I have had a ton of trouble just getting words out lately.

I spend so much energy trying to decide what other people think of me. Strangers even, people I would and will never encounter. If I think that so and so would dislike something I had to say, or disagree, or think I was stupid and inarticulate I freeze up and don’t do anything at all.

In fact, I recently started drinking socially, and there’s this odd moment when I’m just intoxicated enough to start feeling loose, spending one millisecond too many on my S’s that I run and hide. Surely no one wants to hear my drunken babbling. They would dismiss it as stream of consciousness bullshit coming from a man who wants nothing more than to hear himself talk.

So I find some quiet place somewhere: a driveway, a chair in a study… I was at a wedding the other day and took a nice long hike towards a pond in the center of this incredibly gorgeous vineyard, and just laid there in the grass, looking at the stars and listening to the crickets. I wasn’t doing any deep thinking, quite the contrary. I would pick up my phone every now and then and sloppily play some game with such conviction, my fingers not quite keeping up with the intense focus of my mind.

This is kind of how I deal with the daunting pressures of becoming an actual creator. Someone who sees ideas from start to finish. I get scared, so I hide, and give something much less important all of my brain power.

I think I’m too quick to define myself by what I do. For instance, just because I do this doesn’t mean this is who I am doomed to be. But out of pure laziness I hope for change without any effort whatsoever, and that has never been the case for me. No, I am not one of those people where creating just comes naturally and they never get in their own way and they just do, but I’m pretty sure that’s okay.

Hah, even now I want feedback. “That’s okay, right?” Shut up brain. Yeah, it is.

Sorry.

I think I’m hitting a point where I over-think out of compulsion. It’s possible that it’s a phase, but I’m extremely comfortable. So now I’m insecure out of habit, instead of delusion.

Now, granted, all of this came out of even more thinking, so maybe I’m wrong. Because just like you can’t remember to forget, you can’t think to not.

But I feel at ease. I feel calm, I feel happy. I only get antsy when I fully realize how good things are.

Far be it from me to think this is interesting to anybody. People don’t want to hear about your comfort or your pride. The masses want the struggle, and spit on the solution.

All this to say, I am happy. I am awkward and scared and consistently worried that I’m living a life that’s less interesting than everyone else… But these are not problems. I will choose to write these off as adorable quirks, and trust that the people in my life really and truly care for me as is.

It may make for a boring read, but I’m sure I’ll see you with the next heartbreak.

I think I’m an introvert. My friends don’t. They say no one who is as loud and opinionated and good with strangers as I am could possibly be an introvert.

But every time plans get cancelled, I breathe a sigh of relief.

And I may run my mouth, but I’m never saying a percent of what I’m thinking.

At this point, I feel like I’m boasting, that I’m alluding to something deeper and more meaningful going on in my head, a secret I keep for myself.

I also feel like I’m boasting because I feel like I cannot complain. I look at a fucker like me and a world like mine and friends like these and it doesn’t add up, so I appreciative I should stay.

And appreciative I am.

But when a friend doesn’t call back, or that girl I like doesn’t like me, or I see someone being more successful than I feel I ever could, that makes more sense.

It makes more sense to me for life to be shit than gold.

Because I feel like that makes sense for me.

Why? My mom and dad think the world of me, always have. My friends think the same. So why do I think I’m destined for a shit life? That these friends and this house and this pocket change is someone else’s.

This outfit ain’t mine, put me in sweats.

To clarify, I don’t think I’m royally fucked. Because I believe there is some beauty in totally fucked. Heroin addicts and rape victims and all those people with real problems, there’s something discernibly attractive about that. Maybe if only to have some evidence to why I feel the way I do.

But no, I have an iPhone. And a day calendar. And a car that runs fine. And Diet Coke, because real Coke is too sweet. And a brain that thinks a hangover means alcoholism. And I’ll bum a cigarette, but I’ll never buy a pack. And I should diet, but I don’t, and that’s my vice.

Really fucking rock and roll.

I read magazines and feel suburbic. I watch porn to imagine my wedding. I drink coffee black and I don’t know why.

And every conversation about “I’m gonna make it, and I’m gonna do it,” feels about as real as what I’m writing now.

I picture all the motherfuckers with good tastes and bad jobs and I want so badly to not be them.  All content because they’re in love with someone who likes what they like and that’s all they’ll ever need. I hate them because I think I might be them. I believe I will eventually settle for that life.

But for now, I’ll have that life, and be that guy, only I’ll bitch about it the whole goddamn time.

Why can’t I be those that I love? Why can’t I be cool? Why can’t I take my neuroses and build something beautiful with them? Why must I be doomed to consume and never serve?

Am I even a writer or do I just write?

I don’t fucking know, I better blog about it.

What a tool.

Oh Well.

I’m wrapped up in blankets, pulling them tight, up to my nose. I’m looking out the window and I’m watching dog walkers and joggers and mailmen and the sun makes their shadows dance.

My room is the color of broth.

Someone is stroking my head and I’m shivering and smiling.

“Get your hopes up. Cause one of these days you’re going to hope just right.”

A couple more oh wells, and I’m fast asleep.

One after Another

My brain is constantly making promises that my inertia can’t keep.

Intellectually I’ll quit, but I’m not about to.

My brain also tells me this time will be different. It’s barely ever right.

I talk to myself when I’m embarrassed, or disappointed. I usually cuss myself and shake my head. Maybe I can rattle away that memory before it sticks.

I talk too much.

Sometimes little things knock you off of normalcy, and you have to decide how to proceed. I usually keep going as I always have.

Does happiness come with accepting your tendencies or constantly fighting against them?

Never again, I’ll forever say.

Whisper

She throws her whisper over me like a blanket. She’s a ghost and she’s warm, she’s lucid. Not a memory, but a dream. She’s leaning into me, kissing at my ear. Filling me with her breath.

It’s the moments where your mind leaves that you’ll remember the most. The fleeting seconds where every single thing was right and beautiful, and you got a pat on the head, and a needn’t worry, take the day off.

You’ve done enough kid.

So when my mind comes back to me on a breeze I’m sitting there all dazed, and my lips are hanging open. I think about myself and she’s still on my ear. Over her shoulder is the window, and it’s iced over and I swear it’ll break. Every line in the glass is scraping across another, and it fills the room with a deafening ring.

Let go.

I close my eyes, concious now of every nerve. I feel the weight of the air around me heavy on my body. My hands start to fiddle, jerking nervously across her back. My knees hurt, and how long have I been sitting like this?

Fighting to forget, tossing and turning so you can sleep. You’ve lost it.

She smiles and rests her head on my shoulder, then picks it up and looks at me. She kisses me.

She loves you.

Yearn

Every now and then, this mysterious feeling creeps into my head. Well, maybe it creeps, or maybe it’s always there. Either way, it appears seemingly at random, and only for a moment. Like a prisoner caught mid-escape by a stray spotlight, it surfaces, blinks its eyes, and then retreats back to the shadows. So if this feeling a criminal, let these words be a sketch of the suspect, so that I may learn why and when I locked this face away.

First, it approaches like memory, with a fade-in, dust drifting silently in front of some glowing window, in a bedroom I don’t believe I have been in. Through the window I can see a tree, the breeze shaking its leaves in front of the sun, sending shadows dancing across my view. It seems that I’m basking in this light, lying down on the hard floor to let the outside meet my gaze. Everything is golden and sweet, and the air is antique and it hangs like honeysuckle. Again, I have never been in this room except in these moments, yet I feel someone there on the floor next to me, someone I have impossible love for, but as soon as I realize this, the room is gone. It spins and smokes away, leaving fragments of some beautiful world in its wake.

If I don’t think and don’t move and hold my breath until my chest is full, I can witness these pieces dancing downward, tiny bronze flakes floating right behind my eyes, just out of true sight. Before long though it becomes impossible not to examine, or focus. So when I inevitably target one specific speck, I can experience it only for a moment, before it melts in my fleshy grip.

Some seem to be images from my past, typical thoughts of beautiful things, things I could never think of otherwise because the nostalgia hurts me so. The others are someone else’s faded life, polaroids from another shoebox. There’s an old New York apartment, and a big old fashioned wedding. There’s a church pew, and a Christmas tree, and other stories of childhood beliefs. These images are otherwise indiscernible from one another; this life that isn’t mine almost could be. All that’s left between these very tangible and mismatched scraps are ideas and concepts, emotions and sentiments, much more wisp like than pictures and they behave so. There is no identifying or capturing, they are separate from me, and they are just passing through.

These impossible clouds of indistinguishable whatevers only add to the confusion of the actual physical sensation of this. It is distinct in its location, right at the very back of my mind, and its arrival is always followed by an all-over unsettling, similar to deja-vu. It has a real world color, gold, and it is warm and radiates, its heat dying somewhere near the front of my skull. It lasts for as long as I’ll allow, so far no longer than ten seconds, as it brings such discomfort. Occasionally I can mangle it into an actual concept: the need to create, the need for love, or the much more concerning desire for adventure. However, more often than not, this growth just sits, and takes me over. It is a hunger but for no bread I know. It is an infant crying for no apparent reason, other than it is a baby, and it is new, and it is scared, and every single thing it is experiencing hurts in some way or another. I think the true casualty in all of this though, would be to stop seeking the feed.

Kid

It’s fall and maybe I can breathe deep now. Maybe I can feel the sun shine, maybe I can let it cut me and stuff me.

Maybe I can leave my car windows down, and park in some cul-de-sac, and let the leaves float down to my floorboards. Let them stack and flood, up to my ankles, and then my nose, every breath and pulse sending a crinkle through the chassis as each leaf shifts and breaks, because they’re dead and dry and they rip and tear every time I blink. But maybe, maybe I could sit real still. And years could pass. And summers and springs would come, but the autumns would stack up, and the leaves would too, and the winters would stick the leaves to one another until me and my car just disappeared, not in a poof or puff but because we had become nothing but leaves. And because the pile was so big and maybe it ate me, no one would go near it to clean it and no wind would blow it away. Then they’d forget about me, cause I’m nothing but a pile, and brand new babies would stare at me from cold windows and wonder what I was. Until those babies went to school and became kids, and as soon as the bell rang, they ran to their bus and home just to fall right into me. If you saw it from space, it’d look like an explosion, this big giant ball of flame, with reds and yellows and oranges flying from me like embers, and all the kids landing like big, laughing bombs, over and over again.

But then these kids would stop running home, and then they would start to worry, and then they wouldn’t jump in anymore. Cause who are they, to think of leaves? They gotta take on the world. They gotta question and fight and challenge the universe, because if they don’t, who else will? Maybe one of these kids will start a band, and he’ll sing a song about a girl that broke his heart. His friend has a camera, and he wants to make a music video for the song about the girl, and he’s got a vision, but he’s worried. But he’ll record, and he’ll get all the neighborhood kids to jump in me again, only now it means something, it’s a metaphor, it’s an analog, it’s a fantastic consideration of color theory…

And me, this big ‘ole pile, how could I get hurt?

After all, I wasn’t always this big pile of leaves. I was a kid too. And I would question and fight and pain because I was never where I wanted to be. I sang songs about girls that broke my heart. I made videos of piles. I wrote because it helped when I was a kid, and I would worry even then because I didn’t know how not to.

So every new fall is a chance to try. So I’ll breathe real deep, and I’ll let the sun shine, and maybe this time it will cut me and maybe this time it will stuff me.

Let the next love in.

I look at certain things and know I am supposed to feel something.

I’ll sit there and stare, trying desperately to reach something in me,

let it stick somewhere.

But it just passes through.

-

Earlier in the year, a beautiful girl let me kiss her.

This doesn’t happen often in my life, certainly recently.

It was odd though, I didn’t feel much of anything,

like placing my lips upon brick,

there was nothing there.

Praise this girl for allowing me!

But nothing.

-

Surely I am not broken, I am not unhappy.

I promise you, I sleep soundly every night.

When I am awake, I am likely smiling.

But it seems old flames are among the only warmth I feel,

so the future seems bright,

but cold.

open sky with snow on the ground.

-

I am led to believe that I haven’t loved for so long I have forgotten how.

Even now my quiet, whispering self murmurs hateful things,

things I don’t believe, can’t believe,

because there is no logic in hate.

But still I wonder if I will ever let it come.

-

It is my hope to feel everything I can, and in doing so let the next love in.