ago:
I was such a kid. Fuck, I was fourteen.
Found the doughboy doll, plastic thing reminded me of "Stay-Puff." Cut the fucker up with the knives and Xacto blades sticking out of the walls in my bedroom. You don't have to be a spooky goth kid to make people wonder if you'll make it to school the next day. Carving names and carving words and phrases and it meant something back then. Now it's just bones of past experiences.
Cut the fucker up. Shred his body like ritual. Fuck him up.
Leave the head with X's drawn around the forehead and where the neck would start. Dark circled eyes. Other words I don't remember.
Cut him up.
Leave the head. Six months to a year later and I'm depressed again. All the boyfriends have girlfriends. All the girl friends have willing faces you can't push past no. All the theatres are empty. All the films have sad endings wolf clothed in happily ever after.
But he came back. The head came back. Somewhere in all of this he resurfaced. Body long discarded it came back. Motherfucking inanimate object of all things gets a mind of its own with no shoulders and no body to rest on.
There it is.
I was elated. I knew that patience was worth it. Life continues and not everything goes away forever. It was like gaining a reason I can't even explain to stop worrying. It was like learning the secret of my life, and that's why I can't explain it. The image was such an icon it just made fucking sense.
And there it was. Afterward. Strung up on wires watching over me sleeping. Best way to end the day knowing that happiness comes from somewhere science hasn't found yet.
*
Two and a half years ago. Ex-girlfriend Laura and I are standing in Heavenly Soles looking for shoes or something similar or not similar at all. Having no respect or patience for her personal items I go to look at another rack and find something I like.
I had no cash on me. I asked if she'd purchase the item for me with her own things, it was only ten dollars more so no big deal. She agreed and didn't make me pay her back and...
*
The internet at work wouldn't work. Couldn't upload the totals. As such I'm checking the connection and the fax machine is on a platform that's removable and damaged and doesn't sit on right and falls off whenever you'd attempt to move your hands around underneath it so it falls and it's a clumsy affair but I take it off and move for the connection.
Dust flying I pull my shirt up over my mouth and nose and a cleaning is in order but...
"What is that?" I'm thinking.
Today I found a ring. I found a ring I'd worn for two straight years. Everyday. Didn't take it off for much of any reason at all. I was elated and shocked and speechless.
All of my bad times, I realized, are passing phases. I'm going to get through this. Not everything disappears forever.
We get into these things and guard ourselves because we're so attached to being okay that we never stop to admit we aren't. Not all of us, not me, but many of us do. We do everything we can so that we know exactly where that ring is at all times. We pride ourselves on how well we've done when everything is in its proper order, or the order we decide is proper.
What I do, is admit so constantly that I'm not okay that I miss all the ways in which I am. And I get this moment to look back and laugh at myself. Tomorrow I'll live tomorrow like it's today. Today I'm living like I've gotta put down this next word and the one after it. And that's okay. And the girl...
She's not okay. But I get to be. The payoff in all of this is that I get to be okay. Right now I'm okay. The payoff is that I won't always care and it doesn't mean I'm not just as attached. It means I can lose my body but keep my head. Even if it doesn't feel right. The bigger picture exists as a whole even though I'll only ever be at one of its points.
It means that I could lose this ring tomorrow and not be phased in the slightest. It doesn't matter anymore.
Just before it happened I was rubbing my hand in that same spot and thinking about how something just didn't feel right.
So many things... I could lose them or hold them tighter. How's it going? It's going. And that's all. And that's okay.
Today for necessary reasons, there are cords to trip on and cords to tangle other cords in laying in a mass of dust beneath a removable platform embedded in the shelf below the fax machine. This area is never cleaned, but today I cleaned it. I owed it that much.
*
Four, maybe five months ago:
I go to my car after a longish shift and I'm driving home and my hand feels different. There's just, something odd... can't put my finger on it.
Turn around and drive back. Gotta figure this out.
*
Eight years ago:
I was such a kid. Fuck, I was fourteen.
Found the doughboy doll, plastic thing reminded me of "Stay-Puff." Cut the fucker up with the knives and Xacto blades sticking out of the walls in my bedroom. You don't have to be a spooky goth kid to make people wonder if you'll make it to school the next day. Carving names and carving words and phrases and it meant something back then. Now it's just bones of past experiences.
Cut the fucker up. Shred his body like ritual. Fuck him up.
Leave the head with X's drawn around the forehead and where the neck would start. Dark circled eyes. Other words I don't remember.
Cut him up.
Leave the head. Six months to a year later and I'm depressed again. All the boyfriends have girlfriends. All the girl friends have willing faces you can't push past no. All the theatres are empty. All the films have sad endings wolf clothed in happily ever after.
But he came back. The head came back. Somewhere in all of this he resurfaced. Body long discarded it came back. Motherfucking inanimate object of all things gets a mind of its own with no shoulders and no body to rest on.
There it is.
I was elated. I knew that patience was worth it. Life continues and not everything goes away forever. It was like gaining a reason I can't even explain to stop worrying. It was like learning the secret of my life, and that's why I can't explain it. The image was such an icon it just made fucking sense.
And there it was. Afterward. Strung up on wires watching over me sleeping. Best way to end the day knowing that happiness comes from somewhere science hasn't found yet.
*
Two and a half years ago. Ex-girlfriend Laura and I are standing in Heavenly Soles looking for shoes or something similar or not similar at all. Having no respect or patience for her personal items I go to look at another rack and find something I like.
I had no cash on me. I asked if she'd purchase the item for me with her own things, it was only ten dollars more so no big deal. She agreed and didn't make me pay her back and...
*
The internet at work wouldn't work. Couldn't upload the totals. As such I'm checking the connection and the fax machine is on a platform that's removable and damaged and doesn't sit on right and falls off whenever you'd attempt to move your hands around underneath it so it falls and it's a clumsy affair but I take it off and move for the connection.
Dust flying I pull my shirt up over my mouth and nose and a cleaning is in order but...
"What is that?" I'm thinking.
Today I found a ring. I found a ring I'd worn for two straight years. Everyday. Didn't take it off for much of any reason at all. I was elated and shocked and speechless.
All of my bad times, I realized, are passing phases. I'm going to get through this. Not everything disappears forever.
We get into these things and guard ourselves because we're so attached to being okay that we never stop to admit we aren't. Not all of us, not me, but many of us do. We do everything we can so that we know exactly where that ring is at all times. We pride ourselves on how well we've done when everything is in its proper order, or the order we decide is proper.
What I do, is admit so constantly that I'm not okay that I miss all the ways in which I am. And I get this moment to look back and laugh at myself. Tomorrow I'll live tomorrow like it's today. Today I'm living like I've gotta put down this next word and the one after it. And that's okay. And the girl...
She's not okay. But I get to be. The payoff in all of this is that I get to be okay. Right now I'm okay. The payoff is that I won't always care and it doesn't mean I'm not just as attached. It means I can lose my body but keep my head. Even if it doesn't feel right. The bigger picture exists as a whole even though I'll only ever be at one of its points.
It means that I could lose this ring tomorrow and not be phased in the slightest. It doesn't matter anymore.
Just before it happened I was rubbing my hand in that same spot and thinking about how something just didn't feel right.
So many things... I could lose them or hold them tighter. How's it going? It's going. And that's all. And that's okay.
VIEW 6 of 6 COMMENTS
clean like i havent been in months...
...and im sorry too.